Amazon Workers Not Staying Silent: Hundreds of Amazon workers publicly criticized the company’s climate policies Sunday, showing open defiance of the company following its threats earlier this month to fire workers who speak out on climate change. Employee activist group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice published more than 350 critical quotes from employees, all who signed with their full names and positions, in a Medium post Sunday. Earlier this month, the group reported that several of its members had been contacted by representatives from human resources about speaking out on climate in relation to the company's external communication policy, including two employees who were warned that "violation" of the policy could result in their being fired. “Amazon, the Earth is our only home," Virginie Muzereau, a data linguist, said in the Medium post. "Spend more money on fighting Climate Change than on space exploration!" (AP, Recode, Washington Post $, Axios, Gizmodo)
Pipeline Project Contaminating Water in PA: Some residents of a rural Pennsylvania community say that construction on a controversial pipeline project has polluted their groundwater for months, The Guardian reports. Residents say that their private wells have been contaminated with compounds found in fuel from mud spills at Mariner East 2 pipeline construction sites, while the pipeline’s parent company, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, says the construction is not to blame. The project is under multiple investigations and has has faced fierce local opposition and numerous regulatory and legal hurdles. “It’s sad and frustrating,” Erica Tarr, whose murky tap water has tested positive for fuel compounds, told The Guardian. “I can’t bathe my daughter, wash my hands or do a load of laundry, it’s like living in constant crisis. We’re not the only ones in this situation, but we feel so alone.” (The Guardian)
Uber Touts Electric Cars As It Attempts to Sweettalk London: Uber will partner with Nissan to provide 2,000 electric vehicles for its 40,000+ drivers in London to use, the company said last week. The Nissan Leaf vehicles will be manufactured locally and provided for rent or purchase at below market rate for drivers, and Uber says that money raised in its “clean air fee” that it charges on London rides will help pay for the cost of the shift. In November, UK transportation authorities did not renew the Uber’s transportation license, citing security concerns. The move to introduce electric vehicles is seen as part of the company’s “charm offensive” to the city as it appeals the decision. (Axios, CNBC, FT $, Al Jazeera, CleanTechnica)
2020: GOP lawmakers struggle with muddled climate message (Politico), young voters are increasingly concerned with climate change, survey shows (The Hill), campaign crunch time forces progressives to eye private jets (AP)
AGENCIES: EPA is letting cities dump more raw sewage into rivers for years to come (New York Times $), science ranks grow thin in Trump administration (Washington Post $), ‘blatant manipulation’: Trump administration exploited wildfire science to promote logging (The Guardian), more than 320 groups seek more time to comment on Trump environmental law changes (The Hill), in crucial Pennsylvania, Democrats worry a fracking ban could sink them (New York Times $), Trump ups mileage proposal, but it’s well below Obama plan (AP)
DAVOS: Climate change—and ideas for tackling it—dominated Davos (Wall Street Journal $), Davos elite want to plant 1 trillion trees to help the planet, but many still fight a carbon tax (Washington Post $), Greta Thunberg: Davos leaders ignored climate activists' demands (The Guardian), Davos ends with disagreement on climate and Greta Thunberg on the march (CNN)
CITIES & STATES: As heat rises, SC watches quietly. Will state suffer from lack of climate action? (The State), as climate change hits the Southeast, communities wrestle with politics, funding (InsideClimate News), here’s what might be keeping your NC community from preparing for climate change (Raleigh News & Observer), move to Buffalo? With Earth warming, northern cities could become oases (NBC), climate change could impact routing of cargo headed to Port of Charleston (Charleston Post and Courier), Idaho lawmakers told global warming has helped state (AP), deadly Gessner explosion the latest in string of major chemical incidents for Houston area (Houston Chronicle), rising seas flood roads and force coastal SC DMV to move (AP)
