Carbon Capture Must Be Part of the Climate Solution

Fossil fuel companies tout carbon capture as a way to shore up their own profits. But the technology holds the potential for good — helping us to save the planet, and ourselves, from ecological catastrophe.

Orca, the world’s first, ONLY and largest climate-positive direct air capture and storage plant, in Hellisheidi, Iceland. (Climeworks)

BYSPENCER ROBERTS

JACOOBIN

12.22.2021

Imagine a group of campers carelessly polluting the forest, leaving beer cans, plastic wrappers, and propane tanks strewn about the understory. An ecologist comes upon their campsite and explains how they are harming the forest ecosystem. The campers decide to stop polluting, but never clean up the mess. This is analogous to a climate strategy without carbon removal.

At its root, the climate crisis is a chemical imbalance. Global heating is just one of its side effects. To restore the ecological conditions in which we evolved, we must restore the balance of carbon flows between our atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere. This means not only halting carbon emissions, but returning carbon to where it came from.

Where to Put All This Carbon

Since 1750, an estimated 26 to 46 percent of cumulative historical emissions have been released from the biosphere through deforestation and other forms of habitat destruction. Fortunately, ecosystems have myriad ways to reverse this process. Even on the mouth of a smokestack, the most advanced technology scrubbing the densest coal plume pales in comparison to a tropical forest, which itself pales in comparison to a mangrove. It’s true that nothing sequesters carbon more quickly than nature.

But the world’s ecosystems have a carbon ceiling, or carrying capacity. Even if we somehow returned all converted land to its preindustrial state, models estimate we could only sequester around 41 percent of cumulative historical emissions — in other words, roughly as much carbon as the biosphere originally contained.

This is because at least half of the carbon we’ve released into the atmosphere has come from the lithosphere, through burning fossil fuel from the Earth’s crust. There is no natural process to reverse this at the necessary scale and speed.

Despite this reality, many leading climate advocates argue that carbon capture is unnecessary. They point out — correctly — that if we rapidly decarbonize, the planet could make it halfway back to preindustrial carbon dioxide levels by the end of the century.

But again, the changing climate is only one consequence of the global chemistry experiment we’ve been running. If we leave all this carbon in the atmosphere, levels will eventually decrease once we stop emitting. That’s because most of it will dissolve into the ocean, triggering a chain reaction with carbonic compounds that acidifies seawater. Removing carbon from the atmosphere reverses this process. Even if we should reach preindustrial temperatures in the 2100s by emissions cuts alone, we will have done nothing to address ocean acidification. Is it a victory to achieve a planet where there are vast areas of ocean with no oysters to filter water, no corals to shelter fish, no pteropods to support food webs?

Worse yet, without burying carbon, the effects of temperature change will be catastrophic on both sea and land. We will almost certainly cross the two degree threshold, virtually dooming corals to extinction, liquidating the Arctic sea ice, sinking hundreds of cities from Bangkok to Miami, and killing millions of people in heatwaves. To survive, we must stabilize our climate — and quickly.
Ungreenwashing Carbon Capture

While leading biogeochemists have long made the case for carbon capture technology, its most visible proponent is the fossil fuel industry. Its lobbyists use it to sell carbon credits to big polluters and empty promises to world leaders. Its interest in the technology isn’t motivated by an obligation to humanity or the planet, but rather a strategy to silence critics and stay in business — whether that means emitting less or more. Today, most of the small amount of carbon the industry captures isn’t stored, but rather used in enhanced oil recovery to lubricate geological fissures and accelerate carbon extraction. Needless to say, this exacerbates the problem.

There are only a few forms of carbon capture technology that yield net-negative emissions. First, some catalyze natural processes, such as enhanced rock weathering and ocean iron fertilization. However, the sequestration potential of these approaches is generally thought to be modest — and with a high risk of negative ecological side effects.

Then there’s bioenergy carbon capture and storage, or BECCS. BECCS augments the theoretically net-neutral process of growing and burning biofuel with capturing carbon at the smokestack, storing it underground to push emissions into the red. This method could potentially sequester a lot of carbon, but at a high cost in land. While we wouldn’t have to expand cropland if we drastically reduced agricultural land use by farming fewer animals, using land to grow biofuels would sacrifice its higher potential for carbon sequestration through rewilding.

This leaves direct air capture (DAC), perhaps the most technologically challenging of all. DAC generally involves a system of enormous fans sucking air through a chemical sponge that filters roughly a thousand air molecules for every four of carbon dioxide. These are then liquefied in solvents and pumped back underground.

The drawbacks associated with direct air capture are low compared to other forms of geoengineering and related to the risks we already take during fossil fuel extraction, including seismic destabilization and injection well leaks. However, DAC is water-intensive, and although we might develop passive systems that use wind, absorbent solvents, or electrodialysis, today’s direct air capture technology demands high quantities of energy and is only emissions-negative if powered by renewables.

Therein lies the most significant caveat: carbon capture is no excuse for aggressively cutting emissions. It will only help if we also rapidly phase out the fossil fuel industry.

Unfortunately, that’s who’s getting all the funding. Fossil fuel corporations are raking in public investments and tax exemptions to research and develop carbon capture, yet posting pathetic results. Despite decades of R&D, billions in carbon capture subsidies, and proposals for $100 billion more, ExxonMobil reported capturing less than 1 percent of its emissions in 2019.

