sustainable energy – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

South Fork Wind Farm Cable Approved by PSC

David Posnett — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 15:48:28 +0000

Press Release:

For Immediate Release

South Fork Wind Farm Cable Approved by PSC

East Hampton, New York – March 18, 2021 — This morning the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) voted unanimously to grant South Fork Wind (“SFW”) a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need for a transmission cable needed to connect the South Fork Wind Farm to the electric grid. This is a critical step in authorizing construction and operation of 15 wind turbines in the ocean 35 miles east of Montauk. The PSC approved the landing site for the cable at Beach Lane in Wainscott. The cable will then be buried under the roads of Wainscott and ultimately be connected to the electric grid at the Cove Hollow Road substation in East Hampton.

SFW is scheduled to begin construction early in 2022 and the wind farm is projected to be operational by late 2023. The South Fork Wind Farm will generate enough clean renewable energy to the South Fork to power 70,000 typical homes, reducing carbon emissions, creating clean jobs, and assisting both East Hampton and New York State in meeting their commitment to combat climate change with 100% clean energy.

Wind With Wind (WWW), which was organized to produce fact-based information regarding the benefits of renewable offshore wind energy, has been actively advocating for the South Fork Wind Farm for years. As the first sizable offshore wind farm in the country, the project has faced opposition from very well-funded groups. WWW and its attorneys actively promoted the project, participating in the lengthy settlement discussions and public hearings, filing written comments with the PSC, participating in site visits, and keeping the public informed on the issues.

WWW commends the PSC for its historic vote since it puts New York State and East Hampton in a leadership role for offshore wind energy with SFW serving as the foundation of a more sustainable and resilient future. When the South Fork Wind Farm becomes operational it will be the largest offshore wind farm in the country, and the first in New York. SFW’s battle has been carefully observed by the offshore wind industry and is emerging as a template for a collaborative and community driven approach for clean energy development.

“Win With Wind has worked hard for this, and we are grateful for the help of our supporters and especially the law firm Arnold & Porter and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. We are lucky to live in a town with such forward- looking political leadership,” said Judith Hope, President of WWW.

“Now it is time for all of us to come together and support SFW. Instead of worrying about the inconvenience of a cable being buried under the roads of Wainscott, let us focus on saving our seriously battered planet,” said Jeremiah Mulligan, a member of the WWW Steering Committee.

Contact:
Judith Hope
weneedwindenergy@gmail.com
East Hampton, NY

Update on the South Fork Wind Farm & Call to Action

David Posnett — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 17:19:45 +0000

To: Win With Wind supporters
From: Win With Wind steering committee
Date: Feb. 14, 2021
Topic: Update on the South Fork Wind Farm

Dear friends of WWW,

We would like to update you regarding where we stand in the 4-year-long process of getting the South Fork Wind Farm approved, built and operational.

Permits for this project are on 3 tracks:Local (Town of East Hampton)State of New York Public Service Commission: article 7Federal: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)Regarding local permits, the town of East Hampton has voted to grant an easement for Orsted/Eversource to lay the underground powerlines coming ashore on Wainscott’s beaches. The Trustees have also voted to lease the beach area for the cable landing to Orsted/Eversource. See the East Hampton Town website and the East Hampton Star.

Regarding NY State Article 7 Proceedings, a yearlong public comment session has terminated with about 70 “interveners” many of whom tried to slow down the process. A final decision for the Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need is expected by end of March.

The federal BOEM process is wrapping up too. The following graph shows where we are: We are in the late phases of BOEM’s environmental and technical reviews after which there will be a decision on COP (construction and operations plan) approval.

Many of you have asked how to help support the South Fork Wind Farm. One thing you can do this coming week is to join a ZOOM call managed by BOEM. It is educational as BOEM officials will present the entire project. It is also an opportunity to give an oral (and/or written) commentary in support of renewable energy and SFWF in particular. Several of us took part in BOEM’s first two ZOOM events earlier this week. Would you participate next week? Here is the sign-up link:

Tuesday, February 16, 2021
5:00 pm ET
Registration: Webinar Registration – Zoom
Webinar ID: 991 6301 7012
Phone: 888-475-4499
https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/south-fork-wind-farm-virtual-meetings

Here is an example of Michael Hansen’s testimony:
https://youtu.be/SIjwegR2Tas?t=4826

Sincerely,

Support Win With Wind

And Now, For Some 2020 Good Climate News

David Posnett — Thu, 31 Dec 2020 22:56:53 +0000

Get Ready to Make a New Year’s Climate Pledge

Looking for some good news on climate? Get ready to set some priorities and make some New Year’s Climate Resolutions.

