Last week the Adirondack Council issued a statement on acid rain in the Adirondacks, linking increasing pollution from Midwest power plants to a rise in the acidity of clouds here and saying, “It is troubling to see acid rain re-emerge as a threat to the Adirondack Park.”
The researchers who collected that cloud data, while agreeing with the Council on the need to keep acid rain at bay, disagreed that the cloud pH levels have “reversed their previous trends.” They said a drop between 2016 and 2017 was “minor” and “a natural variation.” They also said that the latest data shows the acidity of Adirondack clouds continues to improve.
I think it's a mistake to say that running flue gas desulfurizaiton is free or universally good. Just because a few plants are operating without using the FGD stacks running due to equipment failure, doesn't mean that the acid rain cap and trade program is not working. Sulfur credits are cheap, because it's working so well. Capturing sulfur dioxide is both very energy intensive (more carbon emissions) and uses a lot of space to landfill the often contaminated gypsum.
America can reduce our overall energy use 40 to 60 percent below current levels by midcentury by using better technologies and eliminating waste. This shouldn’t be surprising when you consider that, in 2018, more than two-thirds of the energy we produced went to waste.
Even if we used polluting and dangerous fuels more efficiently, damage from activities such as drilling, mining, pipeline construction, coal trains and the discharge of radioactive waste still do tremendous harm to our world. But when you consider the tremendous amount that is wasted in the production and use of energy, it only makes matters worse.
The Amery Ice Shelf in Antarctica has just produced its biggest iceberg in more than 50 years.
The calved block covers 1,636 sq km in area - a little smaller than Scotland's Isle of Skye - and is called D28.
The scale of the berg means it will have to be monitored and tracked because it could in future pose a hazard to shipping.
Not since the early 1960s has Amery calved a bigger iceberg. That was a whopping 9,000 sq km in area.
"Sadly they stared and sank in their chairs
And searched for a comforting notion.
And the rich silver walls looked ready to fall
As they shook in doubtful devotion.
The ice cubes would clink as they freshened their drinks." - Phil Ochs
In the history of nuclear disasters, it’s easy to forget that a radioactive explosion back in 1957 near an obscure village with an unpronounceable name in the Ural Mountains was the true original.
And while engineering heroics have finally been brought to bear on the smoldering sarcophagus at Chernobyl, and robots troll the wreckage of Fukushima, this catastrophe by many accounts continues to churn radioactivity into the environment and to sicken a hostage population.
None of us were ever supposed to know anything about it, and if not for a series of untimely revelations, we probably still wouldn’t.
The latest attempt to increase awareness around climate change is the Climate Strike protests that popped up around the world 🌍 last week.
Most reasonable people agree 👍 climate change is happening and that the ever increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the air is problematic – you personally may be only dumping a few tons a year into the air but there are millions who live in cities that are dumping trillions of tons into the atmosphere. 🌆
What to do about it? On paper 📄 the trendy green technologies of the day are often brought out – solar panels, wind turbines, LED light bulbs 💡 and of course electric cars 🚙 . But when you look at the math – land use, cost and technology limitations – the math is hard to make work. Most of the technologies proposed are just swaps of fossil and more energy intensive technologies for slightly less energy intensive ways of doing things. ⚡
You have those who advocate behavioral changes – eat less meat 🍖 and dairy 🐮, recycle ♻ more, use public transport 🚍. Maybe buy more products made from hemp 🌿, buy trendy green things and skip the straws and the plastic water 💦 bottles. Those things certainly feel good if you are interested in the saving the earth 🌎. But they aren’t systematic changes.
You have governments like New York State promising they’ll work for ambitious climate goals. 🗽 They make long lists of promises and laws 📑 but their promises don’t always add up to their actions as they dig deeper into the next generation of fossil technologies ⛽ ignoring the consequences of their own actions.
What’s the solution? I don’t know for sure but I think sin taxes on fossil fuels can help. 💰 Oil, coal and natural gas are underpriced, they are too cheap to burn, distorting the value of the energy ⚡ services they provide. I like most people don’t want to pay more for electricity or gas for my big jacked up truck 🚚 but I know if it hurt in my pocket more I’d be a lot more responsible with my use of energy.
But of course, the politicians don’t want to implement unpopular policies, because they want to be reelected and loved by their constituents. And if they get voted ❎ out of office, their replacement will just roll back 🔙 their unpopular policies.
