"Striking back hard": Climate change protesters on how fossil fuel companies try to squash dissent

Matthew Rozsa

SALON
Thu, February 1, 2024 

Climate activist getting arrested 

Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

What does Dr. Kush Naker, a 33-year-old doctor of infectious diseases from London, share in common with 61 protesters currently facing racketeering charges in Georgia for protesting a planned 85-acre police training facility through an Atlanta forest?

Both were upheld by climate activists as an example of "egregious" ways in which the law has come down especially hard on those protesting humanity's self-destructive over-reliance on fossil fuels. In May 2023, Naker was arrested at the coronation of King Charles III for simply wearing a shirt for Just Stop Oil, a British environmental activist group that wants the United Kingdom to eliminate new fossil fuel licensing and production.

On the other side of the Atlantic, a group known as "Stop Cop City" is being targeted by prosecutors who describe the activists as "militant anarchists." The protestors goal is to halt the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, nicknamed Cop City, which is a proposed police and firefighter training facility to be constructed in an Atlanta urban forest. Its opponents cite both social justice and environmental reasons for why this construction should be halted.

These are not isolated examples. Whether it's climate activist Greta Thunberg being prosecuted in the United Kingdom for allegedly breaching the Public Order Act or opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline being sued by the company in ways seemingly geared toward silencing their protests, those who speak out against the fossil fuel status quo tend to face massive legal consequences.

Burning fossil fuels is the primary catalyst of climate change, a development that currently risks plunging the planet into a future of apocalyptic weather conditions. So it might seem unreasonable to punish the people aiming to bring attention to problem as existential as nuclear war or a deadly pandemic. Yet as some activists explained to Salon, this is not a bug in our current legal system — it's a feature.

"If any of us are to survive the climate crisis, things need to change," Alex De Koning, a 25-year-old Just Stop Oil spokesperson and climate scientist told Salon in an email. "However, fossil fuel companies and those in power who thrived out of the broken system that has got us into this mess refuse to [change.] They are fighting to keep themselves on top and using their considerable wealth and influence to repress any who take them on."

De Koning cited recent reports that a think tank funded by ExxonMobil, one of the world's largest fossil fuel companies, helped write laws that made it more difficult to protest climate change in the United Kingdom. "Why would the government and the fossil fuel industry go to such lengths if they did not fear the power of ordinary people finally fighting back?"

Folabi Olagbaju, the democracy campaign director at Greenpeace USA, pointed out that special interest groups who want to discredit climate science are working in a politically friendly environment. "Climate activism is a threat to the fossil fuel status quo, so it makes sense that corporate polluters and their allies in government are striking back hard," he said.

Ever since the 2000s, it has become increasingly mainstream for Republican politicians and their conservative followers to manufacture doubt about the scientific consensus on global heating. During the most recent Republican administration, President Trump slashed environmental regulations, and right-wing media outlets regularly parrot fossil fuel industry talking points as ideological articles of faith.

"Casting protesters as terrorists — and entire movements as criminal organizations — is both inaccurate and ruinous to our democracy," Olagbaju observed, adding that governments and corporations have been able to do these things with impunity "for a very long time. Now, with the global trend toward right-wing authoritarianism, it can even score them political points."

It is in this context that the gas and oil lobbies have pushed for anti-protest laws and aggressive policing all over the world. "All of these factors create the conditions to criminalize protest, a trend that will continue until we the people collectively stop it," Olagbaju said. "Protest and free speech are two of the best tools we have to fight for climate action – we need to protect these rights if we’re going to successfully champion a green and just future."

While Olagbaju noted that Greenpeace USA has avoided some of the more harrowing experiences endured by frontline protesters, they have faced a different kind of silencing tactic — "baseless" litigation.

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

"Energy Transfer – the company that built the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock – is suing us for $300 million for allegedly orchestrating the entire Indigenous resistance movement at Standing Rock," Olagbaju said. "They are trying to destroy a 50-year old environmental organization and to scare the entire movement into sitting down and shutting up. But we will not be silenced — we will continue to fight for everyone’s right to speak truth to power."

Michael Greenberg, founder of the environmental protest group Climate Defiance, argued that the climate change reform movement is "facing steep charges because the industry sees that fossil fuels are losing. The industry is pulling out progressively more desperate measures to try to stop the movement."

