Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 156

Climate Change Does Have Some Winners, Like Brain-Eating Parasites.

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An aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads dengue (and chikungunya) virus. The 2014 National Climate Assessment warned that climate change is “increasing the risk of … health threats that are currently uncommon in the United States, such as dengue fever.”

CREDIT: AP Photo/USDA, File

It’s a myth there are no big winners from climate change besides fossil fuel companies.

According to one study, global warming is doubling bark beetle mating, triggering up to 60 times as many beetles attacking trees every year. The decline in creatures with shells thanks to ocean acidification “could trigger an explosion in jellyfish populations.” And climate change has helped dengue fever, which spread to 28 U.S. states back in 2009.

Of course, invasive plants will become “even more dominant in the landscape.” And who doesn’t love ratsnakes?

Let’s also not forget brain-eating parasites, which are expected to thrive as U.S. lakes heat up. That parasite — the amoeba, Naegleria fowleri — feasts on human brains like a tiny zombie. As one Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expert warned several years ago: “This is a heat-loving amoeba. As water temperatures go up, it does better. In future decades, as temperatures rise, we’d expect to see more cases.”

But this is just a taste of things to come, as two parasite experts explain in a recent article, “Evolution in action: climate change, biodiversity dynamics and emerging infectious disease [EID].” That article is part of a special April issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B., whose theme is “Climate change and vector-borne diseases of humans.”

“The appearance of infectious diseases in new places and new hosts, such as West Nile virus and Ebola, is a predictable result of climate change,” as the news release explains. The article examines our “current EID crisis.”

Coauthor Daniel R. Brooks explains: “It’s not that there’s going to be one ‘Andromeda Strain’ that will wipe everybody out on the planet,” he said, referring to the deadly fictional pathogen. But he warns: “There are going to be a lot of localized outbreaks that put a lot of pressure on our medical and veterinary health systems. There won’t be enough money to keep up with all of it. It will be the death of a thousand cuts.”

Many tropical diseases are tropical because their insect or animal host prefer warmer climates. A 2015 report on neglected tropical diseases by the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out that “climate variability and long-term climate changes in temperature, rainfall and relative humidity are expected to increase the distribution and incidence of at least a subset of these diseases.” For instance, WHO notes, “dengue has already re-emerged in countries in which it had been absent for the greater part of the last century.”

The Congressionally-mandated 2014 National Climate Assessment concurs: “Large-scale changes in the environment due to climate change and extreme weather events are increasing the risk of the emergence or reemergence of health threats that are currently uncommon in the United States, such as dengue fever.”

“Some of the neglected tropical diseases are no longer strictly tropical,” said Dr. Dirk Engels, the director WHO’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, in a statement.

Certainly there have been major advances in the fight against many tropical diseases, but those are primarily due to medical advances and investments in public health. Such investments remain a top priority in a warming world. But the kind of extreme climate change humanity faces on our current path of unrestricted carbon pollution makes the job harder for all those focused on public health around the world.

The post Climate Change Does Have Some Winners, Like Brain-Eating Parasites. appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Congress Is Pushing A Bill To Significantly Weaken The EPA’s Climate Rule

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House subcommittee on Energy and Power Chairman Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY).

A bill that would delay and ultimately weaken the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule limiting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants is making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives.

A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a lengthy hearing on Tuesday on the Ratepayer Protection Act, which allows state governors to refuse to implement the EPA’s proposed carbon reductions if those reductions would have a “significant adverse effect” on electric bills or grid reliability. In other words, the bill — sponsored by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) — tells states that, if their proposed plans to reduce carbon emissions might threaten electric prices or electricity itself, they don’t have to make plans at all.

The bill would also delay final implementation of the rule until all legal challenges have been dismissed, a process which could take years. Two high-profile legal cases challenging the EPA climate rules are scheduled to be argued this week.

Whitfield on Tuesday said the purpose of his bill is to prevent states from having to deal with the EPA’s “damaging overreach.”

“We think you are overstepping your authority,” Whitfield said in comments to Janet McCabe, head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “Experts in the Clean Air Act have described this proposed rule as extreme, radical and a power grab.”

Representatives on the other side of the aisle, however, lambasted the bill as an attempt to indefinitely delay and significantly weaken the rule, which aims to cut the power sector’s carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) said the bill would make it “too easy for a governor to just say no” to reducing carbon dioxide emissions — a dangerous precedent considering the climate-related progress that has already been made, he said.

“I think we should think long and hard considering what we’re doing before we go down this slippery slope and allow states to turn back the clocks to the dark days,” Rush said. “We’ve been so very successful so far. This is a bill that frankly doesn’t really deserve our time.”

