THIRD WORLD U$A

Anchorage scrambles to find enough housing for the homeless before the Alaska winter sets in

MARK THIESSEN
Sat, September 16, 2023

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson gained national attention this summer when he proposed buying one-way airfare out of Alaska's largest city for anyone without housing who wanted to leave before winter.

Now, with the first snow just weeks away, those free tickets are nowhere in sight and the city is scrambling to pull together a grab bag of housing options for its more than 3,000 unsheltered residents. The city’s mass shelter in a sports arena closed after complaints from neighbors about bad behavior and bickering between the city’s liberal Assembly and conservative mayor killed hopes for a new permanent shelter and navigation center to take its place.

The Anchorage Assembly just approved $4 million in funds and will vote on additional elements of an emergency plan next week. City leaders — who estimate they still need to find up to 450 winter beds — say they are confident they have enough emergency housing ready, but the mood on the streets is grim.

“A lot of people are going to freeze,” said Scott Gibson, who is preparing to spend his second Alaska winter outside. Someone recently destroyed Gibson's tent and stole most of what was inside. Now everything he owns fits in a backpack.

“I have nothing,” he said, as he tried to make some money repairing an old car at a homeless encampment across from the city library.

Cold snaps can plunge temperatures to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 degrees Celsius) for days in Anchorage, where winds whip off Cook Inlet.

Anchorage last winter had a record 24 deaths outdoors among the homeless population, with 11 fatalities occurring in the winter months between October 2022 and April 2023, said Alexis Johnson, the city's homeless director. The city began keeping records in 2017.

Alaska's biggest city has an estimated 3,150 homeless individuals and enough room in shelters for all but about 775 people, Johnson said. The city recently brought four more housing facilities, which could create space for another 310 people, but is still seeking winter housing for an estimated 400 to 450 people.

By renting hotel rooms, Johnson hopes to limit the capacity of a mass winter homeless shelter to no more than 150 people — one of the Assembly's stipulations when releasing the emergency funds. The city wants to use a recently vacated administration building as a makeshift low-barrier shelter, Johnson said.

“We are executing as fast as we can to get that done,” the mayor said.

The assembly last week also awarded a $1.3 million grant to the Anchorage Affordable and Housing Land Trust, which will need to match the funding to rehabilitate vacant and abandoned properties for about 40 new housing units. They want to start transitioning people out of winter shelters in April.

Assembly member Felix Rivera said the solution just can’t be standing up another warehouse-style mass shelter, but must include a permanent shelter and an early path to transition to longer-term housing. The new units in vacant or abandoned properties will kickstart that effort, he said.

With Alaska's extra-short summer construction season, "there must be a lot of progress made between now and April 1” to avoid a repeat of the rush for emergency housing next winter, Rivera said.

Bronson in July suggested it would be cheaper to fly homeless people to other states or elsewhere in Alaska than to house them for the winter. The unfunded proposal drew angry rebukes from mayors in California and Hawaii and skepticism from many in Anchorage's own unsheltered community.

“I’m not trying to get rid of people to get rid of them,” Bronson said in an interview this week. “I’m trying to get people to a solution where they don’t freeze to death.”

During the pandemic, Anchorage configured the roughly 6,000-seat Sullivan Arena to be a mass-care facility. It has served more than 500 homeless people in the winters until city officials decided to return it to its original purpose, hosting concerts and hockey games.

Homeless encampments sprang up all over the city, including near Anchorage’s historic train depot used by thousands of tourists this summer.

Political tension between the liberal-leaning Assembly and the conservative mayor over policy and process has slowed progress on what was to be a new shelter on the city's east side. Work stopped after Bronson approved the contract without Assembly approval, and the governing body wound up paying the contractor nearly $2.5 million to settle a dispute over work already completed.

Anchorage, population 300,000, has 40% of the state’s population but 65% of Alaska’s homeless population, Bronson said, adding that the city has spent $161 million on the homeless crisis since 2020.

Greg Smith, a homeless resident visiting friends at the camp above the depot, said last winter, he wrapped blankets and plastic around his tent, which is warmed by a little heater.

“What do we have to show for it? Nothing," Smith said of the money spent by city leaders.

“Everybody shares and huddles together," he said, “and you make it through winter.”

A homeless camp that sprung up last summer across the street from the city's historic train depot is seen Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, in downtown Anchorage, Alaska. Officials in Alaska's largest city are scrambling to find sufficient shelter for the city's homeless population before the first snowfall, usually in October, after the city's mass shelter in a sports arena was closed

 (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

GERMAN GREEN TALKS TO GOP

Europe Is Better Prepared If Trump Wins Again, Germany’s Baerbock Says

Arne Delfs and Annmarie Hordern
Sun, September 17, 2023 a


(Bloomberg) -- German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Europe would be better prepared if Donald Trump returned to the White House after the shock of his ascent to the presidency in 2016.

