Can Portland, Oregon, Stand Up to the Oil Industry?

The city positions itself as a climate champion but faces a crucial test


Oil storage tanks in Portland along the Willamette River. | Photo by Nick Cunningham



By Nick Cunningham | Aug 23 2021


In 2016, the city of Portland, Oregon, adopted a zoning ordinance that banned new fossil fuel storage facilities and terminals, a move that was viewed as groundbreaking climate policy at the time, aimed at halting the expansion of fossil fuels.

In July 2020, Portland issued a “climate emergency declaration,” another step that seemed to position the city at the forefront of the strengthening climate movement.

This summer, Portland finally has the chance to put words into concrete action. A crucial land-use permit for an oil-by-rail facility within city limits needs the approval of the city government. A rejection would deal a devastating setback to what has become a substantial fossil fuel operation, potentially leading to its eventual shutdown.

Community activists have been pressuring the city council to reject the permit, showing up to town halls, leafleting Portland neighborhoods, holding webinars, and demonstrating downtown. A barrage of letters, emails, and phone calls have swamped city offices. Some protesters have even kayaked up to the oil terminal itself on the Willamette River. Dozens of neighborhood associations have come out against the permit. County officials and some representatives in the Oregon state legislature have joined the cause.

A decision is expected before the end of August. Activists fear that the city, when given the chance to take on the fossil fuel industry with more than just words on paper, is on the verge of backing down over fears of a legal battle. While wildfires rip through parched forests in other parts of the state and global scientists warn about climate catastrophe, Portland’s government may acquiesce to the industry and issue a permit for the oil-by-rail operation.

If the city does approve the land-use permit, “it would say that the city is placing the risk of a legal fight above climate concerns,” Erin Saylor, an attorney with Columbia Riverkeeper, told Sierra. “This is a pretty unique opportunity that the city has been given here. We want to see the city take the chance. We want to see them come forward as a climate leader.”

Portland becomes a fossil fuel hub

In 2017, a private-equity-backed oil storage company called Zenith Energy purchased an old asphalt terminal in a heavily industrialized zone of Portland along the Willamette River. Zenith used old permits held by the previous owner to quietly build a major oil operation, shipping in oil by rail from the tar sands of Canada and the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota, and then loading it onto ships in the Willamette River for export.

Without much fanfare, Portland has quickly grown into something of a waystation and jumping-off point for a small slice of the continent’s oil going to other parts of the West Coast and abroad.

Portland’s mayor, the city council, the general public, and a strong contingent of environmental and community activists have long opposed Zenith’s oil-by-rail operations. Despite opposition, the city has insisted that its hands are tied, citing Zenith Energy’s grandfathered-in permits from years ago.

As a result, oil shipments have surged, rising from 14 million gallons in 2018 to 167 million gallons in 2019 and to 234 million gallons in 2020. Roughly every three days or so, a mile-long, 100-car train filled with volatile crude oil rolls through urban neighborhoods in Portland.

Oil trains present enormous safety risks, which Oregon has already seen firsthand. On June 3, 2016, an oil train derailed in the town of Mosier, in the Columbia River Gorge, exploding into a fireball. The winds were calm that particular day, unusual for that location and that time of year, which helped prevent the derailment from turning into a much more catastrophic event.

The risk of train derailments is not shared equally. In Multnomah County (where Portland is located), low-income communities and communities of color make up a larger portion of the populations living near rail lines than in the county as a whole.

In the Columbia River Gorge, the trains also interfere with Native American tribes that have treaty rights to fish along the Columbia River. The trains loom as a disaster-in-waiting for tribal members and for the salmon on which they depend.

“The tribes have endured over a century of just constant impacts from industry. And the salmon have as well. It's like 'death by a thousand cuts.' Well, we're already at a thousand cuts,” Julie Carter, a policy analyst with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), told Sierra. CRITFC manages the fisheries for the four treaty tribes of the main stem of the Columbia River—the Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Nez Perce.

Before the oil trains, coal trains moved through the gorge, blowing coal dust on tribal members as they fished. Carter said the tribes fear a train derailment will result in a fish kill if toxic Bakken crude oil spills into the river.

“I think the tribes are pretty much fed up with the status quo. We need to think outside the box and move away from fossil fuels,” she said.
“Dozens or even hundreds of World War II–era tanks containing hundreds of millions of gallons of gasoline and jet fuel would rupture, collapse, or explode, leaking 50 to 100 percent of their fuel.”

A Fukushima or Deepwater Horizon

In July, Multnomah County published a report warning about the massive seismic risk to the region. The report looked at the Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) hub, a vast six-mile industrial zone in Portland that holds more than 400 oil storage tanks, pipelines, and railroads. Zenith Energy’s facility sits right in the middle of the CEI hub, but it is only one part of a much larger fossil fuel complex that holds 90 percent of Oregon’s fuel supplies.

The report examined the dangers and expected fallout from a magnitude 9 earthquake. The Cascadia Subduction Zone, a fault line stretching from British Columbia down to Northern California, is thought to produce a major earthquake every 350 years or so. The last one occurred in 1700, which means the Pacific Northwest is just about due for a catastrophic seismic event. Research by Oregon State University estimates there is a 37 percent chance of a greater than magnitude 8 earthquake in the next 50 years.

If that were to occur, the Multnomah County report concluded, it would result in a colossal environmental disaster in Portland. Of the more than 400 oil tanks in the industrial zone in Portland, 90 percent of them were built decades ago, before the seismic risk was known. Worse, they are located on “liquefiable soils,” loose soil adjacent to the river that would essentially turn to mush in the event of an earthquake.

As a result, dozens or even hundreds of World War II–era tanks containing hundreds of millions of gallons of gasoline and jet fuel would rupture, collapse, or explode, leaking 50 to 100 percent of their fuel, the report said. The disaster would put thousands of lives at risk and result in unimaginable damage to the river and wildlife.

The report surveyed other significant oil spill disasters from around the world and came to an alarming conclusion. “[T]he potential releases at the CEI hub following a [Cascadia Subduction Zone] event will be similar to the large events, Deepwater Horizon and the Great East Japan earthquake, in terms of level of releases and resulting damages to the environment, health, and safety.”

In other words, Portland has a potential Deepwater Horizon or Fukushima sitting in its backyard.

Jay Wilson agreed with that assessment, saying that it would amount to a “multigenerational environmental catastrophe that comes from an industrial complex failure. And it’s one that is foreseen.” Wilson is the resilience coordinator with Clackamas County, Oregon, one county to the south of Multnomah.

Wilson previously worked for Oregon Emergency Management and traveled to Japan following Fukushima to take home lessons for Oregon. He has repeatedly sounded the alarm to local, state, and federal officials. “We know much more about our magnitude 9 earthquake than Japan did. How much longer can we do nothing?” he said.

For people living near the oil tanks, the dangers do not feel far away. Sarah Taylor lives in Linnton, a neighborhood sandwiched between the CEI hub and Forest Park, one of the nation’s largest urban forests. The neighborhood is surrounded by oil tanks and other heavy industry.


An oil train in the Linnton neighborhood. | Photo by Nick Cunningham

“We're all supposed to have rolls of plastic in our bathrooms so if there are toxic fumes, we can seal ourselves in,” she said, referring to the industrial disaster that would occur when the earthquake hit. “People would have to run up over the mountain to get away. And we have elderly people.... They have no plan for us.”

When asked about the report, John Wasiutynski, the Multnomah County director of the Office of Sustainability, said he hoped it would spark some change.

“We wanted to sort of break that cycle of inaction by taking on this project. This is step one,” he said.