Whitfield, for his part, is a long-time critic of the EPA and opponent of efforts to fight climate change. In 2011, Whitfield introduced a bill called the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which sought to prevent a national cap-and-trade system and block the EPA’s “controversial backdoor climate change agenda.” Last summer, he sponsored an amendment to prevent the federal government from funding any research specifically regarding climate change.

Whitfield also receives a large chunk of his campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry and electric utilities. In the 2013-2014 election cycle, for example, his top three donors were FirstEnergy Corp., the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and Alpha Natural Resources, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets. In his entire career as a Congressman, electric utilities have contributed $707,315 to his campaigns, oil and gas have contributed $503,997, and the mining industry has contributed $315,577.

Whitfield’s efforts to prevent EPA action and funding on climate-related efforts did not sit will with Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), who during Tuesday’s hearing criticized the bill’s supporters for rejecting solutions to fight climate change without proposing alternatives.

“If my Republican colleagues have a better idea for protecting against a changing climate, then please speak up,” he said. “Just saying no and condemning future generations is not an option.”

The post Congress Is Pushing A Bill To Significantly Weaken The EPA’s Climate Rule appeared first on ThinkProgress.

In Landmark Case, Dutch Citizens Sue Their Government Over Failure To Act On Climate Change

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The Hague, Netherlands, where the climate case will be heard.

CREDIT: Shutterstock

For the first time ever, climate change is being taken to court over human rights.

Public arguments are scheduled to begin Tuesday in the Netherlands, where nearly 900 Dutch citizens have filed a lawsuit against their government for failing to effectively cut greenhouse gas emissions and curb climate change.

Hailed by Dutch press as a “landmark legal case,” it’s the first European example of a group of citizens attempting to hold a government responsible for inefficient climate policies, and the first time that existing human rights laws have been the basis of a case.

“What we are saying is that our government is co-creating a dangerous change in the world,” Roger Cox, a legal adviser for the plaintiffs, told RTCC. “We feel that there’s a shared responsibility for any country to do what is necessary in its own boundaries to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions as much as is needed.”

The plaintiffs will ask the court to force the Dutch government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by between 25 and 40 percent relative to their 1990 levels by 2020 — reductions that the IPCC has said developed nations must make if the world wants a 50 percent chance of avoiding a 2 degree Celsius increase in global temperature. Currently, the European Union has committed to reducing its emissions 40 percent by 2030, but the Netherlands has not made any specific commitments, saying instead that it intends to adopt any international agreement that comes from the Paris climate talks later this year.

To the Dutch citizens who are part of the class action, that promise isn’t enough. In 2012, the sustainability-focused Urgenda Foundation sent a letter to the government demanding more immediate action on climate change. When they received no response, Urgenda began looking for citizens to support a court case against the Dutch government. A year later, Urgenda, along with nearly 900 co-plaintiffs, filed a case against the Dutch government.

The plaintiffs represent a wide cross-section of Dutch society, hailing from a diverse set of age groups and professions. One of the more notable plaintiffs, Joos Ockels, is the wife of Wubbo Ockels, the first Dutch citizen in space and a committed climate advocate until his death last year.

Nearly a quarter of the Netherlands is below sea-level, which forced the country to become an early adopter of climate adaptation strategies and renewable energy. But while the adaptation strategies meant to shield the country from rising sea level and more frequent storms are still in place, it has begun to fall behind when it comes to clean energy. According to the International Energy Agency, the Netherlands lags behind much of the European Union in renewable energy sources. In 2013, 4.5 percent of energy consumed in the Netherlands came from renewable sources, far below the country’s goal of getting 14 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020.

According to Dutch News, Urgenda claims that the Dutch government has acknowledged that its actions are “insufficient” to prevent the dangers associated with a warming world.

“The Netherlands is therefore knowingly exposing its own citizens to dangerous situations, in which they and their children will suffer serious hardship,” Urgenda said. “The Dutch Supreme Court has consistently upheld the principle that the government can be held legally accountable for not taking sufficient action to prevent foreseeable harm. Urgenda argues that this is also the case with climate change.”

Earlier this year, the supporters of the Dutch case claimed a significant victory with the launch of the Oslo Principles on Global Climate Change Obligations, which hold that governments have the legal obligation to prevent the harmful effects of climate change, regardless of any preexisting international agreements. Though the agreement is mostly a template for courts, not a hard and fast protocol, it claims Jaap Spier, advocate-general of the Netherlands Supreme Court, as one of its primary supporters. According to the BBC, Spier has been quoted in the Dutch press saying that courts could be used to make countries adopt “effective climate policies.”

