Burning the Midterm Oil

Time is of the essence and the nation’s climate levels continue to rise through the roof. They obviously thought it a safe bet that the nations couldn’t possibly continue kicking the can down the road for long and hoped the darkest hour was just before the dawn when they became open-minded and moved on to the greener side of renewable energy before all bridges were burned. Never was a hope so severely misplaced. They had forgotten that they were dealing with industries who have a bad habit of letting money burn holes into their pockets. At this point, merely ditching the carbon would be a Band-Aid solution, just like the zinc-batteries, solar panels, and the Green Climate Fund. With midcentury tip-toeing ever so closer, their only choice now is to develop a new invention to smack that fossil fuel right out of the atmosphere, which to Stephen W. Pacala, a Princeton University professor in ecology and evolutionary biology, would be a kick up the backside (The New York Times, 10/25/2018, Call From Scientists to Scrub the Air of Carbon, A17). 

But when push comes to shove, the legislation is willing to try anything, because the Trump administration has already cheated them out of 28 percent of clean air, and according to Andrew Wheeler at the 2018 Shale Insight conference held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, they’re willing to cheat them out of 49 more (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/25/2018, EPA administrator touts removal of regulations, D1-D2). A wolf in sheep’s clothing is an expert on ways to catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and being good at getting “the talk” started and going is all a man really needs if he wants a bunch of hard asses to stop the clock on methane leak inspections so that industries could get more time to repair them and to split the difference for oil and gas storage so that they need not warrant a performance standard, weeding out such attempts at white knuckle -- as a token of the Trump Administration’s ties with the Marcellus Shale Coalition since 2016 -- like the proliferation of construction problems and health deficiencies if they were to continue (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/25/2018, EPA administrator touts removal of regulations, D1-D2). But the state of Pennsylvania isn’t big enough for two wolves and Governor Tom Wolf has the authority to step up and stomp on the EPA‘s plan. Methane is next to fossil fuel what reefer is next to tobacco. The United Nation report warned that if the nations are unsuccessful in meeting their prescribed goals in later years, the death toll could rise to ten million, the earth's water could evaporate, and the world's coral reefs could vanish without a trace. 

There is only enough sustainable biomass in the western United States 

to provide about 1.9 × 10^9 MMBtu of energy by 2050

Meanwhile, a gathering of environmental activists and Native American leaders -- the krauts and the chiefs as we’ll call them -- was doing their own white knuckling on environmental hazards during a rally in Downtown Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/25/2018, Water ceremony kicks off protest against shale gas, B1-B3). They baptized themselves in the Ohio River in Point State Park befitting with the name of the movement “Defend Our Water -- Day of Action” because 4 million and 12 gallons of water gets wasted each time a well is drilled and fracked. And they hiked up Liberty Avenue until they reached the Allegheny River where the conference took place (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/25/2018, Water ceremony kicks off protest against shale gas, B1-B3). Wheeler really ought to count himself fortunate that the rest of the Pittsburgh citizens became distracted by the synagogue shooting that took place downtown. On the same day, there was a screening of yet another documentary film in commemoration of the event entitled “Defend Our Water” at the Harris Theater on Liberty Avenue. The link below will take you directly to the film at the click of a button (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/25/2018, Water ceremony kicks off protest against shale gas, B1-B3).

https://vimeo.com/297074788

They do, however, have plenty of other options left in the inventory and the old carbon equivalent of the Venus flytrap concept applies to all of them. All they need is a series of programs for them to be taken for a spin and a good many stipends from the federal government to conduct

A batch of undergrowth and small branch; a potential source 

for biomass fuel

research into those methods to be as certain that they actually may have a future potential as scientists were of minerals like peridotite capable of binding with carbon dioxide and converting it into solid rock making it as harmless as hail -- scientists will look for almost opportunity to tamper with the laws of substance and properties (The New York Times, 10/25/2018, Call From Scientists to Scrub the Air of Carbon, A17). 