Recently @GlobalEcoGuy Dr. Jon Foley reminded me (and 60k followers) about the big picture. Our actions, consumer choices, and habits matter.

I find clarity in Jon’s blogs about climate. I’m inspired by his prioritizing solutions including a Personal Action Guide. And I trust his science. It is Drawdown science, and Jon is the executive director.

Jon has clearly stated that to reach drawdown, where greenhouse gas emissions stop climbing and start to draw down, we have to do two things:

stop sending it up
start sinking it down

“It” being human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

Look, maybe alot of us don’t know where to focus our efforts, he says, because we literally cannot see what we’re talking about. And then he give us a graph, three actually, in his Three Most Important Graphs in Climate Change

That’s my cue. That’s how I’m going to prioritize my actions and efforts — by using his graph, starting at the top, with a big focus on the first two, they are half the problem. So first Electricity Generation, then Food/Land Use. Third, fourth and fifth for me will be Industry, Transportation, Buildings.

And, from the news I’ve been reading this year, it looks like entrepreneurs and governments are jumping into action finally, finally, in ways that will redirect us all from an irreversible, irreparable, climate, wildlife and human life catastrophe.

Electricity Generation – good news

2020 State and Local Ballot Measures Advancing the Energy Transition (and The Biggie: We’re rejoining Paris!)
Here’s a roundup of the Top 11 11 Clean Energy Developments of 2020

My Electricity New Year’s Resolution
switch every bulb to LED – I think I did already, but I’m checking again.
stop sending it up— turn off, unplug, use less (dryer, anything electric)
we installed a solar on my mother’s roof, but ours too shady. We’d really like a roof-based wind power generator, maybe that will be invented soon.

Food/Land Use – good news

Why are we letting our food choices have such a big impact on this planet? Emitting 24% of greenhouse gases? The US is one of the most-polluting countries due to lifestyle and food choices.

The solution-by-solution path to reversing global warming, outlined in the book Drawdown lists food solutions as #3 and #4 out of 80. #3 is reducing food waste with 1/3 wasted from farm to fork and 70% of wasted by households at a cost of $1500 per family a year. If Americans reduced our food waste by 50% we would achieve Drawdown’s goals in the food sector. Hey, it saves money. Then #4 is eating a plant-rich diet and keeping our CAFO red meat to once a week. Hey, it’s much healthier. Much.

Good to see this trend is happening — products and markets want in on reducing food waste.

Supermarkets Moving Toward Zero Food Waste (and they are responsible for 10% of all U.S. food waste)
Two Good Yogurt Addresses Food Waste by Launching New Product Line Utilizing Verified Rescued Produce in Partnership with Full Harvest
Streamlined menus, clean-label food, and umami top the food prediction list for 2021.

My Food/Land Use New Year’s Resolution
reduce my food waste better than 50% – I’m going for zero (saving tons by making soups and stocks, and composting what’s left – nothing to the landfill!)
cooking more with nuts, pun intended, fish, shellfish, anything but CAFOs
buying local and reaping all the deliciously-ripe-in-season, and fresh-healthy-traceable advantages https://www.well.org/conscious-consumers/10-advantages-of-buying-local/
stop sending it up — lowering food miles, less plastic packaging, using what I buy, no food to landfills,
start sinking it down— with a back-yard compost, keeping an herb garden, planting native trees

Transportation – good news

With electric vehicles we’re starting to make some headway and when EV’s become cheaper than gas the transportation sector is going to make a dramatic shift.

Electric Cars Are Estimated to Be Cheaper Than Regular Cars by 2022

My Transportation New Year’s Resolution
make a 2 year plan that includes trading our VW in for an EV.
lower item miles on everything — from fish to Christmas gifts — make it all local. (OK, maybe NYS or within 500 miles)

Industry – good news

There are good news trends in the fashion industry. They have noticed that we have all noticed — they produce 10% of all humanity’s carbon emissions, are the second-largest consumer of the world’s water supply, and pollute the oceans with microplastics. The equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes is burned or dumped in a landfill every second.

Fashion Regeneration: What It Is + 8 Brands Paving The Way Forward
Six alternatives to animal leather made from plants and food waste
The $380-billion trend turning fast fashion on its head While fast fashion is expected to continue to grow 20% in the next 10 years, secondhand fashion is poised to grow 185%.

My Industry New Year’s Resolution
Paul Hawken, founder of Drawdown, said that magic new purchase number is 6. In other words if we all limit our new purchases to 6 a year, we would reach drawdown in the Industry sector. My resolution – buy thrift, consignment, recycled, reused, no fast fashion that destroys the planet.
stop sending it up — recycle, give and get from thrift shops.
start sinking in down — be on the lookout for regenerative fashion — something that actually helps to regenerate the planet.

