Tag Archives: uncategorized

The world lost environmental leaders on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

Read the article: 

The world lost environmental leaders on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, Casio, Everyone, FF, Food & Agriculture Org, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The world lost environmental leaders on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

Pizza ovens are firing up the coal industry

Subscribe to The Beacon

As the interminably salty April Ludgate of Parks and Recreation once said, “Time is money, money is power, power is pizza, and pizza is knowledge.” Well, there’s something about pizza you knead to know: It’s helping the coal industry.

Before you freak out, you should know that not all types of pizza are equally guilty in harming the planet. We’re specifically talking about pizza cooked in coal-fired ovens (though wood-fired pizza is also pretty bad for the environment). Now you may be thinking, “Dude! It’s just pizza,” but slow down there, Ninja Turtle. It turns out the pizza-powered coal market is pretty significant.

Pennsylvania mining company Blaschak Coal Corporation had a blockbuster 2018, selling a record-breaking 382,000 tons of coal. That’s because it mines anthracite coal, the super hot-burning fuel used in many personal pizza ovens. Demand for the centuries-old style of cooking has been growing since 2015. And anthracite coal isn’t just used to cook pizza; it’s also used by steelmakers and for home heating.

Not ready to think about a pizza-less planet yet? One option is to cut down on coal-fired pizza and, y’know, just eat oven-baked pizza like a normal person. But there’s also good news about the coal industry in general: coal is on the decline. Last year was a terrible year for the toxic stuff — the U.S. retired around 15 gigawatts of coal capacity.

So if Americans can keep their insatiable desire for coal-fired pizza under control, we might be able to kick our coal habit after all. But I’m not holding my breath. Also, I’m hungry?

Source:

Pizza ovens are firing up the coal industry

Posted in Accent, alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, oven, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Pizza ovens are firing up the coal industry

CNN gave a platform to climate deniers, then debunked their lies

Invest in nonprofit journalism today.Donate now and every gift will be matched through 12/31.

CNN put out a video this week titled, “Don’t believe these climate change lies.” It’s a change of pace for a mainstream media outlet long accustomed to presenting climate change as if it’s an issue that’s still debated by the scientific community.

CNN’s two-and-a-half-minute video features the network’s team of meteorologists debunking a bunch of talking points frequently spouted by deniers. Yes, the climate has always been changing. But never at this rate, the video says. “Only man-made influences, including the burning of fossil fuels, could have created this crisis.”

Watch the video:

As welcome as this is, there’s still a glaring problem: Two of the network’s four examples of how climate deniers operate are clips from CNN itself. One of those deniers, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, was hired by CNN as a senior political commentator last January. Right after the Trump administration released the 4th National Climate Assessment in November, Santorum was on air, arguing that “the reality is that a lot of these scientists are driven by the money that they receive.”

The next day, CNN invited Tom DeLay, the former Republican House majority leader, to discuss the assessment. He promptly unloaded a heap of nearly identical denier BS on viewers: “The report is nothing more than a rehash of age-old, 10 to 20 year assumptions made by scientists getting paid to further the politics of global warming.”

In other words, CNN is telling us not to believe these myths about climate change while giving a platform to people who … tell us these myths about climate change. Oy gevalt.

Want to see more award-winning news?

Help us raise $50,000 by December 31! Support nonprofit journalism by making a donation today and all gifts will be matched

.

Link to article: 

CNN gave a platform to climate deniers, then debunked their lies

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on CNN gave a platform to climate deniers, then debunked their lies

Donald Trump just called himself an environmentalist. Wait, what?

President Trump was in Las Vegas on Thursday evening headlining Nevada Senator Dean Heller’s reelection event. Heller is currently high on the list of endangered GOP members up for reelection this fall, so Trump flew down there to save him. Speaking of endangered species, the president just unveiled a proposal to severely weaken the Endangered Species Act, but I digress.

At the rally, Trump said something that will shock the pants off of anyone who has been even remotely attuned to the myriad ways in which this administration has undermined environmental regulations. He said, AND I QUOTE, “I’m an environmentalist.” Sir! This actually isn’t the first time Trump has tried to tell people that he’s a champion of the environment. In 2017, he said, “I’m a very big person when it comes to the environment.” Watch the Vegas clip:

No offense, my guy, but you’re an environmentalist if today is opposite day on the planet Mars. Trump went on to say that we have the cleanest air and water — as coal ash spills threaten rivers in North Carolina, students can’t use the drinking fountains in Detroit due to lead contamination, and the air quality in parts of the Western U.S. was the worst in the world this summer due to smoke from climate-worsened fires.

