Forrest for the Trees

Texas Climate News highlights some interesting, if unsettling, results from two public opinion surveys. First, a Texas Lyceum poll finds that Texans really aren’t all that different from other Americans when it comes to support for a congressional cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gases. Great news: we’re just about as complacent!

A national survey by the Washington Post, using an almost identically-worded prompt, found that support nationwide was 52 percent in favor to 42 percent.

But, let’s turn to the more disturbing of the two polls I mentioned above. It’s a survey conducted solely in Harris County (Houston) by Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg.

Houston’s the energy capital so perhaps it’s not surprising that only half of the people think climate change is driven by human activity. But it’s still disturbing. Scientists – outside of a handful of very marginal naysayers who can’t get published – agree on the mechanism of global warming. There’s simply no scientific debate. But politics and science are two different animals.

In Texas, the Republican leaders – from top to bottom – are global warming deniers. The Republican grassroots are just as willfully ignorant. Americans for Prosperity, one of the groups behind the anti-health care mobs, is touring around the country with a hot air balloon, spreading pseudo-science among the hoi polloi.

There’s always been a strong anti-intellectual and anti-science streak running through American society. But in recent years, we also have to include the factor of political polarization. According to Texas Climate News (who, by the way, is doing yeoman’s work trying to advance a rational, scientific perspective on climate):

A striking feature of the Houston Area Survey findings on questions about climate in recent years is “the degree to which it has become a partisan issue,” Klineberg said.

He discovered a growing separation in the views of Democrats and Republicans on environmental issues in general between 1990 (when there was essentially no partisan difference) and 2000, a period when he conducted the statewide Texas Environmental Survey.

The party divide was evident last year in a Houston Area Survey question that was not asked in 2009: “How serious a problem would you say is the ‘greenhouse effect,’ or the threat of global warming? Would you say: very serious, somewhat serious, or not very serious?”

In 2006 and 2008, both years when that question was posed, large majorities (77 percent in 2006 and 80 percent in 2008) answered “somewhat” or “very” serious. A major difference was manifest between the responses of self-identified Republicans and Democrats – in 2008, for instance, 32 percent of Republicans and seven percent of Democrats said “not very serious”, while 30 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of Democrats said “very serious.”

This is a real shame. There’s no reason why a conservative should be any less interested in empirical reality than a liberal. But as long as the Rush Limbaughs, Rick Perrys and Sarah Palins dominate the GOP, I’m afraid know-nothingism is here to stay.

 

One of my favorite bands from high school, Modest Mouse, has just released a video for their new song ‘King Rat’. No, I’m not turning this space into an indie-rock fanpage. Allow me to explain.

The animated video, a project of actor Heath Ledger’s before his death, violently depicts the modern whaling industry through an inversion of human-whale relations. In the video, whales hunt, harpoon, bludgeon, skin, and process humans, turning people into something like dog food. It’s bloody, disturbing and bound to anger the whaling industry. Let’s just say it’s NSFW, as they say.

Here’s some background from the band’s website. You can also watch the video there. (Note: The YouTube version has been stripped of its audio due to copyright-something-or-the-other.)

In January of 2007, while visiting his homeland of Australia, Heath Ledger presented Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse with an idea to direct a video for their yet-to-be-released song ‘King Rat’. Heath’s vision, brave and unapologetic in its nature, would marry his love of bold and original music with his impassioned stance against the illegal commercial whale hunts taking place of the coast of Australia each year.

Always one to operate from his heart and take a stand for what he cared deeply about, Heath’s intention was to raise awareness on modern whaling practices through a potent visual piece without having to say a word. It was his way to let the story, in its candid reversal, speak for itself.

Proceeds from the video go to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

The ax seems to have finally fallen on CES Environmental Services, a Houston-based waste transportation and processing company with a nasty, brutish history. Yesterday, federal officials raided the company’s facilities in Port Arthur and Houston.

Investigators haven’t said exactly what it is they’re looking for but the raid follows on a string of highly suspicious employee deaths, violations of safety and environmental rules, and persistent complaints from citizens. From the AP

Port Arthur Justice of the Peace Tom Gillam said he began investigating the Port Arthur site after two workers died from inhaling hydrogen sulfide, a gas produced by human and animal waste. Gillam said he alerted federal authorities after he discovered that hydrogen sulfide contributed to two of the three deaths.