Other climate change activists elaborated on exactly what "the movement" means to them. One of them was Stevie O'Hanlon, communications director of a climate change activist group called Sunrise Movement that recently made headlines for protesting a Republican presidential campaign rally for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Although O'Hanlon praised President Biden for his recent policy to delay decision on approving a controversial liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal, the Sunrise Movement leader also argued that this is not enough — that, indeed, young people have a right to demand more from their political leaders.

"Young people deserve leaders that treat clean air, drinkable water, and a livable future as non-negotiable," O'Hanlon said. "Young people need to continue pressuring candidates to deliver for all of us. Biden isn’t doing enough. Delaying LNG build out is the right move, but it alone won’t win him the election. He must declare a climate emergency, end the fossil fuel era, and stop funding genocide."

As for Just Stop Oil's De Koning, the activist asserted that the only way to end their movement "is if there is no new oil and gas in the U.K. Even the main opposition party — Labour — will not commit to revoking the oil and gas licenses that our Prime Minister is shamelessly trying to push through while he is still in power. The time for playing politics is over. Almost every major radical policy shift throughout history has instead come from mass civil resistance, so why would we wait for an election?"

Olagbaju brought up the upcoming 2024 American presidential election, which experts predict will pit Biden — who, for all of his perceived shortcomings among environmentalists, is at least not a climate change denier — against Trump, who actively denies climate change science.

"This election may be the most critical in history for our ability to avoid climate catastrophe," Olagbaju argued to Salon. "Climate justice activists are letting candidates know that the people who protest are also an organized voting block united with progressive pro-democracy movements. It’s not just climate justice activists, according to the Yale Climate Maps 2023, 66% of adults in the US think that 'developing a clean energy plan should be a priority for the president and Congress.'"

Olagbaju added, "It is critical in this election to call out Big Oil for attacking the fundamentals of our Democracy, and to engage our grassroots allies across issues to recognize how they are fueling fascism."

TotalEnergies explores US, Europe renewable portfolio stake sale- sources

Fri, February 2, 2024

 Logo of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies in La Defense

By Andres Gonzalez and Isla Binnie

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - France's TotalEnergies is exploring a sale of a 50% stake of a portfolio of renewable projects in Europe and the U.S., according to two people familiar with the matter.

The French energy group is sounding out advisers for a sale of a stake in wind and solar power assets across the U.S., Spain, Portugal, France and Greece, the sources said.

One of the sources said that the portfolio is worth about $2.5 billion in total. The plan is expected to lead to a series of transactions, potentially with several buyers, one of the people said.

TotalEnergies declined to comment.

Globally, the renewable energy sector has been roiled by rising raw material costs and higher costs of capital. Similarly other utilities and oil companies like Enel, Repsol or Iberdrola, have sold stakes in wind and solar farms to help finance new projects.

In December, TotalEnergies sold a 22.5% stake in an offshore wind farm to Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) for 522 million pounds ($660.54 million).

The French company has a significantly higher low-carbon energy generation capacity than its rivals.

Last year, TotalEnergies took full control of renewable energy company Eren for 3.8 billion euros ($4.10 billion) including debt.

($1 = 0.7903 pounds)

($1 = 0.9260 euros)

(Reporting by Andres Gonzalez and Isla Binnie, additional reporting by Benjamin Malet, Editing by Anousha Sakoui and Louise Heavens)

Trudeau Faces Daunting Path to Sale of Canada’s $26 Billion Oil Pipeline

Brian Platt, Robert Tuttle and Geoffrey Morgan
Fri, February 2, 2024 




(Bloomberg) -- Justin Trudeau has promised one of the largest government-led asset sales in Canadian history by divesting the Trans Mountain pipeline, a huge conduit that moves crude from the province of Alberta to the west coast.

But the government faces a mounting set of challenges in unloading it — including high interest rates, a fight over costs with oil companies, and a looming election.

The Canadian prime minister has pledged to use the pipeline to generate wealth for Canada’s Indigenous people, and the government plans to essentially gift a stake in it to more than 100 groups. It’s a complex process, fraught with political pitfalls, and it appears to have stalled in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter.

“It’s really disappointing. It’s unacceptable,” said Chief Tony Alexis, head of the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, one of many Indigenous groups waiting for details on how to acquire an equity position in the project. It has been “radio silence” from the government since a meeting last September, he said.

“In the next few months, oil’s going to be flowing through that, and every day that there’s no deal in place, every First Nation is losing money,” Alexis said.

