Sunday, July 25, 2021
Bruce Ratcliffe - 7-25-2021- We are beyond climate warning
We are beyond climate warning
July 25, 2021
Breaking news: Heat in Pacific Northwest is “historic, dangerous, prolonged and unprecedented.” Western drought upgraded from “extreme” to “exceptional;” worst in 1,200 years. And yet, millions of Americans still doubt global warming. Why?
There are two reasons the danger of global warming has been so difficult for so many to heed. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe highlighted the first. In the dead of winter he brought a snowball into the Senate chambers and had a good laugh about global warming. Yes, Jim, cold days still happen. But they’re getting harder to find. Since 1894, nine of the 10 hottest years in Fresno occurred in the last decade.
The second is highlighted by predictions of what a 4 degree Fahrenheit-hotter world would be like: grim. It’s hard to imagine how intolerable. Portlanders no longer need to imagine. This summer, global warming is serving up a preview of that world. The weather for the entire Pacific Northwest has been as much as 40 degrees hotter than “normal.”
It is time for Congress to pass a carbon tax (the Energy Innovation Act, HR2307), to begin addressing the approaching disaster. No longer can we say we haven’t been warmed.
Bruce Ratcliffe, Fresno
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article252966413.html
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
Matthew Armstrong - 6-27-2021 - U.S. Military and Climate Change
https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article252349163.html
Letters to the editor, June 27, 2021
U.S. military and climate change
Climate change is routinely treated as, at best, a “liberal” issue, and at worst derided as a hoax by many lawmakers and a not-small percentage of the public.
Ironically, those same people tend to speak highly of the military. The U.S. Department of Defense, as well as similar military organizations in other nations, have long pointed to the dangers posed by climate change. As the most recent example, the International Military Council on Climate and Security (a group composed of military officers, including a number of U.S. officers, and civilian experts, and led by current and former military officials), recently released a report identifying a number of ways in which climate change poses a threat to military readiness and response. That ranges from increased conflict over less water supplies to the effects of flooding on coastal military facilities.
If politicians and media are being honest about their positive views of the military, then they will pay attention to this — armies and navies are not bastions of “liberal propaganda” and don’t tend to fall for hoaxes very easily. If they are taking this seriously, then we are well past time for lawmakers to do so.
Matt Armstrong
Fresno
Friday, June 18, 2021
Nayamin Martinez - 6-18-2021 - Far from being a good energy source, biomass threatens Central Valley health, climate.
This article appeared on the opinion page of the Fresno BEE on June 18.
Far from being a good energy source, biomass threatens Central Valley health, climate
by Nayamin Martinez, executive director of the Central California Environmental Justice Network
by Nayamin Martinez, executive director of the Central California Environmental Justice Network
Communities in the Central Valley breathed easier when the biomass power plant in Mendota
was shut down in 2016, after years of being one of the biggest air polluters in the region.
It was a particular relief for residents of the mobile home park a quarter mile away, who’d
been breathing the plant’s dangerous fine particles for years.
This matters because fine particulate matter penetrates deep into the lungs, entering the
bloodstream. These tiny particles are linked to serious health problems including heart
disease, premature death, stroke and aggravated asthma.
But our community health is still in danger, with Assemblymember Rudy Salas acting on
behalf of the industry by promoting dirty biomass energy for the Valley and our state.
The truth is that biomass is a false solution that harms our health and our climate.
Contrary to industry claims, biomass power plants are major emitters of air pollutants,
especially fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, and are guilty of repeated air quality
violations.
Before it was closed, the Mendota biomass plant was the largest stationary source of fine
particulate pollution in Kings, Fresno and Madera counties combined. The Rio
Bravo biomass plant in Fresno is the second-largest point source of fine particulate pollution
in Fresno County.
Particulate pollution causes an estimated 1,200 premature deaths in the Valley every year.
In the San Joaquin Valley, four out of five active biomass plants are in disadvantaged
communities with some of the highest air pollution in the state. The Rio Bravo biomass plant
in Fresno is located less than a half-mile from Malaga Elementary School, Malaga
Community Park and surrounding homes. It sits in a majority Hispanic neighborhood with the
state’s highest pollution score.
Like fossil fuels, biomass is a carbon-burning energy source that spews climate-heating
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In fact, biomass power is more carbon polluting at the
smokestack than coal.
