I’ve been giving some year-end thought to some of the undeniably bright signs amid the relentlessly gloomy news.
Here are three examples.
Fusion
Fusion? How cool is that? The Holy Grail of energy production may actually be taking its first credible steps forward. It’s been 33 years since the last big fusion announcement, and that one turned out to be a whopping, top-to-bottom hoax by a pair of grifting college professors.
This time, with the imprimatur of the U.S. Department of Energy, it seems more real but decades off. And rightfully, not without skeptics. Remember when fracking was hailed as a “bridge fuel?”
Declining denial
Some key Republicans may be showing signs of melting on the party’s strict and monolithic climate denial. Even Kevin McCarthy, whose brazen chase of the House Speaker’s chair has seen him kowtow to the farthest right elements of the GOP, is said to be open to at least discussing carbon reduction – as long as we can drill, baby drill.
Brain breakthroughs
There are precious few of us whose families haven’t been touched by Alzheimer’s. Recent headlines suggest breakthroughs in both understanding and treating this scourge (usual skepticism applies).
So, amidst the wildfires. bomb cyclones, cancer clusters and pandemics, the hope is out there. But you can address the problems until somebody figures out what they are.
A goodbye
It’s been 27 years since Pete Myers co-wrote the book that brought wide attention to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Since then, the news and science sides of his operation have helped bring to light emerging problems like bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides, BPA, phthalates, glyphosate and many more, while training a generation of environmental scientists.
EHN’s recent journalism has focused on the spreading problems associated with that “bridge fuel” from fracking, and the enormity of the plastics problem.
This is my last column on my last weekend after eleven and a half years at Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate.
These sites were two of Pete Myers’ many brilliant ideas, and they still are. Thanks to Pete, Douglas Fischer and the whole team for allowing me to continue to be hell on wheels for the past 5 and half years. But the world is changing and I’m already a little past the standard retirement age.
I’m proud to have had a hand in hiring Brian Bienkowski, our superb editor. He in turn had a hand in hiring Kristina Marusic, who has turned out to be a star reporter.
Sorry to see me go? I strongly suggest you send a message to these folks by donating to them. If, on the other hand, you’re happy to see the end of my weekend bloviating, I strongly suggest you send a message to these folks by donating to them. The news we deliver and the science behind it is only going to get more important. And more prescient.
I’ll still be doing my public radio stuff with Steve Curwood on Living On Earth, so listen for me there. Or reach me on Twitter, such as it is these days, at @pdykstra or email peterdykstra@comcast.net.
Peter Dykstra, editor, weekend review
Peter Dykstra was our weekend editor and columnist — and one of the funniest and smartest people we know.
While his views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate, or publisher Environmental Health Sciences — his spirit, wit and curiosity do, so this is not the last time you'll see him on our pages.
President Biden's plan to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument overlooks the perspectives of Micronesians and Samoans, according to a new study.
Biden's proposal aims to expand protected waters to 770,000 square miles and designate it as a national marine sanctuary, creating the largest non-contiguous protected ocean area in the world.
While the administration has talked extensively with Native Hawaiians, Indigenous Pacific Islanders, particularly Micronesians and Samoans, feel excluded from decision-making processes and economic benefits, a new paper reveals.
Authors Villagomez and Steven Mana’oakamai Johnson argue for inclusive policies and funding to support affected territories.
Key quote:
"The proposal is problematic because it has failed to meaningfully include the Indigenous people who live closest to the region and who have the strongest historical and cultural ties to the islands."
— Angelo Villagomez, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and Steven Mana’oakamai Johnson, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at Cornell University.
Why this matters:
The expansion of this marine protected area could have significant environmental benefits, such as preserving biodiversity, protecting endangered species and mitigating climate change impacts. In the context of accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss, protecting such vast ocean spaces is crucial. However, for generations, Micronesians and Samoans have sustainably managed these waters, relying on a profound understanding of local ecosystems passed down through centuries. Excluding their input not only risks cultural erasure but also overlooks practical conservation insights rooted in lived experience.
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.”
Project Phoenix, led by UCLA and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, involves over 300 volunteers observing birds to study their response to wildfire smoke.