He suggested that the county is looking into requiring some sort of risk bonding for which fossil fuel operators would need to pay in order to shoulder some financial burden. “We think we have the authority,” he said, to require companies to insure against damages that “we know are going to happen.” In the long run, the city and state aim to phase out fossil fuels, but it will take time.

Portland’s chance to take a stand

In early 2021, a window of opportunity opened for Portland when Zenith Energy’s oil-by-rail operation had to renew its expired air permit from state environmental regulators. To obtain that, Zenith first needed the city to sign off on a land-use permit. After years of watching ever-increasing volumes of oil flow through Portland, the city finally had the chance to weigh in on the unwanted fossil fuel operations. The city also arguably had its first real opportunity to put the 2016 pledge to block fossil fuel infrastructure into concrete terms.

For months, a coalition of environmental groups, community activists, and neighborhood associations have been publicly pressuring the Portland City Council to deny the land-use permit, a move they believe could interrupt or even halt the shipments.

“The city faces many difficult problems. I extend my thanks and sympathies to you that have to solve them,” Melanie Plaut, a retired physician and volunteer with 350PDX, told the city council at a public hearing in April.

“But this is an easy one,” she said, arguing that “with one action [the city council can] align itself with Portland residents and stop Zenith from bringing crude oil trains through our neighborhoods.”

Over the course of multiple city council meetings throughout the spring and summer, citizen testimonies related to Zenith have been unified in their opposition to the company. On July 19, a coalition of 45 neighborhood associations, churches, and other local community groups signed a letter calling on the city to reject the land-use permit.

Mayor Ted Wheeler has been quick to ally himself with the community in opposing Zenith. “I agree completely with those who say ‘we should not have volatile oil trains coming through our community,’” he said at a city council meeting in April in response to multiple testimonies from residents opposing Zenith. “It is particularly galling to me that the city of Portland is being set up as a crude oil export colony for Canada. That should be unacceptable to any of us.”

A particular focus of the community’s ire is city commissioner Dan Ryan, who oversees the Bureau of Development Services, the agency that is considering the land-use permit. He has said little about the process or his thinking on the matter during the months of public campaigning by activists and the testimonies at public forums.

But based on feedback from city officials in the spring and summer, activists told Sierra that they fear that Portland is leaning toward approving the land-use permit for Zenith’s operations while exacting some modest concessions from the company and spinning the decision as a “win,” all in an effort to avoid getting sued.

In an interview with Sierra, Erin Saylor, the attorney with Columbia Riverkeeper, said that the city has multiple legal tools at its disposal to reject the permit, including the fact that oil-by-rail operations pose safety and environmental risks and disproportionately impact communities of color. There’s also the fact that the oil moving through Portland offers little benefit since it's simply reexported. According to Saylor, this legal authority is spelled out in Portland’s 2035 Comprehensive Plan, a master plan of sorts for future development, which gives the city a sound legal foundation to reject the crucial permit that Zenith is seeking.

“We think that there are enough goals and policies in the [Comprehensive] Plan for them to rely on to deny it,” she said.

Sierra reached out with a detailed list of questions to all five city council members, including Mayor Wheeler, as well as the Bureau of Development Services, but none provided answers.

Zenith Energy did not return a request for comment.

A test case for Portland

Portland cannot dismantle its fossil fuel storage hub overnight, but it has an immediate decision to make on oil-by-rail that could make a small but meaningful difference. The catastrophic seismic threat lurking in the background should only bolster the city’s resolve in its fight against Zenith Energy, whose oil trains magnify the threat.

“I think it's actionable and defensible data that the city could rely on in a [permit] denial. Absolutely,” said Nick Caleb, an attorney with Breach Collective, a climate justice organization, regarding the seismic report. “There's legal risk, and then there's actual harm to the community. The cost to the community in one of those events [a catastrophic earthquake or oil train derailment] would be well above what the city would be out in legal fees.”
“When does the city have the right to say no?”

The case of Zenith Energy is not only a test case for Portland’s climate commitments. It also represents the fights that other cities and counties must have as the climate crisis unfolds.

Some seem to be succeeding. The other Portland—Portland, Maine—won a landmark legal case in July, ending a six-year battle over its effort to outlaw the bulk loading of crude oil onto tankers on the city’s waterfront.

And Whatcom County, Washington, recently became the first county in the US to ban new fossil fuel infrastructure.

“I think there are a lot of cities that are trying to take similar approaches to this because it's clear that the fossil fuel industry just isn't going to change on its own,” Erin Saylor of Columbia Riverkeeper said.

In many ways, Portland’s decision should indeed be “an easy one,” as Plaut of 350PDX put it. Zenith Energy has almost no political constituency in Portland. It is a Texas-based oil company with global operations. Its profits are siphoned off to its private equity owners, and its oil operations in Portland employ only a handful of people. The oil it handles comes from far away and is not even consumed in Portland.

In other words, Portland shoulders tons of environmental and safety risk and enjoys almost no benefit. It is precisely the type of fossil fuel project that, in theory, should be easy for city leadership to find the courage to confront. With the climate crisis accelerating in real-time, governments no longer have the luxury of dodging battles with the oil industry.

“I think this is a profoundly hopeful moment because we are being called to ask, When does the city have the right to say no? When do we have a right to say what we want?” Elijah Cetas, an organizer with the Portland Harbor Community Coalition, an umbrella group of over 30 organizations affected by the toxic Superfund site in the Willamette River, said at a June hearing. “The moment to stop Zenith is right now.”


Nick Cunningham is an independent journalist covering the oil and gas industry, climate change, and international politics. He has been featured in Oilprice.com, The Fuse, DeSmog, The Real News Network, and NACLA.

MY FEDERAL ELECTION CANDIDATE

Young Métis candidate carries NDP hopes for a second federal seat in Edmonton

Author of the article: Keith Gerein
Publishing date :Aug 27, 2021 • 

Blake Desjarlais, NDP candidate in Edmonton-Griesbach 

in Edmonton, August 27, 2021. 

Ed Kaiser/Postmedia PHOTO BY ED KAISER /20094004A

From a map, the federal constituency of Edmonton-Griesbach sort of resembles a small dog, like a miniature pinscher or maybe a dachshund.

The dog’s head lies entirely north of Yellowhead Trail, with its snout extending as far west as St. Albert Trail. This section has tended to be prety safe Conservative territory.

As for the dog’s body and paws, they have more left-leaning voters. This portion is entirely south of the Yellowhead, and extends as far east as the city’s boundary with Strathcona County. It overlaps with a provincial riding that has long been in NDP hands, first under Brian Mason and now Janis Irwin.

Such demographics suggest a federal constituency that should be more competitive than most others in the province. Indeed, the federal NDP has certainly thought so, which is why for the last few elections they have insisted Edmonton-Griesbach offers a real chance for their party to add a second Alberta seat to the orange enclave of Edmonton-Strathcona.

Voting results have of course proven them wrong so far.

The closest the NDP came to victory was in 2015 when Irwin, then a federal candidate, lost by less than 3,000 votes to former city councillor Kerry Diotte.

In 2019, the NDP recruited well known social justice advocate Mark Cherrington, but he ended up losing by more than 12,000 votes in an election coloured by pipeline anger and the UCP’s provincial victory earlier that year.

This time, the party is taking a risk with a younger, more unfamiliar candidate, but one the party feels can better get out the youth vote and speak to issues such as Indigenous reconciliation, concern over climate change and economic anxiety.

Blake Desjarlais’s life story, though just 27 years long, is an interesting one.