And I’ve saved the best of 2020 for last….

Bee populations are rebounding, up 72% in Maine, and that matters to me, besides enjoying bees in my garden, they pollinate over 100 foods we eat, and, this just in, new research is finding Honeybee venom kills agressive breast cancer cells.

Two newborn whales were spotted off the Florida coast, giving a boost to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale population, and while you may not be a whale-hugger like me, whales boost the phytoplankton population which uses 40% of the world’s CO2. We need to triple our whale populations!

The Ocean Cleanup’s efforts to remove plastic from the ocean have been launched and Garbage has never looked as cool as these Pacific Garbage Patch sunglasses designed by Yves Behar.

And 12 years in the effort, we’ve saved our enviornmental treasure Plum Island — historically Algonquin territory with 227 bird species counted, waters including rare seagrass meadows/fish nurseries and host to grey and harbor seals. Another step toward reversing our climate and wildlife catastrophe. East End take a bow.

May this inspire us all to start good climate lifestyle habits. What’s your Climate Pledge?

Happy 2021!

Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record

David Posnett — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 20:00:03 +0000

Lee Zeldin’s League of Conservation Voters (LCV) score for 2019 was 28%. This seems like an improvement from his scores from prior years, which hovered around 10%, but to put things in perspective: The average Member of Congress score in 2019 was 56%, twice Zeldin’s, and true friends of the environment routinely score in the 90’s or even 100%.

Zeldin’s lifetime score, covering all 3 of his terms in Congress, remains a dismal 13%.

Since our last update, in August 2019, Zeldin voted 5 times to preserve or expand the rights of fossil fuel interests to explore and drill: Off the Gulf Coast of Florida, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, near Chaco Canyon National Park, near the Grand Canyon, and in 200,000 acres of Colorado Wilderness. He also voted to permit seismic air gun blasting (for oil and gas exploration) that harms marine mammals.

Also since our last update, Zeldin voted against closing a loophole in the Clean Water Act that allows companies to discharge unlimited amounts of toxic PFAS (also known as “forever chemicals”) into our nation’s waterways, and Zeldin voted in favor of the Trump North American trade deal that completely failed to address climate change.

On the other hand, since our last update and sometimes in seemingly contradictory fashion, Zeldin voted to ban oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, to impose a moratorium on seismic blasting off the Atlantic Coast, to ban all trade in shark fins and to increase some regulation of PFAS in drinking water and consumer products.

Full details can be found in the linked Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record Spreadsheet. https://www.facebook.com/notes/lets-visit-lee-zeldin/complete-lee-zeldin-environmental-voting-record/1703500749943694/

By Marc Rauch and Suzi Kondic, see post on Facebook

And here is the prior post from 2017:

Complete Lee Zeldin Environmental Voting Record

“Thank you for caring.” The benefits of changing your mind about climate.

David Posnett — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 17:32:08 +0000

Thank You for Caring. Her clear, youthful voice floated up to the trees above us. Sincere words of a college freshman, Ashley Ambrocio, who had stepped up to the mic, smiling, soft brown curls escaping her pulled back hair. It was a Friday noon, about 75 of us were assembled at Southampton Town Hall park, a show of support for students striking world-wide for climate action.

What did she mean? I looked around. We were writers, artists, a retired school principal, a minister, a surfer, a landscaper, a nuclear engineer, gathered for a rally. A white pickup, bannered with Drawdown East End Global Climate Strike, parked earlier in the circular drive, worked as a message-backdrop for our speakers. Dorothy Reilly, Drawdown East End’s originator had scouted the spot, and I had helped color in her lettering. The mostly white-haired crowd was dotted with about a dozen school age kids. They brought home painted signs: Help fight against global warming. Save the environment. Ashley’s was neon pink.

Thank you for caring. I started. Maybe these young people think we don’t care? Our silence. Our inability to focus on climate change. To talk about it. That we don’t care? Not caring, avoiding, doing nothing — will this be our generational legacy?

Her words seemed a wake up call, like one of those hashtags twittering around the globe, communiques from her generation alerting us to the crisis, the urgent need to act — #FridaysForFuture #ActOnClimate — to create conversation, community, connection.

Ashley spoke about the need to talk about the climate crisis. Make it real. I leaned in to catch her words. She sounded upbeat, appreciating our support. That we wanted to do something.

“Staying home and complaining will not change anything, but coming out to these events can,” she said to the East Hampton Star, and to the East End Beacon.

This is Drawdown East End.