Wildfire smoke may force birds to alter migration routes, impacting their health and reproduction.
The initiative is expanding from California to Oregon and Washington, with data collection running through November.
Key quote:
“There’s an urgency here to figure out more about what’s going on and how we can help birds in this tumultuous time.”
— Olivia Sanderfoot, Project Phoenix lead.
Why this matters:
By tracking bird populations, Project Phoenix aids scientific research and raises awareness about the broader implications of wildfire smoke on ecosystems. The insights gained could inform conservation strategies and public health policies, ensuring both avian and human communities can better navigate the smoky realities of our changing climate.
Increasing wildfires, driven by climate change and poor forest management, are leading to more smoke-related health issues.
Vulnerable groups, like the elderly and those with preexisting conditions, are particularly at risk from the short-term and long-term effects of smoke.
Wildfire smoke contributes to the cumulative air pollution burden, even affecting remote areas and stalling progress on clean air improvements.
Key quote:
“For every death and heart attack, you’ve got 10 times more people needing to see a GP or needing to go to a pharmacy. You’ve got 100 times more people with symptoms missing work, kids [missing school], so the ramifications … are quite big.”
— Fay Johnston, professor at the University of Tasmania in Australia.
Why this matters:
The increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires lead to more severe air pollution, exacerbating health problems like respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and affecting large populations, including vulnerable communities. Read more: Carlos Gould on wildfire smoke and our health.
Chile’s ambitious green hydrogen strategy faces opposition as conservationists worry about its impact on the Magallanes region's bird sanctuary and ecosystems.
Chile aims to become a top green hydrogen exporter, leveraging the Magallanes region's renewable energy potential.
Conservationists warn that extensive wind farm development could harm Bahía Lomas, a crucial site for migratory shorebirds.
The region's diverse ecosystems and endangered bird species are at risk from poorly planned hydrogen projects.
Key quote:
"We value hydrogen as a possible option of decarbonization, we’re just alerting about the way it’s being aggressively promoted and developed, particularly in this region."
— Diego Luna Quevedo, specialist in policy and governance for Manomet Conservation Sciences.
Why this matters:
Advocates for green hydrogen argue that this initiative could position Chile at the forefront of sustainable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fostering economic growth. However, conservationists are voicing concerns that the construction and operation of green hydrogen facilities could disrupt the local wildlife, particularly the bird populations that the Magallanes region harbors.
Climate change is prompting some cities to market themselves as safe havens from extreme weather, but experts question their ability to truly offer protection.
Buffalo, New York, markets itself as a "climate refuge" due to its moderate climate and low risk of extreme weather events.
Other cities like Duluth and Ann Arbor are also positioning themselves as climate havens to attract residents fleeing harsher climates.
Experts warn that no city is immune to climate change and stress the need for adaptation and infrastructure investment.
Key quote:
"I'm not saying climate change is going to be good for Buffalo, or Buffalo is going to be an oasis. We’re not an oasis, we suck less.”
— Stephen Vermette, professor of geography at Buffalo State University.
Why this matters:
As climate change worsens, more areas will become uninhabitable, pushing people to relocate. Marketing certain cities as climate havens could strain their resources and infrastructure, potentially leading to new challenges in those areas.
A report reveals Scott Sheffield, former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources and his son Bryan, have significantly increased their political contributions primarily to Republican candidates, following a Federal Trade Commission decision barring Scott from ExxonMobil's board.
Scott Sheffield – the head of a Texas oil and gas empire– and his family have donated over $6.2 million to political causes since 2010, a Public Citizen’s report found.
The Federal Trade Commission barred Scott Sheffield from joining ExxonMobil's board due to alleged collusion with OPEC.
Bryan Sheffield increased donations to Republicans after the FTC's decision, including $413,000 to support Trump's presidential campaign.
Key quote:
"Oil barons being able to cash out and sell their companies and devote huge amounts of political contributions is a major problem for our democracy."
— Alan Zibel, researcher at Public Citizen and author of the new report.
As mounds of dredged material from the Houston Ship Channel dot their neighborhoods, residents are left without answers as to what dangers could be lurking.
Peter Dykstra, editor, weekend review
