Google Street View Cars Are Mapping Methane Leaks in US Cities

Contrary to what Scott Pruitt thinks, carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to climate change. But it's not the most potent greenhouse gas. That's methane. And small leaks of it are spilling out of gas lines all over the country.

Finding the leaks, however, is another problem. So researchers from Colorado State University (CSU), in partnership with Google Earth Outreach, have equipped Google Street View cars with infrared methane detectors to find leaks in cities around the country so they can be repared.Their project is described in a new paper published in Environmental Science and Technology.

Methane is emitted from natural gas, and has 80 times the warming power of carbon over a 20 year timeframe. Gas line leaks in cities are particularly pernicious, because they lie underground and can go unnoticed for decades. If only 8 percent of the largest leaks in the US were fixed, methane emissions would fall nationwide by 30 percent. But most utility companies and local governments don't have the resources and time to find them.

"That's where we come in," said Joe von Fischer, lead researcher and biologist at CSU in a statement. "Our goal is to make it faster, cheaper and easier to find and measure methane leaks from natural gas lines to help accelerate crucial repairs."

The Google Street View cars "see" methane plumes in real time using an infrared laser methane analyzer. Methane shows up like fog clouds in the infrared spectrum. The four equipped cars currently underway have already mapped 11 cities, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Staten Island, NYC. Boston and Staten Island, with their old corrosive pipelines, were the most flatulent.

It's interesting that the project is using greenhouse gas emitting vehicles to find leaks of greenhouse gas emissions, but at least they're making use of cars already out on the road and not new ones.

from Google Street View Cars Are Mapping Methane Leaks in US Cities

Trump’s EPA Cuts Mean Massive Layoffs, Dirty Water and Toxic Chemicals

Trump repeatedly calls upon the importance of safety in his new budget blueprint, released to Congress today, but apparently he doesn't see protecting America's citizens from toxins and disease as a part of our wellbeing.

To offset a proposed $54 billion spike in defense spending, the White House has suggested deep, sweeping cuts across the rest of the federal government. The hardest hit department would be the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—which would lose over 30 percent of its current annual budget and 3,200 employees.

These budget cuts, former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy told Motherboard in an interview, "could have a really significant impact on public health over time, and frankly even in the near term."

The $2.6 billion in cuts would hamstring the ongoing environmental science research that the agency is involved in, like understanding the toxicity of compounds, the distribution of harmful contaminants, and identifying new pollutants.

Read More: All the Ways the Trump Administration Has Already Screwed the EPA

The EPA "is out there to provide the science that public health professionals in the states need to make better decisions," Thomas Burke, environmental scientist and former Deputy Health Commissioner of New Jersey, told Motherboard. "It's very short sighted to shut down the science and then to wait around for the public health emergencies."

In addition to general cuts, the budget would eliminate all funding to the Clean Power Plan—the Obama-era regulations designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants—and all funding to climate change research and international climate change programs.

This shouldn't come as a surprise given the administration's aggressive ignorance on climate science: Administrator Pruitt doesn't think carbon dioxide is a contributor to climate change, despite scientific consensus.

The budget would also shave off $330 million from the Superfund Account. This is money that would otherwise be used to clean up and restore hazardous waste sites. As of 2014, there were 1,322 such sites in the United States.

The administration does propose a slight increase in spending on drinking water infrastructure, offering up $4 million to the State Revolving Funds, a program meant to prevent drinking water-crises like the one in Flint, Michigan.

This is at direct odds, however, with the administration's ongoing attempts to roll back the Waters of the US Rule, which protects drinking water sources for 117 million Americans. The costs of treating polluted water sources would far outstrip this meager increase.

Read More: Trump's EPA Cuts Will Make These Bloodsucking Monsters Very Happy

It also doesn't fit with the budget's proposal to close down funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. That project aims to clean up the largest system of surface freshwater in the world, the Great Lakes, which provide drinking water to millions of Americans. In 2014, Toxic algal blooms in Lake Erie creeped into residents' drinking water in Toledo Ohio, filling it with deadly cyanotoxins. Without this project, and EPA's funding, those crises are likely to become more common.

In a public statement released today, former administrator McCarthy called the budget proposal and "all out assault on clean air, water, and land."

"You can't put 'America First' when you put the health of its people and its country last," she said.

from Trump’s EPA Cuts Mean Massive Layoffs, Dirty Water and Toxic Chemicals

Obama's EPA Head Is Very Worried About Our Health

With the election of Donald J. Trump as President, the Environmental Protection Agency got a boss that views it with contempt—even calling to dismantle it entirely. Motherboard called up former Obama-era EPA administrator Gina McCarthy—who helped orchestrate two rules Trump is already trying to undo: the Waters of the US rule and the Clean Power Plan—to wrap our heads around what this means for our environment and health.

MOTHERBOARD: The necessity of the EPA has been under heavy scrutiny lately. The President has proposed billions of dollars in budget cuts—why is the EPA so important?

Gina McCarthy: You know people don't really understand that we really are all about public health. It's not about how many acres of open space did we save. We are frontline in terms of their ability to get clean air and clean water. You know we're the ones that got lead out of gasoline so that our kids could actually think when they got to school. It's so fundamental to life for us.

