Fun times in Greenland

In heartwarming (and also ice-warming) news:

“Greenland's ice sheet may have shrunk past the point of return, with the ice likely to melt away no matter how quickly the world reduces climate-warming emissions, new research suggests.”

Perfect.

“Scientists studied data on 234 glaciers across the Arctic territory spanning 34 years through 2018 and found that annual snowfall was no longer enough to replenish glaciers of the snow and ice being lost to summertime melting.That melting is already causing global seas to rise about a millimeter on average per year. If all of Greenland's ice goes, the water released would push sea levels up by an average of 6 meters -- enough to swamp many coastal cities around the world. This process, however, would take decades.”

One of the report’s authors, not mincing his words:

"Greenland is going to be the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is already pretty much dead at this point," said glaciologist Ian Howat at Ohio State University.”

Remember that Covid-19 is a mere drop in the water to compared to what’s coming.

Have a nice day.

Crazy French farmers

Meanwhile, in madcap France:

“Ransacked. This is how Tristan Arlaud, an organic farmer established in the south-east of France, returned to see his production on July 8. The greenhouses of the Jardins de Paradis, in Puy-Sainte-Reparade, in the Bouches-du-Rhône, have been lacerated, sheared. The peppers, tomatoes and zucchini are completely destroyed.

“With his wife, the farmer decides to file a complaint. Almost routine for this couple, victim of malicious acts on their agricultural property since 2016. "For four years, their complaints for attacks on property have not reached court," says Quentin Motemps, their lawyer. After this umpteenth complaint, Tristan Arlaud continues to work and eat his own produce.”

Cue Jaws music.

“But a few days later, the farmer needs to be hospitalized suddenly. Feverish, he was vomiting and suffering from diarrhea. He lost seven kilos in four days. He decided to get tested: it turns out he was the victim of glyphosate poisoning. The herbicide was sprayed on to his organic crops. Now they are unusable, and toxic, unfit for consumption under an organic label. Six of his nine greenhouses were sprayed, the loss of earnings amounting to 35,000 euros. "These greenhouses, I can no longer cultivate in them for two years," laments Oriane Arlaud, wife of Tristan.”

Batshit loopy.

Turns out they piss off the local farmers that feel threatened by an organic farmer in their midst.

Why such acts? Their lawyer puts forward the hypothesis of jealousy and fear of new competition that the couple represent for "farmers who have been here for longer, even for generations." In the village where they settled, for the first few years, the activity of these new organic farmers was the subject of "mockery" and "gossip".

And they’ve been there since 2007!

Fun times in grim rural France. Even the sunflowers look sad in the back country these days.

At least some good has come out of it:

“Even today, the two farmers can count on a loyal clientele, and have around 30,000 euros to cover their losses, thanks to online donations. "This is a huge relief, a strong message," the farmer said, moved. “I never thought that people who didn't know us could be so affected by what happened to us. We've been crying like Madeleines for a while now. After ‘a violent psychological shock’, the couple are motivated to rebuild ‘their life’s work’. ”

Crying like Madeleines is apparently a biblical reference. Because these are also Madeleines, and I’ve never seen one crying:

Photo: Lionel Allorge

UK had to fire up coal for the first time in 55 days

As I’ve written about before here and here and here, the UK has been sneakily good at switching to renewables over recent years.

They’re pretty much coal-free now, which is fantastic, even though they still have plenty of natural gas in the mix.

So we now get headlines like this in the Guardian: National grid fires up coal station for the first time in 55 days.

This is what happened:

“National Grid has fired up a coal-fired power station for the first time in 55 days after Britain’s record-breaking heatwave brought wind turbines to a near-standstill and caused gas-fired power stations to struggle.

“The electricity system operator brought Britain’s latest coal-free streak to an end by calling for the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire to begin generating electricity before a peak in electricity demand.

“Electricity supplies have become tighter than expected during the heatwave because gas-fired power stations have struggled to generate electricity at their maximum capacity owing to the unusually high temperatures. At the same time wind turbines have slowed because of low wind speeds.”

An unlucky combination of factors, really.

Shit happens.

To give an idea of just how intermittent wind power can be:

“Electricity output from Britain’s wind farms, which generated 30% of the UK’s electricity in the first quarter of this year, fell to lows of 4% on Wednesday afternoon.”

Bummer!

Anyway:

“It brings to an end the coal free run, but Britain has operated for almost 3,300 hours without coal so far in 2020 – over 60% of the year,” National Grid said via Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.”

Glass half full.

Night train tit-bit for hungry mice

I don’t know about you, but I sure love a new night train tit-bit.

