Our intrepid TV newsfolk are fond of comparing daily U.S. COVID-19 death tolls to other disaster numbers.
This week, I've seen or heard the grim stats compared to deaths at Antietam, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, or "12 jumbo jets a day falling out of the skies," as we exceeded each one by Wednesday. Fair enough, but what about other comparisons?
It's not as easy when you're describing whether the latest calved iceberg is the size of Central Park, or all of Manhattan, or even Connecticut. It's harder still since icebergs generally don't shut down beaches or restaurants or kill your Aunt Gladys.
The wrath of climate change could span decades, or even centuries. It won't have the immediacy of shutting down the school year, or postponing the Masters, but it will hurt more, and for much, much longer.
In 1994, Laurie Garrett published
"The Coming Plague," a book that received far more attention than your average science/medical book, which is to say, not much at all.
However, Garrett's book was both masterful and prophetic. Garrett laid out a hellscape of seven-figure death tolls, a crumbling global economy, and social chaos if we didn't pay more attention to things too small to be seen.
At the time, notices like this review from
Eliot A. Cohen in Foreign Affairs abounded: "After reading this work one begins to think a note of hysteria may be justified."
Looking back, some hysteria surely would have helped. But Garrett's book and the alarm calls from journalists and public health experts fell on deaf ears, as they have for a quarter century, and despite real-world body blows from Ebola, H1N1 flu, and more.
I'm not being cavalier about COVID-19. On May 26, it took my mom, and it hurts. But we need to recognize that the world is poised to repeat its dismissal of pandemic warnings with climate change. And the dangers posed by things too big to be reckoned with – our oceans and atmosphere – may not be contained once they're released.
That will hurt a lot more, for more of us, and for much longer.
Peter Dykstra is our weekend editor and columnist and can be reached at pdykstra@ehn.org or @pdykstra.
His views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate or publisher, Environmental Health Sciences.
“It is important to ensure meaningful engagement efforts are inclusive and accessible to all diverse members of our communities.”
BAYTOWN, TX — As Exxon Mobil moves forward with federal re-permitting for its massive petrochemical complex in the Houston area, residents remain frustrated with the lack of accessibility and Spanish-language outreach from the state and company.
At issue is Exxon Mobil’s application for its Baytown Olefins Plant permit, which must be approved by the the Texas Commision on Environmental Quality every five years to continue operations.
The olefins plant — which produces about 10 billion pounds of petrochemical products annually — is part of Exxon’s petrochemical complex in Baytown, which includes the nation’s third-largest refinery. The renewal has been contested by residents and activists due to pollution concerns and 12 consecutive quarters of Clean Air Act violations at the Exxon Mobile Baytown Complex. If approved, the permit would allow the facility to operate for the next five years.
CAMERON PARISH, La. — Late into the night, John Allaire watches the facility next to his home shoot 300-foot flares from stacks.
He lives within eyesight of southwest Louisiana’s salty shores, where, for decades, he’s witnessed nearly 200 feet of land between it and his property line disappear into the sea. Two-thirds of the land was rebuilt to aid the oil and gas industry’s LNG expansion. LNG — shorthand for liquified natural gas – is natural gas that's cooled to liquid form for easier storage or transport; it equates to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in a gaseous state. It’s used to generate electricity, or fuel stove tops and home heaters, and in industrial processes like manufacturing fertilizer.
In the U.S., at least 30 new LNG terminal facilities have been constructed or proposed since 2016, according to the
Oil and Gas Watch project. Louisiana and Texas’ Gulf Coast, where five facilities are already operating, will host roughly two-thirds of the new LNG terminals – meaning at least 22 Gulf Coast LNG facilities are currently under construction, were recently approved to break ground or are under further regulatory review.
Although the U.S. didn’t ship LNG until 2016, when a freight tanker left, a few miles from where Cameron Parish’s LNG plants are today, last year the country became the global leader in LNG production and export volume, leapfrogging exporters like Qatar and Australia. The
EIA’s most recent annual outlook estimated that between the current year and 2050, U.S. LNG exports will increase by 152%.