He grew up in the Fishing Lake Métis Settlement, about 275 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, where most of his childhood was spent in poverty. Things got especially bad at age 12, when his father died in a work-related accident, an event that Desjarlais believes forced him to grow up faster than usual.

That maturity extended to academics, and he did well enough to enrol in MacEwan University, but soon found himself marginalized and even targeted by racially motivated death threats, to the point that he transferred to the University of Victoria.

Studies and connections there led him to work for the Métis Settlements General Council, where he is now the director of public and national affairs with offices in both Edmonton and Ottawa. Part of his duties have been to negotiate on issues like harvesting rights for Métis, which put him in direct contact with Rachel Notley’s government, and eventually into the world of NDP politics.

In a 40-minute minute interview with Desjarlais, I found him to be a fast talker, though articulate, confident and well-read on the issues. Proudly wearing a “North Side, Still Alive” sweatshirt from local shop Majesty and Friends, he comes across as genuine in his desire to be an advocate for marginalized people and those seeking a more just economy

.

Kerry Diotte in a file photo from Oct. 21, 2013. 

PHOTO BY CODIE MCLACHLAN /Codie McLachlan/Edmonton Sun (DIOTTE'S OLD EMPLOYER)

Still, personal attributes aside, can Desjarlais actually succeed where his predecessors did not, especially against a well known incumbent in Diotte?

Until proven otherwise, skepticism is likely the right view on that question, though there are a few things lining up in the party’s favour. Most notable is that recent polls have put the NDP at around 20 per cent support in Alberta, which suggests more people are paying attention to the party’s message.

Desjarlais attributes much of that to resentment of Premier Jason Kenney, plus a greater acceptance among Albertans to diversify the economy and do more on climate change.

“This election is not about a pipeline anymore. It’s about what we do next,” he said.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has also put some of his weight toward Edmonton-Griesbach given that he recently hosted an event in town where Desjarlais was given plenty of spotlight. At that time, the polling website 338canada.com had the riding as a toss up. (It is now listed as leaning Conservative).

Not surprisingly, Diotte has a different take on voting intentions. Though he acknowledged the polls are close, he said the messages he’s receiving at doors are aimed at Justin Trudeau far more than Kenney.

“People also tell me they’re not happy that Jagmeet Singh and his federal NDP propped up Trudeau for the last two years with an agenda that was clearly anti-Alberta, especially when it comes to our energy industry,” read an emailed statement from Diotte, who was not made available for an interview.

Unknown in this equation is what sort of factor the Liberals will be in the riding. Candidate Habiba Mohamud is a longshot to win but could take votes from the NDP. (Mohamud also ran in 2019, finishing third).

Regardless, in my view, Desjarlais’s hopes rest on a couple of factors. He and his party must be careful to avoid being seen as only interested in representing certain marginalized communities, while at the same time making good on ambitions to get out more votes from those communities — especially young people and people of colour.

That’s a tall order and a tricky balancing act, especially for a political rookie, but it could very well be the difference in transforming NDP fortunes in Edmonton-Griesbach from underdog to best in show.

kgerein@postmedia.com
twitter.com/keithgerein

Edmonton Griesbach NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais and Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh chat after making a campaign stop at an Edmonton ice cream shop, Thursday Aug. 19, 2021. Photo by David Bloom PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM DAVID BLOOM /David Bloom/Postmedia

Meet the spotted lanternfly, the bug health officials are begging you to kill on sight

Jordan Mendoza, 

USA TODAY 

Whether you choose to kill insects or not, there is one bug across the northeastern United States health officials want you to take care of immediately: the spotted lanternfly.

Though it may seem like a colorful moth worthy of an Instagram post, it's actually an invasive species that can wreak havoc on trees, plants and other landscapes, resulting in millions of dollars in damages.

The spotted lanternfly originates from China, and George Hamilton, department chair of entomology at Rutgers University, believes they landed in the U.S. via a crate coming from the Asian country. The invasive insects – which actually don't fly but rather are leafhoppers – were first spotted in Pennsylvania less than 10 years ago. Now, they can be seen throughout the northeast and mid-Atlantic, from the five boroughs in New York City to parts of Indiana.

© Matt Rourke, AP This Sept. 19, 2019, file photo shows a spotted lanternfly at a vineyard in Kutztown, Pa. According to Rhode Island state environmental officials, Friday, Aug. 6, 2021, the insect that can cause damage to native trees and agricultural crops has been found recently in the state.

They may have spread so easily because they are hard to notice. From hiding on cars and packages, they've become such a problem that New Jersey and nearby areas have issued quarantine orders, asking people to inspect their vehicles before traveling. In Pennsylvania, there are 34 counties currently under quarantine.

"They're very good hitchhikers," Hamilton told USA TODAY. "Most people don't even know they've got them until the adult form comes out."

The good news about the insects is that they can't harm humans or pets. However, they cause massive damage to plants and are known to feed on over 70 different types of trees and plants.

But the damage doesn't end there. As Amy Korman, a horticulture educator for Penn State Extension, says, "What goes in must come out."

The spotted lanternflies secrete a sticky material known as honeydew, which is very high in sugar. It is a substrate for mold, and when it gets on plants, it prevents them from photosynthesizing which then leads to the plants dying. The mold these lanternflies leave can end up in backyards and decks and can attract numerous other bugs.

"It seems like it's such a fragile insect. And yet it's been so successful in taking over our landscapes," Korman said. "It's sort of like the Pandora's box of problems."

They've destroyed vineyards throughout Pennsylvania, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. A January 2020 study done by the Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences found that if the species isn't contained, it could result in at least a $324 million hit to the state's economy and the loss of around 2,800 jobs. A worst-case scenario estimates a $554 million economic loss and almost 5,000 jobs lost.

The study also found current spotted lanternfly-related damage is estimated to be $50.1 million per year with a loss of 484 jobs.

"This insect has the potential to be such a significant economic burden," Korman said. "We're still working on ways to manage this insect. We haven't cracked the nut and how to really manage populations of this insect very well."

Hearing cicadas again?: It's not Brood X. What to know about the bigger, annual cicadas

The states impacted by the spotted lanternfly have a variety of ways to handle the population, but they all have the same goal.

"First thing you should do is kill it," Hamilton said.

If you don't feel up to killing a spotted lanternfly, Hamilton added the next best thing to do is to take a picture of it and report it to your state's department of agriculture. The state of Ohio has a form residents can fill out.

Scrapping and destroying the eggs also helps control the population.

"The only good ones are dead ones," Korman said.

There are numerous ways to kill them, including the use of pesticides or simply crushing them. Extreme heat or cold also does the trick as well.

Korman added that she's heard of many different ways people have handled the insects, which has ranged from detergents, alcohol and even kerosene.

"Sometimes you have to laugh. I''s like you really came up with that concoction and you thought it was gonna work?" she said. "'I'm always scratching my head over with the next great home remedy will be."

Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jord_mendoza.

Coal mining in North Saskatchewan River watershed poses a risk to water quality, aquatic life in Edmonton, city study finds

Dustin Cook

Coal mining near the North Saskatchewan River could negatively affect water quality and the health of aquatic life in Edmonton, city officials say, calling on the province to address these concerns.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal A risk assessment of coal mining in the North Saskatchewan River watershed found a medium-low risk to water quality for aquatic life in Edmonton.

A risk assessment of upstream coal mining in the river watershed, conducted by Epcor and presented to council’s utility committee Friday morning, found the risk to aquatic life would be medium-low and impact to drinking water would be low as a result of minerals entering into the headwaters during surface mining.

But in the case of a rare event, such as a dam failure, there would be an extreme impact in the downstream water quality, the risk assessment found.