I think [budget cuts] could have a really significant impact on public health over time and frankly even in the near term. I don't think that anyone can really argue that we have found the magic bullet to keep our environment as clean as it is or to address the more complicated challenges like climate change moving forward, with fewer people, and with almost half of the scientists that are basically part of that cut as well.

One regular argument by opponents of the agency is that it's "redundant" and most of its tasks could be taken over by the states. Is this something that is actually feasible?  

There's no way in which states have the kind of technical expertise and resources that EPA has. You simply can't duplicate that at the State level. And so the answer is an easy no. When there is a problem [states] call EPA. We do the sampling, we do the analysis, we tell them how to clean it. Frankly, states don't have the resources.

Second—pollution doesn't respect boundaries. It would be ridiculous to think that you could address air pollution and water pollution problems by keeping that within the borders of the state. I just don't see it at all. I think it's a dangerous formula and it will fail.

President Trump signed an executive order instructing EPA to begin dismantling and replacing the Waters of The US rule, arguing that it's unlawful, and a job killer. What does this clean water rule actually do to protect our drinking water?  

Simply put, it protects the waters that provide our drinking water as well as our recreation and our fisheries. We identified what waterways work together in order to protect the downstream drinking water supplies for 117 million people. You know half of the rivers and streams that were contaminated when the EPA came around, remain contaminated. So we haven't made the progress in water that we would've liked.

Also in the crosshairs of this administration is to rollback the Clean Power Plan—a rule aimed at drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Could undoing this block EPA from fulfilling its directive of protecting public health?  

The thing that people need to realize is that climate change has direct public health implications. It can impact whether or not we can deliver clean air and clean water. You're talking about heat related disease as well as cold. With extreme warm air, comes more ozone. With ozone, comes more public health impacts. More kids having more asthma attacks. More respiratory diseases. Tell me the great public health benefits of having NO water, because you're in drought, and your wells have run dry?

Lastly, all the talk about staff cuts, and budget cuts surely must be having an impact on morale. How does this kind of an atmosphere affect the ability of the agency to do its job?  

I'm hoping they're doing ok. I think if the budget can be resolved—these are all adults—and many of them have been through changes before. But I think what they're going to want to look for is whether or not the leadership above them, Scott Pruitt and the president, really embrace the mission of the agency.

I knew there was a lot of political rhetoric during the Trump campaign about dismantling EPA and some of these protections. Frankly, I hoped saner heads would prevail, and that when they got there they'd realize what we do for a living. And how important it is. And how many lives we save. And how it's really about our kids health and well being. Not about whether the business community is inconvenienced.

from Obama's EPA Head Is Very Worried About Our Health

All the Ways the Trump Administration Has Already Screwed the EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has long been in the crosshairs of conservatives, who see its regulations as anathema to economic growth. During his campaign, Donald Trump declared: "We're going to get rid of it in almost every form."

Reminder: he's talking about the agency that reduced US air pollution by 70 percent since 1970, and gave us the Safe Drinking Water Act so you can drink from your tap without getting E.Coli.

As the president and his new administrator gleefully strip away "redundancies" and "job-killing regulations", they risk undoing the agency's ability to carry out its main purpose: protecting public health. Here's how Trump has weakened the EPA so far:

Appointing Scott Pruitt

Trump's first blow to the EPA was appointing a lifelong enemy of the agency as its administrator. As Attorney General of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt took part in 14 lawsuits against the EPA on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. He's also weak on science: the administrator doesn't think carbon dioxide is a contributor to climate change, despite scientific consensus.

Silencing EPA Employees

EPA employees were feeling the pressure even before these proposed cuts. Days after Trump's swearing in, the agency's public communications went dark for a month, in compliance with a White House gag order.   

Executive Orders

Trump signed an executive order in February instructing Pruitt to begin taking down the Obama-era Waters of the US Rule (WOTUS). The clean water rule, implemented in 2015, aims to protect the nation's small water bodies that provide 117 million Americans with drinking water.

"What's the most basic thing about protecting your drinking water?"  asked Thomas Burke, environmental scientist and former Deputy Health Commissioner of New Jersey. "Looking upstream and making sure you don't have bad things coming downriver affecting the millions of people downstream. It's common sense."

This week, Trump directed the EPA to undo the Obama administration's Clean Car Rules. The rule's standards are expected to increase the country's average automobile mileage to over 50 miles per gallon and save consumers almost 2 trillion dollars.

Trump and Pruitt will also try to take down the Clean Power Plan, which aims to curb emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants 32 percent by 2030. Pruitt doesn't recognize greenhouse gases as harmful to public health. The Supreme Court, however, does.

Proposing Budget Cuts

More dangerous to the EPA, however, are the dramatic cuts to the agency's budget outlined in Trump's so-called "skinny-budget" proposal. In it, the president proposes cutting the EPA's annual budget from $8 billion to $6 billion, and firing 1 in 5 employees. This would shrink its staff from 15,000 down to 12,000. The cuts would also take away from the agency's research into toxic compounds and contaminants.

"People don't know that we [EPA] really are all about public health," Gina McCarthy, former EPA administrator, told Motherboard. "You know we're the ones that got lead out of gasoline so that our kids could actually think when they got to school."  

from All the Ways the Trump Administration Has Already Screwed the EPA

EPA Head Scott Pruitt Doesn’t Think CO2 Contributes to Climate Change. He’s Wrong

The Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said this morning that he doesn't believe carbon dioxide is a primary contributor of climate change.

