Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 146
May 11, 2015
Famous Coral Reef System In Belize Could Soon Be The Site Of Oil Drilling
Belize’s waters are pretty much perfect the way they are.
CREDIT: via Shutterstock
A World Heritage Site could turn into an oil drilling site, if plans to allow oil exploration off the coast of Belize go through.
A proposal from the Belize Ministry of Energy provides guidelines for oil exploration — and drilling, if oil is found — across most of the country’s land and water, including along the Belize Barrier Reef, one of the world’s most ecologically diverse environments. Oceana Belize, an environmental advocacy group, has launched a campaign to halt oil exploration and to get more information from the government about the plan and what went into creating it.
“The general consensus we’re getting from Belizeans is… ‘Didn’t we already decide not to do this? Why is this still an issue?'” Janelle Chanona, a spokesperson for Oceana Belize, told ThinkProgress.
Two years ago, the Belize Supreme Court ruled in favor of an Oceana suit to halt offshore oil exploration. Subsequently, though, the injunction was suspended, and two companies, including Princess Petroleum, continue to have exploration rights.
According to documents submitted by Belize to UNESCO, the original concession included exploration rights at Great Blue Hole, a renowned underwater sinkhole, but Princess Petroleum voluntarily gave rights to that area up. If oil is not found, the current rights will expire in October 2015, which may be why the government is pursuing a new path to concessions.
The Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System — made up of mangrove forests, tiny islands, and the famous Blue Hole Natural Monument — is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site, and as “one of the most pristine reef ecosystems in the Western Hemisphere.”
The proposed zones for oil exploration place two onshore areas of Belize completely off-limits, and the barrier reef falls mostly into the second-most stringent category. But as little as five kilometers (about 3.1 miles) from the reef, the map shows the “lowest categorization” of restrictions.
“There’s no major difference between zones two, three, and four,” Chanona said.
[image error]
Red areas would be prohibited from oil exploration. The barrier reef appears mostly under the yellow, zone 2, designation.
CREDIT: From the State of Conservation Report — Belize’s World Heritage Site, submitted to UNESCO in April 2015
A presentation prepared by a government consultant provided to ThinkProgress by Oceana, titled “Offshore Drilling Benefits and Risks,” states, “The literature reviewed presents no deleterious effects on coral reefs either in the presence or absence of oil spills. Available research results also indicate that corals are robust as regards discharge of drill cuttings.”
In another section, the presentation states, “The potential environmental risk should not be allowed to prevent Belize from continuing to increase standards of living and reap similar rewards [to other countries with offshore drilling].”
The presentation was prepared by Carla Suite Wright, an engineer with BP Trinidad and Tobago, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Economic benefits of drilling are a key reason Belize should allow oil exploration, according to Wright’s presentation, but there is a flip side to that argument. Opponents cite Belize’s tremendous economic dependence on its coastline.
A tiny nation of fewer than 350,000 people, Belize is tucked at the southeastern edge of Mexico, sandwiched between Guatamala and the Caribbean. Tourism makes up 40 percent of the country’s GDP, and an estimated 60 percent of Belize’s tourists participate in marine activities. Coral reef- and mangrove-associated tourism was responsible for an estimated $150 million to $196 million in 2007.
“The Belize Barrier Reef system provides hundreds of millions of dollars in direct and guaranteed economic benefits via tourism, fishing and storm surge protection. Those hundreds of millions of dollars cannot be dismissed in favor of the mere ‘potential’ of anything else — especially something as dangerous and dirty as offshore oil,” Oceana said in a press release.
“Even if you don’t meet with us, these are public resources — you should be meeting with the public,” Chanona said. Her group filed a formal request for documents related to the proposed exploration guidelines, but the Ministry of Energy did not respond. The request is currently with the national ombudsman, she said.
In fact, the proposal seems to be at odds even with the Ministry’s stated mission, which is “To plan, promote and effectively manage the production, delivery and use of energy through Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, and Cleaner Production interventions.”
UNESCO notes that offshore oil development is a key threat to the reef system.
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which exploded and sank in 2010, spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, was located 40 miles off the cost of Louisiana. Four years after the spill, mangrove forests were dead and the coastline was eroding. A similar oil spill off Belize — or even a much smaller spill — could be devastating to Belize’s fragile reef system.
Representatives for the Ministry of Energy did not immediately respond to calls or emails Monday.
The post Famous Coral Reef System In Belize Could Soon Be The Site Of Oil Drilling appeared first on ThinkProgress.
BREAKING: Obama Administration Says Yes To Drilling In The Arctic
In this Aug. 24, 2009 picture provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy breaks ice ahead of the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent in the Arctic Ocean.
