The Mad Plan to Save Earth by Flooding It With Phytoplankton


Thor Benson
Mon, August 15, 2022 

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

The main conversation around climate change primarily focuses on one thing: how much carbon is in the air—and by extension, how to reduce it. However, what is less talked about but may become incredibly important is how much carbon is in our oceans. There is 50 times more carbon in the ocean than the atmosphere. Some climate researchers believe if we could just slightly increase the amount of carbon the ocean can absorb from the atmosphere, we could avoid some of the worst effects of climate change.

That might seem unusual when you first hear it, but think about it a bit longer. The ocean covers roughly 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and it absorbs carbon dioxide naturally—effectively dissolving it. Phytoplankton in the ocean use this carbon dioxide and sunlight to run photosynthesis just like land-based plants. Oxygen is produced by this process—phytoplankton are actually responsible for about 50 percent of the oxygen in our atmosphere.

Some climate researchers have proposed that if we could just increase the amount of phytoplankton in the ocean, we could pull more carbon out of the atmosphere. A well-known way to produce a phytoplankton bloom is to introduce iron, an important nutrient for the plankton community, to the water. Many parts of the ocean are low in iron, so even a relatively small addition of iron could theoretically produce a lot of phytoplankton and thereby remove a lot of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

How to Weaponize Our Dying Oceans Against Climate Change

“Give me half a tanker of iron, and I’ll give you an ice age,” John Martin, an oceanographer at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, wrote in 1988. Back then, most people were only just starting to become familiar with the idea of climate change as we now know it. But that’s also around the time people started to think about how iron fertilization could affect phytoplankton growth and, in turn, change atmospheric carbon levels.

Although climate scientists have spent quite a bit time discussing this strategy among themselves, there has not been a concerted effort to explore it further and take it seriously. Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is a scientist who has done some research into iron fertilization in the ocean. He and his team looked at whether introducing iron could “alter the flux of carbon to the deep ocean” and found there was a significant carbon-sequestering effect.

Buesseler told The Daily Beast that his research was done nearly 20 years ago, and there hasn’t been a whole lot since.

“What happened 20 years ago is we started going around and we would spread out a chemical form of iron and look for that phytoplankton—the plant response—and indeed it really showed very clearly that if you enhance the iron then you could create more uptake of carbon dioxide,” Buesseler said. “The difference between now and 20 years ago is that I think the climate crisis is so much more apparent to the public.”

A phytoplankton bloom off the coast of Iceland, as observed from space.
NASA

Using the oceans to combat climate change has become a much-discussed topic among climate scientists in recent years, and Buesseler was part of a group of scientists that released a report through the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine late last year that looked at the available options, including increasing phytoplankton levels.

“We’ve got a big reservoir. It takes up a third of the greenhouse gasses already. The question that people are now asking more is what can we do to enhance that?” Buesseler said. “Let’s get out there. Let’s do experiments.”

The experiments themselves wouldn’t cause any harm to the ocean’s natural ecosystem, Buesseler said, but they could tell us a lot about how introducing more iron to the ocean on a much larger scale might affect that ecosystem in the long-term. He doesn’t believe doing this on a large scale would cause significant harm, but it’s important to get the research done so we can know that for sure. He said that a “very conservative” estimate would be that up to a gigaton of carbon dioxide could be sequestered every year if this process was done at scale.

“It will change the types of plants and animals that grow, but that is already happening with the changes in temperature and acidity,” Buesseler said.

David Siegel, a professor of marine science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told The Daily Beast that iron fertilization would also be pretty easy to do. You could simply get a 120-foot fishing boat and start deploying the iron where it’ll be most effective for stimulating phytoplankton growth.

“It can be done relatively cheaply. Each atom of iron that you add in the right places can make tens of thousands of atoms of carbon get fixed,” meaning absorbed by the water. “It’s rather efficient,” Siegel said. “You can deploy vessels that release iron oxide into the water—even just iron ore into the water—and you can make blooms that you can see from space. We know that.”

Can a Future Fleet of Robotic Fish Clean Up the Ocean?

The effects would happen rather quickly. Scientists who have introduced iron to seawater in the past have seen that phytoplankton blooms can start becoming visible within the first 24 hours. The ideal place to introduce the iron would be where it’s least plentiful, which would be parts of the ocean—primarily in the southern hemisphere—that aren’t close to land. Iron that ends up in the ocean typically comes from dust that blows into the ocean from the land.

Both Buesseler and Siegel stressed that this should not be seen as an alternative to ending the use of fossil fuels. That is still critical when it comes to having a chance at beating climate change. But avoiding the worst effects of climate change will require also developing carbon removal strategies to reduce the load of greenhouse gasses in the air.

“Even if we decarbonize our economies, there are still 20 or so gigatons of carbon dioxide that needs to be removed from the atmosphere to keep us anywhere near the Paris Accord goals,” Siegel said.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Oil industry gears up to tap U.S. climate bill for carbon capture projects

Mon, August 15, 2022

By Liz Hampton

(Reuters) - Tax credits in the $430 billion U.S. climate and tax bill set to be signed into law this week will kickstart carbon sequestration projects, say oil and gas proponents, offsetting startup costs for some of the anti-pollution initiatives.

