climate crisis

My Experience At Ecosystem Restoration Camp Altiplano

February 12, 2023 Stan Joosten, Resilience. Create! climate crisis, Environment, Regeneration, Soil

It was the height of summer, almost too hot to be travelling through the hot, semi arid landscape of Murcia in southern Spain. I had been hiking for a week through the Altiplano territory – at times a beautiful area of forests, lakes, waterfall springs and mountains; other times the scars of monoculture agriculture were painfully visible. A tiny dust tornado moved by in the distance and reminded me of why I had come to this place. I was on my way to Ecosystem Restoration Camp Altiplano. For some time I had felt the need to go there. I had been following the ERC movement since its inception and became fascinated with the concept of ecosystem restoration ever since. Over the years my interest evolved into a strong support for the movement. And, above all, it provided me with a sense of hope in the face of global system collapse and climate breakdown.

Lawsuit Targets Shell’s Board Over Energy Transition Plans

February 12, 2023 Dana Drugmand, Desmog. Resist! climate crisis, Legal System, Shell Oil, United Kingdom (UK)

Shell’s board of directors officially has been served with a world-first lawsuit aiming to hold its corporate directors personally liable for alleged mismanagement of climate risk. The lawsuit, filed Thursday by UK-based environmental law organization ClientEarth, contends that Shell’s strategy to address climate change and manage the energy transition fails to align with the objectives of the Paris Agreement and leaves the company in a vulnerable position as society shifts away from fossil fuels. ClientEarth alleges that inadequate climate strategy by Shell and improper management by the board amounts to violations under the UK Companies Act. ClientEarth, itself a token shareholder in Shell, filed its case in the High Court of England and Wales in London and is suing the company’s 11 directors. Institutional investors with collective holdings of over 12 million shares in Shell are supporting the legal action, which comes on the heels of Shell reporting a record $40 billion in profits in 2022.

Nitrogen Fertilizers Are Major Greenhouse Gas Emitters

February 12, 2023 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Food and Agriculture, greenhouse gases

When we think of greenhouse gas emissions, we typically think of coal-burning power plants, vehicle exhaust or maybe forests being cleared to make way for methane-belching cows. However, there is another important agricultural source of climate pollution: nitrogen-based fertilizers. A new study from University of Cambridge-based researchers has calculated these fertilizers’ total contribution to the climate crisis for the first time, but also revealed how that contribution could be reduced to around a fifth of current levels by 2050. “Our work gives us a good idea of what’s technically possible, what’s big, and where interventions would be meaningful — it’s important that we aim interventions at what matters the most, in order to make fast and meaningful progress in reducing emissions,” study co-author Dr. André Cabrera Serrenho from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering said in a press release.

A Pipeline Brings Gas And Revolt To Southern Italy

February 11, 2023 Alessandra Bergamin, In These Times. Resist! climate crisis, Italy, Oil and Gas, Pipelines

Puglia, Italy - The mole arrived after dark — an almost 20-yard, 75-ton machine sent to bore a tunnel beneath the Adriatic Sea and into southern Italy. The tunnel would house the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), a multinational fossil fuel project critics say would threaten Salento’s turquoise coast, upend local farms, and enrich a corporation at the expense of the local population. The following evening, dozens of locals gathered in the streets to defend their territory against the pipeline’s incursion, and for the second time in two years, a rural swath of southern Italy’s Salento region was declared a “red zone” in early 2019. Riot police in blue helmets, shields and batons at the ready, closed coastal highways and country roads, stood guard at major intersections, and restricted movement for the sake of a pipeline that no one seemed to want. “Mafioso! Merda!” the protesters yelled, cursing at the officers. “What you are doing is dirty and you know it!”

3.4 Million Adults In US Were Displaced By Extreme Weather Last Year

February 8, 2023 Climate Nexus, EcoWatch. Educate! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Internal Displacement, United States

About 3.4 million adults in the U.S. (1.4% of the adult population) were displaced from their homes by extreme weather disasters in 2022, a new survey from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals. Those findings, based on the 68,500 responses to the Bureau’s Jan. 4-16 Household Pulse Survey , are far higher than figures from the International Displacement Monitoring Centre, which estimates an average of 800,000 U.S. residents were displaced annually from 2008 through 2021, including the 1.7 million people the Centre estimates were displaced in 2017 when Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria all rocked the country. About half of those displaced in 2022 were forced to leave their homes due to hurricanes. While about 40% of those displaced returned home within a week, about 12% were displaced for more than six months and roughly 16% never returned home. The portion of people with disabilities permanently displaced by disasters is far higher.