On April 14, Charles “Brent” Sittig, 48, of Eunice, La., died at the Port Arthur site of severe heart disease; Gillam said exposure to hydrogen sulfide was a “contributing factor.”

Sittig’s mother, Shirley Pitre, said her son never complained about his job while he worked as a truck driver hauling waste for CES — first in Houston, then in Port Arthur. However, Pitre said she had questioned Sittig about the safety measures employees took when dealing with the waste.

“I asked him whether he had any breathing apparatus and he said no,” she said. “I knew he was into hazardous waste materials and they really need protection like HAZMAT suits.”

Pitre said the autopsy report found her son had heart disease, but no one knew. Despite that, she said she is convinced that the daily inhalation of hydrogen sulfide at his job played a role in Sittig’s death.

Another worker, Joe Sutter, 36, of Arlington, Texas, died a few months before of asphyxiation caused by inhaling the gas, an autopsy found.

In Houston, an employee was killed in a July fire while he was inspecting a tanker and a lantern ignited ethanol residue. His identity was not disclosed.

Neighbors have complained about odor and other problems at the Houston site since 2006, Dicker said. After two December explosions that damaged nearby homes, residents demanded the site be closed.

 

The death of the two workers in Port Arthur led to an OSHA investigation that’s ongoing. In May, KBMT, a TV station in Beaumont-Port Arthur, interviewed several anonymous CES employees who had some devastating things to say about the company.

“They’re all about covering up things. They know that they’re in violation. They['re] exposing people to chemicals” said one man.[...]

“I’ve seen them cover up people being exposed and blaming it on previous health issues” added another man who wanted to remain anonymous.

This lovely corporate citizen also caused so many problems for neighbors in Houston that the city pressured CES to shutter its oil recycling facility

The city sued the company in January after months of complaints about sickening odors wafting from the plant, which is permitted to process non-hazardous industrial waste, such as used oil.

Neighbors also pleaded for the city’s help after two explosions sent debris into homes and yards bordering the facility in December.

In response, Houston took the unusual step of suing the industrial business under its public nuisance laws — a tactic previously used to shutter seedy hotels and strip clubs.

Corporate polluters get away with a lot in Texas so it’s refreshing to see a really bad one get busted.

Fifteen Texas reps – all Democrats – earned a perfect score for the 2009 legislative session based on their pro-environment votes, according to Environment Texas. They were:

Roberto Alonzo (D – Dallas)Carol Alvarado (D – Houston)Valinda Bolton (D – Austin)Lon Burnam (D – Fort Worth)Garnet Coleman (D – Houston)Joe Farias (D – San Antonio)Pete Gallego (D – Alpine)Ana Hernandez (D – Houston)Abel Herrero (D – Robstown)David Leibowitz (D – San Antonio)Diana Maldonado (D – Round Rock)Armando Martinez (D – Weslaco)Joseph Moody (D – El Paso)Marc Veasey (D – Fort Worth)Armando Walle (D – Houston)

The five lowest scoring reps (13%) were:

Allen Fletcher (R – Tomball)Dan Flynn (R – Van)Tim Kleinschmidt (R – Lexington)Ken Paxton (R – McKinney)Debbie Riddle (R – Tomball)

The lowest scoring House Democrat was Rep. Al Edwards (D – Houston), with 50%.

***

“An unprecedented nineteen state Senators voted the pro-environment position 100% of the time,” according to Environment Texas. They were:

All 12 Senate Democrats… Plus Republicans:

Kip Averitt (R – Waco)John Carona (R – Dallas)Robert Deuell (R – Greenville)Robert Duncan (R – Lubbock)Kevin Eltife (R – Tyler)Kel Seliger (R – Amarillo) Jeff Wentworth (R – San Antonio)

Three Senators had the lowest score of 43%:

Jane Nelson (R – Lewisville) Robert Nichols (R – Jacksonville)Dan Patrick (R – Houston)

For full results, go here.

