Friday Linkage 10/5/2018

A little light on the links this first week of October.  I think almost everyone has been glued to the circus that is the Trump administration.

On to the links…

Chuck Grassley Plans to Take Trump’s Federal Farm Bailout Cash, Calls it ‘Equal Treatment’—Nothing says fiscal responsibility like making sure you get your bailout cash from an unnecessary trade spat.  Where was Chuck Grassley when homeowners were taken advantage of by mortgage lenders in the mid-2000s?  Where was Chuck Grassley when people lost their homes to illegal foreclosures?  People in Iowa would elect the corpse of Chuck Grassley.

Trump’s Plan to Scrap Mercury Regulations Won’t Save Coal But It Will Cost Lives—This is America under Trump.  It is a hellscape of increased deadly emissions from ageing power plants propped up by government largesse to line the pockets of a few coal barons.

Trump Administration, EPA say Radiation is Good for You—It is getting downright Orwellian.

U.S. Power Producers’ Coal Consumption Falls to 35-year Low—Every new solar photovoltaic array and wind turbine that I see is another shovel of dirt on the grave of coal.  If we can weather the interminable Trump storm of the next couple of years we can truly put the United States on a clean power path.

Germany’s Coal Habit Proves Hard to Kick—Germany wanted to transition away from coal and to renewables.  The problem with this plan was that Germany also wanted to eliminate its reliance on nuclear energy as well.

Banks turn their Back on Coal amid Emissions Concerns—Modern commerce runs on credit.  If banks are unwilling to lend most schemes are incapable of operating at any scale.  This is bad for coal and good for the planet.

China to Add 259 GW of Coal Capacity, Satellite Imagery Shows—This is bad.

Our Fertilizer Is Killing Us. Here’s A Fix.—Synthetic fertilizer has allowed for billions of people to escape famine.  It is also one of the drivers of bad global impacts like dead zones.

More than 1 in 3 Americans Eat Fast Food on a Typical Day, and We Eat it All Day Long—Is our fast food consumption a cause of our modern problems or is it a symptom?  Do we eat fast food because our modern lives do not allow enough time or flexibility to eat actual food?  Or, do we eat fast food because it taps into some primordial desire for salt, sugar, and fat?  Either way, it is bad for us all.

14 Food Waste Facts That Might Change The Way You Cook, Shop, And Eat—I believe that in order to get our planet right, we need to first get our households right.  The first step to get our households right is to fix our kitchens.  Victory is in the kitchen.

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Friday Linkage 9/14/2018

It’s been seventeen years since the attacks of September 11^th.  It is amazing to believe that the students entering college this fall have no personal living memory of that day when it is so indelibly scarred on so many of our consciences.  Time marches on without regard to our humanity.

It is also amazing to think about the path we chose to follow as a country in the aftermath of September 11^th.  The administration of George W. Bush, which seems like a gauzy dream during these days of Trump, got us into two wars from which we are not out of seventeen years later.  All for a total cost of more than $1.5 trillion and counting.

What could we have done with $1.5 trillion in the United States?  Remember, this money is gone and what it bought is used up, blown up, stolen, or just plain abandoned in the desert.  In essence, we have gotten nothing for our blood and treasure.

On to the links…

The Most Ambitious Climate Plan In History—In the coming years the battle lines will be drawn over a carbon tax.  All the other mechanisms, carrot and/or stick, will be shelved in favor of a simple carbon tax.  As they say on sports talk radio, book it.

U.S. Budget Deficit Widens to Fifth-Highest Ever, CBO Reports—Any time a Republican says “Tax cuts pay for themselves” please ask them for evidence to back up that claim that does not come from the Heritage Foundation.  It is not that the United States does not have enough money for a progressive agenda, it’s that America is being looted by the right wing for corporate interests.

Trump Administration Rushes To Lease Federal Lands—These bastards know that they are living on borrowed time, so they better get while the getting is good.  Teapot Dome scandal will have nothing on these grifters when the final accounting is complete.

