LNG 33% Worse for Climate Than Coal Over 20-Year Period, Groundbreaking Research Reveals Earth.Org Martina IginiOct 7th 2024 Exported gas generates far more greenhouse gas emissions than coal, despite the fossil fuel industry depicting the former as a cleaner alternative, new scientific evidence has shown. In its new peer-reviewed study, American ecosystem scientist Robert Howarth concluded that Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) has a larger climate impact than any other planet-warming fossil fuel, including the dirtiest of all, coal. Coal, the cheapest and dirtiest fossil fuel, is the single-largest source of carbon emissions, responsible for over 0.3C of the 1.2C increase in global average temperatures since the Industrial Revolution. It is also a major contributor to air pollution.  But Howarth’s research came to the conclusion that LNG is 33% worse in terms of greenhouse gas emissions over a 20-year period compared to coal, when accounting for its life-cycle emissions. Indeed, about two-thirds of the total emissions occur before the final burning of gas to power homes and businesses. Contributing to this is the sheer amount of methane emissions associated with LNG, which is predominantly made up of methane. Methane traps around 80 times the heat carbon dioxide (CO2) does over 20 years, dropping to 28-34 times over a century. Gas venting and fugitive emissions are the main cause of methane emissions. Gas venting is a practice that pumps out unwanted gasto maintain safe conditions in the oil and gas extraction process. While gas venting is a deliberate methane release, fugitive emissions are unintentional releases of gas across the fossil fuel supply system. The majority of the methane escape comes from downstream processes, which include refining, transmission, and distribution of gaseous products. So, even though burning coal generates greater CO2 emissions than burning natural gas, the latter’s methane emissions can “more than offset this difference,” according to the study.....read on......https://earth.org/lng-33-worse-for-climate-than-coal-over-20-year-period-groundbreaking-research-reveals/?mc_cid=01865f5ca3&mc_eid=9e83f67e3f

The research, compiled from financial data services, company websites, press releases and news reports, was limited to three categories of investments – upstream, fossil gas terminals, and coal plants – and so does not represent firms’ entire emissions footprints from energy investments. They compiled their findings into a scorecard, ranking each firm by its exposure to fossil fuel emissions producing investments, transparency and alignment with the target of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5C above preindustrial levels. EIG ranked last, receiving an F grade. It had 23 fossil fuel companies in its portfolio, the majority in upstream operations, giving it the estimated upstream emissions of more than 255m metric tons of tCO2e a year – the most of all its peers......and there's more https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/01/private-equity-firms-us-pensions-fossil-fuel-projects                

One of the most potent greenhouse gases is rising faster than ever.  he world to maintain a safe climate, scientists say. Washington Post Sarah KaplanSeptember 10, 2024 Emissions of methane — a powerful greenhouse gas — are rising at the fastest rate in recorded history, scientists said Tuesday, defying global pledges to limit the gas and putting the Earth on a path toward perilous temperature rise. New research from the Global Heating on cold days is a widespread requirement for rental homes in much of Canada and the US. Air conditioning, not so much. But as extreme heat becomes a growing health threat, pressure is building for a change. The report also uncovered worrying evidence that human disruptions have boosted the amount of methane released by lakes, marshes and other ecosystems. Since 2021, more than 150 countries have pledged to slash emissions of the gas by 30 percent by the end of this decade. But in a second, peer-reviewed study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, Global Carbon Project researchers found little evidence that the world is making good on those promises.

Carbon Project — an international coalition of scientists that seeks to quantify planet-warming emissions — finds that methane levels in the atmosphere are tracking those projected by the worst-case climate scenarios. Because methane traps about 30 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 100-year time frame, the accelerating emissions will make it nearly impossible for the world to meet its climate goals, the authors warned.“These extra methane emissions bring the temperature thresholds ever closer,” said Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist and chair of the Global Carbon Project. “Warming that was once inconceivable is now perhaps likely.” The project’s “Global Methane Budget” report, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, finds that human-caused methane emissions grew as much as 20 percent between 2000 and 2020 and now account for at least a third of total annual releases. The largest growth came from expanding landfills, booming livestock production, increased coal mining and surging consumption of natural gas. The report also uncovered worrying evidence that human disruptions have boosted the amount of methane released by lakes, marshes and other ecosystems.

Plastics companies blocked mitigation efforts and may have broken US laws – study. Paper outlines different legal theories that could help governments pursue accountability for harms. Guardian Dharna Noor  Wed 26 Jun 2024  Companies have spent decades obstructing efforts to take on the plastics crisis and may have breached a host of US laws, a new report argues.