Allaire, 68, watches how saltwater collects where rainwater once fed the area’s diminishing coastal wetlands. “We still come down here with the kids and set out the fishing rods. It's not as nice as it used to be,” he told
Environmental Health News (EHN).
That intimacy with nature drew Allaire to the area when he purchased 311 acres in 1998. An environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran, he helped lead environmental assessments and manage clean-ups, and although retired, he still works part-time as an environmental consultant with major petroleum companies. With a lifetime of oil and gas industry expertise, he’s watched the industry's footprint spread across Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile shores and beyond. Now that the footprints are at the edge of his backyard, Allaire is among a cohort of organizers, residents and fisher-folk in the region mobilizing to stop LNG facility construction. For him, the industry’s expansion usurps the right-or-wrong ethics he carried across his consulting career. For anglers, oil and gas infrastructure has destroyed fishing grounds and prevented smaller vessels from accessing the seafood-rich waters of the Calcasieu River.
From the view of Allaire’s white pickup truck as he drives across his property to the ocean’s shore, he points to where a new LNG facility will replace marshlands. Commonwealth LNG intends to clear the land of trees and then backfill the remaining low-lying field.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.”
Community bands together
John Allaire, left, purchased 311 acres in Cameron Parish in 1998, and has watched the oil and gas industry's footprint spread to his property.
Credit: John Allaire
During an Earth Day rally in April, community members gathered in the urban center of Lake Charles to demand local oil and gas industries help deliver a safer, healthier future for all. In between live acts by artists performing south Louisiana’s quintessential zydeco musical style, speakers like James Hiatt, a Calcasieu Parish native with ties to Cameron Parish and a Healthy Gulf organizer, and RISE St. James organizer Sharon Lavigne, who’s fighting against LNG development in rural Plaquemines Parish near the city of New Orleans, asked the nearly 100 in attendance to imagine a day in which the skyline isn’t dotted by oil and gas infrastructure.
Not long ago, it was hard to imagine an Earth Day rally in southwest Louisiana at all. For decades, the area has been decorated with fossil fuel infrastructure. Sunsets on some days are highlighted by the chemicals in the air; at night, thousands of facilities’ lights dot the dark sky.
“It takes a lot of balls for people to start speaking up,” Shreyas Vasudevan, a campaign researcher with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told EHN in the days after the rally. In a region with its history and economy intertwined with oil and gas production, “you can get a lot of social criticism – or ostracization, as well – even threats to your life.”
Many are involved in local, regional and national advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Audubon Society.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.” - John Allaire, environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran
But environmental organizers are fighting a multi-billion-dollar industry with federal and state winds at its back. And LNG’s federal support is coupled with existing state initiatives.
Under outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a term-limited Democrat — the state pledged a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Natural gas, which the LNG industry markets as a cleaner-burning alternative, is cited as one of the state’s solutions. Louisiana is the only state that produces a majority of its carbon emissions through fossil fuels refining industries, like LNG, rather than energy production or transportation. Governor Edwards’ office did not return EHN’s request for comment.
This accommodating attitude towards oil and gas industries has resulted in a workforce that’s trained to work in LNG refining facilities across much of the rural Gulf region, said Steven Miles, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP and a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center on Energy Studies. Simultaneously, anti-industrialization pushback is lacking. It’s good news for industries like LNG.
“The bad news,” Miles added. “[LNG facilities] are all being jammed in the same areas.”
One rallying cry for opponents is local health. The Environmental Integrity Project found that LNG export terminals emit chemicals like carbon monoxide –potentially deadly– and sulfur dioxide, of which the American Lung Association says long-term exposure can lead to heart disease, cancer, and damage to internal or female reproductive organs.