Two night trains are set to be relaunched in France in 2022 (that’s next week in Covid-time): Paris—Tarbes, and Paris—Nice.

Yay!

Now if only the French Railways would invest in some awesome Austrian-styled wagons with private cabins and capsules, that’d be just fab.

I can only dream.

The activists behind “Yes To Night Trains” in France have gone further and proposed the following night train network for 2030:

I can only dream.

You can get night train tit-bits delivered right to your doorway by subscribing to Back On Track’s mailing list.

More enjoyable than reading about Covid-19 deaths, I promise.

Japan kind-of pushes coal out the door

Reuters:

“Japan will introduce measures to accelerate the closure of old, inefficient coal power plants by 2030, the country’s industry minister, Hiroshi Kajiyama, said on Friday.

“The Yomiuri reported on Thursday that Japan will close or mothball as many as 100 old coal plants by about 2030, in what Japan’s biggest selling newspaper said was a major turning point for the country on energy.

“That sentiment was echoed by some environmental groups, which have long criticized Japan’s strong support for the dirtiest fossil fuel.”

Lest we jump for joy too quickly:

“But [Kajiyama] poured cold water on a suggestion by media that the move was a major shift in energy policy, saying Japan will continue to rely on coal power and support the building of newer, more efficient plants.”

Amusingly, the article doesn’t mention one Japanese elephant in the room: Population decline. Japan’s population starting to drop in 2011. It’s 2014 population of 127 million is expected to drop to 107 million by 2040 and 97 million in 2050.

It’s not clear they’ll need new anything plants.

Really, I can’t see “newer, more efficient” coal plants being the go-to for the 2040s, let alone the 2030s or even the 2020s!

Delusional words to keep the coal industrial complex happy.

A particularly low point in the low point that is Adani →

Adani are the dickwads trying to build the Carmichael coal mine in Australia.

If you’re up for a dirty aftertaste in your mouth that only sucking on coal can match, I’ve written about them before here and here and here and here and here and here.

From the Guardian:

“Coalmining company Adani asked a Queensland court for orders that would have allowed its representatives to conduct an unannounced search at the family home of an environmental activist.

“But the supreme court rejected the move, noting the search could result in “humiliation and family distress” for Ben Pennings and others.

“Adani said on Wednesday it was suing Pennings, the national spokesperson of the group Galilee Blockade, which has sought to disrupt the operations of Adani, its suppliers and contractors.

“The former Greens leader Bob Brown released a statement on Thursday, which said the legal action would “send a shudder through every Australian who values democracy, free speech and the right to peaceful protest”.

One would hope that at least 50% of Australians are still on board with these three concepts.

Ben Pennings:

“Adani’s ‘attack dog’ legal strategy is well known. They want to silence dissent about their destructive thermal coal project that a majority of Australians oppose.

“Adani has already bankrupted traditional owner Adrian Burragubba. I will not let a massive multinational company threaten or bankrupt my family.”

Adani:

“Adani said its decision to launch legal action against Pennings was “needed to ensure our business can continue to deliver jobs and opportunities to regional Queensland communities at a time when they were needed most”.

How about instead delivering us some fresh air, cooler temperatures, and slightly less-apocalyptic forest fires, you muppety bunch of slimebags?

Don’t be like Adani.

Be better.

Rose and Jack jump the Adani ship

More news from Stop Adani:

“Korea Investment & Securities (KIS) and the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) are the latest companies to rule out providing finance to Adani's Abbot Point coal port.

“Earlier this week the Managing Director of KIS got in touch with people from the Stop Adani movement announcing KIS’s new policy to not invest in coal, including Adani’s Abbot Point coal port. He specifically mentioned how many emails and phone calls they had received about the issue.”

Not only are these companies refusing to work with Adani, they’re coming out with press releases about it.

Just to get these pesky activists off their backs, methinks.

Good times.

As for the Industrial Bank of Korea:

“Then today, our friends at the Pacific Climate Warriors received a response to their powerful letter calling on the Korean Government and the President of state-owned IBK, confirming that IBK would not provide any further financial support for Adani.”

I believe that’s what we call a double whammy.

Boomshakalaka.

Adani coal in a race against reality

Adani are the scumbags developing the Carmichael coal mine in Australia.

If you need a catch-up, I’ve talked about them before here and here and here and here and here.

From Stop Adani:

“Right now Adani are racing to lock in insurers for their risky and destructive coal project with current contracts expiring soon. 

“With 17 of the world's biggest insurers already refusing involvement with Adani’s toxic project, our intel is that Adani have gone to Lloyd’s of London in a last-ditch effort to find insurance.

