Science

Manchin’s Donors Include Pipeline Giants That Win in His Climate Deal

Published

2 years ago

August 7, 2022

Manchin’s Donors Include Pipeline Giants That Win in His Climate Deal

BLACKSBURG, Va. — After years of spirited opposition from environmental activists, the Mountain Valley Pipeline — a 304-mile gasoline pipeline reducing by means of the Appalachian Mountains — was not on time, over funds and beset with lawsuits. As lately as February, one in all its builders, NextEra Power, warned that the various authorized and regulatory obstacles meant there was “a really low likelihood of pipeline completion.”

Then got here Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and his maintain on the Democrats’ local weather agenda.

Mr. Manchin’s latest shock settlement to again the Biden administration’s historic local weather laws took place partly as a result of the senator was promised one thing in return: not solely help for the pipeline in his house state, but in addition expedited approval for pipelines and different infrastructure nationwide, as a part of a wider set of concessions to fossil fuels.

It was an enormous win for a pipeline trade that, in recent times, has quietly grow to be one in all Mr. Manchin’s greatest monetary supporters.

Pure gasoline pipeline corporations have dramatically elevated their contributions to Mr. Manchin, from simply $20,000 in 2020 to greater than $331,000 to date this election cycle, in accordance with marketing campaign finance disclosures filed with the Federal Election Fee and tallied by the Middle for Responsive Politics. Mr. Manchin has been by far Congress’s largest recipient of cash from pure gasoline pipeline corporations this cycle, elevating thrice as a lot from the trade than every other lawmaker.

NextEra Power, a utility big and stakeholder within the Mountain Valley Pipeline, is a high donor to each Mr. Manchin and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, who negotiated the pipeline aspect take care of Mr. Manchin. Mr. Schumer has obtained greater than $281,000 from NextEra this election cycle, the information reveals. Equitrans Midstream, which owns the most important stake within the pipeline, has given greater than $10,000 to Mr. Manchin. The pipeline and its homeowners have additionally spent closely to foyer Congress.

The disclosures level to the extraordinary behind-the-scenes spending and deal-making by the fossil gasoline trade which have formed a local weather invoice that however stands to be transformational. The ultimate reconciliation package deal, which cleared the Senate on Sunday, would allocate greater than $370 billion to local weather and power insurance policies, together with help for cleaner applied sciences like wind generators, photo voltaic panels and electrical autos, and put the US on observe to cut back its emissions of planet-warming gases by roughly 40 p.c beneath 2005 ranges by the last decade’s finish.

A spokesman for Mr. Manchin stated the Mountain Valley Pipeline “will assist carry down power prices, shore up American power safety and create jobs in West Virginia.” An official in Mr. Schumer’s workplace stated the pipeline deal “was solely included on the insistence of Sen. Manchin as a part of any settlement associated to this reconciliation invoice.”

Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for Equitrans, stated the corporate maintained a “excessive customary of integrity” whereas participating with policymakers. She declined to say whether or not Equitrans had pressed both senator on the pipeline. NextEra Power, which additionally develops renewable tasks throughout the nation and stands to learn broadly from the invoice, didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Regardless of concessions just like the pipeline deal, main environmental teams in addition to progressives in Congress have praised the laws. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, referred to as it a “once-in-a-lifetime alternative” for the nation to enact significant local weather laws.

However in Appalachia, the place the Mountain Valley Pipeline cuts by means of steep mountainsides and practically 1,000 streams and wetlands, the deal has highlighted the financial and social tensions in a area the place extractive industries over the generations have produced jobs in coal mines and on fracking rigs however have additionally left behind deep scars on the land and in communities.

For years, environmental and civil rights activists in addition to many Democratic state lawmakers have opposed the pipeline venture, which might carry greater than two billion cubic toes of pure gasoline per day trip of the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia and thru southern Virginia. Development on the pipeline was speculated to be full by 2018, however environmental teams have efficiently challenged a collection of federal permits in court docket, the place judges have discovered the pipeline builders’ analyses concerning the results on wildlife, sedimentation and erosion missing.

The pipeline deal means Appalachia is once more changing into a “sacrifice zone” for the larger good, stated Russell Chisholm, a Persian Gulf battle veteran and a member of Shield Our Water, Heritage, Rights, a coalition of teams that oppose building.

