In USA’s Presidential campaign – Republican climate denialism is at fever pitch
Dahr Jamail | As Climate Disruption Advances, UN Warns: “The Future Is Happening Now” TruthOut, , 02 May 2016 By Dahr Jamail, Truthout “……… Report Denial and Reality
The ongoing Republican presidential campaigning means that anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) denial is reaching a fever pitch.
Republican presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and front-runner Donald Trump both vowed to undo several Obama administration policy efforts aimed at mitigating ACD impacts.
Meanwhile, former governor of Alaska and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claimed that ACD was “bogus” and a myth that scientists and policy makers “are peddling” in order to advance political agendas.
Also on the denial front, the group Media Matters cataloged the questions asked during both the Republican and Democratic presidential debates, and found that of the 1,477 questions asked by the various networks to the candidates, only 22 of them (approximately 1.5 percent) were about ACD. Of all the networks that hosted debates, the one that asked the most ACD-related questions was the Spanish-language network (Univision, which is US-based).
Back to reality, recent polling shows that the vast majority of Americans now believe that ACD is real and ongoing, and that the US government needs to do something about it.
Meanwhile, scientists in a global coalition known as Climate Feedback have begun working together with the aim of sorting fact from fiction in US media ACD coverage.
According to Michael Levitin, the group’s communications coordinator, the new group will use a web platform to verify facts and annotate online articles and include their comments on top of the original story. They will then use a rating system so readers are able to judge the stories’ scientific credibility.
“Recognized by NASA, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and California Gov. Jerry Brown, among others, Climate Feedback is already improving journalistic standards by flagging misreported climate science in mainstream outlets,” Levitin said…….http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35860-as-climate-disruption-advances-un-warns-the-future-is-happening-now
Climate change disruption – the future is happening now
Dahr Jamail | As Climate Disruption Advances, UN Warns: “The Future Is Happening Now” TruthOut, , 02 May 2016 By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report Each month as I write these dispatches, I shake my head in disbelief at the rapidity at which anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is occurring. It’s as though each month I think, “It can’t possibly keep happening at this incredible pace.”
But it does.
By late April, the Mauna Loa Observatory, which monitors atmospheric carbon dioxide, recorded an incredible daily reading: 409.3 parts per million. That is a range of atmospheric carbon dioxide content that this planet has not seen for the last 15 million years, and 2016 is poised to see these levels only continue to increase.
Recently, Dr. James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and longtime whistleblower about the impending dangers of ACD, published a paper with several colleagues showing that ACD will push sea level rise into exponential levels by the end of this century. Their paper shows how melting is actually compounding itself, generating dramatically fast increases in both melting and sea level rise. We may well see the current three millimeter per year sea level rise grow to nearly five centimeters by 2056, and continue to increase in a nonlinear fashion.
Scientists in Antarctica are now astounded at the rapidity of the disintegration of the massive Antarctic ice shelves: It turns out the ice in Antarctica is far more fragile and predisposed to melting than was previously believed.
The situation is already dire enough that the conservative UN warned recently, “The future is happening now,” and called for more urgent measures to be taken to cut global carbon emissions.
“Many people now think that the problem is solved since we reached a nice agreement in Paris last year … but the negative side is that we haven’t changed our behaviors,” Petteri Taalas, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, told the media recently.
As if to underscore that point, March global temperatures crushed the 100-year-old record by the greatest margin we’ve seen for any month yet. February was also notably far above the long-term average, enough so that scientists described that month as a “shocker,” as well as it being “a kind of climate emergency.” Then, on the heels of February, the Japan Meteorological Agency released data showing that March was even hotter. NASA data confirms this increase, and also shows that March was 1.65 degrees Celsius higher than the 1951-1980 March average, while February was 1.71 degrees Celsius hotter than the February average over that time period.
NASA data shows that March was also the 11th straight month in a row that set a new global temperature record. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that is the longest such streak ever recorded.
The Japan Meteorological Agency also reported that the first three months of this year were 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial baseline levels……….http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35860-as-climate-disruption-advances-un-warns-the-future-is-happening-now
Ocean’s small shelled animals suffering from acidification due to global warming
Acidic oceans are dissolving shells of tiny sea snails, researchers find, ABC News, 2 May 16 By Kieran Jones Small organisms are struggling to survive as the ocean becomes more acidic, researchers say, including tiny sea snails whose shells are dissolving.