Biomass accelerates the climate crisis at the exact time when we must rapidly cut carbon
pollution to avoid devastating climate impacts like the drought that we’re in now.
It’s also not needed for stabilizing the electrical grid. Biomass power currently supplies less
than 3% of the state’s total electric power. Instead, grid stabilization can be achieved with
truly clean and renewable solar and wind power, paired with energy storage.
Salas’s claim that biomass is affordable is another inaccuracy. Biomass is California’s most
expensive electricity source, averaging more than three times the cost of solar or wind power.
This expensive and dirty business is propped up by subsidies paid for by taxpayers and utility
customers, diverting investment away from genuine clean energy sources.
Salas claims that forests are not being chopped down and turned into power, but reports and
photo evidence of whole trees trucked in and piled up at biomass facilities show that Salas is
simply wrong.
Biomass energy is often promoted as a way to incentivize large-scale tree-cutting — using
misleading labels like “thinning” under the claim that this will protect communities during
wildfires.
In reality forest cutting doesn’t stop fire and can actually cause fires to burn hotter and faster.
Indeed, under a logging and thinning approach, California’s communities have suffered
unprecedented wildfire deaths and home destruction.
Instead, research and experience show that the most effective way to protect homes and
communities in fire-prone areas is through home-hardening retrofits to make homes
themselves more fire-safe and reducing vegetation in the 100 feet of defensible space
immediately surrounding homes.
The bottom line is that burning wood for electricity is an outdated, dirty energy source that
harms vulnerable communities, worsens the climate crisis, and diverts resources away from
genuine climate solutions such as solar and wind.
We encourage lawmakers like Assemblymember Salas to get the facts and work towards a
clean energy future for the Central Valley. Biomass is not it.
-----------------------
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Singleton Thibodeaux-Yost - 4-22-2021 - Fresno planetary scientist draws lessons on climate change from space exploration
Fresno planetary scientist draws lessons on climate change from space exploration
April 22, 2021
It’s Feb. 18 and my co-workers and I anxiously watch as the Mars 2020 Rover, Perseverance, approaches the Martian atmosphere. Our mission is to capture an image of the 70-foot-wide supersonic parachute that will slow the rover during descent onto Mars. Millions of people around the globe are watching via live stream as we operate the high-resolution camera, HiRISE, aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Traveling at 6,750 mph, the extreme distance and high speeds of the two spacecraft created challenging conditions that required precise timing so the rover was viewable by HiRISE at just the right moment. This interplanetary action-shot required arduous amounts of collaboration, calculations, and specialized software, but the result is awe-inspiring.
As a planetary scientist, I see space exploration as a way to understand where we come from. It allows us to learn how life began, and what it might be like in extreme environments.
We know that the Earth has gone through drastic changes over its long history. While “life” in general has survived, the type of life that survives is always that which has adapted and thrived in a changing world. The relative climatic calm on the Earth for the last 2,000 years has allowed humans to become a technologically and culturally advanced species. Unfortunately for us, that calm has ended. Severe and unprecedented weather events have overwhelmed the U.S. in the last few years: catastrophic flooding in the Midwest, large-scale fires in the West, the polar vortex causing record-breaking freezes in Texas this year.
Recent trends of severe weather are telling us that we need to prepare for a future that will be unfamiliar. This means societal and infrastructure change on many levels — economically, socially, and politically. However, humans have a great survival advantage for facing climate change. We have grown a collective base of knowledge to innovate in ways that would have seemed pure fiction a hundred years ago. From my own experience working on active spacecraft missions, I know that when a community of people come together around a common idea, we can face any challenge and succeed.
The vast majority of scientists and Americans agree that climate change is real, caused by excessive carbon emissions, and will have serious impacts on the health and livelihoods of themselves and their loved ones. While some industries are already reducing their carbon emissions, others will not move forward until there is a plan to incentivize them. Putting a gradually rising fee on emissions from coal, oil, and gas will drive down carbon pollution because energy companies and leading industries will innovate toward cleaner, cheaper options.