Urgenda hopes that this lawsuit will inspire others to use courts to hold countries accountable for failing to act on climate change. In Belgium, over 12,000 people have already pledged their support for a court case holding the government responsible for its actions on climate change. In the United States, the Oregon-based nonprofit Our Children’s Trust has been using similar tactics across the country, launching a suite of youth-led lawsuits against state and federal entities for failing to act on climate change. One such case in Oregon began oral arguments last week after being initially shot down in 2012.

The post In Landmark Case, Dutch Citizens Sue Their Government Over Failure To Act On Climate Change appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Here’s How The U.S. Plans To Prevent Another Huge Offshore Oil Spill

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This Sept. 13, 2010 file photo shows the bottom of the blowout preventer stack from the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File

On Monday, nearly five years after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sent millions of barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration announced new rules aimed at preventing a similar spill from happening again.

The proposed regulations on offshore drilling target the reliability of drilling equipment, especially the blowout preventer, a piece of equipment that seals and controls oil and gas wells and which failed during the Deepwater Horizon spill. Among other new requirements for drilling technology, the Interior Department’s proposed regulations would require oil and gas drillers to perform tests and maintenance on their blowout preventers. They would also require drillers to undergo a yearly review by a third party to make sure that the blowout preventer equipment is functioning well, and would require a detailed inspection every five years.

“These proposed measures are designed to further build on critical lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and to ensure that offshore operations are safe,” Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said in a statement. “This rule builds on enhanced industry standards for blowout preventers to comprehensively address well design, well control and overall drilling safety.”

The rules are now open for public comments, and the federal government is expected to issue a final rule later this year. That rule will go into effect three months later, but the Interior Department is giving oil and gas companies three to seven years to completely comply with the rule.

That three to seven year grace period is meant to give companies time to install any new technology they need to comply with the rules, but some environmental groups claim that the proposed rule is similar to the best practices already adopted by the oil and gas industry.

“Are we really strengthening safety or are we just making these [provisions] official?” Jackie Savitz, vice president of U.S. Oceans at Oceana, told the Wall Street Journal.

The oil industry, for its part, says its still reviewing the rules.

Still, others are glad that the Interior Department has proposed the long-awaited rules. The Interior Department said back in April 2011 that it was considering proposing new blowout preventer rules, and announced in May 2012 that it would be proposing new rules by September of that year. But the agency missed that deadline and another it set for itself to propose the rules.

Matt Lee-Ashley, director of public lands at the Center for American Progress, told ThinkProgress that he thinks the five-year delay in releasing the rules was due to the technological nature of the regulations.

“This is one of the most technically complex rulemakings the agency has ever done, so I think it took them some time to gather all the information about what went wrong with the blowout preventer on Deepwater Horizon, gather input from technical experts and independent reviews, and develop standards that reflect the best available technologies,” he said in an email.

Lee-Ashley also said that regulators like the Interior Department “face a major challenge” in keeping up with new technology that oil and gas drillers are using and in trying to account for the major risks that come along with drilling in the ocean.

“Deepwater Horizon was the biggest environmental disaster in American history, and the Department of the Interior has rightly implemented the most significant safety reforms ever undertaken,” he said, adding that the federal government “is making these safety improvements with no help from Congress and, all too often, resistance from an oil industry that wants to keep its costs low.”

Even with standards and rigorous oversight of drilling operations, Lee-Ashley emphasized that the risk of accidents and major spills like the Deepwater Horizon will always be present. The consequences of that fact are being underscored as the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster approaches and studies continue to document the impacts of the spill. One report released last month from the National Wildlife Federation found that 20 animal species were still being affected by the spill, and a study this month found that the dispersant used to break up oil that had spilled into the Gulf was more harmful to coral than the oil itself.

The post Here’s How The U.S. Plans To Prevent Another Huge Offshore Oil Spill appeared first on ThinkProgress.

People Are Planning An ‘Extreme Yacht Race’ Through The Arctic Now That It’s Melting

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CREDIT: Shutterstock

For those in the business of extreme sailboat racing, it seems climate change isn’t so bad after all.

Rapidly melting sea ice in the Arctic has made it possible for sailors to navigate the Northwest Passage, the famously treacherous sea route through the Arctic Ocean. That’s at least according to a group of people who plan to race yachts through that passage in 2017, part of a 7,700-mile journey from New York to Victoria, British Columbia that organizers say is only made possible by climate change.

“Rapid climate change has hit the Arctic hard,” the website for the Sailing the Arctic Race, or STAR, reads. “For the first time in human history it is possible to sail over the top of North America in a single season.”

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The proposed race route from New York to Victoria, British Columbia.

