Episode 02 Text and Sources

Hear the episode here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/14101666/episode-02-cheri-honkala-from-poor-peopl

Broken Planet Headlines 2

1. Beginning with recent science, a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change finds that not only has the coronavirus pandemic led to reduced demand for electricity, but a reduced role for fossil fuels within the remaining energy mix.  Researchers found that in the United States, Europe and India, monthly electricity demand dropped by up to 20% during 2020 relative to 2019, while monthly carbon emissions from electricity generation fell in some places by up to 50%.  The discrepancy results from the different costs of energy production methods: fossil-fired power plants are more expensive to run than build due to the constant influx of fuel needed, so when demand drops they go offline first.  Renewables and nuclear power, by contrast, incur fewer of their costs after initial construction, so utilities are more inclined to keep them running constantly.

This comes as research published in the journal Science Advances finds that CO2 and aerosol emission reductions caused by the pandemic could actually result in an increase in global temperatures, although the authors also note that “even large emission reductions applied for a short duration have only a small and likely undetectable impact.”

2.  A new database published in the journal Nature Food is the first to detail emissions from each stage of food systems for every year from 1990 to 2015.  The database, known as EDGAR-FOOD, shows that food systems were responsible for over one third of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions in 2015, and over two thirds of those emissions were from agriculture and land-use changes, such as deforestation and soil degradation.  The database also shows that the potent warming gas methane is responsible for 35% of food emissions, primarily from livestock farming and rice production, and that emissions from food retail have quadrupled in the United States and Europe during the 25 year period studied.

3.  A Russian liquid natural gas ship has traversed the Northern Sea Route of the Arctic for the first time ever during the month of February, made possible due to the effects of rising temperatures.  The tanker, Christophe de Margerie, travelled from the Easternmost tip of Asia to Western Siberia over the course of 11 days.  The 2020 summer heatwave in the Northern Hemisphere led to Arctic sea ice hitting its second-lowest levels ever last September, with the remaining, newer ice tending to be more brittle.  The company that owns the gas ship, Sovcomflot, is hoping to acquire 18 new ice-breaking LNG tankers in the next few years to exploit Arctic gas.  This past week it was reported that the British Royal Navy will soon have a permanent presence in the Arctic Circle to counter any Russian influence over new trade routes. 

4.  Over 260 NGO's have written an open letter to banks and potential backers of a huge oil pipeline that would run through Uganda and Tanzania.  The East African Crude Oil Pipeline, or EACOP, is a project of French oil company Total and China National Offshore Oil Corporation, and is estimated to require $2.5 billion in bank loans.  Construction could begin some time this month, although since 2018 Total has been blocking over 5,000 households from accessing their own farmlands to grow crops, and they have yet to be compensated.  It's estimated that around 14,000 households may lose land if the project is completed.  Almost a third of EACOP will be within the freshwater basin of Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, on which more than 40 million people depend.  The oil, which is to be exported at the coast, will lead to annual emissions larger than the annual emissions of Uganda and Tanzania combined, at some 34 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent.  In response to the mounting criticism Total's CEO last week released a boilerplate statement of reassurance. 

5.  The U.S. Energy Information Administration has reported that Texas natural gas production fell by 45% at its lowest point during the recent cold snap.  The drop was due mainly to frozen water and other liquids disabling gas infrastructure due to a lack of winterization in Texas compared to the rest of the country.  The blackout affected millions of people in both Texas and Mexico and led to water shortages across half the state and hundreds of deaths. 

The sudden drop in availability led to a huge price surge, with one CFO, Roland Burns of shale company Comstock Resources, stating that the blackout was "like hitting the jackpot."  The Australian investment bank Macquarie is the second largest gas trader in the U.S. and made $215 million during the surge charging, leading to an expected profit increase of up to 10% for the company for the year.  The company was also accused of "climate-change price gouging" during the California blackouts last August.  It's unclear at this point whether the $16 billion that some power companies and households were overcharged during the crisis will be recovered.

6.  In February, Indian police arrested youth climate activist Disha Ravi and charged her with sedition and criminal conspiracy, over the distribution of a digital toolkit designed to support the ongoing Indian farmers' protests.  The innocuous toolkit was also tweeted by Greta Thunberg, leading authorities to claim it was part of an effort to raise the profile of a Sikh separatist group and undermine India in the eyes of the world.  Ravi, co-founder of the Fridays For Future branch in Bangalore, said in court that "if highlighting farmers’ protest globally is sedition, I am better [off] in jail.”  Two associates of Ravi were issued non-bailable arrest warrants but have since been given extended protection from arrest until March 15th.  Ravi was released from jail after 10 days and granted bail due to what the judge described as "sketchy evidence" against her.  The activist was also targeted last July when her Fridays For Future chapter website was taken down for a day by Delhi police, a move that police claim was made in error.

Sedition in India is a colonial-era law that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.  Convictions are rare but critics of the government claim the increasing number of cases over the last 5 years is an intimidation tactic.  The Delhi-based group Teachers Against the Climate Crisis described Ravi’s arrest as “the most serious attack on the climate movement in this country”, and claims that it has had a chilling effect on other youth activists in India.  Millions of Indian farmers have been protesting since November against new laws that they say will benefit big agriculture at the expense of small farms. 

7.  An investigative documentary by BBC Brasil has revealed that Facebook is enabling land grabs and deforestation in the Amazon.  Public land and even land within indigenous reserves have been advertised for sale on Facebook Marketplace.  The main territory where this is happening, Uru Eu Wau Wau, is believed to be home to five uncontacted indigenous groups, with one leader having been assassinated by invaders last April.  Some of the plots for sale on Facebook cover tens of thousands of acres, and are being cleared and sold to cattle ranchers for huge profits.

Facebook claims that trying to deduce which land sales are illegal would be too difficult for it to do itself, instead saying it is to ready to work with Brazilian authorities.  Deforestation and enforcement efforts have been severely undermined under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.  Dozens of murders against land defenders during Bolsonaro's first year in office have led to absolutely no convictions.  Social media firms have faced criticism for relying too heavily on algorithms to monitor their vast platforms rather than hiring more human beings. 

8.  And finally, in other Amazon-related news, a U.S. federal appeals court has thrown out a contempt finding against human rights lawyer Steven Donziger.  The charges, brought by a law firm with ties to the oil company Chevron, have kept Donziger under house arrest for the past 19 months.  In 2011 the lawyer helped to win a landmark $9.5 billion settlement against Chevron on behalf of 30,000 indigenous and rural people in Ecuador for environmental destruction.  The disaster, sometimes dubbed the Amazon Chernobyl, concerns the alleged dumping of billions of gallons of toxic waste and crude oil in the Amazon rainforest, causing a spike in cancer and birth defects.  Chevron has yet to pay any of the compensation money.  In February a coalition of major human rights and environmental groups including Amnesty International and Rainforest Action Network wrote to the U.S. Department of Justice to demand an investigation into the legal attacks on Donziger.

Another legal ruling in late January ordered an end to gas flaring in Ecuador.  Flaring, the practice of simply burning off natural gas found when drilling for oil, has been a constant since Chevron built the first commercial wells in Ecuador in 1967, and is considered responsible for high cancer rates in local communities, mostly among women and girls.  The judges noted that ending flaring could reduce the country's emissions by 24%, although the court did not specify a date by which the practice must be stopped.