I was driving in East Austin this evening when a story about the ‘cash for clunkers’ program aired on NPR. My ears pricked up because I’ve been idly wondering how ‘green’ the program really is. I’ve also been pondering whether to trade in my ’92 Toyota Pickup (no, we aren’t getting rich at the Observer) for a newer, more fuel-efficient model. One sticking point for me has been the thought of my truck being turned into scrap metal.

Not only do I have a bit of sentimental attachment to the vehicle (it’s been with me for five years), but it only has 108,000 miles on it and these old Toyotas are known to go for 200,000, even 300,000 miles. The stereo sucks, the sides are dinged up, and the upholstery leaves something to be desired… Still, there’s a lot of life left. Is my truck really a ‘clunker’? And, more important, isn’t it wasteful to junk a perfectly-decent vehicle before the end of its life?

According to the NPR piece, there’s actually a strong argument to be made that the environmental benefits of ‘cash for clunkers’ are more modest than the auto industry and the White House would lead us to believe.

[I]t takes electricity to make a new car, and fuel to ship it.

“The estimates vary, but somewhere between 3 and, say, 12 tons of CO2 are produced for every car you make,” says William Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

Chameides calculates that if you trade in an 18 mpg clunker for a 22 mpg new car (22 miles per gallon is the minimum mileage allowed for a new car under the program), it would take five and a half years of typical driving to offset the new car’s carbon footprint. With trucks, it might take eight or nine years, he says.

Incidentally, my truck gets exactly 18 mpg, according to EPA. So, if I were to opt for a sligtly more fuel-efficient vehicle it could take five or eight or nine years to get into the positive karma zone. Not terribly impressive.

And people with big cars tend to buy new cars that are still pretty large, according to Brand Fowler, vice president of Sheehy Auto. He says more customers are opting for modest trade-ups, close to the four mile-per-gallon minimum improvement that’s required for cars. Auto analysts say they’re seeing plenty of deals for new cars that get 10 miles a gallon more. So far, though, there’s not much data to indicate where the final average will end up.

But either way, it’s not enough, says Dan Becker of the Safe Climate Campaign. “The problem is the auto industry hijacked this law so it doesn’t get the better ones on the road,” he says. “All it does is replace old clunkers with new clunkers.”

It’s too early to tell what the average gas mileage will be of the cars purchased through ‘cash for clunkers’. Perhaps the math will work out for both the economy and environment. As for me, I think for now I’m sticking with my tried-and-true clunker.

Update: NYTimes reports that the average fuel efficiency of trade-ins is 15.8mpg and the average fuel efficiency of the new vehicles is 25.4mpg – a 61 percent increase in fuel efficiency. Democrats are praising the program.

“The statistics are much better than anybody dreamed they would be,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California. The actual mileage gain so far, she said, was not due to the details of the law but “the good judgment of the American people.”

Last week, Paul Burka typed up some of his conversations with congressional Blue Dogs Chet Edwards and Gene Green. The two Texas Congressmen discussed their objections to the climate change bill that cleared the House in July. Green, who represents the petrochemical-intensive Port of Houston, voted for the legislation after wringing concessions for refineries from the House leadership. One of Green’s comments struck me as very peculiar but indicative of a troubling U.S. mindset.

On a trip to Bolivia, he spoke with the president [Evo Morales], who complained that the United States was not controlling [greenhouse gas] emissions. One of the first things Green had noted upon his arrival was a giant plume of smoke from burning tires. “Bolivia has a lot of problems,” he told me, “and I don’t think carbon emissions in the United States is very high on their list.”

Really? Green saw burning tires and that somehow led him to believe – despite the statements of Morales – that Bolivia isn’t concerned about climate change? (Note: I’m willing to entertain the idea that Burka may have left out a portion of the interview that would explain this logical trainwreck.)

Regardless of what you think about Evo Morales – the first elected indigenous leader of Bolivia, a majority Indian nation – the Bolivian government has been absolutely clear in its position: The brunt of climate change will be, and is, borne by the world’s poor. Morales and other poor nations are calling on western countries, the U.S. in particular, to dedicate some of their GDP to helping poor nations, with their tiny carbon footprints, adapt and mitigate global warming impacts. To Bolivians, it’s a matter of eco-justice.