On CNBC's "Squawk Box," in Houston, Pruitt responded to a question about carbon dioxide and climate change by saying—as if it were a matter of debate—"I would not agree that [carbon dioxide] is a primary contributor to the global warming that we see."    

This view, coming from the mouth of an individual that made a career fighting clean air and water regulation on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, and who, took part in 14 different lawsuits against the very agency he now leads, should not be a surprise. But it is wrong.

Pruitt's view is profoundly at odds with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who earlier this year released data showing 2016 to be the warmest year on record, breaking the previous record set the year before in 2015.

It also grates against the consensus of nearly 97 percent of the global climate scientific community, which asserts that climate change is not only driven by human activity, but is fueled heavily by carbon dioxide. Administrator Pruitt's office was not able to be reached for comment.

Read More: United States of Climate Change Denial

But this is hardly out of character. As Oklahoma's Attorney General, Pruitt was chummy with the fossil fuel industry, even having energy companies draft letters for him to sign that he could then funnel off to the federal government in attempts at staving off environmental regulation. Pruitt also manned the helm of the 27 state lawsuit against the EPA over President Obama's signature emissions fighting legislation, the Clean Power Plan.  

The administrator has balked at the groundbreaking Paris Climate Agreement, through which nearly every country on Earth has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, saying that it was "a bad deal." Even now, he's busy at work packing his administration with climate change skeptics. Meanwhile, Secretary of State and former chief executive of Exxon Mobil Rex Tillerson, however, believes that the U.S. needs to stay in the agreement.

Pruitt is an administrator who came waltzing into his position arm and arm with the fossil fuel industry and riding the coattails of a president who believes climate change to be a hoax. That this man rejects the basic tenets of climate science should not be taking anyone's breath away, but it should have everyone on high alert.

from EPA Head Scott Pruitt Doesn’t Think CO2 Contributes to Climate Change. He’s Wrong

The Brazilian Government Is Voting to Deforest Even More of the Amazon Rainforest

When Spanish conquistadores first trundled upon the edges of the Amazon rainforest, they believed they were glimpsing a virgin landscape, untouched by man, apparently not paying much attention to the peoples that lived all along the river. It's a view that has persisted for centuries since, but it could not be further from the truth.

An expansive international study of Amazon tree species in the journal Science has revealed that trees domesticated—i.e. managed, used and maintained—by indigenous peoples have dominated large expanses of wilderness long before 1492. Unfortunately, the president of Brazil, Michel Temer, and the minister of Civil Office, Eliseu Padilha, are considering a proposal to end protection of around one million hectares of wilderness in the Amazon rainforest, potentially putting many numbers of these tree species, and the people who rely on them, at risk.

From 2012 to 2015, deforestation in Brazil ratcheted up by 75 percent. The protected parcels that the current President wants to open up, known as Conservation Areas, are located in Amazonas State.

"Amazonas state has the largest contiguous portion of forest in the Amazon," Cristiane Mazzetti, a Greenpeace Amazon Campaigner in Sao Paulo told Motherboard over Skype. The Conservation Areas in question, she said,  "are so important as barriers there, because they're stopping the expansion from the south," of land grabbers and illegal activity.

The forest also serves as protection. Many of the 85 domesticated tree species the international team of ecologists surveyed, like cacao, acai, and brazil nut, are still of vital importance for the livelihoods of Amazonian peoples. After analyzing 1000 different tree surveys from across the Amazon basin, the team found that these domesticated trees were five times more common than their non-domesticated counterparts.

"This lays to rest the long-standing myth of the 'empty Amazon'," said ecologist and coauthor of the study Charles Clement of Brazil's National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), in a public statement. "This study confirms that even areas of the Amazon that look empty today are crowded with ancient footprints."  

Even so, it stands to lose those footprints at the hands of industrialization and greed. Amazonas State alone suffered from a 54 percent increase in deforestation in 2016.  "Deforestation is increasing again, and instead of taking actions for combating it, the government is giving an incentive for more," said Mazzetti.

The revelation that ancient domesticated tree species still vital to many Amazonian peoples' livelihoods are widespread throughout the rainforest highlights another layer of irresponsibility and shortsightedness in the wanton destruction of the Amazon.

from The Brazilian Government Is Voting to Deforest Even More of the Amazon Rainforest

Scientists Just Confirmed The Hottest Day In Antarctica

A Rose Is Still a Rose, Even When It's A Supercapacitor

Swedish scientists working on creating electric plants, have turned a rose into a capacitor, an electrical storage device similar to a battery. It's capable of holding the same amount of energy charge in its stem, petals, and leaves as supercapacitors used in cars.

This system could potentially be used in agriculture or horticulture— the electricity harvested from a plant could power devices that control that plant's fertilizer or water intake. How practical that would be, however, is still hard to tell at this stage of the research process.   