Key points:
- Acidification could severely affect the ocean’s food chain
- Small organisms are being damaged and scientists fear it could affect large animals
- A prominent researcher says reducing CO2 emissions would reduce acidification
Researchers fear an increase in acidification in the Southern Ocean could have a severe impact on the food chain off Australia’s south coast.
The concerns come as 350 scientists from more than 30 countries gather in Hobart for an international symposium on the impact of carbon dioxide on the world’s oceans.
Ocean acidification means the pH level of water has decreased, making it inhospitable for small organisms.
CSIRO research scientist Andrew Lenton was part of a team that developed a map of acidification around Australia.
He said the impact was already being felt.
“The changes in Australia are very close to the changes that are occurring everywhere else in the world, so this is really a global problem that Australia is part of,” he said.
“Already there are detectable changes in the Southern Ocean.”
Reducing carbon dioxide emissions would reduce acidification………The impact is also visible in tiny free-swimming sea snails call pteropods, which are a vital part of the diet of many large fish.
Researchers said the percentage of pteropods with dissolving shells observed had doubled since the pre-industrial era and was on track to triple by 2050.
Dr Richard Feely from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said reducing carbon dioxide emissions was the best way to avoid acidification.
“In order for us to address ocean acidification on a global scale we would have to add two billion tonnes of calcium carbonate,” he said………http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-02/acidic-oceans-are-dissolving-shells-on-tiny-sea-snails/7376696?section=environment
Climate change is already taking its toll
Jeff Masters: Food system shock: climate change’s greatest threat to civilization.
The greatest threat of climate change to civilization over the next 40 years is likely to be climate change-amplified extreme droughts and floods hitting multiple major global grain-producing “breadbaskets” simultaneously.
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/food-system-shock-climate-changes-greatest-threat-to-civilization & http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/t/-8878616388554072809
India heatwave: Train keeps city alive as cricket matches cancelled, farmers and animals suffer
In India, 330 million people across 10 states are in the grip of a crippling drought and heatwave.
Supplies are so depleted in one city that it is entirely reliant on drinking water delivered daily by train.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-01/train-keeps-indian-city-alive-in-heatwave/7373546
Fast warming of Arctic region will mean many climate refugees
Obama administration warns of ‘climate refugees’ due to rapid Arctic warming
US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has painted a stark picture of communities displaced by rising Arctic temperatures that are ‘washing away’ towns, Guardian, Oliver Milman @olliemilman Saturday 30 April 2016 The Obama administration has warned the US will need to deal with a wave of “climate refugees” as the Arctic continues to warm, joining with the Canadian government to express alarm over how climate change is affecting indigenous communities.
Sally Jewell, US secretary of the interior, painted a stark picture of communities relocating and lives disrupted in her first official visit to Canada. The Arctic, which is warming at twice the rate of the global average, has just recorded its lowest recorded peak ice extent after what’s been called a “warm, crazy winter”……..
Obama declares disaster as Marshall Islands suffers worst-ever drought….http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/29/climate-change-refugees-arctic-obama-administration-warning
Austria losing to climate change its most precious environmental resource – glaciers
Austria’s Treasured National Resource, Its Glaciers, Are Melting Fast. inside climate news, Glaciers across the country retreated an average of 72 feet in 2015, more than twice the rate of the previous year, finds an annual survey.BY BOB BERWYN APR 28, 2016 VIENNA—NEARLY ALL OF AUSTRIA’S 900 GLACIERS RETREATED LAST YEAR AMID RECORD-SETTING HEAT, ACCORDING TO AUSTRIAN SCIENTISTS. THE RAPID MELTING MIRRORS A TREND ACROSS THE ALPS AND UNDERSCORES SCIENTISTS’ WARNINGS OF ACCELERATING, EXTREME CLIMATE IMPACTS CAUSED BY HUMAN-CAUSED GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.