Apart from the Indigenous stake, the government’s intention is to auction the rest of Trans Mountain once it’s fully in operation. Potential buyers include another pipeline operator or private equity and infrastructure funds — all of which might also include Indigenous groups as commercial partners.

Investment bankers, corporate lawyers, government officials and the energy industry are all watching the situation closely, given the big money and potential fees involved. Trans Mountain may be worth as much as C$28 billion ($20.9 billion), according to one analyst’s estimate, though some others have lower valuations.

For Trudeau, the stakes are massive.

The decision to buy Trans Mountain from Kinder Morgan Inc. in 2018 was one of the most consequential and controversial moves of his eight years in power. To this day, he’s criticized by environmentalists for going ahead with plans to nearly triple its capacity to almost 900,000 barrels a day.

Trudeau has always argued that the project is in the national interest to reduce Canada’s near-total reliance on the US for exporting its oil. The country is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer — larger than Iraq, China or Iran — but Trans Mountain is the only pipeline that takes crude from Alberta to a Canadian ocean port, allowing shippers to access global markets.

That lack of export options has caused Canadian heavy crude to trade as much as $50 a barrel cheaper than US benchmark West Texas Intermediate at various points in the past decade.

At more than C$30 billion, the Trans Mountain expansion is tens of billions of dollars over budget. But it’s almost complete and is scheduled to begin pumping oil within months, although a recent construction mishap threatens more delays. Divesting the pipeline soon would allow Trudeau to go into the next election saying that he kept his word to the western Canadian energy sector as well as Indigenous groups.

Government officials, speaking on condition they not be identified, said they can’t commit to a specific date for selling Trans Mountain. The government will be flexible and judge market conditions, but once the expanded pipeline starts operation and revenue starts flowing, its value should strengthen, they said.

The government also believes that clarifying Indigenous participation is key to boosting investor confidence in the project.

Last summer, Freeland sent a letter to First Nations groups proposing a special-purpose vehicle that would hold a stake in the pipeline. Individual groups can choose whether to opt in. For those that want a piece of the action, the government intends to provide risk-free access to capital, the letter said, without providing details.

There are more than 120 Indigenous groups that have been identified as being potentially impacted by the pipeline project. Some live along its 715-mile route from central Alberta to terminal facilities near Vancouver. Other groups will be affected by increased oil-tanker traffic along the British Columbia coast, while still others are located far off the line and appear to face few direct impacts.

In late September, finance department officials called a meeting in Vancouver with First Nations representatives to discuss the investment. But the event went poorly. Indigenous chiefs arrived expecting to hear the terms of the offer, but were instead met with little new information, according to people who attended. There was also disagreement among some of the invited groups over who should be allowed to get Trans Mountain equity.

“It was a failure right off the bat,” said Alexis, who wasn’t there but was briefed on it. “The idea of getting people together, I guess, was a successful event. But in terms of moving to where we need to be, we didn’t get anywhere.”

The government also needs to test the market to see what investors are willing to pay.

It has already sunk about C$35 billion ($26.2 billion) into Trans Mountain, including the initial purchase from Kinder Morgan and the cost to build the expansion. Trudeau’s government will almost certainly take a significant loss on the sale price, even if an auction goes well, according to analysts.

When the new pipeline goes into service, oil companies shipping less than 75,000 barrels a day on long-term contracts will pay around C$11 a barrel, which is more than double what was expected when the expanded line was proposed. That guaranteed stream of revenue should allow the government to fetch C$23 billion to C$28 billion for the pipeline, Stifel Financial analyst Cole Pereira said in a phone interview.

Those fees are interim tolls. The process of determining final tolls will require a separate regulatory application, expected to start after the final costs of the pipeline expansion are determined. Some oil companies, including Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., have argued they’ll be paying too much to use Trans Mountain.

Other analysts believe the potential value is much lower. Stephen Ellis of Morningstar has estimated the sale price to be closer to C$15 billion, depending on how the tolls are settled.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will “initiate a divestment process in due course,” officials in her office said in an emailed statement, and will fulfill the government’s promise to have Indigenous participation. “This is an important step in advancing economic reconciliation, as Trans Mountain delivers good jobs and significant revenues today and into the future.”

Pembina and Brookfield

At least in public, the most serious industry player in the running is a joint venture called Chinook Pathways, a partnership between Pembina Pipeline Corp. and a coalition of Indigenous groups. But as construction costs soared, Pembina appears to have cooled on the idea, and the company said it will only evaluate an equity stake after the regulatory, construction and tolling issues are resolved. The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Other Canadian pipeline companies have their own challenges. Enbridge Inc., Canada’s largest oil pipeline operator, is focused on investing in natural gas transport, utilities and renewable energy. Enbridge didn’t reply to a request for comment.

