TX Environmental News - December 1, compiled by West Texas Wind (FB) radio

                                         

Climate Specialist, Bruce Melton, of Austin wrote last week in Truthout, that climate change is not a linear phenomenon. In an article titled “California Wildfires: Where is the Climate Change Outrage,” he writes, “…the physics of warming determines that a little more warming doesn’t create a little more extremeness but a lot more.” He used the recent Camp Fire in Paradise, CA where at least 71 people have lost their lives and 12,000 structures were destroyed and the Mendocino Complex Fire in July that burned 459,000 acres as examples of “record-setting increases of these unheard-of extreme weather events.” “What will it take,” he asks “to allow us to treat climate change like it is the most important issue our society has ever faced…?”

The San Antonio Express News released a heat chart of the city last week that shows a 20-degree temperature difference between central city and the northern suburbs. The urban heat island effect map based on a satellite image taken on a recent summer night is part of the final phase of the city’s attempt to draft a climate action and adaption plan. The article reads, “Older residents and working-class families who live in the ‘heat island’ typically can least afford to spend more on summer air-conditioning bills.” Greg Harmon of the Sierra Club told the Express News, “Those people least responsible for our climate crisis are most vulnerable to its impacts.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are hoping to rollback car emissions despite twenty states who say they will sue the feds if they do (Texas is not one of them). MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky, points out that the administration’s detailed study calling for the end of vehicle emission regulation is one of the more evil documents produced by the Trump Administration to date. According to Truthout, Chomsky says the report extrapolates current consumption patterns, and concludes by saying that at the end of the century, societal patterns as we know it will be over and since automotive emissions don’t contribute that much to the catastrophe, there isn’t any point trying to limit them.

The pet industry is being blamed for an unwelcomed invasion of an exotic species. According to the Houston Chronicle, the venomous Lion Fish with no-known natural enemies on our side of the world, has now arrived in great numbers at the Gulf of Mexico’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, 100 miles off the coast of Galveston. The zebra-striped fish once found the waters of the Indo-Pacific home, but demand by aquarium lovers in the United States established a substantial import trade for the fish and through the cracks and toilets many of these warm-water-loving creatures escaped into the wild. Michelle Johnston, a sanctuary research biologist told the Chronicle, “They are the cockroaches of the sea. They reproduce every four days, and every four days they can release up to 50,000 eggs. Plus, nothing really eats them, they have venomous spines and the native fish are terrified of them.”

A gas pipeline owned by Dallas-based Energy Transfer exploded last week at the Waha Transfer Hub near Coyanosa sending two contract men to the hospital. It is not known if the men had medical coverage.  The 24-inch pipeline ruptured inside a gas processing facility where according to a local resident a series of four explosions occurred the day after Thanksgiving. Energy Transfer spokesperson Vicki Granado said at the time of the incident, the fire would be left alone until it burned itself out, which according to another local resident – it did, two days later.  Post explosion security was tight at the scene where charred grounds and metal detritus could be seen. The Texas Railroad Commission will investigate the incident. Natural Gas Intelligence reports a marked uptick in flaring has occurred in the region since the explosion. Environmentalists claim Energy Transfer, who owns over 70,000 miles of pipelines, most of it in Texas, has an accident every 12 days.

Port of Corpus Christi CEO Sean Strawbridge is showing frustration after convincing the people of the Coastal Bend to spend a billion dollars and allow the Port Authority to dredge the ship channel from 42 feet to 54 feet and heighten the Portland Bridge. But, Trafigura, a behemoth Swiss commodity trading house, hopes to build a tanker terminal twenty miles offshore and by-pass the port.  Strawbridge told KRIS-TV, “When you look at these offshore buoys, they are usually in venues that don’t have the same type of quality infrastructure that we have here in the United States. Places like Africa and India.” The Port of Corpus Christi is the No.1 US oil exporting port. But 54 feet of water draft is not enough for today’s very large crude carriers. The Trafigura proposed off shore terminal will have a water draft of 75 feet and no bridges to pass under. Transportation economies of scale is key as some of the largest tankers can carry 500,000 tons of cargo when fully loaded. The billion-dollar project to allow bigger ships to call the port may have some people asking why did we spend the money? Meantime, the dredge spoils, allegedly clean and uncontaminated from the deepening of the refinery-lined ship channel, will create an offshore island 22 miles long, 5 miles wide and 25 feet thick.

Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton spoke glowingly about record oil production in Texas at last month’s Permian Basin Petroleum Association Annual Meeting in Midland. Sitton said, “Oil and gas production in the Permian has grown exponentially over the last few years, bringing with it unprecedented job growth and revenue for the State of Texas.” The commissioner did not address the growing Permian drug addiction, traffic mortality, teacher shortage, the worst asthma counties of the state nor did he speak to the correlation of fossil fuels and climate change or the $540 hotel rates at Super Eight.

Attorneys for Exxon-Mobil met attorneys from the Sierra Club and Environment Texas this month in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals as the oil giant tries to reduce the $20 million fine imposed on their Baytown Refinery earlier this year. Over 16,000 violations were recorded against the refinery over an 8-year span.  Luke Metzger, Director of Environment Texas told 740-Radio, “They don't dispute that there was 16,000 violations, they dispute whether we have the right to sue them over all 16,000. Basically these are equipment fails or an operator makes a mistake, things that are largely preventable by better investment in equipment, better training or more personnel.” Exxon argues the violations, in the form of air and water pollution, are too severe and only worth $1.6 million in fines. In the 3rd quarter of 2018 Exxon-Mobile generated 6.8 billion dollars of profit.

What kind of mind thinks of ways to stump wind and solar energy at this point in time in history? Well, according to the Houston Chronicle it might be the mind of old energy. Despite the incredible evidence of an Earth going turtle and the correlation between fossil fuels, climate change and toxicity, Houston oil utilities Calpine Corp and NRG Energy have petitioned the TX Public Utilities Commission to make west Texas wind and solar energy more expensive by adding a surcharge in the transmission of electricity to urban areas.  According to the Chronicle, Texas is the largest producer of wind energy and the 3^rd largest producer of solar, attracting billions of dollars of investment without the use of state tax credits.

Elon Musk, owner of Space X and top rival of Jeff Bezos, the Blue Origin rocket launcher owner north of Van Horn, admitted his one-way-tickets to Mars are not for everybody. But the 47-year-old Musk defended the Mars migration and suggested it was a better bang-for-the-buck than Bezos’s sub-orbital space round trip plans that Blue Origin plans to offer next year. Moreover, Musk, who was interviewed by HBO last week, told critics, who say his Mars plans are only for the rich, "Really the ad for going to Mars would be like Shackleton's ad for going to the Antarctic. It's gonna be hard. There's a good chance of death. Going in a little can through deep space, you might land successfully, once you land successfully, you'll be working nonstop to build the base. Not much time for leisure, and once you get there, even after doing all this, it's a very harsh environment, so there's a good chance you die there. We think you can come back, but we're not sure. Now does that sound like an escape hatch for rich people?" Musk said there was a 70 per cent chance that he would move to the Red Planet.