Posts From Jessica Goldberg
Mayor: PG&E assets are ‘great’ opportunity to bring clean energy to San Francisco
by Romy Varghese, Bloomberg San Francisco Mayor London Breed wants to use PG&E Corp.’s bankruptcy to take over some of the company’s assets for the city’s power needs, a move that would shake up California’s largest utility and remake the state’s energy landscape.
Breed said she sees an opportunity to deliver clean power to her residents while keeping rates as low as possible.
She’s awaiting the release of a study later this month that would outline the feasibility of assuming control of PG&E’s local infrastructure.
“I’m pretty excited about it, and I am hopeful that we are able to do it,” Breed said in an interview with Bloomberg News Wednesday at City Hall.
“It could be great.
It could be significant for the future of our city and for the future of renewable energy here.” Breed’s remarks showed the potential for sweeping change at San Francisco-based PG&E, which filed for bankruptcy in January under the weight of an estimated $30 billion in liabilities from wildfires.
The mayor spoke in a wide-ranging interview in which she also discussed the city’s homelessness crisis and appealed to companies to support her efforts to make use of a controversial tax to address it.
Breed said she has been talking to the team of advisers assembled by Governor Gavin Newsom on the issue.
Newsom last week unveiled a range of options for the state to examine, including “municipalization” for PG&E if it didn’t change its behavior.
Breed said Wednesday that one of her two nominees to the city’s Public Utilities Commission, which could help expedite decisions on a takeover, had worked to shut down a PG&E plant in her district as a city supervisor.
Does The U.S. Import Oil From Russia?
Joining an OPEC-led bloc to keep oil off the global market to push prices up, Russia to start the year had agreed to cut 228,000 b/d from October levels.
Yet in March, the nation’s production was just 190,000 b/d less.
As a sanctioned U.S. country, the question I want to answer: Do We Import Oil From Russia?
This fall makes sense since U.S. crude production has more than doubled since 2011 to around 12.2 million b/d today, while domestic demand has been flat at 19-20 million b/d.
Russia’s oil exports in 2018 totaled $130 billion, up nearly 40% from the year before.
Each year, Russia has an extra 8-9 million b/d of crude oil available for export, the largest oil surplus in the world.
Oil prices would fall to that level if OPEC abandoned its deal as well.
In contrast, U.S. proven reserves have increased 66% over that time to 50 billion barrels.
Russia realizes the undeniable ongoing importance of oil and gas and is seeking to develop the Artic for its treasure trove of natural resources.
In addition, although the country has not yet needed to exploit it, there is unlimited potential in Russia for shale oil and gas production.
This Habit Is A Sign That Your Tech Addiction Is Worse Than You Think
Here’s one way to tell: According to a new survey released this week, people who go to sleep with their phones tend to exhibit worse tech addiction than those who go to bed without it.
More than 70 percent of people who sleep with their phones in bed with them check their phones at least every 15 minutes throughout the day.
Compared to tech-free sleepers, those who take their phones to bed tended to use their smartphones more frequently and lead more “smartphone-centric” lives.
For example, 51 percent of them check social media every 15 minutes throughout the day (compared to 23 percent of tech-free sleepers), and they spend a median of 3.5 hours a day on social media total (compared to two hours a day for tech-free sleepers).
What’s more, 53 percent of people who sleep with their phones also say they can’t go more than an hour without their phone on them.
Meanwhile, some 31 percent of people who sleep with their phones said they cannot go a single second without their phones.
Why do people who sleep with their phones tend to have a deeper overall attachment to their devices? “Those who sleep with their smartphones check their devices more and use social media twice as much as those who leave it out of their personal chamber,” he explains, noting past studies that’ve shown the mental health effects of excessive social media usage.
There’s some good news here: According to the survey, 72 percent of people have tried to cut back on their phone use in the past, and 47 percent are currently working on reducing their screen time.
But if that sounds hard to you, don’t feel too bad—according to the BOLDFISH survey, just three percent of people keep their phone in a separate room or area from where they sleep.
Everlane is finally (finally!) getting into the sneaker game
(I do not care if you live by the beach, flip flops are still terrible and I stand by my thoughts.)
But in a show of my ability to be flexible and open to new ideas, I have done a 180 on my feelings about sneakers.
I am a recent inductee into the sneakers club.
Now I am obsessed and will attempt to make sneakers work for pretty much any occasion.
However, and it pains me to say this, sneakers are not the most sustainable fashion items, often using lots of virgin plastic and generating something like 30 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.
One such brand is Everlane, which is launching the sustainable sneaker line Tread by Everlane on April 25.
Everlane was founded in 2011, but it took the brand eight years to launch a sneaker because they wanted to do it sans the negative environmental impact.
“With Tread by Everlane, we are providing customers a sneaker that isn’t full of virgin plastic and that is versatile so it can stand the test of time.” I asked Melville about Everlane’s decision to use leather, because leather is notoriously one of the worst environmental offenders.