This type of event is of grave concern if coal mining would be permitted, Ward 4 Coun. Aaron Paquette said, as the river is Edmonton’s sole source of drinking water. Currently, five per cent of the area feeding the river upstream of Edmonton, covering 1,500 square kilometres, have coal leases in place but any work has been suspended during the provincial government’s review of the 1976 coal policy. The policy was rescinded last year but reinstated in February following a slew of concerns.

To address the risks associated with coal mining, utility committee members asked Mayor Don Iveson to write a letter to the province on behalf of council in an effort to protect the river.

“There are vast numbers of our public who are deeply concerned about maintaining literally this river of life that runs through our province and beautiful city,” Paquette said during Friday’s meeting. “This is a responsibility that I don’t think any of us take lightly, and we understand and are concerned along with our public.”

A committee formed by the province is working to develop a modern policy to determine the future of coal mining, with that report due in November. Before the pause on mining projects in parts of the southern Rocky Mountains and foothills was put into effect in April, there were six permits in place allowing coal exploration and drilling. The city met with the committee in July to discuss its concerns and will also be submitting the risk assessment findings.

Christopher Smith, parks co-ordinator for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Northern Alberta Chapter, called on the City of Edmonton to join other Alberta municipalities in fighting for a coal restriction policy to prohibit any additional coal exploration along the eastern coast of the mountains. As one of the largest municipalities in the province, Smith said Edmonton should take a stand against coal mining in line with the city’s climate change goals.

“We want our water to be clean now and well into the future,” Smith said. “Edmonton, as a major city centre downstream of multiple coal interests, has a responsibility to weigh in on this conversation.”

The utility committee also directed city staff to undertake a review of existing water management initiatives and provide recommendations for a formal watershed plan to protect water quality and biodiversity within Edmonton boundaries.

There is about 28,000 square kilometres of land upstream of Edmonton that drains into the river watershed.

What Is Phiomicetus Anubis? Fearsome Ancient Whale With Four Legs Discovered

Ed Browne 

Scientists have discovered a fossil that once belonged to a previously unknown type of four-legged whale that lived tens of millions of years ago.

The researchers also found that the whale's mouth was better-designed for a "strong raptorial feeding style" than was usual for other types of early whale-like animals and that it would have been a fearsome predator.

The evolution of whales is thought to have proceeded at a rapid pace millions of years ago—so fast that over a period of 10 million years the ancestors of whales evolved from "deer-like" herbivores that lived on land into carnivorous marine animals, according to the researchers' study published in the Proceedings Of The Royal Society B.

The fossil that the team have investigated is thought to have come from a protocetid, a type of early whale from the Eocene era which started 56 million years ago and ended 33.9 million years ago.

The researchers have named the newly discovered extinct whale species Phiomicetus anubis. The first part of the name refers to the Fayum Depression in Egypt's Western Desert where the fossil was found, and the second part refers to Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife.

The fossil is 43 million years old. In a press release documenting the team's work, lead author Abdullah Gohar at Mansoura University in Egypt called it "a critical discovery for Egyptian and African paleontology."

The animal, estimated to have had a body length of about 10 feet and a body mass of about 1,320 lb, would likely have been a top predator in its community at the time, like the killer whale of today.

There is still much to be learned about early whale evolution in Africa and researchers hope that studying the region could uncover more about how early whales changed from animals that spent time both in and out of the water to animals that lived in the water all the time.

The fact that the early whale ancestors walked on four legs is nothing new. Indeed, scientists think that a four-legged goat-sized animal known as Pakicetus was one of the first cetaceans—the family of marine animals including dolphins and whales—ever to exist.

But it is the evolutionary pathway from these four-legged ancestors to the fully water-based animals we know today that intrigues researchers, according to an article on four-legged whales by the the U.K.'s National History Museum.

Other aspects of Phiomicetus anubis that set it apart from other protocetids include an elongated temporal fossae, or shallow depression on the side of the skull, and a difference in the placement of the pterygoid bones.

The study abstract concludes: "The discovery of Phiomicetus further augments our understanding of the biogeography and feeding ecology of early whales."

Previously Unknown Four-Legged Whale Species Discovered In Egypt And Dubbed ‘God Of Death’

By Kaleena Fraga | Checked By Erik Hawkins
Published August 26, 2021

Forty-three million years ago, the fearsome four-legged whale stalked prey both underwater and on land.

The four-legged whale called Phiomicetus anubis used its powerful jaws to kill prey.

Ancient monsters once roamed the Earth. Paleontologists in Egypt just came across one such creature, a four-legged whale so fearsome that they named it Phiomicetus anubis, after the Egyptian god of death.

“It was a successful, active predator,” said Abdullah Gohar. A graduate student at the Mansoura University Vertebrate Palaeontology Centre, Gohar is the lead author of a recent paper describing the discovery.

“I think it was the god of death for most animals that lived alongside it.”

In a nod to the whale’s jackal-like head and ability to kill, paleontologists called it Phiomicetus anubis. Anubis, of course, was the Egyptian god of death. Phiomicetus categorizes the whale with other similar fossils, which straddle the species’ transition from land to sea.

“Phiomicetus anubis is a key new whale species, and a critical discovery for Egyptian and African paleontology,” explained Gohar.

Paleontologists found a number of the whale’s bones in an area of Egypt famous for sea life fossils.

A team of paleontologists first came across Phiomicetus anubis in 2008. Then, while searching through Egypt’s Fayum Depression — an area teeming with sea life fossils — they found remnants of the 43-million-year-old monster in middle Eocene rocks.


With a body length of almost 10 feet and weighing close to 1,300 pounds, paleontologists are confident that the four-legged whale once dominated the animal kingdom.

“We discovered how [its] fierce, deadly, and powerful jaws were capable of tearing a wide range of prey,” Gohar said. His study called the whale’s feeding style “raptorial.”

The study went on to describe how the whale used its incisor and canine teeth to “catch, debilitate and retain faster and more elusive prey items (e.g. fish) before they were moved to the cheek teeth to be chewed into smaller pieces and swallowed.”


As the four-legged whale stalked prey — both on land and underwater — it also likely caught and killed crocodiles and calves of other whale species.

Abdullah Gohar, center, with bones from Phiomicetus anubis.

The discovery of the four-legged whale is an exciting moment for more reasons than one. For starters, not much is known about ancient whales’ transition from land to sea. Though today’s whales are strictly aquatic, their ancient ancestors were amphibious.

The earliest known whale, Pakicetus attocki, lived in the shallow ocean near present-day Pakistan some 50 million years ago. Like Phiomicetus anubis, it had four legs.

However, paleontologists have much to learn about how ancient whales spread across the world.

“This fossil really starts to give us a sense of when whales moved out of the Indo-Pakistan ocean region and started dispersing across the world,” noted Jonathan Geisler, an associate professor of anatomy at the New York Institute of Technology.

But the discovery of the four-legged whale is significant for another reason. It marks the first time that an Arab team discovered, described, and named a whale fossil.

“This paper represents a breakthrough for Arab paleontologists,” Goher said.

“This science remained the preserve of foreign scientists for a long period of time, despite the richness of the Egyptian natural heritage with important fossils of the ancestors of whales.”

For now, paleontologists like Gosar will continue to explore the Fayum Depression. They hope to better understand how ancient whales evolved and moved around the world.

And the Fayum Depression certainly holds more keys to the past. Once, the sea covered this swath of the Egyptian desert. But now, its million-year-old rocks — rich with fossils — are exposed to the sun.

