Friday, November 22, 2019

The Coal Industry also knew about climate change as early as 1966 (and check out info on Peabody and Fred Palmer)

We talked about the problem that Peabody gives money to WUSTL to say "clean coal" but it is also involved in climate science denialism, although new evidence suggests that Peabody knew about climate change tied to CO2 as early as 1966.

Also, the article details Fred Palmer and Peabody's lies about CO2 in more detail (as we discussed in class in past lectures).  This is the kind of associate WUSTL is dealing with while it says it is a leader in sustainability.  Both false and shameful.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/coal-industry-climate-change_n_5dd6bbebe4b0e29d7280984f?ri18n=true


From the article:
"While Peabody Energy, the largest private-sector coal company in the world and the largest producer of coal in the U.S., now acknowledges climate change on its website, it has been directly and indirectly involved in obfuscating climate science for decades. It funded dozens of trade, lobbying and front groups that peddled climate misinformation, as The Guardian reported in 2016
As recently as 2015, Peabody Energy argued that carbon dioxide was a “benign gas essential for all life.” 
“While the benefits of carbon dioxide are proven, the alleged risks of climate change are contrary to observed data, are based on admitted speculation, and lack adequate scientific basis,” the company wrote in a letter that year to the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
At the heart of big coal’s denial campaign was Fred Palmer, who served as Peabody’s senior vice president of government relations from 2001 to 2015. In 1997, Palmer founded the Greening Earth Society, a now-defunct industry front group that argued that burning fossil fuels was good for the planet. The group was based in the same office as the Western Fuels Association, a consortium of coal suppliers and coal-fired utilities that Palmer also ran. 
“Every time you turn your car on and you burn fossil fuels and you put CO2 into the air, you’re doing the work of the Lord,” Palmer told a Danish documentary team in 1997. “That’s the ecological system we live in.” 

Monday, November 4, 2019

My Water's On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song) - YouTube

I don't think better oversight can fix fracking, but this video at least does a good job of pointing out why the current situation is a "toxic socio-technical assemblage."





My Water's On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song) - YouTube

Monday, October 28, 2019

Monday, September 30, 2019

Nearly 70 Activists Arrested Attempting to Steal Coal From One of New England's Biggest Coal Plants

Nearly 70 Activists Arrested Attempting to Steal Coal From One of New England's Biggest Coal Plants



"“While everyone showing up globally is really important, I think it’s even more important to take on local battles because we aren’t seeing the sweeping change in the United States for climate policy with the current administration at all, so doing things locally is really important because everybody has a stake in the future of the climate,” Beaulieu said. “Shutting down one coal plant might not seem like this huge, world-changing event, but it’s one more step in the right direction.”"

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

No, The U.S. Is Not A Net Exporter Of Crude Oil

No, The U.S. Is Not A Net Exporter Of Crude Oil (via Forbes)

Sorting out how complex it is to understand oil dependence (or independence)

Climate Protesters Snarl Traffic but Washington Still Goes to Work

Climate Protesters Snarl Traffic but Washington Still Goes to Work

Tomgram: Michael Klare, A Formula for Catastrophe in the Arctic | TomDispatch

Tomgram: Michael Klare, A Formula for Catastrophe in the Arctic | TomDispatch

How Mike Pompeo and the militarist-oil factions want to keep warming the planet so we can get at the fossil fuels and other minerals under the Arctic.


The scramble for the Arctic’s resources was launched early in this century when the world’s major energy firms, led by BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Russian gas giant Gazprom, began exploring for oil and gas reserves in areas only recently made accessible by retreating sea ice. Those efforts gained momentum in 2008, after the U.S. Geological Survey published a report, Circum-Arctic Resources Appraisal, indicating that as much as one-third of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas lay in areas north of the Arctic Circle. Much of this untapped fossil fuel largess was said to lie beneath the Arctic waters adjoining Alaska (that is, the United States), Canada, Greenland (controlled by Denmark), Norway, and Russia -- the so-called “Arctic Five.”

Friday, September 20, 2019

Art Build Techniques for Protest

Art Build Techniques for Protest

A little research on how to make big cool stuff for protests....

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

HUGE NEWS: U CAL SYSTEM TO DIVEST FROM FOSSIL FUELS: Opinion: UC investments are going fossil free. But not exactly for the reasons you may think

Opinion: UC investments are going fossil free. But not exactly for the reasons you may think



UC Berkeley students demonstrate in favor of fossil fuel divestment in 2014.

The Words of Water: Why Environmentalists Are Losing the Water Wars • The Revelator

The Words of Water: Why Environmentalists Are Losing the Water Wars • The Revelator

Sent to me by a WUSTL GEAD alum, Julia Widman, a GEAD Hall of Famer now, who now works for the Waterkeepers Alliance, fighting fossil fuel expansion along the Gulf Coast.  The author of this article offers this great quote, which has everything to do with what we call "discursive formations.":



"Language is a tool of political manipulation — when you use and repeat your opponent’s language, you solidify their status and your own oppression.Consider this mumbo-jumbo that you hear when talking to water agencies: “When a water right is in priority, you perfect it by sweeping the river so that excess supplies are held in storage for consumptive use.”
What really happened? They dammed, drained and destroyed a river, which is a living, breathing life force — the veins of the planet — providing survival to a vast array of nonhuman creatures that have entire cultures and languages of their own.
If they steal your language, they steal your soul. Don’t let them."





The oil industry vs. the electric car (Politico)

The oil industry vs. the electric car

"The oil industry is trying to crush the booming electric car movement.  Groups backed by industry giants like Exxon Mobil and the Koch empire are waging a state-by-state, multimillion-dollar battle to squelch utilities’ plans to build charging stations across the country."

Missouri regulators vow to keep closer eye on power plant ‘self-scheduling’

Missouri regulators vow to keep closer eye on power plant ‘self-scheduling’

The Shift to Electric Vehicles Propels a Strike Against GM

The Shift to Electric Vehicles Propels a Strike Against GM



It's a lot easier to make EVs than fossil cars, and that means fewer jobs.



For a just transition, corporations and government have to help workers transition into new jobs.




Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Los Angeles OKs a deal for record-cheap solar power and battery storage

Los Angeles OKs a deal for record-cheap solar power and battery storage

This Is the Drilling Method for Most US Oil But Regulators Offer Almost No Oversight

This Is the Drilling Method for Most US Oil But Regulators Offer Almost No Oversight

We will be discussing fracking in coming weeks, but also, when people talk about carbon sequestration (i.e. 'clean coal') of CO2, they are often talking about using that CO2 to do this: get more oil out of the ground (enhanced oil recovery, EOR)...stay tuned.





The legislation that added a new tax credit for those who store CO2:
"The tax credit offered $10 per metric ton for enhanced oil recovery previously. That will ramp up to $35 a ton by 2024. A $50 a ton tax credit will be available for companies doing carbon capture and storage (CCS) in geologic formations."
https://energynews.us/2018/07/10/midwest/an-faq-on-45q-what-federal-carbon-storage-tax-credit-means-for-midwest/

The legislation to get government to support more CCUS:

Update on 'Carbon Capture' legislation, April 2019:
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/438534-senators-introduce-bipartisan-carbon-capture-bill


Follow the bill through congress: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1201/titles

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Property question prompts latest challenge to Grain Belt Express

Property question prompts latest challenge to Grain Belt Express



Read how complicated it is to build new renewable infrastructure.   Big business (even if it's wind) is not the only path to a renewable future, but at least it's better than the big fossil fuel burning businesses we now have.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

AOC kills it again