Big Lie: Wind turbines freezes Texas during massive winter storm
Frozen electricity infrastructure in Texas was due to cold weather, and bad maintenance, not wind turbines
Category Archives: Environment
We must pressure Biden over climate despite choosing Kerry as climate representative
Environmental and climate change issues must be kept on the front burner in Washington DC
CALFire seizes PG&E equipment investigating cause of Zogg Fire in 2020 wildfire season
Yesterday, CALFire, California’s primary fire agency, announced it had seized some of PG&E’s equipment stating that just before the Zogg Fire ignited there were alarms emitted on PG&E’s network. The Zogg Fire is one of many many wildfires that have plagued California in the 2020 season. The 2020 wildfire season…
5+ million acres burned, choking smoke, Climate Change accelerated
The primary feature of this phase of the 2020 West Coast Fire Season is the smoke. There are unprecedentedly huge wildfires burning, and a new front on the horrors opened a few days ago with several large wildfires in Oregon and Washington State. While the fires are threatening immediate destruction…
La Nina develops, promising long 2020 fire and hurricane season
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today that the La Nina pattern has developed. This phenomena involves a cooling of the surface of the Pacific Ocean near the equator. This pattern is known to cause a series of chain reactions resulting in a longer hurricane season in the…
California wildfires 2020, over 2 million acres burned
The 2020 wildfire season in the Western USA (California, Oregon, etc) started early. Dozens of fires ignited one weekend in August leading to wildfires all around the state, and today four of the largest wildfires in California’s history are burning simultaneously. More recently a heatwave sparked other wildfires in not…
Disease risk higher in highly polluted areas – COVID-19 risk greater?
With the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing we notice is the higher fatality rate for elderly patients, or for those with impaired health, or for those who are smokers. It seems that those with weaker immune systems have a harder time fighting off COVID-19, and therefore are more likely to result…
Bucharest abandons Oxygen tax, amid high pollution event
Last week, on the eve of instituting a tax on polluting cars entering the central area of Bucharest, the Mayor of Bucharest, Gabriela Firea, abandoned the so-called Oxygen Tax plan. Under the plan cars not meeting the Euro 3 criteria would be banned from the center of Bucharest, and overall…
EUs Green Deal threatens 40% of Romanian electricity production
In December, the European Union announced the European Green New Deal that is intended to greatly speed up the EU’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The new goal is for Europe to become Climate Neutral (no net greenhouse gas emissions) by 2050, and to reduce emissions by 55% by…
NYC, LA, DC and 23 states sue EPA over rescinding emissions standards waiver
As we’ve been covering for awhile, the US Environmental Protection Agency has been threatening to yank California’s ability to set its own emissions standards. California and many other states have a long-standing precedent to set emissions standards and other environmental regulations. Under the Trump Administration everything that threatens the fossil…
Microgrids could prevent power outages but some experts disagree
A few weeks ago Northern California was rocked by huge power outages which PG&E hoped would prevent wildfires ignited by tree limbs falling on power lines. At the time weather conditions included heavy wind storms, drying out an already extremely dry landscape, raising the fire danger high enough to make…
Some automakers (GM etc) join Trump in fight against California
On Monday, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler and Toyota said they were intervening on the side of the Trump Administration in its fight with California over that states’ right to set its own emissions policy. Since the 1960’s California has set its own emissions policies, and has a specific allowance to…
CPUC aims regulations at utilities over power shut-off events
What is California to do during it’s yearly fire season in October/November? The last ten years this state has seen an uptick in huge wildfires, with seemingly every year having the largest wildfire ever only to be superseded with the one the following year. Some of the wildfires have been…
Climate Change threatens existence of PG&E and other companies
Many people in California are irate about PG&E. In 2017, downed PG&E power lines contributed to a wildfire that destroyed parts of Santa Rosa California. In 2018, downed PG&E power lines ignited a wildfire that destroyed the city of Paradise. In 2019, PG&E developed a plan to avoid wildfires that…
Bucharest City Council passes ban on polluting cars entering the city
Bucharest, the Capitol of Romania, has passed a special tax, the Oxygen Vignette, aimed at cars not meeting the Euro 5 standard. Cars not meeting the Euro 3 standard will be completely banned from entering an area designated as Action Zone for Air Quality (ZACA) in the center of Bucharest,…
