Tag: environment

Funding for green groups soared after 2009 endangerment finding, nonprofit finds

Changes to the Environmental Protection Agency’s strict regulations on the automobile industry could cost nonprofit groups that reported a 267% funding bump in the years since the federal agency’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, a rule that provided a legal basis for the agency to regulate vehicle emissions and the energy industry through the Clean Air Act.

Democracy Restored, a nonprofit dedicated to showing how government works, reviewed the tax returns of more than 75 of the top nonprofit organizations focused on climate change. Funding for those 75 groups has increased significantly since 2009 with their bottom lines moving from about $3 billion to $8 billion, since the most recently available tax returns were made public, said Houston Keene, director of Democracy Restored.

Government grants to those same 75 organizations increased from $350 million in 2009 to nearly $1.4 billion in 2023, the most recent year for which records were available.

“The endangerment finding seems to have given a very big boost to these groups,” Keene told The Center Square.

In July, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to rescind an Obama-era environmental finding, or endangerment finding, impacting the automobile industry. Trump’s EPA boss, Lee Zeldin, says the endangerment finding cost the industry $1 trillion in regulations. Trump’s EPA blames the 2009 Endangerment Finding for the Biden administration’s electric vehicle mandate, which aimed to reduce the production of gas-powered vehicles.

Zeldin’s EPA says that if the proposal is finalized, it will lead to the repeal of all “resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines,” resulting in consumer choice and affordability. The agency says that it will save over $54 billion a year.

In support of the proposal, the EPA cited new scientific data it says challenges “the assumptions behind the 2009 Endangerment Finding.” The EPA chief contends the Obama and Biden administrations used “warped science” to cram through new emission standards.

Other groups disagree. Former vice president and environmental activist Al Gore says the move ignores reality.

Keene said the groups are pushing policies out of touch with Americans.

“They’re pushing policies that the majority of Americans wouldn’t want to live under or even agree with at this point,” he told The Center Square.

Keene said that such spending needs to be carefully examined going forward.

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Protest as 200-year-old oak trees face chop to save house built in 1980s… with villagers accusing insurance giant of ‘eco-terrorism’

Planted in George III’s reign, the three oaks have stood side by side for more than two centuries.

But now two of the trio – known as the Billingshurst Sisters – could be felled over claims they have damaged a nearby house built in the 1980s.

Insurance giant AXA said their roots have caused cracks and subsidence in the home in the West Sussex village and that the 90ft-high trees must be axed.

The firm has overturned a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) and has sought permission to chop them down from the landowner, Billingshurst Parish Council.

However, furious villagers branded the move ‘eco-terrorism’ and urged the council to oppose the application. Their fate will be decided at a meeting tomorrow.

Campaigners accuse AXA of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut – and failing to properly investigate the subsidence.

They say that shallow foundations or other factors may instead be to blame. More than 2,500 villagers have now signed a petition to save the oaks.

Gabi Barrett, who launched the petition, said the trees are ‘vital to the community’s ecosystem’.

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Dealing With the Microplastics Silent Invasion

We’re living in an era where we have never been so heavily subjected to toxicity, coming from so many different sources. The extent to which these toxicities are capable of assaulting our bodies and their ubiquitous nature means that we can never be completely free from their effects. 

However, there are ways in which we can protect ourself to minimize their effects. For a list of unprecedented health threats and how we can protect ourselves go here.

Another nasty to include in the list of toxicities is microplastics. 

They have been detected in the remotest areas of the world: The Arctic, Antarctic, deepest oceans and other isolated environments, such as, for example, in the glaciers, snow-covered mountainous areas, rivers making up the Gela Dandong Peak in China, untouched by humans.

Not that long ago research was done on the brains of deceased humans to look for plastic content. The research, conducted by Professor Matthew Campen, University of New Mexico, revealed that the plastic content of their brains was found to be 0.5% on average for each individual. -That’s the equivalent of a plastic spoon weighing 5g. Hence the above image showing a plastic spoon pasted on the brain.

The 0.5% result was a 50% increase on comparing average brain plastic content in 2016. 

-This disturbing evidence suggests that we are facing an inevitable, unstoppable generational increase in body plastic toxicity. Not just in our brains, but an invasion of microplastics in other areas of our bodies, including other vital organs such the liver, kidneys and heart…

So named the ’silent invasion’ because the microplastics, tiny shards the size of 200 nanometers (0.0002 millimeters) or even smaller, such as nano-plastics (1 billionth of a meter), are too small to be detected by the naked eye. These pollutants are present in the air, land and water.  

