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?

Cost of Green Energy

David Posnett — Fri, 12 May 2017 02:25:31 +0000

By Don Matheson, East Hampton

Mark Harrington reported in Newsday, on May 7, 2017, about the demands from “ratepayers, lawmakers, and industry groups,” to know the exact cost of the green energy program announced by Governor Cuomo and LIPA. This is analogous to demanding to know the final score of an upcoming Yankee game before deciding to buy a ticket. Obviously, like any procurement program on this scale and spread over numerous years, the exact cost will not be known until the Requests for Proposals are issued and answered.

But there are strong indications that claims that the sky is falling are misguided. LIPA did evaluate, in the case of the 90-megawatt offshore wind program off Montauk, the proposed cost, in competition with proposals for fossil fuel options, and the wind proposal was the winning bidder. LIPA/PSEG’s Integrated Resource Plan, on page 14, has shown a cost comparison based on previous price quotes of between 12 and 16 cents per kw for both large scale renewable power and large-scale fossil power plants. They are now at virtual parity.

Further, technological innovation in fossil plants is mature, so costs are not expected to drop on that side, in contrast to renewables. Within the last month, bids of 6 to 7 cents/KW have been seen for renewables in places where the industry is advanced.

Further, nobody could possibly answer these long-range cost questions for fossil fuels, as the cost of fuels varies on a daily basis, so LIPA would need to guarantee purchasing power from a fossil plant for many years without knowing the cost. Wind and sun are free, so costs for renewable technology can be known on the front end, when RFP’s are issued.

Finally, the whole reason this transition to renewables is happening is that we now know that continuing to burn fossil fuels will exact devastating costs on society in the form of rising seas, storms, droughts, acidification of the ocean, and catastrophes too numerous to list here. What has changed is that the price for renewable energy has dropped precipitously as economies of scale and technological innovation have kicked in,

Long Islanders, who are already making choices about land that must be surrendered to eroding shores, should buckle their seat belts. The most heavily subsidized and most profitable business in the world, the fossil fuel industry, will fund numerous PR campaigns, armies of lawyers, and wholly-owned politicians to defend their profits from clean energy in the years ahead.

fossil fuel – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Dangerous Men

Cost of Green Energy