“Back then, hardly anybody in Europe could have imagined that there would be a US president who questioned NATO,” an alliance that’s “a life insurance” for Europeans, Baerbock said Sunday in a Bloomberg Television interview. “So many things in the past were a total shock to us.”

With Trump leading the race for the Republican Party nomination by a wide margin ahead of next year’s primary season, Baerbock is on an expansive trip to the US that includes sounding out Republicans before attending this week’s United Nations General Assembly. Germany’s Social Democratic chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has said he’d prefer a second term for President Joe Biden.

Trump “took some actions which were more than irritating for us,” Baerbock, one of Germany’s most prominent Green politicians, said in the interview in New York.

At the same time, she said “we shouldn’t be naive” and that Germany’s government would be prepared to work with Trump were he to win the 2024 presidential election.

Before New York, Baerbock traveled to Austin and Washington where she met Republicans including Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Baerbock said she told Republican lawmakers how shocking the Trump years had been, but expressed confidence that US support for Ukraine would continue regardless of who’s president.

“You need bipartisan support,” Baerbock said. “This is why it was important to me to do also the outreach to the Republicans.”

Baerbock, Germany’s first female foreign minister, is one of the most outspoken advocates of weapons deliveries to Ukraine in Scholz’s cabinet. Before her trip to the US, the former Green party leader visited Kyiv and promised her Ukrainian counterpart a continuation of German military support.

She declined to commit to Taurus long-range missiles deliveries sought by Ukraine, saying that Germany first would have to make sure the missiles “also work in the field.”

“But I totally understand, I am myself a mother of two,” she said. “If I would live in this war zone, every day counts.”

On Friday, Baerbock and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed the determination of their governments to support Ukraine as long as needed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to make the world “become used to this” won’t succeed, she said after a meeting in Washington. Blinken thanked Germany for its “leading role” in supporting Ukraine.

 Bloomberg Businessweek

S. Korea opposition leader hospitalised after hunger strike, prosecutors seek arrest



Sun, September 17, 2023 

By Soo-hyang Choi

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's main opposition leader was hospitalised on Monday, days into a hunger strike in protest against government policies, while prosecutors sought an arrest warrant for him over corruption allegations.

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, began the protest on Aug. 31, citing the government's economic mismanagement, threats to media freedom and the failure to oppose the Fukushima wastewaster release, among other reasons.

The former presidential candidate was transferred to a hospital from the National Assembly in Seoul Monday morning after suffering from dehydration and dizziness, his party said.


Kim Gi-hyeon, the head of the ruling People Power Party, has urged Lee to stop fasting, saying he was ready to talk with the opposition leader on policy issues.

Hours after Lee was transferred to a hospital, prosecutors said they had requested an arrest warrant for him as part of an investigation into a development project and bribery allegations.

Lee is accused of being in breach of his duty over losses of 20 billion won ($15 million) run up by Seongnam Development Corporation during his time as mayor of Seongnam city, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also accused Lee of bribery in connection with a company suspected of $8 million in illegal money transfers to North Korea.

Lee has denied any wrongdoing, calling the allegations "fiction" and a "political conspiracy."

A Seoul court needs the 300-member parliament, where the Democrats hold a majority, to waive Lee's immunity from arrest to review the prosecution's request.

Parliament rejected their previous request for an arrest warrant in February.

Lee lost to President Yoon Suk Yeol, a former prosecutor-general, in the 2022 presidential election by a margin of 0.7%.

($1 = 1,327.4000 won)

(Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi and Hyonhee Shin. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Hundreds protest against the Malaysian government after deputy premier's graft charges were dropped

Associated Press
Sat, September 16, 2023

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, right, speaks to the media at the UMNO headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023. At left is deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Hundreds of people rallying in the Malaysian capital have ended their protest on Saturday peacefully after several hours, despite police saying the gathering was unlawful. Protesters accuse Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of helping his key ally to escape prosecution in exchange for political support. 

(AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File) 

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Hundreds of people staged an anti-government rally Saturday in the Malaysian capital, accusing Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of helping his key ally escape prosecution in exchange for political support.

Prosecutors unexpectedly dropped 47 corruption charges against Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi on Sept. 4, late in the process of his trail. The court approved the application for dismissal but refused to grant Zahid a full acquittal, which means he can be recharged.

Speakers addressing the crowd Saturday in Kuala Lumpur accused Anwar’s government of interfering with the case to let Zahid off the hook in return for political support. Some protesters in the opposition-backed rally wore white shirts emblazoned with the words “Fight Corruption.” They marched in the city center chanting, “Charge Zahid,” “Reform is dead” and “Down with Anwar.”