Across the country, the glaciers retreated an average of 72 feet in 2015, more than twice the rate of the previous year, the Austrian Alpine Association said in its annual glacier survey. Three of the country’s glaciers retreated by more than 320 feet. The nonprofit association—which promotes mountain culture, research and conservation— has beenconducting detailed glacier measurements since 1927, creating a dramatic record of climate change effects in the alpine region.
“The summer of 2015 was more than 2 degrees Celsius warmer than the long-term average,” said survey team coordinator Andrea Fischer, a glaciologist with the Austrian Academy of Sciences. “Long periods of high pressure and the absence summer snowfall…are the reasons for the glacial meltdown.”
Austria’s largest glacier, the Pasterz, retreated by 177 feet in 2015, the survey found. Its volume has declined by half since it was first accurately measured in 1851. The annual survey measures a representative sample of 92 major glaciers; 96 percent were found to be receding.
Globally, 2015 was the hottest year since recordkeeping began in 1880, by a large margin, with the bulk of the temperature rise a result of manmade global warming, according to the World Meteorological Organization and U.S. government science agencies. Last summer was also the warmest on record in Austria, surpassing the previous record set in 2003, when heat waves were blamed for 30,000 deaths in Europe…….
If the Paris climate accord leads to the world limiting the global temperature rise to 2 degree Celsius, about 60 percent of the world’s glaciers will melt away in the next few centuries. At 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, about 50 percent will vanish, Marzeion said.
Melting glaciers are among the most visible signs of climate change, and they are a crucial, disappearing water source. Changes in streamflows will affect hydroelectric power generation in the Himalaya, according to a 2013 study published in the journal Nature. The buildup of meltwater in the valleys beneath glaciers also increases the risk of catastrophic flooding……..http://insideclimatenews.org/news/27042016/austria-glaciers-melting-fast-climate-change-global-warming-alps-pasterze
March the world’s hottest month in recorded history
‘Worse things in store’: Steaming hot world sets more temperature records, The Age, April 20, 2016 Peter Hannam Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald
The Earth sizzled in March with the most unusually warm month in recorded history as average land surface temperatures easily exceeded levels deemed by scientists to constitute dangerous climate change.
The abnormal weather has continued into April as the most powerful tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Indian Ocean dumped rain at rates reaching 300 mm an hour, and Australian scientists declared the worst coral bleaching event ever on the Great Barrier Reef.
Combined global land and sea-surface temperatures in March were 1.22 degrees above the 20th-century average, beating the previous record for the month – set just a year earlier – by almost one-third of a degree, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. Each of the past 11 months have now broken global temperature records, the longest such streak in the agency’s 137 years of data collection.
Land surface temperatures for March, though, were 2.33 degrees above the 20th-century average, smashing the previous March record set in 2008 by 0.43 degrees. It was also the most unusually warm reading for any month, eclipsing February, NOAA said.
The record breaking conditions come as leaders of 150-plus nations are due to gather in New York this week to ratify the global climate pact agreed in Paris in late 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5-2 degrees, compared with pre-industrial times………
The most abnormally hot regions of the world last month included Australia, which set a record with minimum temperatures almost 2 degrees above the average for 1961-90, while the Arctic region was about 3.3 degrees above average, NOAA said.
The El Nino has played a role in boosting temperatures in the year. The stalling or reversal of equatorial trade winds in the Pacific that characterise such events created a huge pool of relatively warm water in the central and eastern Pacific that is now breaking up.
However, the first three months of 2016 were not only the warmest on record for surface temperatures by 0.28 degrees – set a year earlier – they also beat the same period in 1998 by 0.45 degrees during a similar strength El Nino, NOAA said.
For the first three months of this year, average land surface temperatures were 2.05 degrees above the 20th-century average and a full 0.95 degrees warmer than in 1998, the agency said.
Most powerful Indian Ocean storm
The list of extreme weather events this year continues to grow……….http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/worse-things-in-store-steaming-hot-world-sets-more-temperature-records-20160419-goaf58.html
Politicians oblivious to the very real threat of nuclear famine
Nuclear Famine, Independent Australia, 17 April 2016 Daryl Williams discusses a recent scientific report in which the devastating global impacts of a small nuclear conflict, including “nuclear famine”, are outlined.
