The Arkema chemical plant near Houston caught fire after Hurricane Harvey in 2017, forcing an evacuation.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey soaked Houston with record-setting downpours. At the nearby Arkema chemical plant, flooding knocked out the power and disabled refrigeration systems that were cooling hazardous chemicals.
The chemicals decomposed and combusted, and the trailers where they were stored caught fire. More than 200 nearby residents were evacuated for an entire week.
Although pressure is building on the fossil industry to address fugitive emissions from abandoned oil and gas wells, deadbeat drillers and insufficient public funds for cleanup mean Pennsylvania landowners who once played host to oil and gas extraction remain captive to all that was left behind.
While orphan wells have emerged as a tough, legally contentious issue in Alberta and British Columbia, they’re a much more established problem in Pennsylvania, where the United States’ first well was drilled in 1859, E&E News reports. Today, the state is “home to between 200,000 and 750,000 so-called orphan wells that have been abandoned and that have no apparent owner.” Taken together, these wells “emit 40,000 to 70,000 tonnes of methane a year, between 5% and 8% of the state’s human-caused methane emissions.”
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Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending
The world would be richer and healthier if the full costs of fossil fuels were paid, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund
Tim DickinsonMay 8, 2019 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fossil-fuel-subsidies-pentagon-spending-imf-report-833035/
The dome of the U.S. Capitol is seen behind the smoke stacks of the Capitol Power Plant, the only coal-burning power plant in Washington, D.C.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/REX/Shuttersto
The dome of the U.S. Capitol is seen behind the smoke stacks of the Capitol Power Plant, the only coal-burning power plant in Washington, D.C.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/REX/Shuttersto
The United States has spent more subsidizing fossil fuels in recent years than it has on defense spending, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion.
The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices and how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs” and other damage, including premature deaths from air pollution.
The dome of the U.S. Capitol is seen behind the smoke stacks of the Capitol Power Plant, the only coal-burning power plant in Washington, D.C.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/REX/Shuttersto
The United States has spent more subsidizing fossil fuels in recent years than it has on defense spending, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion.
The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices and how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs” and other damage, including premature deaths from air
An aerial photo of the old-growth forests where B.C. Timber Sales has seven pending cutblocks totalling 109 hectares. Juan de Fuca Provincial Park is along the coast and the town of Port Renfrew in the background.
Photograph By TJ WATT
Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce has joined a growing outcry against B.C. government plans to log old-growth forests near Juan de Fuca Provincial Park.
President Dan Hager said Friday that clearcutting the ancient trees will hurt tourism and damage a regional economy already hard hit by chinook fishing restrictions.
“I’m in the accommodation business in Renfrew. People ask about it. I’m the one that responds to all the inquiries that come in off the chamber email and people are asking about the trees.”
Hager said that will be put in jeopardy if B.C. Timber Sales proceeds with plans to sell off 109 hectares of the region’s old-growth forest in seven cutblocks — including two that come within 50 metres of Juan de Fuca Provincial Park.
“If I was an editor of a newspaper, I would say: ‘Canada’s tall tree capital is now Canada’s clearcut capital,’ ” Hager said.
“What kind of damage is that going to do our reputation in the long term?”
How Climate Change Could End Washington’s Global Dominion
By Alfred W. McCoy Tomdispatch
Once upon a time in America, we could all argue about whether or not U.S. global power was declining. Now, most observers have little doubt that the end is just a matter of timing and circumstance. Ten years ago, I predicted that, by 2025, it would be all over for American power, a then-controversial comment that’s commonplace today. Under President Donald Trump, the once “indispensable nation” that won World War II and built a new world order has become dispensable indeed.
The decline and fall of American global power is, of course, nothing special in the great sweep of history. After all, in the 4,000 years since humanity’s first empire formed in the Fertile Crescent, at least 200 empires have risen, collided with other imperial powers, and in time collapsed. In the past century alone, two dozen modern imperial states have fallen and the world has managed just fine in the wake of their demise.
A timeline that shows the growth in glyphosate usage worldwide (left) and key human epidemiological studies on the herbicide (right).
Exposure to glyphosate — the world’s most widely used, broad-spectrum herbicide and the primary ingredient in the weedkiller Roundup — increases the risk of some cancers by more than 40 percent, according to new research from the University of Washington.
Various reviews and international assessments have come to different conclusions about whether glyphosate leads to cancer in humans.
Health Canada says its scientists are reviewing hundreds of studies used during the approval process for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Canada's most popular herbicide, Roundup
Health Canada says its scientists are reviewing hundreds of studies used during the approval process for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Canada's most popular herbicide, Roundup.
Health Canada says in light of "troubling allegations," its scientists are reviewing hundreds of studies used during the approval process for glyphosate, the active ingredient in Canada's most popular herbicide, Roundup.
The decision comes after a coalition of environmental groups claimed Health Canada relied on studies that were secretly influenced by agrochemical giant Monsanto, the maker of Roundup, when it re-approved use of glyphosate in 2015 and confirmed that decision in 2017.
Historic Disclosures Prove That Safety of FDA and EPA-Approved Chemicals Were Based on Tobacco Industry-like Collusion Promoting Demonstrably Faked Science
More than 100,000 pages of documents exposing how the chemical industry and government regulators knew about the extraordinary toxicity of many chemical products, yet worked together to conceal this information from the public and the press, were made publicly available last week through a remarkable project called the Poison Papers.
This morning, a second group of important documents reached the public for the first time after a judge allowed, for the first time ever, the public release of hundreds of pages of incriminating documents regarding Monsanto and its collusion with federal regulators to keep secret scientific evidence of the toxicity of Roundup, the world’s best selling –and most controversial—herbicide.
Today, critical documents released by the law firm of Baum Hedlund, which is suing Monsanto in a California federal court are available at the firm’s website here under the headline, “Monsanto’s Secret Documents.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. noted that with this disclosure, “We can now prove that all Monsanto’s claims about glyphosate’s safety were myths concocted by amoral propaganda and lobbying teams.” Kennedy noted that federal agencies that were supposed to protect public health instead protected Monsanto’s toxic products from public oversight.
Toxic chemicals linked to brain disorders in children
A recent study indicates that children's exposure to certain chemicals, including some pesticides, may trigger disabilities such as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia.
A recent study indicates that children's exposure to certain chemicals, including some pesticides, may trigger disabilities such as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia.
Image by jetsandzepplins/Flickr
Harvard study finds six newly recognized chemicals to add to list
BY Karen Feldscher
HSPH Communications
February 14, 2014
Toxic chemicals may be triggering recent increases in neurodevelopmental disabilities among children — such as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia — according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The researchers say a new global prevention strategy to control the use of these substances is urgently needed.
The report will be published online Feb. 15 in Lancet Neurology.