The E.P.A.’s Review of Mercury Rules Could Remake Its Methods for Valuing Human Life and Health—In Trump’s America your life is worth less than a coal baron’s ability to make a lot of money.  There is no other reason to change this rule except to mollify the retrograde coal companies that are one of the last groups to actually like Donald Trump.

Trump Administration Wants to Make It Easier to Release Methane Into Air—Oh wait, oil and gas bros also still like Donald Trump because his administration is doing yeoman’s work for them.

Scott Pruitt in Talks with Coal Company for his Next Job—Nothing says looking out for Americans’ interests quite like taking a job with the type of company you favored over the aforementioned Americans’ interests not three months after leaving office in a cloud of scandal.  Maybe they offered him a Trump mattress and some of that special lotion as a signing bonus?

Cover the U.S. In 89 Percent Trees, or Go Solar—Why not do both?  I love trees and I love solar.  Until every south and west facing roof is covered in solar panels we have not done enough.

California Commits To 100 Percent Clean Energy By 2045—It’s big and it’s bold.  Is it possible?  I don’t know, but watching California lead the pack will be interesting.  I would love to see Iowa go 100% wind powered and beat everyone to the punch.

For States That Have Already Met Their Renewable Energy Goals, A New Question: Now What?—If you do not think local and state elections matter then consider this possibility: states that have met their RPS could just stay put and do nothing more going into the future if there is no push from local constituencies.  Or, these same states could do more.  Your call.

Sony Vows to Use 100 Percent Renewable Electricity by 2040—If your state won’t commit to renewables maybe your favorite company can.  Heck, some of these companies have a carbon footprint of small countries.

How Solar Power Saved $6.7 Million on a Tuesday—It got really hot in the Northeast U.S.  However, solar power pushed peak demand pricing to later in the day when things cooled down by providing up to 20% of the electricity on the grid.  What did coal do for you today?

Coal-Dependent Utility Fights Efforts to Reveal Whether Power Plants are Cost-Efficient—These are the boring but important stories to watch.  State utility boards are the definition of boring government business.  That being said, these same utility boards hold hearings that can eviscerate the economic basis for continuing to use coal.

Largest Offshore Wind Farm Opens off England’s Coast—I have to imagine that offshore wind is a Republican nightmare.  It is wind power, so they hate it.  However, it is offshore so any protest about appearance or the environment would also argue against offshore oil and gas drilling.  What is someone bought and paid for by Exxon cash to do?

Coal-Killing Energy Storage Grows By 200% In US—The last thing coal has going for it is that it is baseload power.  It can be counted on to deliver power when it is scheduled to deliver power.  However, the intermittency of renewables can be mitigated with some measure of storage.

Fossil Fuel Demand Set To Peak In The 2020s—It should be our mission in life to see that this peak happens sooner than forecast and that demand declines at a precipitous rate thereafter.

Large Trucks are Biggest Culprits of Near-Road Air Pollution—This is just one of the many reasons why electrification of transportation should focus on commercial trucks and busses first.

By 2040, Most of the World Won’t Have Enough Water to Meet Demand Year-Round—If you do not things are going to get turbulent and violent in the coming decades just wait until the taps run dry in many parts of the world.  Do you still want to be watering a lawn in Utah?

How to Eat Well – and Save the Planet—Most of these ideas are not rocket science.  Eat less meat.  Avoid high fructose corn syrup.  It it’s processed, leave it on the shelf at the store.  And so on…

Fundraisers for Sick Restaurant Employees Represent the Failure of American Health Care—The other battle line in America, in addition to a carbon tax, is with regard to health care.  The right wing does not care that you cannot get health care.  The right wing wants you to get sick and die, but only after spending all of your assets to obtain some measure of care.  They want you to die with a single red cent left to your name.

More Older Americans Are Turning To Marijuana—If you have any doubts about the future of marijuana legalization in the United States imagine what the situation will be like when AARP and baby boomers get behind the trend?  Federal legalization is a fait accompli.

Airbus SeaWing Kite Sails To Cut Fuel Costs For Cargo Ships 20%—Haven’t we seen this idea before?

