— from Washington Senate Democrats —
Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, released the statement below following today’s [March31] hearing on critical pieces of environmental policy regarding oil trains and toxic chemicals in the Senate’s Energy, Environment & Telecommunications Committee:
“The Senate had a chance today to act on the good work done by our colleagues in the House and pass legislation that would have addressed two urgent public safety and environmental needs.
“Both of these bills passed the House with strong bipartisan support. Unfortunately both were significantly watered down in the Senate.
“Our No. 1 job should be to protect the public. Today we missed that opportunity – twice.
“A last minute amendment is a perfect example of the problem with the oil train bill. It prevents people and first responders from knowing the type of oil is being transported. This is of serious concern because the much more volatile Bakken crude is consistently at the center of the most catastrophic oil disasters. I proposed an amendment which would have given people critical information.
“I also proposed an amendment which would have protected our state’s marine waters by strengthening water transport standards.
“Both amendments were defeated.
“Unfortunately toxics met the same watered-down fate. A bill that passed 95-3 in the House has been amended into ineffectiveness. It now falls far short of protecting our kids, firefighters and making homes safer.
“A lot of attention was directed at budgets today, but it’s important to note that these critical bills to protect our communities from known cancer-causing toxics, exploding oil trains or a devastating oil spill in our marine waters were quietly weakened today.
“There’s no excuse for the continued inaction by Senate Republicans.”
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If Senator Ranker and his Democratic colleagues really wanted to reduce the risk of accidents from crude-oil carrying trains he would encourage the President and the rest of the left-wing to stop stalling the Keystone pipeline. Much of the crude oil that is currently being transported in trains across North America would be put into the Keystone pipeline if it were in operation. New pipelines will always be safer than trains transporting the oil. Stopping the pipeline does not stop the movement of oil, it just changes the way it is transported.
Don, Another option is to leave the dirty stuff in the ground. What are your views on anthropogenic climate change and the burning of fossil fuels?
Thank you Kevin for doing your best! The egregious rape of our Earth Mother to line the pockets of the few Will end soon! Spirit Eagle
Here’s a great piece that pertains to this article.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/together-with-earth/bigger-than-science-bigger-than-religion/
With regard to our extractive economy continually plundering the earth, I especially appreciated this story from the article…
“Several years ago, I had dinner with Edgar Mitchell, one of only a dozen humans who have walked upon the lunar surface. Mitchell, the descendant of New Mexico pioneers and an aeronautical engineer by training, spoke precisely and almost clinically—until he related an experience that happened on his way back to Earth during the Apollo 14 mission. At that point, his voice brightened with awe.”
“I was gazing out of the window, at the Earth, moon, sun, and star-studded blackness of space in turn as our capsule slowly rotated,” he said. “Gradually, I was flooded with the ecstatic awareness that I was a part of what I was observing. Every molecule in my body was birthed in a star hanging in space. I became aware that everything that exists is part of one intricately interconnected whole.”
As we wound the Earth, we wound our selves. The way forward is one of restoration, recovery, healing and renewal.
Jay- another option is for our entire economy and way of life to be destroyed. What are your views on never using fossil fuels for transportation (I assume you never travel by car, boat, plane or ferry).
Just read this today – a great review of the new book “Collision Course (Endless Growth on a Finite Planet), by the Steady State Economy proponent and economist Herman Daly.
https://steadystate.org/review-of-collision-course-endless-growth-on-a-finite-planet/
Quote of note:
“The anti-Limits PR apparatus is so strong now that it even dares to oppose science in order to defend growth. This is most evident today in the denial of climate change and the attack on climate scientists financed by the fossil fuel industry.”
A classic case of shooting the messenger. Endless growth on a finite planet, while denigrating science. We do so at our peril. We know how this movie ends.
John, Two words: Carbon tax – recovering the external costs of fossil fuels. Stop allowing fossil fuel companies to privatize profit and pass the costs on to the public. Tax what kills us and use it to speed the transition to cleaner low carbon substitutes. America has a long track record of innovating solutions to complex problems. Rather than destroy the economy, transitioning to cleaner technologies fires the economy up.
Economies love efficiency.
Some examples: I reduced my transportation energy bill and carbon footprint by switching from a gasoline car to electric vehicle. I got rid of all my gasoline yard tools and use electric.
Got rid of my fossil fuel heating and replaced it with electric. Much lower cost and way cleaner.
Because electric is so much cheaper per BTU than gasoline, propane, and heating oil, it saves money and has a small fraction of the carbon footprint.
High speed trains have much better efficiency moving people at lower cost, using less fuel, and much lower carbon intensity.
Freight terminals are using electric tractor trailers to haul containers from docks to transportation centers. This significantly reduces the diesel emissions that impact health and air quality in the city-centered terminals.
Any state that has good sun and burns coal (Texas, Colorado, NJ, etc.) is transitioning to solar and wind as fast as they can. Much cleaner, and increasingly lower cost, especially when the externalities of dirty fossil fuels are accounted for.