Carbon capture and storage hubs that take gases from chemical, power and gas producers and oil refineries have become the energy industry's preferred way to combat climate warming. But large-scale development has snagged over costs and lack of guaranteed revenue.

The Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, which was approved by lawmakers last week, provides a tax credit of up to $85 per ton for burying carbon dioxide produced by industrial activity, and up to $180 per ton for pulling carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air.

The bill also greenlit new leases of federal land for oil and gas development, without considerations of climate impacts. Importantly, it automatically approved high bids from a November 2021 offshore auction that included a drilling project intended for a carbon-burying scheme.

"It's a pretty big deal," said Tim Duncan, chief executive of Talos Energy Inc, an offshore oil and gas producer that is building a business around carbon sequestration. Talos has launched four projects and signed up big backers including Freeport LNG and Chevron Corp .

“This is going to unlock a significant amount of emissions that could become economic for capture,” added Chris Davis, a senior vice president at Milestone Carbon, which develop carbon projects for mid-sized companies.

CONTINUED STRUGGLES

Over the last two decades, companies have tentatively tried and largely struggled to make a business from using CO2 to boost oil production. More recently, big investors want firms to address global warming, and the oil industry aims to show it takes climate change seriously.

There are carbon sequestration hubs proposed around the world - in Alberta in Canada, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and Huizhou, China. Another type of carbon capture, which directly catches the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere rather than industrial production, also are being considered.

A massive expansion of carbon capture is vital to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, according to energy consuming nations advocate, the International Energy Agency (IEA). The sector must go to storing 7.6 billion tonnes a year from around 40 million tonnes currently.

The new tax incentives mean "a number of small to mid-scale projects have a better chance of becoming economical," said Frederik Majkut, a senior vice president for energy services company Schlumberger's Carbon Solutions business.

There are some 5 billion tons of carbon released in the United States annually that could be captured by these sequestration schemes. Previously, very little of that could be captured economically, said Milestone's Davis said.

"With $85 a ton, I think you can get another billion tons," he said. "It starts to look like an attractive investment."

BIGGER PROJECTS

Larger projects, such as that advanced by Exxon Mobil Corp, which floated a $100 billion plan for a massive carbon hub serving refineries and chemical plants, will need carbon taxes and other initiatives, said analysts.

Widespread deployment of these industrial hubs will require additional policy support from the Biden administration, an Exxon spokesperson said of the bill's climate provisions.

Smaller projects are more likely to advance but still face hurdles including underground pore rights and permits, said Tracy Evans, chief executive of CapturePoint, which struck a partnership with pipeline operator Energy Transfer for a Louisiana hub.

Currently, permitting for carbon injection wells can take years to secure. And while offshore auctions cover large blocks, aggregating smaller tracts of private land owners onshore can slow the process, he said.

"It will drive more investment in the space for sure," Evans said.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver, additional reporting by Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Puerto Rico cruise ship docks face $425M public-private deal

DÁNICA COTO

Tue, August 16, 2022 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s governor on Tuesday announced a public-private partnership to overhaul the island’s cruise ship docks as part of a $425 million project to boost the U.S. territory’s tourism sector.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said the project aims to transform Puerto Rico into the Caribbean’s main cruise ship destination by modernizing, repairing and expanding nine docks located in the capital of San Juan to receive larger vessels and more passengers.

“It’s an extremely important day for tourism in Puerto Rico,” said Carlos Mercado, executive director for the island’s Tourism Company.

San Juan Cruise Port — a subsidiary of London-based Global Ports Holding, the world’s largest cruise port operator — will be responsible for operating and overseeing the project as part of a 30-year deal with Puerto Rico’s Ports Authority that was five years in the making. The contract states the island’s government will receive annual payments representing at least 5% of the operator’s gross income.

As part of the deal, the number of docks currently capable of serving as base port for four cruise ships at a time will double to eight. Crews also will modernize docks battered by hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 and that have been worn down throughout the decades, with the first one being built in the 1970.

“We haven’t been able to compete on a large scale with other jurisdictions,” Pierluisi said.

Joel Pizá, executive director of Puerto Rico’s Ports Authority, said the docks are currently not designed to receive larger ships or 5,000 passengers or more at a time. He also noted that the agency is $350 million in debt, which makes it hard to issue bonds to repair and improve docks despite federal officials identifying serious structural deficiencies that would require more than $200 million to fix.

“This is the reality,” he said. “Capital investment is more than needed at this moment.”

The maximum docking fee and passenger fee are not expected to change as part of the deal, officials said.

The announcement is the latest public-private partnership that the U.S. territory has launched as the central government and certain public agencies emerge from a deep bankruptcy amid an ongoing economic crisis. Previous partnerships have led private companies to take over management and operation of the island’s main international airport, certain highways and the transmission and distribution of power, among others.

Some have criticized the newest partnership, demanding that federal officials scrutinize the privatization of some $5 billion of infrastructure for an upfront initial investment of $75 million. Puerto Rico Rep. Ángel Matos García, spokesman for the majority of the island’s House of Representatives, said he and other politicians will be meeting with federal officials in Washington, D.C. to talk about the deal.

Tourism represents less than 7% of Puerto Rico’s economy, but officials hope to change that with the newest partnership, with work slated to start next year.