Friday Linkage 9/7/2018

It is September and there about two months until the midterm elections.  Washington D.C. is crazy, even by its own messed up standards, as Trump is increasingly isolated and alone in the White House.  Anonymous op-eds, tell all books, and the constant drumbeat of scandal have made the past year and a half seem like an eternity.  Heck, Trump has even managed to alienate some of his staunchest supporters by going down the old “dumb southerner” route.  Way to go Donny Two Scoops.

It sounds trite, but the only hope for a path forward is to vote for candidates who will actually hold this administration accountable for its misdeeds.

On to the links…

A ‘Jaw-Dropping’ 15 Million Super-Environmentalists Don’t Vote in the Midterms—I do not know what a “super environmentalist” is, but I know that if there are really 15 million people out there eligible to vote yet do not cast ballots in November we deserve everything Republicans can do to us.

We Could Shift to Sustainability and Save $26 trillion. Why are Aren’t We Doing It?—Maybe because we live in a world where the “most power man on the face of the Earth” is a running joke of a human being.  Seriously, how can we have a substantive discussion about a transition to a sustainable global economy when the President of the United States spends more time on Twitter than reading briefing books?

An Old Anti-Irish Law Is at the Heart of Trump’s Plan to Reshape Legal Immigration—This is just the old racist handbook employed by politicians in the United States and across the globe for the past two hundred years.

Trump’s EPA Reconsidering Power Plant Rule Preventing 11,000 Premature Deaths Per Year—Here is what you get with the modern Republican party: more pollution and more death.  As long as the policy favors a rich interest like coal mining or oil drilling Republicans will favor the policy despite its impact on actual people.

The Giant Coal Plant Converting to Green Energy—We can debate just how “green” biomass burning is relative to other renewable energy sources, but is has to better than coal.  Why can’t we start a program of reforesting denuded landscapes with trees for biomass and convert coal power plants to burn the biomass in the U.S.  Is there not a large amount of acreage in Appalachia that has been devastated by mountaintop removal mining that could be part of this plan?

You’ve Heard of Outsourced Jobs, but Outsourced Pollution? It’s Real, and Tough to Tally Up—Imagine if a country claimed that it had reached a 10% emissions target.  Everyone applauds.  However, imagine if that country reached that goal by ceasing production of cement and buying it from a foreign provider.  The total emissions are unchanged, but one country’s scorecard looks a lot better.

Lego Wants to Completely Remake Its Toy Bricks (Without Anyone Noticing)—When I was in business school I sat in on a presentation by someone from LEGO.  The presenter was discussing quality control and production consistency.  The crazy thing was that he said bricks made today needed to be made to the same tolerances as bricks made thirty years or more earlier because customers expected them to be compatible.  Imagine another product having that same kind of concern and being designed for children.

Is California Becoming Unlivable?—California has always been a place of climactic extremes and natural disasters.  Maybe it was never meant to be such a large state in terms of population and economic activity.

Five, just Five, Solutions to Roll Back Greenhouse Gas Emissions.—It does not seem so hard:

• Radical Efficiency! (Reduce demand!)
• Radical Sufficiency! (Appropriate technology!)
• Radical Simplicity! (Keep it dumb!)
• Electrify Everything!
• Decarbonize Construction!

Top 10 Secrets about Stress and Health—It is no secret that stress is detrimental to your health.

Friday Linkage 8/10/2018

I watched the returns from Tuesday’s primaries and special elections with a special glee.  It seems that Republicans under Trump are hoping to keep a coalition stitched together that consists of white nationalists, plain old racists, and older less educated white people.  This seems like a recipe for failure when the head cheese puff is not on the ballot.

It is hard to imagine that the same people who would wear a shirt declaring “I would rather be Russian than a Democrat” are going to go to the polls in the midterms to vote for an establishment Republican if their spirit animal in an ill-fitting suit is not headlining the ballot.

Needless to say, Democrats and their allies on the left need to remain energized, get allies to the polls, and pull across the finish line strong.  America may literally depend on it.

On to the links…

The Whole Republican Party Seems to Be Going to Jail Now—The Republican Party under Donald Trump is nothing more than a country club for corruption that happens to be located in Washington D.C.  If these guys were all based in Hoboken, N.J. there would be a major racketeering investigation happening.