When ingested or inhaled, they enter our bodies bypassing natural immune defenses, unable to be broken down when in the body. 

Bisphenol-A or phthalates are examples of the toxic ingredients that accumulate, having the ability to affect body pH, and mimic or block hormones: The consequences of hormonal disruptions include infertility, pregnancy complications, cognitive impairment and oxidative stress (leading to cell damage) through  imbalances… 

Further, besides affecting the body’s organs they are able to clog up arteries and veins, leading to cardiovascular illnesses.

As microplastics are present in oceans, soil and reservoirs where our drinking water and food comes from, they have become hotbeds for antibiotic resistant superbugs. 

A Boston University study showed that E. Coli bacteria became 5 times more resistant to over several different antibiotics when in a microplastics environment. This disturbing link between microplastic toxicity and increasing antibiotic-resistant superbugs should sound alarm bells ringing. 

Consider the implications. For example, consider wastewater (effluent) treatment. This now has superbugs in a microplastic environment that poses a public health threat when released back into the environment if not treated properly. What about the areas where there are poor people and there is a lack of sanitation…?  

-In short, the microplastics silent invasion has become a world-wide health emergency threatening both humans and wildlife in the environment.

However, there are a number of necessary precautionary measures we can take to protect ourselves. 

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The Free Market Approach to Environmental Conservation

When Terry Anderson and Donald Leal published the first edition of their book Free Market Environmentalism in 1991, the idea was met with mixed reviews. “Free market environmentalism is an oxymoron,” wrote one reviewer, “and the authors are the moron part.”

The dominant belief at the time was that markets are the cause of environmental degradation, not the solution. And the idea that property rights could be harnessed to improve environmental quality was counter to the popular notion that conserving natural landscapes required regulation and management by government agencies.

But not anymore. Today, the ideas of free market environmentalism are being applied in a variety of creative ways. Conservationists are increasingly using markets, contracts, and property rights to turn environmental resources into assets instead of liabilities. And policymakers are recognizing that markets are not the enemy of the environment but instead can provide strong incentives for resource stewardship.

So how are these ideas being applied today to change the way people approach conservation? Here are a few examples.

Markets and Property Rights Are Solving the Tragedy of the Commons in Marine Fisheries…

Ocean fisheries are a classic example of the tragedy of the commons. Since no one owns the ocean, no one has a clear incentive to conserve its resources, making the oceans prone to overfishing. 

For decades, governments have imposed command-and-control regulations to combat overfishing, but such restrictions have rarely worked. Shortened seasons and early closures created a dangerous, zero-sum “race to fish.” The outcome was a wasteful—and often deadly—derby that was bad for both fish and fishermen, who tried to catch as much as possible before the closures set in. Despite these regulations, overfishing persisted, and many fish stocks were at risk of collapsing.

That changed with the development of a rights-based alternative known as individual transferable quotas, sometimes called “catch shares.” The quotas give fishermen the right to catch a share of a total catch limit, set at a sustainable level each season by fishery managers. Fishermen can buy, sell, or lease quotas to each other, and they no longer have to race to fish. There is also more accountability for harvests and an incentive for stewardship.

The results have been impressive. Rights-based fishing reforms have reduced overfishing, helped stem the global trend toward fisheries collapse, and led to higher incomes for fishers. According to one study that examined data on more than 11,000 fisheries around the world, catch shares have helped halt and even reverse the collapse of fisheries. They have also slowed the “race to fish,” improving fishing safety and allowing consumers to buy fresh seafood throughout the year. Today, there are nearly 200 catch-share programs worldwide, including more than a dozen in the United States. 

Catch shares are also being used to reduce “bycatch,” which are species that fishermen unintentionally catch in their trawlers. After previous efforts to regulate bycatch failed, managers of a fishery off the West Coast of the United States demonstrated how markets and property rights can help tackle the problem. 

In 2011, the West Coast groundfish fishery instituted a program that gave each fisherman a portfolio of rights to catch various species, including those caught as bycatch. If a fisherman exceeded his allotment for a given type of fish, he had to purchase more quota—and when it came to overfished species, the price was steep. This gave each vessel in the fleet ample incentive to avoid overfished species that previously ended up as bycatch, a crucial aspect of the program that former regulations on fishing seasons lacked.