“Lloyd’s of London is an “insurance marketplace”—a last resort where insurance buyers and sellers meet to cobble together insurance for some of the world’s riskiest projects.

“Our movement has already pushed Lloyd’s insurer Aspen to rule out any future policies with Adani. Aspen’s deal expires early next year, but we know someone else is involved, and we think it could be prominent Lloyd’s insurer W.R. Berkley.”

This is the end game:

“Adani’s insurance is a house of cards and together our movement is shaking its foundations. By pushing prominent Lloyd’s insurer W.R. Berkley to rule out Adani, we could knock out the key piece that sends the whole thing tumbling down.

“If Adani can’t find companies willing to provide insurance, this leaves CEO Gautam Adani and his family to foot the bill when something goes wrong. The risks of operating without insurance could easily be the last straw, and see the Adani family walk away from this coal project once and for all.”

This is an activist movement with real momentum and real results.

Basically, everyone knows that coal is in a death spiral—even insurance companies. They just need to be held to the (coal-induced forest) fire to keep them on their toes.

You can email W. R. Berkley here and try and freak them out with some choice words.

You can also get email updates from Stop Adani about this pretty little house of cards right here.

Hang in there.

Have we reached peak coal? →

Even back in the dark ages when I went to school, all the talk was about peak oil.

It turns out we hadn’t even reached peak coal:

“The size of the global coal power fleet fell for the first time on record over the first six months of the year, with more generation capacity shutting than starting operation.

“Global Energy Monitor, a US research and advocacy group that tracks fossil fuel development, found the closure of coal generators closing, mostly across Europe and in the US, outstripped stations being commissioned, largely in Asia.

“China, the world’s biggest annual greenhouse gas emitter, continues to dominate coal power development, having built nearly two-thirds of the world’s operating plants and being home to almost 90% of generators under construction. It is home to half the world’s operating coal-fired electricity capacity.

“While China continues to build coal, new construction has ground to a near halt in India, which shut more capacity than it opened. New Delhi oversaw the commissioning of 0.9GWs of coal generation – less than half the size of Australia’s largest coal plants – while 1.2GWs were closed and more than 27GWs of proposals were cancelled.”

At some point we’ll see how much this drop is “reality” and how much it’s “coronavirus”:

“Christine Shearer, Global Energy Monitor’s coal program director, said the global decline was due to both the economic shock of the pandemic and record retirements in the European Union after an increase in the carbon price and tightening of pollution regulation. It follows coal-fired generation falling by an estimated 3% last year.

“It was an opportunity for countries to reassess their energy plans in light of evidence that clean energy was now the cheapest option in many places, she said.”

Exactamundo!

Baby steps to faster US trains →

Compared to Europe, the US is third world when it comes to trains.

Don’t get me wrong, love me those epic three-day dreamscape Amtrak runs across the continent.

But there’s not heaps of fast, friendly, and efficient going on. From USA Today:

“Other than Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, the United States has nothing that comes even close to what's considered high-speed rail in Europe, Japan and China. But it may be moving closer to what other countries have been doing for decades.

"When people see what it’s all about," said Andy Kunz, president of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, "you’ll see people clamoring for this."

Baby steps:

“Virgin Trains USA is currently building a 170-mile extension of its Brightline train from West Palm Beach, Florida, to Orlando International Airport. It is scheduled to open in 2022, with trains that can travel up to 125 mph.”

Fast-ish.

“Across the country, Virgin Trains is moving closer to building the XpressWest train from southern California to Las Vegas.

“The trains are scheduled to begin running in 2023 and will operate at 200 mph, making the 170-mile trip from Victorville, California, to Las Vegas in 85 minutes. The trip takes about three hours by car under ideal traffic conditions. The train trip will cost $60 each way, Porritt said.”

I think I’m speaking for most people when I say, “Where the fuck is Victorville”?

Turns out it’s across the mountains behind LA.

Here are the transport connections from Beverly Hills to Victorville:

Thanks, no thanks.

How many people will drive from LA to Victorville, dump their car, and then train to Las Vegas?

I guess we’ll find out in a few years.

EPA means Excellent Pollution Allowed →

In the US, they have the EPA.

In theory EPA stands for, Environmental Protection Agency.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha x 1000.

“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will sign and issue new rules this week that will get rid of certain methane gas emission requirements for oil and gas producers, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. 

“Unidentified administration officials told the newspaper that the new rules will include getting rid of requirements for producers to have systems and processes to find methane leaks. They will also end EPA oversight of smog and emissions from pipelines and storage sites and lessen monitoring and reporting requirements for certain pollutants, the Journal reported.”

Fantastic.