But because this doesn’t offset all of the emissions, Tread by Everlane partnered with a third-party firm, NativeEnergy, to figure out the full carbon footprint of the Trainer for its entire life cycle—right back to the cattle farms.
“Many shoe brands don’t include the impact of raising cattle in their footprint and it’s considered a best practice to do so,” Melville explains.
Ocean circulation likely to blame for severity of 2018 red tide around Florida
While traces of the bloom are always present offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans finds ocean circulation made 2018 the worst year for red tide in more than a decade.
By affecting the nutrient levels offshore, marine scientists at the University of South Florida (USF) showed that the ocean circulation played a controlling role.
If nutrient levels offshore are high in spring due to the upwelling of deeper ocean waters, then there tends not to be major red tide blooms along the shoreline in fall.
Such upwelling did not occur in winter and spring of 2018, allowing a new bloom to form offshore in spring and summer 2018.
Tropical Storm Gordon temporarily disrupted the upwelling circulation, allowing some of the new bloom to be carried to the Florida Panhandle. “This further demonstrates that the ocean circulation is the major determinant of Florida’s, Karenia brevis harmful algae blooms, dispelling the myth that land-based fertilizers are to blame,” said Robert Weisberg, PhD, Distinguished University Professor of Physical Oceanography. “While pollutants can exasperate an existing red tide, they are not the root cause.”
In addition to ocean circulation models, the team at USF and collaborators with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) deployed an autonomous underwater glider for a near month-long mission.
On-site sampling also helped pinpoint the initiation zone for all three regions to be the middle shelf some 30 to 50 miles off the coast from north of Tampa Bay to Sarasota Bay.
Weisberg and his colleagues have accounted for the occurrence or lack of occurrence of major red tide blooms in 20 of the past 25 years based on the ocean circulation conditions.
Have hope, humanity is finding ways to defeat climate change
Comment: In a new book, Ed Davey finds examples the world can follow to respond to the moral calls from activists Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg Tigray province in Ethiopia was once the site of desperate famine, but careful land restoration has brought it back to life (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Yogesh Mhatre)) Some 35 years ago, in the year 1984, Ethiopia was in the midst of an acute famine, leading to the loss of at least 400,000 lives and an international humanitarian campaign which people remember to this day.
The journalist Michael Buerk, reporting for the BBC at the time, described the scenes in parts of the country as ‘a biblical famine in the 20th century’.
Today – while over 8 million Ethiopians remain food insecure and the prospect of acute hunger still stalks the Horn of Africa – the government of Ethiopia has embarked on a national effort to restore at least 15 million hectares of agricultural land, as part of a set of measures to ensure that famine will never take place again.
Prime minister Abiy Ahmed has made rural growth and job creation a priority of his government.
His government has also strengthened its commitment to a national programme intended to make Ethiopian agriculture more sustainable and productive, generating better livelihoods and value chains for farmers, while taking pressure off the country’s remaining forests, wetlands and other ecosystems.
In a number of areas of this beautiful and diverse country, communities which have restored land have already been shown to be more resilient to drought, as well as more able to produce the food they need to sustain themselves.
Restoration activities have also created more jobs, led to the replenishment of groundwater sources and fostered a stronger sense of attachment to the land.
In a short book published today – ‘Given Half a Chance: Ten Ways to Save the World’ – I seek to describe a number of examples from around the world in which humanity has found a new way, seemingly despite all the odds, of living in harmony with the natural environment upon which we all depend.
Extinction Rebellion: Leading climate lawyer arrested after gluing herself to Shell headquarters Back in Ethiopia, one area in particular – the northern Tigray region, particularly gravely affected by the famine from 1983-1985 – has shown the extent of what is possible in restoring the earth.
The establishment of soil and water conservation structures on the hillsides to counter soil erosion, coupled with the planting of trees and shrubs, ensures that every drop of water that falls during the region’s two-month-long rainy season is captured in the soil.
Jay Inslee’s Pitch For All-Climate Change Debate Gains Traction
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Jay Inslee to have a presidential debate focused on climate change gained steam on Wednesday with backing from a rival 2020 candidate and a coalition of environmental groups.
The governor, who is centering his presidential campaign around climate change, said in an email to supporters that the Democratic nominee selected to challenge President Donald Trump needed to have a “concrete plan to address” the phenomenon, and that American’s deserved to hear it in advance of the primaries.
Most Democrats in the crowded field have made climate change a core tenet of their campaigns, in direct opposition to Trump’s climate-denying policies.
The White House has dramatically rolled back many environmental regulations and moved to withdraw the U.S. from the landmark Paris Climate Agreement as Trump himself has mocked the science around the issue.
Inslee’s debate idea was quickly endorsed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who called climate change the “greatest threat to humanity today.” “A DNC debate focused on climate change would show the world that America intends to lead again on this issue, and would be a smart place to discuss the key tenets of the Green New Deal — infrastructure, green jobs and clean air and water — and how to put a price on carbon,” Gillibrand said in a statement to The Daily Beast.
