Climate Change Thread

[ReluctantSamurai]

My island could be energy independent and grow a lot of its own food as well as export food and be a scientific capital for astronomy, geology, and marine science. Instead our politicians are flirting with the idea of just legalizing gambling or weed for other sources of easy tax revenue.

I think everyone (well at least government leaders) on The Big Island should be offered a week vacation in Iceland. When folks see what their "distant cousins" are doing to reduce emissions, grow most of their own food year round, and produce income from non-traditional sources (the EGF produced from barley @ $10,000 per gram would make growing pot obsolete), they might return with a different perspective on what's possible on their home turf.

But then again, maybe not...

[ReluctantSamurai]

A case of "Not what I say, but what I do", or simply bowing to the reality that the biggest pollution on the planet just refuses to kick it's addiction to fossil fuels:

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ts-suggest-not

Some signs from Biden the candidate last year were encouraging. His promise to ban new drilling and fracking on federal lands – an action that would be a simple, decisive first step in curtailing new fossil fuel extraction – was unequivocal: “No more drilling on federal lands, period. Period, period, period.”

And yet:

Yet since taking office, Biden’s interior department has approved more than 2,000 new permits for drilling and fracking on federal land. In May, it appealed a federal court order that had paused fracking in Wayne national forest. In June, it advanced a proposal for new oil and gas exploration at Dinosaur national monument – a proposal the Trump administration had actually suspended under immense pressure from activists.

There are other similar disappointments – from the shocking approval of Trump’s plan to open Alaska’s North Slope to new oil drilling to the approval of the infamous Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline. At precisely the moment when we must be forcefully rejecting new drilling, fracking and pipeline infrastructure, Biden isn’t just tolerating fossil fuels – he’s uplifting them.

And Green Energy proposals:

The Biden White House yanked much of its modest climate agenda from the bipartisan infrastructure package that just passed the Senate. Instead the White House proposes that a larger, separate spending package will include things like a national “clean energy payment program” that advocates claim will facilitate a speedy transition to renewables – apparently without any need for clear, enforceable emissions regulations. Climate activists should be skeptical; some of these proposals have even counted fracked gas power plants as a clean energy source.

However, the Reconciliation Bill's future is sketchy, at best.

A play-by-play of the Biden Administration rhetoric since taking office:

https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/20...21_second-hero

Some notable quotes:

During a Senate confirmation hearing, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm argued that fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere: “If we are going to get to net carbon zero emissions by 2050, we cannot do it without coal, oil, and gas being part of the mix.”

When announcing his executive order on public lands drilling, Biden declared: “Let me be clear, and I know this always comes up: We’re not going to ban fracking.”

In written answers submitted as part of her Senate confirmation hearings, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm promotes the export of fracked gas as a clean energy solution: “I believe U.S. LNG exports can have an important role to play in reducing international consumption of fuels that have greater contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.”

Climate envoy John Kerry tells a finance group: “No government is going to solve this problem…The solutions are going to come from the private sector.” He added: “What the government needs to do is create a framework within which the private sector can do what it does best, which is allocate capital and innovate.” Kerry was also quoted as saying, “I think we’re on the cusp of a massive transformation… And ultimately, the market is going to make the decisions, not the government.”

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was a surprise guest at an oil industry conference, where she reassured the audience: “We want to be a partner. And first, let me be clear, in our position as a global supplier of crude oil and natural gas and other forms of energy, that traditional fossil energy is going to remain important, even as we work to reduce carbon emissions.”

According to statistics from the Bureau of Land Management, from the start of February to the end of April, the administration approved 1,179 drilling permits on federal lands, not far from the four-year high of nearly 1,400 approved over a similar three-month period at the end of Trump’s term.

The Washington Examiner reports that Andrew Light — Biden’s nominee to be the deputy assistant secretary for international affairs at the Energy Department — wants to see more fracked gas exports: “My job in this role is to make sure U.S. gas is competitive around the world…Russia has the dirtiest source of gas right now. We’ve got to make sure ours is cleaner and that ours fill those markets around the world. That’s what I intend to do.”

Reporting from a G7 summit focused on climate action, Politico reports that the Biden administration helped to block more forceful action on phasing out coal: “The Biden administration — fixated on cultivating the Democrats’ razor-thin Senate majority and the coal mining sympathies of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin — was wary of any language specifically clamping down on coal.”

At a House committee hearing, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland told lawmakers: “I don’t think there is a plan right now for a permanent ban” on oil and gas drilling on public lands. Those comments directly contradict Biden’s repeated promises to ban fracking on public lands. Haaland added that “gas and oil production will continue well into the future.”

The Associated Press reports that “approvals for companies to drill for oil and gas on U.S. public lands are on pace this year to reach their highest level since George W. Bush was president.” The Interior Department approved about 2,500 permits to drill on public and tribal lands in the first six months of the year — more than 2,100 drilling approvals since Biden took office on Jan. 20.

If the largest CO2 emitter on the planet has officials coming out with these kinds of questionable behavior, is it any wonder that keeping global warming under 2 degrees C is just a pipe dream?

More on another campaign promise broken:

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/10155...provals-are-up