The charitable interpretation is that carbon capture engineering is uniquely challenging. A less credulous explanation is that fossil fuel corporations simply have no incentive to develop carbon capture technology. Funding isn’t contingent on progress, and scaling isn’t worth the capital of thousands of engineers and millions of construction workers. Either way, the research and development of carbon capture technology can only be successful if we decouple it from the fossil fuel industry and build it within the public sector, far from the tyranny of the profit margin.

Despite such misinvestment, net-negative carbon capture technology does exist. In August 2021, a prototype called Orca went online, making it the biggest direct air capture facility in the world. While its developer, Climeworks, is at best a net-neutral corporation — it sells carbon offsets to make a profit — Orca is net-negative, running on geothermal and drawing down a relatively impressive four thousand tons of CO2 per year. At that rate, we’d need more than eight million of them running for fifty years to capture all the fossil carbon we’ve burned (and it would take longer for the atmosphere to level out).

The good news is that the facilities are not that big — about the size of a shipping container, of which we have around 43 million — and like solar and wind, we can expect this technology to gain efficiency over time. Plus, if considering where to install them, we do already have millions of drill pads complete with tubes connected to oil deposits or porous shale strata. Lastly, it’s not all or nothing. Every atom counts.

The Real Net Zero

Carbon capture is not the easy road to net zero that oil lobbyists want to sell us. The real net zero is somewhere around 280ppm CO2. We should think of carbon capture more like putting an imperceptibly diffuse toothpaste back into countless millions of leaky tubes — essentially reverse-engineering fossil fuel, our most disastrous geoengineering experiment ever. It’s a moonshot, yet it’s not rocket science. And while there is a complex engineering case for carbon capture, the ecological case is simple: we need to rebury carbon to reverse ocean acidification.

Carbon capture is a challenge we cannot afford to turn away from, regardless of the venal purposes for which the technology has so far been developed. Today, it is used as a justification for prolonging our dependence on fossil fuel and enriching those who have profited from its extraction. Tomorrow, it may be the only way to remedy the crime against nature that precedes and precipitates climate change — the distortion of planetary chemistry.

This work has been made possible by the support of the Puffin Foundation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Spencer Roberts is a science writer, musician, ecologist, and rooftop solar engineer from Colorado.

Almost half of seabird populations have declined in the UK and Ireland


The Atlantic Puffin is one of the seabirds which has seen a fall in numbers across the different regions, with just a few sites showing an increase in population

Almost half of seabird species in the UK and Ireland have seen a fall in their numbers over the past 20 years, according to a new survey.

The Seabirds Count census, which surveyed birds between 2015 and 2021, provides population estimates for the 25 regularly breeding species found in Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

It revealed that 11 of 21 of the species monitored have seen a decline in their population since the last census in 1998-2002.

Five species have remained stable, while another five have an increase in their numbers. Some of these increases have been linked to conservation work to help protect certain species.

The remaining four bird species of the 25 surveyed, now have up to date breeding population estimates, but these can't be compared to previous results because of changes and improvements in survey methods.

What else did the survey show?


Some species like the razorbill have seen an increase in their numbers in some regions

The results of the census also varied across different regions. Scotland has seen the biggest fall in seabird numbers across the different species according to the survey, with 14 of the 20 breeding seabird species in decline.

Eight species in England have seen an increase in numbers, while six have fallen and five have remained stable.

In Wales, 11 species are increasing, while six are declining and Northern Ireland has seen a decline in numbers for four species, while six are stable and seven are increasing.

Seabirds are doing well in the Republic of Ireland, with 15 species increasing and only two declining.

What's causing the fall in the number of some seabird species?

Commercial fishing can impact food sources for seabirds

Although the main reasons for falling populations vary between species and locations, there are some common themes which have led to the fall in some seabirds' numbers.

Predators are a key factor as eggs, chicks and adults can be eaten by other species which either live in the regions, or have come from elsewhere.

Climate change has also had a big impact on some birds. Poor weather conditions are causing nest sites to be swept away and making it more difficult for the birds to search for food and other things they need.

Increased water temperatures have reduced the availability of key food sources like certain types of fish which leads to seabird parents not finding enough food for themselves and their offspring.

The lack of food is also affected by commercial fishing, which involves companies catching fish which they then sell on. This can be a particularly big problem during the important breeding season.

"For decades, our seabird populations have been battered by the impact of humans, from the introduction of predators to islands that destroy nests and chicks, to the increasing effects of climate change that are impacting the availability of their food such as sand eels," said Beccy Speight from the RSPB.

"The evidence shows that conservation efforts and smart policies do work, and help increase the resilience of our seabirds to better weather whatever new storm is on the horizon. It is now up to us to protect these amazing birds for future generations."

 

Although Giant Penguin Fossil Is Nice, Wyoming’s Dinosaurs Were So Big They Pooped 3,000-Pound Boulders

Published on February 18, 2023February 18, 2023  in Wyoming Life/Wyoming Dinosaurs/News

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By Jake Nichols, Cowboy State Daily
Jake@CowobyStateDaily.com

A recent paper published in the Cambridge University Press touted the largest-known fossil of a penguin discovered by paleontologist Alan Tennyson. 