CREDIT: AP Photo/U.S. Coast Guard
The Obama administration has given conditional approval to a controversial proposal by Royal Dutch Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean this summer.
On Monday, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved Shell’s exploration plan for the Chukchi Sea, which entails drilling up to six wells approximately 70 miles northwest of Wainwright, Alaska. The plan is for exploratory drilling, a sort of first step that companies take to determine whether a region is feasible for large-scale production.
In announcing the conditional approval, BOEM cited its recently-issued safety regulations for drilling in the U.S. portion of the Arctic Ocean, including the Chukchi Sea, where big oil companies have long been hoping to lay their claim. Those regulations require companies to have contingency plans for mishaps — companies must be able to “promptly deploy” emergency containment equipment to deal with a spill, and must build a second rig close to their initial operations so a relief well could be drilled in the event of a blowout, among other things.
“We have taken a thoughtful approach to carefully considering potential exploration in the Chukchi Sea, recognizing the significant environmental, social and ecological resources in the region and establishing high standards for the protection of this critical ecosystem, our Arctic communities, and the subsistence needs and cultural traditions of Alaska Natives,” BOEM Director Abigail Ross Hopper said in a statement. “As we move forward, any offshore exploratory activities will continue to be subject to rigorous safety standards.”
Still, environmental groups are not satisfied with those precautions, arguing that the Arctic is too remote, sensitive, and unpredictable an environment to expose to the risks of drilling. They point to an analysis by BOEM itself that showed a 75 percent chance of a spill greater than 1,000 barrels should an oil company like Shell discover and fully produce oil in the Chukchi leases. They also note that the closest Coast Guard station that could respond to a spill is more than 1,000 miles away.
“It’s outrageous how our own government appears determined to sacrifice our precious Arctic Ocean for Shell’s profits,” said Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Marissa Knodel in an e-mailed statement. “With a 75 percent chance of a large oil spill and more drilling equipment, air, water and noise pollution, this is the largest, loudest and dirtiest exploration plan ever proposed in the American Arctic Ocean.”
Other environmental groups point to Royal Dutch Shell’s disastrous attempt to drill in the Arctic in 2012 as reason for their concern. While the company was towing its Kulluk oil rig out into Dutch Harbor via ship, a harsh winter storm hit and the ship lost control of the rig. The rig, along with 150,000 gallons of fuel and drilling fluid, then washed up on an island along one of Alaska’s pristine coastlines.
Climate change is also often cited as a problem. Though the warming oceans and atmosphere are gradually making it easier for ships to foray into Arctic waters, drilling there has been shown pose further risks to the climate, via the continued burning of fossil fuels and release of black carbon and methane from the drilling process itself.
BOEM’s conditional approval of Shell’s exploration plan, however, does not represent a final decision to have that plan move forward. As Jennifer Dlouhy noted in Fuel Fix, Shell still needs seven more permits. It also needs to resolve a dispute with the city of Seattle, which is fighting the company’s plan use the Port of Seattle to dock its Arctic drilling rigs.
The post BREAKING: Obama Administration Says Yes To Drilling In The Arctic appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Starbucks Is Moving Its Bottled Water Business Out Of Drought-Stricken California
CREDIT: Shutterstock
Last month, Starbucks came under fire for its bottled water business. An investigation by Mother Jones magazine found that Ethos — the Starbucks-owned water brand created “to help fix the global water crisis” — was sucking groundwater out of a California county in exceptional drought, and making a lot of money doing it.
Now, ostensibly in response to that criticism, Starbucks has announced that it will stop doing that. In a Friday statement, the company said it would move the sourcing and manufacturing of Ethos water out of California and into Pennsylvania. Moving the entire West Coast operation cross-country would take about six months, it said.
“We are committed to our mission to be a globally responsible company and to support the people of the state of California as they face this unprecedented drought,” John Kelly, Starbucks senior vice president of global responsibility and public policy, said in the statement.
As Mother Jones pointed out in its investigation, the area where Starbucks has been sourcing and bottling its Ethos water for the West Coast has been in severe drought for years. “Placer County, where Ethos’ spring water is drawn, was already declared a natural disaster area by the USDA because of the drought back in 2012,” the article reads. “Merced County, where the bottling facility is located, declared a local emergency due to drought more than a year ago, as ‘extremely dry conditions have persisted since 2012.'” Last month, Placer County declared a water shortage emergency.
Now, Starbucks says it will move its California operations to Pennsylvania, which currently provides the East Coast with its Ethos water. But Pennsylvania also has a drought problem. While nowhere near as bad as California’s, the state Department of Environmental Protection recently issued a drought watch for 27 counties, including the one where Ethos operates.
