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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS Renewables or fossil fuels? Corporatists are building both
“Despite all the talk of ‘decarbonization’, in 2023 global coal production reached a record high of 26% of the world’s total energy consumption. Oil, gas and coal still account for 82% of the global energy mix. Meanwhile greenhouse gas emissions galloped to a new high in 2023. The much-vaunted ‘energy transition’ is struggling with history and complexity. “At the same time, the explosion of AI and data centres is now competing for new sources of electricity from renewables, methane and nuclear energy that will exceed the ability of utility providers to expand their capacity fast enough. “French historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, is not surprised by our seeming inability to replace fossil fuels with renewables that require fossil fuels for their construction. A green energy transition on the scale promised by global power brokers simply won’t happen Fressoz says in his new book More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy. “The problem, explains Fressoz, is that humans don’t neatly shift from one energy source to another, nor do they march in lockstep from biomass to coal to oil to renewables. Evolving high-energy societies incorporate their old energy addictions into new ones to solve more problems. As a result, they consume more energy of any kind.” More at – A Reality Check on Our ‘Energy Transition’ | The Tyee. LA Fire Department underfunded during climate crisis
“Less than 12 hours after a massive fire began ripping through the Pacific Palisades on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) made a rare request. All LAFD firefighters, including those off-duty, were asked to phone in their availability. Such a summons hadn’t been issued in nearly two decades. “LAFD budget cuts last June included a reduction in payroll, reduced funds for operating supplies, and the elimination of 58 positions. The Board of Fire Commissioners sent a report to the City Council outlining how the funding cuts had adversely impacted the department’s crucial services. “In June, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed a budget that cut the fire department’s funding by more than $17.5 million. The city’s 2024-25 fiscal year budget shaved funding from the majority of city departments — but not the police. The Los Angeles Police (LAPD) Department received a funding bump of nearly $126 million. The fire department operating budget is about a third of what the LAPD is allocated. “The consistent defunding of other city programs in order to give the LAPD billions a year has consequences, and these elected officials do actually have blood on their hands, said Ricci Sergienko, a lawyer and organizer with People’s City Council LA. Critics have noted that defunding the fire department is a recipe for disaster as the climate crisis brings increasingly devastating fires to the drought-stricken region.” More at – LA Gave More Money to Cops While Cutting Fire Budgets. Now It’s Burning. | The Intercept. Unholy guacamole
“Over the past two decades, avocados have undergone a surge in popularity. Regions like Mexico’s Michoacán have witnessed the rapid expansion of large-scale monoculture plantations. This shift from traditional, mixed-crop farming to monoculture has also triggered significant environmental repercussions. “In Michoacán, vast swaths of land are cleared annually to make way for avocado orchards. This deforestation diminishes critical habitats for jaguars and monarch butterflies, exacerbates soil erosion, reduces biodiversity, and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. “Most avocado plantations rely heavily on fertiliser and fossil fuels, contributing to rising greenhouse gas emissions. Avocados have a carbon footprint of around 2.5kg CO₂e per kg of fruit. This figure surpasses that of many other fruits. The carbon footprint of avocados is more than twice as high as bananas (0.9kg CO₂e per kg) and over five times higher than apples (0.4kg CO₂e per kg), although it is only slightly worse than tomatoes (2kg CO₂e per kg). “Avocado trees are very thirsty plants, requiring an average of around 1,000 litres of water per kg., ten times the amount needed for tomatoes. This is higher than most other fruits and vegetables but lower than some cereals such as rice. Mexican avocado farmers have been caught illegally siphoning water from villages for their crop, contributing to regional droughts as rivers and wells have dried up. “Virtually all the deforestation for avocados in Michoacán and Jalisco over the past two decades has violated Mexican federal criminal law. The additional crime of intentionally setting forest fires frequently facilitates the deforestation. Climate Rights International encountered widespread fear, indignation, and outrage that local forests were being destroyed and water supplies depleted and stolen. “Brutal organized crime groups that dominate the region have multiple links to parts of the industry. People were afraid that by taking action to defend the environment they would put themselves in danger. Indigenous Purépecha communities have collectively mobilized to protect forests, but they too have been thwarted by violence and intimidation.” More at – What actually makes avocados bad for the environment? | The Conversation, and How Avocado Farming Impacts the Environment | World Economic Magazine, and Unholy Guacamole | Climate Rights International, and Avocado: the ‘green gold’ causing environment havoc | World Economic Forum. Indigenous views of the land as personal and sacred
“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. “As the Great Unraveling unfolds, it is almost always the most vulnerable populations, those with the fewest resources, who suffer the most, whether it be from climate impacts, collapsing economies, or dysfunctional governments. “Sam Olando from Kenya, spoke to an aspect of this vulnerability that many of us don’t often consider. ‘In my community, land is the basis of your identity, and it gives you a home. We connect land with our ancestors. If this is where I buried my forefathers then I’ve got a special attachment to it.’ He is all too familiar with governments or corporate projects displacing increasing numbers of people from their ancestral lands. “Sam Olando, a Luo man from Kenya, is a human rights defender and community organizer who is the executive director of Pamoja Trust, an NGO dedicated to promoting access to land, shelter, and basic services for the vulnerable.” More at – Holding the Fire: Episode 6. Deep Relationship to the Land with Sam Olando | Resilience. Indigenous Indonesians losing land to nickel mining