TC Energy Corp., owner of the Keystone pipeline, has no plans to acquire an interest in Trans Mountain, the company said in a statement. It’s spinning off its liquids pipeline business and divesting assets after facing massive cost overruns on a gas pipeline project.

Alberta’s provincial pension fund has publicly expressed interest. “We have an active file on Trans Mountain,” Alberta Investment Management Corp. Chief Executive Officer Evan Siddall said on BNN Bloomberg Television. “We would look at it, the government knows that, and we’re keeping track of that situation.”

Brookfield Corp., the Canadian alternative asset manager that controls Brookfield Asset Management and a $180 billion portfolio of infrastructure assets, is sometimes mentioned by market participants. Its Brookfield Infrastructure Partners division bought a pipeline in western Canada in 2021, and it has the capital to handle a large deal. “I think Brookfield is the most likely buyer,” Pereira said. The company declined to comment.

Most observers see a sale as unlikely before the end of 2024, given the slow pace of Indigenous consultations, the legal wrangling over tolls, and potential delays in filling the line with oil.

But the longer it goes on, the more Trudeau’s ambitions will run into the election cycle. A vote will almost certainly will happen in 2025, if not sooner. His Liberal Party is currently trailing the Conservative Party in polls by a wide margin.

That raises the prospect of further delays in the Trans Mountain sale. The Canadian government, which never intended to be the long-term owner of an oil pipeline, has already owned this one for well over five years, and counting.

--With assistance from Laura Dhillon Kane, Layan Odeh and Paula Sambo.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Exclusive-Poland to withdraw court cases against EU climate policies - sources

Fri, February 2, 2024 

EU leaders meet in Brussels

By Kate Abnett and Marek Strzelecki

BRUSSELS/WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland will no longer take the EU to court to attempt to cancel numerous climate change policies, and is preparing to withdraw lawsuits the previous government had filed to do this, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

After years of resisting certain European Union climate policies under the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, Poland's October 2023 election has marked a shift in Warsaw's stance on fighting climate change.

Centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk's new pro-European government is planning to formally withdraw its ongoing legal challenges against some of the EU's main climate change policies at the EU's top court, government and EU sources told Reuters.

Poland's previous government had brought lawsuits to the EU's top court including four cases last year attempting to annul EU climate policies: a law banning new CO2-emitting car sales from 2035, an EU policy setting national emissions-cutting targets, changes to the EU's carbon market and goals to protect forests so they can store more carbon.

The sources said the Tusk government intends to cancel the court cases and is coordinating a decision between the government ministries involved.

Tusk's office did not respond to a request for comment. Poland's climate ministry did not have an immediate comment.

The government has already signalled plans to change some national climate policies, to replace coal with renewable energy faster, and said that any changes would include support for affected workers and industries.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Gareth Jones)

India to increase coal-fired capacity in 2024 by the most in at least 6 years


A general view of electricity pylons in Mumbai

By Sudarshan Varadhan

Thu, February 1, 2024 

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will start operating new coal-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 13.9 gigawatts (GW) this year, its power ministry said in a statement to Reuters, the highest annual increase in at least six years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has cited energy security concerns amid surging power demand and low per-capita emissions to defend India's high dependence on coal. Power generation in 2023 increased by 11.3%, the fastest pace in at least five years.

"In the next 18 months, about 19,600 MW (megawatts of) capacity is likely to be commissioned," the power ministry said in a statement on Thursday. That will include the 13.9 GW likely to be commissioned this year.

The 2024 capacity increase will be more than four times the annual average in the last five years. India added 4 GW of coal-fired power capacity in 2023, the most in a year since 2019.

Coal-fired output surged 14.7% during the year, outpacing renewable energy output growth for the first time since at least 2019. Green energy output rose 12.2% in 2023, an analysis of daily load dispatch data from the federal grid regulator showed.

The south Asian nation failed to achieve a target to add 175 GW of renewable power capacity by 2022. The planned coal-fired capacity increase in 2024 will exceed its 2023 renewables increase of 13 GW.

The Ministry of Power has envisaged adding at least 53.6 GW of coal-fired power capacity over the eight years ending March 2032, it said, in addition to the 26.4 GW currently being constructed. Coal currently accounts for over 50% of India's installed capacity of 428.3 GW.