THE COLD WAR is over, the Berlin Wall has fallen, nuclear warhead numbers have declined significantly — so the threat of nuclear catastrophe has passed, right?
Well, sadly no.
In fact, things may be more dangerous today than at the height of the Cold War.
Computer simulations of the indirect climate effects of even a “small” regional nuclear exchange indicate that the whole world would still be imperiled.
A recent 16-page scientific paper, ‘Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a ‘regional nuclear conflict‘, by Mills, Toon, Lee-Taylor and Robock, outlines the horrific unexpected consequences. Once you boil down the “science-speak” it paints a bleak picture – via an “Earth system model” which includes atmospheric chemistry, ocean dynamics and interactive sea ice and land components – which we should do everything we can to avoid.
It deserves far more attention than it has received and its findings should be informing our foreign, defence and emergency management policies. In summary, the scenario it simulates is as follows:
Firestorms in India and Pakistan from a “small” regional conflict and nuclear exchange would inject 5 Tg (or one million tonnes) of black carbon (smoke, soot, dust) into the stratosphere which spreads globally.
The black carbon heats the stratosphere (by up to an amazing 80 degrees C) and cools the lower atmosphere and surface (by 1.1 degrees C in the first four years, down to 1.6 degrees in the fifth year, slowly rising to 0.25 to 0.5 degrees 20 years later). The colder surface temperatures reduce precipitation by 6% globally for the first five years and still by 4.5% one decade on.
Oh, and hundreds of millions of Indians and Pakistanis would be incinerated to death … but let’s concentrate on the long-term climate repercussions……..
That spells big trouble for Earth in the form of
‘widespread damage to human health, agriculture, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.’
That is,
‘…combined cooling and enhanced UV would put significant pressures on global food supplies and could trigger global nuclear famine.’………
The report also states:
‘The combined effects of elevated UV levels alone on terrestrial agriculture and marine ecosystems could put significant pressures on global food security.’
And yet, I didn’t read anything about this in the 2016 Defence White Paper or in any plans byEmergency Management Australia. Why not?…….https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/nuclear-famine,8893
Future uninhabitable for Middle East, due to climate change?
Climate Change (I) Will the Middle East Become ‘Uninhabitable’? IPS, By Baher Kamal This is the first of a two-part series of reports focusing on the impact of climate change on the Middle East & North of Africa region, ahead of the signing ceremony of the Paris climate agreement, on 22 April 2016 in New York. Part II will address the dramatic issue of water scarcity in the region.
CAIRO, Apr 18 2016 (IPS) – This is not about any alarming header—it is the dramatic conclusion of several scientific studies about the on-going climate change impact on the Middle East region, particularly in the Gulf area. The examples are stark.
“Within this century, parts of the Persian Gulf region could be hit with unprecedented events of deadly heat as a result of climate change, according to a study of high-resolution climate models,” a recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) research warned.
The research–titled “Persian Gulf could experience deadly heat”, reveals details of a business-as-usual scenario for greenhouse gas emissions, but also shows that curbing emissions could forestall these “deadly temperature extremes.”
The study, which was published in detail ahead of the Paris climate summit in the journal Nature Climate Change, was conducted by Elfatih Eltahir, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT, and Jeremy Pal PhD ’01 at Loyola Marymount University.
The authors conclude that conditions in the Persian Gulf region, including its shallow water and intense sun, make it “a specific regional hotspot where climate change, in absence of significant mitigation, is likely to severely impact human habitability in the future.”
Running high-resolution versions of standard climate models, Eltahir and Pal found that many major cities in the region could exceed a tipping point for human survival, even in shaded and well-ventilated spaces. Eltahir says this threshold “has, as far as we know … never been reported for any location on Earth.”……….
While global models predict sea levels rising from about 0.1 to 0.3 meters by the year 2050, and from about 0.1 to 0.9 meters by 2100, the World Bank says, for MENA, the social, economic, and ecological impacts are expected to be relatively higher compared to the rest of the world. Low-lying coastal areas in Tunisia, Qatar, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and specially Egypt are at particular risk.