Puerto Rico saw a record number of cruise ship passengers prior to the pandemic, only for the docks to shut down for 16 months. But business has since rebounded. The government reported more than 420,000 passengers in fiscal year 2021-2022, a 23% recovery compared with the 2018-2019 fiscal year

This fiscal year, officials expect more than 1 million passengers — roughly 80% of pre-pandemic traffic — with eight new cruise ships scheduled to visit the San Juan port for the first time.

Twisted Florida Ruling Says Pregnant Teen Isn’t ‘Mature’ Enough for Abortion

Justin Rohrlich

Tue, August 16, 2022 

Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty

A Florida appeals court will force a parentless 16-year-old girl to give birth because the teen is not “sufficiently mature” to decide for herself whether or not to terminate the pregnancy.

A circuit court judge previously denied the girl’s request to waive a state law requiring minors get parental consent for an abortion. On Monday, a three-judge panel upheld the decision.

The unnamed teen, according to the appellate ruling, is getting a GED through a program for young people who have experienced traumatic events in their lives. In her petition, the girl—who lives with a relative and has an appointed guardian—argued that she is “still in school” and “is not ready to have a baby,” noting that her guardian was “fine with what [she] wants to do.”

She met with Escambia County Circuit Court Judge Jennifer J. Frydrychowicz, along with a case worker and a child advocate, but “inexplicably” did not request a lawyer who would have represented her for free, the ruling states.

“The trial judge displayed concern for the minor’s predicament throughout the hearing; she asked difficult questions of the minor on sensitive personal matters in a compassionate manner,” it continues. “The trial judge’s tone and method of questioning were commendable and her ability to produce a thoughtful written order in a rapid fashion is admirable (she prepared her written order immediately after the hearing, handing a copy thereafter to the minor).”

Frydrychowicz saw the case “as a very close call,” the ruling says, describing the judge’s impression of the teen as “credible” and “open,” and that she “showed, at times, that she is stable and mature enough to make this decision.”

It says the girl was 10 weeks pregnant at the time, but does not provide a specific timeline that would indicate how far along she would be now. She was “knowledgeable” about what was involved with terminating a pregnancy, and had done Google searches and read a pamphlet given to her at a medical clinic, the ruling notes. It also says the teen “acknowledges she is not ready for the emotional, physical, or financial responsibility of raising a child,” and “has valid concerns about her ability to raise a child.”

Still, Frydrychowicz chose to deny the petition—although she did not rule out reconsidering if the teen were “able, at a later date, to adequately articulate her request,” according to a partial dissent by Judge Scott Makar.

“Reading between the lines, it appears that the trial court wanted to give the minor, who was under extra stress due to a friend’s death, additional time to express a keener understanding of the consequences of terminating a pregnancy,” Makar wrote. “This makes some sense given that the minor, at least at one point, says she was open to having a child, but later changed her view after considering her inability to care for a child in her current station in life.”

DeSantis Goes Scorched Earth on Florida Prosecutor for Defying Abortion Ban

However, Judges Harvey Jay and Rachel Nordby wrote in the main decision that the trial court found the teen “had not established by clear and convincing evidence that she was sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy.”

Florida statute “allows for a remand to the trial court with instructions for a further ruling, but no such remand is warranted here,” they declared. “The trial court’s order and findings are neither unclear nor lacking such that a remand would be necessary for us to perform our review under the statute.”

The case hinged upon 2020’s Parental Notice of and Consent for Abortion Act, which makes it a third-degree felony for a doctor to terminate a pregnancy of “an unemancipated minor without the required consent.”

According to Human Rights Watch, the majority of young people “voluntarily involve a parent or another trusted adult in their abortion decision, even if the law doesn’t require it. But for those who don’t—often because they fear abuse, deterioration of family relationships, being kicked out of the home, or being forced to continue a pregnancy—laws like Florida’s pose a barrier to their care.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

'I just don't want children': Some American men are turning to vasectomies after the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe

Yelena Dzhanova

Tue, August 16, 2022 

Left: Thomas Figueroa; right: A man holding a giant pair of scissors in Brazil.Left: Courtesy of Thomas Figueroa; right: AP Photo/Eraldo Peres

• Men across the US have been seeking out vasectomies after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

• Iain Little and Thomas Figueroa told Insider they've known they didn't want kids for a while.

• But the Supreme Court decision galvanized them to act on scheduling the medical procedure.

Thomas Figueroa was at the Electric Forest Music Festival in Michigan when he suddenly heard commotion.

Instead of people singing along to live music or laughing with their friends, there was hasty talking and yelling, he said.

There wasn't an immediate threat, but sudden news that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade trickled through to only some phones as WiFi and cell service were limited, Figueroa said.

The few individuals who did get a news or Twitter notification through their phones started to alert others around them. In no time, it seemed like the whole campground was abuzz with the news.

"A lot of people around us that were camping with us started talking about it," Figueroa, 27, told Insider. "Literally everyone. The entire day, that was the main topic. That's all we heard. And there was just so much destruction with this that many people didn't really get to enjoy the festival as much as usual."

On the drive back home to Florida, Figueroa made up his mind — he would get a vasectomy as soon as possible.

"Once I hit the road, I got Internet connection again," he said. "I went on Google. I looked for doctors near my area. And then I found my doctor. And from there, I looked at the reviews and I was actually very excited about how nice those reviews were."