“In 2019, the agency proposed eliminating requirements for oil and gas companies to install technology for monitoring methane emissions from pipelines, wells and facilities.

“In 2018, it proposed reducing the frequency of monitoring methane emissions of oil and gas wells to every two years and compressor stations that help transport natural gas to just once a year. 

“However, the Journal reported Monday that the administration would forgo the measures that would have reduced the inspection frequency due to difficulty in justifying them legally.”

Love the phrase, Justifying them legally. Just rolls off the tongue, that one.  

New tricks for getting rid of carbon dioxide →

From Clean Technica:

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could do something useful with excess carbon dioxide other than capture it, compress it, and bury it deep in the bottom of the ocean?”

Yes. Yes, it would.

“Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory may have discovered a way to do precisely that.

“According to a press release from ANL, researchers at the lab, working with partners at Northern Illinois University, have discovered a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired final product, and low cost. Ethanol is a particularly desirable commodity because it is an ingredient in nearly all US gasoline and is widely used as an intermediate product in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries.”

Of course, burning ethanol releases CO2.

It’s all about ‘circular carbon’. Get with the program dude:

“The process resulting from our catalyst would contribute to the circular carbon economy, which entails the reuse of carbon dioxide,” says Di-Jia Liu, senior chemist in Argonne’s chemical sciences and engineering division and also a scientist at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. “The process resulting from our catalyst would contribute to the circular carbon economy, which entails the reuse of carbon dioxide,” he says. The new electrochemical process converts carbon dioxide emitted from industrial processes, such as fossil fuel power plants or alcohol fermentation plants, into valuable commodities at reasonable cost.

Lots of use of the word ‘could’ in this article.

Let’s see how well they did in 2030 when summer is a concept that involves looking out the window of an air-conditioned bungalow.

Greenland →

Alarming yet also entirely unsurprising:

“Greenland lost a record amount of ice during an extra warm 2019, with the melt massive enough to cover California in more than four feet (1.25 meters) of water, a new study said.

“That’s far more than the yearly average loss of 259 billion tons (235 billion metric tons) since 2003 and easily surpasses the old record of 511 billion tons (464 billion metric tons) in 2012, said a study in Communications Earth & Environment.”

This works out to 16.9 million kg melted per second across 2019.

Per second.

Lest we pretend this is normal:

“The study showed that in the 20th century, there were many years when Greenland gained ice.”

Yes, there is natural variation.

No, this is not normal.

“Last year’s Greenland melt added 0.06 inches (1.5 millimeters) to global sea level rise. That sounds like a tiny amount but “in our world it’s huge, that’s astounding,” said study co-author Alex Gardner, a NASA ice scientist. Add in more water from melting in other ice sheets and glaciers, along with an ocean that expands as it warms — and that translates into slowly rising sea levels, coastal flooding and other problems, he said.”

Cue nervous laughter.

Eager beavers allowed to keep partying in England as long as they keep 1 m apart →

From the BBC:

“Fifteen families of beavers have been given the permanent "right to remain" on the River Otter in East Devon.”

I wonder what the otters have to say about this? Are they on board with this otterly unexpected invasion?

“The decision was made by the government following a five-year study by the Devon Wildlife Trust into beavers' impact on the local environment.

“The Trust called it "the most ground-breaking government decision for England's wildlife for a generation".

“It's the first time an extinct native mammal has been given government backing to be reintroduced in England."

Epic.

“Environment minister Rebecca Pow said that in the future they could be considered a "public good" and farmers and landowners would be paid to have them on their land.”

Here’s one of the furry ladies in person:

What’s so good about beavers again?

I’m so glad you asked.

As talked about in detail in Isabella Tree’s book, Wilding, which I reviewed here, the latest results are basically as predicted:

“Beavers have the power to change entire landscapes. They feel safer in deep water, so have become master makers of dams and pools.”

“The River Otter beaver trial showed that the animals' skill replenished and enhanced the ecology of the river catchment in East Devon.

“They increased the "fish biomass", and improved the water quality. This meant more food for otters - beavers are herbivores - and clearer and cleaner water in which kingfishers could flourish.

“Their dams worked as natural flood-defences, helping to reduce the risk of homes flooding downstream.”

Beavers are the best.

Be more like beavers.