This portly puffin waddled the coastline of New Zealand some 60 million years ago, weighing as much as a refrigerator. The ancient auk was identified as a new species, Kumimanu fordycei, and is thought to be the largest penguin to have ever lived. 

By the way, the now-submerged fragmental continent of Zealandia is considered the center of extant penguin diversity, with accumulating fossil evidence supporting hypotheses that penguins as we know them today originated in this part of the world.

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A left, a life-sized rendering of how large the prehistoric penguin found in New Zealand would be. At right, the brachiosaur, which was so large its poops are esteemed to weight 3,000 pounds.

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Wyoming’s Big Brachiosaur

What’s noteworthy about this discovery halfway across the globe is that in Wyoming, we’re crazy about dinosaurs. Who isn’t?

And frankly, and with all due respect to the scientific community digging up dead birds from the beaches of Otaga, New Zealand, the Cowboy State has dinosaurs that poop bigger than that monster penguin. Literally.

The impressively sized brachiosaur is thought to have supersized scat that weighs in at an estimated 3,000 pounds.

And not only is Wyoming home to the brachiosaur, it’s the biggest one ever found. Well, some of him anyway. 

Dubbed “Bigfoot” for obvious reasons, a foot belonging to a close relative of the long-necked, long-tailed brachiosaurus was uncovered in 1998 in the Black Hills region of Wyoming by a team from the University of Kansas. 

The brachiosaurus is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Middle Jurassic, about 150-180 million years ago. It is featured as a gentle lumbering behemoth munching on treetops in the Jurassic Park movie franchise.

“This beast was clearly one of the biggest that ever walked in North America,” said Emanuel Tschopp, a Theodore Roosevelt Richard Gilder Graduate School postdoctoral fellow in the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Paleontology, in a 2018 press release when the finding was officially recognized. 

Discovery Almost Didn’t Happen

Think the Mesozoic Era was long? It took forever to get this foot fossil to a research facility for cleanup and 3D scanning. 

In fact, the discovery is 77 years in the making and came close to never happening at all. 

Field crews first began exploring Mesozoic formations in the U.S. in the 1870s, starting in southern Utah. University of Kansas alum Elmer Riggs excavated the first brachiosaurus specimen in 1901 in Colorado. 

At that time, Wyoming was considered far too north for dinosaurs like the brachiosaurus to have roamed – until a 1941 expedition led by a team from the University of Nebraska found fossils on a remote hilltop in the Black Hills region of northeast Wyoming. 

The dig uncovered an extremely large femora belonging to a sauropod, but with summer coming to a close, the site was secured for the winter with every intention of returning.

Then the U.S. entered World War II. 

Most field activities were curtailed during wartime. By the time follow-up excavations were organized in the early 1950s, no students or professors could remember exactly where the quarry was located. Records were incorrect (two miles off, it would turn out) and the dig site was nearly lost forever.

Professor Larry Martin at the University of Kansas was a student at U. Nebraska at the time of the original dig in 1941. He organized a new expedition in the 1990s and was able to zero in on the exact location of the famed fossilized femur with the help of a few old-time ranchers in the area.

While it is not the largest brachiosaurus ever found, it is the largest intact foot from the species ever dug up and positively identified. 

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Wyoming’s Snakey Croc-Faced Sea Monster

Not to be outdone by Bigfoot, College of Charleston geology professor Scott Persons announced the discovery of a bizarre new prehistoric sea monster in September 2022. 

Persons labeled his find Serpentisuchops, a biological name translating to “snakey crocodile-face.” It was unearthed from a sulfuric patch of scrubland near Lusk, Wyoming, in 1995.

It took 27 years for the bones to be carefully excavated, cleaned up by a volunteer group of elderly women known as the “Glenrock Bone Biddies,” and finally verified.

This member of the plesiosaur species swam the seas of Wyoming when it was under water some 70 million years ago. Its discovery is significant, Persons says, because this sea creature has both a long neck and a big head. 

“It’s an unusual one. It looks like a sea turtle with the shell removed,” Persons commented during a podcast interview with the College of Charleston late last year. “When I was a student, I was taught plesiosaurs come in two basic flavors — one with a really long neck and a tiny head, or the other way around with a short neck and enormous head and crocodile jaws.”

This extraordinarily preserved specimen sports a total of 32 neck vertebrae as well as really long jaws.

“It is unusual to find a plesiosaur with this mix of traits. Very weird,” Persons added. “It might represent a lineage of plesiosaurs that evolved to do something different.”

After studying the fossilized remains, Persons speculates this creature was especially adept at striking out to the side to gulp down a school of prehistoric fish as they passed by. 

Today, you can see the unique serpentisuchops sea monster, or the 35% of it unearthed, at the Glenrock Paleon Museum. 

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Scott Persons with an artist rendering of his novel “sea creature.” (Courtesy College of Charleston)

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T. Rex Tracks In Glenrock

Persons is credited with another fossil first in the Cowboy State. It happened almost by accident when the budding dinosaur hunter was a mere 13 years old. Not even that, truthfully. 

His parents fudged the 12-year-old’s application form so he could participate in his first expedition in Wyoming. 

During that visit to Glenrock and its Paleon Museum, Persons befriended then-director Sean Smith, who himself made a groundbreaking discovery of a skull of a triceratops in 1994 when he was just 19 years old. 