Climate change also poses many challenges to the region’s cities, which represent hubs for economic, social, cultural and political activities. Rising sea level could affect 43 port cities—24 in the Middle East and 19 in North Africa, according to the World Bank study.
“In the case of Alexandria, Egypt, a 0.5 meter rise would leave more than 2 million people displaced, with 35 billion dollars in losses in land, property, and infrastructure, as well as incalculable losses of historic and cultural assets.”(TO BE CONTINUED) http://www.ipsnews.net/2016/04/will-the-middle-east-become-uninhabitable/
USA energy firms – history of climate change denial from 1968
US firms knew about global warming in 1968 – what about Australia?, The Conversation, Marc Hudson, April 18, 2016 Earlier this month the satirical newspaper The Onion “reported” on the discovery in a Californian university’s archives of a dusty, yellowing report saying the time to act on climate change is now.
This week life imitated art, as it was revealed that there is indeed a decades-old report to be found in a Californian archive warning of climate impacts. The real report, as opposed to the satirical one, was written in 1968 by scientists at the Stanford Research Institute, who sent it to the American Petroleum Institute to warn of the possible impacts of carbon dioxide emissions.
That wasn’t even the start. A decade earlier, in 1959, a scientist working for oil giant Shell wrote in New Scientist about the idea of humans altering the climate, although he poured scorn on the idea.
By the early 1970s, the idea of the greenhouse effect was already in the air, if you’ll pardon the pun. It merited several pages in the Club of Rome’s landmark 1972 report, The Limits to Growth, and even got a mention in the dystopian classic 1973 film Soylent Green……..
The sceptics
Only now is the issue really coming home to roost for fossil fuel firms, such as the world’s biggest private coal miner Peabody Energy, which this week filed for bankruptcy in the United States.
Peabody’s recently retired chief executive Greg Boyce has always been combative on the subject of climate change. He told the World Energy Congress in 2010 that:
“The greatest crisis society confronts is not a future environmental crisis predicted by computer models but a human crisis today that is fully within our power to solve – with coal.”
Its now-retired chief lobbyist Fred Palmer, in a 1997 documentary, happily and emphatically states:
“Every time you turn your car on and you burn fossil fuels and you put CO₂ in the air, you are doing the work of the Lord.”………
The fallout
The New York attorney-general’s office is now demanding answers from Exxon over its response to the climate warnings of half-a-century ago.
Meanwhile, the attorney-general of the US Virgin Islands has subpoenaed the US think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a long-time ally of the fossil fuel industry, over its campaign to cast doubt on climate science.
While it is both interesting and frustrating to learn that the very companies that have worked hardest to obfuscate climate science actually knew about it before the wider public did, that knowledge doesn’t help us figure out how to deliver the sorts of deep emissions cuts that are needed now. We need to keep our eyes on the increasingly unlikely and battered prize of a habitable planet. https://theconversation.com/us-firms-knew-about-global-warming-in-1968-what-about-australia-57878
NASA will no longer mess with climate change denialists on Facebook
NASA on climate change: Official Facebook account smacks down dissenters, news.com.au APRIL 19, 2016 WHEN it comes to climate change, don’t mess with NASA.
The space agency has shut down climate changers in the best possible way in an ongoing Facebook discussion.
The agency, which has a NASA Climate Change Facebook page, is used to dealing with sceptics and deniers.
But one comment made last week saw the agency pounce and the comments have kept flowing since, coming faster than melting ice.
It all started after a post by the science guy Bill Nye who was talking about a climate change denier refusing his $20,000 bet that the planet will keep getting hotter.
But the thread was quickly hijacked by climate deniers.
Facebook user Fer Morales argued NASA confirmed fossil fuels were actually cooling the planet, but the agency jumped straight on it, firing back: “Do not misrepresent NASA. Fossil fuels are not cooling the planet.”……..http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/nasa-on-climate-change-official-facebook-account-smacks-down-dissenters/news-story/25219d16e4478ce851046d22b1620b63
A bleak picture of the climate effects of “just a small” nuclear war
Nuclear Famine, Independent Australia 17 April 2016, Daryl Williams discusses a recent scientific report in which the devastating global impacts of a small nuclear conflict, including “nuclear famine”, are outlined.