Research Suggests Offshore Oil’s Methane Pollution Is Underestimated

February 8, 2023 Sara Sneath, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Methane, Offshore Drilling, Oil and Gas

Flying 10,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, in a plane outfitted with infrared imaging equipment, researchers could see methane gas bubbling under water, likely from an undetected pipeline leak. Over the course of several flights in 2021, they spotted frequent gas plumes from platforms, storage tanks, and pipelines offshore, leading the team to believe that the 151 platforms near the Louisiana coast had a much higher methane leak rate than what’s been measured for onshore oil and gas production. “I think the bottom line message in this study is there’s a lot of emissions in the shallow waters that are currently unmeasured,” said Riley Duren, the CEO of Carbon Mapper and coauthor of the nonprofit’s 2022 study of offshore methane emissions. New technologies are allowing for actual measurements of oil and gas methane emissions like never before, whether from leaks or intentional flaring and venting.

A Degrowth Housing Vision For Maine

February 8, 2023 Patrick Loftus, Resilience. Create! climate crisis, Degrowth, Housing, Maine

Last year, my partner and I bought a 200 year old, recently renovated farmhouse in central Maine on less than an acre of land. Our town looks similar to other small towns like it throughout New England. The population is about 3,600 people and the landscape is rural-suburban: single family homes, some small businesses, municipal buildings and farms scattered over a forested area with long, winding paved roads that cut through town because everyone gets around by car. The roads aren’t very bike-friendly, though a few fearless cyclists still use them. Some people work on farms, in the local shops and municipal offices, or remotely from home like my partner and I, but most residents commute into and often get dinner in the larger cities and towns in the area. Imagining a transformative housing path towards degrowth from the perspective of my house and my neighborhood in central Maine means making some assumptions about the general trajectory of humanity, and New England in particular, over the next few years and decades.

How To Tackle Power Shutoffs, Utility Greed And The Climate Emergency

February 7, 2023 Al Weaver, The Hill. Create! climate crisis, Energy, Shutoffs, Utilities

If companies make investments in old and dangerous technology, jeopardize public safety, jack up prices, pay executives outrageous salaries, pass all those costs on to customers and then deny some folks their product, you would think those companies go out of business. Not so with corporate utilities, who deal in the life-and-death provision of electricity and essentially hold consumers hostage to dirty power and high rates. A recent report we authored, “Powerless in the United States,” exposes the utility industry profiteering that we found has deprived households of power more than 5.7 million times since 2020 while returning billions of dollars to shareholders and executives. Utilities’ dangerous, short-sighted overinvestments in fossil-fuel infrastructure are driving fossil fuel price volatility and perpetuating the shutoffs crisis. And it’s all happening in the midst of catastrophic climate change that’s upending communities across the country with deadly blizzards, floods, fires and heatwaves.

Greenpeace Activists Occupy Shell Oil Platform On North Sea Bound Vessel

February 4, 2023 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Resist! climate crisis, Direct Action, Environment, Greenpeace, Shell Oil

An international quartet of Greenpeace-affiliated climate activists have boarded a Shell-contracted vessel bound for the oil fields of the North Sea with a simple message for the fossil fuel company: “Stop Drilling. Start Paying.” Carlos Marcelo Bariggi Amara of Argentina, Yakup Çetinkaya of Turkey; Imogen Michel of the UK and Usnea Granger of the U.S. managed to board the White Marlin at 8 a.m. Tuesday and went on to occupy an oil and gas platform that will be used to unlock eight new oil wells. Fellow activists Yeb Saño from the Philippines and Waya Pesik Maweru from Indonesia also approached the vessel but were unable to board. “Shell must stop drilling and start paying,” Saño, who is also the executive director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said in a press release. “We’re taking action today because when Shell extracts fossil fuels it causes a ripple of death, destruction and displacement around the world, having the worst impact on people who are least to blame for the climate crisis.”

Carbon Capture Project Is ‘Band-Aid’ To Greenwash $10 Billion LNG Plant

February 4, 2023 Matthew Green, DeSmog. Resist! Carbon Capture, climate crisis, Gas export, greenwashing, Texas

As the Mexican Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, festivities drew to a close, Dina Nuñez called to order a meeting of women grassroots activists in a modest home in the heart of Port Isabel, Texas. Top of her agenda: how to stop a Houston-based oil and gas company from building a $10 billion project to export liquefied natural gas on a nearby stretch of coast. For Nuñez and her friends, the fight against the scheme — known as Rio Grande LNG — is about protecting their community from air pollution; preserving shrimping and tourism; and defending habitats for pelicans, endangered ocelots, and aplomado falcons at the project site on unspoiled wetlands between Port Isabel and the larger city of Brownsville. The claim by developer NextDecade to be building the “greenest LNG project in the world” has thrust the women to the forefront of a global struggle.