What they have in mind is a woodland of trees with carbon-proof oak, crop-free farmlands where not a single crop grows out but an abundance of fossil fuel goes in, and even “direct air capture” plants which release chemical agents into the atmosphere cleansing trace amounts of fossil fuel, not like your average household detergents, but not like regular emissions either. What’s stopping them is that land good for the taking is low on inventory, exactly how much fossil fuel fresh soil can hold is still unknown to science, and direct air capture plants are a lot cheaper said than done (The New York Times, 10/25/2018, Call From Scientists to Scrub the Air of Carbon, A17).

Carbon-capture equipment which completely absorbs all fossil 

fuel upon impact to be sold or buried.

 They have a game plan with all of the three previously mentioned in one; gathering up collective amounts of timber and other plant material and add them to biomass plants’ inventory creating an industrial-sized vacuum capable of snatching that fossil fuel out of the air and back into the ground from whence it came and they have the technology for that. But to get that much ammunition, they’d have to convert nearby farmlands where crops are usually grown into sugarcane plantations to produce wads of bagasse, that pulpy residue you get when sugarcane gets crushed into nectar or juice (The New York Times, 10/25/2018, Call From Scientists to Scrub the Air of Carbon, A17). Here's another drawback that possibly caught up with the nation should the whole air purification project succeed: that the governments will stop working hard to cut their emissions since there will be giant Venus flytraps to do it all for them.

A rally in support of Initiative 1631

While all this is going on, the states are leaving the duty to five midterm ballots next week to decide man's fate which could have an outlasting effect on climate change. Washington will see if they will be the first to pass a carbon tax entitled "initiative 131" to the country. The initial tax imposed on carbon emissions in Washington would be $15 beginning in 2020 and would double over from one year to the next until the state has reached the center of the safe zone. Climate scientists and economists have tried for years to get a carbon tax passed and have failed. Jay Inslee was one of them and he was a two- time loser. But both yay- and nay-sayers feel that his legacy will face a small revival, partly because the new variation of the plan will come with a few guidelines that will advise them on what to do

Aubrey Dunn, departing New Mexico 

land commissioner

with the money better than a financial advisor could (The New York Times, 10/30/2018, Midterm Votes That Could Have an Outsize Impact on Climate Change, A16). Voters in New Mexico will decide ways in which the lay of the land will be when they vote between Democrat, Stephanie Garcia Richard, who won't rest until every methane leak is patched over and Republican, Patrick Lyons, who has been commissioner of public lands from 2003 to 2010 and is acquainted with plenty of oil industries like Chevron who has donated a $2 contribution in devotion to making sure Lyon remains at the top of his game (The New York Times, 10/30/2018, Midterm Votes That Could Have an Outsize Impact on Climate Change, A16). Both Nevada and Arizona's commission on electricity would be 50 percent wind and solar by the year 2030; 25 percent for Nevada and 15 percent for Arizona. It is similar to Renewable Portfolio

The Boulder Solar project in Boulder, 

Nevada

Standards in the twenty-nine other states like Washington, D.C. albeit only so many are as ambitious as Nevada and Arizona. But the initiative getting passed is beneath certain. Last year, Governor Brian Sandoval was handed an initiative that would have set a goal of 40 percent for the state's green energy mandate to reach by 2050 but he balled it up and threw it over his shoulder without a second look (The New York Times, 10/30/2018, Midterm Votes That Could Have an Outsize Impact on Climate Change, A16). And as for Colorado, we need not remind you of its 'to frack or not to frack' agenda and oil and gas companies are worried if 'to frack' so would the all other states creating a reenactment of the national oil and gas booms that were foretold a decade ago.

And to think, instead of all this fuss about the earth being turned into a planet-sized bong, we could all be reading a few post cards from our pen pals right now but there would simply be no time. They had already tried to bulldozer over Obama's Affordable Care Act, and build a wall in the Rio Grande, but try to alter the lay of the land, in terms of human health, and we'll give them the lay of the land, alright. And so, the fate of green politics remains in the hands of the midterms which draw nearer. Vote for the green. And remember, there are two kinds of green in this world. And it doesn't take a ecologist to distinguish them as only one equals health and the other equals wealth.