Or one sliver of it anyway.

One slice of the pie — a rally, a film festival being planned, a community compost in the works — rays streaming from a central hub, activated by a core concern, the heart of something called Drawdown.

Have you ever read a book or watched a talk that gave you an “aha” moment — changed the way you viewed a situation, helped you solve a seemingly unsolvable problem?

That is what happened to me, and many of us who spoke at that May Friday gathering. A stunning new book has radically changed our view of the climate crisis. Crisis yes, but do nothing? No. Why not see this as an opportunity — to build, innovate and effect change? Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming tells us how.

Yes. Reverse.

Fact: We have existing today methods and practices when scaled up can not only reduce our overload of atmospheric carbon, but draw it down to safe levels. It’s the power of scale.

Drawdown in a Nutshell.

For the curious Project Drawdown complete with useful tedtalks and podcasts, gives a fuller picture of an interlocking and very do-able system. What is Drawdown? My 3-point synopsis:

the point in time where carbon begins to draw down from the atmosphere to safe healthy levels. It is a reachable goal.

a path, a roadmap — 100 top solutions, best-practices and technologies we already use now, when scaled up can achieve drawdown (in two ways: 1) not emit carbon by substitution with clean energy, efficiency, reduction, conservation, and 2) bring carbon overload down and sequestered back into soils.) Actions that can be taken personally, locally, and on a national level that all fit together to reverse global warming.

a philosophy — a new way of seeing. As Hawken says in a NYT interview, “a primary goal” of his research, book, and website “is to help people who feel overwhelmed by gloom-and-doom messages see that reversing global warming is bursting with possibility.” He sees this moment as an invitation to invent and create, to move into a renewable energy economy humming with innovation, and its cascading health and security benefits. Rather than game over, it’s “Game on!”

I didn’t know much about Paul Hawken, the editor who summoned over 200 leading scientists, economists and research fellows to peer-review the 100 reversing solutions, but gardeners know him from Smith & Hawken fame. He is also author of a popular college textbook, The Ecology of Commerce. His compendium of carbon-drawdown fixes complete with benefit and cost analysis is very credible.

Game On.

So a cluster of us are meeting at the Southampton Library to discuss ways to bring Drawdown into our lives. It surprised us to learn that the top 100 solutions are both tech and non tech. Some are focused on wind, solar, building materials and refrigerants (i.e. tech), others, amazed that non-tech fixes are equally important, are delving into the chapters on food, farming and forestry, even, yes, educating girls. (More on this in future posts.)

The exciting part is realizing our personal acts matter. What we do daily can lead to drawdown. It’s a bit like learning a new language, or seeing through a new frame, “through the lens of Drawdown” says Dorothy.

For example, a big piece of the carbon puzzle is food waste. Did you know that in the US we waste 1/3 of our food? Thus reducing food waste is ranked as Drawdown Solution #3 reducing 70.53 carbon gigatons. If we started to reduce our food waste, just by 50%, we would reach drawdown. If we do it better, we reach it faster. Again, the power of scale.

Here’s another big pay off. Once you see drawdown as visible, a reachable goal, how all the dots are connected, the true costs and benefits of our actions and inactions, the power of our purchases, then you can make meaningful choices about how you want to live. You start to see how what you do leads to (or not) drawdown. In many cases you find it’s healthier, cheaper and, you know, kind of fun and creative. Choose a food or energy remedy, make it a habit, tell your friends about it, call it a drawdown solution and, then, see if the millennials in your life, who have so much to lose by our silence and inaction, notice that you care.

Hey, game on!

What can I do?

Talk about it. I find useful Drawdown’s 3 levels of engagement:

1) Personally & with your family – First, talk about the climate crisis, hear about how others are feeling. And while you’re at it, take a stab at reducing your food waste.

2) Community – talk about it, with your friends, in your community. Ask your favorite news-source to cover climate crisis solutions. Actually there is a lot happening locally (including the start-up of a sister Drawdown North Fork.)

3) Worldwide – if you look, you will find lots of good news and conversation including 2040 a new film featuring Drawdown.

Heads up, some upcoming events.

#FridaysForFuture next global strike, Sept 27, 2019

Drawdown Conference at Penn State Sept 16-18, 2019.

Drawdown Learn Conference, Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, NY, Oct 18-20, 2019

Free public series Diving into Drawdown, Rogers Memorial Library, Cooper Hall Board Room, Mondays, September 9, 30, October 7, 28, 2019. Two sessions: 1) Intro into Drawdown 10:30am-11:30am. 2) Solutions Sessions 11:30am -12:30pm. First solution discussion: Energy. Registration is required: www.myrml.org or call 283-0774 x 523.

