Climate Change Week in Review: Week Ending July 7, 2017

Regulations put in place by the administration of former President Barack Obama to try to limit the leakage of methane into the atmosphere remain in force, after an appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s effort to reverse them.

Meanwhile, the United Church of Christ made its own views clear, as did the Governor of California. And a change in the way Google maps the world, street by street, has opened up the possibility that the “invisible hand” of real estate prices could prove a powerful motivator for the control of emissions (including methane) in the years to come.

Procedures and Fugitive Emissions

On Monday, July 3, a federal appeals court found that the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, President Trump appointee Scott Pruitt, was not acting lawfully when it purported to reverse Obama era rules about methane leaks.

The DC Circuit Court acknowledged that the EPA has “broad discretion to reconsider a regulation at any time.” But it must do so in accord with the Administrative Procedure Act, including requirements for notice and comment.  The same procedures necessary to enact a rule are necessary to amend or revoke it.

The rule in question said that oil and gas drillers and transporters have to report and fix any methane leaks they find in their wells and transfer stations.

Scott Pruitt, the EPA head who once described himself as a “leading advocate against  the EPA’ activist agenda,” came under fire during his confirmation hearings because of a suspicion that he would take just such actions as he sought to take here.

The controversy over this rule, although it has its dry procedural side, fits importantly and ambiguously into the broader jigsaw of U.S. energy policy.  On the one hand, natural gas is the cleanest-burning of the fossil fuels, so some environmentalists maintain that increased use of natural gas is a sensible bridge to a less carbon-reliant energy future. On the other hand, methane is the main component of natural gas, and both pulling natural gas out of the ground, and moving it around, often allows for so-called “fugitive emissions,” unburned methane entering the atmosphere.

The extent of fugitive emissions and the question of whether they undermine the value of natural gas as a bridge to a more sustainable system are very controversial matters.

Church and State

Also on Monday, the biennial gathering of the United Church of Christ agreed on an emergency resolution on climate change.

The resolution specifically alludes to President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, saying that this “violates the values and vision that are basic to Christian faith.”

At each point in the creation of the natural world, according to the first chapter of Genesis, God “saw that it was good.”  These words, as the UCC understands them, mean that the natural order is “precious in God’s sight” and that humans are entrusted “with loving the Earth as God loves it.”

It is time, the resolution continues, “for congregations and for every person of faith to set a moral example through our own words and actions,” by making energy choices compatible with this love of creation, as well as by proclaiming the truth “in the public square.”

The Rev. Dr. Antal, a long-time climate activist, as well as Conference Minister and President, Massachusetts Conference, UCC, was key to the development of this resolution.

Google Maps and the Invisible Hand

In a move that could make the issue of atmospheric emissions a palpable one for nearly every computer literate citizen on earth, except perhaps the few who still use MapQuest, Google say it is now incorporating information about pollution into its street level mapping.

A CBS News report on Tuesday, July 4, said that the google cars that get photographs of streets are now also bottling air, looking for ozone, NO, NO2, CO2 and … methane.

The report quoted Steve Hamburg, chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, saying that over time block by block pollution data will have an impact on real estate prices.  This will create more grassroots pressure, and an attitude of “let’s fix these problems,” he said.

Governor Brown’s Announcement

On Thursday, July 6, Governor Jerry Brown of California announced that his state would host a climate action summit meeting.

“It’s up to you and it’s up to me and tens of millions of other people to roll back the forces of carbonization and join together to combat the existential threat of climate change,” the Governor said.

Brown was twice near the forefront of Democratic candidates for the Presidential nomination, in the primary seasons of 1976 and 1992. Last December he said that California could “put up its own damn satellites” if the incoming Trump administration cut funding for space-based climate data gathering.

In calling for a climate action conference, Brown said that he expects “entrepreneurs, singers, musicians, mathematicians, professors” and others from around the world to participate in that conference this September.

A former United Nations climate chief, Christiana Figueres, supports Governor Brown’s efforts in this regard.  Indeed, she introduced him on Thursday night.

Brown’s announcement went out as a video message to the Global Citizen Festival in Hamburg, Germany.