The proposed legislation could dramatically change the way the U.S. handles recycling in the next few years, whether it’s through infrastructure investments, organics recycling, education, product bans, or bottle bills and extended producer responsibility initiatives.
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(CNN) Firefighters in California made significant progress against the Caldor Fire over the weekend, allowing for some evacuation orders in the Lake Tahoe region to be downgraded.
But as residents there began to breathe a sigh of relief, three new fires ignited in the state Sunday, according to Cal Fire. Evacuation orders for the city of South Lake Tahoe were downgraded to evacuation warnings, nearly a week after thousands in the resort town clogged roadways when officials told them to get out because flames were racing into the area.
The areas of Fallen Leaf Lake, Christmas Valley, Meyers, and North Upper Truckee remain under an evacuation order.
Across the state border in Nevada, mandatory evacuations in Douglas County were downgraded to precautionary evacuations Saturday, according to an announcement on the county’s website, opening the door for some residents there to return home.
It can happen when energy companies are doing maintenance. It is no less vexing.
Energy Transfer’s Mariner East system is being built to deliver such natural gas liquids as propane from Western Pa. to Marcus Hook. File Photo
By Naureen Malik and Aaron Clark Bloomberg News
Plumes of the super-warming greenhouse gas methane were spotted over the Midwest last month. U.S. pipeline giant Energy Transfer said the releases were triggered by “routine work” on its natural gas infrastructure.
The emissions were likely limited in scope. By one estimate if they lasted an hour they would have roughly the same short-term climate impact as the annual emissions of about 700 cars. A spokesperson for Energy Transfer, which also owns the contentious Mariner East pipeline in Pennsylvania, had no information on the amount released.
However, the releases raise questions about the urgency and ability of operators to respond to the climate crisis, and whether these emissions can be avoided. “During this time routine work was being performed,” the spokesperson said in an email. “All appropriate notifications were made.”
Many global oil and gas operators have said they are committed to reducing the methane intensity of their operations by cutting back on intentional emissions of the greenhouse gas. The industry is under pressure to improve operations to tackle climate change and respond to increasing investor scrutiny on environmental issues. Still, multiple operators continue to justify releases as a part of normal operations.
Halting intentional releases and accidental leaks of methane, the primary component of natural gas, could do more to slow climate change than almost any other single measure. Methane has more than 80 times the warming impact of carbon dioxide over the short term.
Scientists are targeting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry because they offer the biggest potential cuts at the cheapest cost. The U.S. was the world’s second-largest methane emitter last year after Russia, according to an estimate from the International Energy Agency.
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DEP’s Interactive Report Viewer allows you to zoom in on your own stream or watershed to find out how clean your stream is or if it has impaired water quality using the latest information in the draft 2020 Water Quality Report.
The tornado roiled in the near distance, spinning behind a thin stand of trees as a patio umbrella whipped in the roaring winds.
“Sounds like a freight train,” Kobylinski said for the camera just after he stepped inside his Gloucester County home.
The twister hit about a minute later.
He rushed into the basement with his dog, taking one last peek just as his windows began to explode. For the next 25 seconds, the destructive storm was no longer merely outside the house. The lights went out as the winds knocked out the power and pitched debris throughout the first floor.
Kobylinski emerged just in time to see the tornado barreling away as he looked through a shattered window near his front door. The EF-3 twister, spawned by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, brought winds of up to 150 mph, the National Weather Service later said. New Jersey had not seen such an intense tornado in decades, according to experts.
The damage was significant. But even more remarkable is this harrowing scene played out not in Kansas, Mississippi, or elsewhere in Tornado Alley, but in Mullica Hill.
Experts can explain why that tornado and at least six others touched down in New Jersey and Pennsylvania during the storm. What they don’t know is whether twisters will become more common in the Garden State due to climate change after a marked increase in them this year.
But some are asking the question.
That said, a warming planet — the effects of which the state saw clearly this week — is unlikely to lead to the expansion of Tornado Alley to include New Jersey, despite the intensity of the Gloucester County twister, experts say.
“At this point, we don’t have enough evidence to say that we are even sure that there will be more or stronger tornadoes in New Jersey, let alone that tornadoes would become as common as they would be in the South or Midwest,” Tony Broccoli, a Rutgers University atmospheric scientist, told NJ Advance Media.
But Broccoli added that the relationship between climate change and tornadoes is “unsettled science.”
When the remnants of Hurricane Ida blew through New Jersey Wednesday night into Thursday morning, the Jersey Shore was mostly spared from the devastation experienced across the state. To the south, multiple tornadoes left a path of destruction, including an EF-3 in Mullica Hills. To the north, torrential downpours led to deadly, destructive flooding in both North and Central Jersey, barely skirting the area.
But if history has shown us anything at the Shore, it’s that horrific storms missing this area is a fluke, not a pattern. And as our reporting has shown, climate change will only make the kind of impact seen around the state from Ida more common.
While the most recent evidence of climate change in the area has been fierce storms, don’t forget the heatwaves that also blanketed the state multiple times this summer. Those, too, are going to become more common and, with them, heat-related deaths could increase by as much as 55%.