He's been considering getting one for a while, Figueroa told Insider. But the news of the reversal of abortion rights finally propelled him to make the call.

Figueroa is one of the droves of American men who are suddenly reaching out to and seeking doctors who'll perform the medical procedure for them.

"I just don't want children," he said. "And that's the decision I made right now and that's what I'm going to keep on with me for the rest of my life."

Figueroa finally recieved his vasectomy in July.

There is scant hard data on the number of men who have gotten the procedure as a result of overturning Roe v. Wade, but urologists all over the country have documented a spike in the number of vasectomy requests following the decision.

In July, an analysis conducted by health site BodyNutrition.org also identified more than 300,000 Twitter searches and mentions of vasectomies in the 30 days following the reversal of Roe v Wade. The most searches and mentions came from internet users located in several states across the western and southern US, the data shows.

A map of vasectomy searches nationwide after the overturn of Roe v. Wade.BodyNutrition.org

The news of the decision also pushed Iain Little, 40, to get a vasectomy. He had considered the procedure in the past but told Insider he was "incredibly disappointed" by the news, which galvanized him to finally schedule an appointment.

He said he was also concerned about the attack on reproductive rights expanding.

"There's a very real chance that they will come after men's sexual health as a right to choose as well," Little told Insider. "I mean, obviously control of women's bodies has always been the big ticket. But if they're really leaning into conservative, religious justification, that there's certainly a chance that they will come for things like condoms, vasectomies, things like that in the near, near future."

Little is scheduled to get his vasectomy later this year.

The shockwaves extended to men outside the US, as well. Olivier Charbonneau, a 27-year-old man from Montreal, told Insider he had started to speak out about his vasectomy right after the Supreme Court decision.

"You are not dancing tango alone, so we have to share the responsibility," he said.

Since scheduling or getting their vasectomies, all three men have talked to their male friends about the process. Some of their friends have even asked for guidance in choosing a doctor to perform the procedure, Little and Figueroa said.

The act of getting a vasectomy is a personal decision, just as much as a political one, Little said.

But Little doesn't think of himself as an activist.

"Protest and change doesn't always happen on a big, grandiose scale," he said. "Regular people, who go to regular jobs 9 to 5 and do stuff, we can do this little part, right?"

‘There's no shame in changing your mind’: How this OB/GYN went from anti-abortion to protesting the overturn of Roe v. Wade

Tayler Adigun
·Writer
Tue, August 16, 2022 

Dr. Jennifer Lincoln shared a viral TikTok following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, revealing that she used to be anti-abortion. (Photo: Dr. Lincoln/TikTok)

When Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, many rushed to social media to declare their protest over the decision — which took away the constitutional right to abortion — and the devastating effects it would have on the future of reproductive healthcare in America.

But Dr. Jennifer Lincoln, a Portland based obstetrician/gynecologist with over 2 million followers on TikTok, took a trip down memory lane to her anti-abortion past as a way to encourage the progression of beliefs at a time when, she says, it is needed most.

"I used to be anti-abortion — until I learned the whole story," was the caption of the video in which she contrasted her life at 15, when she was writing essays against abortion and believing it to be wholly immoral, to now, and being a vocal pro-choice ally.

OB/GYNs are a foundational rung on the ladder of reproductive infrastructure, ensuring that those seeking abortions, for any reason, can do so safely.

The TikTok, which has received more than 29,500 likes, was her example of a common societal conundrum: challenging lifelong beliefs once presented with new information, especially in the case of religious indoctrination.

"I grew up in Catholic schools and being taught that sex before marriage was wrong, abortion was wrong, that it was a sin, and I sort of just internalized all that without question, because there was no other perspective given," Lincoln tells Yahoo Life.

She grew up in Long Island, New York, and quickly adopted the beliefs presented to her as irrefutable truths, something she took with her to college — where an era of slow-burn metacognition would change how she viewed life, and abortions, forever.

"There were condoms in the bathroom and I remember thinking 'that's so ridiculous, I'm never going to need those. I'm never going to have sex and nobody should have sex,'" she says, admitting it took some time for the unlearning process to begin

Like many who identify as "pro-life," Lincoln grew up thinking abstinence was the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but slowly began to change her tune once those around her — and Lincoln herself — began having sex.

"When I saw that there were other sides to the story that I just hadn't been given, I was not given the information I needed to make really good, informed, safe choices, I started to think maybe things weren't as they had been … taught to me," she says.

She graduated college in 2003 and went on to medical school, where she entered a deeper, anatomical level of understanding that allowed her to see just how necessary safe abortion access is.

"Seeing really what happens to people who are pregnant, have issues, are not prepared, or having mistimed or unplanned pregnancies, and just how medically harmful and dangerous pregnancy can be. But also emotionally and psychologically, if it's not something that we were prepared for, really opened my eyes," she says.

Lincoln's previous beliefs about the immoralities of premarital sex are not exclusive to her upbringing.

According to Planned Parenthood, 37 states have laws demanding abstinence inclusion in the sex education curriculum, but only 18 states require information about birth control.

Sex stigmatization is deeply enmeshed in anti-abortion culture, says Lincoln. But she doesn't think an ethics deep dive is necessary to get people to understand why their religious inflictions have no place in a courtroom.