He was visiting on Friday with a neighbor, Jammie Hale, who held up a jar of cloudy faucet water. It was thick with sediment that Mr. Hale suspected had been dislodged by building alongside the pipeline’s route, which runs alongside his property close to Virginia’s border with West Virginia. Each males have clashed with the police at protests. They spoke beneath an American flag that Mr. Hale had hung the wrong way up ever since employees began laying down pipe.

“If working individuals, poor individuals reaped the advantages, this invoice may actually assist,” Mr. Chisholm stated. “However it’s all past us, as a result of it seems they’ve been negotiating behind the scenes. It seems the pipeline was on the negotiating desk, and we weren’t at that desk.”

“There’s a bent to put in writing off our area as a pink state that bought what was coming to them,” he added.

The considerations in Appalachia underscore the real-world fallout of the Democrats’ concessions to fossil fuels. The local weather invoice requires the federal authorities to public sale off extra public lands and waters for oil drilling as a prerequisite for extra renewable power sources like wind and photo voltaic. It expands tax credit for carbon seize know-how that might enable coal- or gas-burning energy crops to maintain working with lowered emissions.

Mr. Manchin has additionally secured pledges for a follow-up invoice that might make it simpler to greenlight power infrastructure tasks and make it more durable to oppose such tasks underneath the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act and the Clear Water Act.

These provisions may encourage additional building of pipelines, gas-burning energy crops and different fossil gasoline infrastructure to the detriment of low-income neighborhoods, which already disproportionately host these industries and sometimes have fewer sources to barter with builders.

“Folks like me who’re simply making an attempt to outlive don’t have the time to attend hearings and conferences,” stated Crystal Mello, who has cleaned properties for a dwelling in southwest Virginia for twenty years. She listened in on native hearings on her earbuds as she swept flooring, and located no matter time she may to help “sit-ins” in timber in close by Elliston to cease pipeline employees from felling them. She is now a neighborhood organizer whilst she continues to wash homes.

“These mountains are supposed to have timber defending them,” she stated. “Persons are saying it is a whole lot, however at what price?”

The concessions to pure gasoline pipelines come amid what has been a dramatic turnaround within the trade’s fortunes. For years, a glut of pure gasoline had depressed costs, and the coronavirus pandemic additional reduce demand. However Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in addition to the U.S. financial rebound, has pushed costs increased.

In consequence, pure gasoline pipelines and export terminals have grow to be a key development alternative as Europe appears for tactics to wean itself from Russian gasoline. And whilst the US takes steps so as to add extra renewable sources of power, pure gasoline and oil stay the bedrock of the U.S. economic system, and far of that gasoline strikes across the nation by means of pipelines.

Gov. Jim Justice, Republican of West Virginia, has stated that the pipeline must be completed and has referred to as on the Biden administration to embody all types of power. “This nation must be completely power impartial,” he stated at a briefing in February. “With none query, if it had been, we might really feel higher, stronger and higher off.” Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Republican of Virginia, has additionally stated the pipeline is significant to his state.

Supporters level to different advantages that the laws would carry to West Virginia. It could cement a federal belief fund to help coal miners who’ve black lung illness, for instance, and provide incentives for constructing wind and photo voltaic farms in areas the place coal mines or coal crops lately closed.

“In case you look to the long run, it’s going to assist,” David Owens, a retired native firefighter, stated after he had stuffed up his S.U.V. exterior Blacksburg, Va. Pipeline opponents had been solely “delaying the inevitable,” he stated. “It’s going to occur.”

It stays unclear exactly how Mr. Manchin’s pipeline deal will work. In response to phrases launched by the senator, the settlement requires federal companies to take “all essential actions” to allow the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s building and operation. The phrases of the settlement, which might be included within the follow-up invoice, would additionally give the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit jurisdiction over all future authorized challenges, slightly than hold that authority with the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., the place environmentalists had discovered success.

The Fourth Circuit has overturned permits issued by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Administration and the Forest Service, saying that their analyses about hostile results on wildlife, sedimentation and erosion had been flawed. The pipeline venture has significantly struggled to get approval to cross streams or wetlands in part of the nation with so a lot of them.

Joseph M. Lovett, an lawyer on the authorized nonprofit Appalachian Mountain Advocates who’s preventing the pipeline, stated that any change in authorized jurisdiction mandated by Congress “was ridiculous.”

