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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS Solar visionary, Jimmy Carter: craven capitalist, Ronald Reagan
“It’s an old and well-worn story, of course. On June 20, 1979 (the Summer Solstice), President Jimmy Carter stood in front of 32 newly installed solar [water heating] panels on the White House roof, and announced a set of recommendations he sent to Congress regarding a grand new solar strategy. “Carter’s proposals for a ‘coordinated government-wide effort’ on solar power included spending $1 billion the next fiscal year and sustaining the effort for years to follow. ‘By the end of this century, I want our nation to derive 20% of all the energy we use from the sun’, said the president. “Carter’s goals, though in the short term functioning as responses to the ongoing oil crises, would have doubled as a potentially climate-saving lightning bolt. And this wasn’t entirely an accident. A 1965 report had landed on Lyndon Johnson’s desk with recommendations about rising CO2 levels. Carter’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued at least three looks at ‘carbon dioxide pollution’. “The last of those CEQ reports said that there was a need to examine ‘alternative global energy futures’, with a particular focus on limiting the expansion of fossil fuel use. This did not, of course, happen. Ronald Reagan’s environmental record is, obviously, catastrophic, including drastic funding cuts for Department of Energy renewables research. He let Carter’s solar power tax credits expire in 1985; a year later, the solar panels on the White House roof were quietly removed. “In 2023, in terms of total energy consumption, the U.S. managed somewhere between two and three percent from the sun; oil and gas combined accounted for 71%. If you consider just electricity generation, solar accounted for 3.9% of utility-scale generation in 2023. Instead, the U.S. leads the world in both oil and gas production, thanks to the fracking boom and enormous expansions under the last several presidencies, including Obama and Biden.” Listen to Carter’s speech at – Jimmy Carter Might Have Saved the Climate, If the Country Had Let Him Try | RSN. Woodie Guthrie’s song “Trump Made a Tramp Out of Me”
“DJT’s father, Frederick Trump, was a New York realtor and landlord of Woodie Guthrie in Brooklyn NY. Thanks to Jim Hightower for Woodie’s song lyrics about Mr. Trump. Lyrics of “Trump Made a Tramp Out of Me” Mister Trump made a tramp out of me;
Mister Trump has made a tramp out of me;
Paid him alla my bonds and savin’s
To move into his Beach Haven;
Yes, Trump has made a tramp out of me. Mister Trump has made a tramp out of me;
Mister Trump has made a tramp out of me;
Took my lifetime savings away
To move into old One Jay;
Mister Trump has made a tramp out of me. I said, Trump did make a tramp out of me;
Old man Trump made a right nice tramp out of me;
I cain’t warsh nor dry my clothes,
Cain’t hang ’em out in his old sunshine;
’cause Trump has made a tramp out of me. Yessir, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
Yepsir, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
I know it does sound funny;
But, you took my friends and money;
Mister Trump, you made a tramp out of me. Hey, hey, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
Ha ha, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
Your ten yard contract that I signed,
That caused me to lose my mind;
Ho ho, Trump, you made a tramp out of me. Well, well, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
Well, well, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
You charge me so much it just ain’t human,
I’ve got to try to live with president Truman;
Yes, Trump, you made a tramp out of me. Humm, humm, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
Huumm, humm, Trump, you made a tramp out of me;
You robbed my wife and robbed my kids,
Made me stay drunk and to hit the skids;
Yepsir, Trump, you made a tramp out of me.
See more of the Woodie Guthrie Museum at – Woody Guthrie’s song to Mr Trump, DJT’s father. Biden’s legacy: all-of-the-above energy (learned from Obama)
“Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A) tundra landscape looks largely the same as it did in 1923, when it was set aside as a potential source of oil for the US Navy. Apart from scattered test wells drilled in the 1940s and ’50s, there has been very little industrial activity within the 23-million-acre reserve. Roughly the size of Indiana, the NPR-A is the biggest unbroken tract of land in the United States — a refuge for thousands of migratory birds, three of Alaska’s four northern caribou herds, and polar bears. “Now, however, the vast sweep of wildlands is on the verge of becoming the future center of oil and gas extraction on Alaska’s North Slope — largely hinging on a single oil play: the Willow Project. The Willow Project is an endeavor of the oil giant ConocoPhillips, and is expected to generate more than 250 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. At full build-out, Willow will include some 200 wells that together will produce as many as 180,000 barrels of oil a day. “For much of President Joe Biden’s term in office, Willow was a non-issue. The president — who as a candidate had vowed to end new drilling on federal land — had the power to stop it. Instead, in March 2023, Biden approved the Willow Project. “ConocoPhillips has more than a million acres of undeveloped leases south and west of the Willow site. Company officials have outlined plans to expand into what they call Greater Willow I and Greater Willow II. As production declines in one field, ConocoPhillips will move on to the next, one plot after another. “One small company closely watching ConocoPhillip’s progress is Armstrong Oil & Gas. In 2013, Bill Armstrong, a wildcatter from East Texas, made a major discovery on the edge of the NPR-A in what is now called the Pikka field. The Pikka field contains an estimated 900 million barrels of oil and is considered one of the largest onshore petroleum discoveries in over 50 years. It has led to dramatically revised resource estimates for the region. “Armstrong believes that there are other Pikka-size discoveries yet to be made. The next four years of the Trump administration will determine if Armstrong is right.” More at – Oil Giants and the Incoming Trump Administration Hope to Spark a Drilling Boom on Alaska’s North Slope | Sierra Club. Indigenous wisdom episode #4: with Celine Lim