"It's absolutely fine if you yourself don't agree with abortion. I'm not here to convince anybody that they should — [only] that their opinions are for themselves, and they shouldn't project those onto other people," she says, despite the fact that she was taught to do just that while growing up. "I was taught when I was younger that, because of a religious belief, that this was true for everyone, and there were really no gray zones. And that's the farthest thing from the truth in life."

Arguing with others about their religious affiliations is not at the top of Lincoln's to-do list by any means, but she does stress the importance of encouraging conversations that support rational socio-political perspectives.

"The point is to make them aware that personal beliefs should not be the basis of legislation — especially personal beliefs that are rooted in religion, when we are a country that is allegedly not a theocracy, and allegedly values separation of church and state," she says.

"So whenever I'm talking to people who say, 'Well, I think that's horrible, and I would never have an abortion,' I always say, 'That's great that you know that about yourself, and I'm not here to change your mind. What I'm asking you to do is to understand that you don't have the right to make that choice for somebody else,'" she says.

ZIONIST CHILD MURDERS

Reports: Israel carried out Gaza strike that killed 5 minors


FARES AKRAM
Tue, August 16, 2022 

JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Palestinian human rights group and an Israeli newspaper reported Tuesday that an explosion in a cemetery that killed five Palestinian children during the latest flare-up in Gaza was caused by an Israeli airstrike and not an errant Palestinian rocket.

It was one of a number of blasts during the fighting that did not bear the tell-tale signs of an Israeli F-16 or drone strike, and which the Israeli military said might have been caused by rockets misfired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group.

The five children, aged 4 to 16 years old, had gathered at their grandfather's grave in the local cemetery, one of the few open spaces in the crowded Jebaliya refugee camp, on Aug. 7, hours before an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire ended three days of heavy fighting.

Residents said a projectile fell from the air and exploded in the cemetery. When The Associated Press visited the following day, it saw none of the tell-tale signs of an airstrike by an Israeli F-16 or drone, adding to suspicions that the blast was caused by an errant rocket. Israel said at the time that it was investigating the incident.

On Tuesday, the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said its investigation of shrapnel and other evidence led it to conclude that the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike.

“This was a missile fired from an Israeli aircraft,” said Raja Sourani, the director of the group, as he displayed pictures of what he said was a fragment showing the missile's serial number.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper meanwhile cited unnamed Israeli defense officials as saying the military's investigation had concluded that the five were killed by an Israeli strike.

Asked about the Haaretz story, the military said it was still examining the event. It said that throughout the the latest round of fighting, it had targeted militant infrastructure and “made every feasible effort to minimize, as much as possible, harm to civilians and civilian property.”

The latest fighting in Gaza began with a wave of Israeli airstrikes on Aug. 5 that killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander as well as several civilians. Israel said it was responding to an imminent threat days after the arrest of a senior Islamic Jihad leader in the occupied West Bank.

Over the next three days, Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes across the narrow, crowded coastal strip. Islamic Jihad fired some 1,100 rockets at Israel, around 200 of which fell short and landed inside Gaza, according to the Israeli military.

Hamas, a larger and more militarily advanced group that has ruled Gaza since 2007, sat out this round of fighting. apparently in order to maintain understandings with Israel that have led to an easing of a blockade imposed on the territory by Israel and Egypt after it seized power. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes over the last 15 years.

A total of 49 Palestinians were killed in the latest fighting, including 17 children. Palestinian rights groups say at least 36 were killed in Israeli airstrikes, with investigations still underway into the deaths of 13 others. No Israelis were killed or seriously wounded.

The Israeli military said early estimates showed that at least 20 of those killed were militants, and that 14 people were killed by errant Islamic Jihad rocket fire. That count did not include the five killed in the Jebaliya cemetery.

The day before the blast at the cemetery, seven people were killed by an explosion on a busy street elsewhere in Jebaliya. The Israeli military blamed it on a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, saying the army had not carried out any strikes in the area at that time. The military later released video that appeared to show a militant rocket falling short.

Video footage of the aftermath of that blast showed what appeared to be a rocket casing sticking out of the ground. When the AP visited the site, the casing was gone and the hole had been filled in. Palestinians are usually keen to display evidence of Israeli airstrikes to international media.

Palestinians with direct knowledge of the suspicious incidents have been reluctant to speak on record. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry directed journalists not to report on rocket misfires in media guidelines that were rescinded after an outcry by foreign media outlets.

Many Palestinians view Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups as freedom fighters resisting decades of Israeli military rule, and believe that criticism of such groups undermines the struggle for independence. Israel and Western countries consider them terrorist organizations because they have carried out scores of deadly attacks on Israeli civilians.

The four Gaza wars have killed more than 4,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom died in Israeli strikes. More than half were civilians, according to the U.N. Over 100 people have died on the Israeli side, including civilians, soldiers and foreign residents.

From cow farts to blackouts: The GOP figures circulating wild theories about the new climate bill


Marjorie Taylor Greene
American far-right politician  from the state of Georgia


Ethan Freedman
Tue, August 16, 2022

The US House of Representatives passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) on Friday, sending America’s most ambitious plan yet to address the climate crisis to President Biden’s desk to be signed.

