1: Use diesel and gasoline powered farm equipment to grow and harvest a sugar-rich crop.
2: Use fossil fuel supplied heat and electricity to operate a cooker, which turns the plants you grew into cattle feed and ethanol.

How to make hydrogen:

1: Obtain methane from fracking or some other fossil source.
2: Process the methane to produce hydrogen.

Both processes use a large amount of fossil fuel, thus releasing a large amount of CO2 into the environment, to make a high density but inherently inefficient, potentially very useful energy source.

How to make green ethanol:

1: Use only electricity to run the farm equipment and ethanol cookers.
2: Make all the electricity using wind and/or solar.
(3 optional: You can use some of the green ethanol to run some of the above two processes.)

How to make green hydrogen:

1: Use electricity to power electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.
2: Make all the electricity using wind and/or solar.

How much of the ethanol we use today is green, compared to the total amount of ethanol? Zero%

How much of the hydrogen we use today is green hydrogen compared to the total amount of hydrogen: 0.04%

Right now essentially zero of the hydrogen used to send rockets into space is green. There is a move to make some of that as green hydrogen. Given the example of ethanol, there is no reason to believe that green hydrogen will ever be the main fuel supply for any ordinary earthling transportation system. However, I’m willing to give it a chance. Let’s first fuel our entire global rocket industry with green hydrogen (wherever hydrogen is used). Then, also, let’s create all the other hydrogen used in industry for things other than transportation (there is quite a bit of that) using green technology as well. Once we are making green hydrogen for all the hydrogen uses, then we can talk about hydrogen being used to fuel some percentage of our transportation industry.

Having said that, hydrogen is of limited use in this area, since fuel cells are inherently inefficient and for other reasons. There is no reason to totally write off hydrogen, but we have every reason in the world to totally write off non-green hydrogen.

Episode 30 – Protecting the Watershed with Megan Bond

Megan Bond has a BS in Public Administration with a Minor in Health Care Adminstration, a J.D. and an M.A. in Public Policy and Leadership from the University of St. Thomas. She began working in water conservation as a teenager in Las Vegas and has found her way into the environmental movement wherever she’s lived, and made environmental policy a major focus of her studies at all levels, even earning the Dean’s Award in Environmental Law in law school. She is an attorney and a solo practitioner at Bond Law Office, in International Falls, MN, concentrating in public interest defense work, including defending 37 water protectors protesting the Line 3 project in 2020 and 2021. She lives on the shores of Rainy Lake near Voyageurs National Park, in the heart of the Rainy River Watershed. Outside of her career, she chairs theDFL Environmental Caucus, chairs the Science and Policy Committee for Voyageurs Conservancy, serves on the Board of Directors of her local Food Shelf, and spends as much time camping in the summers and hiking in the autumns as she can.

CLICK HERE

Episode 31 – The Range, the North Shore And More

This is an overlapping continuation of episode 31, including the part about Silver Bay. Greg Laden and Mike Haubrich spoke a bit more, about our travels and experiences along the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. We also talked about the Iron Range in some greater detail, we talked about the gas fires in a flooded Grand Forks in 1997, how Hibbing had to move for the mines in the 1920’s and how even the mountains in Minnesota are almost flat.

CLICK HERE!

Minnesota Extremist Republicans have not only fought tooth and nail the famous “Walz Checks,” they also left billions of dollars in federal money on the table, a huge state surplus that could be used to fund education, give money back to families, and do other good things, for one reason only: to have a bigger and better hissy fit than otherwise possible.

Demand the extremist Republicans running the Minnesota Senate either do their jobs or step aside. Then, even if they do (they won’t) vote them out in November.

Vote #DFL. For example, these candidates.

Deadline August 19th!!!!: President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is in place “Clean air advocates are trying to get the word out about the U.S. EPA’s 2022 Clean School Bus Program, which offers rebates to help public schools replace up to 25 diesel buses with electric, propane, or compressed natural gas vehicles.” (source) Call your state legislator and see if they are filling out all the forms to get this free money!

The Department of Energy wants to give money to states and tribes to fix up their grids. From Utility Dive:

The Department of Energy on Wednesday started taking applications from states, Native American tribes and U.S. territories to receive federal funding for projects to bolster grid resilience in the face of increasing power outages driven by extreme weather.

