Friday, May 20, 2016

This Post Hotter Than Hell

It seemed like the next logical choice after where I left off:

Stuck on hot: Earth breaks 12th straight monthly heat record

Yeah, ignore the record May snowstorm (printed page B4) and below average temperatures where you are, it's hot everywhere else.

Wait until you see what is to blame:

"Carbon emissions rising at New England power plants" by David Abel Globe Staff  May 16, 2016

For the first time in five years, power plants across New England are producing more carbon emissions, dealing a setback to Massachusetts’ legally mandated efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and raising concerns that reduced production of nuclear energy will undercut environmental gains.

OMG! 

The first thing one is struck by is the false debate that is set up by the nuclear-promoting pre$$. 

I'd rather take my chances on "global warming," especially when it doesn't seem to be happening (and if it is you need a different me$$anger). 

I'm not sure what is behind the extreme weather events (engineered?) or going to argue the trails in the sky and what they are; I'm simply arguing the shallow and superficially framed debate regarding this topic that got front-page lead treatment(!). 

Then you put it in the context of increased nuclear weapons development by this government along with its non-proliferation posture, including nuclear power (unless they are going to make a buck, and speaking of such the increased emissions would mean a growing economy, right?).

Finally, one asks how is the lead in the water?  

Oh, right, global warming -- the most urgent and existential issue of our times, even if it is so esoteric and the evidence obscure. Forget the tangible poisons in the food, air, and water, be they radiation, chemical, genetic, etc.

The uptick comes as Massachusetts works to curb carbon emissions in nearly every sector of its economy — part of a national effort to stave off global warming.

Then they talk to some guy from (puke), the Patrick administration who is now a "financier."

The cold winter of 2015 may have contributed.

Killed shopping, even though good weather killed shopping this Xmas season. I call it the Goldilock's Effect.

But the bigger factor was probably the 2014 closing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, specialists said.

That's about when I ran out of energy.

Nuclear power is largely carbon-neutral, and the loss of Vermont Yankee spurred the need for replacement energy, resulting in a 13 percent increase in the use of natural gas-generated electricity.

Such plants last year provided about half of the region’s electricity, according to ISO New England.

While natural gas is thought of as a clean energy source that produces fewer greenhouse gases than coal or oil, burning it still releases substantial amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

Yeah, the methane is way worse but that would call for cutting into the profits of oil and gas as they destroy the environment; better to get you to pay a carbon tax that will be handled by banks to save the planet.

A second nuclear plant, the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, is scheduled to close in 2019; that will again cost the state a carbon-neutral source of electricity.

See ya', Pilgrim!

Overall, carbon emissions in New England have declined by about 25 percent in the past 15 years, and state officials released a report in January that suggested Massachusetts was still on course to meet its climate goals, set forth in a 2008 law that created a framework for reducing heat-trapping emissions.

But the report acknowledged that a significant amount of projected emissions declines depend on the expansion of cleaner energy sources.

Over the next few weeks, lawmakers will debate whether to compel utilities to enter into long-term contracts to buy hydroelectric power from Canada, or other renewable energy from outside of Massachusetts.

For much of the past decade, power plants contributed about 22 percent of the region’s carbon emissions, substantially less than cars and other forms of transportation, which emit more than 40 percent.

Most of the rest comes from homes, businesses, and industrial sources.

While not the largest source of greenhouse gases, the power sector offers the best opportunity to make drastic reductions, officials and advocates say.

“The electricity sector is by far the lowest-hanging fruit,” said Ken Kimmell, who served as commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection during the Patrick administration. “We need to make disproportionately large cuts there to meet our overall goals.”

--more--"

The feeling I'm getting from the Globe is a "start up those nuclear plants" argument, and I can only be reminded of Don Ameche at the end of "Trading Places." 

Let's do that with the flip to page A2:

"52 climate activists arrested in Wash. railroad protest" by Donna Gordon Blankinship Associated Press  May 16, 2016

SEATTLE — Authorities cleared the railroad tracks of protesters and arrested 52 climate activists Sunday morning in Washington state after a two-day shutdown.

About 150 people spent the night in tents and sleeping bags on the tracks near two refineries in northwest Washington, according to BNSF Railway spokesman Gus Melonas.

They were asked to leave at about 5 a.m. and most gathered their belongings and left the area near Anacortes, Melonas said. ‘‘It was peaceful,’’ he said. 

And approved by the PTB; otherwise, they wouldn't be leading my national pre$$ coverage!!

In upstate New York, climate activists gathered Saturday at a crude-oil shipment hub on the Hudson River in an action targeting crude-by-rail trains and oil barges at the Port of Albany.

A group of activists sat on tracks used by crude oil trains headed to the port. Albany is a key hub for crude-by-rail shipments from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale region.

Other events were held during the weekend in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Thornton, Colo., as well as in Germany, Turkey, New Zealand, Brazil, and Nigeria.

In the New York protest, about 40 activists from several Northeast groups attempted to line up across the river in kayaks Friday to practice blocking oil barges, but police and Coast Guard boats herded them into a cluster that paddled past a riverfront park where a banner saying ‘‘Water not oil’’ was hung.

Police blocked access to a railroad bridge over the river where activists had planned to unfurl banners. Another group on Saturday sat on tracks used by crude oil trains headed to the port.

For three years, residents of a low-income housing project beside the oil train route have been fighting expanded crude oil shipments at the port by Global Partners, a fuel transport firm based in Waltham, Mass.

‘‘We have to stop these explosive bomb trains from rolling through our communities across the continent,’’ Marla Marcum, a member of the Climate Disobedience Center in Arlington, Mass., said on Friday. ‘‘We have to keep fossil fuels in the ground and bring the focus to renewables.’’

Can always be blamed on the terrorists, and not a tragedy or opportunity wasted.

Mark Romaine, chief operating officer of Global Partners, said Friday the company is committed to safety and has been inspected more than 270 times in the last three years with only a handful of minor infractions that were promptly corrected....

--more--"

I'm sick of the hot wind coming from the pre$$, and wouldn't he be appalled? 

It's no longer Poor Richard's Almanac, is it?

Related: Advancing You This Post

I'm advancing you the two above-the-fold pieces:

"Federal authorities arrested a top official in Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s administration for “union-related extortion” Thursday, in the first high-profile corruption case to darken City Hall in two decades. Kenneth Brissette, 52, Walsh’s director of tourism, sports, and entertainment, was indicted on a charge that he withheld city permits from a popular Boston music festival until it hired union stagehands. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office...."

I further noted related items on page A6, ed, op, and B1 for future reading.

We know why the Globe is getting after Walsh; however, it's hard to understand why the Obama administration is cracking down on unions and helping the real e$tate cla$$ in Bo$ton when they are helping you get a raise and fighting wealth inequality while letting the too big to jail banks and executives off with a pa$$, and not launching any investigations of strong-arm corporate tactics from the likes of GE and others shaking down towns and cities for tax loot.

Frantic search, terrorism fears after EgyptAir jet vanishes

Terrorism and mechanical failure being trotted out with massive media coverage as a cover for another TWA war games incident (was it trying to avoid a missile?), a remote takeover event (it's happened before), a complete fake and fiction (one never really knows anymore), or another Flight370 (last time they deposited the wreck in the Ukraine). That's the way I see it from my spot on the ground anyway.

What we do know is the "official story," whatever it be, will be a distortion if not outright lie.

And with that I've cooled down for I have read not one more word this morning. I think I'll rather enjoy the good weather while we still have it. 

Besides, I'm also trying to conserve energy (smile).