Fossil Fuel Groups ‘Spent Millions’ On Climate Disinformation During COP27

January 30, 2023 Phoebe Cooke, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, COP27, Disinformation, Finance and the Economy, Fossil Fuels, Media

Fossil fuel-linked groups spent around $4 million on Facebook and Instagram ads that spread false climate claims over the COP27 summit, a new report says. The physical presence of more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists overshadowed the November conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, as world leaders, NGOs and activists gathered in a bid to accelerate global efforts to confront the climate crisis. Analysis out today shows oil and gas interests were also busy online. Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) – the coalition behind the second “Deny, Deceive, Delay” report – has documented how PR companies, front groups and oil majors were actively spreading disinformation in the weeks leading up to and during the summit. Researchers with the coalition’s COP27 Intelligence Unit identified over 3,700 ads sharing false claims on Facebook and Instagram, platforms owned by Meta.

Mass Protests Follow Eviction Of Occupied German Village

January 30, 2023 Kian Seara Rey and Roma Kwiatkiewicz, Unicorn Riot. Resist! climate crisis, Coal Mining, Germany, Mining

Thousands protested the planned expansion of an immense open-pit coal mine, one of the largest in Europe. The forceful eviction of climate activists who were occupying Lützerath for more than two years and the demolition of the village itself became a call to action, sparking the largest protest yet seen in the region. The sheer number of people, together with the presence of famed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, attracted the attention of both local and international media, helping to broadcast climate activists’ searing criticism of the German government’s energy policy, which has used the war in Ukraine as an excuse to continue burning coal. The Garzweiler open-pit coal mine, operated by energy giant RWE, has expanded to consume around 15 villages since the 1960s.

Pakistan Moves Towards Another IMF Bailout

January 29, 2023 Tanupriya Singh, People's Dispatch. Educate! climate crisis, Debt, Extreme weather, IMF, Pakistan

Almost all of Pakistan awoke to darkness on the morning of Monday, January 23, as the country experienced its second major power outage in four months. Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan announced that “unusual voltage and frequency fluctuation” had caused a widespread breakdown in the national grid. The outage was caused by a disruption in the power generation units, which the government was shutting down at night when the demand for electricity was relatively lower, as an “economic measure” amid a looming energy shortage. The fallout from the outage was dramatic—affecting not only water supply systems and hospitals, but also economic activities. Shahid Sattar, the secretary general of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, told AFP that 90% of factories had shut down on Monday, causing an estimated loss of $70 million.

2022 Was A Big Year For Climate Action In The Courts

January 27, 2023 Dana Drugmand, DeSmog. Resist! climate crisis, Climate Justice, EPA, Legal System

A pair of climate cases from opposite sides of the country appear to be the closest yet to holding fossil fuel companies accountable in court. Lawsuits filed by Honolulu, Hawaii, and by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have both overcome initial procedural hurdles and are advancing in state courts, despite dogged attempts by lawyers for the fossil fuel firms to punt the cases into federal courts where they hoped to find an easier path to dismissal. And the two cases have each taken a big leap forward in state courts with judges denying fossil fuel defendants’ requests to dismiss the litigation. Earlier this year, a Hawaii state court judge issued several rulings denying oil companies’ motions to dismiss Honolulu’s case, originally filed in March 2020. In a press release, the Honolulu City Council explained, “with these favorable rulings [Honolulu’s] case is now set to become the first in the country to move into a trial phase and begin the all-important process of discovery, where the oil companies must begin opening up files to show what they knew.”

Africa Objects To US Chairing UN Climate Fund, Citing Unpaid $2 Billion

January 27, 2023 Joe Lo, Climate Home News. Educate! Africa, climate crisis, Climate Justice, United Nations

Developed countries nominated the US Treasury’s Victoria Gunderson to jointly lead the UN flagship climate fund’s deliberations in 2023. These appointments are typically approved without discussion. On behalf of African board members, Kenyan environment official Pacifica Ogola raised an official objection. The US has contributed just $1 billion to the fund in its 12-year history, compared to $9bn from EU countries and $3bn from Japan. A further $2bn pledged under former president Barack Obama was never delivered. His successors Donald Trump and Joe Biden have not paid in a cent. Ogola stressed, in a letter dated 16 January, rich countries’ responsibility to inject money into the GCF and called for better enforcement of commitments. Approving Gunderson’s role must not “normalise the situation” of non-payers holding sway over decisions, she argued.

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