An analysis of emissions monitoring reports by the advocacy group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that Venture Global’s existing Calcasieu Pass facility had more than 2,000 permit violations.That includes exceeding the permit’s authorized air emissions limit to release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds 286 out of its first 343 days of operation.
The Marvel Crane, the first liquid natural gas carrier to transport natural gas from the Southwest Louisiana LNG facility, transits a channel in Hackberry, Louisiana, May 28, 2019.
“This is just one facility,” at a time when three more facilities have been proposed in the region and state, Vasudevan said. Venture Global’s operational LNG facility — also known as Calcasieu Pass — “is much smaller than the other facility they’ve proposed.”
In an area that experienced 18 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Laura in 2020 — and just weeks later, struck by Hurricane Delta — Venture Global is planning to build a second export terminal Known as “CP2,” it’s the largest of the roughly two dozen proposed Gulf LNG export terminals, and a key focal point for the region’s local organizing effort.
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” Hiatt told EHN of locals’ nostalgia for a community before storms like Rita in 2005 brought up to 15 feet of storm surge, only for Laura to repeat the damage in 2020. Throughout that time, the parish’s population dipped from roughly 10,000 to 5,000. “But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG. Folks in Cameron think that's going to bring back community, bring back the schools, bring back this time before we had all these storms — when Cameron was pretty prosperous.”
“Clearly,” for the oil and gas industry, “the idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports,” Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana, told EHN.
Helping fishers’ impacted by LNG is about “actual survival of this unique culture,” Cooke said.
In a measure of organizers’ success, she pointed to a recent permit hearing for Venture Global’s CP2 proposal. Regionally, it’s the only project that’s received an environmental permit, but not its export permit, which remains under federal review. At the meeting, some spoke on the company’s behalf. As an organizer, it was a moment of clarity, Cooke explained. Venture Global officials “had obviously done a lot of coaching and organizing and getting people together in Cameron to speak out on their behalf,” Cooke said. “So, in a way, that was bad. But in another way, it shows that we really had an impact.”
“It also shows that we have a lot to do,” Cooke added.
Environmental organizers like Alyssa Portaro describe a sense of fortitude among activists — she and her husband to the region’s nearby town of Vinton near the Texas-Louisiana border. Since the families’ relocation to their farm, Portaro has worked with Cameron Parish fisher-folk.
“I’ve not witnessed ‘community’ anywhere like there is in Louisiana,” Portaro told EHN. But a New Jersey native, she understands the toll environmental pollution has on low-income communities. “This environment, it’s so at risk — and it’s currently getting sacrificed to big industries.”
“People don’t know what we’d do without oil and gas. It comes at a big price,” she added.
Southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish is one of the state’s most rural localities. Marine economies were the area’s economic drivers until natural disasters and LNG facilities began pushing locals out, commercial fishers claim.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” James Hiatt , a Healthy Gulf organizer, told EHN. "But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG."
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
For the most part, Cameron Parish’s life and economy has historically taken place at sea. As new LNG facilities are operational or in planning locally, locals claim the community they once knew is nearly unrecognizable.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
A disappearing parish
The stakes are seemingly higher for a region like southwest Louisiana, which is the epicenter of climate change impacts.
In nearly a century, the state has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion. In part driving the state’s erosion crisis is the compounding impacts of Mississippi River infrastructure and oil and gas industry activity, such as dredging canals for shipping purposes, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said Cameron Parish could lose more land than other coastal parishes over the next 50 years. A recent Climate Central report says the parish will be underwater within that time frame.
On top of erosion and sea level rise impacts, in August, 2023, marshland across southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish burned. The fires were among at least 600 across the Bayou State this year. Statewide, roughly 60,000 acres burned — a more than six-fold increase of the state’s average acres burned per year in the past decade alone.
But while the blaze avoided coastal Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish, the fires represented a warning coming from a growing chorus of locals across the region — one that’s echoes by the local commercial fishing population, who claimed to have experienced unusually low yields during the same time, according to a statement from a local environmental group. At the site of the Cameron Parish fires are locations for two proposed LNG expansion projects.