But it’s unclear how far those conversations will go.
The DNC’s communications director declined to commit to Inslee’s proposal, simply saying that the party was “eager to put forward solutions to combat climate change” and that future debates would “absolutely have these discussions during the 2020 primary process.” “The DNC is currently ironing out the details for all 12 debates and will work with the networks to ensure that Democrats have a platform to discuss these issues directly with the American people,” the spokesperson, Xochitl Hinojosa, told Axios.
“We need to know that whoever is nominated to take on Trump in 2020 has what it takes to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and fight for bold solutions to the climate crisis,” the coalition said in a statement.
What drought? These states are gearing up to draw more water from the Colorado.
These projects are in different stages of permitting and funding, but are moving ahead even as headlines about the river’s dwindling supply dominate the news.
The headwaters of the river and the main source of water lie in the upper basin, which includes Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.
The lower basin, where much of the water is used, includes Nevada, California, and Arizona.
The upper basin has never used its full allotment of water.
As a result, lower basin states such as California and Arizona have benefitted from the “bonus water” that upper basin states have left in the river.
“The upper basin is going to an all-you-can-eat buffet and the lower basin is going on a diet,” said Zachary Frankel, executive director of Utah Rivers Council.
The state wants to build a 140-mile pipeline from the reservoir, which is currently near historic lows, to Washington and Kane counties in southwest Utah.
The pipeline is estimated to cost between $1.1 and $1.8 billion, but Nuding says conservation measures could be implemented to save the same amount of water the pipeline would transport for a third of that cost.
Utah has the legal right to draw more water from the river.
It is allowed to use 1.7 million acre-feet every year, but only draws about a million.
We are not yet doomed: the carbon cutters determined to save the world
The Guardian’s Upside team heard from more than 200 carbon cutters in a callout to readers.
The differences are very, very small.” Österling and his team are reaching out to artists, conductors and composers willing to make their way to the Swedish city by train, road or boat.
But it also plans to install its own solar and other generators on its sites.
The Wellington tree planting project will contribute to a central government plan to plant one billion trees by 2028, which forms part of New Zealand’s ambition to be carbon zero by 2050.
But they are more likely to act if they can see others are acting too.” Inspired by a similar campaign in Sweden, FlightFree invites people to pledge not to take any flights in 2020, if enough other people are willing to do the same.
The man behind the plan is 65-year-old Plymouth city council worker Paul Vann: “I started a campaign to get villagers to switch to a green supplier like Bulb after finding out it offers 100% renewable energy.
I was hoping to get a village-sized solar farm in the parish but unfortunately the power lines around here are at capacity.” The local parish has been supportive of the idea and Vann believes that if his village can make the change then the benefits to the environment would be great: “Even if only 100 households switch that would be equivalent to planting thousands of trees.
With the greening initiative it’s also having an impact on its carbon footprint by reducing the theatre’s energy usage by 41% since 2016.
Fred Glasser, emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Aberdeen, says: “The expensive bit [of CCS] is that to pump carbon dioxide to the disposal site [usually offshore] it has to be liquid.
The separation process is expensive and potentially polluting.” By solving this critical part of the CCS problem, Glasser believes the CCM – which will be tested at a site in Dry Fork, Wyoming, as part of the X Prize – provides a vital solution, and will be cheap as the components are off-the-shelf parts common in other industrial processes, and the dry byproducts can be sold.
‘Decades of denial’: major report finds New Zealand’s environment is in serious trouble
A report on the state of New Zealand’s environment has painted a bleak picture of catastrophic biodiversity loss, polluted waterways and the destructive rise of the dairy industry and urban sprawl.
Environment Aotearoa is the first major environmental report in four years, and was compiled using data from Statistics New Zealand and the environment ministry.
It presents a sobering summary of a country that is starkly different from the pristine landscape promoted in the “Pure New Zealand” marketing campaign that lures millions of tourists every year.
It found New Zealand is now considered one of the most invaded countries in the world, with 75 animal and plant species having gone extinct since human settlement.
‘Their birthright is being lost’: New Zealanders fret over polluted rivers Read more Almost two-thirds of New Zealand’s rare ecosystems are under threat of collapse, and over the last 15 years the extinction risk worsened for 86 species, compared with the conservation status of just 26 species improving in the past 10 years.
“Four thousand of our native species are in trouble … from rampant dairy conversions to destructive seabed trawling – [we] are irreversibly harming our natural world.” The minister for the environment, David Parker, said the report offered “no big surprises” but reinforced the importance of cleaning up the waterways and becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
“If, with all our advantages, New Zealand can’t overcome its environmental problems, then the world won’t,” Parker said.
During her election campaign, the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, pledged to make the country’s rivers and lakes swimmable again for the next generation.
Some 57% of monitored lakes registered poor water quality, and 76% of native freshwater fish are at risk of or threatened with extinction.
Forest and Bird said the main culprits for worsening freshwater quality were the intensive use of fertilisers, irrigation and cows.