“We’re a nation of legal guidelines. The highly effective individuals don’t have the best to decide on judges,” he stated, including, “If wealthy individuals pays to get a greater day in court docket, that’s simply corruption.”

Mr. Manchin has made clear his view that fossil fuels will proceed to be essential. He grew to become a millionaire from his household coal enterprise and has taken extra marketing campaign money from the oil and gasoline trade than any of his colleagues have.

Mr. Manchin has attracted extra contributions partly as a result of he’s the chairman of the Senate power committee. Main pipeline corporations which have made contributions embody Enterprise Merchandise Companions, Power Switch LP, Plains All American Pipeline and Williams Firms.

David Seriff, who has lengthy opposed the pipeline, appeared out on Saturday from Brush Mountain, the place the pipeline would cross half a mile from his house. With building stalled, sections of the thick pipe have laid uncovered on the bottom for years. “I don’t come out right here a lot anymore as a result of I hate to see this,” he stated.

Mr. Seriff stated he was inspired by Congress’s motion on local weather. “However the Democrats and individuals who say they’re environmentalists are able to construct the pipeline, too,” he stated.

Science

2024 was the hottest year on record, NASA and NOAA confirm

Published

4 hours ago

January 11, 2025

Press Room

2024 was the hottest year on record, NASA and NOAA confirm

Amid a week of horrifying wildfires in Los Angeles, government agencies in the U.S. and around the world confirmed Friday that 2024 was the planet’s hottest year since recordkeeping began in 1880.

It’s the 11th consecutive year in which a new heat record has been set, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.

“Between record-breaking temperatures and wildfires currently threatening our centers and workforce in California, it has never been more important to understand our changing planet,” Nelson said.

Firefighters on Friday were battling to protect NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge from the Eaton fire, which has burned 13,690 acres and roughly 5,000 buildings thus far.

Research has shown that global warming is contributing significantly to larger and more intense wildfires in the western U.S. in recent years, and to longer fire seasons.

The devastating fires in Southern California erupted after an abrupt shift from wet weather to extremely dry weather, a bout of climate “whiplash” that scientists say increased wildfire risks. Research has shown that these rapid wet-to-dry and dry-to-wet swings, which can worsen wildfires, flooding and other hazards, are growing more frequent and intense because of rising global temperatures.

Extreme weather events in 2024 included Hurricane Helene in the southeastern U.S., devastating floods in Valencia, Spain, and a deadly heat wave in Mexico so intense that monkeys dropped dead from the trees, noted Russell Vose, chief of the monitoring and assessment branch of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

“We aren’t saying any of these things were caused by changes in Earth’s climate,” Vose said. But since warmer air holds more moisture, the higher temperatures “could have exacerbated some events this year.”

Last year’s data also notes a step toward a major climate threshold. Keeping the average global surface temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels has long been seen as necessary to avoid many of the most harrowing climate impacts.

NOAA pegged 2024’s global average surface temperature at 1.46 degrees C above its preindustrial baseline, and NASA’s measurements put the increase at 1.47 degrees C. In 2023, NASA said the temperature was 1.36 degrees C higher than the baseline.

Considering the margin of error in their measurements, “that puts the NOAA and NASA models comfortably within the possibility that the real number is 1.5 degrees,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Calculations from other organizations passed the 1.5-degree mark more clearly.

Berkeley Earth and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service both said the planet warmed to slightly more than 1.6 degrees C above pre-industrial times in 2024. The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization said the increase was 1.55 degrees C and the U.K. Met Office, the country’s weather service, measured an increase of 1.53 degrees C.

Although 2024 probably marks the first calendar year in which the average temperature exceeded the 1.5-degree threshold, it doesn’t mean Earth has passed the crucial target set in the Paris Agreement, Vose said.

That describes “a sustained, multi-decade increase of 1.5 degrees,” something that’s not expected to occur until the 2030s or 2040s, the scientists noted.

“For a long time, the global mean temperature changes were a bit of an esoteric thing — nobody lives in the global mean,” Schmidt said. “But the signal is now so large that you’re not only seeing it at the global scale … you’re seeing it at the local level.”

“This is now quite personal,” he said.

The oceans, which store 90% of the planet’s excess heat, also recorded their highest average temperature since records began in 1955.

The Arctic has seen the most warming, which is concerning because the region is home to vast quantities of ice that stands to melt and raise sea levels, Schmidt said.