CREDIT: http://sailingthearcticrace.org/

The goal of the race is not solely to master a once-impossible sailing feat. According to the organizers, one purpose of the race is to raise awareness of issues facing a melting Arctic. They’re also raising money — according to the STAR website, all teams that wish to race must pay a $50,000 entrance fee, and will need to purchase a specific boat that costs between $800,000 and $1 million.

The organizers also say they’re committed to leaving no impact on the environment from the race, promising to achieve Gold Level sustainability certification under a program called Clean Regattas, run by the conservation organization Sailors for the Sea. According to the website, less than 10 percent of registered regattas are able to achieve the Gold Level under the program, which requires sailors to achieve at least 19 of 25 best practices listed by the organization.

“It is a privilege to be able to sail the oceans of the world and visit remote wildernesses like the Arctic and STAR is working hard to ensure a net zero impact of the race,” the website reads. “We are developing one of the greenest, most environmentally conscious on-the-water events in the world and working hard to spread awareness of marine and Arctic conservation issues.”

The race is still in its planning stages, so it’s too early to say whether it will actually happen. Some have criticized the idea as improbable, and specific scheduling has not been set in stone.

What is indisputable, though, is that Arctic sea ice has been disappearing, making conditions more favorable for this type of activity than ever before in recorded human history. Since scientists began recording Arctic ice extent in 1979, it has declined every year. Since the 70s, the Arctic has warmed by 2°C (3.6°F), with the summer minimum Arctic sea ice extent decreasing by 40 percent during that same time. In addition, the Arctic’s winter maximum sea ice extent was the lowest its ever been in 2015.

In addition to the shrinking of its surface area, Arctic sea ice has also been declining in thickness. According to a February study published in The Cryosphere, annual mean ice thickness has decreased 65 percent from 1975 to 2012.

Scientists predict a melting Arctic will do more than just open up sailing passages. In addition to contributing to sea level rise, a melting Arctic actually worsens global warming, because bright white sea ice usually reflects sunlight, and therefore warmth. When that ice melts, it’s replaced with dark ocean, which absorbs sunlight and heat.

The post People Are Planning An ‘Extreme Yacht Race’ Through The Arctic Now That It’s Melting appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Here’s How Canada’s Provinces Are Responding To Climate Change

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CREDIT: Robert van Waarden/Greenpeace

Leaders from Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories are meeting Tuesday in Quebec City to discuss provincial efforts to combat climate change, a meeting that comes amid multiple provincial and city-level announcements on greenhouse gas reduction efforts.

Canadian premiers meet regularly to discuss a range of issues, but this is the first time that the premiers have planned a meeting specifically to talk about climate change, said Mark Calzavara, regional organizer for Ontario and Quebec at the Council of Canadians. The meeting, he told ThinkProgress, came about because of the “complete failure” of Canada’s federal government to act on climate change.

Calzavara isn’t sure yet what will come out of the meeting, but he said an agreement among provinces and territories to reduce emissions is possible, though it may not end up being a final, binding agreement.

“Everybody’s sort of waiting with bated breath to hear what announcements come out of it,” he said. “It’s really the only hope that the environmental movement has in Canada as far as government action on climate change.”

A few provincial premiers won’t be attending the conference — most notably, Jim Prentice, premier of tar sands-heavy Alberta, will be sending other government officials in his stead. Calzavara said this made sense as Prentice is in the middle of an election, but he said that it would be difficult to come to an agreement with Alberta — Canada’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter — not participating.

Calzavara said a provincial agreement would be significant in Canada, especially since the meeting is coming at a time when many Canadians are calling on the federal government to take strong action against climate change. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who assumed office in 2006, Canada has done little to lower its emissions, and the country isn’t currently expected to meet its 2020 goals on greenhouse gas reductions.

This weekend, Canadians made it clear that they want the premiers — and the federal government — to take climate change seriously: about 25,000 Canadians marched in Quebec on Saturday to draw attention to the need for action on climate change.

Though we don’t know yet how the provincial meeting will turn out, we do know that some Canadian provinces and cities have heeded this call for action over the last few weeks. Here are a few of the latest climate commitments in Canada:

Ontario signed a cap-and-trade policy

On Monday, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne signed a cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec, a province which operates its existing cap-and-trade program with California. In a statement, Ontario cited climate change as a major reason for entering the agreement, and Wynne has reiterated that impetus for the initiative.

“Our changing environment has devastated communities, damaged homes, businesses and crops,” she told the CBC. “It endangers our air, it endangers our water and the health of our children and grandchildren.”

Ontario said in a statement that revenue raised from the cap and trade will be reinvested “back into projects that reduce greenhouse gas pollution and help businesses remain competitive.” These projects could include things like initiatives and incentives for energy efficient housing or efforts to increase public transit options in the province.