For more information or to join our discussions: DrawdownEastEnd@gmail.com

The People You Meet Picking Up Beach Plastic

David Posnett — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 13:23:41 +0000

Serenely beautiful, surreal, spiritual.

Three weeks on the sugar-white sands of Tulum, contemplating the sometimes jade, sometimes topaz, sometimes evening blue Caribbean. On days when the sea was perfectly flat and clear you could watch the sting rays and barracudas swimming around. Yes, near you.

My husband swam every day. I sat under a big green shady coconut palm.

Every morning I would pull a bag from my beach tote and for a few minutes collect all the plastics strewn along the high water mark. Mostly straws, cigarette filters, broken colored plastics, an occasional water bottle. I always filled up my bag.

In mid-afternoon our favorite beach vendor would appear. Jorge, the “coconut king” (anointed by an Hawaiian visitor, he told us), would saunter over in his faded cutoffs, straw hat, a bag of ripe cocos hoisted on his shoulder, a short machete in his belt, smiling. Cold coconuts! His secret, he said, was the special inland farm where he carefully hand selected 100 or so cocos each week, storing 20 overnight in his refrig.

I loved his friendly smile, but his most endearing feature, for me, was: he offered bioplastic straws! A big selling point with Americans, he said. Hey, even made in Mexico!

Jorge wasn’t always so environmentally conscious. It was his girlfriend, Alejandra who changed him. He used to smoke, he said, and Alejandra would pick up the plastic filters he threw on the ground. What are you doing that for? he used to scold her. She just kept picking up his filters until finally he started to himself, and eventually quit smoking altogether. He wanted Alejandra to meet us, but she is sick alot. She has chronic asthma.

On the last few days of our stay, I noticed a slim figure in a black bikini also collecting washed ashore marine debris. As she approached us a fellow ran towards her with a huge black bag. For you, here, take this, he offered. I guess it was that tiny bikini.

Of all things, it turns out she was from Southold, 20 miles from my place in Orient. Her main residence is New York, with a business as a sustainable fashion activist directing brands and clients into the circular eco friendly movement.

Standing in paradise, we commiserated about plastic pollution, so much ending up in the ocean. I told her about this new group I’m involved with, just getting started in Southampton: Drawdown East End. I’m in, she said. And I promised to let her know when we start our community outreach and weekly drop-in meetings, upcoming film festivals, etc.

Plastics is one of the top 100 solutions listed in Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.

These 100 top solutions are already working somewhere, proven methodologies, best practices, to avoid, reduce or sequester CO2 from the atmosphere, in other words, drawing down carbon and reversing global warming.

Bioplastic is solution #47. Not to be confused with so-called biodegradable plastics made from petrochemicals, or eco/recycled plastics (plastics made from recycled plastic materials rather than raw petrochemicals), bioplastics are made from all-natural, renewable raw materials, such as corn starch. (California requires labeling, by law, to keep the terms separated, why not New York?) The Drawdown scientists and economists analyzed that the production of plastics will double between now and 2050. Their growth model revealed that an aggressive growth of bio-plastics to capture 49% of the market, could avoid gigatons of carbon emissions (4.9 gigatons in their analysis.) That is why bioplastic is solution #47 out of 100.

On a shoestring budget Drawdown’s Paul Hawken pulled together scientists, economists and research fellows to see if we already had the means and techniques at hand to reduce C02 by halting emissions, conservation, efficiency, sequestration and substituting fuels with renewable clean energy. His inspirational book is a plan, a path, a map, that measures and models growth solutions inviting us all to see climate change as an opportunity. An opportunity to get in on a new fast-growing clean economy, an opportunity for better health, an opportunity for us all to take meaningful actions for a positive future.

One of Hawken’s research fellow talks about the 3 levels of empowerment:

Personal – what you can do personally, with your family and those you influence, to draw down carbon.
Community – what you can do with friends, neighbors, local businesses, non profits, in your community.
National and international – what national policy changes can you advocate and vote for, what’s working in other states, other countries?

I’m inspired to take the next step. I’m looking around to see how I can not only collect marine debris plastic, as I always do, but, in addition, to scale up, use best practices, be part of the solution, i.e. change my plastic habits . They are just habits, after all. I can stop, conserve, substitute. I can stop buying, stop using, I can find substitutions with bioplastics, I can use real stuff.

As I look around, I see so many like-minded others refusing plastics and finding substitutes. I feel empowered by our growing can-do community. I’m empowered by my new knowledge, my power of the purse, my power of personal choice. #StopSingleUse. #ReduceReturnRecycleREFUSE! #UseRealStuff.