Sasha Chavkin, a journalist friend of mine from New York, spent some weeks in Bolivia researching devastating floods caused by the melting of glaciers in the Andes. As he found, the connection between the loss of life and property in Bolivia and the historical greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. is not lost on Bolivians. I asked Chavkin for his thoughts on Green’s statement.

Representative Green needs to brush up on his climate science. In both 2007 and 2008 Bolivia saw hundreds of thousands displaced in its Amazon lowlands by worsening floods that [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] has linked specifically – down to the river basin in which they occurred – to the effects of climate change.  The glaciers that provide the water supply for the capital city, La Paz, are expected to be gone by mid-century.  Changes on this scale aren’t caused by burning tires in Bolivia, they’re caused by burning coal and oil ever since the Industrial Revolution.

President Morales, it might be said, has also offered some choice words about the mitigation challenge facing the industrialized world. “I would like to say with great sincerity that we are sorry,” Morales stated in New York at a UN Summit on Climate Change, “if there are certain countries that feel negatively affected by the survival of my country and the survival of indigenous people.”

Green, of course, represents Houston, Texas not La Paz, Bolivia but is it too much to ask our political leaders to have a modicum of understanding and empathy for the victims of climate change around the globe?

Last week, Paul Burka typed up some of his conversations with Texas Blue Dogs Chet Edwards and Gene Green. The two Congressmen complained about the  the climate

“Representative Green needs to brush up on his climate science. In both 2007 and 2008 Bolivia saw hundreds of thousands displaced in its Amazon lowlands by worsening floods that [the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] has linked specifically – down to the river basin in which they occurred – to the effects of climate change.  The glaciers that provide the water supply for the capital city, La Paz, are expected to be gone by mid century.  Changes on this scale aren’t caused by burning tires in Bolivia, they’re caused by burning coal and oil ever since the Industrial Revolution. President Morales, it might be said, has also offered some choice words about the mitigation challenge facing the industrialized world. “I would like to say with great sincerity that we are sorry,” Morales stated in New York at a UN Summit on Climate Change, “if there are certain countries that feel negatively affected by the survival of my country and the survival of indigenous people.”

On Saturday, the Denton Record-Chronicle published the first in a three-part series on air pollution in the Denton area. I wish we saw more of this sort of thing in the smaller daily newspapers around the state. The Record-Chronicle not only details the sources of the area’s low air quality but also dissects why progress is stalled.

Too often, people are left with the impression that air pollution problems are intractable or require such enormous expense that it’s not worth doing. The two DRC reporters, on the other hand, show how the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has gone out of its way to punt on some no-brainer solutions.

The 2007 [air quality improvement] plan did not include several key recommendations that could have made a difference, according to Southern Methodist University engineering professor Al Armendariz. He serves on the advisory board for the National Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit group dedicated to environmental issues.

Those rejected measures included stricter standards for vehicle emissions, for power plants in East Texas and concrete plants in Ellis County whose emissions drift into the region, and for Barnett Shale gas facilities.

So far this spring and summer, northern Tarrant County and Denton County are racking up bad-air days faster than more populous parts of Dallas-Fort Worth, Armendariz said. Monitoring stations in Keller and at Eagle Mountain Lake already have logged 85 bad-air days, the number that triggers failure. Denton sits at 84.

Denton Mayor Mark Burroughs served on the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee, which helped form the 2007 plan. In an interview last week, Burroughs said he was disappointed the state did not adopt all of the committee’s recommendations.

“I thought we had a great package,” Burroughs said, adding that state officials never explained to rank-and-file committee members why they didn’t accept some proposals.

The failure to adopt stricter pollution controls on cement kilns was most puzzling, because industry officials had signed off on the recommendations, said Burroughs, who served on a subcommittee that studied the issue. Because of wind patterns, Denton residents breathe polluted air from Houston and other cities to the southeast, including Midlothian, home to several cement plants, Burroughs said.

Repeat: Local stakeholders issued recommendations for cleaning the air, including the low-hanging fruit of requiring cement kilns to clean up their act; industry signed off on that recommendation; but the TCEQ commissioners took it upon themselves to reject the recommendations out of hand. Adding insult to injury, the agency apparently didn’t even offer an explanation to the locals.