The research from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) details the widespread burdens that plastic pollution places on US cities and states, and argues that plastic producers may be breaking public-nuisance, product-liability and consumer-protection laws.It comes as cities such as Baltimore have begun to file claims against plastic manufacturers, but the authors write that existing cases “are likely only the beginning, as more states and municipalities grapple with the challenges of accumulating plastic waste and microplastics contamination.” Taxpayers foot the bill to clean plastic pollution from streets and waterways, and research shows people could ingest the equivalent of one credit card’s worth of plastic per week.“We’re in the midst of a population-scale human experiment on the impacts of multigenerational toxic exposures,” said Carroll Muffett, president of CIEL and a report co-author. “Plastics are at the epicenter of that.” Drawing on newly revealed internal documents and previous investigations, the authors write that producers knew of these risks and produced and marketed plastics anyway Petrochemical producers such as ExxonMobil Chemical and Shell Polymers, and disposable plastic goods producers like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Unilever, should be held responsible, they say. Global plastics production exploded shortly after the second world war, when “an industry that had been producing plastics primarily for military purposes needed new markets”, said Muffett.    

From 1950 to 2000, global plastic production soared from 2m tons to 234m tons annually. And over the next 20 years, production more than doubled to 460m tons in 2019, the authors write, citing data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But plastics producers knew in the 1950s that their products don’t break down and in 1969, documents show, industry interests discussed plastics accumulating in the environment but kept marketing them. As the public grew concerned about plastic pollution, the industry responded with “sophisticated marketing campaigns” to shift blame from producers to consumers – for instance, by popularizing the term litterbug. In the 1980s, the industry “misled the public” by lobbying states to adopt a plastic-packaging numbering system that resembled the “chasing arrows” recycling symbol and therefore appeared to indicate recyclability. (The Federal Trade Commission is currently re-evaluating the use of the symbols.) Around that same time, some municipalities began attempting to curb plastic pollution.

Coordinated pushback.....In 1989, Massachusetts considered banning all single-use packaging. The ballot initiative, proposed by the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, “had teeth to ensure compliance” including potential fines, jail time and the possibility of civil-enforcement actions. The ban was set to appear on the 1990 ballot, but the industry devised a “highly coordinated and sophisticated campaign” to kill it, the authors write based on internal documents. “Despite being local in its scope, the Massachusetts ban represented a serious threat to plastics producers and a host of other industry interests,” the report says. Tobacco lawyers, whose industry had come under fire for littered plastic cigarette butts, lobbied the Massachusetts attorney general to shut down the measure. And consumer goods producers like Procter & Gamble, petrochemical trade groups like the Chemical Manufacturers Association (which later became the American Chemistry Council), and tobacco lobby group the Tobacco Institute, created a taskforce to direct opposition. The Council for Solid Waste Solutions (CSWS), an industry group funded by major petrochemical producers such as Exxon, Dow, DuPont and Chevron, hired consultants to develop a plan for opposing legislative bans.....read on- there's much more     https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/26/plastics-companies-blocking-mitigation-efforts                          AND.......................

Time-Lapse Video Shows Trash Interceptor Halting Flow of Garbage Into the Ocean Juan Hernandez  Monday August 12, 2024 The Ocean Cleanup may be the world’s largest single effort to rid our oceans of plastic pollution. While there are obviously numerous projects around the world operated by different organizations, Boyan Slat’s endeavor includes tracking down and removing plastic from the ocean itself as well as stopping a great deal of trash flow at the source: rivers. According to the non-profit organization, as much as 80 percent of the world’s river plastic flows through just 1,000 rivers. A quick Google search will tell you there are as many as 150,000 rivers around the globe, so concentrating its cleanup efforts at these waterways represents a textbook case of working smarter rather than harder.The organization designed an Interceptor system which can be engineered to each river’s unique layout and have installed a handful of them in locations around the world over the past couple of years. “When you actually see all that trash together, that huge patch, and you think wow, that’s what was on our beaches? That’s what all the wildlife was playing in? It’s crazy,” says Danny Devaldenebro, a Los Angeles local living near System 007,which was installed near his Marina del Rey home in 2023. “I can’t believe we actually figured out something that can help this.” System 006 was installed thousands of miles away in Rio Las Vacas, which is approximately 16 km north of Guatemala’s capital, Guatemala City. The interceptor system hinges on a set of two strategically located floating booms which capture plastic flowing through the river while water passes by. The booms are chained to foundations dug into the riverside, giving Interceptor 006 enough strength and stability to stop enormous quantities of trash throughout the rainy season. The system was put to the test after an April storm that caused flash floods in the area and eventually led to the system’s largest ever river catch. A time lapse video of the whole operation in motion just weeks later shows a full month of trash flowing through the river before it’s stopped by Interceptor 006. It’s mind blowing to see absolutely no water at certain points in the time lapse, and like Devaldenebro said back in California, it puts into perspective that all this trash would end up on beaches and in the ocean otherwise.....watch a segment of this long video and you'll get the idea!         https://www.theinertia.com/environment/timelapse-video-shows-trash-interceptor-halting-flow-of-trash-into-the-ocean-for-one-month/