Want more proof that the Trump administration has launched targeted attacks on public lands, renewable energy, climate science, and more? Here’s the short list:

Remember when the president appointed Scott Pruitt, grifter-in-chief at the EPA and dedicated chore-boy for the fossil fuel industry? Yeah, Pruitt wasn’t great for the environment.
What about that time Trump decided to shrink two enormous national monuments, opening up sacred indigenous land and acres of important animal and plant habitat for resource extraction?
Or, hey! How about when he announced plans to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement? Or what about that year when mentions of climate change essentially disappeared from government websites (and they’re still MIA!)?
Wait! One more. How about that time he repealed Obama’s Clean Power Plan with a “coal-at-all-costs” plan?

I guess everyone can just say that they’re whoever they wanna be now. By Trump’s logic, I am now a Midwest ostrich farmer. You can be one, too! There are no rules.

More here:  

Donald Trump just called himself an environmentalist. Wait, what?

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Donald Trump just called himself an environmentalist. Wait, what?

8 ways resigning EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suppressed science

This story was originally published by Reveal and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who announced on Thursday that he is resigning, leaves a legacy of suppressing the role of science at the agency.

Blocking science in the name of transparency

In March, Pruitt proposed a new “science transparency policy.” Under the proposed rule, when the EPA designs pollution standards and rules, it would use only studies in which the underlying data is public. Pruitt said his policy would prevent the EPA from using “secret science” that cannot be tested by other researchers. But scientists say important findings could be excluded.

One example is research by Harvard University that linked fine particle pollution in U.S. cities with an increase in deaths from lung and heart diseases. The data for the 1993 study was key to the EPA’s setting of health standards that regulate air pollution. But the study’s underlying data is not public because researchers promised confidentiality to their subjects, 8,000 adults and 14,000 children in six cities.

Firing academic science advisers

Pruitt fired Science Advisory Board members who receive EPA grants for their research, saying they cannot remain objective if they accept agency money. In replacing them, Pruitt transformed the board from a panel of the nation’s top environmental experts to one dominated by industry-funded scientists and state government officials who have fought federal regulations.

Pruitt removed 21 members of the advisory board, mostly academics, and replaced them with 16 experts with ties to industries regulated by the agency and two with no industry ties. Fourteen of the new members consulted or worked for the fossil fuel or chemical industries, which gave Pruitt nearly $320,000 for his campaigns in Oklahoma as a state senator and attorney general. Eleven new members of the EPA’s board have a history of downplaying the health risks of secondhand smoke, air pollution, and other hazards, including two who have spun science for tobacco companies, according to an investigation by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Misrepresenting climate science

Pruitt repeatedly cast doubt on the scientific consensus that human activities are the primary cause of climate change. For instance, in a 2017 interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Pruitt said: “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s [carbon dioxide] a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”

Along the same lines, the Huffington Post in March published leaked talking points from the EPA’s public affairs office. The memorandum seemed designed to downplay humans’ role in climate change.

This contradicts the overwhelming science that people are causing climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2013 summary for policymakers found that it is “extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations,” or human activity. By “extremely likely,” the group of international scientists means a probability of 95 to 100 percent.

Ignoring science to reduce protections for waterways

Pruitt took steps toward repealing Obama-era protections for waterways and wetlands to fulfill a Trump executive order to roll back the reach of the Clean Water Act. That rollback would strip federal protection from seasonal streambeds, isolated pools, and other transitory wetlands, exposing them to damage, pollution, or destruction from housing developments, energy companies, and farms.

In June, Pruitt sent his proposal to redefine which waters are protected to the Office of Management and Budget, which is the final step before it is made public. Trump had ordered Pruitt to incorporate a definition put forth by late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, which defines protected waters as relatively permanent and continuously connected by surface water to navigable bays, rivers or lakes. If that definition is incorporated, it could allow damage to waterways that provide drinking water for more than 117 million Americans.

EPA brain drain

Pruitt’s hostility toward science fueled a brain drain at the EPA. The New York Times reported that out of 700 employees who left the agency in 2017, more than 200, or 27 percent, were scientists.