Construction of coal-fired projects has faced significant delays. However, New Delhi has begun a review of plants whose construction has been held up for years, moving to resolve issues over equipment and land acquisition delays.

(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Mark Potter)

UN climate chief's blunt message: Fewer loopholes, way more cash to really halt climate change

SETH BORENSTEIN
Fri, February 2, 2024 

United Nations Climate Chief Simon Stiell speaks during a plenary session at the COP28 U.N. Climate Summit, Dec. 13, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

 (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File)

To keep Earth from overheating too much, the nations of the world need to put fewer loopholes in climate agreements and far more money — trillions of dollars a year — into financial help for poor nations, the United Nations climate chief said Friday.

In an unusual and blunt lecture at a university in Baku, Azerbaijan, the host city of upcoming international climate negotiations later this year, United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called gains made in the past not nearly enough. Without the proper amount of cash, he said those could “quickly fizzle away into more empty promises.”

Much of it comes down to money: $2.4 trillion a year, Stiell said. That's how much a United Nations High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance estimated that developing nations — not including China — need to invest in renewable energy instead of dirtier fossil fuels, as well as to adapt to and recover from climate change harms such as floods, storms, droughts and heat waves.

Richer nations have promised less than 5% of that amount in climate financial help to poor nations — and they often haven't even delivered that much.

“It's already blazingly obvious that finance is the make-or-break factor in the world's climate fight,” Stiell said. “We need torrents — not trickles — of climate finance.”

United Nations climate officials emphasized the next two years are crucial for curbing climate change, with 2024 negotiations in Baku followed by a critical meeting in Brazil in 2025, when countries are required to come up with new and stronger pledges to cut emissions of all heat-trapping gases. To do that, officials said money is the great enabler of action.

“The time has passed for business-as-usual in all aspects of the world's climate fight,” Stiell said.

After briefly praising last year's climate agreement that said fossil fuels cause warming and the world needs to “transition away” from use of them in many instances, Stiell offered a rare but subtle rebuke.

“Hiding behind loopholes in decision texts or dodging hard work ahead through selective interpretation would be entirely self-defeating for any government as climate impacts hammer every country's economy and population,” Stiell said. Stiell's office declined to detail which loopholes he was talking about.

Activists, scientists and small island nations that are most vulnerable to warming's worst effects criticized last year's deal specifically for what they called loopholes. Samoa's lead delegate Anne Rasmussen blasted the deal as business as usual, saying it could take the world backward, not forward. Stiell, a native of the vulnerable island nation of Grenada, leapt to his feet to applaud the Samoan’s complaint — much to the chagrin of the president of the negotiations, an oil executive from host United Arab Emirates.

“The problem with the text is that it still includes cavernous loopholes that allow the United States and other fossil fuel-producing countries to keep going on their expansion of fossil fuels,” Center for Biological Diversity energy justice director Jean Su said in December. Su cited a “pretty deadly, fatal flaw” in the text for allowing “transitional fuels” — a code word for carbon-emitting natural gas — to continue.

Joanna Depledge, a climate negotiations historian at Cambridge University in England, said the idea that the weak language in the Dubai agreement is “somehow seen as a triumph” shows the world is in trouble.

“It will take an Olympian effort over the next two years to put us on track to where we need to be in 2030 and 2050,” Stiell said.

Climate negotiators, he said, should adopt the Olympic motto of “faster, higher, stronger.”

___

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears

______

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

SCI-FI-TEK

Could a Giant Parasol in Outer Space Help Solve the Climate Crisis?

Cara Buckley
Fri, February 2, 2024 

An undated image provided by the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and the Asher Space Research Institute shows a rendering of a giant sail that scientists want to send into space to block solar radiation. 

(Technion Israel Institute of Technology and Asher Space Research Institute via The New York Times)

It’s come to this. With Earth at its hottest point in recorded history, and humans doing far from enough to stop its overheating, a small but growing number of astronomers and physicists are proposing a potential fix that could have leaped from the pages of science fiction: the equivalent of a giant beach umbrella, floating in outer space.

The idea is to create a huge sunshade and send it to a far away point between the Earth and the sun to block a small but crucial amount of solar radiation, enough to counter global warming. Scientists have calculated that if just shy of 2% of the sun’s radiation is blocked, that would be enough to cool the planet by 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 Fahrenheit, and keep Earth within manageable climate boundaries.