Here’s some local, national and international resources and good news:

New Group to Reverse Global Warming: Drawdown East End
Surfrider Foundation Action Page, with a local east end chapter
Plastics Pollution Coalition (PPC), Los Angeles, CA, founded by visual artist Dianna Cohen who at age 17 lost her mother to cancer caused by environmental factors.
Dianna Cohen, visual artist, TED talk
Hawaii First State to Ban Single Use Plastics
Mexican Company Makes Biodegradable Straws
EU Seeks to Ban Micro-plastic Pollution
EU Ambitious New Rules on Plastic
China Plastic Makers Switiching to Biodegradable
Ocean Clean-Up Efforts
Biodegradable vs Bioplastic

Mary Morgan, Orient

For more info: DrawdownEastEnd@gmail.com

Happy Valentine’s Day, Dear Earth, #LoveOurPlanetNotPollution

David Posnett — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 19:04:37 +0000

Some of us have been meeting at the Southampton library to discuss ways we can scale up existing efforts that draw down carbon from the atmosphere, based on the top 100 solutions outlined in the New York Times bestseller Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.

The book’s 100 best practices and technologies measure and model ways we are already substituting fossil fuels with renewable clean energy, being more efficient, conserving, and even sequestering CO2 emissions. It is a matter of scale. The science reveals if we scale up our best practices, big-time, we can roll back greenhouse gas emissions — reverse the buildup of CO2 — reverse global warming by 2050.

There is much laughter at the meetings, and sometimes I tear up. So, we can actually cut the gloom and doom, and see our reality as an invitation to build, innovate and effect change? A pathway for creativity, an opportunity for an economy humming with innovation, for a renewable energy future with cleaner air, better health, more involved communities?

I share this 3 minute video, a positive hi-tech and low-tech overview.

Reading Drawdown I was surprised to learn that top solutions (#3 and #4) have to do with food —what we eat, what we throw away, where we buy our food. Individually, in our families, and as a community, we can make choices that have huge impacts in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

Food waste alone is big (#3), generating 4.4 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year (8% of GHG emissions). Food waste from farm to fork generates emissions at every stage. We Americans throw out 1/3 of our food. If 50% of food waste is reduced by 2050, 26.2 gigaton emissions could be avoided, also avoiding deforestation needed for additional farmland. How? Willful food waste dominates at the consumer level. So then, eat what you buy, make delicious “leftover” soups, buy “ugly” produce, enjoy kitchen creativity — all big CO2 reducers and money savers. I can do that.

On a community level, buying locally and encouraging markets and restaurants to reallocate unpurchased food for reuse by farmers, entrepreneurs, food banks, even business or community composting efforts will reduce GHG. Can’t we do that?

Composting, by the way, is the CO2-smart way to handle any food waste. From backyard bins to commercial operations, composting creates an incredibly valuable fertilizer. Allowing your organic waste to end up in a landfill, absent oxygen, produces the potent GHG methane (34x more powerful than CO2). Note: Copenhagen has not sent any organic waste to landfills in 25 years, reaping savings, fertilizer production and carbon mitigation. Can’t we do that too?

Perhaps the healthiest lifestyle change you can make is not-doing something — what I call the Fish+Farmstand Diet, or Once A Week Red Meat. Surprise: beef cattle are 1/5 of global emissions. Eating the Mediterranean diet, more fish, fruit, veggies, grains, will keep you from heart disease, stroke, diabetes and you will feel great. Source your red meat from silvopasture farms, which reduce methane emissions 10x more than treeless farms (storing carbon in the trees and soil and 0 fertilizer use). From enriching a pasture with trees for shade to grazing in relatively dense wooded areas, Cornell Extensions across the state are helping expand silvopasturing to economically benefit farmers — a win, win, win. Why not silvopasture here?

Finally, the big accelerator for drawing down carbon from the atmosphere, the top #1 solution, is a national effort. Rather than have government subsidize oil companies as we do now, a 2019 bi-partisan bill would provide an economic incentive to substitute fossil fuels with clean renewable energy. Wouldn’t that jump-start be terrific?

Updating here from a previous blog, the bill’s full name is H.R.763 – To create a Carbon Dividend Trust Fund for the American people in order to encourage market-driven innovation of clean energy technologies and market efficiencies which will reduce harmful pollution and leave a healthier, more stable and more prosperous nation for future generations. It is sponsored by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), and co-sponsored by Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL) and 11 Democrats, including most recently Yvette Clarke of New York.