Among those leaving were 34 biologists and microbiologists, 19 chemists, 81 environmental engineers, and environmental scientists, and more than a dozen toxicologists, life scientists, and geologists. Few of these scientists have been replaced. According to the report, seven of the 129 people hired by the agency in 2017 were scientists.

Website goes light on science

After first removing the EPA’s Climate and Energy Resources for State, Local, and Tribal Governments web page, the agency relaunched it with a new name: Energy Resources for State, Local, and Tribal Governments. The new web page omits many links to EPA information that was designed to help local officials prepare for climate change and reduce climate change emissions, according to an October study by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative.

Dirty power plants

Pruitt took steps to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the Obama-era regulation intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants 32 percent by 2030 compared with 2005.

Pruitt also was revamping an earlier Obama administration rule that required that all new power plants meet greenhouse gas standards that roughly equate to emissions from modern natural gas plants.

Budget cuts to tribes

Pruitt proposed deep cuts in the EPA’s budget that could slow the cleanup of the Navajo Nation’s uranium mines. So far, Congress has resisted much of the cuts. But Pruitt kept proposing them. For instance, the $2.9 billion he proposed in state and tribal assistance grants for fiscal 2019 would provide $574 million less than the current budget.

Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye worries that such cuts could derail the EPA’s efforts to identify the companies responsible for cleaning up old mines and supervise the projects.

Read article here: 

8 ways resigning EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suppressed science

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 8 ways resigning EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suppressed science

Trump’s coal bailout would mean more pollution — and more deaths

Coal is struggling in the U.S. — we’re using less of it, and plants are shutting down. But President Trump is following through on his campaign promise to bring back coal. Last month, he called for a bailout for the nation’s floundering coal-fired and nuclear power plants.

Keeping these coal plants afloat would have deadly consequences. The sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions could lead to the deaths of more than 800 Americans, according to a paper out Thursday from independent nonprofit research group Resources for the Future. The researchers analyzed what Trump’s bailout policy could mean for emissions, public health, and jobs, given that struggling plants stay open for two more years, as reports have suggested the plan would do.

The plants would churn out some serious emissions in that scenario — over two years, we’d see an additional 22 million tons of CO2. That’s roughly equal to the amount emitted by 4.3 million cars in a year.

The report found that the bailout would “support” an estimated 790 jobs. But for every two to 4.5 coal mining jobs that Trump’s plan sustained, one American would die from air pollution. That’s not exactly an impressive ratio.

We’ve known for a while that coal is bad for our health. And Trump sure doesn’t seem to be helping with that, especially not for miners. Though the coal industry employed more people during Trump’s first year in office, he didn’t make their jobs any safer: Coal miner deaths nearly doubled over that same period.

The administration has also taken steps to hide coal mining’s impact on people’s health. In August, the Trump administration stopped a National Academy of Sciences study about the risks of living near mountaintop removal coal mining sites in Central Appalachia. Previous research had suggested that the practice was linked to lung cancer. The administration said the study was paused as part of a financial review.

While you’d think protecting people’s health would be a priority, the Trump administration isn’t like any other administration — and it seems like they have other things top of mind.

Excerpt from: 

Trump’s coal bailout would mean more pollution — and more deaths

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, ONA, OXO, Safer, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump’s coal bailout would mean more pollution — and more deaths

Antarctic melt holds coastal cities hostage. Here’s the way out.

After a quarter-century of intense study, we now know the unequivocal truth: Antarctica is losing ice to the oceans, and that ice loss is picking up speed.

Forty percent of sea level rise since 1992 has happened in just the past five years — a three-fold increase in the pace at which icebergs are breaking away from land, according to a comprehensive new study based on satellite data, ground measurements, and models. In West Antarctica, where the ice sheet is inherently unstable, the last five years saw an average net outflow of 159 billion tons of ice. In total, the frozen continent has lost 3 trillion tons of ice since 1992.

“As we observe the system for longer, we see more and more changes of the type we feared could happen as the climate warms,” says Helen Fricker, a scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California-San Diego who worked on the study, in an email to Grist.

The collective work, published in this week’s special edition of the journal Nature, assembles a half-dozen papers written by the world’s top experts on Antarctica. It serves as a major update to our understanding of how human activity affects the Earth’s largest store of ice — and what it would take to prevent a worst-case scenario.