Ethos is not the only bottled water company operating in a drought-affected area. PepsiCo and Nestle — which own brands like Poland Spring, Deer Park, and Pure Life — derive their water from some of the thirstiest parts of the country, according to a Huffington Post analysis.
The fact that so many companies seem to do this has raised questions about the viability of the bottled water business, particularly in a future where droughts become more severe. According to the National Climate Assessment, droughts are slated to intensify in the Midwest, Great Plains, Southwest, and West Coast if action is not taken to reduce carbon emissions.
The bottled water industry has pushed back on those questions. In response to the Mother Jones investigation, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) said it was incorrect to blame California’s drought on the industry, and that comparatively, bottled water companies are good corporate citizens when it comes to the environment.
“Bottled water companies use a very small amount of water when measured against almost any other industry, are dedicated to responsibly protecting and preserving our vital water resources, and help people live healthier lives,” IBWA vice president of communications Chris Hogan said in a statement.
The association also pointed to research showing that 80 percent of California’s water is used by the agriculture industry. Bottled water, on the other hand, makes up less than one percent, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Still, it’s hard to know exactly how much water is being used by the bottled water industry in California. An investigation by the Desert Sun showed that no state agency tracks exactly how much water is used by the 108 bottled water plants in California, and that in many cases, companies consider that information confidential.
As the widespread California drought promises to continue and threatens to worsen, Americans are steadily increasing their consumption of bottled water. And companies are responding to that demand — on Monday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Crystal Geyser Water Co. would open a plant to source bottled water from an aquifer that feeds the Sacramento River, “the primary source of drinking water for millions of thirsty Californians struggling to cope with a four-year drought.”
The post Starbucks Is Moving Its Bottled Water Business Out Of Drought-Stricken California appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Proposed Coal Rule Sparks Huge Public Outcry
In this April 2007 file photo, a shovel preparesto dump a load of coal into a 320-ton truck at the Black Thunder Mine in Wright, Wyo.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File
A seemingly low-profile proposal from a little-known natural resources agency in the Department of the Interior (DOI) has attracted a record-breaking 210,000 public comments from taxpayers, who argue that they are not receiving a fair share of revenues from the mining of coal on U.S. public lands.
The public outcry came in response to a proposed rule from DOI’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue that aims to close a regulatory loophole that allows coal companies to avoid paying royalties owed to taxpayers. Critics argue that the proposed rule does not go far enough to guarantee that western states and U.S. taxpayers are receiving a fair value for the coal mined on America’s public lands, due to additional subsidies given to coal companies under the rule.
“We just got done with this Legislature where there were a lot of needs that couldn’t be met,” said Steve Charter, a rancher from north of Billings, Montana told the Billings Gazette. Meanwhile, he said, “since 2008 Montana has lost over $30 million in coal royalties that should have been revenue to the state.”
In January, a report from the Center for American Progress uncovered evidence that coal companies are dodging royalty payments owed to taxpayers by selling coal to their own subsidiary companies and then paying royalties on artificially low prices.
Reviews of the Department of the Interior’s coal program have also found that coal companies are taking advantage of up to $1 billion a year in royalty rate reductions and subsidies for washing and transporting coal.
According to public opinion research released last week, most Americans oppose providing subsidies to coal companies that mine on public lands. The poll found that, by an almost two-to-one margin, respondents said they would prefer to see the subsidies ended. The research, which was conducted by Hart Research Associates and jointly commissioned by the Center for American Progress and the Mountain PACT, also found that 71 percent of Americans support reforms that would require coal companies to pay a fee to compensate for environmental damage; 69 percent want coal companies to pay royalties on the true value of coal at the price it is sold to a power plant or exporter; and 62 percent want reforms that would increase required royalties overall.
“A strong majority of Americans say the government should be better defending their interests as taxpayers by collecting every dollar of coal royalties that are owed,” Geoffrey Garin, president of Hart Research Associates, said in a statement. “For voters, the top priority for federal coal reform is to ensure that states and local communities are getting their fair share of revenues to fund schools, roads, and other critical needs.”
The record response to the proposed Office of Natural Resources Revenue rule reflects growing opposition to federal coal subsidies on public lands from a wide range of constituencies, including sportsmen and conservation groups, taxpayer organizations, members of Congress, labor unions, and western mayors. Last week, a coalition of mountain towns sent a letter sent to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, asking that loopholes for coal companies be closed.
