Trump’s climate-hoax demands roil U.S. allies

Posted on April 12, 2017 by GarryRogers

GR: The U. S. is not a leader in global efforts to stop climate change. Under Bannon and the conservative Congress, the U. S. has become the leader in retreat from many economic, environmental, and social necessities. Stupid.

President Donald Trump is considering whether to pull the United States out of the climate change accord that the Obama administration and other world leaders negotiated in Paris in 2015. | AP Photo

“President Donald Trump’s abrupt turnaround on U.S. climate policy is fueling tension with several of America’s closest allies, which are resisting the administration’s demands that they support a bigger role for nuclear power and fossil fuels in the world’s energy supply.

“The dispute blew up at this week’s meeting of G-7 energy ministers, at which Trump administration officials pushed to include stronger pro-coal, pro-nuclear language in a proposed joint statement on energy policy. The fight had been simmering behind the scenes for weeks as the White House, Energy Department and State Department clashed with negotiators from other G-7 countries over the statement, according to an internal document obtained by POLITICO and interviews with diplomats.

“After a tense back-and-forth at the meeting in Rome on Monday, the G-7 energy ministers — including representatives from Canada, Great Britain and several European Union countries — wound up scuttling the statement altogether.

“The feud comes as Trump, who often touts his “America first” approach to foreign policy, is considering whether to pull the United States out of the climate change accord that the Obama administration and leaders of nearly 200 other nations negotiated in Paris in 2015. Some Trump advisers have suggested that he should remain in the deal — but in return, should demand concessions to aid the fossil fuel sector.

“G-7 officials, led by the Europeans, refused to agree to stronger language touting fossil fuels without assurances from the United States that it would stay in the Paris climate change agreement, according to officials briefed on the discussions.” –Andrew Restuccia (Source: Trump’s climate demands roil U.S. allies – POLITICO).

Obama’s dirty secret: the fossil fuel projects the US littered around the world

Posted on December 1, 2016 by GarryRogers

GR: These are huge projects that Obama has helped build at a time when the world should be cutting back on fossil-fuel use. The impact of the projects is massive. Through his approval of funding, Obama has contributed directly to the death of portions of the Great Barrier Reef and to human misery and disease in many areas. As I’ve speculated before, history may show that Obama was the worst environmental president we’ve ever had. It’s hard to determine how bad now because of the lack of transparency in his activities.

“Through the Export-Import Bank, the Obama administration has spent nearly $34bn on dirty energy plants in countries from India to Australia to South Africa

“Seemingly little connects a community in India plagued by toxic water, a looming air pollution crisis in South Africa and a new fracking boom that is pockmarking Australia. And yet there is a common thread: American taxpayer money.

“Through the US Export-Import Bank, Barack Obama’s administration has spent nearly $34bn supporting 70 fossil fuel projects around the world, work by Columbia Journalism School’s Energy and Environment Reporting Project and the Guardian has revealed.

How Obama’s climate change legacy is weakened by US investment in dirty fuel. (Read more)“

“This unprecedented backing of oil, coal and gas projects is an unexpected footnote to Obama’s own climate change legacy. The president has called global warming “terrifying” and helped broker the world’s first proper agreement to tackle it, yet his administration has poured money into developments that will push the planet even closer to climate disaster.

“For people living next to US-funded mines and power stations the impacts are even more starkly immediate.

“Guardian and Columbia reporters have spent time at American-backed projects in India, South Africa and Australia to document the sickness, upheavals and environmental harm that come with huge dirty fuel developments.

“In India, we heard complaints about coal ash blowing into villages, contaminated water and respiratory and stomach problems, all linked to a project that has had more than $650m in backing from the Obama administration.

“In South Africa, another huge project is set to exacerbate existing air pollution problems, deforestation and water shortages. And in Australia, an enormous US-backed gas development is linked to a glut of fracking activity that has divided communities and brought a new wave of industrialization next to the cherished Great Barrier Reef.

“While Obama can claim the US is the world’s leader on climate change – at least until Donald Trump enters the White House – it is also clear that it has become a major funder of fossil fuels that are having a serious impact upon people’s lives. This is the unexpected story of how Obama’s legacy is playing out overseas.” –Sonali Prasad, Jason Burke, Michal Slezak, and Oliver Milman.

Sasan ultra mega power project, Madhya Pradesh, India

A villager living near the Sasan mine’s overburdened dumpsite pleads for relief and rehabilitation from the pollution hazards of the coal mine. Photograph: Sidharth M Vhavle for the Guardian

“A hulking thermal power plant funded by American money shimmers in orange when night settles in India’s coal-rich district of Singrauli. A heavy blanket of smog wraps around the industrial district and its residents.” –Sonali Prasad. Continue reading (there’s lots more): Obama’s dirty secret: the fossil fuel projects the US littered around the world

Impoverished villagers of Harrahawa and Siddhikhurd living in close proximity in to the Sasan power plant complain of polluted air and toxic well water. Photograph: Sidharth M Vhavle for the Guardian

Save the Earth, Divest: Stop Supporting Major Corporations

Posted on April 7, 2015 by GarryRogers

Image from Britannica

Large multinational corporations are pursuing profits to excess. We must divest our holdings in the largest Military, Insurance, Finance, Energy, and Chemicals (MIFEC), and we must stop purchasing their products.

They are destroying the earth for profit.

The new climate denialism: More carbon dioxide is a good thing

Posted on December 15, 2014 by GarryRogers

The industry now says we need more CO2 in our lives, not less.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

GR: The energy consultant who said this was trying to make a joke, wasn’t he? . . . If he wasn’t, his presentation to the U. S. Energy Association in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., may reveal frightening stupidity amongst influential energy industry personnel.

Lockheed Aims for Commercial, Compact Fusion Reactor Within Ten Years

Posted on October 28, 2014 by GarryRogers

Technology Saves the Earth?

GR: I once thought abundant, non-polluting energy could be the solution to all our problems. Having looked closely at the ways that we humans use and change our environment, I am no longer sure there is a solution. I proposed Immediacy, the philosophy of consequences. However, the proposal explicitly recognizes that humans aren’t smart enough to adopt such an ethos.

The Center for Biological Diversity is handing out condoms. There is no money for “no-breeding-checks” (Vardarac in the comments on this article). Is it nonsense to hope we might ever achieve wise landuse and control over our desire for reproduction? I’m beginning to suspect that new technological innovations will only add to our ability to destroy Earth’s biosphere.

Thanks to Robert Scribbler for this article and to his readers for their comments.

robertscribbler

Ever since major industrialized nations learned how to fuse atoms in megabombs able to blast scores of square miles to smithereens, the quest has been on to harness the vast potential energy store that is nuclear fusion as a viable means to peacefully fuel modern civilization.

Unlike fission, which involves the splitting of atomic nuclei, fusion both produces more energy while generating no radio-active waste. The fuels — hydrogen and helium — are abundant and non-radioactive. Because conventional fusion reactors involve containment fields that force these non-radioactive elements together, they do not operate under dangerous conditions similar to nuclear fission reactors. The fusion reaction bi-products are also common, non-polluting elements together with a heat source used for mechanical work.

Fusion reactors aren’t vulnerable to the same kinds of terrible melt-downs seen at Fukushima and Chernobyl. And the energy density of the fusion reaction itself is extraordinary, producing a potential for…

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