Political Cartoon: Stash our trash
By Signe Wilkinson, Philadelphia Inquirer cartoonist
My big blue recycling bin was feeling neglected and unpopular. It sat out on the street day in and day out hoping to get picked up by a big, strong, handsome sanitation worker. Day after day, no one paid any attention whatsoever. When the sanitation workers of our dreams came by and picked up the trash, I had to finally accept that there was just too much darned competition on our block alone, not to mention the rest of the city, for them to get to our “recycling,” which mostly ends up in the incinerator.
How about thinking more of those workers? Who would want to pick up the piles of soggy cardboard with Amazon swooshes or bulging bags with used plastic takeout containers, forks, and cups splayed all over the sidewalks, gutters, and streets? My recycling bin and I are eager for that pickup day to come, but in the meantime are trying to minimize the trash adding to those piles. And never order from Amazon.
Related:
Trash is piling up, but people aren’t blaming Philly sanitation workers
Mayor: Your Home Improvement projects add to city’s trash problem
Covid-19 has Philly falling way behind on pickups — but it’s not alone
Philly’s trash troubles (video)
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‘Super-Pollutant’ Emitted by 11 Chinese Chemical Plants Could Equal a Climate Catastrophe
Emissions controls worked perfectly at Chinese plants, until a foreign subsidy dried up.
BY Phil McKenna, Lili Pike, Katrina Northrop, Inside Climate News
In December 2007, Charles Perilloux, an American chemical engineer, traveled to China to help install inexpensive and game-changing technology at a Chinese chemical plant that was spewing a climate “super-pollutant” into the atmosphere. The emissions quickly fell to near zero.
The state-owned Henan Shenma Nylon Chemical Company manufactures adipic acid, a key ingredient in nylon and polyurethane, which is used in everything from car parts to running shoes. While producing adipic acid, the factory emitted thousands of tons of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet.
Shenma’s emission reductions had a greenhouse gas impact equivalent to taking one million cars off the road, records from the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) show. Through the program, Shenma reduced its emissions in exchange for lucrative carbon credits.
The plant’s abatement technology produced a financial windfall. Shenma, and another, larger, state-owned adipic acid plant that also reduced its emissions, sold carbon credits over a five-year period that were worth as much as $1.3 billion, records from the U.N. and carbon markets show.
Then, in 2012, funding for the U.N. program dried up.
What has happened since at the two plants, and at nine others across China that now manufacture nearly half of the world’s adipic acid, has been a mystery.
Zhao Duo, a general manager with Shenma, told InsideClimate News that his company continues to abate its nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, but he would not say to what extent.
Satellite imaging and stationary air monitors can’t discern nitrous oxide emissions from chemical plants versus N2O emissions from other sources. Plant operators and government officials in China are hesitant to talk at this critical moment, when China is finalizing a wide ranging plan for economic development and emission reduction targets that will guide the country for the next five years.
However, an InsideClimate News investigation, based on dozens of interviews and a review of hundreds of pages of documents from the Chinese government, the United Nations, and Chinese state media, strongly suggests that when funding for the U.N. program ended, so too did nearly all of the emissions reductions. This likely occurred despite the availability of proven, low-cost abatement technology.
If the vast majority of the plants’ emissions are released, unabated into the atmosphere, their collective emissions would exceed the yearly greenhouse gas emissions from all passenger vehicles in California, the most populous state in America, as well as the emissions from all cars in Beijing and Shanghai, China’s two largest megacities.
If this is true, it’s a climate tragedy of epic proportions.
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Italian homes evacuated over risk of Mont Blanc glacier collapse
Roads near Courmayeur closed to tourists because of threat from falling Planpincieux ice
Angela Giuffrida in Rome for The Guardian
Homes have been evacuated in Courmayeur in Italy’s Aosta valley, after a renewed warning that a huge portion of a Mont Blanc glacier is at risk of collapse.
The measures were introduced on Wednesday morning after experts from the Fondazione Montagne Sicura (Safe Mountains Foundation) said 500,000 cubic metres of ice was in danger of sliding off the Planpincieux glacier on the Grandes Jorasses park.
Some 65 people, including 50 tourists, have left homes in Val Ferret, the hamlet beneath the glacier. Roads have been closed to traffic and pedestrians.
“We will find [alternative] solutions for residents,” Stefano Miserocchi, the mayor of Courmayeur, told the Italian news agency Ansa. “The tourists will have to find other solutions.”
Glaciologists monitoring Planpincieux say a new section of ice is at risk of collapse. Homes were also evacuated in September last year following a warning that 250,000 cubic meters of ice could fall. The movement of the glacial mass was due to “anomalous temperature trends”, the experts said.
The glacier has been closely monitored since 2013 to detect the speed at which the ice is melting.
In August 2018, a heavy storm unleashed a debris flow, killing an elderly couple when their car was swept from the road that is currently closed.
In the event of a collapse, it would take less than two minutes for the mass to reach the municipal road below.
Related news:
Resort evacuated over fears of Mont Blanc glacier collapse (CNN)
Mont Blanc: Glacier collapse risk forces Italy Alps evacuation (BBC News)
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Coronavirus hospitalizations and transmission rate lower in NJ
By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
New Jersey on Friday reported 12 more deaths attributed to the coronavirus and 384 more positive tests as the state’s hospitalizations dropped dramatically and its rate of transmission fell again but remained above the critical benchmark that shows the virus is expanding.
The Garden State has now announced 15,860 lab-confirmed and probable deaths related to COVID-19, with 184,061 total cases, since the outbreak here began March 4.
Of those deaths, 14,007 are confirmed by lab results, while 1,853 are considered probable.
“I know we’re all getting a little fatigued — I am, too — but we cannot give coronavirus one more inch,” Gov. Phil Murphy said while announcing the new numbers during his latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton. “Let’s keep doing what we need to get our numbers back down, and to get our restart and recovery back moving forward. … Keep wearing your masks, and no house parties.”
Seven of the 12 newly reported deaths Friday happened within the past five days — two on Aug. 2, one on Aug. 4, and four on Aug. 5, Murphy said. Of the rest, three occurred in July and two others before that as state officials continue to examine past deaths to confirm fatalities related to the virus.
Friday marks the 29th straight day New Jersey has reported fewer than 50 new deaths in one day and the seventh straight day it has reported fewer than 15. It also marks the seventh straight day the state has announced fewer than 500 new cases after seeing sudden upticks late last month.
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