With applications due by Sept. 30, the DOE said it will put a priority on projects that will generate the greatest community benefit in reducing the likelihood and consequences of power outages because of extreme weather or other disruptive events like cyberattacks.

The EPA is pushing TVA to build non-fossil fuel infrastructure instead of methane burning plants, to bolster its output. “EPA’s statements, filed last week, are the latest in a tug of war between the federal government and TVA over carbon-reduction efforts. They also follow comments by leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which pressed TVA in January to realign its trajectory to match the Biden administration’s goal of a decarbonized U.S. power sector by 2035” (source)

Starved of interest, another coal mine dies. Ironically named “Sunrise Coal” will not dig its Bulldog Mine, the permit to do so having expired. “Sunrise Coal did not break ground or request an extension, and the land reclamation bond has been returned, signaling a permanent end to the proposed mine.” (source)

San Luis Obispo City Council adopted the county’s first mandatory all-electric building code on July 5, following cities like Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles in passing near bans on natural gas infrastructure in new buildings.

“Starting in 2023, all new buildings in San Luis Obispo will have to be all-electric, with few exceptions. The policy—which has been under discussion in SLO for more than two years—is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector caused by natural gas appliances and their infrastructure.” (source)

I wish. It wasn’t quite that extreme, but nearly so. In certain social settings, a person ranting about climate change, say a decade ago, would be looked at as though they might have a lose screw. Me, for example, at a family gathering. But a few weeks ago, a matriarch in my extended family, whom I might have expected to give me the stern look during one of my own rants, began ranting herself about climate change, and how astonishing it was that people could not see that it is real. I had to get her a glass of water. Times have changed. The big storms have spoken, and American society has listened, and at the very least, the deniers now look like the ones with the loose screw.

However, storms are not the biggest problem with future climate change. Sure, a storm can cause floods that kill hundreds of people. Sure, storms can carve away large sections of the shoreline, including those on which humans have built towns and cities, more so especially as sea level rises. Sure, strong tornadoes can destroy a storm shelter as though it wasn’t there, or pick up a school bus and throw it into a ravine, or whatever they want.

But storms are whiny babies compared to their own mothers, the weather-mother that causes the storms to be worse to begin with, and that will eventually become recognized as the real problem with global warming: heat.

Heat is a problem now. There are regions of the world where, normally, decades ago, people would now and then die, or perhaps just die sooner, because of the heat. Americans hear about heat waves in major cities, during which elders die in dozens. In 2018, 82 North Americans died during a late June and early July heat wave, which also killed 22 people indirectly when the Great North American Derecho plowed through the Midwest and the mid-Atlantic over an 18 hour period from June 29th through June 30th. So right there, we see storms vs. heat, and heat wins the morbid game of death by weather this one time.

Historically, some hundreds (like 500?) of Americans die of heat each year, with a lot of variation across time. But, most of the United States is temperate, most people live in shelters of some sort (houses and such) that give varying degrees of protection, often with air conditioning. With recent global warming, this number has more than doubled, but on a per-capita basis, the United States is not feeling the heat-death that other parts of the world are experiencing.

A recent study suggests that temperature, heat or cold, kills more than 5 million people a year. According to the research, published in The Lancet, just under a half million temperature related deaths are due to heat (more people die of cold). Right now, it is estimated that about a third of these deaths are an upward departure from normal, as the result of global warming, according to a study in Nature Climate Change.

There are large regions of the world where only a major investment of technology will allow people to live during the hot months, and that will eventually have to become human-free. Lots of humans live in those areas. Lowland regions in the middle east, Africa, and the more arid parts of South America for example. Some of these areas are currently sparsely occupied because of heat. But those nearly inhabited regions have few people in them because it is impossible to grow plants or keep animals, mainly. The reason for disinabiting these zones in a decade or so will be because it is simply too hot to not die of the heat, and those no-live zones will expand.

If we have experienced a recent shift in understanding of the importance of, and belief in the existence of climate change across secular society in the United States, the recent storms have to be recognized as part of the reason. In a sense, we can name the cause of this change in perception, and there are really several names: Harvey, Dorian, Michael, Maria, and Irma. Perhaps the increasing realization that heat matters too, and eventually, more, also come with names: Jonathan Gerrish, Ellen Chung, their child Miju and their dog Oski. This was the family that went hiking in California, and then died of the heat while on the trail. They were almost done with the hike, and succumbed to the temperature. In this case, the air temperature was comfortable when they started out the hike, and they brought a couple of liters of water with them. Later in the day, the temperatures soared past 100F/38C. They probably needed a couple or few liters each, rather than less than three for all of them.