Ontario’s commitment to the cap-and-trade program will likely be finalized in October, and Wynne has said its too soon yet to say what the price on carbon will be.

Earlier this year, Wynne criticized the Harper government for its failure to act on climate change, saying that his lack of action has forced provinces to pick up the slack on climate commitments.

New Brunswick banned fracking

Last month, lawmakers in New Brunswick voted to place a moratorium on fracking within the province.

The eastern province will conduct a one-year study on the oil and gas extraction process and reconsider the ban in 2016. Before the moratorium is lifted, the province must meet five conditions, including providing “clear and credible information” on the health and environmental impacts of fracking, developing a process for consulting with First Nations, and creating a plan that deals with issues including wastewater disposal.

“It is responsible and prudent to do our due diligence and get more information regarding hydraulic fracturing,” New Brunswick Energy and Mines Minister Donald Arseneault said in a statement.

Fracking presents multiple environmental and emissions concerns, so New Brunswick’s plan to study the practice before pursuing the practice further has been praised by environmentalists. But New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant has made it clear that, even though the ban is in place, his province is still pro-energy production.

“We are very much for natural resource development,” he said. “We’re very much for energy projects here in the province.”

New Brunswick joins the eastern provinces of In Newfoundland and Labrador in instituting a temporary fracking ban. Nova Scotia also announced last year that it would be implementing an indefinite ban on fracking.

Vancouver said it would go 100 percent renewable

Vancouver, British Columbia announced this month that the city was committing to get all of its energy from renewable sources by 2030 or 2035. Right now, Vancouver gets 32 percent of its energy from renewables, so the commitment represents an ambitious plan to shift the city away from dirtier sources of energy.

“The future of Vancouver’s economy and livability will depend on our ability to confront and adapt to climate change, and moving toward renewable energy is another way that Vancouver is working to become the greenest city in the world,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a statement.

As a city — not a province — Vancouver’s commitment won’t make as much of a difference in overall emissions reductions as plans and goals from provinces. But British Columbia is already leading Canada in terms of carbon regulation: it’s the only Canadian province with a carbon tax, a policy that’s been hailed as a success environmentally, economically and among residents in the province.

The post Here’s How Canada’s Provinces Are Responding To Climate Change appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Canada’s Failure To Act On Climate Change Is Pushing Provinces To Take Action Themselves

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CREDIT: Robert van Waarden/Greenpeace

Leaders from Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories are meeting Tuesday in Quebec City to discuss provincial efforts to combat climate change, a meeting that comes amid multiple provincial and city-level announcements on greenhouse gas reduction efforts.

Canadian premiers meet regularly to discuss a range of issues, but this is the first time that the premiers have planned a meeting specifically to talk about climate change, said Mark Calzavara, regional organizer for Ontario and Quebec at the Council of Canadians. The meeting, he told ThinkProgress, came about because of the “complete failure” of Canada’s federal government to act on climate change.

Calzavara isn’t sure yet what will come out of the meeting, but he said an agreement among provinces and territories to reduce emissions is possible, though it may not end up being a final, binding agreement.

“Everybody’s sort of waiting with bated breath to hear what announcements come out of it,” he said. “It’s really the only hope that the environmental movement has in Canada as far as government action on climate change.”

A few provincial premiers won’t be attending the conference — most notably, Jim Prentice, premier of tar sands-heavy Alberta, will be sending other government officials in his stead. Calzavara said this made sense as Prentice is in the middle of an election, but he said that it would be difficult to come to an agreement with Alberta — Canada’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter — not participating.

Calzavara said a provincial agreement would be significant in Canada, especially since the meeting is coming at a time when many Canadians are calling on the federal government to take strong action against climate change. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who assumed office in 2006, Canada has done little to lower its emissions, and the country isn’t currently expected to meet its 2020 goals on greenhouse gas reductions.

This weekend, Canadians made it clear that they want the premiers — and the federal government — to take climate change seriously: about 25,000 Canadians marched in Quebec on Saturday to draw attention to the need for action on climate change.

Though we don’t know yet how the provincial meeting will turn out, we do know that some Canadian provinces and cities have heeded this call for action over the last few weeks. Here are a few of the latest climate commitments in Canada:

Ontario signed a cap-and-trade policy

On Monday, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne signed a cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec, a province which operates its existing cap-and-trade program with California. In a statement, Ontario cited climate change as a major reason for entering the agreement, and Wynne has reiterated that impetus for the initiative.

“Our changing environment has devastated communities, damaged homes, businesses and crops,” she told the CBC. “It endangers our air, it endangers our water and the health of our children and grandchildren.”