Scientists at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at Linköping University in Sweden have been tinkering around with frankenstein roses for the last couple years, and recently made some big strides. They created a conductive polymer solution that the rose soaked up and ferried throughout its vessels with its own natural fluids. The conductive material was transported even into the tips of the flower's petals and leaves. The polymer solution, spread in strands throughout the plant, acts like a system of wires, creating a ready made, electrically conductive rose. The research was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The supercapacitors that we manufactured in the  structure of the plant can be charged hundreds of times without losing their performance," Eleni Stavrinidou, lead author of the study, told Motherboard in an email. The plant can, she said, power some of their small lab devices now.

The researchers used a rose because of its woody tissue. This helped with some logistical aspects of the experiment, but also, Stavrinidou noted that they would hope to try this in trees someday and "the vascular system of a rose resembles the ones of trees."

Why turn a plant into a device capable of storing energy? Scientists studying it believe there are practicable applications for electric plants, like creating autonomous energy systems that can optimize plant functions and growth. Capacitors store their potential energy in an electrical field, where batteries do so in chemical form.

"We can use the energy stored in the plant to power up low power devices that can deliver chemicals in the plant and control its growth," said Stavrinidou.

The research still has miles to go however, so it'll be some time before christmas tree farms have firs that grow themselves. In the meantime, the concept of  "electric plants" still sounds like a Radiohead album to me.

from A Rose Is Still a Rose, Even When It's A Supercapacitor

Trump Ordered the EPA to Overturn Clean Water Rule

President Trump locked in his crusade against the punch-drunk Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today, signing an executive order aimed at unraveling the expansive 2015 rule known as the Waters of the United States rule, put in place by former President Barack Obama.

The executive order has no immediate legal effect, but instructs the new EPA administrator Scott Pruitt to begin repealing and rewriting the sweeping rule that is designed to protect American waterways from pollution. It comes on the heels of a proposal to cut funding to the EPA by billions of dollars and to waive thousands of its staff.

This is reportedly the first of two executive orders expected to come out of the White House this week targeting EPA rules. The other is set to take aim at President Obama's landmark climate change rule, the Clean Power Plan.

The 2015 Waters of the United States rule was the result of an extensive effort by the Obama administration to expand the federal government's authority to protect the nation's rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands from pollution. For decades, authorities struggled to protect larger bodies of water like the Chesapeake Bay, Mississippi River and Puget Sound, because they had muddled authority over many of the small water bodies flowing into them. As a result, these tributaries carried fertilizer discharges and other kinds of pollution from agriculture and fossil fuel extraction into the larger bodies.

By stretching out the umbrella of the 1972 Clean Water Act, Obama and former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy were able to secure protection of almost 60 percent of the nation's bodies of water. But it happened  without the approval of a Republican-controlled Congress. The rule would require farmers or companies to obtain federal permission before they used certain fertilizers, for example, if their land was near a stream or wetland.     

The rule provoked the ire of the fossil fuel industry, pesticide and fertilizer makers, and farmers who contended that it would stifle economic growth. The American Farm Bureau Federation led a lawsuit against the rule in 2015 arguing that it puts an extra burden on farmers to have to get a permit to use certain fertilizers if they're near water. It has been log jammed in the legal process since. A federal court has delayed the rule while judges review the legal challenges against it.

President Trump's executive order today instructs EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, and the Army Corps of Engineers to review the rule and to "rescind or revise" it, as "appropriate and consistent with the law." It also directs newly appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ask the Supreme Court to put the case on hold.

The president's order, however, has no legal authority over the rule itself, and is simply a nod to Pruitt to begin the circuitous legal process of dismantling it, which could take more than one term to see through. To get rid of it, the administrator would have to go through the same rulemaking process that put it together, meaning notice and comment periods and probable legal battles.

Richard L. Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University told the New York Times that the order is akin to "a phone call or a tweet. It just signals that the president wants it to happen."

For his part, however, Pruitt may enjoy the legal labyrinth he must navigate to successfully undo the rule. The ex-attorney general of Oklahoma has been a longtime adversary of the EPA and has taken part in over 14 lawsuits against the agency on behalf of the fossil fuel industry.

from Trump Ordered the EPA to Overturn Clean Water Rule

Republicans Want to Take the Public Out of Public Lands Decisions

Congressional Republicans are set to kill a rule next week that has given the American public more power over how its 250 million acres of public lands are used. The rule was supported by their own party for many years.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM)is tasked with deciding on which parcels of land different activities like grazing, mining or drilling should be allowed. But in the past, many parties, like ranchers and hikers, had been largely left out of the decision-making process resulting in costly lawsuits. So the BLM came up with the Planning 2.0 rule, which aims to increase "opportunities for early engagement by state and local government, Tribes, partner agencies, stakeholders, and the public."

"We were getting a tremendous amount of feedback particularly from western constituents, that our processes were too cumbersome, too long, not transparent enough," Jesse Juen, a retired BLM State Director from New Mexico, told Motherboard. He spent 32 years with the agency and now is President of the Public Lands Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the protection of public lands.

"What we wanted to do was engage with a more collaborative process right up front. Before we even say 'ok we're going to do a plan,' actually just get out there with everybody and say 'what is it you want to see." he said.