“This podcast is about bringing forward the perspectives of Indigenous communities as we reckon with the consequences of a global, industrial society built on growth, extraction, and colonialism. “The problems besetting the planet today all stem from our disconnection from the Earth. Industrialized humans began to treat the planet as a commodity, and religion chimed in to lead people to believe they could have dominion over the very Earth itself. Celine Lim on the island of Borneo, knows this all too well. “She said, ‘Indigenous communities are such a valuable voice in all our mitigation efforts, or our adaptation efforts. So all this time, if you would have included them to begin with, I could guarantee you we wouldn’t have this crisis, because their deep connection to the Earth, their deep connection to the environment. We would have come up with a more robust way of managing our resources, managing our environment. “Celine Lim, an Indigenous Kayan leader from Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. Celine is the manager of Save Rivers, a grassroots organization that highlights the impacts of destructive logging in Borneo’s forests and Indigenous territories.” Listen at – Holding the Fire: Episode 5. The Delusion of Dominion with Celine Lim | Resilience. Doable steps for reducing your carbon footprint
“Humans currently emit 49 billion tonnes CO2e of greenhouse gas per year — or anyway that was the figure a few years ago, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Our addiction to fossil fuels alone, the burning of which contributes around 30 billion tonnes of CO2e — or 56.6% of our total global emissions — is reason enough for change. “Like any addict, we need to admit to our addiction. But how hard is it for us to make the switch to a low-carbon life? How can we decide if making the switch is worthwhile? This is where Mike Berners-Lee’s new book How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything comes in very handy. “In the book he categorises almost 100 items according to their (UK-based) CO2e per unit. He then gives a simple cradle-to-grave analysis of each item to explain the range of environmental and social impacts attributable to it. “It helps to have a target you can work towards. For ease, Berners-Lee proposes a 10-tonne lifestyle target — that is, a lifestyle causing 10 tonnes of CO2e per year for each person living in the high-polluting developed world. For an average Australian and American, that’s a reduction of around two-thirds from the current level. Each Australian and American has an average footprint of almost 30 tonnes of CO2e per year.” More at – How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything | Profile Books, and Uncovering the Carbon Footprint of Everything | Our World, and Why some foods have the same carbon footprint as 5 miles in an SUV | BBC Food. Yes we have no bananas
“Virtually all the bananas sold across the Western world belong to the so-called Cavendish subgroup of the species and are genetically nearly identical. These bananas are sterile and dependent on propagation via cloning. Seeds are not compatible with selling bananas for consumption because their seeds are very hard and embedded within the fruit, so they can’t be easily removed. “The [Cavendish] bananas that we eat are triploid, which results in the production of fruits without seeds. The familiar bright yellow Cavendish banana is in imminent danger. The vast worldwide monoculture of genetically identical plants leaves the Cavendish intensely vulnerable to disease outbreaks. This most popular variety of bananas may be headed for extinction. “A team of scientists have spent the last 10 years studying the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) tropical race 4 (TR4), and published their research Friday in the journal Nature Microbiology. If bananas being wiped out from a fungal infection sounds familiar, it’s because it is. “During the 1950s and ’60’s, a soilborne fungal disease called Fusarium wilt or Panama disease nearly wiped out an earlier variety of bananas, called Gros Michel, and brought the global banana export industry to the brink of collapse. The fungus can persist in the soil for several decades, thus prohibiting replanting of susceptible banana plants. “Cavendish bananas are resistant to those devastating Fusarium wilt Race 1 strains, so were able to replace the Gros Michel. The entire banana industry was restructured, and to date, Cavendish accounts for 99% of all bananas sold commercially for export to developed countries. But the Cavendish unfortunately has its own weaknesses — most prominently susceptibility to a disease called Black Sigatoka, or the fungus Pseudocercospora fijiensis. “Cavendish growers currently manage Black Sigatoka through a combination of pruning infected leaves and applying fungicides. Yearly, it can take 50 or more applications of chemicals to control the disease. Such heavy use of fungicides helps select for survival of the strains of the fungus with higher levels of resistance to these chemicals.” More at – Banana wilt is threatening the world’s most popular variety of the fruit, scientists say | Courthouse News Service, and The World’s Bananas Are Clones—and They Are in Imminent Danger | Newsweek, and Clone Wars: How Fusarium Fungi Control the Banana Industry | American Society for Microbiology. Reliable electricity from Puerto Rico’s solar micro-grids