Protester Muhamed Yahya said there was a “hidden hand at work” that led to the charges against Zahid being dropped.

“They used the back door,” he said.

Prosecutors said Zahid’s case was temporarily halted because further investigation was needed. Anwar has said it was former Attorney General Idrus Harun's decision just before he retired and denied interfering in the case. The dropped charges have led to renewed calls for reforms that would separate the attorney general’s roles as the government’s legal adviser and its public prosecutor.

Zahid heads the United Malays National Organization party, and his support has been pivotal in helping Anwar form a unity government after November’s general election led to a hung Parliament. The dismissal of charges sparked new criticism, particularly in light of the Anwar government's anti-corruption stance.

A lot of promises were not fulfilled by Anwar's government, said protester Zolazrai Zolkapli.

“Their promises were all lies. When we have been cheated by their propaganda and cheated by their manifesto, we come here to show our support” for the rally, he said.

Police had declared the gathering unlawful, as no permission was granted to hold it, but they didn't stop the protest, which ended peacefully after several hours.

Zahid was detained on graft charges in 2018 after UMNO lost power, facing 12 counts of criminal breach of trust, 27 counts of money laundering and eight counts of bribery involving more than 31 million ringgit ($6.7 million) from his family foundation. Prosecutors alleged that money intended for charity was misappropriated for his personal use, including to shop and pay off his credit cards. More than 110 witnesses have testified in his case.

Brazil's president calls U.S. economic embargo on Cuba 'illegal,' condemns terrorist list label

Reuters
Sat, September 16, 2023

 G77 + China summit opens in Havana

BRASILIA (Reuters) - On his first trip to Cuba during his third term in office, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called the embargo imposed by the United States on the island "illegal" and denounced the island's inclusion on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump included the island nation on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, and though the Biden administration has reversed other Trump-era measures, it has so far not removed Cuba from the list.

"Cuba has been an advocate of fairer global governance. And to this day it is the victim of an illegal economic embargo," Lula said in a speech opening the G77 Summit of developing nations in the capital, Havana. "Brazil is against any unilateral coercive measure. We reject Cuba's inclusion on the list of states sponsoring terrorism."

The comments were made just hours before Lula left for New York, where he will attend the United Nations General Assembly and have bilateral talks with Biden.

Earlier, Cuba expressed concerns over the label and Washington’s decades-old Cold War-era economic embargo against the island governed by the Communist Party of Cuba. The 27-member European Union, the country's top trade partner, has also repeatedly rejected trade embargo. Cuba and critics of the economic sanctions say the embargo prevents and hampers access to food, medicine and other critical development supplies.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lula's remarks.

The Biden administration has previously said U.S. law includes exemptions and authorizations for exports of food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods to the island.

During the Assembly, Brazil is expected to return to its historic position of condemning the embargo on Cuba, one of the motions that is usually voted on every year at the United Nations and passes overwhelmingly. In 2019, during the first year of right-wing Jair Bolsonaro's administration, Brazil voted against the motion along with the United States and Israel.

Lula also used his speech to call once again for the investment promised by developed countries to reduce the impact of climate change, as established in the Paris Agreement, but which has not been fulfilled. The president said that developing countries do not have the same "historical debt" as the rich for global warming.

"The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities remains valid. That is why all developing countries must be guaranteed climate funds, according to their needs and priorities," he said.

(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Writing by Steven Grattan; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Governor Gavin Newsom announces intention to sign Senator Wiener’s climate bill

Veronica Catlin
Mon, September 18, 2023 

(FOX40.COM) — California Governor Gavin Newsom announced at the opening ceremony of Climate Week NYC that he intends to sign Senate Bill 253, a greenhouse gas emissions disclosure requirement authored by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco).

“In announcing he will sign SB 253, Governor Newsom is reaffirming California’s global climate leadership. These carbon disclosures are a simple but intensely powerful driver of decarbonization,” Senator Wiener said in a statement issued after the announcement.

“When business leaders, investors, consumers, and analysts have full visibility into large corporations’ carbon emissions, they have the tools and incentives to turbocharge their decarbonization efforts. This legislation will support those companies doing their part to tackle the climate crisis and create accountability for those that aren’t,” he added.

SB 253 is reported to require any public or private company earning over a billion dollars in annual revenue that operates in California to publicly disclose the greenhouse gas emissions released from their operations and supply chain. Officials say the goal is to “unlock new approaches and drive action to reduce emissions.

