Thursday, November 21st, 2019
Deutsche Welle, - Reader Supported News
Stephan: If you read me regularly you know I have been talking about the collapse of the Himalayan hydrology for a decade because it is a civilization changing event. One point four billion human beings depend on this hydrology system and it is collapsing, as this story describes. It is going to result in tens of millions of climate change refugees abandoning their homelands and pouring out across the Asian nations, and there is almost no preparation for this.
Snow in Chichim, India signals more than just the coming of a new season; its presence is essential for the survival of the village.’
Credit: Catherine Davison/DW
Tashi Yudon peeks out from behind a net curtain at the rooftops below and lets out a sigh, her breath frosting on the windowpane in front of her.
Some 700 kilometers away in the capital city Delhi, temperatures have yet to dip below 25 degrees Celsius, but in Spiti there is already an atmosphere of impatient expectation as winter settles over the valley.
“The snow will come this month,” the 27-year-old teacher predicts, wrapping her scarf a little tighter around herself. “I hope,” she adds.
Nestled into the Himalayan mountainside at just over 4,000 meters above sea level, her hometown of Chichim is one of the highest villages in Spiti valley. Snow here signals more than just the coming of a new season; its presence is essential for the survival of the village.
“Our water source comes from the mountains,” Yudon explains, pointing to a snow-covered […]
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Thursday, November 21st, 2019
Dustin Gardiner, - San Francisco Chronicle
Stephan: It has become very clear that almost half the individual states and Trump and the Republicans are at antipodal positions. Twenty-two of them are now suing the Trump Administration to preserve stricter auto emission standards in spite of everything Trump is doing to keep the carbon industries alive, prosperous, and unregulated.
California freeway at night
Credit: Robyn Beck / AFP via Getty
California’s fight with the Trump administration over its ability to shape climate policy is headed to court — again — as the state pushes to keep its authority to set stricter auto-emissions standards.
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with the attorneys general of 22 other states, filed a lawsuit Friday that seeks to block the Environmental Protection Agency from stripping parts of California’s federal waiver that allows it to create its own tailpipe rules.
“We cannot afford to backslide in our battle against climate change,” Becerra said during a press conference in Santa Barbara, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. “The Trump administration continues to side with polluters instead of protecting our families, our health.”
Becerra’s lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to review whether the EPA can strip parts of California’s nearly 50-year-old waiver under the Clean Air Act. The waiver was reauthorized in 2013 for vehicles made through 2025 and beyond […]
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Wednesday, November 20th, 2019
Damian Carrington, Environment Editor - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: How many more reasons do we need to exit the carbon energy era? Here's another one.
Credit: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
New research has linked air pollution nanoparticles to brain cancer for the first time.
The ultra-fine particles (UFPs) are produced by fuel burning, particularly in diesel vehicles, and higher exposures significantly increase people’s chances of getting the deadly cancer. Previous work has shown that nanoparticles can get into the brain and that they can carry carcinogenic chemicals.
Brain cancers are rare, and the scientists have calculated that an increase in pollution exposure roughly equivalent to moving from a quiet city street to a busy one leads to one extra case of brain cancer for every 100,000 people exposed.
“Environmental risks like air pollution are not large in magnitude – their importance comes because everyone in the population is exposed,” said Scott Weichenthal, at McGill University in Canada, who led the study. “So when you multiply these small risks by lots of people, all of sudden there can be lots of cases. In a large city, it could be a meaningful number, particularly given the fact that these tumours are often fatal.”
The research […]
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Wednesday, November 20th, 2019
Alexandra Jacobo, - Nation of Change
Stephan: Here is some good news about the transition out of the carbon era. The banks may not have the cleanest motives, but whatever their motives they are beginning to recognize that carbon energy is a dying industry.
Environmentalists have a reason to celebrate this week. The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced on Thursday that it will phase out its financing completely for fossil fuels within the next two years.
The bank’s decision to end all financing of oil, gas, and coal projects after 2021 will make it the first multilateral lender to rule out financing for projects that contribute to the climate crisis.
EIB’s board voted on the decision on Thursday. They hope that this step will make EIB, which is the world’s largest multilateral financial institution, the world’s first “climate bank.”
“Climate is the top issue on the political agenda of our time,” said the bank’s president, Werner Hoyer. “We will stop financing fossil fuels and launch the most ambitious climate investment strategy of any public financial institution anywhere.”
EIB’s vice president, Andrew McDowell, went even further, calling this step “an important first step – not the last step, but probably one of the most difficult.”
Environmentalists are praising the bank’s decision. Bill McKibben of 250.org called it a “truly amazing win” and Friends of the Earth Europe
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Wednesday, November 20th, 2019
, - WHNT19/Associated Press
Stephan: It is very interesting, if tragic, like watching a slow-motion car wreck, to see the difference between the Blue value states and Red value states when it comes to the transition out of the carbon era. You know the outcome will be disastrous, but it is hard to look away.
Red value Alabama, less a state and more a third world country, makes the point very clearly. And the amazing thing is that the people of Alabama will probably vote to continue their incompetent corrupt government in 2020 even though it trashes their lives in a 100 ways.
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA — When Jim Bankston installed solar panels on his Tuscaloosa home, he estimated it would trim his electricity bill, and the savings would eventually offset the cost of the hefty investment.
After it was running, he noticed fees on his Alabama Power bill that he didn’t understand and learned there was a $5-per-kilowatt capacity charge on customers who use solar panels to produce a portion of their own electricity.
“I am having to pay them just to use the photons that are hitting my own roof,” Bankston said.
He had estimated the system would eventually pay for itself in 20 years. With the fees included, he said it could be twice that. “I won’t be alive anymore, maybe,” the 45-year-old radiologist says wryly, also noting that it also might be beyond the life span of the panels he installed.
The Alabama Public Service Commission will hold a Nov. 21 hearing on a challenge to the fees charged by Alabama Power. The utility says the fees are needed to provide backup power for customers. But critics say the fees are some of the highest […]
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