“The costs of adapting to a changing climate are rising, but at the same time coal companies are taking advantage of gaping loopholes that allow them to pay less, thus depriving many western states (and taxpayers across the country) their fair share of the revenues from coal leased on federal land” the coalition stated in the letter.
The coal industry disagrees. Comments submitted by Cloud Peak Energy, a coal company based in Gillette, Wyoming, argue that the rule “would likely shut down the potential 100 million tons per year shipped to international customers from the PRB [Powder River Basin]; potentially costing the Federal government $166 million per year in coal royalties.”
However, a recent study by Headwaters Economics found that strengthening the proposed rule would yield an estimated $512 million per year in increased revenues for federal and state governments and have no significant impact on coal production or prices for consumers.
While the official comment period has closed on the proposed rule, the Obama Administration has not announced when it expects to publish the final rule.
Emily Ludwigsen is an intern with the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress.
The post Proposed Coal Rule Sparks Huge Public Outcry appeared first on ThinkProgress.
May 8, 2015
Thanks To Community Protest, EPA Won’t Burn Huge Stockpile Of Explosives In The Open
Community opposition in Minden was key to the decision not to burn the explosives in the open, an EPA spokesman said.
CREDIT: Photo Courtesy Chris Broussard
The Environmental Protection Agency has effectively abandoned a plan to conduct an open burn of 15 million pounds of volatile military explosives in Minden, Louisiana, following six months of persistent protest from the local community.
In a statement published Friday, the EPA said it would not stand in the way of an alternative method of disposal for the massive stockpile of explosive M6 propellant, which has been stored at a Louisiana National Guard military training site called Camp Minden since 2010.
The explosives are deteriorating and are at moderate risk of spontaneous detonation. Because of that, the EPA, the U.S. Army, and two Louisiana state agencies had planned to burn them all the in open — the “largest chemical burn of its kind in U.S. history.”
The plan sparked outrage in Minden due to environmental and health concerns. When burned, M6 can release chemicals that are probable human carcinogens, with chronic exposure likely to produce organ damage.
After six months of protest, though, open burn is now offically “off the table,” said David Gray, the EPA’s director of external affairs for the region. Gray told ThinkProgress that instead, the explosives would be disposed of in a closed incinerator with strict emissions controls.
Among other things, Gray specifically cited the community when asked why the decision was made. “We would not have gotten here without their input,” he said. “They did a lot of work.”
To say the protesters were happy would be a bit of an understatement.
“We won!” said Melissa Downer via phone on Friday, her 3-year-old yelling in the background. “We’re just so excited that they took the open burn off the table. … Honestly, today it feels like we made history.”
Brian Salvatore, a chemistry professor at Louisiana State University at Shreveport who has led the fight against the open burn, said the closed incinerator would be a good alternative. According to the EPA, the incinerator would be operated by a company called Explosive Service International, and would utilize “advanced air pollution control options to maximize safety and flexibility in handling the rapidly decomposing materials and deteriorating storage and packaging materials.”
“I’m pleased with the method that’s been chosen,” Salvatore said. “We were being very cautious about any type of burn, but this one I’ve studied quite a bit.”
“I feel that as far as incinerators go, this one does a good job,” he added. “This one was my favorite incinerator.”
Despite the decision, there is still a small chance an open burn could still occur, as a “solution of last resort” if the explosives stockpile deteriorates to the point where it’s in immediate danger of uncontrolled detonation, Gray said. The explosives are located just a few miles of Minden’s population center, so Salvatore said that an open burn would be understandable in that circumstance.
There are still more steps to be taken before the closed burn begins, including completing contracting requirements for the disposal company and doing test burns to monitor emissions. Salvatore, who serves on the official committee that provided input to the EPA and other agencies, said the actual process of closed burning the explosives likely would not start for another year.
The decision in Minden is a win for open burn protesters there, but open burns of military explosives are still happening across the country. It’s unclear exactly how much open burning of explosives is happening in total today, but Army spokesperson Dave Foster told ThinkProgress that more than 18 million pounds of propellant — just one type of explosive — were burned in 2014.
There exists opposition to military open burns in many communities, and Downer said she hopes the victory in Minden will be an inspiration.
“We caught wind of this project and the citizens rose up against it — we made it stop,” she said. “We made the change happen, and that’s going to be huge for what can be done for chemicals like this across the nation.”
The post Thanks To Community Protest, EPA Won’t Burn Huge Stockpile Of Explosives In The Open appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Australian University Cancels Plans To Hire Climate Contrarian Bjorn Lomborg
CREDIT: Greg Laden
In a surprise move, the University of Western Australia (UWA) has returned $4 million in government money intended to create a “climate consensus center” because it would have required the university to hire the widely debunked champion of climate inaction, Bjorn Lomborg.