This is nothing, right? Three people and a dog died of the heat, compared to a half million or so across the world in the same year. The same summer this family died, hundreds of other Americans, presumably scores of Californians, also died of the heat. The Garrish-Chung family are in the news not because they died or, exactly, how they died, but rather because they were found dead but their cause of death not initially apparent. People seem to die hiking in California a lot, partly because there are a lot of Californians and they seem to spend much of their time hiking or biking on the trails. So, now and then, a lion eats a biker, or a bear mauls a hiker (as happened recently to someone from my fair town in Minnesota, while hiking in Cali). This was yet another death by hiking, but involving a mystery, and the fact that it was an entire family, all the witnesses to this tragedy gone. So we pay attention, and can give death by heat, an increasing phenomenon that will eventually reshape the global configuration of human society, a name.

We are paused, partly because of the comeuppance delivered by Harvey and his windy and wet friends, on the edge of a dramatic shift in action to address climate change. The US Senator representing Coalworld, Joe Manchin has temporarily stopped us in the United States (may he be forever haunted by the ghosts of the Garrish-Chung family), but we will eventually roll over him like dirt-bike on dog shit. We must and I think we will electrify everything, and make that electricity mostly with wind and sunlight. We will regenerate the massively destructive agricultural landscape, experience a global demographic transition that limits population size, and gain control over our waste stream, so instead of it being a waste stream, it is a cradle-to-cradle cycle of stuff.

But only if we keep cool, focus, and fight.

Electric car hate is a cultural phenomenon restricted to only certain geography and certain subgroups. Mainly, American Republicans. Especially Rural American Republicans, who do actually have a point that their vastly spread out sparsely populated regions are not quite eV ready. But they will be, and there is no reason for them to ruin it for everyone else, other than their own desire to be known as royal pains in the ass. (Not sure how one pluralized that.)

For example, in Minnesota, the adoption of a clean car rule, which would enhance access to more choice at the dealer for electric car buyers, was vehemently opposed by people falsely claiming that more eV cars on the lots would raise ICE car prices (not true, not true) or, in one case, more electric cars would cause the starvation and possible death of their children (not true, not true). Minnesota had to fight hard to get that rule instated by an administrative law judge, but it got approved, so Governor Walz can now move forward with this very important thing despite opposition from state Republicans, who seem to have only one purpose in life: to make Liberals cry.

Meanwhile, even as opposition to electric buses comes from climate deniers and pro-bio-fuel advocates alike, Lion Electric of Canada plans to build an electric bus plant in Illinois. Labor unions take note: It will create 750 actual jobs that won’t go away when we turn the petroleum spigot off. Please try to act like you care, because you should care or you should get out of the way.

Sources of microplastic particles include wearing down of tires, the use of synthetic textiles, road paint, the coatings and pain used on boats, and personal care products (roughly in that order) as well as “city dust,” a ‘generic name given to a group of nine sources” including the soles of footwear, synthetic cooking utensils, building paint, cleaning supplies, etc, all with small individual contributions but collectively about 24% of the microplastic particle pollution observed in the ocean. (See this.)

The effects of microplastic particles may be more related to size and shape of the particles, rather than toxicity. (But all these factors matter.) Microplastic particles are mostly made of carbon. Normally carbon gets spread around the environment as part of the photosynthetic segment of the carbon cycle. Microplastic particles now exist in what has become known of as the “plastic cycle.” (See this and this.) Since the nature of microplastic routed carbon is different than “natural” carbon, direct and indirect effects on ecology can occur. Soil structure can be affected (including the spaces where air or water may be trapped in soil). Microplastics in soil can benefit plants, because soil density is lowered, so root growth is easier. However, where microplastics make up a large proporation of fill, plant growth is reduced (see this).

Note that the carbon in microplastic particles is fossil carbon, which prior to the manufacture of the plastic was mostly trapped in petroleum or coal, which in turn is mostly out of the short and medium term carbon cycle. Moving carbon from the long term cycle (which involves processes like continents being subjected into the mantle of the Earth, to be belched out later from volcanoes or added to spreading sea floors) into the short and medium term cycle (such as the cycle affected by human activity to cause global warming) may be important.