California looks toward renewable future amid contentious power plant decisions

Sharon Udasin
Sun, September 17, 2023

California officials have garnered criticism in recent months over their decisions to prolong the lifespans of natural gas and nuclear facilities despite the state’s pledges to shift to cleaner energy.

Lawmakers have argued the moves are part of a critical balancing act between California’s ambitious renewable energy goals and the need to keep homes heated and powered.

But many scientists and environmental advocates believe this step is unnecessary — and that the state would succeed in providing ample power and attaining its goals without keeping such plants open.

“We have abundant renewable clean energy resources,” Laura Deehan, state director for Environment California, told The Hill. “And in fact, with the current technology, we have the ability to build a much more resilient electricity grid.”

Controversial power plant extensions

Earlier this month, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted unanimously in favor of increasing the capacity of the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility — a site that was also home to the nation’s biggest methane leak in 2015. The CPUC maintained that doing so served “to guard ratepayers from the type of natural gas price spikes that occurred last winter.”

And about a year before that, state lawmakers — with the governor’s support — passed legislation seeking to extend the shelf life of the decades-old Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. While nuclear power plants do not generate greenhouse gases, they produce a small amount of radioactive waste.

Keeping the Diablo site open, officials contended, could help tide the state over as it transitions to an entirely renewable energy economy.

The decisions appeared to run counter to climate goals the state has set over the past five years.

California committed in 2018 to achieving a 100 percent renewable energy-powered grid by 2045, per legislation signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown (D).

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) followed up last year with interim targets that aim for 90 percent renewable energy by 2035 and 95 percent by 2040. Separate legislation, meanwhile, urged carbon neutrality no later than 2045, while also setting an 85 percent emissions reduction target for that year, in comparison to 1990 levels.

The move to expand the Aliso Canyon facility’s capacity was also perceived as an about-face from Newsom’s campaign promises in 2018 — at which time the then-lieutenant governor told a reporter he was “fully committed” to shutting down the site entirely.

The main ingredient of natural gas is methane, a greenhouse gas that is much more potent than carbon dioxide. The October 2015 leak at the Aliso Canyon facility, which was only controlled in February 2016, forced more than 8,000 households to temporarily relocate.

Responding to the CPUC’s decision, Newsom’s deputy press secretary at the time stressed that although the governor appreciates the agency’s efforts to preserve energy reliability, he continues to advocate for the facility’s permanent closure.

Deehan expressed her disappointment in seeing these gas plants getting extensions, even more so because they are located “in places that have a history of environmental disasters.”

“To me, that just underscores the urgency of moving even faster towards our clean energy goals,” she said.

Another recent and contentious energy-related move involved the passage of legislation last fall seeking to extend operations until 2030 of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, located along California’s Central Coast.

Licenses for the site’s two reactors were set to expire in November 2024 and August 2025, respectively, and Pacific Gas and Electric previously announced plans to decommission them at that point.

About six months after the legislation’s passage, however, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted an exemption allowing the facility to operate under its current licenses while the agency considers a renewal that could last up to 20 years.

While Newsom and state legislators have backed the extension as a reliable bridge to support California’s clean energy transition, environmental groups have been vocal in their opposition to the plans.

Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering, attributed the decision to the “lobbying power of the nuclear industry and their advocates.”

The potential of renewables

Experts like Jacobson maintain keeping the power plants online is unneeded and could be counterproductive.

“There are a lot of renewable energy projects in the queue in California,” Jacobson told The Hill.

“Many of them are just slowed by either transmission barriers or red tape,” he said. “They’re just backed up in terms of permitting approvals.”

Jacobson cited a variety of solar, geothermal, wind, hydroelectric and battery storage projects in the pipeline, stressing that “there’s really no reason California can’t get to like 80 percent renewables by 2030 or even 2027.”

From a technical perspective, he expressed confidence that California would have no problem meeting its renewable energy targets.

He pointed to the state putting 5 gigawatts of batteries on the grid in the past few years as an example of its ability to fulfill these goals, adding that aside from during summer, California’s peak energy demand is about 25 gigawatts.

Currently, solar energy fulfills almost all the state’s daytime electricity needs, aside from in the summer, when natural gas is also used, according to Jacobson.

“At night, so when the solar goes down, then you have hydro, wind, geothermal, which is pretty constant,” he said, noting that batteries are also “kicking in” after sunset and before sunrise.

While Diablo Canyon is still open, it is providing a peak supply of only 2.3 gigawatts — half the amount that batteries are supplying, Jacobson added.

“So Diablo Canyon’s not necessary really,” he said.

Jacobson took that notion one step further by asserting Diablo Canyon’s continued operation is blocking further offshore wind development.

“Diablo Canyon has this huge transmission line that’s going to the coast right there,” he said. “Basically, Diablo Canyon is hogging that line — slowing the ability of offshore wind to be built off the coast of central California.”