BUSINESS: Leading a new era of climate action (Harvard Business Review), a call for investors to put their money toward a green future (New York Times $)
OIL & GAS: French NGOs and local authorities take court action against Total (The Guardian), global LNG poised for terrible year as supply floods market (Bloomberg), cheap natural gas is about to kick more coal out of Europe (Bloomberg), 1984 North Dakota diesel spill cleanup is finally completed (AP)
COAL: Wyoming governor: Carbon capture technology can help coal (AP), millions owed in taxes on Cloud Peak legacy coal mines (Billings Gazette), owner of three coal mines already behind on federal, county mineral taxes (Casper Star-Tribune), Kentucky officials worry bankrupt mines may abandon cleanup (AP)
IMPACTS: Tears for the magnificent and shrinking Everglades, a ‘river of grass’ (New York Times $)
VROOM: Steer car subscription service trying to reduce barriers to electric vehicles, says CEO (Cheddar)
RACISM: Outrage at whites-only image as Ugandan climate activist cropped from photo (The Guardian), Greta Thunberg slams AP photo that cropped out Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate (The Hill)
INT’L: ‘Chuffed to be chosen': participants attend first UK climate assembly (The Guardian), nearly 50 dead, thousands displaced as storms lash southeast of Brazil (Reuters), EU's 'Green Deal' guru detects hints of US climate shift (Reuters), ministers doing little towards 2050 emissions target, say top scientists (The Guardian)
PIPELINES: Recovery plan proposed for endangered bumble bee involved in pipeline litigation (Charleston Gazette-Mail), lawsuit planned to stop Idaho-Wyoming natural gas pipeline (AP)
WATER: Bulgarians protest severe water shortage in industrial city (AP), White House meetings provide last round of wrangling ahead of Trump's water rule (Axios), families trek to unsafe wells as taps run dry in drought-hit Zimbabwe (Reuters), Trump tries to woo struggling farmers with new water rule (The Hill)
RENEWABLES: The climate change solution that climate deniers can get behind (Vice), she’s taking on Elon Musk on solar–and winning (New York Times $)
CRITTERS: What’s tangling up the humpback whales? A food chain snarled by climate change (LA Times $), crab larvae suffering shell damage from ocean acidification (AP)
AUSTRALIA: Australia's rainy respite from bushfires seen ending (Reuters)
PREPPING: Homesteaders, catastrophists run for the hills to flee US uncertainty (Thomson Reuters Foundation)
RELIGION: Edmonds church looks to bridge gap between climate change and religion (770 KTTH)
PROTESTS: ‘Stop (f)lying to us': Swiss ski town's teens join Greta in protest (Reuters), ‘kids are taking the streets': climate activists plan avalanche of events as 2020 election looms (The Guardian), fracking protester's sentence reduced by court of appeal (The Guardian)
SPORTS: Tokyo 2020 to power Olympic torch with hydrogen for first time (Reuters)
GRETA FANCLUB: Ivanka Trump praises Greta Thunberg for calling attention to threat of climate change (New York Post), Louise Linton, wife of Mnuchin, deletes Instagram post in support of Greta Thunberg (The Hill)
Republicans must recognize that tackling the damage from the warming climate is smart politics and good economics (The Invading Sea, Carlos Curbelo and Ryan Costello op-ed)
It is time to change the definition of refugee (Al Jazeera, Bill Frelick op-ed)
Climate change’s surprise twist (Axios, Amy Harder column)
When historic preservation hurts cities (New York Times, Binyamin Appelbaum op-ed $)
Energy efficiency slows climate change, saves money. Why haven't we embraced it more? (USA Today, Forest Bradley-Wright op-ed)
Australia must consider the growing impact of climate change on fire risk (The Hill, Alice Hill op-ed)
Climate change threatens future of sports (NPR, Dave Zirin interview)
We want better agricultural research, but who will take the lead? (The Hill, Gale Buchanan op-ed)
USAA is feeling the heat from climate change (San Antonio Express-News, Greg Jefferson column)
Climate change: The defining ethical issue of our time (Holland Sentinel, Nancy Seubert column)
We can’t trust the billionaires of Davos to solve a climate crisis they created (The Guardian, Payal Parekh op-ed)