Microplastic particle contamination has been associated with changes in the immune system, the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria (in part because bacterial microfilms that cover microplastic particles may favor, or at least contain, resistant forms), and microplastic particles have been found all over the place. Microplastic particles can be a vector moving chemicals between parts of the ecosystem.

See “Microplastic in terrestrial ecosystems” for a fuller review of the effects of microplastic particles in soils and other parts of the ecosystem. It is pretty complex.

We may tend to think of microplastic particles as being a problem because we use plastic containers, which can break down into micro particles. That is true. For example, using polypropylene bottles in the preparation of infant formula releases microplastic particles into the formula itself. But a lot of microplastic particles are introduced directly into the environment because we make and use those small sized particles in a range of applications including agriculture and cosmetics. As a rule where the material being used is less solid, the degree to which it is soluble and thus the ease with which it enters the environment increases. This could allow regulations to be focuses more stridently and more quickly on areas of plastic use and production that have the most effect.

Microplastic particles can be taken in to cells by a process called “internalization” or “endocytosis” (synonyms) (see abstract below). There is evidence that “fresh” microplastic particles are not easily taken in but once exposed to the environment for a while, the surface of the microplastic particles changes, allowing internalization to happen more easily. The effects of the microplastic on the inside of the cell is understudied, but could in some cases be a problem. Microplastics may decrease cellular activity and increase reactive oxygen species, which in turn has potentially serious health effects.

Is this hopeless? Possibly. Can we stop using plastics? Maybe. Can the environment sequester microplastic particles (and thus carbon) naturally? Sometimes and maybe. Developing nations contribute hugely to plastic pollution due to a lack of solid waste infrastructure. Developed nations like the US have a great plastic waste infrastructure, but use so many plastics that the contribution from these countries is still huge (see this). We shed microplastic particles through many activities from feeding one’s baby to driving to the store to buy more forumla.

The fact that microplastic particles are something we ingest, breath in, our that our cells engulf is not itself a novelty. The gas and liquids we exist among are normally full of particles. Many of these particles are polymers, like plastic, but natural (pollen, skin cells, etc.). The problem with microplastic particles isn’t so much that they exist, but that they exist and are subtly, or sometimes dramatically, different than what is normally there, and what we thus normally adapt to. Also, microplastic particles may create a different distribution than what would normally occur (like the frequency in baby formula?). The challenge is to figure out where microplastic particles matter most, and then figure out ways of addressing those problems first and fast. This will also involve figuring out if the best solutions (which is a function of how well the solution works and how likely it is to get it to happen) is a change in specific policies or regulations, or changes in individual behavior. And, of course, we must be cognizant that changes to avoid or reduce microplastic particles do not result in some other negative effect.

This is just a rough, preliminary look at microplastic particles. I tried to include a wide selection of links to recent works, but I’m afraid many may be behind paywalls. But, you should be able to find a lot more by CLICKING HERE.

Additional Info and Resources:
Machado, Et Al. 2018. Impacts of microplastics on the soil biophysical environment. Environ. Sci Technol 52(17)

Abstract: oils are essential components of terrestrial ecosystems that experience strong pollution pressure. Microplastic contamination of soils is being increasingly documented, with potential consequences for soil biodiversity and function. Notwithstanding, data on effects of such contaminants on fundamental properties potentially impacting soil biota are lacking. The present study explores the potential of microplastics to disturb vital relationships between soil and water, as well as its consequences for soil structure and microbial function. During a 5-weeks garden experiment we exposed a loamy sand soil to environmentally relevant nominal concentrations (up to 2%) of four common microplastic types (polyacrylic fibers, polyamide beads, polyester fibers, and polyethylene fragments). Then, we measured bulk density, water holding capacity, hydraulic conductivity, soil aggregation, and microbial activity. Microplastics affected the bulk density, water holding capacity, and the functional relationship between the microbial activity and water stable aggregates. The effects are underestimated if idiosyncrasies of particle type and concentrations are neglected, suggesting that purely qualitative environmental microplastic data might be of limited value for the assessment of effects in soil. If extended to other soils and plastic types, the processes unravelled here suggest that microplastics are relevant long-term anthropogenic stressors and drivers of global change in terrestrial ecosystems.