While some environmental groups have criticized the bill’s fossil fuel provisions, it’s generally being seen as progress in cutting US domestic emissions. The new legislation will channel $369 billion into climate and clean energy investments and cut US emissions by around 40 per cent by 2030, according to several independent analyses.

The IRA passed Congress on strict party lines with all Democrats voting for it and no Republicans.

The bill has also led to some wild theories promulgating in GOP circles about climate solutions - and the climate crisis at large.

On Friday Donald Trump Jr, son of the former president, disparaged the new bill in a post on Truth Social.

“No, it’s not a joke. On page 529 of the Democrats Inflation Corruption Act, they state that they want to spend YOUR tax dollars to control cows’ farts. And they’re serious!” he wrote on the conservative social media platform founded by his father.

The current version of the bill does not have a page 529. However on page 199, the legislation lays out new funding for agricultural conservation projects, with priority given to trials on diet strategies that reduce methane emissions from livestock.

When cows and other farm animals burp or flatulate, they release methane — a powerful, planet-warming greenhouse gas.

All that methane can add up. More than a quarter of methane emissions in the US come directly from livestock, according to figures from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2017.

Around the world, cattle release about 100 million tonnes of methane every year, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, making cattle one of the largest single sources of emissions.

Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2), warming the planet about 25 times as much as CO2, pound-for-pound over a 100-year period.

Meaning: all those emissions from cattle worldwide warm the planet as much as 314 million homes.

Don Jr wasn’t the only conservative with criticisms of climate solutions. Over the weekend, a video circulated of Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene suggesting that solar panels and wind turbines would cause appliances like washing machines to stop working.

“Lord, please God, don’t make me scrub clothes in a bucket and have to hang them out on the line when we switch over to wind turbines and solar panels,” the Republican House member said.

She also seemed to suggest that these technologies would prevent people from keeping the lights on at night.

“I like the lights on. I want to stay up later at night. I don’t want to have to go to bed when the sun sets,” Rep. Greene added.

While solar panels are less efficient at night and wind turbines don’t produce electricity when the wind isn’t blowing, electricity can be stored for later use.

Electricity can be held in battery storage systems and many homes have them attached to solar panels. The Inflation Reduction Act contains a tax break for homeowners who want to buy battery storage systems.

Many climate scientists and activists also acknowledge the limitations of solar and wind power generation and say we need a lot more storage solutions to compensate.

Electricity can also be stored in “pumped hydro” storage. A pumped hydro system has two reservoirs, one higher up and one down below. When you want to store energy, you use electricity to pump water from the lower reservoir into the higher reservoir.

Then, when you want to get that energy back, you release the water from the high reservoir back into the lower reservoir through a hydropower station – recreating the electricity you used to pump it up in the first place.

In 2020, Representative Greene’s home state of Georgia generated about 12 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources like hydro and solar, and 27 per cent of electricity from nuclear.

Wild theories on livestock methane and renewable energy aside, some GOP members continue to espouse that the climate crisis isn’t real.

As the IRA bill was debated on the House floor on Friday, Representative Bob Good, a Virginia Republican, had some choice words.

“There is no climate crisis,” Congressman Good said. “It is a hoax. This is the one crisis that even Democrats couldn’t create. They’ve been crying about the climate sky falling for 40 years now, predicting the world would end in 12 years. It is a lie.”

A recent paper found that 99.9 per cent of scientific studies agreed that the climate crisis is happening and is caused by humans.

As the planet heats up, Virginia will face a higher risk of extreme heat, severe storms and drought, according to the EPA.

This summer, the climate crisis has been linked to destructive flash floods in Kentucky, Missouri and Yellowstone National Park and explosive wildfires in more than a dozen states. Persistent and extreme heatwaves have descended across the US while western states remain in the grips of a 20-year “megadrought”.

Last year was the hottest year on record for the US, and eight of the top 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 1998, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Senate climate bill has West Virginia written all over it

By LEAH WILLINGHAM

August 12, 2022

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FILE - Coal miner Scott Tiller takes shelter from the rain after coming out of an underground mine at the end of a shift in Welch, W.Va., May 12, 2016. The sprawling economic package passed by the U.S. Senate this week has a certain West Virginia flavor. The bill could be read largely as an effort to help West Virginia look to the future without turning away entirely from its roots. 

(AP Photo/David Goldman, File)


CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The sprawling economic package passed by the U.S. Senate this week has a certain West Virginia flavor.

The package, passed with no Republican votes, could be read largely as an effort to help West Virginia look to the future without turning away entirely from its roots.

The bill contains billions in incentives for clean energy — while also offering renewed support for traditional fuel sources such as coal and natural gas — as well as big boosts for national parks and health care for low-income people and coal miners with black lung disease. That’s no accident. Most provisions were included as the price the Democrats had to pay to win the all-important support of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who says they will help folks back home.

John Palmer, a 67-year-old retired coal miner from Monongah, says it’s about time.

“We ain’t had too many people care about us,” Palmer said. “We’re always out there fighting for different things. Everybody’s got an agenda, and our agenda was for working-class people. That’s what everybody’s agenda should be, but it’s not.”

Manchin, a conservative Democrat who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was a key vote needed to pass the spending package in the 50-50 Senate and send it to the House, where lawmakers are expected to take it up Friday.