Antarctica’s glaciers are massive enough to flood every coastal city on Earth. So it’s no exaggeration to say that what happens in Antarctica over the next few decades will determine the fate of not just Miami and Mumbai, but also the course of human history. If we’re lucky and quickly start cutting emissions, Antarctica’s glaciers might mostly remain in place. The alternative is unthinkable.

There’s still so much we don’t know about Antarctica. But a series of major breakthroughs in recent years have raised the urgency and scale of scientists’ efforts. This week’s papers put that information into context. The clear takeaway: There is no sign of a slowdown in Antarctica’s melt rate.

After five major Antarctic ice shelf collapses in the past 25 years, there is now enough data for an emerging science of ice shelf “damage mechanics.” Ice shelves — floating extensions of glaciers grounded on solid bedrock — are vulnerable to melt from both warm air above and warm water below. Their health is increasingly at risk as climate change intensifies. In recent years, scientists have learned that ice shelf collapses are probably a precursor for major glaciers to accelerate toward the ocean — and therefore a requirement for worst-case scenarios of sea level rise in our lifetimes.

The biggest of these shelf collapses so far, Larsen B back in 2002, raised alarms throughout the research community. In a matter of weeks, a 10,000-year old mass of ice the size of Rhode Island was gone. Last year, a smaller and partial collapse of the nearby Larsen C ice shelf produced one of the largest icebergs ever seen.

Thanks to all the science that’s taken place since, we have the ability to project forward what could happen over the next 50 years. It’s the same story we know, but with more certainty: We are at a make-or-break moment when it comes to climate change. The ice shelf collapses that humanity has already kickstarted can’t be rolled back, so the goal now is to prevent more of them.

More than any other region on Earth, Antarctica holds humanity hostage — but humanity also has a way out.

“The next few years will be a pivotal period for decision making with regard to Antarctica,” Fricker says. “Depending on what is decided, we could be looking at significant and irreversible changes over the next 50 years.”

Believe it or not, there’s a clear bright side here. Quickly slash emissions, and the ice shelves should still remain stable across most of the continent. Doing so would require an unprecedented era of global cooperation, but the collaborative research taking place right now in Antarctica — an effort shared by dozens of scientists from 17 countries in this week’s update alone — could serve as inspiration. It’s a symbol of what’s possible when people work together for a common cause.

“If you are optimistic, you can find good news here,” says Christina Hulbe, a polar expert at the University of Otago in New Zealand. “Some amount of future change has been locked in by our past decisions, but there is still time to avoid the worst thatcan happen.”

Hulbe, whose first trip to Antarctica was in 1991 but was not directly involved with this week’s report, sees it partly as the culmination of what she’s been working for her entire life. In her view, the way the report is framed — as a stark choice presented to humanity — “accomplishes something that charts and graphs never will.”

In narrative prose unusual for a formal scientific study, the researchers imagine what Antarctica might be like in 2070 — with and without rapid cuts to emissions. Given the incredible size of the Antarctic ice sheets, actions taken in the next decade, the researchers conclude, will reverberate for millennia.

“I’ve never been at an Antarctic or climate conference where people said, ‘That happened slower than I thought it would,’” Hulbe says. “There is nothing here to be complacent about.”

Originally posted here: 

Antarctic melt holds coastal cities hostage. Here’s the way out.

Posted in alo, ALPHA, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Antarctic melt holds coastal cities hostage. Here’s the way out.

Hurricane Maria was so much worse than we thought

People in Puerto Rico have endured the devastation left behind by Hurricane Maria since the storm hit 8 months ago, with many still struggling to get clean water and medical care. Now there’s evidence that the death toll from Maria and its aftermath has been far worse than previously thought

An independent analysis from public health experts at Harvard University estimates that 5,740 people likely died as a result of Hurricane Maria — 90 times higher than the official government estimate of 64 dead. The new estimate, published on Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, would make Maria the deadliest U.S. natural disaster in more than a century — more than twice as deadly as Hurricane Katrina.

The enormous distance between the new estimate and the government’s official count can be blamed on the persistence of horrific living conditions and government neglect following the hurricane. The new study was based on a household survey conducted in the weeks and months following the storm. The storm’s winds and floods account for just 10 percent of Maria’s total deaths, according to the study — most of the dead perished from lack of medical care long after the water receded.

