EnviroPolitics Blog

Mount Rainier is melting away before our eyes

Ideas to insulate Mount Rainier’s melting glaciers with tarps, or cover them with millions of reflective glass beads, are signs we’re not yet confronting the real problem. (Kori Suzuki / The Seattle Times, 2022)

By Danny Westneat Seattle Times columnist

Scott Beason has worked on and around the ice of Mount Rainier for nearly two decades. When I asked if he could see it changing in that time, he gave a kind of rueful laugh.

“Lately we’ve had some glaciers retreating 3 to 6 feet per day in the summertime,” Beason said. “You can definitely see that. It’s climate change before your eyes.”

Beason, the Mount Rainier National Park geologist, just published a piercing paper about our mountain, the ice king of America. (It has the most glacier ice of any peak in the Lower 48.)

Using a photo-imaging technique for estimating 3D volumes called “structure from motion,” Beason and three other researchers compiled the most precise review yet of just how much glacial ice is up there.

The story is not good. Mount Rainier is melting.

One of the mountain’s 29 glaciers, the south-facing Stevens, has withered away entirely, the review found. Two more, Pyramid and Van Trump glaciers, lost 42% of their ice volumes just between 2015 and 2021, when the latest aerial photos were taken.

“That’s a massive amount of ice loss in a short period of time,” Beason said. “It was just alarming to see the rate that those two glaciers have disappeared.”

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Doug Fisher stepping down as NJ’s Agriculture Secretary

By BRIANA VANNOZZI, NJ SPOTLIGHT

After 14 years in office, Doug Fisher will resign as New Jersey’s Secretary of Agriculture on July 1 .

His lengthy tenure, spanning the Corzine, Christie and Murphy administrations, has seen a boom of agritourism in the state alongside acute food insecurity challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the slowly unfolding effects of climate change.

In an interview with NJ Spotlight News, Fisher reflects on his time as agriculture secretary and discusses the current challenges facing New Jersey’s agricultural sector.

Related:
Douglas Fisher stepping down as N.J. secretary of agriculture (The Produce News)

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Makers of popular weedkiller, Roundup, to Pay $6.9 Million in False Advertising Settlement with New York State

By Liza Gross, Inside Climate News

The makers of Roundup, the world’s top weedkiller, will pay $6.9 million for violating an agreement with the state of New York to stop making false claims about the safety of its best-selling herbicides.

Bayer and Monsanto, which was acquired by the German agrochemical giant for $63 billion in 2018, violated a 1996 agreement with the state of New York to “immediately cease and desist” from making false and misleading claims about glyphosate-based Roundup products, the New York attorney general’s office announced Thursday.

Studies have linked glyphosate, the active ingredient in many Roundup products, to a wide range of harmful effects in pollinators, lab animals, and people. In March, a first-of-its-kind study linked Roundup to liver and metabolic disease in children.

Yet Bayer and Monsanto repeatedly advertised glyphosate-based Roundup products as safe and nontoxic without adequate substantiation, Attorney General Letitia James determined in an investigation that started three years ago.

These claims violated state laws against false and misleading advertising as well as a previous settlement the attorney general’s office reached with Monsanto in 1996. The 1996 settlement cited Monsanto ads claiming its glyphosate-based herbicides are “practically nontoxic” and “less toxic than certain common household products,” claims the attorney general concluded constituted false and misleading advertising.

Read the full story here

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South Jersey wants more of the state’s booming film action

By Melissa Rose Cooper, NJ Spotlight

Click to see the full video news story

Film Industry advocates are hoping more production companies will want to bring their projects to South Jersey. “There’s just so much down here and so rich country down here And … there’s so much that a studio could do down here,” said Assemblywoman Carol Murphy (D-Burlington).

Steve Gorelick, executive director of the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission, highlighted upcoming film projects coming to the state during the Southern New Jersey Development Council’s annual construction forecast at Stockton University on Friday.

In 2017, before the state’s tax-credit incentive program for the industry began, “revenue from film and television production in New Jersey stood at about $67 million a year,” Gorelick said. “Last year, which was a record year, annual revenue rose to over $700 million … We had well over 1,170 shooting days in the state last year and 14,000 jobs were created by film and television in 2022 alone.” The incentive program provides tax credits up to 35% for film and digital media productions.

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Glass turned into lightweight rock will fill hole in collapsed I-95

NBC10’s Randy Gyllenhaal heads to Delaware County to check out the company sending truckloads of recycled glass pellets to fill in the collapsed section of Interstate 95 in Northeast Philadelphia.

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NJ energy and environment bills in committee, June 15, 2023

Assembly Environment and Solid Committee Meeting
Thursday, June 15, 2023 – 01:00 PM
Committee Room 9, 3rd Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ

Bill	Synopsis	Sponsor	Status	LDOA
A3847	Exempts shellfish aquaculturists with commercial shellfish aquaculture license from law prohibiting taking of shellfish on Sunday; requires submission of annual shellfish harvest report.*	Calabrese, Clinton /Freiman, Roy +1	2RA	1/19/2023
A4782	Directs BPU to conduct a study to determine the feasibility, marketability, and costs of implementing large-scale geothermal heat pump systems.	McKeon, John F./Benson, Daniel R.	AEN	10/17/2022
A4791	Establishes “Resiliency and Environmental System Investment Charge Program.”	Kennedy, James J./Haider, Shama A.	AEN	10/17/2022
A5365	“Electric Vehicle Battery Management Act.”	McKeon, John F./Danielsen, Joe	AEN	5/8/2023
A5442	Revises goal for annual capacity of solar energy projects to be developed under the Community Solar Energy Program.*	Karabinchak, Robert J./Conaway, Herb	AEN	5/11/2023
A5554	Requires DEP to study methane emissions.	Chaparro, Annette /Benson, Daniel R. +1	AEN	6/5/2023
A5558	Appropriates funds to DEP for environmental infrastructure projects for FY 2024.	Lampitt, Pamela R./Swain, Lisa	AEN	6/5/2023
A5559	Authorizes NJ Infrastructure Bank to expend certain sums to make loans for environmental infrastructure projects for FY 2024.	Mejia, Pedro /Reynolds-Jackson, Verlina	AEN	6/5/2023
ACR182	Approves FY 2024 Financial Plan of NJ Infrastructure Bank.	Speight, Shanique /Spearman, William W.	AEN	6/5/2023
S520	Exempts shellfish aquaculturists with commercial shellfish aquaculture license from law prohibiting taking of shellfish on Sunday; requires submission of annual shellfish harvest report.*	Cruz-Perez, Nilsa I.	2RA	1/19/2023
S3123	Revises goal for annual capacity of solar energy projects to be developed under Community Solar Energy Program.*	Smith, Bob /Greenstein, Linda R. +2	AEN	2/27/2023
S3723	“Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Battery Management Act.”*	Smith, Bob	AEN	5/18/2023
S3796	Authorizes NJ Infrastructure Bank to expend certain sums to make loans for environmental infrastructure projects for FY 2024.	Greenstein, Linda R./Stanfield, Jean +3	AEN	5/18/2023
S3797	Appropriates funds to DEP for environmental infrastructure projects for FY 2024.	Codey, Richard J./Greenstein, Linda R. +3	AEN	5/18/2023
SCR144	Approves FY 2024 Financial Plan of NJ Infrastructure Bank.	Smith, Bob	AEN	5/18/2023

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