Bribery Trial Reveals Jeff Sessions’ Role in Blocking EPA Action Targeting One of His Biggest Donors—It is going to take years to unpack all of the corruption done by these people in the name of making America “great” again.

Coal Industry on Steady Decline under Trump’s Leadership—This is what you get with Donald Trump.  A few guys will make a lot of money—probably people like Robert Murray—while everyone else gets screwed—usually the employees who actually need the jobs.  Coal will be no different.

We’ve Been Talking About a National Grid for Years. It Might be Time to Do It.—All this talk of energy storage like batteries or pumped hydro misses the biggest “storage” opportunity of all—the gird.  Think of the grid as a battery and a national grid as the biggest battery of all.  Instead of balancing loads across a region you would have the benefit of balancing loads across the country and maybe even parts of Canada or Mexico.

Negative Electricity Pricing Abounds As Wind, Solar Flood the Grid—This is power so cheap that companies are paying people to take it.  This is why we need a national power grid.  When California is over producing that power could be “sent” to states where the wind is not blowing or vice versa.

Analysis Reveals That World’s Largest Battery Saved South Australia $8.9 Million In 6 Months—Now, imagine scaling this type of solution.  Saving money and greenhouse gas emissions.  Win, win.

Permian Decline Rate May be Steeper than Thought—There has been a new school of thought in oil markets that the U.S. is the new swing producer able to bring wells online in places like Texas and North Dakota to ameliorate price increases.  It now looks like the modeling behind the production assumptions of the Permian Basin may have been too optimistic.

Lloyd’s Bank to Ditch Financing New Coal Plants—Bankers are a conservative lot and if their peers stop doing something most of the mainline, reputable banks—e.g. the ones not involved with people like Paul Manafort—will generally cease those activities as well.  Coal projects may have to start looking at the loan sharks of the finance world.

1st Big US Offshore Wind Farm Scores Record-Low Price—Remember, offshore wind in the U.S. is not a mature industry with established cost estimates, employee knowledge, etc.  These costs are likely to come down in the coming years.

Surprise! Electric Buses are Significantly Greener Across the US—I do not know if I would say “surprise” but it is a good outcome nonetheless.  Instead of focusing on personal automobiles we should be putting our resources into electrifying public transit and commercial vehicles.

Explore the Largest Coastal Restoration Project Completed In Louisiana’s History—On an Earth where we, humans, have changed every landscape to some degree the conversation needs to pivot from preservation to restoration.  How do we restore natural ecosystems that have been damaged by humans?

Postcards from the Edge—The Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana is what the current administration would like most of America to look like save for the views from Trump’s own golf courses.  Remember, solar panels and wind turbines are a blight but toxic open pit mines are tremendous.

Nuclear Wasteland: The Explosive Boom and Long, Painful Bust of American Uranium Mining—If you want to wonder what will become of places like Bear Ears and Grand Escalante Staircase under a Ryan Zinke and Donald Trump regime just look at the history of uranium mining in the western U.S.  Many of these landscapes and communities have not recovered from the damage done over thirty years ago.

Meet America’s Elite Farm Subsidy Club—It’s Farm Bill time which means that Republicans are going to whine about cutting SNAP benefits for poor people because we all “know” that food stamps is what is bankrupting the United States.  It could not possibly be that we allow rich people to loot America.  Not at all.

Fascinating Look at How America Uses its Land—Just take a moment to see how we use land in aggregate in the United States and think about how your personal choices play into this land use.  Think of all the opportunities for restoration:

Friday Linkage 8/3/2018

Election Day is 95 days away.  On November 6, 2018 the people of the United States have the best chance to show the world that Donald Trump and his coterie of right wing, e.g. Republican, enablers do not represent America.

Here in the 1^st district of Iowa we have a chance to eliminate the stain of representation that is Rod Blum, a parody of late stage capitalist politician if ever there was one.  He has the benefit of being from the same state as Steve King so no one ever calls him the worst politician from the state of Iowa.

On to the links…

Friendly Policies Keep US Oil and Coal Afloat Far More than We Thought—This is where the fight needs to be in the near future.  Eliminate all subsidies for energy sources that contribute to climate change.  Seriously, do we need to spend public money to subsidize energy companies that have made more money than any other type of company in the history of mankind?