Paleontologists discover four-legged whale fossil, name it Phiomicetus anubis after Egypt's god of death

Posted Wed 25 Aug 2021 

The Phiomicetus anubis was a "successful, active predator"

.(Supplied: Robert Boessenecker)

Scientists have discovered a 43-million-year-old fossil of a previously unknown amphibious four-legged whale species in Egypt.

Key points:

The fossil was unearthed from middle Eocene rocks in the Fayum Depression in Egypt's Western Desert

The new whale was about 3m long and weighed about about 600kg

It has been named Phiomicetus anubis, after the Egyptian god of death

The newly discovered whale belongs to the Protocetidae, a group of extinct whales that falls in the middle of their transition from land to sea, the Egyptian-led team of researchers said in a statement.

Its fossil was unearthed from middle Eocene rocks in the Fayum Depression in Egypt's Western Desert — an area once covered by sea that has provided a rich seam of discoveries showing the evolution of whales — before being studied at Mansoura University Vertebrate Palaeontology Centre (MUVP).

The new whale, named Phiomicetus anubis, had an estimated body length of about 3 metres and a body mass of about 600kg, and was likely a top predator, the researchers said.

Its partial skeleton revealed it as the most primitive protocetid whale known from Africa.

"Phiomicetus anubis is a key new whale species, and a critical discovery for Egyptian and African paleontology," said Abdullah Gohar of MUVP, lead author of a paper on the discovery published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"It was a successful, active predator," Mr Gohar told Live Science. "I think it was the god of death for most animals that lived alongside it."

The whale's genus name honours the Fayum Depression, and its species name refers to Anubis, the ancient Egyptian canine-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife.

Despite recent fossil discoveries, the big picture of early whale evolution in Africa has largely remained a mystery, the researchers said.

Work in the region had the potential to reveal new details about the evolutionary transition of whales from being amphibious to fully aquatic.

The father of #Phiomicetus, @Gohar_A_S hanging his new publication on #Sallam_Lab’ wall of honor!!!! pic.twitter.com/3DmMCVBgva— Hesham Sallam (@heshamsallam) August 25, 2021

With rocks covering about 12 million years, discoveries in the Fayum Depression "range from semi-aquatic crocodile-like whales to giant fully aquatic whales", said Mohamed Sameh of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, a co-author.

The new whale has raised questions about ancient ecosystems and pointed research towards questions such as the origin and coexistence of ancient whales in Egypt, said Hesham Sellam, founder of the MUVP and another co-author.

Reuters

Ice Hunt, p.12
James Rollins

She stood, surrounded by ice, but the back half of the chamber was solid rock. A bowl of stone encompassed the far wall and overhung the ceiling.

Something touched her elbow, startling her. It was only Dr. Ogden. He drew her eyes back to him, his lips moving.

“It’s the remnant of an ancient cliff face. At least according to MacFerran,” Henry said, naming the head of the geology team. “He says it must have broken from the landmass as the glacier calved and formed this ice island. It dates back to the last ice age. He immediately wanted to blast away sections and core out samples, but I had to stop him.”

Amanda was still too stunned to speak.

“On just cursory examination, I found dead lichen and frozen mosses. Searching the cliff pockets more thoroughly, I discovered three bird’s nests, one with eggs!” He began to speak more rapidly with his excitement. Amanda had to concentrate on his lips. “There were also a pack of rodents and a snake trapped in ice. It’s a treasure trove of life from that age, a whole frozen biosphere.” He led the way across the cavern toward the stone wall. “But that’s not all! Come see!”

She followed, staring ahead. The wall was not as solid as it had first appeared. It was pocked with cubbies and alcoves. Some sections seemed broken and half tumbled out. Deep clefts also delved into the rock face, but they were too dark to discern how far they penetrated.

Amanda crossed under the arch of stone and eyed with trepidation the slabs precariously balanced overhead. None of it seemed as solid as it had been a moment ago.

Dr. Ogden grabbed her elbow, squeezing hard, stopping her. “Careful,” he said, drawing her eye, then pointing to the floor.

A few steps ahead lay an open well in the ice-rink floor. It was too perfectly oval to be natural, and the edges were scored coarsely.

“They dug one of them out from here.”

Amanda frowned. “One of what?” She spotted other pits in the ice now.

Henry tugged her to the side. “Over here.” He slipped a canteen of water from his belt. He motioned her down on a knee on the ice. They were now only a few yards from the shattered stone cliff. Hunched down, it was almost like they were on a frozen lake with the shore only a few steps away.

The biologist whisked the ice with his gloved hand. Then placed his flashlight facedown onto the frozen lake. Lit from on top, the section of ice under them glowed. But details were murky because of the frost on the ice’s surface. Still, Amanda could make out the dark shadow of something a few feet under the ice.

Henry sat back and opened his canteen. “Watch,” he mouthed to her.

Leaning over, he poured a wash of water over the surface, melting the frost rime and turning the ice to glass under them. The light shone clearly, limning what lay below in perfect detail.

Amanda gasped, leaning away.

The creature looked as if it were lunging up through the ice at her, caught for a moment in a camera’s flash. Its body was pale white and smooth-skinned, like the beluga whales that frequented the Arctic, and almost their same size, half a ton at least. But unlike the beluga, this creature bore short forelimbs that ended in raking claws and large webbed hind limbs, spread now, ready to sweep upward at her. Its body also seemed more supple than a whale’s, with a longer torso, curving like an otter. It looked built for speed.

But it was the elongated maw, stretched wide to strike, lined by daggered teeth, that chilled her to the bone. It gaped wide enough to swallow a whole pig. Its black eyes were half rolled to white, like a great white lunging after prey.

Amanda sat back and took a few puffs from her air warmer as her limbs tremored from the cold and shock. “What the hell is it?”

The biologist ignored her question. “There are more specimens!” He slid on his knees across the ice and revealed another of the creatures lurking just at the cliff face. This beast was curled in the ice as if in slumber, its body wrapped in a tight spiral, jaws tucked in the center, tail around the whole, not unlike a dog in slumber.

Henry quickly gained his feet. “That’s not all.”

Before she could ask a question, he crossed and entered a wide cleft in the rock face. Amanda followed, chasing after the light, still picturing the jaws of the monster, wide and hungry.

The cleft cut a few yards into the rock face and ended at a cave the size of a two-car garage.

Amanda straightened. Positioned against the back wall were six giant ice blocks. Inside each were frozen examples of the creatures, all curled in the fetal-like position. But it was the sight in the chamber’s center that had Amanda falling back toward the exit.

Like a frog in a biology lab, one of the creatures lay stretched across the ice floor, legs staked spread-eagle. Its torso was cut from throat to pelvis, skin splayed back and pinned to the ice. From the frozen state of the dissection, it was clearly an old project. But she caught only a glimpse of bone and organs and had to turn away.

She hurried back out onto the open frozen lake. Dr. Ogden followed. He seemed oblivious to her shock. He touched her arm to draw her eyes.

“A discovery of this magnitude will change the face of biology,” Henry said, bending close to her in his insistence. “Now you can see why I had to stop the geologists from ruining this preserved ecosystem. A find like this…preserved like this—”

Amanda cut him off. Her voice brittle. “What the hell are those things?”

Henry blinked at her and waved a hand. “Oh, of course. You’re an engineer.”

Though she was deaf, she could almost hear his condescension. She rankled a bit, but held her tongue.

He motioned back to the cleft and spoke more slowly. “I studied the specimen back there all day. I have a background in paleobiology. Fossilized remains of such a species have been discovered in Pakistan and in China, but never such a preserved specimen.”