The list goes on. Let’s be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Having destroyed the politics of compromise for the better good a long time ago, the missed opportunity you refer to Senator, didn’t occur yesterday, it happened all too quickly at the polls of Novembers past when we slowly substituted profit and power for reason and preservation without the slightest concern for what we will leave behind. And don’t kid yourself, Jay, “we” are the problem! The pervasive expectation of demanding a collective solution to a problem “we” refuse to embrace as individuals is a puzzle beyond complication.
Charlie, No question. As the wise elder Pogo said long ago “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
That said, though we are the problem, we can be the solution. No easy task ahead. But the journey begins with each step.
Jay, on this issue, there are a few things that you’re leaving out.
First, let’s look at your electric car and electric heat. You are still paying a large environmental cost for it.
Not all of Orcas’s electricity comes from falling water, because even BPA is hooked-up to a huge grid which includes fossil-fuel generation.
And even falling water has its environmental costs, particularly in destroyed fish habitat and reduced spawning opportunities.
Second, it is futile for the US to reduce its dependency upon fossil fuels as a means of protecting our world’s environment.
China and India consume more fossil fuel, and produce more harmful emissions from it, than ever the US has, and will produce.
First, get China and India (among other nations) to sign on to a protocol and inspection system. Only then would it be meaningful to start reducing the US fossil-fuel industry.
Third, at the present moment, we do not know how much of the climate change we see around us is human-mediated, and how much is the natural cycle that has been already observed.
Thus, we do not know whether we humans are truly having the most decisive effect upon our climate, and causing it to change. Other factors may be equally, or more, influential.
Until that question has been conclusively answered, all we can truthfully say is that our world’s climate is undergoing a great change.
Most of Steve’s talking points above come from climate denier front groups funded by big oil/coal. His points have been well debunked here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
Check it out. Excellent reading.
Also, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences provides excellent resources for understanding climate change here:
https://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/events/a-discussion-on-climate-change-evidence-and-causes/
The Q/A Section is a quick way to explore the facts.
Steve, BPA energy is the cleanest energy in the country 12 to 20 times cleaner than coal, propane, or heating oil. Here’s a chart showing the facts:
https://www.opalco.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/OPALCORatesandCarbonIntensity.jpg
Note that the BPA energy mix includes a remarkably low 2.30% of coal. The coal plant will be decommissioned in 2020.
BPA energy is a gift of super clean low cost energy that is the envy of most states.
Steve, given how clean and low cost OPALCO/BPA energy is, here’s how that shows up with regard to your comments about electric vehicles:
https://www.opalco.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/EV-ICE-cost-and-carbon-comparison.jpg
Electric vehicle energy cost is about 3 to 10 times less than gasoline vehicles, emitting up to 200 times less CO2. That is a remarkable savings of dollars and reduction of carbon emissions.
You will find similar savings and reduction of emissions with electric heat, especially with the super efficient ductless heat pumps. Last year, OPALCO members installed about 100 heat pumps and heat pump water heaters, receiving thousands of dollars in rebates as incentive for saving energy.
As a latecomer to this conversation, I don’t have much to add that has not already been said, and few people are likely to be watching any more. But as a scientist who studies the history of science, I can tell you all that anthropogenic climate change has been proved beyond a reasonable scientific doubt. There are a few scientists who disagree, but there always are, that’s not unusual. But it doesn’t mean that the whole idea gets thrown out the window, just that we continue to work on refining the details.
In recognizing this fact, I think we have a moral obligation to future generations to limit our carbon footprints in every possible way we can — irrespective of what China or India is doing. I certainly feel that and try to act that way myself, and it seems that’s what Jay is doing, too. And there are many, many ways we can do that without significantly impacting our quality of life. In some ways, they improve it. And I sleep better at night.
With all due respect, Jay, I do not think that you have convincingly addressed my “talking points” at all.
The fact that it took you four separate tries to attempt to address my comments tells me that you merely skimmed my words at first, and then later paid only passing attention to them.
I am not a “hater,” nor do I uncritically accept one side’s or another’s point of view. But I do see inconsistencies in your arguments, as well as in “theirs,” and I also see that you prefer facile dismissal to thoughtfully addressing the inconsistencies that I perceive and note.
Electricity generated by falling water does indeed have serious environmental costs. If you don’t believe that, just ask the salmon around you.
China and India do indeed “swamp” our attempts to develop a clean environment, and make much of our environmental work futile. Sorry: That’s an undeniable fact, not a mere “talking point.”
Finally, regardless of what environmental purists say or believe, I remain skeptical of the quantitative environmental change that can be attributed specifically to human activity.
I don’t deny that we are involved in the change, but I am not convinced of exactly how much we are thus involved. Much more work on the subject remains to be done.
Saying that “we are the problem” is a false argument. Analogies like this tend to over-simplify a complex problem. Yes, we have all contributed to some degree to the current climate change scenario, of that there can be no dispute. Some more than others could also be considered a given. What irks me is the fact that the very same corporations that provide us with the energy we are seemingly dependent on (our lifestyle), are subsidized at great tax-payer’s expense while being chiefly responsible for creating the problems associated with anthropogenic climate change. These corporations have in a very real sense taken over our government, and are responsible for suppressing the growth of many of the alternative energy ideas that would have kept us from getting into the mess we’re in now. The attachments offered by Jay are well worth reading, and refute many of the claims some of you are making within this thread.