Ontario said in a statement that revenue raised from the cap and trade will be reinvested “back into projects that reduce greenhouse gas pollution and help businesses remain competitive.” These projects could include things like initiatives and incentives for energy efficient housing or efforts to increase public transit options in the province.

Ontario’s commitment to the cap-and-trade program will likely be finalized in October, and Wynne has said its too soon yet to say what the price on carbon will be.

Earlier this year, Wynne criticized the Harper government for its failure to act on climate change, saying that his lack of action has forced provinces to pick up the slack on climate commitments.

New Brunswick banned fracking

Last month, lawmakers in New Brunswick voted to place a moratorium on fracking within the province.

The eastern province will conduct a one-year study on the oil and gas extraction process and reconsider the ban in 2016. Before the moratorium is lifted, the province must meet five conditions, including providing “clear and credible information” on the health and environmental impacts of fracking, developing a process for consulting with First Nations, and creating a plan that deals with issues including wastewater disposal.

“It is responsible and prudent to do our due diligence and get more information regarding hydraulic fracturing,” New Brunswick Energy and Mines Minister Donald Arseneault said in a statement.

Fracking presents multiple environmental and emissions concerns, so New Brunswick’s plan to study the practice before pursuing the practice further has been praised by environmentalists. But New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant has made it clear that, even though the ban is in place, his province is still pro-energy production.

“We are very much for natural resource development,” he said. “We’re very much for energy projects here in the province.”

New Brunswick joins the eastern provinces of In Newfoundland and Labrador in instituting a temporary fracking ban. Nova Scotia also announced last year that it would be implementing an indefinite ban on fracking.

Vancouver said it would go 100 percent renewable

Vancouver, British Columbia announced this month that the city was committing to get all of its energy from renewable sources by 2030 or 2035. Right now, Vancouver gets 32 percent of its energy from renewables, so the commitment represents an ambitious plan to shift the city away from dirtier sources of energy.

“The future of Vancouver’s economy and livability will depend on our ability to confront and adapt to climate change, and moving toward renewable energy is another way that Vancouver is working to become the greenest city in the world,” Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a statement.

As a city — not a province — Vancouver’s commitment won’t make as much of a difference in overall emissions reductions as plans and goals from provinces. But British Columbia is already leading Canada in terms of carbon regulation: it’s the only Canadian province with a carbon tax, a policy that’s been hailed as a success environmentally, economically and among residents in the province.

The post Canada’s Failure To Act On Climate Change Is Pushing Provinces To Take Action Themselves appeared first on ThinkProgress.

In Drought-Stricken California, Nestlé’s Bottled Water Business Is Under Fire

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Nestlé’s Arrowhead brand is sourced the San Bernardino National Forest, in drought-stricken California.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis

Nestlé is making waves across the West Coast this week for its bottled water business.

In drought-stricken California, the food and beverage conglomerate is under investigation by the U.S. Forest Service for using expired permits to use water from a national forest. And in Oregon, environmentalists are lamenting a move by the state that puts Nestlé one step closer to opening its first bottled water facility in the Pacific Northwest.

On Friday, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the small Columbia River Gorge town of Cascade Locks applied to trade water between the town-controlled wells and the state-controlled spring, opening the door for Cascade Locks to sell the spring water. The proposal to sell local water has been billed as a financial lifeline for the struggling town of only 1,245 residents, but it has also become a lightening rod for water and environmental activists in Oregon, who say the project will disrupt aquatic life and add unnecessary traffic to the small town.

The proposed Nestlé facility would provide 50 jobs and at least $135 thousand in property taxes a year to the former logging town, where unemployment is 18.8 percent, city administrator Gordon Zimmerman told ThinkProgress.

“It will make us solvent, we hope,” Zimmerman said. There are currently 30 other water-bottling facilities in Oregon, as well as several beer and juice companies operating near Cascade Locks, he said.

But some say that this project is different from others around the state. Alex P. Brown, executive director for the Mt. Hood National Forest advocacy group BARK, told ThinkProgress that this would be the first time the state has actively facilitated the sale of public water for bottling.

“People are not being listened to,” Brown said. “The response we just received from our state agency is: Let’s move the process faster, with a lower standard of public review.”

Brown’s group and its partner, Food and Water Watch, say that Nestlé is guilty of damaging the environment, bullying small towns, and making a fortune off a public good. “Nestlé has a reputation for pushing the limits of communities, and this is exactly the same thing,” Brown said.

BARK wants to promote an economic future for Mt. Hood-area communities that is long-term and sustainable, and “the components of the proposal are at odds with the other economic development goals in Cascade Locks,” Brown said.