The California coastal environment, Deehan added, is among “the places in the world where the wind blows harder and faster than anywhere else — really high potential for clean energy production there.”

A 2021 study co-authored by Jacobson suggested that deploying more offshore wind turbines could help avoid summer blackouts because wind speeds are the fastest during this season.

Acknowledging that offshore wind costs have recently spiked due to high interest rates, Jacobson expressed some concern about a possible slowdown in infrastructure deployment if the situation doesn’t resolve itself soon.

But on Thursday night, the California state Legislature passed Assembly Bill 1373, which would authorize the CPUC and the Department of Water Resources to purchase energy from offshore wind developers if it is signed into law by Newsom.

“It’s about giving the state the power to buy that clean energy,” Deehan said. “And that way, they can order it up, which will then provide so much certainty for all the market forces, for the investors and the developers.”

As far as solar energy is concerned, Jacobson said this resource remains “pretty cheap” and that the cost of batteries — which can be installed quickly — has dropped significantly.

But the professor accused major utilities of “fighting tooth and nail to prevent people from putting solar on their roofs,” referring to a recent decision to weaken incentives for new installations.

“The fact that they’re pushing this nuclear while reducing residential solar benefits is just ridiculous,” he said.

‘Ahead of benchmarks’

While Jacobson reiterated his belief that California would have no trouble keeping houses powered and heated without the Aliso or Diablo extensions, he also highlighted the potential of citizen demand-response in emergency situations.

One day last year when there was a chance the grid could have failed, Newsom made an announcement asking people to stop using energy, Jacobson recalled.

“And amazingly, everybody did,” he said. “This was actually a case of demand-response where they didn’t even need financial incentives.”

Jacobson touted the ability of the demand side to “control the grid,” while deeming the idea that the grid would fail with more renewables “complete nonsense.”

Lobbying action against the deployment of renewables, he recognized, could slow down the state’s charge to meet its clean energy targets.

“But it’s not stopping it, it’s not reversing it,” he said. “If anything, it’s just slowing it down a little bit from reaching the goal.”

There’s no technical reason the state can’t achieve its ambitions even earlier, with all the renewable energy projects that are waiting in the queue, Jacobson argued.

“If everything was just approved today, you could reach the goal much faster,” he added.

Deehan echoed these sentiments, emphasizing that California is not at all off track in terms of its climate commitments.

“We’re ahead of benchmarks every single time in reaching all of our clean energy goals,” she said. “And the challenge is, can we just speed up those goals?”

The Hill.

California sues five major oil companies for 'decades-long campaign of deception' about climate change

Louis Sahagún
Sat, September 16, 2023

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has filed a lawsuit against major oil companies for lying about climate change. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

California is suing five of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, alleging that they engaged in a "decades-long campaign of deception" about climate change and the risks posed by fossil fuels that has forced the state to spend tens of billions of dollars to address environmental-related damages.

State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit Friday in San Francisco County Superior Court alleging that Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP and the American Petroleum Institute have known since the 1950s that the burning of fossil fuels would warm the planet but instead of alerting the public about the dangers posed to the environment they chose to deny or downplay the effects.

“Oil and gas companies have privately known the truth for decades — that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change,” Bonta said in a statement, “but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record breaking profits at the expense of our environment. Enough is enough.”

Several other states and dozens of municipalities, including cities and counties in California, have filed similar lawsuits in recent years.

“With our lawsuit, California becomes the largest geographic area and the largest economy to take these giant oil companies to court,” Bonta said. “From extreme heat to drought and water shortages, the climate crisis they have caused is undeniable. It is time they pay to abate the harm they have caused.”

Bonta is seeking to create a nuisance abatement fund to finance climate mitigation and adaptation efforts; injunctive relief to protect California’s natural resources from pollution, impairment and destruction; and to prevent the companies from making any further false or misleading statements about the contribution of fossil fuel combustion to climate change.

Attorneys for the oil companies could not immediately be reached for comment. But Chevron issued this statement early Sunday: "Climate change is a global problem that requires a coordinated international policy response, not piecemeal litigation for the benefit of lawyers and politicians."

A growing number of high-profile cases in state court helped pave the way for Bonta’s 135-page lawsuit to hold oil and gas companies financially responsible for their role in climate change and marketing products they know cause injury.

They include the record $246-billion settlement with Big Tobacco, and a $350-million settlement reached in 2019 that will provide funds to clean up toxic lead paint sold by manufacturers that knew it was poisonous.

“There is some commonality with earlier cases involving other major bad actors who hurt people and threatened their health with lead paint, tobacco and opioids,” Bonta said in an interview with The Times on Saturday. “But every industry is unique.”