Carbon emissions would reduce 90% by 2050 exceeding the Paris Climate goals and the Clean Power plan. American households would receive monthly dividend checks increasing from $600, $1,400, and $2,600 for each household in the first, fourth, and ninth years of policy implementation. Yes, gas would go up 19 cents a gallon, and a Yale study found that seniors, lower and mid-income and small towns benefit the most financially. The bill is transparent, market-based, does not enlarge government, leaves energy decisions to individual choices, provides thousands of clean energy jobs, cleans the air, and gives us a dividend check, each month, for 30 years. A healthier you chooses how you spend it.

Interestingly, the Green New Deal does not include carbon pricing. As Josh Siegel of the Washington Examiner, noted in “Republican lawmakers face pressure to propose ‘Green New Deal’ alternative” this leaves an opening for Republicans like Mr. Rooney and other Floridians who have taken the lead in co-sponsoring carbon tax legislation.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/republican-lawmakers-face-pressure-to-propose-green-new-deal-alternative

More movement is taking place in Washington, as Madame Speaker Pelosi has reconstituted the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which she had created as speaker in 2007-2011.

H.R. 763 is a well-researched bi-partisan jump-start to reverse global warming and importantly gets our economy humming with innovation. The timing is good now to make it happen and Senators/Congressman needs to hear from you. Call. Write a post card. Write a letter to the editor.

More information on our local Drawdown East End effort to be posted soon!

Mary Foster Morgan

Co-Leader

Citizens Climate Lobby NYS – LI East

Dangerous Men

David Posnett — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 16:32:12 +0000

Bleached Staghorn Coral

By James Ewing (Watermill, NY)

“The GOP Republican party is the most dangerous organization in human history…dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organized human life on earth.”—Noam Chomsky, scholar, MIT.
What are these most dangerous men doing?
Oceans cover about 70% of earth’s surface and support all the planet’s living systems. They regulate weather, temperature, the food web, absorb atmospheric CO2 while producing half of the world’s oxygen. The ocean’s coral reefs maintain its resilience and viability.
In 2016 and 2017, greenhouse gas induced heating and acidification killed about half the corals on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as well as many others around the world.
“So, you take out coral reefs and a third to a quarter of all species gets wiped out…that is ecological chaos, ecological collapse”, says John Vernon, world’s foremost expert on coral reefs. “We’ve got a mass extinction event looming,..more than an alarm bell,” says Veron. “It’s an air raid siren.”
And what are dangerous men doing? Driving our precious estate over a cliff and stepping on the gas.
The GOP party, White House and cabinet officials have essentially denied or ignored the existence of global warming. In 2008 the “No Climate Tax” pledge, signed by GOP’s Americans for Prosperity, declares economic growth shall always override environmental sustainability.
Dangerous men withdrew the nation from the Paris Climate accord which bound the globe together in efforts to halt global warming. GOP leadership were united in their praise.
Fossil fuels account for about 80 % of total climate warming emissions. What do dangerous men do?
Trump’s GOP republican party seeks to overhaul the Clean Power Plan which cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants yielding controls to less restrictive individual states and fast track emissions permitting processes by industry insiders. They repeal the Clean Air and Water Acts; ease restrictions on releasing mercury, arsenic, lead, and carbon monoxide into our air; weaken fuel economy standards; cancel restrictions on super-polluting “glider trucks”; oppose California’s electric car mandate; abandon methane limits on new oil and gas wells; revoke prohibitions on hydrofluorocarbons; expand oil production infrastructure, opening public lands to resource development; weaken the Well Control Rule and allow drilling in 25 of the 26 regions of the entire U.S. Outer Continental Shelf while immunizing extractive industries from compensatory damages; slash funding for renewable energy and efficiency research; remove scientists from advisory positions at the EPA…
“Coral (die-off) is driven by carbon dioxide, unless you stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it’ll go on. There’s no way around it, there’s no alternative… We can’t—as humans—can’t exist independently of the welfare of the planet.”—John Vernon. But is this what dangerous men are thinking? Really? Really?

Those Bothersome Facts

David Posnett — Sat, 04 Nov 2017 21:16:04 +0000

In the age of “alternative facts”, Breitbart and Fox faux news,
we can all make an effort to point out BS when we recognize it! Bravo Nigel, an R&R regular, for his Letter to the Editor of the East Hampton Star Nov. 2nd, titled “Their Facts”:

Last week I attended the presentation of 8 of the Republican candidates for the East Hampton Town trustees. Each one spoke against the offshore wind farm, over which their jurisdiction has no control. In conversation after the event, I was told by one of the candidates, a previous member of the trustees, that the turbines only operated at winds from 10 m.p.h. to 30 m.p.h. This is incorrect. If you think about it, there would be little motivation to build a wind farm with such a small opportunity for success. The turbines rated wind tolerances are 3 to 25 milliseconds, which is 6.7 m.p.h. to 56 m.p.h. I really wish candidates would get their facts correct before they speak.