TCEQ has also been slow to do anything about emissions from natural gas production in the Barnett Shale, another major source of DFW ozone. In February, Al Armendariz, a SMU professor and a candidate for regional EPA administrator, issued a report that found that emissions from drilling activities roughly equaled that of all the trucks, cars and airplanes in the region.

After a long silence, TCEQ admitted in June that Armendariz’s calculations were basically correct. But, they said, they weren’t going to do anything about it because most of the gas production was happening outside of the nine-county DFW “non-attainment area.” (The headline in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the time: “SMU prof was right about Barnett Shale pollution, but state officials aren’t overly concerned”.)

It’s part of a larger pattern. TCEQ refuses to crack down on polluters that lie outside of the state’s non-attainment areas. Instead, they lament that the wind blows. (Seriously, just follow the link.)

The consequences of TCEQ’s dawdling for Denton are serious.

The American Lung Association grades Denton County air quality an “F,” identifying about 37.6 percent of the population — more than 230,000 people — as being most at risk on days with heavy smog.

[...]

The Denton Airport’s monitoring station has logged 84 bad-air days in 2009. Preliminary data from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality shows July 2 was the worst day so far, with 91 parts per billion of ozone in the air for eight hours. The standard is 75 parts per billion.

Pretty damn bad. The Wall Street Journal reports:

A combination of record-high heat and record-low rainfall has pushed south and central Texas into the region’s deepest drought in a half century, with $3.6 billion of crop and livestock losses piling up during the past nine months.

The heat wave has drastically reduced reservoirs and forced about 230 public water systems to declare mandatory water restrictions. Lower levels in lakes and rivers have been a blow to tourism, too, making summer boating, swimming and fishing activities impossible in some places.

[...]

As Texas aquifers and reservoirs dip to record lows, threatening municipal water supplies, the biggest cities — Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio — and 230 others have implemented water restrictions on residents.

San Antonio’s water department is encouraging residents to report neighbors if they catch them violating restrictions, and since April more than 1,500 citations have been issued, said department spokesman Greg Flores.

In Central Texas, Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan are down 55% and 49% in volume, respectively. They provide drinking water to more than a million people, including residents of Austin.Additionally, Texas A&M’s extension service estimates the drought has caused nearly $100 million in losses related to land-based recreation such as hunting and hiking. At Lake Travis, a popular boating and fishing spot, officials will close the last of the lake’s 12 public boat ramps later this week because of the lake’s receding waters.

The U.S. Drought Monitor shows that much of Central Texas and almost all of South Texas is in an “exceptional drought,” the most severe classification.

Some experts are now saying that the current drought is comparable — maybe even worse — to the “drought of record” in Texas, which persisted roughly from 1950 to 1957. One difference, though, is that increased pumping of aquifers is exacerbating the problem. Springs and rivers are significantly lower than they would be otherwise.

Take Jacob’s Well, an artesian spring near Wimberley, for example. I wrote about Jacob’s Well in May for an article on the groundwater shortages in parts of the Hill Country. Jacob’s Well flowed right through the ’50s drought of record but has now been running at zero for weeks. Take a look at the USGS streamflow gauge over the past month.

 

The San Marcos Record had an excellent piece on the issue a couple days ago.

The artesian spring, source of Cypress Creek, has all but dried up now and that’s due, many say, to a combination of the drought and pumping to supply new developments in western Hays County.”It has ceased flowing and it’s been in that state for some time now. For the last several months it was fluctuating between zero and half a cubic foot per second (cfs), but over the last several weeks it’s pretty much been at zero,” said David Baker, executive director of the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association.In comparison, Baker said in 1956, as the area was enduring its sixth year of drought, Jacob’s Well was flowing at a rate of 2.5 cfs. Since then, more than 6,500 wells have been drilled into the Trinity to provide water to housing developments, and many of the pipes that deliver that water have developed leaks. Portions of Cypress Creek are also gone. “There’s just no water. People are worried about the cypress trees, about their property values.”Taken all together, “It’s a very critical situation in terms of the spring and the creek,” Baker said. Even more so in the context of isotope dating of the water the WVWA recently did in conjunction with Texas State University’s Rivers Systems Institute.Those tests, Baker said, revealed something truly shocking. “The water coming out of Jacob’s Well had been in the Trinity Aquifer for more than 2,000 years.”Baker admits he had a hard time wrapping his brain around that but when he did, he realized what it meant: “This is old water, not from recent rains or recharge. What it tells us is that when we pump that water we’re mining old, ancient water that’s not going to recharge very rapidly.”