“The Indigenous O’Hongana Manyawa, ‘People of the forest’ in their language, are one of the last nomadic, hunter-gatherer tribes in Indonesia. Always dependent on the dense forests of Halmahera for their livelihood, the tribe has developed customs that respect the jungle and its contents and protect them from various threatening activities. The flourishing of the people and the forest have been connected for hundreds of years. “The tribes have rarely had direct contact with people outside the forest. But now, huge areas of their territory have been allocated to mining companies, and in some areas, excavators are already at work. Most recently, the tribe’s relationship with the forest has been disturbed by nickel dredging projects in several corners of Halmahera. “Indonesia holds about 42% of the world’s total nickel reserves, and it is planning to maximize mining it to meet the steep rise in global demand for the metal critical to the energy transition. But mining Indonesian nickel ore requires felling the forests atop the deposits. “Nickel mining and smelting are not without environmental impacts. Twelve new coal-fired electricity plants power the smelters. Satellite imagery shows queues of trucks snaking along the road and heavy equipment digging into the hills beside it. Residents have complained of a steep increase in floods and landslides exacerbated by the deforestation for mining upstream on large rivers.” More at – A Nickel Rush Threatens Indonesia’s Last Nomadic Tribes and Its Forests, Fishermen and Farmers | Inside Climate News. Strategic metals mining has high ecological costs
“Enthusiasm for supposedly ‘clean’ and ‘free’ solar and wind energy must be tempered by a realistic knowledge of the mining and refining needed to produce huge quantities of solar panels, wind turbines, transmission lines, electric motors, and batteries. Vince Beiser explains why we would need drastic increases in mining of critical metals — including copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and the so-called ‘rare earths’ — if we were to run anything like the current global economy solely on renewable electricity. “Extending current trend lines leads to the following prediction: By 2050, the International Energy Agency estimates, demand for cobalt from electric vehicle makers alone will surge to nearly five times what it was in 2022; nickel demand will be ten times higher; and for lithium, fifteen times higher. The energy transition will come with high ecological costs. “Nickel processing devours huge amounts of energy, and most of Indonesia’s electricity is generated by coal-fired plants. That’s right: huge amounts of carbon-intensive coal are being burned to make ‘carbon-neutral’ batteries. When there is a choice of nations for suppliers, the global economy leans to nations with lax environmental and labour standards as well as low wages.” More at – Critical metals and the side effects of electrification | Resilience. Road expansion from 2021 infrastructure act increased emissions
“The supposed climate-friendly 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) has, to date, resulted in increased emissions. The bipartisan IIJA proposed $1.2 trillion in funding for transportation spending, as well as broadband expansion, clean water, and electricity grid renewal. But the IIJA has actually contributed to a business-as-usual approach, with states continuing to spend funds on highway expansion and resurfacing projects. “Over $37 billion in IIJA funding has gone toward new highways and wider roads. Using emissions increase and reduction output modeling figures, these projects could induce the equivalent of more than 77 million cumulative metric tonnes of CO2e [equivalent] emissions above pre-IIJA baseline levels. “States have high levels of flexibility to determine how this funding is spent. With modern Republican leaders largely denying that the climate crisis is real, and many Democratic leaders rating it a low priority, most states have continued a highway-centric approach.” More at – Biden Infrastructure Law Mostly Funded Road Expansion, Leading to Climate Backsliding | The Urbanist. Oil lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge flops
“One of President-elect Mump’s* biggest ‘drill, baby, drill’ initiatives suffered a significant setback on Wednesday as the Interior Department announced that a lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ended without a single bidder. The sale marks the second time in four years that an effort to auction oil and gas leases in the pristine wilderness has been a flop. “Some Alaska lawmakers and officials, including the governor, had said before the sale that the decision by the Biden administration to shrink the leasing area would guarantee failure. But Laura Daniel-Davis, the acting deputy secretary of the Interior Department, noted that the oil and gas industry is ‘sitting on millions of acres of undeveloped leases elsewhere” and should pursue those first’. “The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is an expanse of roughly 19 million acres along the North Slope of Alaska. It’s one of the last truly wild places in the United States. It also includes land considered sacred by the Gwich’in, an Alaska Native group.” More at – Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Received No Drilling Bids | The New York Times.
* Mump regime — Musk plus Trump. Mu…mp. Myth of “clean” energy “shift” causes ecosystem overshoot
“The global energy sector defied expectations this year, in ways both good and bad for the climate. Four charts highlight key trends in the transition to clean energy. Solar is driving the shift to renewable power, reaching new highs in 2024, owing largely to China, which accounted for more than half of all solar installed globally this year. However, coal burning also continued to surpass expert predictions, also owing largely to China, which is responsible for more than half of all coal use globally. “The surge in EV sales in China is sending ripples through its energy sector. On the one hand, Chinese gasoline demand is slowing. On the other, power demand is rising as EVs spur greater consumption of electricity. Along with EVs, the growth of electric heating and cooling and the proliferation of energy-hungry data centers globally are driving up demand for power.” More at – The Year in Energy in Four Charts | Yale E360. | 