Congress Tries, Fails, to Destroy ANOTHER National Monument—Remember, this is a Congress led by Republicans in both chambers and they still cannot get anything done.  Government is not inherently incompetent, it is just incompetent when run by right wingers.

Dozens Of Lion Trophy Permits Issued To Hunters As Trump Rolls Back Import Hurdles—Donny Two Scoops is really looking out for the interests of the American people with this one.  How soon before Don Jr. or the goblin shark Eric come back from Africa with a mounted lion?

The EPA Just Undid Scott Pruitt’s Final Act in Office—This is why the election in November is so important.  Without a compliant Congress, any changes made by the corrupt Trump administration will be swept away with a change in the Oval Office.

Andrew Wheeler is Afraid to Revoke California’s Fuel Waiver. He Should Be.—The Trump administration is itching to fight over anything that even hints at the previous administration.  They should be careful about what they wish for when it comes to legal cases.

Coal Mining Has Destroyed 1.5 Million Acres of Appalachian Forest—Imagine if someone came up with a plan to restore these 1.5 million acres to something resembling a forest?  Imagine hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into a region for the largest environmental restoration project in the history of mankind?  I can imagine it being possible, can you?

From Coal Mines To Solar Farms: It’s Complicated, But Doable—The landscapes of coal country have been scarred by an extractive industry, see above, that has no interest in the long term viability of the communities or the health of the people left behind.

US Wind Installations To Surge Before PTC Phase-Out In 2021—We can all hope that by 2020 or so there is a more visionary government installed in the U.S. that extends these tax credits to continue one of the few positive developments in our energy infrastructure.

The $3 Billion Plan to Turn Hoover Dam Into a Giant Battery—The era of “big” public works seems to be over, but what if we could use all of that infrastructure to help the transition to a 100% renewable economy?

‘Peak Coal’ is Getting Closer, Latest Figures Show—This is why the deployment of renewables, energy efficiency, and demand destruction are so important.  Coal is teetering on the edge of economic relevance and we can topple the beast with a concerted effort.

Energy Dept. Coal and Nuclear Subsidy could Cost Average US Household $160 to $500 Per Year—As coal and nuclear are no longer competitive in the electricity generation marketplace it is now the responsibility of the American people to ensure that these companies make money.  Why?  Because they donate a lot of money to people like Donald Trump.  This is not about national security, it is about keeping coal companies humming along.

UPS Partners with L.A.-Based Startup Thor on Electric Delivery Truck—Electrification of the heavy and medium duty truck market would be a more cost effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than trying to goose adoption through personal automobile electrification.  These commercial vehicles are driven a lot more, bought in large quantities by a single user, and can make an economic case better than personal automobiles.

Have We Reached Peak Storage?—I truly hope we have reached a point where we no longer need to build storage units external to our home to store stuff that we use so infrequently that it can be stored at a remote location.

Marie Kondo Wants You to Buy More Boxes—What the shit?  Is this when you know a trend has really “jumped the shark?”  I thought the idea behind this was to buy less stuff?  We’re all just pimps for something.

Why Your Kid Needs Time Just to Be—As parents we are a seriously neurotic bunch worrying about our kids future.  Maybe, just maybe, the key to raising a happy child is to let them be a kid once in a while.  Or, letting them just be a kid a whole lot.

Friday Linkage 7/20/2018

Can you imagine for a moment a world where Barack Obama stood on a stage, denigrated his own intelligence agencies, pandered to a Russian dictator, and then tried to walk back the comments less than twenty four hours later as a slip of speech?  I can imagine that the noise from the right wing, especially Fox News, would be deafening.

Then again we also live in a time where the Republican governor of Iowa is trying to take state Democrats to task for not forcing an elected representative to resign because of sexual misconduct allegations.  The man should leave office, but by Kim Reynolds logic so should Donald Trump.  Is she calling for him to resign?  Nope.

On to the links…

Antarctica has Lost 2.71 Trillion Tons of Ice. Here’s What that Looks Like.—I am afraid that no one is paying attention because it seems like so many other things are on fire right now.