“A specimen of what, Henry?” Her eyes were hard on the biologist.

“Of Ambulocetus natans. What is commonly called ‘the walking whale.’ It is the evolutionary link between land-dwelling mammals and the modern whale.”

She simply gaped at him as he continued.

“It is estimated to have existed some forty-nine million years ago, then died out some thirty-six million years ago. But the splayed out legs, the pelvis fused into the backbone, the nasal drift…all clearly mark this as distinctly Ambulocetus.”

Amanda shook her head. “You can’t be claiming that these specimens are so old. Forty million years?

“No.” His eyes widened. “That’s just it! MacFerran says the ice at this level is only fifty thousand years old, dating back to the last ice age. And these specimens bear some unique features. My initial supposition is that some pod of Ambulocetus whales must have migrated to the Arctic regions, like modern whales do today. Once here, they developed Arctic adaptations. The white skin, the gigantism, the thicker layer of fat. Similar to the polar bear or beluga whales.”

Amanda remembered her own earlier comparison to the beluga. “And these creatures somehow survived up here until the last ice age? Without any evidence ever being discovered?”

“Is it really so surprising? Anything that lived and died on the polar ice cap would have simply sunk to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, a region barely glimpsed at all. And on land, permafrost makes it nearly impossible to carry out digs above the Arctic Circle. So it is entirely possible for something to have existed for eons, then died out without leaving a trace. Even today we have barely any paleological record of this region.”

Amanda shook her head, but she could not dismiss what she had seen. And she couldn’t discount his argument. Only in the past decade, with the advent of modern technology and tools, was the Arctic region truly being explored. Her own team back at Omega was defining a new species every week. So far, the discoveries were just new, unclassified phytoplankton or algae, nothing on the level of these creatures.

Henry continued, “The Russians must have discovered these creatures when they dug out their base. Or maybe t  hey built the base here because of them. Who knows?”

Amanda remembered Henry’s early claim: It’s the reason the station was built here. “What makes you think that?” She flashed back again to the discovery on Level Four. This new discovery, amazing as it was, seemed in no way connected to the other.

Henry eyed her. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Amanda scrunched her brow.

“Ambulocetus fossils were only discovered in the past few years.” He pointed back to the cleft. “Back in World War Two, they knew nothing about them. So, of course, the Russians would come up with their own name for such a monster.”

Her eyes grew wide.

“They named their base after the creature,” Dr. Ogden explained needlessly. “A mascot of sorts, I imagine.”

Amanda stared down at the frozen lake, at the beast lunging up at her. She now knew what she was truly seeing. The monster of Nordic legend.

Grendel.

Ice Hunt - James Rollins

https://jamesrollins.com/book/ice-hunt

James Rollins invokes the polar environment so vividly you can hear the wind shriek and feel the ice forming on your nose, and the scientific/medical puzzles at the story's heart may remind you of Michael Crichton's best. The characters, while mostly familiar hero or villain types, are crisply drawn and in some cases quite sympathetic, but it's ...

What we know about why Canada 'waited until the 11th hour' to rescue Afghans
Tyler Dawson 

© Provided by National Post A U.S. Marine assists at an Evacuation Control Check Point during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 26, 2021. 

U.S. Marine Corps/Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla/Handout photo

Canada’s efforts to evacuate Afghanistan lasted 22 days.

A final flight from Kabul , the capital, left overnight Thursday.

Eight hours later, government officials announced it was over — Canada was done flying people out.

“We wish we could have stayed longer and rescued everyone who was so desperate to leave. That we could not is truly heartbreaking,” Lt.-Gen. Wayne Eyre, acting chief of defence staff, said Thursday .

What remains unclear is why the Canadian government — and several other Western nations — waited until Afghanistan was on the brink of collapse, as the Taliban re-took the nation, to begin getting its allies and citizens out of the country.

“We had four-and-a-half months to do the right thing, and we only had a plane on the ground in early August,” Andrew Rusk, with Not Left Behind, a Canadian group advocating for Afghan interpreters and other allies, told the National Post.

In a briefing to reporters on Friday morning, government ministers repeatedly praised the programs and special visas brought in for fleeing Afghans, saying they were “groundbreaking” and that Canada was the first in the world to make such announcements — work, they said, that would not cease.
Last holdouts against Taliban look to Canada — and Quebec — as model for a new Afghanistan
Taliban fighters stand guard along a street near the Zanbaq Square in Kabul on August 16, 2021. Inside Afghanistan — the first seven days of life under the Taliban

Marco Mendicino, the immigration minister, said the government began developing its extraction programs — the ones announced in late-July and mid-August — in the spring.

“We put them into operation very quickly … over the course of the last number of weeks,” Mendicino said. “Canada has been a safe haven for Afghan refugees for years.”

A senior government source told the Post on Friday that prior to the last few months, there hadn’t been considerable demand for a mass refugee strategy for those who had worked for Canada.

“The one offs worked, people came, Afghan refugees claimed asylum,” the source said.

When it became clear such a program was needed, the source said, ministers pushed hard to get it done.

“There were challenges … it was really political leadership that even got a program established to begin with,” the source said.

Over the course of what ministers said was “the largest airlift in history,” Canada managed to get some 3,700 Canadians, permanent residents, vulnerable Afghans and citizens of other countries out of Afghanistan, between Aug. 4 and Aug. 26.

Still, the evacuation program has been plagued with controversy and delays, with news reports suggesting people struggled to reach destinations given by Canadian consular officials as evacuation points, or arrived only to hear nothing further from the government; others report being turned away for insufficient paperwork.

The senior government source said the problems that had emerged, such as requiring scanned documents, were addressed as they came up.

“There was actually a good amount of flexibility, it was just under a lot of pressure and a very compressed time,” the source said.

Other criticisms, the source said, ignore logistical issues like the American control of the airport, limiting Canadian access, and the obvious issue of the hostile Taliban preventing access to the airport.

Rusk said Canadians are owed an explanation about why the government was “so late and relatively under-resourced” to help those who are being targeted by the Taliban.

© Stringer/Reuters Taliban forces block the roads around the Kabul airport, while a woman passes by, August 27, 2021. After Canada announced its last flight out of Afghanistan, many cooks, guards and translators who had helped Canadians were left stranded.

If Canada had begun its evacuations earlier, said Rusk, they could have used commercial airlines to get people out while flights were still operating.

“Instead we waited until the 11th hour when the military was required, and we never had enough time or the right resources in order to bring the volume of Afghans that have a rightful claim to come to Canada to safety,” Rusk said.

Officials were unable to say this week how many permanent residents, Canadian citizens and Afghan allies remain in the country.

Daniel Mills, assistant deputy minister with Canada’s immigration department, said visa applications for Afghan citizens who applied for them are still being processed.

The department received 8,000 applications under its special program for Afghans and 2,600 of those people made it out of Afghanistan, he said. But that doesn’t mean the rest are still trapped inside the country, because some of those applicants have already fled to third countries.

These 8,000 all applied to leave under the special program for Afghan allies, not the August announcement for 20,000 refugees.

Kabul has been in chaos in recent days , with thousands of Afghans flocking to Hamid Karzai International Airport and trying to get aboard evacuation flights prior to the final withdrawal of U.S. troops, announced in April by U.S. President Joe Biden, and scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 31st.

The senior source told the Post work on a refugee program began immediately after Biden’s announcement.

“The thing started small and really grew,” the source said. “We’ve taken a lot of criticism from the folks in the military … but I don’t think anyone had a good handle on how many people this entailed.”