The idea has been at the outer fringes of conversations about climate solutions for years. But as the climate crisis worsens, interest in sun shields has been gaining momentum, with more researchers offering up variations. There’s even a foundation dedicated to promoting solar shields.

Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times

A recent study led by the University of Utah explored scattering dust deep into space, while a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is looking into creating a shield made of “space bubbles.” Last summer, Istvan Szapudi, an astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, published a paper that suggested tethering a big solar shield to a repurposed asteroid.

Now scientists led by Yoram Rozen, a physics professor and the director of the Asher Space Research Institute at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, say they are ready to build a prototype shade to show that the idea will work.

To block the necessary amount of solar radiation, the shade would have to be about 1 million square miles, roughly the size of Argentina, Rozen said. A shade that big would weigh at least 2.5 million tons — too heavy to launch into space, he said. So, the project would have to involve a series of smaller shades. They would not completely block the sun’s light but rather cast slightly diffused shade onto Earth, he said.

Rozen said his team was ready to design a prototype shade of 100 square feet and is seeking between $10 million and $20 million to fund the demonstration.

“We can show the world, ‘Look, there is a working solution, take it, increase it to the necessary size,” he said.

Proponents say that a sunshade would not eliminate the need to stop burning coal, oil and gas, the main drivers of climate change. Even if greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels were to immediately drop to zero, there’s already excessive heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The Earth’s average temperature is on the brink of rising 1.5 Celsius over the preindustrial average. That’s the point beyond which the chances of extreme storms, drought, heat waves and wildfires would increase significantly and humans and other species would struggle more to survive, scientists say. The planet has already warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius.

A sunshade would help stabilize the climate, supporters of the idea say, while other climate mitigation strategies were being pursued.

“I’m not saying this will be the solution, but I think everybody has to work toward every possible solution,” said Szapudi, the astronomer who proposed tethering a sunshade to an asteroid.

It was 1989 when James Early of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggested a “space-based solar shield” positioned near a fixed point between the Earth and the sun called Lagrange Point One, or L1, some 932,000 miles away, four times the average distance between the Earth and the moon. There, the gravitational pulls from the Earth and sun cancel each other out.

In 2006, Roger Angel, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, presented his proposal for a deflective sun shield at the National Academy of Sciences and later won a grant from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts to continue his research. He suggested releasing trillions of very lightweight spacecraft at L1, using transparent film and steering technology that would prevent the devices from drifting off orbit.

“It’s just like you just turned a knob down on the sun,” Angel said, “and you don’t mess with the atmosphere.”

The sunshade idea has its critics, among them Susanne Baur, a doctoral candidate who focuses on solar radiation modification modeling at the European Center for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computation in France. A sunshade would be astronomically expensive and could not be implemented in time, given the speed of global warming, she said. In addition, a solar storm or collision with stray space rocks could damage the shield, resulting in sudden, rapid warming with disastrous consequences, Baur said.

Time and money would be better spent on working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, she said, with a small portion of research devoted to “more viable and cost-effective” solar geoengineering ideas.

But sunshade proponents say that at this stage, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will not go far enough to allay climate chaos, that carbon dioxide removal has proved extremely difficult to realize and that every potential solution ought to be explored.

A fully operational sunshade would have to be resilient and reversible, Szapudi said. In his proposed design, he said 99% of its weight would come from the asteroid, helping offset the cost. It would still likely carry a price tag of trillions of dollars, an amount that is far less than what is spent on military weapons, he said.

“Saving the Earth and giving up 10% of your weapons to destroy things is actually a pretty good deal in my book,” Szapudi said.

He held up Tesla as an example of an idea that once seemed wildly ambitious but within 20 years of its founding became the world’s top manufacturer of electric vehicles.

Morgan Goodwin, executive director of the Planetary Sunshade Foundation, a nonprofit organization, said one reason sunshades haven’t gained as much traction is that climate researchers have been focused, quite naturally, on what’s happening within the Earth’s atmosphere and not on space.

But the falling costs of space launches and investments in a space industrial economy have widened possibilities, Goodwin said. The foundation suggests using raw materials from space and launching solar shade ships into L1 from the moon, which would cost far less than setting off from Earth.

“We think as the idea of sunshades become more understood by climate folks, it’s going to be a pretty obvious part of the discussion,” said Goodwin, who is also the senior director at the Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club.