Meanwhile, amid a severe drought, many Californians are also taking issue with Nestlé, calling for their state to look more closely policies for bottled water. In new water regulation issued by Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this month, Nestlé’s for-profit water withdrawals came out unscathed.

More than 135,000 people have signed a petition by Courage Campaign, an online activist organization in California, to stop Nestlé from bottling water during the drought. “These are our water savings accounts, and we’re drawing them down like their is no tomorrow,” Eddie Kutz, Courage Campaign’s executive director, told ThinkProgress.

Kutz said Oregonians should be careful who they give or sell water rights to.

“It’s very clear in California that a lot of these rights were given away willy-nilly a long time ago, and they were never reassessed,” he said.

It looks like he’s right. Last week, the Desert Sun revealed that Nestlé is withdrawing water from the San Bernardino forest under a permit that expired in 1988. The U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the permit, has said it will make addressing the oversight a priority.

“Now that it has been brought to my attention that the Nestlé permit has been expired for so long, on top of the drought… it has gone to the top of the pile in terms of a program of work for our folks to work on,” San Bernardino National Forest Supervisor Jody Noiron told the Desert Sun.

Nestlé did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The post In Drought-Stricken California, Nestlé’s Bottled Water Business Is Under Fire appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Republican Wins Award For Believing In Climate Change

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South Carolina congressional candidate Bob Inglis speaks to the media after his loss in the runoff election to Trey Gowdy in Greenville, S.C. Tuesday June 22, 2010.

CREDIT: AP/Richard Shiro

Bob Inglis’ efforts as a Republican pursuing meaningful action on climate change have always been noteworthy, but now they’re award worthy.

On Monday, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation announced that the former U.S. Congressman for South Carolina had been named the 2015 recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for political courage. A courage he demonstrated “when he reversed his previous position on climate change, knowing that by acknowledging the scientific reality of atmospheric warming and calling on the United States to meaningfully address the issue, he was jeopardizing his political career,” according to the release.

After representing the 4th Congressional District of South Carolina from 1993-98 and again from 2005-2010, Inglis lost his re-election bid in part due to this decision. Since then, instead of admitting defeat, he has gone on to work on the issue at the grassroots level, founding the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, which is devoted to conservative and free-enterprise solutions to energy and climate challenges. Housed at George Mason University in Virgina, it includes the community-driven group republicEn.

In a 2013 interview with Yale Environment 360, Inglis said the goal of the Energy and Enterprise Initiative is to “see a true cost competition between all fuels, and the result of that, we believe, is that free enterprise will solve our energy and climate challenge.”

He said he thinks “we should send a price signal” and that a carbon tax is one way of approximating the “real cost of electricity” which includes environmental and climate impacts.

“Bob Inglis is a visionary and courageous leader who believes, as President Kennedy once said, that ‘no problem of human destiny is beyond human beings,’” Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy’s grandson and a member of the committee that picks the award winner, said in a statement. “In reversing his own position and breaking with his party to acknowledge the realities of a changing climate and its threat to human progress, he displayed the courage to keep an open mind and uphold his responsibilities as a leader and citizen at the expense of his own political career.”

In making the announcement, Inglis and Schlossberg co-authored an op-ed published by CNN in which they draw upon their divergent backgrounds in strengthening their “unwavering belief that the United States must lead the world on climate change and seize opportunities for unity, growth and progress”:

Many of our elected representatives persist in inaction and complacency by arguing that individual nations are powerless to solve the problem because every nation is culpable. Others choose to dispute the science, deny the evidence, and avoid the question of how to solve the problem.

The authors maintain an optimistic perspective for the most part, positing that climate change is another opportunity for “American triumph” and “human progress” to prevail. They say we can start by making simple changes in the tax code that would be acceptable to the right and the left, and “provide solutions without making government any bigger.”

In a 2013 interview with ThinkProgress, Inglis said that while the “climate change matter was started by liberals,” conservatives and Republicans need to stand up and lead.

“As the economy improves, I think my party is going to have to offer up real solutions to succeed,” he said. “I’m very optimistic that things are beginning to turn, and that Republicans will be offering solutions and not looking for scapegoats.”

Inglis’ predictions are yet to pan out. A Congress run by Republicans has balked at taking any climate action and has made a point of slandering the EPA as frequently as possible. The slate of 2016 Republican presidential candidates, including Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio, have also done little to add credence to Inglis’ perception.

The post Republican Wins Award For Believing In Climate Change appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Too Much Carbon Dioxide May Have Caused Earth’s Worst Mass Extinction

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A series of colossal volcanic explosions — much larger than this one — is thought to have caused a mass extinction hundreds of millions of years ago via too much carbon dioxide.

