[GWSG] Kemper caper; GIGO; environmental stressors; both sides foolishness; targeting food systems; sweaty, stingy trees

[Tilley, Al]

1. The Southern Company's coal plant in Kemper County, Mississippi, was to have demonstrated that cheap lignite coal could be used for power with low emissions through carbon capture and sequestration. Last year the project was abandoned. For five years the Southern Company knew the project was doomed but the laws were set up to allow them to pass the billions of dollars in costs on to customers, taxpayers, and shareholders, so they kept it going. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/02/clean-coal-america-kemper-power-plant



2. Coincineration produces power by burning trash along with coal. The power from burning waste often counts as renewable energy, but the noxious pollution is higher, and the carbon emissions not much smaller, than from burning coal. https://theconversation.com/garbage-in-garbage-out-incinerating-trash-is-not-an-effective-way-to-protect-the-climate-or-reduce-waste-84182 "Waste to power" looks like another shuck, along with carbon-capturing coal plants.



3. Russian propaganda works to destabilize American society by increasing conflict. Environmental issues are among their tools. https://grist.org/article/russian-trolls-shared-some-truly-terrible-climate-change-memes/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily



4. The notion is often aired that both liberals and conservatives in the US are guilty of neglecting arguments based on the reasonable interpretation of observations, so that both sides are to blame for climate failures. It is common wisdom, a position taken by such public figures as Steven Pinker and Nicholas Kristof, but it is false. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/mar/05/stop-blaming-both-sides-for-americas-climate-failures



5. Food systems are responsible for about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. "For the sake of comparing emissions, if food waste were its own country it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, after only China and the United States." Ruth Khasaya Oniang'o observes that to cope with climate change we must begin to shape food systems which serve us better. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/05/why-what-we-eat-is-crucial-to-the-climate-change-question



6. Eucalyptus trees subjected to a heat wave sweated to control their surface temperature, and greatly reduced their carbon consumption. Climate models will need to be adjusted to recognize that forests will cease to become as active as carbon sinks when temperatures climb, if the study is an accurate general picture. http://www.jacksonville.com/news/20180305/research-raises-questions-about-trees-reaction-to-climate-change As a matter of local pride I would like to recognize that Steven Patterson's story is on the front page of today's Florida Times-Union, reporting the work of an international research team including the U of N Fl's Michael Aspinwall.?

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