Climate Progress readers know Lomborg well from such stories as “Climate Scientists Debunk Lomborg” and “Lomborg Is Part Of The Koch Network” and “Lomborg Urges Climate Inaction With Misleading Stats In Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal.”
But in Australia, where much of the media is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, the fact that Lomborg is uniquely unqualified to head a major academic center is apparently not well known. Or at least it wasn’t. That changed when UWA announced last month that it was taking $4 million from the government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott — who killed the Aussie carbon tax and has said that “coal is good for humanity” — to hire Lomborg, who has said that poor countries need more coal and that climate change is no big deal.
Since then, Australians learned from outraged Australian climate experts and others that while Lomborg downplays the threat of global warming, he “has published no peer-reviewed articles in the climate science arena” and doesn’t have any training in climate science. They learned from Dr. Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at the Australian National University, that “Within the research community, particularly within the economics community, the Bjorn Lomborg enterprise has no academic credibility.”
“It is seen as an outreach activity that is driven by specific set of objectives in terms of bringing particular messages into the public debate and in some cases making relatively extreme positions seem more acceptable in the public debate,” Jotzo said.
A Sydney Morning Herald columnist asked this week whether the Copenhagen Consensus Center — Lomborg’s current institution — was “just a U.S. postbox.” The Danish state defunded the center in 2012, but apparently Lomborg liked the alliteration, so he kept the name. The column noted that the address for the center isn’t Copenhagen but a Neighborhood Parcel Shipping Center in Lowell, Massachusetts — which it is! As the paper notes, “Nothing says “venerable research institute” like “parcel forwarding service.”
As an aside, it has been shrewd but Orwellian of Lomborg to use the word “consensus” in the name of his centers. You would never know Lomborg essentially rejects the actual consensus on climate science held by all of the world’s leading science academies and 97 percent of climate scientists who routinely publish in the peer-reviewed literature. Lomborg rejects the basic scientific and economic finding of the IPCC that even aggressive climate action is super-cheap. A few years ago, a leading climatologist called the vision of Lomborg’s Copenhagen Climate Consensus “a dystopic world out of a science fiction story.”
As the facts came out in recent weeks, and students, academics and others protested, I think it became clear to more and more people that Lomborg was indeed uniquely unqualified to head an academic center and that firing him was not a challenge to “academic freedom.” After all, is it really academic freedom when a conservative, pro-coal, anti-climate-action government tries to motivate a university with a $4 million grant to hire a pro-coal, anti-climate-action guy with very thin academic credentials?
In a statement on the UWA website, Vice Chancellor Paul Johnson announced he had told the government and Lomborg of “the University’s decision to cancel the contract and return the money to the government.” He defended the original decision, but made clear:
… it is with great regret and disappointment that I have formed the view that the events of the past few weeks places the center in an untenable position as it lacks the support needed across the University and the broader academic community to meet its contractual obligations and deliver value for money for Australian taxpayers.
In response, Australia’s education minister, Christopher Pyne, says he won’t stop until he finds some academic institution that will take $4 million to hire Lomborg.
The post Australian University Cancels Plans To Hire Climate Contrarian Bjorn Lomborg appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Making Small Changes To Your Diet Could Help Save The Environment
According to a new UK study, this woman absolutely crushed it at grocery shopping.
CREDIT: Shutterstock
Eating a diet heavy in fruits, vegetables, and cereals isn’t just healthy for you — it’s also good for the environment, according to a recent study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The study confirms what numerous other studies have suggested — that energy-intensive products like meat, which requires large amounts of water, fertilized feed, and land, are bad for the environment. Emissions-wise, agriculture has surpassed deforestation in terms of its climate impact, and a large part of that is due to meat production, which is responsible for two-thirds of agriculture’s climate footprint. Compared to a vegan or vegetarian diet, a high-meat diet contributes almost twice as many emissions to the atmosphere.
But researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine weren’t interested in exploring a hypothetical world where everyone transitions to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Instead, they looked at current consumer behavior to pinpoint specific, manageable changes that could impact both consumer health and the health of the planet.
“In reality most people somewhere like the U.K. simply don’t want to become vegetarian,” James Milner, one of the study’s co-authors, told E&E News. “We wanted to model the health impacts because this would help us to understand the trade-offs between benefits for public health, benefits for the environment, and the likely public acceptability of the modeled diets as we progressively reduced the emissions.”