As a storm, Maria achieved a lot of “worsts”. It was one of the strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall in the United States. It caused the largest blackout in U.S. history and the second largest in world history. The loss of power meant many Puerto Ricans had to struggle for basic necessities — the storm shuttered hospitals and restricted access to fresh food and clean water for millions of people. In some cases, people resorted to drinking water from streams contaminated with toxic waste and raw sewage — simply because there was no other option. The result was one of the worst humanitarian crises in U.S. history.

“Interruption of medical care was the primary cause of sustained high mortality rates in the months after the hurricane,” wrote the study’s authors. Hundreds of thousands of people have left the island since the storm, one of the largest mass migrations in recent U.S. history — a possible preview of the kinds of shocks that might occur more frequently as climate change supercharges storms.

These conditions have been widely reported for months, but the federal government’s response has yet to match the scale of the challenge — leading to preventable deaths. The results of the new study “underscore the inattention of the U.S. government to the frail infrastructure of Puerto Rico,” according to its authors.

On his only visit to post-storm Puerto Rico back in October, President Donald Trump praised his administration’s response, saying that Puerto Ricans should be “proud” that the death toll wasn’t as large as “a real catastrophe like Katrina.”

The new study means that Maria is now the deadliest hurricane since 1900 in the United States, when a hurricane killed 8,000 people in Galveston, Texas. Hurricane Katrina’s official death toll was 1,833 people, though follow-up surveys conducted in the years following the 2005 storm showed that hundreds more likely died. There have been previous efforts at estimating the true scale of Maria’s death toll, but the Harvard survey is the most comprehensive so far. The truth is, we’ll probably never know exactly how many people died because of Hurricane Maria.

In a series of tweets in Spanish and English, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, responded to the study’s findings. “It took too long to understand the need for an appropriate response was NOT about politics but about saving lives,” she wrote. “Now will the government believe it?”

Cruz has repeatedly called for more assistance for hurricane victims, but has been criticized directly by Trump for “poor leadership.”

The Harvard survey may still be an underestimate, in part because “mortality rates stayed high” through December, when its data collection process ended. Tens of thousands of people are still without clean water and electricity, according to the government’s latest numbers. By all accounts, the humanitarian crisis started by Hurricane Maria continues. It’s going on right now. And, more storms are on the way: a new hurricane season starts on Friday.

It’s a safe assumption that people are still dying because of a storm that hit in late September, last year.

Jump to original – 

Hurricane Maria was so much worse than we thought

Posted in alo, ALPHA, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Safer, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hurricane Maria was so much worse than we thought

America’s fastest-growing urban area is stuck between a rock and a dry place

This story was originally published by CityLab and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

When Latter-day Saint migrants arrived in Utah in 1847, a verse in Isaiah served as consolation to them in the desiccated landscape: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.”

Lately, the desert has blossomed nowhere more than the St. George area, in the state’s southern reaches. The city is a picturesque outpost, with red-rock desert framing bright green lawns and golf courses, all built around the stark white Mormon temple in the center of town.

Brigham Young’s adherents came here to grow crops, primarily cotton — hence its reputation as Utah’s Dixie. Today, that ceaseless sunshine is luring so many tourists, retirees, and students that St. George has become the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country. According to Census Bureau data released in March, the metro, home to 165,000 people, grew 4 percent between 2016 and 2017.

“Six million people visit the area every year. As people visit here, some of them decide to stay,” St. George Mayor Jon Pike said. The area remains a retirement community, “but we also have 33,000 students K through 12, and we have a fast-growing university [Dixie State University].” Healthcare is a booming industry, and, like many growing cities, St. George has a section of town earmarked for tech companies. Mixed-use developments are popping up downtown. The growth likely won’t slow any time soon: State demographers believe the area will surpass 500,000 residents by 2065.

As is the case with other growing desert burgs, St. George grapples with water-supply issues. But the challenge here is unique. Remarkably cheap rates mean that residents of an area with only eight inches of annual rainfall are using tremendous amounts of water. An average St. George resident uses more than twice as much water as the average citizen of Los Angeles.