The potential size of the mitigation fund he is pursuing remains to be determined.

“These defendants must be held accountable for the truths they shared in private while trying to undermine the science in public,” he said. “They cannot pass those costs onto the public, governments or our future.”

“It is going to be a very, very large number,” he added.

California’s complaint includes several examples of evidence demonstrating that the defendants have long known about the environmental threat posed by the use of fossil fuels.

For instance, in 1968, API and its members received a report from the Stanford Research Institute, which it had hired to assess the state of research on environmental pollutants, including carbon dioxide, according to the lawsuit. The report stated: “Significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000, and . . . there seems to be no doubt that the potential damage to our environment could be severe.”

In 1978, an internal Exxon memo stated that present "thinking holds that man has a time window of five to 10 years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.”

California has spent tens of billions of dollars to adapt to climate change and address the environmental damage that has resulted so far, the complaint said, and it will have to spend far more than that in the years to come.

“For more than 50 years, Big Oil has been lying to us — covering up the fact that they’ve long known how dangerous the fossil fuels they produce are for our planet,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday.

“California taxpayers,” he said, “shouldn’t have to foot the bill for billions of dollars in damage — wildfires wiping out entire communities, toxic smoke clogging our air, deadly heat waves, record-breaking droughts parching our wells.”

In 2019, Newsom  began calling for plans to phase out oil production in California, citing the increasingly harmful effects of global warming. His actions raised ire in petroleum company boardrooms, enraged Kern County officials and left small-town governments at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley grappling with shrinking tax rolls.

Climate liability litigation is gaining momentum. Five California cities — San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Richmond, Imperial Beach — and the counties of San Mateo, Marin and Santa Cruz have filed climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, and some of those cases are now proceeding toward trial in state court, according to the nonprofit Center for Climate Integrity.

California is the first oil-producing state to pursue such charges. “California’s decision to take Big Oil companies to court is a watershed moment in the rapidly expanding fight to hold major polluters accountable for decades of climate lies,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity.

The scale of the “devastating public nuisance created by defendant's egregious misconduct is truly staggering,” according to the state's lawsuit,  and its consequences are “felt throughout every part of the state, across all ecosystems and communities.”

Exxon Mobil, Shell and Chevron, which is headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., alone market fossil fuel fuel products to California consumers through more than 3,000 petroleum service stations across the state, officials say.

The defendant companies and their trade association, the American Petroleum Institute, “are individually and collectively responsible for the emission of tons of greenhouse gasses,” the lawsuit says.

Greenhouse gases are largely byproducts of human use and combustion of fossil fuels to produce energy and petrochemical products. The primary greenhouse gas emitted as a result of human activities is CO2.

As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, the Earth radiates less energy back to space, warming the average surface temperature. The result has been whiplashing shifts in extreme weather, longer droughts, flooding, sea level rise, ocean acidification and harmful effects to terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

California's lawsuit asserts, however, that since 1988, the 105-year-old petroleum institute has led organizations and campaigns on behalf of its 600 members “that have promoted disinformation about the climate impacts of fossil fuel products to consumers.” They include, it says, the Global Climate Coalition, Partnership for a Better Energy Future and Alliance for Climate Strategies.

In a statement, API Senior Vice President and General Counsel Ryan Meyers dismissed the complaint as “nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of California taxpayer resources.”

“Climate policy is for Congress to debate and decide,” he said, “not the court system.”

Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, welcomed the state's lawsuit as part of a far wider campaign to put pressure on toxic emitters within California’s vast industrial complex— and their executives — to testify about whether they misled the public.

“As the world’s fifth-largest economy, and the nation’s most populous state,” she said, “California is uniquely positioned to hold Big Oil accountable for its endless lies and malicious blocking of climate action.”

Kathy Mulvey, a spokeswoman for the Union of Concerned Scientists, agrees.

“California’s lawsuit reflects the growing body of evidence of what Exxon Mobil, Shell and other major oil and gas companies knew about the dangers of their products,” she said, “and the devastating harms that have resulted from their lies, obstruction and delay tactics.

“It’s past time for these companies to stop their greenwashing and disinformation campaigns and pay their fair share of the costs the climate crisis is imposing on Californians.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

NASA's new greenhouse gas detector will help track down 'super-emitters' from space

Rahul Rao
Mon, September 18, 2023 

A view of the spectrometer being slid into a vacuum test chamber. The view is from within the chamber.

On Sept. 12, a mirror-walled box arrived in the clean room of Planet Labs in San Francisco. This box contains a spectrometer, designed specifically to observe carbon dioxide and methane on Earth's surface.