Researchers looked at data from 1,571 food diaries, recorded over a four-day period by adults in the U.K. They found that if the participants simply followed the World Health Organization’s dietary guidelines — which call for a varied diet “consisting mainly of plant food, and at least 400g of fruit and vegetable every day” — greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 17 percent, and average life expectancy could be increased by 12 months for men and four months for women. Modifying the average U.K. diet even further, the study found that making even minor changes to diets — including cutting back on meat and processed snacks — could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent.
The study found, however, that not all fruits and vegetables are created equal in the eyes of environmental impact. Vegetables tended to be associated with lower emissions than fruits, and tomatoes were a particularly emissions-intensive food.
“One thing which was interesting was that to achieve really large GHG emission reductions, it’s better to make up your total fruit and vegetable consumption with a greater proportion of vegetables,” Milner said, adding that emissions were found to vary within both fruits and vegetables. “I certainly wouldn’t want to suggest that people shouldn’t eat fruit!” he said.
While a diet high in fruits and vegetables might be healthier and less emissions-intensive, it does come with its own concerns. Global food waste creates more greenhouse gas emissions than most countries, according to the U.N., and a large part of food waste comes from fruits and vegetables. The European Union wastes 50 percent of its produce, and 13 percent of that waste happens at the consumer level. Exacting aesthetic standards for produce also contribute to food waste — the U.N. Environment Program estimates that between 20 and 40 percent of produce is simply thrown away by farmers because it doesn’t fit supermarket standards of beauty. Some grocery chains have attempted to reverse this trend by selling ugly but edible produce at reduced rates, making produce less wasteful and more accessible to low-income families.
The post Making Small Changes To Your Diet Could Help Save The Environment appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Study Finds That Making Even Minor Changes To Your Diet Could Have A Huge Impact On The Environment
According to a new UK study, this woman absolutely crushed it at grocery shopping.
CREDIT: Shutterstock
Eating a diet heavy in fruits, vegetables, and cereals isn’t just healthy for you — it’s also good for the environment, according to a recent study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The study confirms what numerous other studies have suggested — that energy-intensive products like meat, which requires large amounts of water, fertilized feed, and land, are bad for the environment. Emissions-wise, agriculture has surpassed deforestation in terms of its climate impact, and a large part of that is due to meat production, which is responsible for two-thirds of agriculture’s climate footprint. Compared to a vegan or vegetarian diet, a high-meat diet contributes almost twice as many emissions to the atmosphere.
But researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine weren’t interested in exploring a hypothetical world where everyone transitions to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Instead, they looked at current consumer behavior to pinpoint specific, manageable changes that could impact both consumer health and the health of the planet.
“In reality most people somewhere like the U.K. simply don’t want to become vegetarian,” James Milner, one of the study’s co-authors, told E&E News. “We wanted to model the health impacts because this would help us to understand the trade-offs between benefits for public health, benefits for the environment, and the likely public acceptability of the modeled diets as we progressively reduced the emissions.”
Researchers looked at data from 1,571 food diaries, recorded over a four-day period by adults in the U.K. They found that if the participants simply followed the World Health Organization’s dietary guidelines — which call for a varied diet “consisting mainly of plant food, and at least 400g of fruit and vegetable every day” — greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 17 percent, and average life expectancy could be increased by 12 months for men and four months for women. Modifying the average U.K. diet even further, the study found that making even minor changes to diets — including cutting back on meat and processed snacks — could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent.
The study found, however, that not all fruits and vegetables are created equal in the eyes of environmental impact. Vegetables tended to be associated with lower emissions than fruits, and tomatoes were a particularly emissions-intensive food.
“One thing which was interesting was that to achieve really large GHG emission reductions, it’s better to make up your total fruit and vegetable consumption with a greater proportion of vegetables,” Milner said, adding that emissions were found to vary within both fruits and vegetables. “I certainly wouldn’t want to suggest that people shouldn’t eat fruit!” he said.
While a diet high in fruits and vegetables might be healthier and less emissions-intensive, it does come with its own concerns. Global food waste creates more greenhouse gas emissions than most countries, according to the U.N., and a large part of food waste comes from fruits and vegetables. The European Union wastes 50 percent of its produce, and 13 percent of that waste happens at the consumer level. Exacting aesthetic standards for produce also contribute to food waste — the U.N. Environment Program estimates that between 20 and 40 percent of produce is simply thrown away by farmers because it doesn’t fit supermarket standards of beauty. Some grocery chains have attempted to reverse this trend by selling ugly but edible produce at reduced rates, making produce less wasteful and more accessible to low-income families.
The post Study Finds That Making Even Minor Changes To Your Diet Could Have A Huge Impact On The Environment appeared first on ThinkProgress.