Planning 2.0 is widely supported by early adopter counties—many of whom are heavily Republican. Indeed, the rule came about in part because of many Republicans' calls for a change in management practice of public lands planning. Yet, in a strange turn of events, Republicans in Congress have decided to destroy the rule with the Congressional Review Act, an arcane but powerful tool that would not only overturn it, but make it impossible to reinstate the idea.
The reasons House Republicans have given for overturning the rule match those for implementing the rule in the first place. Republican Representative Scott Tipton of Colorado, a leading sponsor of the effort to smother 2.0, said in a public statement that he was "deeply troubled" that the BLM didn't "provide an opportunity for meaningful public involvement during the development of its Planning 2.0 rule."

"The rule," he wrote further, "would increasingly shift decision-making ability from those local communities and their local BLM officials to unelected bureaucrats in Washington."

But in a hearing before the House Committee of Natural Resources, Chuck McAfee, a third generation farmer and landowner in Southwest Colorado, spoke in support of the threatened rule. He suggested that local politicians were more concerned about jockeying for power with the federal government than to heed the voices of their constituents who supported the rule.

"I'm a local and I'm concerned," he said. "I'm a life member of the local chapter of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. We want our voices to be listened to and heard."

Juen said people in the western US are often frustrated that lawmakers in Washington, who often have no experience on the ground, sometimes make decisions against the will of the people. "There are some genuine concerns," he said.

But he contended that these concerns could easily be addressed and remedied by the BLM, and that using the CRA to nullify the rule is counter productive. "I do believe that's a political motivation."

What that motivation is exactly, remains unclear. Phil Hanceford, policy expert at the Wilderness Society, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the nation's public lands, told Motherboard in a phone call that it's  "a knee-jerk reaction to rules finalised by the previous administration," he added. "That's it. This should be a non-issue."

The CRA is so powerful that it had only been previously used once successfully since 1996. Under this current Congress, however, Republicans have already used it twice to undo stream protection and fossil fuel transparency rules.

The Western Governors Association, which represents the governors of 19 Western states, has been critical of aspects of the rule, but even so, recognizes the folly of using the CRA to scrap it. It sent a letter to Congress in early February asking them to hold off.

"The Congressional Review Act is a sledgehammer," said Hanceford. "To the extent that there are problems with the rule, the CRA is the worst thing that could be used" to fix them, he said.

from Republicans Want to Take the Public Out of Public Lands Decisions

If Trump Cares About Jobs, He’ll Stay in the Paris Climate Agreement

One of the Greatest Cosmic Mysteries Was Solved By David Shoemaker’s Device

Rural Communities Are Losing More Forests Than Urban Ones

Republicans Vote to Allow Killing of Wolves and Bears on Refuges in Alaska

Riverkeeper Marty Baum Is Out to Stop Florida's Algae Apocalypse

NYC Will Continue to Drown in Plastic Bags For the Foreseeable Future

If you live in New York you know about the plastic bag problem. Walk down a city street in late February, after months of spotty trash pickup due to inclement weather, and you will be hard pressed to find a tree that isn't covered in plastic bags. It's become such a fixture of the city, that the New Yorker published an illustration last year of a plastic grocery bag waving proudly atop the Empire State Building's needle.

This will not be changing anytime soon. New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo—under pressure from the Republican controlled state legislature—signed a moratorium this week nixing New York City's proposed five cent plastic bag fee, just hours before it was scheduled to take effect. The Bring Your Own Bag Law, as it is called, has been part of a larger effort by the city to curb the 9 billion plastic bags wasted each year. That amounts to nearly 91,000 tons of plastic trash.  

"While New York City's law is an earnest attempt at a real solution, it is also undeniable that the city's bill is deeply flawed," Cuomo said in a public statement. One conflict, he said, is that the five cent fee would go to businesses as profit. He argued the possible $100 million per year made from the fee should benefit the city or state instead of merchants.  

According to state law, New York City can't levy taxes on its citizens without approval from Albany. The rule was an attempt to circumvent that, but despite the city council voting to adopt the law after a lengthy two year process of hearings and public debate, Albany intervened anyway.

The state's move is in keeping with the current dismantling of environmental regulation by Republicans at the national level, who, in the last couple weeks, have wielded an arcane act to vanquish rules regarding stream protection and fossil fuel transparency.

New York City councilmembers released a public response to the moratorium saying "Carryout bag fees are the right policy—that's why they have been adopted in cities from Washington, DC to Seattle, the entire state of California, and in countries from Ireland to Israel to South Africa."

Plastic bags are "stubborn and toxic forms of waste," they argued, adding that "they never biodegrade, so they pollute our trees, oceans, and landfills forever. And they are hard to dislodge from the state legislature, too." Cities like San Francisco that have implemented plastic bag fees and bans have seen as much as 90 percent reduction in plastic bag waste.

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, who signed off on the plastic bag fee, called the moratorium a "mistake" during an interview with NY1 on Tuesday night. He lamented that the rule was designed to change people's behaviors when it came to using plastic bags, but that "Now we have a status quo that's not going to get us anywhere."

Cuomo, for his part, acknowledged the terrible toll that plastic bags take on the environment and taxpayers wallets for their cleanup, but insisted that "It is a statewide challenge. As such, a statewide solution is the most appropriate way to address this issue."He said he will be forming a task force to assess plastic bag waste and come up with such possible statewide legislation on the matter by the end of the year. The earliest the state could make any move on modifying, authorizing or repealing it is January 1, 2018, after the November elections that fall.  