The bill invests nearly $375 billion to fight climate change, caps prescription drug costs at $2,000 out-of-pocket for Medicare recipients and helps an estimated 13 million Americans pay for health insurance by extending subsidies provided during the coronavirus pandemic.

If those subsidies are not extended, West Virginia is among the states that will lose the most support for people paying for health insurance, according to the Urban Institute, meaning thousands of people could lose coverage.

Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said the provision in the bill to cap insulin prices at $35 a dose for seniors will make a big impact in the state, which has the greatest number of people living with diabetes per capita in the country.

“There are people who ration insulin, or who have to make decisions between getting groceries and paying for a drug cost, or paying rent and paying for drug costs,” she said.

But Manchin, who has received more campaign contributions this election cycle from natural gas pipeline companies than any other lawmaker, won concessions on the climate front. The bill includes money to encourage alternative energy and to bolster fossil fuels with steps such as subsidies for technology that reduces carbon emissions. It also requires the government to open more federal land and waters to oil drilling.

In a statement, Manchin said he worked with colleagues to craft the “most effective way” to help West Virginia. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

Manchin also has proposed a separate list of legislation to speed up federal permitting and make energy projects harder to block under federal acts. As part of an agreement with Democratic leadership, he specifically asked that federal agencies “take all necessary actions” to streamline completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project long opposed by environmental activists.

The 303-mile (487-kilometer) pipeline, which is mostly finished, would transport natural gas drilled from the Appalachian Basin through West Virginia and Virginia. Legal battles have delayed completion by nearly four years and doubled the pipeline’s cost, now estimated at $6.6 billion.

Chelsea Barnes, legislative director for Appalachian Voices, an environmental organization that sued to stop the pipeline, said there’s a lot to be excited about in the legislation. But she deemed Manchin’s concessions to the fossil fuel industry “unacceptable.”

“We’d really love to just be celebrating,” Barnes said, “but we know that there’s so much in the bill that is also going to hurt communities.”

Barnes said the bill contains many provisions her organization has wanted for a long time, such as extending and increasing tax credits for clean energy projects, with bonus credits for low-income communities and for communities where a coal mine or power plant has closed.

That means there’s going to be a higher incentive for clean energy developers to set up shop in Appalachia. She said many people she’s worked with on clean energy projects are not excited to see coal jobs disappear but are excited to be part of “the energy economy of the future.”

“They like the idea of retaining that energy-producing heritage, and I think there’s a lot of pride in continuing that role in our society, in our culture,” she said.

Still, she’s concerned about support for carbon sequestration and storage projects in the bill, saying they haven’t been cost-effective compared with clean energy alternatives. She fears that might prolong the life of power plants.

She also said permitting reform in the bill amounts to “permitting destruction” that would damage the environmental review process and silence residents’ voices.

The bill also contains millions of dollars for tourism, long seen in West Virginia as a way to boost the state’s beleaguered economy. West Virginia is home to multiple national park sites, including the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, which opened in 2020.

The National Park System would receive at least $1 billion in the package to hire new employees and carry out projects to conserve and protect wilderness areas.

The bill also permanently extends the excise tax on coal that pays for monthly benefits for coal miners with black lung disease, which is caused by inhaling coal dust.

Since the program’s inception, more retired miners in West Virginia have received black lung benefits than any other state, with 4,423 people receiving benefits last year. But the fund is $6 billion in debt.

For decades, the tax has required annual legislative approval. Twice in recent years, federal lawmakers failed to extend the tax, most recently for this year. That cut the tax by more than half — a windfall to coal companies that put benefits in jeopardy.

The fund is needed more than ever, United Mine Workers of America Chief of Staff Phil Smith said, with miners being diagnosed with black lung at younger ages than before because of higher amounts of silica dust in mines — something that’s not regulated.

Palmer worked underground for 40 years at the Federal No. 2 Mine in Monongalia County, which went bankrupt and shut down shortly after he retired a few years ago. His father, a coal miner, died of a lung disease, and his younger brother also has black lung. He said knowing the money will be there is a “relief” and that miners earn the benefit — an average of just over $700 a month — when they risk doing dangerous work.

“We went down in these holes that kept the lights on for everybody,” he said. “We’re the ones sacrificing our bodies.”

Conspiracies complicate voting machine debate in Louisiana

By SARA CLINE AND CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY

August 13, 2022

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People vote on Election Day at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, Nov. 8, 2016. The need for Louisiana to replace its voting machines is not in dispute. They were deployed in 2006, the year after Hurricane Katrina struck, and don’t produce paper ballots that are critical to ensuring election results are accurate. What to do about them is another story. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The need for Louisiana to replace its voting machines is not in dispute.

They are badly outdated — deployed in 2006, the year after Hurricane Katrina struck -- and do not produce paper ballots that are critical to ensuring election results are accurate.

What to do about them is another story.

The long-running drama includes previous allegations of bid-rigging, voting machine companies claiming favoritism and a secretary of state who is noncommittal about having a new system in place for the 2024 presidential election.

Local election clerks also worry about the influence of conspiracy theorists who have peddled unfounded claims about voting equipment and have been welcomed into the debate over new machines.