In Pennsylvania, Fracking Is Most Likely To Occur In Poor Communities
Ray Kemble of Dimock, Pa., displays a jug of what he identifies as his contaminated well water as he speaks at a demonstration opposed to hydraulic fracturing.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Deb Nardone does a lot of traveling. As campaign director for the Sierra Club’s natural gas reform campaign, she goes to the places where fracking is prolific, speaking to affected families.
When she’s in Pennsylvania, she’s most often in poor, rural townships — like Dimock, in Susquehanna county.
“There’s one family we met with where she turns her tap water on and it’s brown, spewing, smelling — she never had any water issues before they began fracking a well so close to her home,” Nardone told ThinkProgress. “The industry is saying they’re not responsible.”
Whether the industry is responsible or not, new research makes it clear: If you see a fracking site in Pennsylvania, chances are it’s in a poor, rural community. In a study published in the June issue of Applied Geography, Clark University scientists showed that when it comes to potential pollution exposure from fracking, “the poor are the most affected population group.”
“Our analysis shows that environmental injustice was observed only in Pennsylvania, particularly with respect to poverty,” the study reads. “In seven out of nine analyses, potentially exposed tracts had significantly higher percent of people below poverty level than non-exposed tracts.”
The petroleum industry says this is a good thing — not the potential pollution exposure (which it disputes), but the fact that fracking operations are located in poorer, more rural communities.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in rural Pennsylvania,” Joe Massaro, field director and spokesperson for the petroleum industry group Energy In Depth, told ThinkProgress. “When you look at the income in these areas, it’s all farming. A lot of average income for these farmers falls below the poverty line.”
According to Massaro, fracking is able to provide income for these communities — not just with jobs, but with tax incentives and fees set by the state of Pennsylvania. Specifically, Massaro mentioned “impact fees,” a sort of tax imposed on the natural gas industry, where the money goes directly back to affected communities. Bradford County, for example, received $8.2 million from impact fees in 2012, according to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
“So in turn, they’ve been able to fund projects and lower property taxes,” he said. “Farmers can buy new equipment, pay off debts … in a way it’s a blessing for these communities.”
Nardone disagrees. She says the industry operates on a “boom or bust cycle” — in other words, the good money only lasts for so long. And when it comes to jobs, she says they’re dangerous. Indeed, the fatality rate for workers in onshore oil and gas drilling is seven times higher than the average job, and injuries are far more common. According to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, there are also various health concerns for fracking workers, including exposure to hydrogen sulfide, silica, and diesel particulate matter.
Still, though oil and gas prices have been plummeting and causing worker layoffs across the country, Pennsylvania is still doing relatively well jobs-wise.
Pollution- and health-wise are different stories, Nardone says, and those are the key facets of environmental justice complaints. It’s the poor, she says, who are so often exposed to health and environmental threats in Pennsylvania, while the well-off are not.
The new research points to several peer-reviewed studies which have explored the potential impacts of fracking on public health. The studies showed the potential for air pollution resulting from drilling, processing, and gas leaks, particularly when companies are not operating responsibly. In addition, they noted that increased traffic from trucks can cause elevated air and noise pollution. Noise pollution can lead to hypertension, sleep disturbance, and cardiovascular disease.
Massaro disputes those studies. “Any industrial industry when it’s not done correctly will have negative affects. Every industry is like that,” he said, asserting that Pennsylvania’s industry has been operating responsibly. He noted a study recently done by the state Department of Environmental Protection showing that, while emissions have increased in the natural gas sector, air quality has been improving across the state. He also noted that Pennsylvania lacks private water well regulations, meaning naturally-occurring contaminants can seep into improperly constructed water wells, giving the impression of fracking pollution.
The issue with that, according to Nardone, is that poor communities don’t have the money to afford water sampling which could prove contamination came from fracking. She noted the family in Dimock with the brown, smelly tap water. They can’t prove fracking caused the contamination, she said, because they could not afford water sampling before the nearby drilling operations began.
“So now they have a water buffalo, a great big white tank full of 300 or 400 gallons, and they rely on community donations to help pay for their water truck to come and deliver water so they can have drinking water,” she said. “They’re still bathing and showering in it, though.”
The post In Pennsylvania, Fracking Is Most Likely To Occur In Poor Communities appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Why More And More States Could Start Considering Fees On Electric Cars
A Nissan Leaf charging in Portland, OR.
CREDIT: AP / Rick Bowmer
Electric and hybrid car owners in Michigan can breathe a sigh of relief. On Tuesday, Michigan residents voted no to Proposal 1, a referendum that would have imposed a $75 annual registration fee on electric vehicles and a $25 fee for most hybrid vehicles.