In the outer boroughs of New York that have lower skylines, you can sometimes pick out the errant plastic bag gliding through the air hundreds of feet above rooftops, like a magic carpet. For now, it looks like the bags are going to remain a part of the skyline.     

from NYC Will Continue to Drown in Plastic Bags For the Foreseeable Future

The Trump Administration Is Getting Sued Over This Bee

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a non-profit conservation advocacy group, is suing the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Interior Department, and the directors of both agencies over one of President Trump's executive orders, which has delayed the first bee from being put on the Endangered Species List. The NRDC filed the lawsuit today in New York saying the delay is "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion" and illegal, and that the bee should be listed as originally planned.

President Trump originally signed the order on January 24, directing government agencies to freeze and review a broad array of environmental and health rules previously issued by the Obama Administration, for the following 60 days or longer.

Trump's order prevented the USFWS from following through with its plans to put the rusty patched bumble bee, a once abundant and critical pollinator of the US, on the list on February 10. Once a species is added to the Endangered Species List, the federal government becomes immediately responsible not only for the protection of that species and its habitat, but for restoring its populations to healthy and vital levels so that it can eventually be removed from the list.

For the rusty patched bumble bee, this means creating more patches of the prairie habitat it needs to forage, as well as putting out nest boxes on the edges of woodlots and hedgerows to promote hive growth.  

In explaining the delay, USFWS posted a rule change to the US Federal Register, the daily public-facing journal for federal agencies, saying that it would place the bee on the list on March 21st, when Trump's freeze lifts. But conservation groups are not convinced this will happen based upon this administration's apparent disdain for environmental legislation of all kinds, and Republicans' historic desire to want to roll back the Endangered Species Act.

"[It] is an opportunity for the Administration to reconsider and perhaps revoke the rule entirely. So we're concerned."

"We don't know if this is just a freeze," Rebecca Riley, Senior Attorney for NRDC, told Motherboard in a phone call before the lawsuit was filed. "What it is, is an opportunity for the Administration to reconsider and perhaps revoke the rule entirely. So we're concerned."

Rusty patched bumble bees are yellow with black-tailed abdomens and a little "rusty patch" on the back of their middle abdominal segment, earning them their name. They'recritical pollinators of wildflowers as well as important crops like tomatoes, cranberries, apples, and plums.

Once so common in the Eastern and Midwestern United States that they were nearly considered a nuisance, the bumble bee's population has now plummeted nearly 90 percent in the last 20 years. Heavy use of pesticides, wholesale clearing of their habitat, and the spread of disease from non-native, commercial bees, have contributed to their precipitous decline.

Conservation biologist Rich Hatfield, of the Xerces Society, a nonprofit dedicated to invertebrate conservation, underlined the significance of this drop to Motherboard: "This was a once really common animal that was distributed across 28 states in the US and it's begun to disappear. So it's not like it this is a small, obscure insect that only lives in one place."

Last October, The Washington Post published an article that claimed that "the bees you're more familiar with," the "ones around your yard making honey and pollinating crops," are, in fact, "doing just fine."

While that might be a comforting thought, the problem with this is that they were referring to commercial honeybees, which are not native to North America, and do not prop up the continent's native ecosystems. "Our native bees are what provide pollination everywhere else," said Riley.

It's also wishful thinking. Honeybees are, in fact, struggling under the pressure of many of the same problems afflicting wild species.

"All the evidence out there is that this administration is unabashedly in support of industry at the expense of natural resources."

Plus, Hatfield explained that having a wide array of pollinators is critical for a resilient, healthy ecosystem and food security. The more kinds of pollinators you have, the less of an impact things like disease have on the process. "Diversity is a good thing," he told Motherboard on the phone. "We have a wide range of agricultural crops, that are dependent on pollinators—which provide one out of every three bites of our food."

The White House's freeze on pending regulations is actually fairly common practice for an incoming administration. But, according to Riley, "this isn't just any administration."

"All the evidence out there is that this administration is unabashedly in support of industry at the expense of natural resources," Hatfield said.  

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from The Trump Administration Is Getting Sued Over This Bee

Republicans Want to Let Oil Companies Waste Gas on Public Lands

For the past couple weeks, Republicans in Congress have been wielding an obscure but powerful tool known as the Congressional Review Act to expunge recent Obama-era environmental regulations from the books. Stream protections and fossil fuel industry transparency rules have been guillotined. Next in line is a rule requiring oil and gas companies drilling on public lands to capture and reuse wasted methane from their drills—a measure designed to save taxpayers tens of millions. It's been overturned in the House of Representatives, but has yet to go up for a vote in the Senate. And as both houses of Congress are now Republican-majority, it's likely to meet the same fate. 

In November of last year, the Bureau of Land Management finalized a rule known as the Methane and Waste Prevention Rule, that directs oil and gas companies to capture flared natural gas and leaked methane emissions from drilling operations on public and tribal lands. Unintentional leaks, and the venting or burning of excess gas from wells, spews as much as $1 million of natural gas into the air every day. Methane makes up about 90 percent of natural gas.

The agency argued that since these companies are drilling on public lands, they must not unnecessarily waste a resource that belongs to the public. $330 million of natural gas is lost annually, which amounts to about $23 million in tax royalty revenue that could be used for schools, healthcare and infrastructure funding. One study showed that the rollback of this rule could deprive American taxpayers $800 million over the next decade.