Ramsperger et al. 2020 “Environmental exposure enhances the internalization of microplastic particles into cells” Science Advances 6(50)
Abstract: Microplastic particles ubiquitously found in the environment are ingested by a huge variety of organisms. Subsequently, microplastic particles can translocate from the gastrointestinal tract into the tissues likely by cellular internalization. The reason for cellular internalization is unknown, since this has only been shown for specifically surface-functionalized particles. We show that environmentally exposed microplastic particles were internalized significantly more often than pristine microplastic particles into macrophages. We identified biomolecules forming an eco-corona on the surface of microplastic particles, suggesting that environmental exposure promotes the cellular internalization of microplastics. Our findings further indicate that cellular internalization is a key route by which microplastic particles translocate into tissues, where they may cause toxicological effects that have implications for the environment and human health.

Rilling and Lehman. 2020. Microplastic in terrestrial ecosystem. Science.

Now imagine going to each and every one of those locations and tearing it down. We don’t need them any more anyway, because we’ve electrified transportation and nobody smokes. Remove the pollution (they are all brown fields, and the government will eventually be charged for this cleanup, so that is where you get your money for this). Remove the above ground structure, remove the pollution, then look at that vacant lot (and the other one one katty-corner across the intersection). Imagine a transit and school bus stop at this location, with an indoor area to keep the kiddies safe during the very hot or very cold days. Imagine a 20 car charging station, a small cafe, and the whole thing is covered with PV panels. (For the entire US that would be upwards of 15,000 mW of generating power.)

That transition would happen eventually, or something like it, but it won’t get far. Do you know why it won’t get far? Because in all its glory and brilliance, the free market is slow and shy and stupid. It will not figure this out fast enough, it will not deploy the changes in time, and when we are about a third of the way through the whole system will collapse because we are being too slow — and too slowed down by deniers and Republicans, Trumpers and Big Oil, dark money and deplorables — to fix it before it fails.

Or, Governors and State Legislators and Presidents and the Congress can just make it happen. Set up a program that buys out gas stations, cleans them up, and inserts them into the new power and transit system. Take care of the job loss, which will be offset by the increase in clean energy jobs, but make that offset work for the victims of progress. Oh, and probably sell lottery tickets at the cafe.

Can we do this please?

Thanks. Get back to me when the blueprints are ready, next week if possible.

No mention of Michael Moore there. This is a Jeff Gibbs documentary.

Michael Moore does have a lot to do with this production, though. He is the executive producer, and he seems to be promoting it. But it is not his baby. It is Jeff Gibbs’ baby. We don’t know how much Moore was involved, or if he’s even seen it. (Well, he’s probably seen it, but did he only see it after it was done?)

Why is this important? For a rather sad pair of reasons. Here they are:

1) Trusted, sincere, carefully done analysis from several different individuals shows us that Planet of the Humans is not a good documentary at all. It borders on dishonest (if not charging across that border several times) and while here and there in the film there is surely an important message or two, the messages are supported with information that is mostly bogus, biased, some kind of balderdash.

2) Many people love and respect Michael Moore and his work, and a large number of individuals have, in my experience, decided that since this is a Michael Moore joint, it must be fabulous, and it must be true.

So, I say this to you, Michael Moore fan: This documentary sucks, but it is OK that it sucks. This is a documentary by Jeff Gibbs, not by Michael Moore. So, it is OK to pay attention to the many voices of critique. Indeed, as my friend Adam Siegel asked me earlier today: “Who is the real victim here? Is Michael Moore a victim of his friend Gibbs’ poor work? Does he know how bad this is? Poor man,” or words to that effect.

Speaking of Siegel, he is the one on-line expert who has gone all meta over Moore. He has assembled a series of posts, the most recent (on top of the list below) being the most comprehensive but all are worth a look, that put together the panoply of critiques of Planet of the Humans. Go read:

Moore’s Boorish Planet of The Humans: An Annotated Collection

Planet Of The Humans: Moore Trouble Than It’s Worth

Distributor pulls Michael Moore’s (@MMFlint’s) #PlanetOfTheHumans due to truthiness & errors

For #EarthDay, Michael Moore (@MMFlint) releases fundamentally misleading film

Sometimes less is more. In this case, Moore is less.