The proposal, which also would have amended the state constitution to increase fuel taxes, was billed as a way for the state to get more revenue to repair roads and bridges. Since hybrid owners buy less gas than owners of conventional vehicles, and electric car owners buy no gas at all, the state saw the proposal as a way to continue to get revenue from owners of more fuel efficient cars.
Proposal 1 may have pushed for a new fee on electric car owners, but according to Kristy Hartman, a senior energy policy specialist with the National Conference of State Legislatures, state policies on electric vehicles in recent years largely have aimed to benefit electric vehicle owners. In fact, she told ThinkProgress in an email, 37 states have adopted incentives to encourage consumers to purchase electric cars, such as tax credits, rebates, free parking, and HOV lane access.
“There is a continuing trend among states to offer some type of incentive to support electric vehicle adoption,” Hartman said. These incentives are still in their early years, as are the studies to measure their effectiveness, but according to Hartman, “it appears that states that offer a variety of incentives tend to have higher rates of electric vehicle adoption.”
Still, the failed proposal in Michigan represents the concerns some state officials have with regard to funding infrastructure. In most states, gas taxes are used to fund transportation infrastructure. With Americans driving increasingly fuel-efficient vehicles and driving less overall, states are experiencing decreases in gas tax revenue while facing constant transportation infrastructure demands. The American Society of Civil Engineers’ Infrastructure Report Card notes that there is an estimated $80 billion shortfall in funding for American roads.
“Gas tax revenues are a primary source of funding for transportation infrastructure, but the revenue hasn’t kept up with the transportation needs,” Hartman said. “Special fees on alternative fuels, such as electricity, are just one way that states are looking to boost needed revenue.”
Hartman said that that in the future, “we may see additional states at least propose new fees on electric vehicles.”
Here are a few states that have already adopted fees on fuel-efficient vehicles:
Virginia
In Virginia, all-electric vehicle owners pay an annual $50 license tax, in addition to an annual $64 alternative fuel registration tax. These taxes are almost $80 higher than those for cars getting 50 mpg, according to reporting by Green Car Reports. Virginia does have incentives for EV owners, including HOV lane exemptions and discounts from the utility company if the car is charged during off-peak hours.
Colorado
Electric vehicle owners in Colorado must pay a $50 fee annually to register their cars to be able to use public recharging systems. Unlike some other states, though, Colorado’s fee is largely viewed as a moderate approach that directs funds to both infrastructure and public electric vehicle charging stations. Additionally, EV owners and lessees can receive up to $6,000 in state tax credits until 2021. According to the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, Colorado is the top state in the region for policies that promote electric vehicle adoption.
Georgia
Georgia has taken some of the strongest actions to tax electric vehicle owners to compensate for lost gas tax revenues. Last month, the state legislature voted to expire Georgia’s $5,000 tax credit and implement a $200 registration fee, which current owners would also have to pay. Critics immediately pointed out that these changes could have an impact on Georgia’s status as the state with the second highest ownership of EVs.
“Georgia’s diverse set of incentives have been credited—at least in part— for the boost in electric vehicle sales over the past couple of years,” Hartman said. “It’s unclear whether removing these incentives at a time when sales of electric vehicles are growing will hinder additional electric vehicle adoption in the state.”
North Carolina
North Carolina EV owners pay an annual $100 registration fee to contribute to the state’s transportation infrastructure funding. Owners of alternative fuel vehicles do receive benefits including HOV lane exemptions and sales and use tax exemptions.
Nebraska
Nebraska law mandates that owners of electric and hybrid-electric vehicles pay an annual $75 fee to register their vehicles. Revenues collected from the fee go towards maintaining Nebraska’s highway infrastructure.
Oregon
Oregon is currently piloting a program that would charge residents based on how much they drive. The state is installing equipment in 5,000 cars to record their mileage with the intention of charging a 1.5 cent-per-mile tax to owners. Under this program, owners would receive a credit against gas taxes, and the revenue raised would fund infrastructure projects to improve and restore Oregon roadways.
Washington
Washington owners of electric vehicles pay an annual $100 fee to register and renew the registration on their vehicles to compensate for lost gas taxes. In February 2015, the state legislature considered an amendment that would increase the registration fee to $150. Revenues from the $50 increase would be used to support a new program, the Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Account, that would support public charging stations and other EV infrastructure throughout the state.
Erin Auel is a special assistant for the Energy Policy team at the Center for American Progress.
The post Why More And More States Could Start Considering Fees On Electric Cars appeared first on ThinkProgress.
Joseph J. Romm's Blog
- Joseph J. Romm's profile
- 10 followers