The drama, which escalated sharply on Thursday, with suicide bombings near the airport that left 13 U.S. soldiers and at least 90 Afghans dead, has been playing out while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigns for re-election.

“Our priority has been from the very beginning, and will always be, getting Canadians to safety,” Trudeau said Friday. “Yes, there are thousands of Afghans to whom we owe a duty of care, and we are doing tremendous things to get them to safety as well.”

The perception that his government has botched its evacuation efforts, or left them to the last minute, has plagued the Liberal leader on the campaign trail.

Erin O’Toole, the Conservative party leader, said the Liberals “wasted months with inaction” on the file.

“It’s heartbreaking,” O’Toole said Thursday. “The Trudeau government has failed to act and they have abandoned people on the ground in Afghanistan.”

Eyre told reporters on Thursday that officials were surprised by the speed of the Taliban takeover.

“I’m sure there will be much ink spilt about this, but we have to look at going forward now,” Eyre said.

In early July, three retired generals wrote to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, urging officials to move more quickly on re-settling Afghan allies. Among them was retired Maj.-Gen. Dave Fraser, who told the Post Friday that the government didn’t seem to have the impetus to respond until the Taliban began taking over.

“In this case, the government responded as it would normally to any situation by saying, ‘Fill out these four forms, and put your application in to IRCC and we’ll get back to you,’” Fraser said. “It doesn’t work for an Afghan who doesn’t have wifi or a cellphone, and definitely without a passport, and it doesn’t work very well when you’re running for your life.”

Since July, the government has pointed reporters to a resettlement program introduced in 2009, under then-immigration minister Jason Kenney, as evidence Canada has long been a friend to Afghans.

The program, which ended in 2011, was roundly condemned at the time for its rigid conditions, which included requiring evidence applicants’ lives were at risk and a consecutive 12-month employment record with Canada. It only approved two out of three applicants.

Between that, and another effort in 2012 at relocating Afghan allies, Canada brought some 800 people to safety. Statistics from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada show that between 2010 and June 2021, some 29,000 Afghans have come to Canada, around 21,000 of them either refugees or “protected persons,” those who might fear persecution at home.

In late July, the government announced a special visa program for those who had assisted Canadian troops, and then, on Aug. 13, ministers announced Canada would take in another 20,000 Afghan refugees who had already fled Afghanistan, among them humanitarian workers, LGBTQ Afghans and women’s rights advocates.

The bulk of those evacuated from Afghanistan got out in the final few days of the mission.

On Wednesday, the government said roughly 2,700 people had been evacuated, 1,447 of them between Sunday and Tuesday. By Thursday, the total was around 3,700.

Earlier this week, Sajjan said the government took “appropriate” and “quick” action to evacuate people. Mendicino has called Canada’s actions in Afghanistan “nothing short of miraculous.”

A volunteer with a non-governmental organization working to get people out of Afghanistan told the Post that endless red tape hampered the ability of those to get out.

“There was this huge, huge over-promise (by the federal government) and a massive under-delivery,” said the volunteer, who asked to withhold his name because of his work with government officials.

With additional reporting by Tom Blackwell, Christopher Nardi and The Canadian Press

Good news: The most popular material on Earth is great for storing CO2




More proof that we can fight global warming . . . but it’s going to require work.

[Source Photos: DanielPrudek/iStock and wingedwolf/iStock]

Our Earth is heating up because of all the carbon dioxide in the air. But even if we can suck that much CO2 out of the atmosphere, there’s still a problem: What do we do with all of it once it’s recaptured?

The short answer is, put it into products. The longer answer is, put it into the right products. Specifically, concrete. This seemingly innocuous substance that holds up our buildings is actually the most used material of the modern era. More than 10 billion tons of concrete are produced each year. And luckily, scientists are showing that it’s our most promising place to stick all of that CO2, too.

The finding comes from new research out of the University of Michigan, which analyzed more than 20 separate CO2 utilization technologies. Of that pile, researchers found that only four technologies had a better than 50% chance of benefiting the environment. And the most promising two were in concrete.

But why concrete? Of course it’s a popular material in terms of scale, but what about concrete makes it a good place to store CO2? As Greg Keoleian, an author on the paper and director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan, explains, it comes down to the actual molecule of CO2.

CO2 enters the atmosphere whenever we burn fossil fuels, like gas and coal. Once it’s made, it sticks around because CO2 has a stable structure that requires energy to change. Depending on exactly what you want to turn CO2 into, that can take more or less energy. If you put too much energy into turning CO2 into something else, it’s simply not worth it. Why? Because most energy we generate today causes CO2 emissions. And it doesn’t make sense to spend more CO2 to capture CO

“In many cases, you’re going to get a greater benefit by taking that . . . energy and feeding it into the grid,” Keoleian says. Even if you use green energy to reutilize old CO2, again, you have to consider what the benefits would have been to using that green energy to heat homes or turn on lights instead.

But the most promising concrete technologies utilize very little energy to incorporate CO2. That’s because when CO2 is incorporated into concrete, it’s literally piped into the mix. The natural tumbling motion of churning concrete is all the energy that’s needed to transform the CO2 into a calcium carbonate, a substance that doesn’t just act as filler but also actively strengthens the concrete mix. All of this tough calcium carbonate means the concrete needs less cement in its mix, which is another environmental savings, since cement is the worst polluting component of concrete.

“It’s a double win,” says Dwarak Ravikumar, a research fellow at the Center for Sustainable Systems who contributed to the paper.

Now, this isn’t to say CO2-filled concrete is an immediate miracle cure for our environment. While some CO2-based concrete is already commercially available, the University of Michigan researchers stress that each method of making it needs to be validated. Furthermore, construction is a highly polluting process. Buildings are responsible for a majority of all greenhouse gas emissions. And concrete itself is increasingly being viewed as a problematic substance to our infrastructure. While it’s a common material, concrete has been criticized for its sometimes unpredictable nature as it ages—which has led to the collapse of several buildings in the past few years, including a high-rise condo near Miami in June.

We do have other, more direct means of capturing carbon, Keoleian says, noting that responsibly grown lumber, which is replanted after harvest, is also a building material that sequesters carbon out of our atmosphere. (One company is even engineering “supertrees” to pull extra CO2 from the air.) But even still, it’s hard to ignore the potential lurking in concrete—one of many tools we’ll need to exploit to save our planet.

“In terms of materials, concrete is the most widely used material on the planet,” Keoleian says. “When you scale that up [with CO2], it can have a significant benefit.”


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Wilson is a senior writer at Fast Company who has written about design, technology, and culture for almost 15 years. His work has appeared at Gizmodo, Kotaku, PopMech, PopSci, Esquire, American Photo and Lucky Peach

Hurricane and COVID-19 set to Collide on the Gulf Coast. It Didn’t Have to be This Way.
August 27, 2021

COAST GUARD NEWS

Kristy Dahl
Senior Climate Scientist

UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS

A storm system currently named Tropical Storm Ida is expected to strengthen into a hurricane and make landfall in Louisiana early next week after bringing life-threatening rain and flooding to Cuba and other Caribbean islands. For Louisiana communities still rebuilding from three hurricanes­–Laura, Delta, and Zeta, which struck the coast last year–the latest forecast threatens to bring additional damage to the region and set recovery efforts back. But with new COVID-19 cases currently at some of their highest rates yet in Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states, and with hospitals already overwhelmed, public officials are worried about the region’s ability to maintain public safety in the face of a hurricane.