"This is the American people's gas that they should be getting royalties for, and instead it's being wasted," Josh Mantell, energy expert at the Wilderness Society, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the nation's public lands, told Motherboard.

"This is the American people's gas that they should be getting royalties for, and instead it's being wasted."

Lost gas is also a major environmental and public health concern. Between 174,000 - 180,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year are churned out of wells on public lands in the form of waste gas—the equivalent of almost 950,000 vehicles putting around the road. Chemicals in wasted natural gas also lower air quality and can exacerbate serious respiratory conditions like asthma. Other components, like benzene, are known carcinogens.

Congressional Republicans pushing for the rule's undoing contend that the perceived benefits in tax royalties are far outweighed by the costs of implementation, and that wells will be forced to shutter as a result.

Referring to the BLM's number of $23 million in tax revenue lost each year, a spokesperson for GOP Congressman Rob Bishop of Utah, a leading proponent of killing the rule, told Motherboard in an email that "They got that benefit, or supposed benefit, by using a natural gas price that hasn't been seen in years."

"If you look at natural gas prices, the actual additional royalties returned would be somewhere between zero and $3.8 million," she said, adding, "likely closer to the former once you factor in the reduction in tax revenue that would come about due to all the shut-in wells caused by this rule."

In 2014, however, Colorado started capturing wasted methane and natural gas on its own, and not only did it drastically reduce emissions and bring in tax royalties, but it in fact increased oil and natural gas production. "Methane is a product we sell, so it's in our business interest as well as in our general interest as environmental stewards to make sure every molecule goes into the sales line," John Christiansen, a spokesman for Anadarko Petroleum Corp. told Bloomberg back then.

A survey of the oil and gas industry in Colorado by the Center for Methane Emissions Solutions found that seven out of ten companies believe that the benefits of the rule outweigh the cost. This support matches that of the public as well—the most recent poll, conducted by Colorado College, found that 81 percent of westerners support cutting gas waste on their public lands.     

Much of the opposition to the rule has come from the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry in the United States. "Pretty much their entire philosophy is that oil and gas are good, period. And therefore should not be regulated," Mantell said in a phone call. "It doesn't matter what regulation that is," he continued, "we see it no matter what happens. Whether it's Clean Air Act issues, Clean Water Act issues—even some of the regulations that came out of the Deepwater Horizon accident were trashed by them."

In a letter sent to party leaders in the House of Representatives, the President of API implored them to overturn the rule, citing what it referred to as the rule's "unnecessary requirements" that it claimed would result in the shut-in of a number of currently producing wells, reducing federal revenue and taking away affordable energy from American homes.  

"The rule is a step backwards for US energy policy and all Americans who benefit from domestic energy production," he wrote.

Democratic Congressman Rául M Grijalva, of Arizona, told Motherboard that it was clear the motivation behind Congressional Republicans' desire to sack the rule was one of money. "The motivation is primarily to reward their wealthy friends and donors from the oil, gas, and coal industries," he said.

Referring to the stream protection and transparency rules nixed in both houses of Congress last week, he added, "I'm a little surprised that they're being so shameless about this – in one week they voted to dismantle protections for clean air, clean water, taxpayer revenue, and transparency."

The arcane mechanism that republicans have used to devastating effect on these rules, the Congressional Review Act, was created in 1996, but is so powerful, that it has previously only been used once. The CRA allows Congress to void a rule—with a simple majority, and no filibustering or amending—within 60 days of its implementation. But its effects are more lasting than that. Once undone, the agency that implemented the rule is not allowed to propose one like it ever again.

"It's a terrible precedent," said Congressman Grijalva, "and we're going to see it happen all over the place as Republicans act like a bull in a china shop during the hopefully short period they have this power."

Vote in the Senate on rule's future could happen as early as next week.  

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from Republicans Want to Let Oil Companies Waste Gas on Public Lands

Unusually Hot or Cold Days Don’t Say Anything About Climate Change

Anyone who's lived in a cold weather city is familiar with those rare, but glorious one-off days where the temperature suddenly spikes and people on the street start to crack smiles for the first time in months. A 60 degree February day in New York, for example, when disgruntled pedestrians normally looking like ticks about to pop, all bundled up in jackets and scarves, all of sudden start strutting around in jean jackets. The next day or a couple days later, it's back to looking like ticks.

In the late spring or early summer when this phenomenon occurs it is decidedly less pleasant, because it means the temperature is swinging the other way. But it happens all the same. A sudden cold snap, maybe a few snowflakes, and downcast eyes looking at the ground.  

These days, whenever phenomena like these occur, there is always a certain portion of the populace that thinks it's either because of climate change, or is proof that climate change doesn't exist. Well, the answer is neither. (For the record, it will certainly never be "proof climate change doesn't exist," because man-made climate change—as agreed upon by 97 percent of climate scientists—is very much real, and dangerous). The real answer for why these weird days occur is simple: because of weather. And weather is not the same as climate.

"There's an old saying that climate is what you expect and weather is what you get," Elisabeth Gawthrop from the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, told Motherboard. "Weather is the day to day, and climate is the average condition of a region over the long term," she said. "I think most people conflate weather with climate."

