tingilinde

an open license to pollute

The Republican EPA.

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The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday announced a sweeping relaxation of environmental rules in response to the coronavirus pandemic, allowing power plants, factories and other facilities to determine for themselves if they are able to meet legal requirements on reporting air and water pollution.

The move comes amid an influx of requests from businesses for a relaxation of regulations as they face layoffs, personnel restrictions and other problems related to the coronavirus outbreak.

Issued by the E.P.A.’s top compliance official, Susan P. Bodine, the policy sets new guidelines for companies to monitor themselves for an undetermined period of time during the outbreak and says that the agency will not issue fines for violations of certain air, water and hazardous-waste-reporting requirements.

Companies are normally required to report when their factories discharge certain levels of pollution into the air or water.

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stages of right wing denial

The six stages of right wing climate denial are:

 

It's not real. It's not us. It's not that bad. It's too expensive to fix. Aha, here's a great solution (that actually does nothing). And - oh no! Now it's too late. You really should have warned us earlier.

 

We're seeing the same thing with COVID-19

 

the european tree of the year

A guardian of a flooded village in the Czech Republic won. (2019)

a tip of the hat to tree-lover Jheri

 

one of the few silver linings

Cleaner air. (via The New York Times)

 

 

vanishing beaches

Rising sea levels and erosion are taking out the world's beaches.  Half could be lost by 2100.

 

 

 

oi companies and climate change

Malcolm Harris (author of a well-review, but unread by me book on millennials) gets invited to a workshop at Shell where they try and think about their future. He didn't have to sign an NDA and writes about the experience in New York Magazine. 

 

 

 

 

 

on amazon deforestation

Is there a tipping point and, if so, how far away is it? An interview with Carlos A Nobre. 

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What we know today is that if we would have only deforestation — [with] zero climate change — that if you exceed 40 percent total deforested area in the Amazon, then you have a tipping point. About 60 to 70 percent of the Amazon forest would turn into a dry savanna, especially in the southern and northern Amazon, areas that now border savannas. Only the western Amazon near the Andes, which is very rainy, the forest will still be there. So that’s one tipping point — 40 percent deforested area.

Then we look at what climate change might do. We concluded that if the temperature in the Amazon increases up to 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit), this will mean a hydrological cycle change with less rain and a longer dry season. It’s the same mechanism — savannization. So if you put all the perspectives together — deforestation, global warming, increased vulnerability to forest fires — we conclude that with the current rate of global warming, if we exceed 20 to 25 percent deforestation, then we reach the tipping point and 50 to 60 percent of the Amazon forest would become a savanna. That’s why we are making this warning — today we already have 15 to 17 percent total deforestation in the Amazon. So at the current rates of deforestation, we are 20 to 30 years off from reaching this tipping point.

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the most serious backup system on earth

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault now has more than a million varieties. 

 

the coronavirus and carbon emissions

Partly shut down a huge economy dependent on fossil fuels and guess what? (via The New York Times)

 

 

 

a pro-trump organization builds a denialist greta in germany

Evil, but not unexpected. (via The Washington Post)

They use the term climate skeptic -  that's wrong.  Science denialist or global warming denialist is more accurate.