THE COLD WAR is over, the Berlin Wall has fallen, nuclear warhead numbers have declined significantly — so the threat of nuclear catastrophe has passed, right?
Well, sadly no.
In fact, things may be more dangerous today than at the height of the Cold War.
Computer simulations of the indirect climate effects of even a “small” regional nuclear exchange indicate that the whole world would still be imperiled.
A recent 16-page scientific paper, ‘Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a ‘regional nuclear conflict‘, by Mills, Toon, Lee-Taylor and Robock, outlines the horrific unexpected consequences. Once you boil down the “science-speak” it paints a bleak picture – via an “Earth system model” which includes atmospheric chemistry, ocean dynamics and interactive sea ice and land components – which we should do everything we can to avoid.
It deserves far more attention than it has received and its findings should be informing our foreign, defence and emergency management policies. In summary, the scenario it simulates is as follows:
Firestorms in India and Pakistan from a “small” regional conflict and nuclear exchange would inject 5 Tg (or one million tonnes) of black carbon (smoke, soot, dust) into the stratosphere which spreads globally.
The black carbon heats the stratosphere (by up to an amazing 80 degrees C) and cools the lower atmosphere and surface (by 1.1 degrees C in the first four years, down to 1.6 degrees in the fifth year, slowly rising to 0.25 to 0.5 degrees 20 years later). The colder surface temperatures reduce precipitation by 6% globally for the first five years and still by 4.5% one decade on.
Oh, and hundreds of millions of Indians and Pakistanis would be incinerated to death … but let’s concentrate on the long-term climate repercussions.
The heating of the stratosphere caused by the black carbon produces a dramatic loss of ozone (30% to 45% at mid-latitudes for the first five years, 50 to 60% at northern high latitudes) giving ‘a global ozone loss on a scale never observed‘.
It is the combination of dramatic extended drops in surface temperatures termed ‘the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years’ and precipitation with a dramatic increase in UV radiation.
That spells big trouble for Earth in the form of
‘widespread damage to human health, agriculture, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.’
That is,
‘…combined cooling and enhanced UV would put significant pressures on global food supplies and could trigger global nuclear famine.’
As well, ‘… the average growing season is reduced by up to 40 days throughout the world’s agricultural zones over these five years’. The increased UV-B radiation would reduce plant height, shoot mass and foliage area, damage DNA and significantly increase insect losses. A 16% loss of ozone could reduce phytoplankton levels in the ocean by 15%, resulting in a loss of seven million tons of fish per year……..
Regional extremes can be worse. Large areas of continental landmasses would experience significantly greater cooling than average:
Winters (JJA) in southern Africa and South America would be up to 2.5 degrees C cooler on average for 5 years … [and] … most of North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East would experience winters (DJF) that are 2.5 to 6 degrees C cooler … and summers (JJA) 1 to 4 degrees C cooler.
Which is worse than any volcanic winter in the last 1000 years. There would be significant regional drying over the Asian Monsoon region, including the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, as well as the Amazon, the American South-East and Western Australia — which would be 20% to 60% drier.
All from a “minor” nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan……..https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/nuclear-famine,8893
As coal mines go bankrupt, tax-payers will be left with the cleanup costs
After Bankruptcies, Coal’s Dirty Legacy Lives On, NYT By TOM SANZILLO and DAVID SCHLISSEL APRIL 14, 2016 THE bankruptcy filing on Wednesday by Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private- sector producer of coal, is the latest in a series of major coal company collapses that threaten to leave behind a costly legacy that will haunt taxpayers and consumers for years.
The abandonment of hundreds of mines over the years led Congress in 1977 to pass a law that requires coal companies to clean up after mining. Left untreated, these sites are more than eyesores: They create long-lingering problems including polluted drinking water.
And the problem is likely to become more pronounced in the wake of these bankruptcies. Mining companies are supposed to buy insurance to cover the cost of cleanups. But Congress has allowed some of the more financially secure coal producers to “self-bond,” promising to pay for cleanups themselves.