It was a rare find that put Glenrock on the paleontological map and launched the museum. 

Smith took notice of Persons’ enthusiasm and asked the kid if he wanted to see something really cool. 

Persons remembered, “Sean led me out to a sandstone slope and started brushing away at an indented spot. At first, it looked like a prehistoric pothole. But soon I could see the imprints of three big toes, each with sharp claw tips. It was so cool my jaw dropped.”

It was the footprint of a large carnivorous dinosaur, most likely a Tyrannosaurus rex. And not just one print, but two more, making a left-right-left trackway.

Persons never forgot that experience. Years later, while finishing up his graduate-level study at the University of Alberta, Persons reached out to Smith, pleading with him to pursue formal scientific recognition of the find. That effort was realized in 2016 with the publication of their research in “Cretaceous Research” (V.61, June 2016).

The trackway found in the Lance Formation behind the Paleon Museum is now regarded as the longest sequential set of prints from a tyrannosaurid in the world. 

By measuring the distance between the prints and estimating the relative size of the dinosaur—likely an adolescent T. rex, Persons guesses—the research also helped establish that these tyrannosaurs walked faster than previously assumed, according to their stride. 

Since the discovery, Sean’s father, Don Smith, confirmed to Cowboy State Daily that the trackway continues on even further. A total of 10 footprints have now been discovered, but private property rights have hampered further exploration.

“We’ll probably never know how far they go,” Smith said.

Persons has come full circle with his love for paleontology. The professor brought a dozen Charleston students to Glenrock last summer for a field trip and plans to do the same this summer with 10 more grad students. He now hopes to unearth the full skull of a triceratops, Wyoming’s official state dinosaur. 

“We got super close last year,” Persons said. “An enormous lower jaw, the biggest I have ever seen. We’re hoping to find the rest of him in coming summers.”

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Wyoming’s Jurassic Mile

All this dino stuff and we haven’t even mentioned a 1-square-mile stretch of rugged terrain in the Big Horn Basin near Cody. 

This 640-acre patch of land in the heart of the Morrison Formation is so exceptionally rich in fossil records it’s been dubbed the “Jurassic Mile.”

In 2019, a 20-year lease was signed by The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, in partnership with University of Manchester, to allow scientists exclusive access to the dig site that has been victim to private and commercial pillage in decades past. 

The massive, $27 million dino dig is expected to eventually uncover hundreds of prehistoric specimens including some never before cataloged. Already, almost 1,000 bones have been discovered.

The exact location of the dig site is kept highly confidential for fear of fossil looters. Reporters headed to the area to cover a news story must agree to switch off geotagging on their phones and avoid taking photographs that feature the horizon.

Pure Bliss: Dig Your Own Dinosaur

Tucked away in the northeast part of Wyoming on the border with Montana is the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch. The 3,000 deeded acres are owned by Frank Bliss, a former Jackson Hole resident and co-founder of Geologists of Jackson Hole. He has a master’s in Geology and a BS in GeoBiology. He’s been a field paleontologist since 1980.

Bliss offers a dinosaur dig, bed & breakfast experience where guests can keep some items they find. “As long as it is not collector, museum-type pieces,” Bliss said. 

Bliss is sitting on Hell Creek and Fox Hills sediment—formations marking the latter part of the Cretaceous some 65 million years ago as dinosaurs were slowly dying out. Still, this time period supported around 300 different creatures, 28 species of dinosaurs. 

Bliss has amassed an impressive collection of over 10,000 pieces—mostly heavier stuff like teeth and horns that were not easily carried away in the big river flows occurring as ancient oceans drained away westward. 

“I get a lot of individual isolated bones because the river was tough on things and broke them up,” Bliss said. “We find teeth and claws and horns, many from triceratops. We do about five digs a year for guests.”

THUMBNAIL: Crew from University of Kansas discovered large fossilized brachiosaur foot in the Black Hills region of Wyoming.

AMERIKAN WAR ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Kansas Librarians Sue After Being Fired Over Autism Display Mistaken for LGBTQ+ Support

Christopher Wiggins
Mon, September 18, 2023

Brandy Lancaster and Kari Wheeler


Two Kansas librarians have been fired after conservative officials in their town mistook a multi-colored display as something for Pride and the "LGBTQ agenda."

Now they're suing, the Washington Post reports.

In June, Kari Wheeler and Brandy Lancaster, librarians at the Sterling Free Public Library in Sterling, a small community in central Kansas, created two displays celebrating and raising awareness about autism and neurodiversity. The displays featured rainbow colors and messages advocating for diversity and understanding, including quotes like “We all think differently” and “In diversity is beauty and strength,” according to the paper.

The displays were part of the nationwide summer reading program themed “All Together Now.”

However, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Kansas, the displays were misconstrued by a board member as promoting an “LGBTQ agenda,” leading to Wheeler and Lancaster’s termination. The lawsuit alleges that board member Michelle Miller waged an “illegal campaign” to censor the displays based on her misconception, implicating the library’s board, the city, and the mayor in violating the librarians’ rights to free speech.

Wheeler, who had taken the role of library director in August 2022, and Lancaster, hired in March as Wheeler’s aide and acting assistant librarian, claimed their initiative was misunderstood as taking a stand on LGBTQ+ issues rather than its intention to support neurodiversity. They said the installation was rooted in inclusivity and referenced a Harvard Medical School article in the suit, emphasizing that neurodiversity recognizes various ways individuals interact with their surroundings, challenging the notion of a singular “right” way of thinking and learning.