NIGEL NOBILE

First Evidence That Offshore Wind Farms Are Changing the Oceans

David Posnett — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 17:20:55 +0000

Wind turbines can support vast colonies of marine species in areas where they were previously rare.

by Emerging Technology from the arXiv September 22, 2017

Offshore wind farms are becoming increasingly common in our oceans. In Europe, the goal is for them to supply over 4 percent of the continent’s electricity by 2030. And that’s triggering a wind power boom—the amount of electricity they generate is expected to increase 40-fold by 2030.

Offshore wind turbines are huge—much bigger than their land-based counterparts. They can be over 200 meters tall—twice the height of the Big Ben clock tower in London—and generate up to nine megawatts of power. But most of their mass is in the concrete and steel bases that sit underwater.

Naturally, these bases become home to complex ecosystems. In the North Sea, where most of the European farms are being built, these ecosystems are dominated by blue mussels. These feed by filtering phytoplankton from the water. Mussels are also a food source for other marine animals, such as fish and crabs, and this has the potential to significantly alter the food web.

The geography of offshore wind farms in the North Sea.

And that raises an important question. How are offshore wind farms, and the new colonies of blue mussels they support, changing the oceans?

Today we get an answer thanks to the work of Kaela Slavik at the Helmholtz Centre for Materials and Coastal Research in Germany and a few pals, who have investigated the impact of offshore wind power on marine ecosystems for the first time. Their conclusions are stark—they say offshore wind platforms are changing the nature of marine ecosystems in complex, unanticipated, and beneficial ways.

The team’s method is straightforward. Their goal is to measure the current changes in the marine ecosystems caused by offshore wind farms and then create a computer model that they can use to predict future changes.

The team starts with measurements of the biomass of blue mussels that a typical wind turbine can support—some four metric tons of the shellfish. Using maps of current and planned windfarms in the North Sea, it’s then straightforward to estimate the total mass and distribution of blue mussels supported by wind farms now and in 2030.

That gives an interesting result. Mussel beds are currently concentrated around the coast, but wind farms are offshore. “Once all the planned wind farms are in operation, they will provide habitat for mussels that are equal to 20 percent of the current stock from natural mussel beds along the coast,” say Slavik and co.

The next steps are harder. An important question is how the new mussel colonies will change phytoplankton levels in the ocean. Slavik and co investigate this using water and satellite measurements. But this is complex data that varies significantly from year to year.

Beyond that, the team studies the simulated effect of blue mussels as “ecosystem engineers”—how they support other species in the North Sea.

Their conclusions make for interesting reading. Slavik and co say one important effect of offshore wind farms is that they act as marine preservation areas, because fishing and bottom trawling is not allowed for safety reasons. So these areas can support greater biodiversity than unprotected areas.

Blue mussels themselves also significantly change this environment. They support other species, since their shells and shell litter are habitats for other creatures. The way blue mussels filter feed makes water clearer, and they concentrate nutrients for other species. This increases “the degree of habitat complexity, encouraging a higher level of species richness,” say the team.

One unanticipated consequence of all this is that these new ecosystems can support alien species which would not otherwise be able to gain a foothold. One example is the marine splash midge, which is native to Australasian waters and transported on the hulls of ships. “It has been observed at offshore wind farms in Denmark and along the Swedish Baltic coast,” say Slavik and co.

But the long-term consequences of this change in biodiversity is unknown. “Through these changes in biodiversity, offshore wind farms could shape the marine ecosystem beyond their physical boundaries,” say the researchers.

Mussels are also food for larger species such as crabs and certain fish, which are themselves prey for seals. So it’s no surprise that seals have already begun to migrate to off shore wind farms off the coast of Denmark.

For the most part, Slavik and co are cautiously positive about the changes that offshore wind farms cause, but they are quick to point out that the longer-term effects are still unknown. “Many of the ecosystem feedbacks and hence changes to ecosystem services are yet unknown and need to be studied both in situ and in future system-wide synoptic studies,” they say.

So more work is obviously needed, particularly in other areas where offshore wind farms are planned. The ecosystems that the North Sea support are obviously different from those in other oceans. Just how the platforms will change ecosystems in other parts of the world isn’t clear.

But this study shows for the first time that offshore wind farms are changing our oceans. Clearly, we need to know more about how this will happen.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1709.02386: The Large Scale Impact of Offshore Windfarm Structures on Pelagic Primary Production in the Southern North Sea