After catch shares were introduced, the proportion of overfished species caught by trawlers fell by about half. “Before catch shares, large proportions of the catch of many non-target species were discarded as bycatch,” reads a 2015 government report. “Now, whether in a fishing net or in the ocean, they are treated as the valuable resource they are.” As a result, populations of overfished species have begun to rebound thanks to clearly defined property rights and markets that overcome the tragedy of the commons.

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Cabinet’s aim to plant two billion trees was a farce

The federal government’s 2019 initiative to plant two billion trees over 10 years, led by then-Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, is 89% short of its target and has cost $267.7 million to date.

Natural Resources Canada reported only 228 million trees planted, far short of the two-billion-tree pledge and less than half of what forestry companies plant annually, according to Blacklock’s.

“The government remains committed to restoring and conserving nature and biodiversity,” said the department. “Nature is part of Canada’s identity.”

Documents show the feds did not intend for the “two billion trees” target to be taken literally. “The government sought a name that would inspire that commitment and participation,” said a February 15 Department of Natural Resources memo. “So far that has worked.”

The point was to “rally interest,” testified Monique Frisson, director general responsible for tree planting. “How many trees is the two billion trees program supposed to plant?” asked Conservative MP Michael Kram. “I mean, 1.85 billion, 1.9 billion,” replied Frisson.

MP Kram then questioned if the two billion trees program would achieve its goal. Frisson clarified that the initiative always intended to count trees planted across various government programs, not solely those under the specific “two billion trees” program.

Director Frisson noted roughly 50 public servants are involved in the program, which aims to create 3,500 annual seasonal jobs to combat climate change.

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European nations dumped 200,000 barrels of radioactive waste in the ocean, and humans might soon pay the price

A team of scientists has found 3,355 barrels of radioactive waste at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The discovery was made at a depth of 13,000 feet, and hundreds of miles offshore from France. This is only a tiny part of the actual number of barrels filled with nuclear waste scattered at the bottom of the sea. Between 1946 and 1990, over 200,000 such barrels were dumped by European nations, assuming it was the best way to keep people on land safe. This was done under the supervision of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), a body comprising 34 countries that is tasked with ensuring nuclear safety and waste management. But now there are fears that this waste can reach humans via the food chain. Scientists have warned that this radioactive material could be absorbed by marine life, which can enter sea creatures and then humans who eat the contaminated seafood. This could cause long-term health issues, damage tissues, and increase the risk of cancer.

The barrels are not capable of holding the contents inside them forever. They were designed to release the radioactive material slowly, but surely. They had a life span of 20 to 26 years, and that time is already gone. So what next? The French scientists are on a mission to understand what would happen to these barrels. In the first leg, they used sonar and the autonomous underwater robot UlyX to map the Abyssal Plains. They said that most of the radioactive material in these barrels is weak and does not pose any immediate risk to humans since it is deep inside the ocean. However, this does not mitigate the long-term effects, which include contaminating marine life and entering the food chain. About one-third of the material in these barrels was tritium, which is considered insignificant. The rest are beta and gamma emitters, which lose radioactivity, with about two per cent being alpha radiation.

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Judge temporarily halts construction at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center over environmental concerns

A federal judge has ordered a halt to the construction of the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades due to environmental concerns.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ruled that the facility can continue operations and hold detainees. However, the continued construction of the facility is temporarily barred for the next two weeks.

The ruling followed an eight-hour meeting in which five witnesses were called by the environmental groups who issued a lawsuit over the detention facility. The environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe asked Williams to halt operations and further construction at the facility, arguing that it’s built on environmentally protected wetlands and reverses billions in environmental restoration.

The plaintiffs argued that the detention center was illegally built due to federal and state officials bypassing a review process legally required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

“This is a very common-sense law that requires the government to look before it leaps, to analyze the environmental impacts, to do an environmental impact study, to take public comment, to consider alternatives, and none of that was done at so-called ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’” stated Eve Samples, the executive director of Friends of the Everglades.

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California High-Speed Train Boondoggle Reveals Collusion of Blue Government and Environmentalists

Socialists and Communists love trains for the masses.  They go where they are told, and Citizens do not have the freedom to change their mind and go somewhere else.  Cars and Freeways allow too much freedom.  The utopia of passenger trains in America was supposed to be the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) project to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles with over 800 miles of tracks.  From 1981 to 2008 plans were made and a vote to proceed was approved by Californians with funding via a state bond plus Federal Funding.  In 2015 the initial construction commenced.

Fortunately, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and President Trump brought an end to this insanity and announced on July 16 that the Federal Railroad Administration was terminating and clawing back approximately $4 billion in unspent federal funding for California’s High-Speed Rail debacle.