Tensions escalated quickly after a temporary library employee misconceived a multicolored infinity symbol representing LGBTQ+ Pride, triggering a series of text exchanges involving Miller. Within hours, Miller communicated her disdain for the display to Wheeler, mentioning the “conservative” nature of the town and her unwillingness to have the library “make political statements.”

Despite the explanation provided by Lancaster regarding the symbol’s representation of neurodiversity and autism, Miller purportedly leveraged her position on the board to rally support for the removal of the display, an action that seemingly disregarded the librarians’ focus on inclusivity and the celebration of differences.

The events culminated in two special board meetings in July, the first of which saw Wheeler and Lancaster providing information on state laws protecting library materials from censorship due to differing viewpoints, according to the Post. The second meeting resulted in the firing of both librarians, with board president Jeremy Stinemetz allegedly stating Wheeler had “lost the confidence of the board to effectively perform her position.”

The concerned board members and Sterling’s City Manager, Craig Crossette, opted not to comment on the ongoing litigation to the paper, maintaining their positions without public explanations regarding the incident.

Nearly ten weeks after their dismissal, Wheeler and Lancaster initiated legal proceedings, defending their right to free speech and opposing what they claimed was a termination anchored in misconception and prejudice. The lawsuit remains pending.

Libraries across the country have been attacked by far-right local residents and political leaders over LGBTQ+ books, Pride displays and the like.



Kansas board that fired librarians also boycotted 4th of July parade over Pride float | Opinion

Dion Lefler
Thu, September 14, 2023 

Dion Lefler/The Wichita Eagle


The tale of two librarians fired by a homophobic library board in Sterling just escalated.

Now, the board will have to defend its bigotry in court.

Fired librarian Kari Wheeler, her assistant Brandy Lancaster, and other concerned citizens have filed suit against the library board, three of its members, and the city government, claiming that the rights of everyone have been violated by the open, over-the-top and vicious anti-LGBTQ censorship that occurred at the Sterling library three months ago.

And that, friends and neighbors, is a really, really good thing.

And before you jump to the conclusion (as some assuredly will) that this is just me supporting a liberal cause, I can assure you I’d be every bit as infuriated if a Bernie-backing board banned books by Donald Trump.

That’s not how free societies do business. It never has been. It never will be.

And the board of the “Sterling Free Public Library” is very much in need of a reminder that the “free” in the library’s name doesn’t just refer to the cost of checking out a book.

I wrote about this controversy when it first came up, but the lawsuit spells out the details of the lengths this board was willing to go to in their crusade against anything that might be interpreted as not prejudiced enough against LGBTQ individuals.

We already knew about board member Michelle Miller clashing with the librarians, who balked at Miller’s demand that the library ban all displays of rainbows during Pride Month. The rainbows at issue were a collage of a girl in a wheelchair sitting in front of one and the international logo of autism awareness, a rainbow-colored infinity symbol.

And we knew that after Wheeler found a donor to buy the library a complete set of this year’s William Allen White Award children’s books, Miller and other board members pressured her to hide “Flight of the Puffin” in her desk drawer and not check it out to anybody because it contains a non-binary character.

What we didn’t know was that this board’s anti-LGBTQ bigotry extended all the way to dishonoring America by boycotting the town’s Fourth of July celebration.

From the lawsuit: “The Library Board had always supported either the parade or the celebration afterward. Miller and other board members discussed that this year’s Fourth of July parade would include a ‘Pride’ float. That was the only reason anyone suggested that the Library Board not support the parade as it had in the past. After the anti-Pride, anti-LBGT statements, the board voted not to support the Fourth of July parade. No board member challenged the anti-Pride statements as the basis for refusing to support the parade.”

Somehow, that seems more disrespectful to the U.S.A. than some members of the women’s soccer team not singing the Star Spangled Banner or Colin Kaepernick kneeling on a football field, but I’ll leave it to uber-conservative Americans to work out that little bit of cognitive dissonance.

Also, the lawsuit reveals that board minutes were altered from their original form to claim that Wheeler was “combative” with Miller while arguing over the rainbow pictures.

If she was, good for her.

With all the book-banning going on around the country, this is a battle than desperately needs to be fought — and won.

The best thing about this lawsuit is that it includes not only the librarians, but also library patrons claiming their right to read what they want, and to be represented in library displays, is being infringed by the board.

It cuts to the heart of ongoing efforts of fundamentalist extremists to marginalize their fellow human beings and suppress the voices of anyone who dares to disagree with their constrained world view.

“Public libraries are public forums,” the lawsuit says. “When the government that runs them begins to make decisions based on content, that government runs afoul of the First Amendment. Patrons of public libraries have a First Amendment right to information unburdened by the efforts of those in charge of materials and displays to indoctrinate others to their personal viewpoints.”

The fervent hope here is that this lawsuit sends a loud, clear message to local governments throughout the nation that a public library’s not to be used as a tool to advance its controlling members’ personal, political and religious beliefs.

The views of the Sterling Free Library board — repugnant though they may be — should be represented there.

But so should everyone else’s.

