Billions of dollars in widening and extension plans are underway in Austin, San Antonio, Shreveport, Tampa, Portland, Cincinnati, Madison, Denver and beyond as roads reach obsolescence and populations increase. The scale and volume of these new projects underscore the challenge for voices calling for a different kind of urban future in St. Paul, New Orleans, Miami and Houston. They are a reminder …
Nature: A wasted decade of climate inaction shows us that incremental shifts that might have been sufficient at one time are no longer enough. A rapid shift with 4x the work or a third the time is necessary now. Some have stopped fossil fuel production and exploration, but not US
04 March 2020, Nature. Emissions: world has four times the work or one-third of the time: New synthesis shows what a wasted decade means for the climate pact made in Paris. Nature 579, 25-28 (2020) doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00571-x, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00571-x The past decade of political failure on climate change has cost us all dearly. It has shrunk the time left for action by two-thirds. …
Some of the worst ozone pollution in the U.S. settles along the Front Range
Colorado has made some progress toward reducing the chemical dangerous to human health. But it will take leaning on automobiles and oil and gas producers to really move the needle. Mark Jaffe, Jun 7, 2021, Colorado Sun When it comes to oxygen, the Front Range sometimes has too much of a good thing. On many sunny, summer days the region …
Plugging Abandoned and Leaking Wells
Excerpt from https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23052021/north-dakota-orphaned-abandoned-oil-gas-wells-methane-emissions/ June 2021 by Nicholas Kusnetz, The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the nation’s unplugged wells leaked about 263,000 tons of methane in 2019, which, when compared to carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, is equivalent to the climate-warming emissions of more than 5 coal-fired power plants. The agency added that the actual figure could be significantly smaller or three …
Resisting the Everyday Violence of Colonial Extractivsm
By Michael Wilson Becerril, ROAR Magazine.May 25, 2021 | STRATEGIZE! In The Face Of Environmental Collapse, Deepening Inequalities And Capitalism In Crisis, Resisting Violence Requires Challenging Its Colonial Constructions. In many cases, the state legitimizes violence,” said the lawyer, professor and researcher on socio-environmental conflicts, Patricia Urteaga Crovetto, as we sat in her university office in Lima, Peru. “People make claims, they knock …
Denver neighborhoods ask: Is CDPHE continuing to withhold critical data around industrial pollution and permitting?
June 2021 – Unite North Metro Denver asks: Is withholding critical data a pattern at CDPHE? Unite North Metro Denver forwarded the following…https://www.westword.com/news/hard-to-swallow-5054300 from 1994. “It was in late August 1984 that residents in the southwest Denver subdivisions of Friendly Hills and Harriman Park called a news conference to demand an explanation from public officials about an unusual number of …
Harvard study says tighter oil, gas rules that allow exemptions make little difference: Study reviews Pennsylvania law
By JUDITH KOHLER | jkohler@denverpost.com | The Denver Post, April 29, 2021 A new study that looks at Pennsylvania’s rules for locating oil and wells, and which notes Colorado’s new regulations, found that the distance between buildings and wells didn’t significantly change when the rules were tightened because exemptions were allowed. The study by the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard …
Commerce City Pollution: A Friday Night Massacre in Colorado
By Phil Doe in Counterpunch, April 5, 2021 A Friday Night Massacre in Colorado Last Friday night I listened to the state of Colorado and the Suncor Corporation vote as one against independent monitoring and public health analysis of the Suncor refinery’s massive air pollution. The Suncor refinery’s nay vote was cast by its public relations flak, Brandy Radey. It was …
Energy companies have left Colorado with billions of dollars in oil and gas cleanup: CO has only about $185 million in bonds from industry — just 2% of the estimated cleanup bill
Excerpt from the High Country News – March 2021 – Colorado has only about $185 million in bonds from industry — just 2% of the estimated cleanup bill. COGCC assumes an average cost of $82,500 per well — lower than the Carbon Tracker’s figure, which factors in issues like well depth. But even using the state’s more conservative number, the …
Phil Doe: A better Suncor plan: continuous real-time pollution reporting
March 2021 A Denver Post editorial recently congratulated the Suncor corporation for planning to introduce air +6 monitoring equipment into the communities surrounding the refinery it has owned for 19 years. Cultivando, a community- based nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the Latino community develop a stronger sense of civic importance and cohesiveness, has a better proposal. It was developed over …