Louisiana weathered three hurricane strikes last year, when the pandemic was raging and vaccines were not yet available. This year, despite the availability of vaccines for people ages 12 and up and despite the presence of the highly contagious Delta variant of the virus, COVID-19 vaccination rates in Gulf Coast states remain stubbornly below national averages. So we’re about to find out what it looks like when the peak of hurricane season coincides with the crest of the latest wave of COVID-19.
Yes, this is kind of like Groundhog Day

It was almost exactly one year ago this week that Louisiana was struck by Hurricane Laura, the strongest hurricane on record to strike southwest Louisiana. Evacuees from coastal communities returned to their neighborhoods after the storm to begin rebuilding their homes and lives. As they did, they were met with a heat wave in which the heat index reached roughly 110°F, power outages that lasted for weeks, and, in many cases, a lack of access to drinking water.

In August, 2020, Hurricane Laura (left) made landfall near Lake Charles, Louisiana. Almost exactly one year after Laura and 16 years after Hurricane Katrina, the region is again bracing for a strike from Hurricane Ida (right). Source: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

The Atlantic hurricane season tends to peak in early September. Between that and the fact that 91 hurricanes have affected Louisiana since record keeping began in the early 1850s, it is not terribly surprising that Louisiana is facing a hurricane strike this month. Statistics aside, though, four hurricane strikes in the span of 13 months is brutal. And while the heat index is not forecast to be particularly high along the Gulf Coast next week, even typical levels of heat in the region can become dangerous if the power is knocked out and residents do not have access to fans or air conditioning.

But what is particularly worrisome about this latest storm’s path is that the COVID-19 landscape is now notably worse along the Gulf Coast than it was when hurricanes struck last year.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30, but the frequency of storms is highest in late August and early September. Source: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/

With COVID-19, it’s worse than Groundhog Day

When Hurricane Laura hit, Louisiana was in between COVID-19 waves, averaging about 600 new cases per day, and no COVID-19 vaccine was available. The latest statistics (as of August 25, 2021) show that Louisiana is now averaging more than 4,500 new cases per day, with 99% of cases caused by the Delta variant as of the week of August 15th. Hospitalizations have also peaked at rates well above the surges that occurred this past winter.

Compared with the growth rate of COVID-19 cases in Louisiana during the summer of 2020, cases have been growing much more rapidly during the summer of 2021. Data compiled by The New York Times. Source: https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data

Rates of cases, deaths, hospitalizations, and vaccinations in states along the Gulf Coast are currently much worse than the national average. COVID-19 case rates are twice the national average and death rates nearly three times the national average in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Hospitalization rates are twice the national average in Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana. And in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, 40% or less of the population is vaccinated.

Data compiled by The New York Times show that rates of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in Gulf Coast states currently outpace national averages, as does the percentage of the population that remains unvaccinated. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
It did not have to be like this

Hurricane season is predictable: We know when during the year hurricanes can usually be expected, and with NOAA’s seasonal forecasts, we also know whether we can expect the hurricane season to be more or less active than normal.

The result of widespread vaccine resistance in a state is also predictable: Recent data from the Department of Health and Human Services showed that COVID-19 hospitalization rates were nearly four times higher in the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates than in the 10 states with the highest vaccination rates. In Louisiana, roughly 9 in 10 hospitalizations and nearly all COVID-19 deaths in recent weeks have been among unvaccinated people.

But there’s an important difference between hurricanes and waves of COVID-19: preventability. We cannot prevent a hurricane from happening, but we can prevent serious COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 deaths with widespread vaccination. It did not have to come to this, where we’re anticipating a hurricane bearing down on a state in which roughly one in 10 residents currently has COVID-19. It’s one of the many scenarios of concern my colleague, Adrienne Hollis, outlined in a post at the start of hurricane season this year, but it did not have to come to pass.

With just a few days between now and when Ida is expected to come ashore, it’s time for Gulf Coast residents to be heeding local warnings and preparing—including by making plans for staying COVID-safe over the course of the storm.

To prevent future collisions of COVID-19 and hurricanes, though, vaccination is critical. If you’re still unsure about the COVID-19 vaccines, check out our COVID-19 vaccines FAQ. But vaccinated or not, our hearts are with those on the Gulf Coast. Stay safe.

US Gulf Coast Braces for Category 4 Landfall of Hurricane Ida After Cuba Takes Hit

Reuters

Aug 28, 2021

Hurricane Ida battered Cuba with roof-ripping force on Friday as it churned toward a weekend U.S. landfall along the Louisiana coast, prompting evacuations of flood-prone New Orleans neighborhoods and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

By late on Friday, Ida was packing sustained winds of up to 80 miles per hour (129 kph), according to the National Weather Service, which expected the storm to intensify significantly before coming ashore as a major hurricane in southeastern Louisiana on Sunday afternoon or evening.

Forecasters said Ida would likely make U.S. landfall as a robust Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, generating steady winds nearing 140 mph, heavy downpours and a tidal surge expected to plunge much of the Louisiana shoreline under several feet of water.

Inundation from Ida’s storm surge—high surf driven by the hurricane’s winds—will likely reach between 10 and 15 feet around the mouth of the Mississippi River, with lower levels extending east along the adjacent coastlines of Mississippi and Alabama, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Scattered tornadoes, widespread power outages, and inland flooding from torrential rain across the region were also expected.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards urged residents to ready themselves for the hurricane immediately.

“Now is the time to finish your preparations,” he told a Friday afternoon news conference. “By nightfall tomorrow night, you need to be where you intend to ride out the storm.”

New Orleans officials ordered residents to evacuate communities outside the city’s levee system, and posted voluntary evacuation notices for the rest of the parish.

Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Weston Broome signed an emergency disaster declaration and said the city had pre-positioned sand and sandbags at eight strategic locations as part of storm preparations.

Lifelong Gulf resident Hailey DeLaune, 29, told Reuters she and her fiance spent Friday evening boarding up the windows of his house in Gulfport, Mississippi, and gathering provisions to ride out the storm.

“Hurricanes have always been part of my life,” said the high school theology teacher, who was born during 1992’s Category 5 Hurricane Andrew. “You just run through your list and hope for the best.”

Edwards declared a state of emergency on Thursday, and on Friday President Joe Biden issued a pre-landfall federal emergency declaration at Edwards’ request. It authorized the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts in the state.

Edwards also said he had authorized activation of all 5,000 troops in the Louisiana National Guard for emergency deployments as needed.

Energy companies racing to complete evacuations of offshore platforms in the Gulf ahead of the storm had reduced petroleum production by nearly 60 percent and gas output by almost half, federal regulators said.

Caribbean Takes First Hit

Soon after being upgraded from tropical storm to hurricane status, Ida smashed into Cuba’s small Isle of Youth, off the southwestern end of the Caribbean island nation, toppling trees and tearing roofs from dwellings.

The streets of Havana, the capital, were empty as residents shuttered themselves at home ahead of Ida’s arrival, which government forecasters warned could bring storm surges to Cuba’s western coastline.

Jamaica was flooded by heavy rains, and there were landslides after the passage of the storm. Many roads were impassable, forcing some residents to abandon their homes.

Ida, the ninth named storm and fourth hurricane of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, may well exceed the strength of Hurricane Laura, the last Category 4 storm to strike Louisiana, by the time it makes landfall, forecasters said. But it pales in comparison to Katrina, the monster Category 5 storm that devastated the region in August 2005, claiming more than 1,800 lives.

Officials in U.S. coastal areas preparing for the storm urged residents to move boats out of harbors and encouraged early evacuations.

Officials in Louisiana’s Lafourche Parish said they would enact a voluntary evacuation, especially for people in low-lying areas, mobile homes, and RVs.

By Maria Caspani and Steve Gorman