How does a nation adapt to its own murder? (New York Times, Richard Flanagan op-ed $)
We can’t recall the planet if we mess up: Climate change is risky business (Washington Post, Rob Motta and Jim White column $)
The road to Armageddon — our two existential threats and the 2020 presidential race (The Hill, Robert Dodge op-ed)
Youth bring their voices to climate change conversation (San Diego Union-Tribune, Steven Dinkin op-ed)
The Maine Millennial: A modest proposal to fight climate change (Portland Press Herald, Victoria Hugo-Vidal column)
Goldman Sachs to native Alaskans: drop dead (Wall Street Journal, Harry Brower Jr. op-ed $)
New Emails Show Trump Admin Exploited Wildfires to Help Logging Industry
Earlier this month we discussed how during Australia’s devastating fires, conservatives tried to claim that it was green party forest management policies that were to blame. That is, of course, wrong. It throws us back to 2018 in the US, when Secretary Ryan Zinke and others wrongly blamed environmentalists for California's wildfires and Trump wrongly blamed a lack of raking.
Now, new emails obtained by The Guardian show that messaging around forest management in 2018 was more than just a way to pin the blame on California and deny climate change. Like most other actions taken by this administration, it also helped prop up industry profits by embracing the industry’s propaganda.
According to The Guardian, a week after the Camp Fire raged through Paradise, CA, James Reilly, the US Geological Survey director, asked scientists to “gin up an estimate” on how much carbon emissions the Camp and Woolsey fires had produced because it “would make a decent sound bite” for Secretary Zinke to use. And earlier that year when emailing with a DOI staffer about emissions estimates from fires, Reilley admitted they didn’t have “details on the overall land cover,” which is important because the type of tree would vary the amount emitted, but planned to assume woodland mix because it “makes a good story.”
The idea was to hype up the emissions from the fires in order to justify an increase in logging, because fewer trees means less fuel for fires, and therefore less emissions. Except it doesn’t actually work like that. As The Guardian explains, while forests do emit carbon emissions when they burn, “logging wouldn’t necessarily help prevent or lessen wildfires.” In fact, “logging could negate the ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide.”
Despite this, less than a week after the Camp Fire was extinguished, Zinke used that data on fire emissions in a press release titled “New Analysis Shows 2018 California Wildfires Emitted as Much Carbon Dioxide as an Entire Year's Worth of Electricity.” The release quotes Zinke who said “There's too much dead and dying timber in the forest” and that good forest management could “reduce the risks of wildfires” and “curb emissions.”
Of course, the best way to both reduce emissions and the risk of wildfires is to stop burning fossil fuels but not surprisingly there’s no mention of that. Zinke also claimed that “the intensity and range of these fires indicate we can no longer ignore proper forest management.” Again, he ignores the fact that what is really driving the “intensity and range of these fires” is climate change.
The Guardian reported that when it showed scientists the email exchanges, they determined “at best Reilly used unfortunate language and the department cherry-picked data to help achieve their pro-industry policy goals; at worst he and others exploited a disaster and manipulated the data.”
Chad Hanson, a California-based forest ecologist, called Reilly's behavior a “blatant political manipulation of science”. Hanson said the amount USGS claimed the fires emitted was an “overestimate” that “can’t be squared with empirical data” from the fire sites.
And it didn’t stop with Zinke’s press release. In January of 2019, Trump signed an executive order that expanded logging on public lands by as much as 31 percent, claiming that it would help control wildfires. As Jayson O’Neill, deputy director of the Western Values Project put it, “The Trump administration and the Interior Department are pushing mystical theories that are false in order to justify gutting public land protections to advance their pro-industry and lobbyist dominated agenda.”
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