In other words, weather describes the conditions on a specific day, in a specific area. It's the stuff that makes you decide whether to put a jacket on, or to carry an umbrella. Climate is what determines where you might live—like the Mediterranean because it's mostly mild, or if you like cross country skiing, Northern Alaska, because it's mostly cold.      

Gawthrop also pointed out that a good way to understand this difference is to look at the different ways in which weather and climate are measured, modeled and described. Weather is measured on a scale of minutes, hours and days, whereas climate is measured on a scale of many years, decades, or more.

Another way to look at this is to picture a graph of stocks over a period of decades. It's going to be a zigzagging line that follows a general trend of up or down. Whether it's going up over time or going down over time, the line still contains individual peaks and valleys where the stocks rose or fell based on the day. That's like weather and climate. Weather is like the rise and fall of stocks day to day, climate is the trend over years.

So next time some joker tries to use a snowstorm or cold snap to say that climate change isn't real, sit them down and gently explain the difference between weather and climate. Don't rip their heart out.

from Unusually Hot or Cold Days Don’t Say Anything About Climate Change

NOAA Is Worried Its Funding Will Evaporate Under Trump

With both NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in President Trump's crosshairs, climate change deniers in the White House and Congress wishing to gut research on the topic will also be looking toward the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which oversees a lion's share of the federal government's climate change research. There are already troubling signs indicating the direction the agency is headed.

Kenneth Haapala, leading policy expert for the Heartland Institute, a right wing think tank notorious for spreading climate change skepticism, appears to have been a part of the Trump transition team for the Department of Commerce, which includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—one of the federal government's main agencies for climate change research.

After a letter sent to Trump on January 24th from Democratic congressmen expressing concern over Haapala's role in NOAA's transition, the administration has said he is no longer a part of the team. The details of his involvement are unclear, but concerns remain for NOAA employees.

"In the past, [the Department of] Commerce hasn't concerned itself overly with NOAA operations," a NOAA affiliated researcher who wished to remain anonymous told Motherboard. "Now nobody knows what the new situation is going to be."

"People are politically aware at NOAA and are concerned," she said.

Haapala has a masters in economics but no academic training in the natural sciences. He has accused the federal government of trying to expand its power under the guise of climate change legislation that he says is based upon "flimsy science," and fear mongering.

After becoming aware of Haapala's presence on the transition team, Democratic Congressmen Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona crafted a letter imploring President Trump to remove Haapala from this position.  "He certainly does not understand or appreciate NOAA's mission and therefore is unfit to serve in any capacity that oversees operations or personnel decisions at the agency," they wrote.

"The work NOAA does is too important to public safety and the economy to allow ideologues like him to meddle with the agency and its scientists," said Rep. Grijalva in a public statement.

The lobbyist group fills its coffers with deep-pocketed donations from some predictable sources like the Koch brothers—famous conservative donors. A leak of documents in 2012 also revealed that the think tank tried to pay a science communication consultant to the Department of Energy to push a curriculum in K-12 schools that depicts climate change as controversial.

In 2012, the think tank ran a billboard campaign in the Chicago area equating believers of widely held climate science with terrorists and murderers like the Unabomber, Charles Manson and Osama bin Laden. When criticized over the signs, it doubled down, saying: "The most prominent advocates of global warming aren't scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen."

After initial reports of the January 24th letter and Haapala's connection to the Department of Commerce came out, an anonymous official from the Department contacted the McClatchy news network and said that Haapala was no longer on the team. The official wasn't able to say when exactly he departed.  "From inauguration on forward, he has not had a role," the official said.  

A few days later, though, Haapala made it sound like he was still active in the transition process when he defended himself from Democrats' calls for his removal in his weekly newsletter. "Daring to confront conventional thinking has its own responsibilities and penalties," he wrote.

Last Tuesday, the White House, which had previously been silent on the issue, told McClatchy Haapala no longer had a role in the transition. As of when is still unknown.

"Our understanding is that he is no longer involved with the transition but that he was at the time we sent our letter," Rep. Grijalva, told Motherboard via email. "Hopefully we helped apply the pressure needed to get him out of there."  

Perhaps as a sign of the times, Grijalva isn't holding out much for a peaceful NOAA future. "I am hopeful that Haapala's presence – and departure – was the end of the attacks on NOAA, but I am not optimistic," he said, adding "If the folks who are widely reported to be Trump's science advisors (including climate deniers William Happer and David Gerlenter) end up inside the government, that will be bad news for NOAA scientists."

NOAA employees and affiliates remain on alert about the future of climate change research under a Trump administration. The organization has a $5.8 billion annual budget, with $190 million of that going to climate research, but has long struggled with lack of funds. Many researchers are worried these could shrink even further. The Department of Defense, by comparison, has an annual budget of over $580 billion.

"The problem is that we're starting out from a deficit in terms of funding," the researcher told Motherboard. "People are used to doing more with less, but that only works up to a certain point. People are concerned."  

The researcher pointed out that whoever is in charge cannot erase the data collected in the past, thanks in large part to NOAA's tendency to proactively publish its data online where the public can view and download it. "Those data are out there in the world in a way that can't be rescinded," the researcher  said. "The danger is continuing that data collection into the future is at risk depending on who's in charge."

from NOAA Is Worried Its Funding Will Evaporate Under Trump