Canadian government sued by environmental groups over 20 oil and gas “sleeper” permits

Stefan Labbé - Business in Vancouver | August 1, 2022 |

Flock of Seagulls and a lone Tufted Puffin. Near Tofino, Vancouver Island, Canada.  

Two environmental groups are suing the Canadian federal government over 20 oil and gas “sleeper” exploration permits originally granted off the coast of British Columbia in the late 1960s and 1970s.


The application for judicial review, filed in a federal court on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund Canada and David Suzuki Foundation, claims the federal government has unlawfully extended the permits in violation of the Canada Petroleum Resources Act.

“The central argument that we’re advancing is that those permits are expired and the federal government has unlawfully kept them alive and on the books for more than 40 years,” said Ecojustice staff attorney Ian Miron, who is repressing the two plaintiffs.

“We certainly think that the threat of oil and gas exploration… is not an abstract one.”

Miron pointed to the Bay du Nord offshore oil project approved this year off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador as an example of how the government is still approving major extraction projects despite its climate commitments.

The permits cover an area spreading out over 5,840 square kilometres in the Hecate Strait Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Area and the Scott Islands Marine National Wildlife Area off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island.

Chevron and ExxonMobil’s oil and gas exploration permits cover 5,840 square kilometres of the Hecate Strait Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Area and the Scott Islands Marine National Wildlife Area – WWF Canada

The Scott Islands attract five to 10 million migrating birds every year.

The coastal sanctuary has the highest concentration of breeding seabirds on Canada’s Pacific coast, and the islands provide habitat for 40% of all B.C.’s seabirds.

That includes several species listed as “at risk” by the federal government, including marbled murrelets, short-tailed albatross and the sooty shearwater.

Four of the Hecate Strait glass sponge reefs, meanwhile, are thought to be 9,000 years old. Before they were discovered, they were thought to be extinct worldwide, only surviving in the fossil record dating back to the late Jurassic period.

Described as “exceptionally fragile” and vulnerable to human activity, the glass sponges “play an important role in marine carbon and nitrogen processing,” according to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

“In a nutshell, these two ecosystems support a thriving biodiversity but also contribute to thriving culture and livelihoods for the communities along the coast,” said Miron.

Miron said the environmental groups are taking the matter the court as a last resort after questions to the federal government and the two companies that hold the permits — Chevron Canada and ExxonMobil Canada — “fell on deaf ears.”

“We do think there is some urgency to taking these permits off the books,” said the attorney. “Our clients believe that the mere existence of these permits in these protected areas is actually hampering efforts to fully protect and manage the areas.”

Glacier Media reached out to the Ministry of Natural Resources and ExxonMobil Canada, but neither responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.

A spokesperson for Chevron Canada declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

If the defendants choose to fight the application for judicial review, a case could reach a federal court within a year, says Miron.

(This article first appeared in Business in Vancouver)

The Market Will Never Solve the Climate Crisis

By Grace Blakeley

February 14, 2023
Source: Jacobin


When oil prices plummeted during the pandemic, fossil fuel companies made vague efforts to invest in clean energy. Now pulling in bumper profits, Big Oil is discarding those initiatives to maintain their business model: capital over climate.

In the midst of the pandemic, climate-conscious financiers became excited by a relatively obscure piece of market news. NextEra Energy — the largest renewable energy company in the United States — surpassed ExxonMobil in market capitalization.

In other words, NextEra briefly became the most valuable energy company in the United States. This reversal was all the more shocking given that ExxonMobil was generating vastly more revenue than NextEra, raking in $265 billion in 2019 next to NextEra’s $19.2.

Exxon eventually overtook NextEra once again, but the shift was seen as a harbinger of future market movements by many investors.

While it may be difficult to imagine today, oil prices briefly fell to near zero in the midst of the pandemic. The collapse in prices was down to a combination of a dramatic slowdown in demand for fossil fuels and a quirk in commodities markets that encouraged investors to offload their oil futures all at once.

The big fossil fuel companies took a big hit from collapsing energy prices. The shock was particularly deep for Exxon, which is notorious for its refusal to countenance a shift away from fossil fuels.

The company’s former CEO, Rex Tillerson, who went on to serve as Donald Trump’s secretary of state, was adamant that climate change was simply a new trend to which the world would have to adapt. In 2016, he stated outright that “[t]he world is going to have to continue using fossil fuels, whether they like it or not.”

Exxon is also currently on trial for concealing information about the impact of burning fossil fuels on the climate. As far back as the 1970s, scientists working for ExxonMobil found strong evidence of the greenhouse effect. The company’s response was to slash funding for its science department and divert the cash into promoting climate denialism.

Exxon’s utter failure to signal its willingness to shift away from fossil fuels is a big part of why investors punished the company so heavily during the pandemic. In the first few months of 2020, ExxonMobil lost nearly half its market value.

When the company was overtaken by NextEra, market watchers took it as a clear signal that investors had had enough of fossil fuels.

There was a significant amount of triumphalism at this moment among the world’s capitalist class. The market had finally provided a solution to climate breakdown.

Whether due to demand for green investment products among retail investors, regulatory innovations like ESG scoring and carbon pricing, or simply the realization that green energy was the future, investing in fossil fuels no longer seemed like a sensible strategy for your average investor.