The Technion model involves affixing lightweight solar sails to a small satellite sent to L1. Their prototype would move back and forth between L1 and another equilibrium point, with the sail tilting between pointing to the sun and being perpendicular to it, moving like a slat on a venetian blind. This would help keep the satellite stable and eliminate the need for a propulsion system, Rozen said.

Rozen said the team was still in the predesign phase but could launch a prototype within three years after securing funds. He estimated that a full-size version would cost trillions (a tab “for the world to pick up, not a single country,” he said) but reduce the Earth’s temperature by 1.5 Celsius within two years.

“We at the Technion are not going to save the planet,” Rozen said. “But we’re going to show that it can be done.”

c.2024 The New York Times Company

THANKS JOE 😉

The US oil boom helps ExxonMobil and Chevron notch their second-biggest profits in a decade


Aruni Soni
Fri, February 2, 2024 


The surge in US oil production helped big US oil companies post their second-biggest annual profits in a decade, the FT reported.

ExxonMobil and Chevron notched fourth-quarter profits of $36 billion and $21.4 billion, respectively.

Still, those numbers are down from 2022 when the Ukraine crisis boosted energy companies.

America's oil giants are seeing big gains from the boom-time production that flooded the market with crude last year.

ExxonMobil and Chevron both posted their second-biggest annual profits in a decade, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

Exxon recorded a $36 billion profit for the fourth quarter, down from the $55.7 billion in the year before, but otherwise the highest since 2012. Chevron, notched a $21.4 billion profit, also down from $35.5 billion in the previous year, but outside of that its strongest since 2013.

Both companies missed the mark on their revenues, with Exxon recording $84.3 billion versus the $85.2 billion expected, and Chevron posting a $47.18 billion as opposed to the expected $51.62 billion.

"If you take the market out of it, you take prices and margins out and just look at it on an apples to apples basis, we've more than doubled our earnings power from 2019 to 2023," Exxon CEO Darren Woods told CNBC on Friday.

The fact that profit numbers are lower than 2022 — when turmoil in Ukraine gave oil companies a huge boost — is a byproduct of record US oil supply. The US pumped more oil than ever in 2023, hitting a record 13.3 million barrels a day, which dragged prices 11% lower for the year. But the surge of production helped keep profits near decade highs.

The likes of Exxon and Chevron found themselves at the center of this blockbuster year. As a result, the companies have ratcheted up their capital expenditure budgets for 2024, pouring more money into the Permian Basin — the epicenter of the shale boom.

Chevron's chief financial officer said their strong quarter was led by record production in the Permian Basin, per the Financial Times. And Exxon's output in the Permian and Guyana was up 18% in 2023.

Russian pressure mounts on ZNPP employees refusing to cooperate

Ukrainska Pravda
Thu, February 1, 2024 

ZNPP. Photo: Wikipedia

Russians are pressuring employees at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant who have refused to cooperate with them, yet they have not abandoned the city of Enerhodar.

Source: National Resistance Center (NRC)

Details: The NRC stated that due to the specific nature and complexity of the work, the Russians cannot recruit workers for the power plant, as there is a shortage of specialists throughout Russia.

Current plant employees are not allowed to work but are instead summoned for interrogations, with threats directed against their family members.

Simultaneously, the Russian occupational administration claims there is no shortage of personnel, but this information is not true. The power plant is currently not generating electricity and is effectively serving as a tool for blackmail in the hands of the Russians.

Quote from NRC: "It should be noted that the liberation of the power plant is a matter of time, just like the liberation of Enerhodar. Therefore, everyone involved in the seizure of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and the pressure on its workers will bear responsibility. It is crucial to emphasise that, in retreat, the Russians do not take their accomplices with them, as no one values their lives."

 Polish farmers plan general strike, blockade of Ukraine border

Reuters
Updated Fri, February 2, 2024

FILE PHOTO: Farmers protest in Brussels


WARSAW (Reuters) -Polish farmers from the Solidarity trade union plan a general strike starting next Friday with a blockade of border crossings between Poland and Ukraine, it said, joining similar protests all over Europe.

Farmers in France, Belgium, Portugal, Greece and Germany have been protesting against the constraints placed on them by EU measures to tackle climate change, as well as rising costs and unfair competition from abroad. Polish farmers have been particularly vocal about the impact of cheap food imports from neighbouring Ukraine.

"Our patience has run out. Brussels' position on the last day of January 2024 is unacceptable for our entire agricultural community," the trade union said in a statement dated Thursday.