“It would be a travesty to let a minority of people who have little to no experience in election administration tear down an exceptional process that was painstakingly built over many, many years,” Calcasieu Parish Clerk of Court Lynn Jones told state officials in a meeting this summer. “And for us to throw it out of the window because of unfounded theories is mind-boggling.”

The uncertainty is playing out against a backdrop of attacks on the integrity of elections, fueled by former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him and promoted by a web of his allies and supporters. Some of those same supporters have been trying to convince election officials across the country that they should ditch machines in favor of paper ballots and hand-counts.

Whatever success they have had so far has been limited primarily to GOP-dominated rural counties. But in Louisiana, a heavily Republican state that Trump won by nearly 20 percentage points, they have managed to insert themselves into an already long-delayed process of choosing a new statewide voting system.

Louisiana officials have been trying for at least four years to replace their outdated touchscreen voting machines. Although some counties in four other states still use the machines, Louisiana is the only one where they are in place statewide — some 10,000 in all.

The machines’ main problem, aside from their age and the challenge of finding replacement parts, is that votes are recorded electronically without a paper record of each voter’s selections. That means if a result is in dispute, there are no individual paper ballots to review to ensure the outcome was accurate. Under a new state law, Louisiana’s next voting system must have a paper trail of ballots cast so election results can be properly audited.

“The problem in Louisiana is that if someone were to allege the voting machines had been hacked, there would be no conclusive evidence to rebut that,” said Mark Lindeman, director of Verified Voting, which tracks the use of voting equipment in the United States. “It leaves election officials to prove a negative.”

While election clerks agree the machines are antiquated and there is a need for a paper record, the equipment does not appear to have caused any major problems in recent years.

In 2018, the nation’s top homeland security and cybersecurity officials urged states to replace any remaining voting systems without a paper trail to improve security and increase public confidence. Congress allocated $805 million before the 2020 election to help states pay for security upgrades, including new equipment.

Louisiana officials, in a 2018 report to the federal agency disbursing the money, said they planned to use the state’s share to cover the costs of “a new electronic voting system” and noted the state had already begun the procurement process.

But that same year, the contract was voided amid allegations of bid-rigging. In 2021, Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin shelved another replacement attempt after the process was challenged by voting machine companies that claimed favoritism for the state’s current vendor, Dominion Voting Systems.

Following the 2020 presidential election, Dominion was ensnared in a web of conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and his allies, claiming their voting machines were rigged to steal the election. The company has pushed back, filing defamation lawsuits against conservative media outlets and Trump allies, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

The false claims have taken root in conservative communities, where local officials have been pressured to stop using computer equipment for casting and counting ballots. Nearly two years after the last presidential election, no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines has surfaced, and courts have rejected dozens of court cases filed by Trump and his allies.

Last December, Phil Waldron — a retired Army colonel who circulated a PowerPoint presentation offering suggestions for how to overturn the 2020 election — was invited to speak to the commission tasked with recommending the new voting system for Louisiana. Waldron gave a 90-minute presentation focusing on counting paper ballots by hand, according to The Washington Post.

More recently, Lindell, one of the most prominent supporters of ditching election machines and counting every ballot by hand, traveled to Baton Rouge to testify before the same commission.

At a June meeting at the Capitol, Ardoin set aside rules limiting public testimony to three minutes per person so Lindell could address the commission at length. During his 17-minute address, Lindell detailed his national quest against “corrupted” voting systems and “stolen” elections.

“We lose everything if we keep even one machine moving forward,” Lindell told the commission. He went on to describe Louisiana as “the tip of the spear” in his efforts to end the use of voting machines across the country.

At the meeting, multiple clerks said they were opposed to what Lindell was advocating -- having every voter fill out a paper ballot and having every ballot counted by hand, a process that would involve tens of thousands of ballots in the most populous counties.

“Don’t mistake not wanting to go back to a pen-and-paper as not wanting to have an auditable vote trail,” said David Ditch, the clerk of court for Iberia Parish. “Everybody -- every political persuasion and everybody that comes into my office -- says the same thing, ‘We love the way we vote now. We just wish we had something to prove it in the end.’”

The commission ultimately voted to recommend the use of either hand-marked or machine-marked ballots or a combination of the two, and for the state to keep electronic tabulators for counting ballots. Commissioners, including Adroin, voted in favor of machine-scanned vote tallies — not hand-counts.

The next move is Ardoin’s.

A Republican first elected in 2018, he has defended the state’s elections as secure even as he has handed a megaphone to some of the most prominent election conspiracy theorists.

In response to written questions, his office said Ardoin was “currently reviewing the commission’s recommendations and will work with his staff as those recommendations relate to the next steps in acquisition of a new voting system.”

When asked whether the goal was to have a new voting system in place before the 2024 presidential election, Ardoin’s office said it was “difficult at this time to say what the timetable will be” but that two years is “probably the closest estimate.”

At a gathering in July of the nation’s top state election officials, Ardoin raised the issue of hand-marked paper ballots while dismissing hand-counting as something that would “extend elections over years.”

His remarks prompted a fellow Republican, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, to tell the group that he had once served as an international observer in Russia and had seen hand-counting up close.

“If you’d like to have an orientation about how that goes, that is the easiest way to cheat that you can introduce to anybody,” Merrill told attendees. “I can assure you that’s not a direction that you want to go. The people that are promoting that are ignorant or ill-informed, period.”