It is a lofty goal to cut carbon emissions to stabilize our climate, while allowing us to carry on with the benefits that abundant energy has given us. This goal may feel as unattainable as landing on the moon once did. In the 1960s, President Kennedy’s famous “Moon Speech” at Rice University in Texas about the space program inspired a nation to explore new horizons and technology. Our country has led exploration into space, and this race towards a clean energy future is our generation’s moonshot. As the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo missions and 51st anniversary of Earth Day is Thursday, I reflect on JFK’s famous words half a century ago and compare the race to the moon to the challenge of climate change:
Why should we lead innovation towards a clean energy future? Not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we must accept, one we cannot postpone, and one in which we intend to succeed. We have our future, and the future of every living thing on this Earth at stake; this is not a race we can lose.
Singleton Thibodeaux-Yost lives in Fresno and holds a bachelor’s in art and an master’s in geology from Fresno State. She works remotely for the University of Arizona as an operations engineer for the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
https://eedition.fresnobee.com/ccidist-replica-reader/?epub=https://eedition.fresnobee.com/ccidist-ws/mcclatchy/mcclatchy_frs_newsbroad/issues/57744/&token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJNY0NsYXRjaHkiLCJzdWIiOiI1MDAyNzU3ODYiLCJwdWJzIjp7ImZyZXNub19mcnNfbmV3c2Jyb2FkIjpbIkFMTEZSUy01MDMyIiwiZWVkaXRpb24iXX0sInNlc3Npb24iOjE1ODQ2MzUyMDEsImlhdCI6MTU4MjA0NjgwMSwiZXhwIjoxNTgyMDQ3NzAxfQ.rticelHUca08OxN9y4vCIXxl1zyyX_Da3u_5vgSbg4g#/articles/14
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Kaelyn Xiong - 4-4-2021 - Our Valley at risk by climate change
Our Valley at risk by climate change
April 4, 2021
Early risers know the true beauty of the Valley. They know the feeling of the brisk morning air hitting their skin, and how brightly the sun shines as it peaks over the Sierra Nevada. This place we call home is only a small piece of the beauty that this Earth has to offer. But as climate change worsens, the beauty that we have become accustomed to is in danger.
Our daily actions, and inactions, are proving to be detrimental to our only home. Climate change is a pervasive issue caused by human activity. And it is time we mend what we have broken. But as prominent sociologist Charles Derber has suggested in “The Wilding of America,” small, personal changes are not enough to remedy climate change. So, call onto your elected officials at the local, state, and federal level. Urge them to create and support legislation that holds large corporations accountable for their carbon footprint.
We must continue to educate ourselves and mobilize those around us. The conversations are hard. And the work we have ahead of us is even harder. But the preservation of this Earth, for us and generations to come, will always have been well worth it.
Kaelyn Xiong, Fresno
https://eedition.fresnobee.com/ccidist-replica-reader/?epub=https://eedition.fresnobee.com/ccidist-ws/mcclatchy/mcclatchy_frs_newsbroad/issues/56100/&token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJNY0NsYXRjaHkiLCJzdWIiOiI1MDAyNzU3ODYiLCJwdWJzIjp7ImZyZXNub19mcnNfbmV3c2Jyb2FkIjpbIkFMTEZSUy01MDMyIiwiZWVkaXRpb24iXX0sInNlc3Npb24iOjE1ODQ2MzUyMDEsImlhdCI6MTU4MjA0NjgwMSwiZXhwIjoxNTgyMDQ3NzAxfQ.rticelHUca08OxN9y4vCIXxl1zyyX_Da3u_5vgSbg4g#/articles/46
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Andrea Farber De Zubiria - 2-3-2021- May 2021 be year of being bipartisan
May 2021 be year of being bipartisan
February 3, 2021
I’ve had it with insults, sarcasm and screaming getting all our attention. I’m ready for civility, decency and the democratic process to get a lot more coverage.
That’s why I admire the 17 Republican members of Congress, including the Central Valley’s David Valadao, for the letter they sent to President Biden on Jan. 20.
My favorite part was this: “Americans are tired of the partisan gridlock and simply want to see leaders from both sides of the aisle work on issues important to American families, workers, and businesses ... We firmly believe that what unites us as Americans is far greater than anything that may ever divide us. In that spirit, we hope that we can rise above the partisan fray to negotiate meaningful change for Americans across the nation.”.
I respect this reach across the aisle and hope we see a lot more of this from both parties. We need our leaders to move us toward lasting solutions to the pandemic, racial injustice, poverty, gun violence and climate change. I hope the most used word of 2021 will be “bipartisan.”
Andrea Farber De Zubiria, Fresno
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