“Power was restored to nearly all electrical customers across Puerto Rico on Wednesday, 1 January, after a massive blackout left more than 1.2 million of the U.S. territory’s 1.47 million clients without power. Luma, a private company that oversees electricity transmission said full restoration across the island could take up to two days, and likely require rotating temporary outages. “After Hurricane Maria razed the electrical grid in Puerto Rico nearly six years ago, there was a lot of talk about making the energy system more resilient in the face of climate change and sure-to-occur future calamities. ‘In practice, the opposite occurred’, says Northeastern doctoral candidate Alaina Kinol, who with professor Laura Kuhl co-authored an analysis published this July. The analysis shows that in Puerto Rico, ‘they are rebuilding their previous system, despite public calls for decentralized solar energy’, Kinol says. “Miriam Sierra Burgos will never forget the man who walked into her bakery in the small mountain town of Castañer, Puerto Rico, pleading for a days-old fritter. It was five days after Hurricane Maria passed. After him came people with medications to store in Sierra’s refrigerator, one of the few still running thanks to her generator. Then came residents of the nearby nursing home in search of power for their medical devices. As months passed without electricity, Sierra’s bakery became an ad hoc refuge. Even the nearby hospital came to rely on her. “More than five years after Maria, and despite billions of dollars in allocated federal recovery funding, Puerto Rico’s electric system remains in a state of protracted disaster, its 30,000 miles of fragile power lines and antiquated oil-burning power plants plagued by regular outages and at the mercy of surging fuel prices. For the worst service in the US, Puerto Ricans pay more than double the average rate. “So it was an easy sell when the group, called Cooperativa Hidroeléctrica de la Montaña, aimed to use solar panels and eventually a nearby derelict hydroelectric dam to form a local grid capable of operating independently from the larger system. The first phase of the micro-grid went live earlier this year. Now, Sierra only notices the power is out because of the sound of nearby generators starting up. ‘Solar makes you feel safe’, she said.” More at – Power struggle: Puerto Rico’s battle to fix the electric grid | The Verge, and Why Puerto Rico’s Electric Grid Hasn’t Improved | Northeastern University, and Power restored to nearly all of Puerto Rico after massive New Year’s Eve blackout | CBS News. Salmon return to Klamath River after dams removed
“Explosions roared through the canyons lining the Klamath River earlier this year. In October, the removal of four hydroelectric dams built on the river was completed – the largest project of its kind in US history. The work to restore the river, which winds 263 miles (423km) from the volcanic Cascade mountain range in Oregon to the Pacific coast in northern California, was under way. “‘It has been more successful than we ever imagined’, said Ren Brownell, the spokesperson for the Klamath River Renewal Corporation. The Klamath River was once an ecological powerhouse – the third-largest salmon-producing river in the American west. The ecosystem was home to millions of migrating birds. Tribes, including the Hoopa, Karuk, Klamath, Modoc and Yurok, thrived in this bountiful and beautiful watershed for thousands of years. “After the first dam began operating in 1918, the dams obstructed the migration of salmon and other native species, which help carry nutrients into the systems from the ocean. They also held on to huge stores of sediment that would otherwise have flowed downriver. Increased water temperatures in the river allowed toxic algal blooms to thrive. In 2002, disaster struck. “Algae flourished in the shallow warming waters. The event killed 70,000 salmon and thousands of other species, resulting in one of the worst die-offs ever to occur in the US. In November 2020, nearly 20 years after the die-off, an agreement was forged between a long list of stakeholders. The Klamath River Renewal Corporation was created to oversee and implement the removal.” More at – California tribes celebrate historic dam removal: ‘More successful than we ever imagined’ | The Guardian UK. How can climate refugee costs be paid?
“In the 1930s, a terrible drought plunged farming communities across the United States into catastrophe. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Resettlement Administration, which sought to move entire communities to newly built towns. Almost a century after the Dust Bowl, America is on the cusp of another displacement crisis, this one caused primarily by climate change. “As of the end of 2022, 543,000 Americans have fled their homes to escape a disaster. As the country’s 20th-century infrastructure becomes increasingly incompatible with the 21st-century climate, this number will grow. With the Resettlement Administration long gone, no federal agency bears responsibility for helping the most threatened and remote communities relocate if they wish to do so. “When displacement is unplanned, it can shatter communities, with residents scattering to distant cities, unable or unwilling to return. Planned relocation, by contrast, allows communities to remain intact as they move collectively to safety. Because there is no one agency that coordinates relocations, communities must patch together funding from as many as 12 separate entities in Washington. “In December, the Biden administration recommended changes to the bureaucratic morass hindering community relocation. But it stopped short of instituting these recommendations, or taking the critical step of designating a single agency to lead on climate relocation.” More at – Is America Just Going to Abandon Its Towns Falling Into the Ocean? | The New York Times. | 