Political leaders at the state and local level view this primarily as a supply issue. Their preferred solution is a gargantuan $1.4 billion pipeline that would connect the region with Lake Powell, a reservoir along the Colorado River. With the aid of pumping stations, the pipeline would shuttle water over 140 miles and 2,000 feet of elevation gain. The goal is to store 86,000 acre-feet a year in nearby reservoirs and aquifers — more than enough, officials say, to meet the demand of the growing population and decrease reliance on the dwindling Virgin River, currently Washington County’s primary water source.

“We certainly are committed to conservation, but we don’t think that gets you there alone, especially with the organic growth and the tremendous in-migration that’s occurring in the Southwest,” said Ronald Thompson, general manager of the Washington County Water Conservancy District, the wholesaler that supplies water to St. George and other cities in the county.

In 2006, the state legislature passed a bill to fund the Lake Powell project, but construction has been delayed since then by stop-and-go planning (at this point, pipeline approval is on hold due to uncertainty about which federal agency has jurisdiction over the project).

Multiple state and regional environmental groups say the pipeline is far too aggressive, and that basic conservation measures can meet the region’s water demand. Amelia Nuding, senior water analyst for Western Resource Advocates, believes regional leaders should focus on three strategies to achieve quick conservation success: better data collection, higher water rates, and building codes that require water-smart construction and landscaping. Not only would that meet St. George’s water needs, according to Nuding’s group, but it would avoid further depleting an already burdened Colorado River.

Utah typically uses less than its allotted share of Colorado River water, which is divvied up among Western states, but climate change and growing populations are taxing relations among the river’s interstate constituents. “Yes, [Utah residents] are legally entitled to that water from the Colorado River,” Nuding said. “But … I think that we should meet certain metrics of water stewardship before further depleting the Colorado River.”

Leaders have, for the most part, ignored environmentalists’ suggestions. Water-use data in Utah is scant; until recently, statewide water surveys took place only every five years. In 2010 — the latest state data available — the St. George region’s per-capita consumption was 325 gallons per day. More current numbers from the city suggest conservation; St. George proper uses 250 gallons per person per day. Nonetheless, it’s still consuming more water than other Southwest cities. Las Vegas takes about 220 gallons per person each day; Tucson, considered a regional leader, uses 120.

Water rates here don’t punish heavy use. A St. George household that goes through 16,000 gallons a month would see a $47 water bill; equivalent usage would cost a Tucson household $184. Washington County Water Conservancy District is in the process of raising rates 5 to 10 percent each year until baseline rates are tripled, but even then, they would be a bargain compared to some cities.

Utah’s water-delivery systems are largely gravity-fed, thus keeping costs down, and most homeowners have access to unmetered non-potable water for landscaping and irrigation. This, plus state oversight of water rates, keeps the rates low — and consumption high.

Any major reduction in consumption here will require a cultural shift. St. George is marketed as a desert oasis. Nine golf courses are located in the region, and it remains an agricultural stronghold. Local municipalities offer basic water-conservation rebates — St. George, for instance, helps cover the cost of replacing high-flow toilets — but nothing at the level of cities that, for instance, pay residents to replace sod with desert-appropriate landscaping.

Mayor Pike heralded developers who are voluntarily choosing water-smart appliances and landscaping, and cited the planned Desert Color community as an example. But that project’s water-wise cred has been questioned: Its centerpiece is an 18-acre artificial pond.

That said, St. George’s growth could inherently promote efficiencies. Apartment and townhouse construction is finally catching up with demand, which will keep some new residents from the sprawling single-family homes and yards that guzzle so much water. A good deal of new construction will take place on agricultural land where water is already allocated.

But per-person efficiency doesn’t mean less water use overall. Every St. George resident could cut her water use in half, but if the population more than doubles, the city is still using more water. Such is the conundrum of desert growth. “We’d be wise to diversify our sources,” Pike said. “If the Powell pipeline isn’t built, that would change things. … It would slow growth.”

Constructing the pipeline, oddly enough, might trigger cost increases that could curtail water use. While the state would cover the pipeline’s initial costs, locals are on the hook in the long run. In a letter to Utah’s governor, economists at state universities said that water rates would have to jump sixfold for the region to meet its repayment obligations. “Of course, increasing water rates this much would significantly decrease Washington County residents’ demand for water,” the economists wrote. “In our analysis, demand decreased so much that the [Lake Powell pipeline] water would go unused.”

If rates are going up anyway, conservation advocates think the pipeline talk is occurring too soon. “Why don’t they just try [raising rates] now, and see how much demand changes?” Nuding said. “From a water-management perspective, that makes all the sense in the world.”