This transition, many argued, would put a great deal of pressure on companies like Exxon to shift investment away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy. And sure enough, the fossil fuel companies were quick to respond.

Total rebranded itself as “TotalEnergies” in a bid to become a “world-class player in the energy transition.” Shell announced it would increase the amount it was investing in renewable energy. BP bought a significant stake in a renewable energy company. Even Exxon finally caved to market pressure and said it would invest billions in “lower greenhouse gas emissions initiatives.”

The upshot of the “success” of these market-based solutions to climate breakdown was, of course, that the world no longer needed to toy with “socialistic” solutions to climate breakdown like the Green New Deal.

But under the surface, the situation was a lot murkier.

Most of the pledges made by the big oil companies were vague and slow to be implemented. In some cases, the announcements amounted to nothing more than greenwashing. The oil companies were betting that the age of oil was far from over.

A number of savvier investors agreed. Several hedge funds quietly started to make big bets that the price of oil would recover quickly as the world transitioned back to fossil fuels once the pandemic was over.

And they were right. After the worst of the pandemic was over, it wasn’t long before the price of oil recovered to pre-pandemic highs. Then it started to skyrocket. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the price of natural gas also soared, which proved a significant boon for the US fracking industry.

The fossil fuel companies, and the investors quietly channeling money into them, had made the right bet. Without a coordinated shift away from fossil fuels, led by the public sector, the world was going to continue to rely on dirty energy.

The market, in other words, was never going to provide a solution to climate breakdown.

ExxonMobil recently announced that it made record profits of $56 billion in 2022. This isn’t only a chart-topping profit for Exxon, it represents an “historic high for the Western oil industry.”

Five percent of these profits will be directed into Exxon’s climate pledges, many of which center on expensive and relatively untested work-arounds like carbon capture and storage. Meanwhile, it continues to ramp up its investments in oil and gas.

BP, which also made record profits of £22 billion last year, has been even more brazen. Alongside a massive share buyback to enrich its investors, BP announced that it would be slowing the shift away from oil and gas. As the think tank Common Wealth points out, the company is spending ten times as much on share buybacks as it is on “low carbon” initiatives.

During the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world missed out on an historic opportunity. With the value of fossil fuel companies tanking, governments could have bought up large chunks of these companies and pressured them to shift toward renewable energies.

And when both demand and inflation were relatively low, they could have announced stimulus packages that promoted decarbonization.

Instead, the oil companies were left to their own devices, Joe Biden’s climate plan was torpedoed by a senator in the pocket of ExxonMobil, and the EU announced a pretty pathetic attempt at their own “Green Deal.”

The result has not only been higher greenhouse gas emissions, it has also been a massive transfer of wealth from households to some of the largest energy companies in the world.

“The market” was never going to solve climate breakdown — and it was either naïve or, more likely, deeply cynical to pretend otherwise.

This work has been made possible by the support of the Puffin Foundation.

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Europe's wild bird species are on the brink, but there are ways to bring them back

by Esther Kettel, The Conversation

A flock of puffins on a cliff in Northumberland, England.

 Credit: Riska Parakeet/Shutterstock

Almost two out of every five species of wild bird are of conservation concern across Europe, according to an updated and comprehensive assessment of their population status. That means these species are declining and becoming more scarce across the continent. Among the birds of conservation concern are some familiar species, including dunnock, goldcrest and meadow pipit.

Since the first assessment, which was carried out in 1994, the number of European bird species that are of global conservation concern has trebled. Snowy owl, northern lapwing, Eurasian curlew, steppe eagle and bearded vulture have all been unlucky enough to make this list.

The assessment used data collected on 546 bird species to estimate population sizes and trends throughout Europe. Species were then assigned one of five categories depending on their extinction risk, considering whether a species is of global or European conservation concern and whether its distribution is concentrated within Europe.

The number of species that are of conservation concern across the continent is worrying, but sadly not particularly surprising. Many of the species that are declining have been doing so for at least the past three decades—and this study highlights that not much has changed.

Which species are at risk?

Birds around the world are facing a multitude of threats. These include changes both to the climate and how land is used, but also over-exploitation, competition with invasive species and pollution. Habitat destruction and degradation, a key driver of bird population decline, affects 93% of globally threatened species.

Certain bird groups are being hit particularly hard. In the assessment, migratory birds, raptors, waders and duck species were noted as being of high conservation concern.

The recent assessment, along with many others, found that farmland birds are among those of highest concern. In fact, almost 60% of the species in the highest conservation concern category were associated with farmland habitats. These species include many that, in the not-too-distant past, were common.

The gentle coo of the European turtle dove, for example, was once a familiar sound across Europe's countryside. But since 1980, the species has declined by almost 80% across Europe. This decline is even more dire in the UK, where turtle doves have suffered a staggering 98% reduction in their population since the 1970s.

Research reveals that agricultural intensification, including the use of pesticides and inorganic fertilizers, is one of the key drivers of population decline in farmland birds across Europe.

The outlook is equally worrying for Europe's seabirds. Petrels, shearwaters, kittiwakes and—perhaps the most well-loved and recognizable seabird—puffins, are among the species that are noted as being of global conservation concern in the assessment.

Climate change is altering environmental conditions and industrial fishing practices are depleting stocks of the fish that these seabirds rely on. This means that food quality, quantity and availability are all changing, which carries serious consequences for the breeding performance and survival of these top predators.