CREDIT: Shutterstock

So much for carbon dioxide being a “harmless” gas.

The worst mass extinction in Earth’s history may have been caused by huge amounts of carbon dioxide that accumulated in the atmosphere and the ocean after colossal volcanic eruptions in Siberia 252 million years ago, according to a new study.

In addition to coating ancient Siberia with thick lava, the famed eruptions also released massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which the study says may have turned the oceans sharply acidic. That acidity is thought to have driven a “global environmental calamity” that killed 90 percent of Earth’s species — also known as the “Great Dying” between the Permian and Triassic periods.

The fact that an ocean acidification event driven by carbon dioxide may have caused a mass extinction provides a “cautionary lesson for today,” wrote Eric Hand in the April issue of the journal Science, where the study was published Friday. Right now, the world’s oceans are acidifying rapidly due to human carbon emissions — in fact, carbon dioxide emitted from power plants, deforestation, manufacturing, and driving, have increased the ocean’s acid levels by a staggering 26 percent over the last 200 years.

“Because of CO2 released by burning fossil fuels,” Hand wrote, “oceans could now be acidifying even faster than they did 250 million years ago, although the process hasn’t yet persisted nearly as long.”

To come to their conclusions, researchers from universities across Europe and New Zealand studied limestone rocks that were hanging out on the sea floor in the United Arab Emirates. Those rocks were so old that they contained data from all the way toward the end of the Permian Period, giving the researchers clues as to what the ocean was like back then, and how it has changed since.

What they found was a huge drop in the pH levels of the ocean following the eruptions. Specifically, by analyzing isotopes of boron in the rocks, they found an isotopic signal that would have corresponded to a drop of 0.6 to 0.7 pH units, “a significant change in seawater chemistry,” according to Hand.

“This is the first really direct evidence of ocean acidification for this mass extinction,” Matthew Clarkson, a geochemist at the University of Otago in New Zealand who led the study, told Hand.

There were some limitations to Friday’s study. It acknowledges that though an acidification event appears to have happened, direct evidence connecting it to the volcanic eruptions — and therefore, the mass extinction — is lacking. One reason is that the rocks the researchers studied were only located in the United Arab Emirates. To make a more conclusive claim, they would have to show that Permian-era ocean rocks in other parts of the world showed the same level of acidification.

Indeed, the exact cause of the “Great Dying” is still a mystery to scientists. While many believe the volcanoes and resulting carbon dioxide were the tipping point, others point out that there are two phases to the extinction — and that the first phase began before the eruptions. Researchers aren’t yet sure what caused that first phase.

“We’ve still got quite a lot of work to do,” Clarkson told the journal Nature. “Everyone always wants the smoking gun for these things.”

It’s unlikely that volcanic eruptions capable of releasing that much carbon dioxide would occur in modern times (though the business of predicting volcanic eruptions can be a bit tricky). The last supervolcano eruption happened 27,000 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. At the Yellowstone volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park, for example, the yearly probability of a huge explosion is 1 in 730,000, or .00014 percent. So while a huge volcanic explosion could alter the global climate by releasing tons of carbon into the atmosphere, it’s exceedingly unlikely.

What is far more likely to affect the carbon content of the atmosphere is human activity. Since the Industrial Revolution, carbon levels in the atmosphere have increased from an average of around 260 parts per million (ppm) to more than 400 ppm — a level that is widely seen as the highest atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration in human history.

Indeed, the last time carbon dioxide levels were at 400 parts per million was between 800,000 and 15 million years ago. Or, as as Andrew Freedman put it for Climate Central, a time when “[m]egatoothed sharks prowled the oceans, the world’s seas were up to 100 feet higher than they are today, and the global average surface temperature was up to 11°F warmer than it is now.”

More than a quarter of all carbon dioxide emitted by humans is absorbed by the ocean. When the carbon enters the ocean, it dissolves, forming carbonic acid. The carbonic acid then dissociates, and forms bicarbonate ions and hydrogen ions. As the hydrogen ions increase, so does the ocean’s acidity.

While the effects of acidifcation are not entirely understood, scientists do know that it can make it harder for coral and some plankton to produce their skeletons and shells. Acidification can also change the behavior of marine fish and some invertebrates, making them more susceptible to predators. This has effects on both marine life and human life — according to one United Nations study, the global economy stands to lose up to $1 trillion in services like coastline maintenance by 2100, just because of acidication’s impacts on coral reefs.

Still, many political leaders consider carbon dioxide to be harmless. Just last month, in a Senate hearing on whether to regulate carbon dioxide in order to slow climate change, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy that carbon dioxide is a “plant food [that] doesn’t harm anybody.”

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