In this blossoming desert city, leaders have a choice: Do they let the roses go brown, or pay exorbitantly to keep them?

Original source: 

America’s fastest-growing urban area is stuck between a rock and a dry place

Posted in alo, ALPHA, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, ONA, organic, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on America’s fastest-growing urban area is stuck between a rock and a dry place

The tiny country of Fiji has a big plan to fight climate change

After more than a quarter-century of regular meetings to tackle the biggest problem currently facing humanity, the United Nations finds itself treading fresh ground this week — bringing renewed hope for radical climate action.

This week’s meeting is the first to embody the Talanoa Dialogues, an approach led by Fiji to rethink the process of international climate negotiations. (Fiji is the meeting’s official host, but talks are taking place in Bonn, Germany to try to reduce emissions from delegates’ travel.) Representatives from nearly every country on Earth are there to hash out the details of coordinating global climate policy.

It’s no easy task. In fact, this is the 48th such follow-up meeting to a treaty first agreed at the Earth Summit in 1992 in Brazil. Since then, atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen sharply, from about 356 parts per million to the 411 ppm recorded last month. Despite all that talk and all our efforts, the problem is only getting worse — and at a quicker rate each year.

So what’s the answer? Fiji’s representatives think a more inclusive process would be a good start. “We are all in the same canoe, and an effective response to climate change must involve every single person on Earth,” said the island country’s chief negotiator, Luke Daunivalu.

In its first official update on global progress on climate action since the 2015 Paris Agreement, the United Nations said last week that the current diplomatic impasse would lead to warming of more than 3 degrees Celsius. That, said Daunivalu, “would be a catastrophe for all humankind.”

Fiji’s plan is ambitious. It’s designed to ratchet up climate action in line with meeting the Paris Agreement’s stated goals of striving for a world where global warming is held to just 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. In this spirit, talking to each other face-to-face, like actual humans, could be enough to develop a shared vision of a world that, at last, works for everyone.

“It is crucial that these conversations now turn into action on the ground, and result in greater political momentum from governments that leaves no one behind,” says Gebru Jember Endalew, the Ethiopian chair of the Least Developed Countries group, in a email to Grist.

In the Talanoa Dialogues, countries, businesses, cities, scientists, and non-governmental organizations will all meet in person as equals — previously, official negotiations only involved government representatives. The process is centered around personal storytelling to build empathy and trust and aimed at answering three overarching questions, guided by the harsh reality of the science in meeting the 1.5 degree goal: Where are we, where do we want to go, and how do we get there?

The first trial run of this style of negotiation was held Sunday, and met with immediate praise by representatives of countries on the front lines of climate change. Much like translating a weather forecast from impenetrable jargon to plain, urgent language, the dialogues (at least so far) are making the reality of climate change more tangible by introducing delegates to people suffering from it.

“This is the vision the world agreed to in Paris,” said David Paul, environment minister of the Marshall Islands, in a letter posted on Twitter.

The world’s least developed countries have emerged as a powerfully united negotiating bloc in recent years, helping to craft the Paris Agreement to be as ambitious as possible. The trouble is, rich countries like the United States and Germany have pledged less than 10 percent of what’s needed to help fund adaptation to climate change in poorer countries.

Lack of money is the main immediate impediment to bolder action, especially for the countries that didn’t create the problem. Poorer countries simply can’t do this on their own. The money to help protect poorer countries from the increases in extreme weather already taking place will have to come from airlines, oil companies and other polluting industries as well as richer countries that are already well on their way to reducing emissions.

“[1.5 degrees] seems to be a very difficult goal today.” says Anirban Ghosh, who represented the Indian corporation Mahindra at the dialogues, in an email to Grist. “But if we do all that we can do today and keep talking to each other in the Talanoa spirit, we will find our way there.”

At some point, the world will need to rally behind a way of getting things done very different from the official and sluggish U.N. process. The Talanoa Dialogues may at least be a starting point for figuring that out.

Fiji and other island nations are already playing a leading role. If humanity makes it through the next 80 years intact, it will be in large part thanks to the tireless efforts of some of the smallest nations on Earth.

Read the article – 

The tiny country of Fiji has a big plan to fight climate change

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The tiny country of Fiji has a big plan to fight climate change