"The idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports.” - Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana
It was an unusual occurrence for an area that’s more often itself underwater this time of year due to a storm surge from powerful storms. For LNG expansion’s local opposition, it was a red flag.
As the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has noted prior, the confluence of climate change’s raising of sea levels and the construction of LNG export terminals — some are proposed at the size of nearly 700 football fields — are wiping away the marshland folks like Allaire watched wither. Among their fears is that the future facilities won’t be able to withstand the power of another storm like Laura and its storm surge, which wiped away entire communities in 2020.
Amidst these regional climate impacts, LNG infrastructure has shown potential to exacerbate the accumulation of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. For the most part, LNG is made up of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among the 22 current LNG facility proposals, the advocacy group Sierra Club described a combined climate pollution output that would roughly equal to that of about 440 coal plants.
The climate impacts prompt some of the LNG industry’s uncertainty going forward. It isn’t clear if Asian countries, key importers of U.S. LNG, will “embrace these energy transition issues,” said David Dismuke, an energy consultant and the former executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. Likewise, European nations remain skeptical of embracing LNG as a future staple fuel source.
“They really don't want to have to pull the trigger,” Dismukes added, referring to Europe’s hesitation to commit more resources to exporting LNG from the American market. “They don't want to go down that road.”
While there will be a tapering down of natural gas supply, Miles explained, “we’re going to need natural gas for a long time,” as larger battery storage for renewables is still unavailable.
“I'm not one of these futurists that can tell you where we're going to be, but I just don't see everything being extreme,” Dismukes said. “I don't see what we've already built getting stranded and going away, either.”
For now, LNG seems here to stay. From 2012 to 2022,U.S. natural gas demand — the sum of both domestic consumption and gross exports — rose by a whopping 43%, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Meanwhile, in oil and gas hotbeds like Louisiana and Texas, natural gas demand grew by 116%.
Throughout 25 years, Allaire has witnessed southwest Louisiana’s land slowly fade, in part driven by the same industrial spread regionally. Near where the front door of his travel trailer sits underneath the aluminum awning, he points to a chenier ridge located near the end of the property. It’s disappearing, he said.
“See the sand washing over, in here?” Allaire says, as he points towards the stretches of his property. “This pond used to go down for a half mile. This is all that's left of it on this side.”
BAYTOWN, TX — Mientras ExxonMobil avanza en la reautorización del permiso de operación federal para su enorme complejo petroquímico en el área de Houston, los residentes siguen frustrados con la brecha de accesibilidad y divulgación en español por parte del estado y la compañía.
Sobre la mesa está la aplicación del permiso de ExxonMobil para su planta de Olefinas de Baytown, que debe ser aprobado por la Comisión por la Calidad Ambiental de Texas (TCEQ por sus siglas en inglés) cada cinco años para que la planta continúe operando.
La planta de olefinas— que produce 10 mil millones de libras de productos petroquímicos anualmente — es parte del complejo petroquímico de Exxon en Baytown, que incluye la tercera refinería más grande del país. La renovación ha sido impugnada por residentes y activistas preocupados por la contaminación y por los 12 trimestres consecutivas de violaciones de la Ley del Aire Limpio por parte del complejo de ExxonMobil en Baytown. Si se aprueba, el permiso permitirá que el complejo industrial opere durante los próximos cinco años.
Además de la contaminación, los residentes han expresado su preocupación por el acceso de la comunidad a la información sobre reuniones y permisos, especialmente para los residentes hispanohablantes. El censo de los Estados Unidos estima que el 52,2% de la población de Baytown es latina y el 44,8% del condado de Harris habla español. Esa tasa es mayor en las comunidades que bordean a la industria en el Canal de Navegación de Houston, y alcanza hasta un 68% en algunas localidades.