Temperatures there are rising 3 to 3.5 times faster than the overall global average, he added.

The only place where average surface temperatures have cooled is the area immediately around Antarctica, and that’s probably due to meltwater from shrinking ice sheets, Schmidt said.

A year ago, NOAA predicted there was only a 1 in 3 chance that 2024 would break the record set in 2023, Vose said. Then every month from January to July set a new high, and August was a tie. As a result, Friday’s declaration came as little surprise.

The longer-term trends are no better.

“We anticipate future global warming as long as we are emitting greenhouse gases,” Schmidt said. “That’s something that brings us no joy to tell people, but unfortunately that’s the case.”

Times staff writer Ian James contributed to this report.

Science

There's a reason you can't stop doomscrolling through L.A.'s fire disaster

Published

15 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

There's a reason you can't stop doomscrolling through L.A.'s fire disaster

Even for those lucky enough to get out in time, or to live outside the evacuation zones, there has been no escape from the fires in the Los Angeles area this week.

There is hardly a vantage point in the city from which flames or plumes of smoke are not visible, nowhere the scent of burning memories can’t reach.

And on our screens — on seemingly every channel and social media feed and text thread and WhatsApp group — an endless carousel of images documents a level of fear, loss and grief that felt unimaginable here as recently as Tuesday morning.

Even in places of physical safety, many in Los Angeles are finding it difficult to look away from the worst of the destruction online.

“To me it’s more comfortable to doomscroll than to sit and wait,” said Clara Sterling, who evacuated from her home Wednesday. “I would rather know exactly where the fire is going and where it’s headed than not know anything at all.”

A writer and comedian, Sterling is — by her own admission — extremely online. But the nature of this week’s fires make it particularly hard to disengage from news coverage and social media, experts said.

For one, there’s a material difference between scrolling through images of a far-off crisis and staying informed about an active disaster unfolding in your neighborhood, said Casey Fiesler, an associate professor specializing in tech ethics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“It’s weird to even think of it as ‘doomscrolling,’ ” she said. “When you’re in it, you’re also looking for important information that can be really hard to get.”

When you share an identity with the victims of a traumatic event, you’re more likely both to seek out media coverage of the experience and to feel more distressed by the media you see, said Roxane Cohen Silver, distinguished professor of psychological science at UC Irvine.

For Los Angeles residents, this week’s fires are affecting the people we identify with most intimately: family, friends and community members. They have consumed places and landmarks that feature prominently in fond memories and regular routines.

The ubiquitous images have also fueled painful memories for those who have lived through similar disasters — a group whose numbers have increased as wildfires have grown more frequent in California, Silver said.

This she knows personally: She evacuated from the Laguna Beach fires in 1993, and began a long-term study of that fire’s survivors days after returning to her home.

“Throughout California, throughout the West, throughout communities that have had wildfire experience, we are particularly primed and sensitized to that news,” she said. “And the more we immerse ourselves in that news, the more likely we are to experience distress.”

Absorption in these images of fire and ash can cause trauma of its own, said Jyoti Mishra, an associate professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego who studied the long-term psychological health of survivors of the 2018 Camp fire.

The team identified lingering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety both among survivors who personally experienced fire-related trauma such as injury or property loss, and — to a smaller but still significant degree — among those who indirectly experienced the trauma as witnesses.

“If you’re witnessing [trauma] in the media, happening on the streets that you’ve lived on and walked on, and you can really put yourself in that place, then it can definitely be impactful,” said Mishra, who’s also co-director of the UC Climate Change and Mental Health Council. “Psychology and neuroscience research has shown that images and videos that generate a sense of personal meaning can have deep emotional impacts.”

The emotional pull of the videos and images on social media make it hard to look away, even as many find the information there much harder to trust.

Like many others, Sterling spent a lot of time online during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Back then, Sterling said, the social media environment felt decidedly different.

“This time around I think I feel less informed about what’s going on because there’s been such a big push toward not fact-checking and getting rid of verified accounts,” she said.

The rise of AI-generated images and photos has added another troubling kink, as Sterling highlighted in a video posted to TikTok early Thursday.

“The Hollywood sign was not on fire last night. Any video or photos that you saw of the Hollywood sign on fire were fake. They were AI generated,” she said, posting from a hotel in San Diego after evacuating.