Forged at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) further south in California, this spectrometer’s stop in San Francisco will see it mounted onto a satellite called Tanager. That satellite, if all goes according to plan, should launch in 2024. The nonprofit Carbon Mapper hopes to use Tanager to pinpoint greenhouse gas "super-emitters" on our planet.

This newly-arrived spectrometer is a key component of that mission.

Related: NASA sensors could help detect landfill methane from space to help limit climate change

This device is designed to observe infrared light reflected from Earth's surface, then separate that light into its spectrum. Different gases in Earth's atmosphere each absorb different wavelengths of light, leaving characteristic gaps in the spectrum and allowing observers to reconstruct what gases were present at a certain point.

Before sending the spectrometer north, JPL staff tested the mechanism's ability to perform this duty. Inside a vacuum chamber, scientists placed a methane sample in clear view of the spectrometer. And, by JPL's account, the spectrometer succeeded.

"We are thrilled to see the exceptional quality of the methane spectral signature recorded," Robert Green, an instrument scientist at JPL, said in a statement. "This bodes well for the space measurement soon to follow."

Carbon Mapper — a collaboration between JPL, Planet, the California Air Resources Board, Rocky Mountain Institute, Arizona State University, and the University of Arizona — already launched EMIT, an instrument aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that monitors mineral dust blown from Earth's deserts. Eventually, this spectrometer will join it from an orbit that wraps around Earth's poles.

Major UK methane greenhouse gas leak spotted from space

Esme Stallard - Climate and science reporter, BBC News
Sat, September 16, 2023 

The main sources of methane are oil and gas production, farming and waste

A major UK leak of the extremely potent greenhouse gas methane has been spotted from space for the first time.

The leak - seen by satellite - occurred over a three-month period at a gas main operated by Wales and West Utilities. The amount leaked could have powered 7,500 homes for a year.

Satellite detection shows the potential of picking up methane gas leaks quickly so they can be stopped sooner.

Methane has 28 times the heating potential of CO2.

It is responsible for about 30% of the rise in global temperatures.

The leak from a pipeline in Cheltenham, revealed exclusively to the BBC, was discovered in March.

It was detected by Leeds University with the help of specialist satellites.

Emily Dowd, a PhD researcher at the university's School of Earth and Environment and the National Centre for Earth Observation, had been using satellite imagery to assess methane leaks from landfill sites.

But she noticed on the images the distinct marker of a methane leak some miles away, coming from a gas pipeline owned by Wales and West Utilities.

Identifying and tackling methane emissions is a crucial objective of the UK and other countries seeking to tackle climate change.

Upon discovering the leak Ms Dowd worked with GHGSat - whose satellites provided the original images - to take further surveys from space, while a team from Royal Holloway University made on-the-ground round measurements.

Ms Dowd said: "Finding this leak brings a question of how many there are out there and maybe we need to be looking a bit harder to find them and take advantage of the technology we have."

Wales and West Utilities said they became aware of the leak after a member of public reported the smell of gas. They said they were in the process of obtaining the necessary permissions for replacing the gas mains when the leak was picked up by satellite.

The cause of the leak is unclear but methane leaks in gas pipelines are not uncommon with ageing infrastructure.

However, the satellite detection process has shown the potential of picking up methane leaks quickly.

Optical gas imaging cameras used on the ground have previously identified methane leaks in the UK

The main sources of methane are the oil and gas industry, farming and landfill sites. UK methane emissions have fallen significantly since 1990 but in recent years progress has slowed.

Currently, methane leaks are detected through routine on-the-ground surveys - a very challenging prospect when there are thousands of miles of pipes and sites. And the UK's methane emissions are only an estimate gleaned from economic activity data.

Jean-Francois Gauthier, senior vice-president for strategy at GHGSat, told the BBC: "It's important to highlight that satellites are just one piece of the puzzle. But satellites have a very unique value... that they can come back [and collect more images] very frequently and they can do so without the need to deploy people on the ground so they can do so effectively and also affordably."

The company has nine satellites in their constellation, which orbit at 500km overhead, and are some of the highest resolution devices able to see gases at 25m resolution.

The company has recently signed a £5.5m partnership with the UK - funded by the UK Space Agency - to provide satellite data on methane emissions to UK organisations such as Ordnance Survey.

The UK Space Agency's CEO, Dr Paul Bate, said: "Satellites are getting smaller and more powerful, giving us an ideal vantage point from which to monitor global greenhouse gas emissions and inform decision-making on the path to Net Zero."

There are still limitations with the satellites that will need to be developed.

Prof Grant Allen, lecturer in atmospheric science at the University of Manchester, told the BBC: "There is still some work to do to fully validate the precise magnitude of such emissions estimated by satellites like GHGSat, but the capability is already proving super useful for identifying where big (preventable) sources may be."