Perhaps the most glaring instance of self-bonding gone bad is Peabody Energy. Leading up to its bankruptcy, Peabody had been frantically trying to preserve its $1.47 billion in self-bonding agreements in states where they had been called into question by regulators.Two other major coal companies, Alpha Natural Resources and Arch Coal, recently filed for bankruptcy, leaving hundreds of millions in reclamation guarantees in limbo. A deal between Arch Coal and regulators in Wyoming suggests taxpayers will get stuck with the bulk of the cleanup costs. The company agreed toearmark at most $75 million to cover self-bonded reclamation liabilities of more than $450 million………
Climate Change threatens the already leaking Marshall Islands radioactive dome
This dome in the Pacific houses tons of radioactive waste – and it’s leaking
The Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands is a hulking legacy of years of US nuclear testing. Now locals and scientists are warning that rising sea levels caused by climate change could cause 111,000 cubic yards of debris to spill into the ocean , Guardian Coleen Jose, Kim Wall and Jan Hendrik Hinzel on Runit Island 3 July 2015
“……..Officially, this vast structure is known as the Runit Dome. Locals call it The Tomb.
Below the 18-inch concrete cap rests the United States’ cold war legacy to this remote corner of the Pacific Ocean: 111,000 cubic yards of radioactive debris left behind after 12 years of nuclear tests.
Brackish water pools around the edge of the dome, where sections of concrete have started to crack away. Underground, radioactive waste has already started to leach out of the crater: according to a 2013 report by the US Department of Energy, soil around the dome is already more contaminated than its contents.
Now locals, scientists and environmental activists fear that a storm surge, typhoon or other cataclysmic event brought on by climate change could tear the concrete mantel wide open, releasing its contents into the Pacific Ocean.
“Runit Dome represents a tragic confluence of nuclear testing and climate change,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, who visited the dome in 2010.
“It resulted from US nuclear testing and the leaving behind of large quantities of plutonium,” he said. “Now it has been gradually submerged as result of sea level rise from greenhouse gas emissions by industrial countries led by the United States.”
Enewetak Atoll, and the much better-known Bikini Atoll, were the main sites of the United States Pacific Proving Grounds, the setting for dozens of atomic explosions during the early years of the cold war……..http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific-radioactive-waste
USA Democrats probing oil companies’ campaign against action on climate change
Dem AGs mounting Big Tobacco-style probe of oil companies, industry fights back By Jennifer G. Hickey April 12, 2016 FoxNews.com Democratic officials’ campaign against fossil fuel companies is entering a new phase as state attorneys general launch investigations that mirror the Justice Department’s landmark case against “Big Tobacco,” probing claims that oil companies misled the public about the risks of global warming — a charge industry representatives adamantly reject.
Massachusetts and the U.S. Virgin Islands are the latest to announce probes, specifically into whether ExxonMobil was up-front regarding what it knew about climate change.
“Fossil fuel companies that deceived investors and consumers about the dangers of climate change should be held accountable. That’s why we have joined in investigating ExxonMobil,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in announcing the inquiry.
The announcements follow a similar investigation by New York Attorney GeneralEric T. Schneiderman, who subpoenaed Exxon’s financial records and emails last November. Schneiderman has indicated ExxonMobil is not the only energy company in his office’s crosshairs, vowing to prosecute any that committed fraud to maximize profit at the public’s 
expense “to the fullest extent of the law.”
Yet industry representatives and their allies say what’s really going on is a coordinated attempt to silence climate change skeptics while punishing the industry itself for society’s use of fossil fuels, all based on spurious claims of a cover-up. Exxon representatives say the accusations against the oil giant are “laughable” and “not credible,” blasting recent news reports that assert the industry tried to mislead the public about global warming dangers. …….. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/04/12/dem-ags-mounting-big-tobacco-style-probe-oil-companies-industry-fights-back.html
1 This Month
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25 June- THE PUKE ON NUKES
Thursday, June 25, 2026
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From NRC & DOE Deregulation to Techno-Fascist Billionaires Going Nuclear, Plus a Few Songs from Atomic Cabaret REGISTER
26 June – Radiation Trainwreck at the NRC / Join the Protect Better Campaign – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/4ZlZ5_qLSHGiLSCg8FF6Bg#/registration
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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