Hunter Ditch, a producer and voice actor in Lake Balboa, raised similar concerns about the lack of accurate information. Some social media content she’s encountered seemed “very polarizing” or political, and some exaggerated the scope of the disaster or featured complete fabrications, such as that flaming Hollywood sign.

The spread of false information has added another layer of stress, she said. This week, she started turning to other types of app — like the disaster mapping app, Watch Duty — to track the spreading fires and changing evacuation zones.

But that made her wonder: “If I have to check a whole other app for accurate information, then what am I even doing on social media at all?”

Science

Pink Fire Retardant, a Dramatic Wildfire Weapon, Poses Its Own Dangers

Published

24 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

Pink Fire Retardant, a Dramatic Wildfire Weapon, Poses Its Own Dangers

From above the raging flames, these planes can unleash immense tankfuls of bright pink fire retardant in just 20 seconds. They have long been considered vital in the battle against wildfires.

But emerging research has shown that the millions of gallons of retardant sprayed on the landscape to tame wildfires each year come with a toxic burden, because they contain heavy metals and other chemicals that are harmful to human health and the environment.

The toxicity presents a stark dilemma. These tankers and their cargo are a powerful tool for taming deadly blazes. Yet as wildfires intensify and become more frequent in an era of climate change, firefighters are using them more often, and in the process releasing more harmful chemicals into the environment.

Some environmental groups have questioned the retardants’ effectiveness and potential for harm. The efficiency of fire retardant has been hard to measure, because it’s one of a barrage of firefighting tactics deployed in a major fire. After the flames are doused, it’s difficult to assign credit.

The frequency and severity of wildfires has grown in recent years, particularly in the western United States. Scientists have also found that fires across the region have become faster moving in recent decades.

There are also the longer-term health effects of exposure to wildfire smoke, which can penetrate the lungs and heart, causing disease. A recent global survey of the health effects of air pollution caused by wildfires found that in the United States, exposure to wildfire smoke had increased by 77 percent since 2002. Globally, wildfire smoke has been estimated to be responsible for up to 675,000 premature deaths per year.

Fire retardants add to those health and environmental burdens because they present “a really, really thorny trade-off,” said Daniel McCurry, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California, who led the recent research on their heavy-metal content.

The United States Forest Service said on Thursday that nine large retardant-spraying planes, as well as 20 water-dropping helicopters, were being deployed to fight the Southern California fires, which have displaced tens of thousands of people. Several “water scooper” amphibious planes, capable of skimming the surface of the sea or other body of water to fill their tanks, are also being used.

Two large DC-10 aircraft, dubbed “Very Large Airtankers” and capable of delivering up to 9,400 gallons of retardant, were also set to join the fleet imminently, said Stanton Florea, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, which coordinates national wildland firefighting efforts across the West.

Sprayed ahead of the fire, the retardants coat vegetation and prevent oxygen from allowing it to burn, Mr. Florea said. (Red dye is added so firefighters can see the retardant against the landscape.) And the retardant, typically made of salts like ammonium polyphosphate, “lasts longer. It doesn’t evaporate, like dropping water,” he said.

The new research from Dr. McCurry and his colleagues found, however, that at least four different types of heavy metals in a common type of retardant used by firefighters exceeded California’s requirements for hazardous waste.

Federal data shows that more than 440 million gallons of retardant were applied to federal, state, and private land between 2009 and 2021. Using that figure, the researchers estimated that between 2009 and 2021, more than 400 tons of heavy metals were released into the environment from fire suppression, a third of that in Southern California.

Both the federal government and the retardant’s manufacturer, Perimeter Solutions, have disputed that analysis, saying the researchers had evaluated a different version of the retardant. Dan Green, a spokesman for Perimeter, said retardants used for aerial firefighting had passed “extensive testing to confirm they meet strict standards for aquatic and mammalian safety.”

Still, the findings help explain why concentrations of heavy metals tend to surge in rivers and streams after wildfires, sometimes by hundreds of times. And as scrutiny of fire suppressants has grown, the Forestry Service has set buffer zones surrounding lakes and rivers, though its own data shows retardant still inadvertently drifts into those waters.

In 2022, the environmental nonprofit Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics sued the government in federal court in Montana, demanding that the Forest Service obtain a permit under the Clean Water Act to cover accidental spraying into waterways.

The judge ruled that the agency did indeed need to obtain a permit. But it allowed retardant use to continue to protect lives and property.