The European turtle dove. Credit: Neil Bowman/Shutterstock

A lack of prey near puffin colonies in the north-east Atlantic, for example, means adults are being forced to travel further to find food for their chicks. This comes with energy costs for adult puffins and also means that the chicks are fed less often.

The new strain of avian flu that is killing birds worldwide adds further and very urgent threats to this already vulnerable group.

What can be done?

The assessment suggests that current efforts to halt and reverse the loss of Europe's bird species are not sufficient. More and urgent action is needed if we want nature to have a fighting chance. But there are some promising measures that can be implemented both nationally and internationally.

In recent decades, there has been a focus on protecting sites for important bird populations. Natura 2000, for example, are designated areas within the EU that contain rare habitats and important breeding and resting sites. Currently, 18% of the EU's land surface area is designated as a Natura 2000 site, and the aim is to create a network of connected protected sites right across the continent.

Evidence on the effectiveness of protected areas is clear: when implemented appropriately, they work. Globally, the number of species is 10.6% higher within protected areas compared with unprotected areas.

But protecting existing habitats is not enough to reverse declines alone. Habitats need to be restored.

A compelling case emerges from Hungary's Hortobágy National Park, where areas of cropland have been converted into restored grassland. Over a three-year period after grassland restoration, the abundance and diversity of farmland bird species increased by 35% and 40% respectively.

We also need to consider the way we produce our food and fuel. Enforcing legislation on what kinds of chemicals, and how much of them, we use to control agricultural pests and diseases is crucial.

In 2018, EU member states banned the use of certain neonicotinoids (a class of insecticide) after mounting evidence of their widespread impact on insects—an important source of food for birds.

This is a promising start, but it will only be effective if implemented widely and not reversed. Unfortunately, the UK government has authorized the emergency application of neonicotinoids in each of the past three years.

There are ways to stop Europe's bird species from disappearing. We just need to make sure these ideas are put into action widely and in the right way.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bird study shows Europe's nature in 'dire straits'

Chris Packham joins London protest following devastating UK wildlife report

Bill McLoughlin
Thu, 28 September 2023

British wildlife campaigner Chris Packham joined protesters outside the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on Thursday following the release of a devastating report on the state of UK wildlife.

On Wednesday, the National Trust released its State of Nature report which found that one in six of the 10,000-plus species across the UK risk going extinct.

The report also found the number of species in the UK has fallen by 19 per cent on average since 1970.

“We don’t have time to wait any longer. We need everyone to be involved in nature restoration as it won’t happen overnight,” Packham told Sky News during the protest in Westminster.

“What we’re saying to all the political parties is to take this seriously. We need a healthy environment, it supports us.”

Unless Government support materialised to support the environment, the Springwatch presenter threatened to take to the streets “on several more occasions” before the next election.

The release of the report comes after regulators approved the Rosebank oil field on Tuesday. The Rosebank field, which lies north-west of Shetland and contains up to 350 million barrels of oil, is currently one of the largest untapped discoveries in UK waters.

Ithaca Energy, which has a 20 per cent stake in the project said it would bring in £8.1billion of direct investment, support 1,600 jobs during construction and 450 during its lifetime.

The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) agreed to the new project despite heavy criticism from environmental campaigners.

Commenting on the approval, Packham called the decision “catastrophic” and “abject madness”.

“They keep on about jobs in the oil industry. That’s bad, old business,” he said. “We need bright, new business, which is in renewables. That’s where we need our investment, and we have that capability to do that in the UK.”

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, Tory peer Lord Zac Goldsmith also criticised the decision, saying: “It just trashes the UK’s reputation as a reliable, grown-up member of the global community, it’s done us immeasurable harm.”

He also attacked the delay to net zero policies such as a ban on new petrol and diesel cars announced last week by the Prime Minister, saying the Conservative Party seems to be in “disarray” and that he may not be able to vote for it.

Dan Sherrard-Smith, founder of MyMotherTree.com told the Standard: “UK wildlife is in a dire state. Many of our favourite British species are at risk of extinction including the turtle dove and puffin.

“On current trends, we look at a bleak future with, potentially, only household pets and domestic animals sharing our island. Yet we can halt this decline.

“One action all of us can take is to make sure our money - where we bank and our pension - is invested in areas that promote and restore the biodiversity of the UK. This was once a green and pleasant isle. It can be again.”

Daniel Kaul, from Natucate added: “The UK's wildlife has experienced significant declines due to factors like habitat loss, climate change, and pollution, with many species facing potential extinction.

“If no action is taken, the future will see massive species loss, ecosystem destruction, and economic impacts due to reduced biodiversity. To halt this decline, it's crucial to focus on habitat restoration, conscious conservation, public education, robust environmental policies, and addressing needed changes.”

Dr Nicky Dee, founder of Carbon 13 also said: “It would be a sad 12 days of Christmas without the two turtle doves yet this is one of the birds at risk. While alarming, it is an alert to the greater challenges triggered by climate change. The canary in the coalmine is a good analogy, as nature tells us about the state of the planet and our ability to adapt and cope with climate change.

“Biodiversity is our most effective defence against climate change. And that’s why we have invested in startups such as NatureBound and Kita so we are better able to evaluate this link and ensure money goes into the right places.”