"Additionally, the passivity of the Polish authorities... regarding the import of agricultural produce and food products from Ukraine leave us with no other choice but to declare a general strike."

The European Commission said it was listening closely to the concerns expressed by farmers in protests taking place in several member states.

"In relation to the specific concerns outlined by farmers at the present time, the Commission is assessing possible next steps," a spokesperson for the Commission wrote in an emailed response to Reuters' request for comment.

Solidarity said that, apart from the blockade of crossings with Ukraine, it planned on-off blockades of roads throughout the country between Feb. 9 and March 10.

Poland's agriculture ministry did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.

A separate organisation of Polish farmers earlier blocked a key border crossing with Ukraine, but the protest was suspended on Jan. 6 after the new government agreed to its demands.

European farmers' frustration came to a head in Brussels on Thursday, when farmers threw eggs at the European Parliament and started fires as they demanded EU leaders do more to help them.

(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Additional reporting by Piotr Lipinski; Editing by Nick Macfie and Christina Fincher)


Polish farmers plot new blockade of Ukrainian border

Ukrainska Pravda
Fri, February 2, 2024 



Polish farmers from the Solidarity trade union have announced a general protest, with roads and border crossings into Ukraine to be blocked.

Source: Polish radio station RMF24, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The trade union noted that in a week's time – on Friday, 9 February, at 10:00 – all border crossings with Ukraine will be blocked. The duration of the action has not yet been revealed.

Furthermore, temporary road blockades will begin in some of Poland's voivodeships (provinces). They will last from 9 February to 10 March.

Polish farmers are dissatisfied with the European Commission's proposal to extend the suspension of import quotas and duties on Ukrainian exports to the EU for another year.

"Our patience has worn thin. Brussels' position on the last day of January 2024 is unacceptable for our entire agricultural community. Moreover, the passivity of the Polish authorities, declarations of cooperation with the European Commission and remarks about compliance with all decisions of the European Commission on imports of agricultural products and food from Ukraine leave us no choice but to call a general strike," the union said in a statement.

Polish farmers say they will fight for this "to the end".

One of the leaders of the Solidarity agrarian union is Robert Telus, a former minister of agriculture in the former Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS or Law and Justice) government.

Background: On Wednesday, the European Commission officially proposed to extend the suspension of import quotas and duties on Ukrainian exports to the EU for another year while including safeguards for agricultural products, as demanded by several member states.

Polish farmers to stage more protests at Ukrainian border, nationwide

Dmytro Basmat
Fri, February 2, 2024 



Polish farmers’ Solidarity trade union announced a nationwide strike on Feb. 1 that will start with the blockading of all Polish border crossings with Ukraine.

Polish farmers began widespread protests across the country on Jan. 24 on the heels of a several-month-long series of demonstrations and border blockades by Polish truckers, who said that the liberalization of permits for Ukrainian truckers had hurt their domestic businesses.

Farmers in France, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, and Germany have also been protesting what they claim are the negative impacts on farming of the EU’s efforts to address climate change, as well as the influx of cheap Ukrainian imports to aid Ukraine’s war effort.

“Our patience has worn thin. The position of Brussels on the last day of January 2024 is unacceptable for our entire agricultural community,” Solidarity said in a statement, referring to what it deems as inaction on the part of the EU, which is headquartered in Belgium.

“Additionally, the passivity of the Polish authorities and declarations of cooperation with the European Commission ... regarding the import of agricultural produce and food products from Ukraine leave us with no other choice but to declare a general strike.”

In addition to blocking Poland’s border crossings with Ukraine, Solidarity said it would plan blockades of roads across Poland between Feb. 9 and March 10.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Jan. 24 that he would try to address Polish farmers’ concerns in a way that does not violate EU regulations and would be acceptable for the Ukrainian and Polish sides.

He also acknowledged that such an agreement would probably be “accepted with difficulty” by Ukrainians.

The new round of demonstrations came as the truckers’ protest appeared to have at least been temporarily halted.

Polish truckers suspended their blockade of the border last week, lifting the closure of the final border crossing on Jan. 16.

Romanian farmers and truckers have held similar protests at Ukrainian border crossings for months, protesting the economic impacts of a free trade agreement that have sparked worries about uneven competition and risks to domestic production. They have warned that more protests may be held along the Romanian border if the EU does not give into its demands.

Read also: Polish farmers begin protest against Ukrainian agricultural imports