En la noche del 6 de mayo hubo una reunión pública, la segunda en varios meses, para que los miembros de la comunidad hicieran llegar sus comentarios o preguntas a ExxonMobil o a la TCEQ.
En la reunión primera reunión, los residentes de la comunidad expresaron su preocupación porque el aviso de la reunión no se publicó en español en el sitio de la TCEQ. La abogada de la TCEQ, Amy Browning, dijo que precisamente la nueva convocatoria se debió a que la agencia no había “publicado (el aviso de la reunión) en español electrónicamente en el sitio web”.
Además de que el aviso original de la reunión no fue publicado en español, Deyadira Arellano, representante de Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services, o TEJAS, señaló que en ambas reuniones las diapositivas de Exxon relacionadas con las operaciones de su planta no estaban traducidas al español. En la reunión de esta semana, Exxon se acercó a ella en el período de descanso y ofreció enviar diapositivas en español a su correo electrónico. Sin embargo, Arellano dijo que su frustración se dirige a la TCEQ.
Record temperatures and severe weather conditions have been reported across continents, with significant impacts on populations and infrastructure.
Climate scientists link these unprecedented patterns to an 11-month streak of global warmth, exacerbated by human-induced climate change and natural cycles like El Nino.
Floods, heatwaves, and abnormal climate conditions have resulted in deaths, disruptions, and substantial economic impact globally.
Key quote:
"Climate change is loading the weather dice against us in every part of the world."
— Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for the Nature Conservancy
Why this matters:
This surge in extreme weather not only challenges our current infrastructure but also poses severe risks to health and safety. Understanding and adapting to these changes cannot be overstated as they represent a direct consequence of global warming, and could lead to even more severe climate phenomena if current trends continue. Read more: We must adapt to climate change. Can we do it in ways that solve other problems too?
Local advocates are urging President Biden to create new national monuments in order to meet his administration's conservation goals, but the push has encountered resistance from some locals in the region.
The Owyhee Canyonlands are one of the last intact sagebrush habitats in the Western U.S., spanning around 7 million acres across three states.
Threats to the region include invasive species, mining, and suburban development, leading advocates to push for national monument designation to protect the area.
A coalition is working to urge President Biden to use the Antiquities Act to protect 1 million acres of the canyonlands, but legislation faces political hurdles.
Key quote:
“National monuments really are the most effective tool that we have as a country to protect biodiversity and ward off this extinction crisis.”
— Kate Groetzinger, communications manager for the Center for Western Priorities
Author Madeleine Orr highlights the irony of sports organizations supporting climate-damaging companies while athletes suffer the consequences of climate change.
FIFA partnered with Aramco, a major fossil fuel emitter, despite environmental evidence linking the sports industry to the climate crisis.
Orr’s book, Warming Up, illustrates how sports are impacted by climate change, from melting snow affecting winter sports to extreme heat threatening athletes’ health.
Orr emphasizes practical steps to reduce climate impacts, like better heat protocols and moving away from fossil fuels in sports.
Why this matters:
As climate change accelerates, its effects on health and the sports industry are undeniable. Addressing these challenges is essential to safeguard not only the sports industry but also public health on a broader scale. Read more: How youth can battle extreme heat in their communities.
Sylvia Earle has led more than 100 oceanic expeditions and continues to inspire global conservation efforts.
Mission Blue, her NGO, has identified 162 critical “hope spots” in the ocean, needing immediate protection.
Earle emphasizes the interconnectedness of marine life, urging collective action to prevent further environmental decline.
Key quote:
“What gives me hope is the kids coming along and the knowledge that’s changing the way people think. Maybe it’s not as fast as it should be, but it is accelerating.”
— Sylvia Earle, oceanographer and marine biologist
Why this matters:
Ocean health is crucial to human survival, yet it’s under threat from climate change, pollution, and overfishing. Sylvia Earle’s insights highlight the importance of protecting marine ecosystems for the well-being of our planet and future generations. Read more: The muddy waters of US ocean protection.