Some light summer reading →

A full-o-fun book review by Bill McKibben in the New York Review of Books with a dose of Covid-19 thrown in for good measure:

“So now we have some sense of what it’s like: a full-on global-scale crisis, one that disrupts everything. Normal life—shopping for food, holding a wedding, going to work, seeing your parents—shifts dramatically. The world feels different, with every assumption about safety and predictability upended. Will you have a job? Will you die? Will you ever ride a subway again, or take a plane? It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

“The upheaval that has been caused by Covid-19 is also very much a harbinger of global warming. Because humans have fundamentally altered the physical workings of planet Earth, this is going to be a century of crises, many of them more dangerous than what we’re living through now. The main question is whether we’ll be able to hold the rise in temperature to a point where we can, at great expense and suffering, deal with those crises coherently, or whether they will overwhelm the coping abilities of our civilization. The latter is a distinct possibility, as Mark Lynas’s new book, Our Final Warning, makes painfully clear.

Here’s a link to the book.

Lest there be any doubt about the contents, here’s the cover:

Hee hee.

“Lynas is a British journalist and activist, and in 2007, in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate conference, he published a book titled Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. His new volume echoes that earlier work, which was by no means cheerful.”

How’s he feeling these days a decade later, you ask?

“But because scientists have spent the last decade dramatically increasing understanding of the Earth’s systems, and because our societies wasted that decade by pouring ever more carbon into the atmosphere, this book—impeccably sourced and careful to hew to the wide body of published research—is far, far darker.”

A fun fact from the book:

“A rise of one degree doesn’t sound like an extraordinary change, but it is: each second, the carbon and methane we’ve emitted trap heat equivalent to the explosion of three Hiroshima-sized bombs.”

Any glimmers of hope?

Not really:

“Consider what we’ve seen so far as a baseline: we’re definitely not going to get any cooler. But now consider the real problem, the news that scientists have been trying to get across for many years but that has not really sunk in with the public or with political leaders.”

The book review itself is almost book length—go crazy!

Penguin Poo from Space →

It’s all in the title.

“Satellite-mapping technology that detects stains on the ice from penguin droppings has revealed there are nearly 20% more Emperor colonies than previously identified in fast-warming Antarctica.

“Eleven new colonies of the species were found, taking the census to 61 across the polar continent, according to a study by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey published Wednesday. The scientists used images from Europe's Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission to locate the flightless birds.”

One small step for penguin(s), one giant leap for penguin(kind).

Pesky scientists then decided to put a downer on this fantabulous news:

“Scientists warned that most of the newly found colonies are in locations likely to be lost as the climate warms and large sections of seasonal ice -- where penguins mate -- risk disappearing.

"Birds in these sites are therefore probably the 'canaries in the coal mine'," said Phil Trathan, head of conservation biology at BAS. "We need to watch these sites carefully as climate change will affect this region."

Welcome to the world of bummed out scientists.

Dim the lights, save a beetle

From AFP:

“Germany is planning to ban floodlights from dusk for much of the year as part of its bid to fight a dramatic decline in insect populations, it emerged Wednesday.

“In a draft law seen by AFP, the country's environment ministry has drawn up a number of new measures to protect insects, ranging from partially outlawing spotlights to increased protection of natural habitats.

"Insects play an important role in the ecosystem...but in Germany, their numbers and their diversity has severely declined in recent years," reads the draft law, for which the ministry hopes to get cabinet approval by October.”

Also:

“The use of weed-killers and insecticides would also be banned in national parks and within five to ten metres of major bodies of water, while orchards and dry-stone walls are to be protected as natural habitats for insects.

“The proposed reforms are part of the German government's more general "insect protection action plan", which was announced last September under growing pressure from environmental and conservation activists.”

This is what happens when people vote for the Greens.

Meanwhile, in France’s pretend-we-are-green Macron-led government this week:

“The French government will propose lifting a ban on certain pesticides blamed for harming bees to protect sugar beet crops that have been ravaged by insects this year, the agriculture ministry said on Thursday.

“The government plans to support a legislative amendment in parliament later this year to exempt sugar beet for up to three years from a general ban on neonicotinoids, the ministry said in a statement following a meeting with sugar industry representatives.”

As you can imagine, this went down like a shit sandwich in environmental circles.

Damn those pesky bees, eh?

Bye bye ice, hello beer →

From Reuters:

“The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days at the end of July, researchers said on Thursday.”

What size are we talking?

“Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf.

“The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 square kilometres. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 square kilometres.”

If you need to get your mind off Covid-19 for a moment and think about other horrible things, here you go:

“The Arctic has been warming at twice the global rate for the last 30 years, due to a process known as Arctic amplification. But this year, temperatures in the polar region have been intense. The polar sea ice hit its lowest extent for July in 40 years. Record heat and wildfires have scorched Siberian Russia.

“Summer in the Canadian Arctic this year in particular has been 5 degrees Celsius above the 30-year average, Copland said.”

Fun times, fun times. I’ll have a big beer please.