Scott Pruitt Gave “Super Polluting” Trucks a Gift on his Last Day at the EPA. A Court Just Put it on Hold.—Scott Pruitt had one last middle finger to give the American people, but a judge told the government to hold its horses.  This was a giveaway by a corrupt administration to benefit a political supporter at the cost of the health of the American people.  This is the kind of winning you get with Donald Trump.

Ajit Pai’s FCC Doesn’t Want to Hear Your Complaints Unless You Pay Them $225—Why not just drop the pretense of actually governing for the people and place a menu out front of every agency.  The menu would list the price that you need to pay and to whom—usually Donald Trump and/or the respective cabinet secretary—for access and influence.

New EPA Head has Long History of Ties to Mining Interests—Meet the new boss, kind of the same as the old boss.  Actually, Andrew Wheeler is more of a dyed in the wool coal lobbyist as opposed to Scott Pruitt’s oil and gas background.

New EPA Chief Is Already Facing 2 Ethical Problems In His First Week, Echoing Scott Pruitt—Seriously, can Donald Trump find a cabinet secretary who does not have a cloud of ethics investigations following behind them?

Trump Just Nominated a Pesticide Exec to Oversee Science at the USDA—I think the second headline says it all, “Of Course He Did.”

Trump Has Dreams of a New Energy Boom That Even the Fossil Fuel Industry Thinks Is Too Extreme—The backlash to the policies of this administration are going to be extreme.  Oil and gas companies are now coming to the realization that they are going to be in the wilderness once everyone wakes up and gets rid of the head cheese puff.

Surprise! California Cracked Down on Carbon and its Economy is Still Booming—Climate change legislation, policies, and regulation are supposed to be job killers, so say the bloviating hosts on Fox News, but California has seemed to crack the code.

Clean Energy is Catching up to Natural Gas—There has always been a lot of talk about how natural gas is a “bridge fuel” that will allow us to kick our coal habit and ramp up renewables.  What if the bridge is more like a short on ramp in Kenosha, Wisconsin?  For those of you have driven between Milwaukee and Chicago know those on ramps well.

UK has Passed 1,000 Hours without Coal this Year—It’s an odd thing to track, but the U.K. going coal free for any period of time is indicative of the trends for the dirty rock.  The U.K. is probably the single country most associated with the Industrial Revolution and its close ties with coal.  If coal dies in the U.K. where will it survive?

Renewables Provided 45.8% Of Spain’s Electricity Needs For First Half Of 2018—Some of this is a result of favorable weather, but it also points to a dedicated decade or so of building out a renewable infrastructure.

Apple Launching $300 Million Fund to Develop Clean Energy in China—If governments will not support clean energy we will be forced to look to the private sector.  I am waiting for Republicans to begin drafting legislation that requires a certain percentage of every kilowatt hour used by industry to contain guaranteed percentages of coal and natural gas.

Electric Trucks Are Coming—Commercial fleet operators should be on the first areas for EV makers to focus on with the other being municipal bus fleets.  These are customers that use vehicles for a lot of intraurban miles where an EV’s powertrain is ideally suited to deliver maximum benefits.  Just think of all the stopping and starting that a bus or delivery truck does in a day.

Critics of Starbucks’ Straw Ban Are Missing the Point—It’s not the straw itself that is the problem, but a culture that creates billions upon billions of instantly disposable plastic items that become trash and end up in our waterways.  It’s one time use plastic bags, plastic straws, cigarette butts…whatever.

Friday Linkage 7/13/2018

Well that was an interesting week.  Scott Pruitt “resigned” amid corruption that had not been seen since the Warren G. Harding administration.  Donny Two Scoops got to nominate another justice to the Supreme Court and he promptly picked the most white toast candidate possible.  Another judge that comes from an Ivy League background, clerked for a Supreme Court justice, worked in Washington D.C. and so on.  For a guy who was going to “drain the swamp” he is operating pretty much like a dyed in the wool establishment Republican when it comes to the Supreme Court.