We are perhaps glimpsing the future of water in Texas right now. This drought, as bad as it is, is probably far from the worst we will experience. Recent research indicates that dry spells in the past were much worse. A 2006 tree-ring study by a researcher at the University of Arkansas found that “there may have been periods when drought was more protracted and the impact might have been considerably worse. It would appear unwise for civil authorities to assume that the 1950s drought represents the worst case scenario.”

Of course severe droughts in this state are nothing new. But we’ve added a human dimension to them in two ways. One, increased withdrawal from rivers and aquifers compounds the scarcity of water in dry times. Two, most climate models predict that due to climate change the Southwest, including most of Texas, will become increasingly drier this century. This summer is on track to be the hottest in recorded history for Austin, San Antonio and College Station while Houston is having its second-warmest summer ever. It’s a grim reality but one we ought to start getting serious about.

I launch this blog with some trepdiation. Texas, as the saying goes, is a Whole ‘Nother Country. “The environment” may seem like a narrow interest area until you think about the following: Texas has 11 distinct bio-regions, 367 miles of coastline, six cities with populations over 600,000, an economy roughly the size of Canada’s, more greenhouse gas emissions than any other state, almost 200,000 miles of rivers and streams, more biodiversity than any state but California, and so on. Our environmental problems are manifold: polluted skies and waterways, sprawling metropolises that gobble up more and more land, rivers and aquifers stressed by a population expected to double by 2060, a state environmental agency that’s a colossal failure, and, looming over all of this, a changing climate that could have disastrous consequences for Texas. I could continue this list all day and add some of the good things too, like the fact that Texas now leads the nation in wind energy and that the grassroots have won some major victories in recent years (the defeat of TXU’s mad plan to build 19 new coal-fired power plants, for example). Where to start?A John Graves quote, from his classic Goodbye to a River, comes to mind. You can comprehend a piece of a river. A whole river that is really a river is much to comprehend.Sage advice for, say, a blogging journalist: Don’t try to know everything, cover everything, be everything. Be humble. Focus on the particular – and the universal will follow. Let your interests carry you downstream. That’s what I’ll try to do with this space. This blog is about “the environment” loosely defined and the cardinal rule will be to write about what interests me. I hope it will interest you too.I come to the topic with a lifelong affinity for the natural splendors of this state.I’ve walked the sand dunes of desolate Matagorda Island, fished the King Ranch Shoreline on the Upper Laguna Madre, kayaked the Neches River in coldest winter, torn my skin on the mesquite and huisache scrub-brush as a kid growing up in South Texas, floated the spring-fed streams of the Hill Country and wandered the deserts and mountains of Big Bend. I treasure these places. But like most Texans I now live in a growing city (Austin) and have little day-to-day interaction with the “wide open spaces” of Texas mythology.It’s in the cities and the suburbs – among a growing Latino population – where most of our most pressing environmental issues are playing out. I plan to put an emphasis on environmental justice, the intersection of social justice and the environment. Our political leaders are for the most part unable or unwilling to deal with these problems. Some – here’s looking at you, Rick Perry – seem to think the environment is something that only hippies and Californians could care about. Others are too stuffed with campaign contributions and lobbyist meals to give a hoot. Too many regulators think their job is to help industry maximize profit rather than make sure ordinary Texans have clean air and water.I’ll be construing “the environment” in the broadest possible sense. Expect to hear about solar power, radioactive waste, drought, chicken shit, Boone Pickens, dodos (the unfortunately non-extinct politician kind), carbon credits, rising sea levels, toxic hotspots, that damn border wall, and maybe even some tips on kayak/canoe trips. Politicians and corporate polluters will be assaulted on a regular basis. Feel free to contact me with any thoughts, tips, complaints, ideas, pitches for writing guest posts (we don’t pay), or anything else. Just, please, don’t waste a tree sending me a letter. It’s wilder AT texasobserver.org