Secretary Duffy’s announcement said, “After 16 years and roughly $15 billion spent, not one high speed track has been laid by the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). The $135 billion projected total cost of the project could buy every San Francisco and LA resident nearly 200 roundtrip flights between the cities.

Secretary Duffy went on, “This is California’s fault. Governor Newsom and the complicit Democrats have enabled this waste for years. Federal dollars are not a blank check – they come with a promise to deliver results. After over a decade of failures, CHSRA’s mismanagement and incompetence has proven it cannot build its train to nowhere on time or on budget.  It’s time for this boondoggle to die.”  Governor Newsom recently appeared on the Shawn Ryan show and lied about all the progress on the CHSRA project.

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Environmental Regulations Are Literally Baking Europeans to Death

Much of the U.S. has been suffering a sweltering heat wave for the past two weeks. Though uncomfortable, particularly in areas with nearly 100 percent humidity like Washington, D.C., most Americans experience heat waves as a sweaty annoyance. Our European counterparts are not so fortunate, thanks to excessive regulations driving up the price of energy and outright banning certain air conditioning units.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put 130 million Americans “under extreme heat warnings or heat advisories [last] Thursday…with 282 locations breaking daily heat records,” according to The Guardian. CNN reported that at least one death in the St. Louis area was ascribed to the heat wave, but mass casualties have not been suffered stateside. Meanwhile, in Europe, eight people have died across the continent as of Wednesday: four in Spain (two were killed in a wildfire that is believed to be driven by hot, dry conditions), two in France, and two more in Italy, per Al Jazeera. 

The situation was even worse during the summer of 2023. The U.K. Health Security Agency estimated that 2,295 deaths were associated with excessive heat. The U.S., meanwhile, recorded nearly the same number of heat-related deaths (2,325), despite having a population (335 million) nearly five times greater than the U.K. population (​​68 million) at the time.

The United Nations estimates that the European continent accounted for approximately 175,000 heat-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2019. The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, calculates that about 1,300 deaths per year in the U.S. are due to extreme heat. (This translates to four heat-related deaths per million annually in the U.S. and 235 heat-related deaths per million annually across Europe.)

There are myriad reasons why there are so many more heat-related deaths in Europe than there are in the United States. But the most significant explanation might just be the simplest: air conditioning.

David S. Jones, a physician and historian at Harvard University, told CNN in 2023 that the disparity is explained by some combination of the U.S. underreporting its numbers and heat being more lethal in Europe due to the lack of air conditioning. The American-European disparity along this latter dimension could hardly be greater: nearly 90 percent of U.S. households have air conditioning, whereas less than 10 percent of European homes do. The productivity gap between the U.S. and Europe helps explain this disparity.

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Driving an Electric Car Is like Environmentalism

In Sweden there exists an electrified road for Electric Vehicles (EVs) to charge while driving, see Endnote [i].  The 2 km stretch of road is the world’s first of its kind, and an expansion of a further 3,000 km of electric road by 2045 is planned. It all sounds rather cool and futuristic, and I am reminded of a song lyric from the 1980s, the singer Eddie Grant sang “we’re gonna rock onto Electric Avenue”.

However, let us consider whether these expensive EVs are actually environmentally friendly or are yet mega-corporate marketing scam? This article demonstrates that the latter is the case.

The reality is that the misled environmentalists buying these cars are suckers for mega-corporate advertising, seemingly proud of their so-called low-carbon eco-cars. Apparently, unaware that the manufacture of millions of electric car batteries, requires huge mining operations to acquire and refine large quantities of rare earth metals, such as lithium, rhodium and cobalt; that these metals have to be mined out of the ground using machinery which is powered by carbon-emitting vehicles powered by diesel or petrol; and importantly, that the mining and refining processes can cause significant and extensive pollution to land, air and water systems, for example in rural China and Mongolia, see Endnote [i]. Unlike the fake climate agenda, these are real environmental problems.

Further to my recent article 1900 Scientists Say ‘Climate Change Not Caused By CO2’ – The Real Environment Movement Was Hijacked, and my book Climate CO2 Hoax, a ‘devastator’ can been described as a lie so big it devastates and bewilders. “Buy an electric car to save the planet” is one such devastating lie.

Below is a picture of a lithium leach field. This is what your EV batteries are made of. It is so neuro-toxic that a bird landing on this stuff dies in minutes. Take a guess what it does to your nervous system? Pat yourself on the back for saving the environment.

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