I guess we have to wonder if Steven Mnuchin or Ryan Zinke will be the next stooge on the corruption stage.  I am voting for Mnuchin only because his wife is just like a villain from a Disney movie.

This is the last very special Scott Pruitt section of links…

Read Scott Pruitt’s Bizarre Resignation Letter—Can we call for a moratorium on right wing a-holes praising God no matter how reprehensible their actions may have been?  Scott Pruitt is a horrible human being who was only looking out for himself.  God had nothing to do with anything that he did.

Scott Pruitt is Gone, but the Trump Administration’s Culture of Corruption Remains—The corruption is on display for everyone to see.  Republicans must be made to answer for why they have allowed a public looting of the American enterprise by Trump, his family, and his cohort of cartoon stooges.

Scott Pruitt Investigations Aren’t Ending just Because he Resigned—He can always hope that he gets a pardon from the head cheese puff.

Scott Pruitt is Leaving Behind a Toxic Mess at the EPA—The EPA is a mess.  Environmental regulation and enforcement under Trump is a disaster.  Andrew Wheeler, Scott Pruitt’s replacement, is like replacing Cruella De Ville with Mother Gothel.  One villain is a lot more showy than the other, but they are both horrible people.

Scott Pruitt Gave “Super Polluting” Trucks a Gift on his Last Day at the EPA—It’s one last middle finger to the majority of Americans as Scott Pruitt finds a way to reward a campaign donor yet again.

Scott Pruitt’s Resignation Is Just The Start—We can hope.  However, given how pervasive the corruption is at every level of this administration and given the complicit nature of Congressional Republicans the best chance to really turn up the heat will not come until a new Congress is sworn in this coming January.

Well, bye:

On to the links…

Thanks to Natural Gas, US CO2 Emissions Lowest Since 1985—This is one of those good news, bad news kind of things.  Emitting less CO2 is good.  However, natural gas production may be emitting a lot of unaccounted for methane which is like a supercharged greenhouse gas compared to carbon dioxide.  It also begs the question about us making an actual transition to renewables.

China Is Swallowing A Bitter Pill And Trying To Cut Its Coal Use—China realizes that burning coal to power its economy is causing too much trouble.  When China decides to go coal free what hope does the old black rock have of being relevant as an energy source in the future?

One of the World’s Biggest Insurers Is Ditching Coal—Insurance is one of those boring but important facts of business.  If your project cannot get insured, you will be forced to offer investors a higher rate of return which will reduce your economic competitiveness.  In the case of coal, this will put the old dirty fuel another step behind cleaner alternatives.

New Utility Settlement Highlights how Ohio Utilities are Leaving FirstEnergy Behind on Clean Energy—FirstEnergy might have a better chance of bringing back Blockbuster than trying to revive the hopes for its fleet of coal burning power plants.

The First Fully Solar-Powered Ski Area: Wolf Creek, CO—If you ski you should care about renewable energy because it might be the only hope that we have of actually getting to ski on snow in the future.  Way to go Wolf Creek on going 100% solar.  Totally!

EPA Blocks Warnings on Cancer-Causing Chemical—This is the kind of government you get when you elect people who tell you that they hate government.

Why is the Trump Administration Putting a Tariff on Chinese LEDs?—My first inkling is to say that Donald Trump does not understand how international trade works, but the answer is probably that a lobbyist got to write down what products they wanted a tariff on in a book and our dear leader just copied the list down for action.  He is the muppet of presidents.  It looks like he is in charge, but somewhere hidden is someone with a hand up his ass telling him what to do on a minute by minute basis.

I Gave Up AC This Summer To Live Within My Means. America Should Try That—Maybe we should all try and give up a little something to live within our economic and environmental means.

One in Three Fish Caught Never Makes it to the Plate—We do not need to farm, raise, or fish for more food.  We need to waste less of what we already farm, raise, and fish.  If you could instantly take the wasted bycatch from the international fishing economy and bring that to market it would mean a more than 30% increase in available protein.

Stop Buying Tilapia! Here Are 5 Other Fish You Need to Try.—Seriously, stop buying tilapia.  It is like Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees.  It is the dry white toast of fish.  It is what Becky would order for dinner after finishing her Frappuccino.