Methane from Oil and Gas Are Worse Than Reported to UN, Satellites Show

Aaron Clark
Thu, September 14, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Observed methane releases from global oil and gas operations are 30% higher than what countries estimate in reports to the UN, according to a new study that analyzed satellite observations of the potent greenhouse gas.

The world’s four largest oil and gas emitters, the US, Russia, Venezuela and Turkmenistan, account for most of the overall discrepancy, according to the report published last month in Nature Communications. The satellite data challenges figures reported to the UN, which rely on so-called emissions factors — estimates for how much methane equipment might normally release — applied to production and use rates.

The real-world data recorded by satellites suggests those estimates are way too low. The authors used a “top-down” approach to model and estimate emissions for most of the world with fossil fuel production by using 22 months of detections from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite.

“Satellite data should be used to monitor the accuracy of the national emission inventories submitted” to the UN, said Daniel Jacob, one of the authors and a professor at Harvard University’s department of earth and planetary sciences.

Adding top-down methods to the bottom-up estimates currently used would more accurately pinpoint who and what is responsible for methane emissions and offer governments a clearer picture of how to make the cheapest and most effective cuts. The new research is notable for its breadth, covering 96% of global emissions from oil and gas and bolstering previous studies that have detailed underreporting of methane emissions.

Methane is the primary component of natural gas, but it can also leak from the Earth during oil and coal production. The potent greenhouse gas has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere. Curbing releases of the gas could do more to slow climate change than almost any other single measure.

Three of the ten largest oil and gas methane emitters identified in the report — the US, Canada, Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia — have signed the the Global Methane Pledge, which targets a 30% reduction in global emissions of the gas by the end of this decade from 2020 levels. If methane generated from human activity is responsible for a larger share of the world’s total emissions, including from natural sources, then a 30% cut from that activity would have a bigger effect on overall methane concentrations, according to Jacob.

Read more: The Cheap and Easy Climate Fix That Can Cool the Planet Fast

The study identified significant opportunities to reduce methane emissions in Venezuela, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Angola, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria and Mexico, all of which have methane intensities between 5% and 25% for their oil and gas industries. Lowering those intensities to the global average of 2.4% would reduce emissions from the sector globally by 18%.


©2023 Bloomberg L.P.


People are absolutely ‘livid’ about this deceptive new Tennessee law: ‘Name it what it is — bribery’

Laurelle Stelle
Mon, September 18, 2023 



In April, Tennessee adopted a law that requires the state government to consider planet-overheating methane gas a “clean” energy source, Heated reports.

Methane gas — sometimes called natural gas, which is mostly methane but contains other gases — is an energy source similar to oil and coal. Burning natural gas creates air pollution and heat-trapping gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), though relatively less than oil or coal.

Methane gas is also a heat-trapping gas itself; when it escapes into the atmosphere due to leaks and faulty equipment, it has up to 80 times the effect on our planet’s temperature that carbon pollution would.

However, according to the Tennessee legislature and Governor Bill Lee, “natural gas” is a clean energy source on par with wind, solar, and water power. The bill lays out a list of 17 “permissible sources of clean energy” that must be allowed by any “ordinance, resolution, or other regulation” that “imposes requirements or expectations related to the source of clean energy used by a public utility.”

In other words, government agencies or programs in Tennessee that encourage clean energy use have to include natural gas.

Tennessee isn’t the first state to adopt a measure like this one. In December, Ohio passed a similar law labeling natural gas as “green energy.” Outlets, including the Energy and Policy Institute and The Washington Post, reported that The Empowerment Alliance, a group involved with earlier bribery scandals, had been behind the Ohio bill’s support.

The same group was involved in the Tennessee bill, Heated suggests. Governor Lee and bill co-sponsor State Senator Page Walley have signed The Empowerment Alliance’s “Declaration of Energy Independence” to support natural gas. Heated claims that other officials who supported the bill have also received money from the oil and gas industries.

Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, governments and businesses across the globe have been looking for ways to produce less heat-trapping gas and cool down the planet while investing in affordable, clean energy sources.

However, leaders and lobbyists from polluting industries like oil, gas, and coal have become an obstacle to this development. They stand to lose money if the world switches to less expensive and less polluting fuel sources, like solar and wind, and many have opposed efforts to switch.

Reddit commenters were enraged by the news from Tennessee. Many commented on a post that moderators have since removed but left visible. “‘Industry-funded,’” said one user. “Name it what it is. Bribery. The lawmakers and the industrialists paying them need to be behind bars.”

“At some point folks are going to get angry with this bulls***,” said another user. A third replied, “I’m already livid.”