Extreme Temperature Diary- Friday December 22nd, 2023/Main Topic: Biden’s Liquified Natural Gas Problem

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The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉

Main Topic: Biden’s Liquified Natural Gas Problem

Dear Diary. I remember that only about a decade ago natural gas was touted as a great transition fuel as the world went from burning fossil fuels towards generating power from solar and wind infrastructure. Now we know that the leaking of methane or natural gas either from fracking or pipelines used to transport Main Topic: Biden’s Liquified Natural Gas Problem stuff greatly warms the atmosphere. While not remaining in the atmosphere nearly as long as carbon molecules, methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

President Biden has a problem. There are billions of dollars to be made in the liquified natural gas industry, so there is pressure on his administration to give the go ahead to export the stuff to an energy hungry Europe and elsewhere. Putin’s war on Ukraine cut off large quantities of natural gas to Europe opening up a vast market in the United States for liquefied natural gas. Should LNG exports continue, the world will be that much closer to going above the dreaded +2.0°C global above average temperature preindustrial conditions threshold experts have said we dare not cross in order to save our climate. In this world money does talk. Knowing human nature as I enter senior adulthood, I seriously doubt that Biden will do much about LNG exports, bowing down to lobbyists on Capitol Hill representing LNG interests.

People of all ages, but particularly young people who are very vested in the world’s future, can put a lot of pressure on Biden during the election year of 2024 to stymie LNG production, so we will see what transpires. Watch this space for updates on the LNG problem.

Here are more details from Common Dreams:

170 Scientists Urge Biden to Kill ‘Staggering’ LNG Buildout (commondreams.org)

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the Grand Staircase of the White House in Washington, D.C. on May 24, 2023. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

BY JESSICA CORBETT

Dec 19, 2023

170 Scientists Urge Biden to Kill ‘Staggering’ LNG Buildout

Experts warn that expanding liquefied natural gas infrastructure will put the United States “on a continued path toward escalating climate chaos.”

Echoing recent calls from frontline leaders, green groups, and healthcare workers, 170 scientists on Tuesday pressured U.S. President Joe Biden to reject a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in Louisiana known as CP2 and other pending LNG projects.

“We are scientists who write to you with ever-increasing urgency as our climate continues to deteriorate to implore you to stop the dash to increase exports of liquified natural gas (LNG),” wrote the scientists, including Rose Abramoff, Robert Howarth, Mark Jacobson, Peter Kalmus, Michael Mann, Sandra Steingraber, Farhana Sultana, and Aradhna Tripati.

While stressing their opposition to Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2) project, they also emphasized that “the magnitude of the proposed buildout of LNG over the next several years is staggering.”

“As scientists we are telling you in clear and unambiguous terms that approving CP2 and other LNG projects will undermine your stated goals of meaningfully addressing the climate crisis.”

“For years, the science has been overwhelmingly clear that we must stop expanding fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure and rapidly transition to renewable energy. We have simply no runway left and little margin for error,” the scientists warned. “In fact, we are rapidly passing tipping points that are further escalating the climate crisis.”

“Altogether, the science to date shows that spiraling emissions of the climate super-pollutant methane are a major contributor to the ongoing failure to meet agreed-upon global emissions targets and stabilize the climate,” they explained. “The science also shows that LNG facilities are inherently leaky operations and prodigious emitters of methane.”

Their letter cites a forthcoming study by Howarth, a Cornell University scientist, that shows LNG is at least 24% worse for the climate than coal.

CP2 alone would produce over 20 times more planet-heating pollution than ConocoPhillips’ Willow oil project in Alaska, which the Biden administration is also under fire for greenlighting. The letter highlights that “these climate-wrecking emissions are on top of prodigious amounts of toxic air pollutants, including carcinogenic benzene, released into local environments both from the LNG facilities themselves and the upstream drilling and fracking operations that feed them.”

“LNG plants and their associated infrastructure pose serious health harms to surrounding communities and worsen environmental injustice,” the scientists pointed out. “These facilities are disproportionately located in communities of color and low-income communities on the Gulf Coast already overburdened with pollution.”

“You have often said that your policies will be guided by listening to the science,” they wrote to Biden. “As scientists we are telling you in clear and unambiguous terms that approving CP2 and other LNG projects will undermine your stated goals of meaningfully addressing the climate crisis and put us on a continued path toward escalating climate chaos. We implore you to turn back from this course, reject CP2 and other fossil fuel export projects, and put us on a rapid and just trajectory off fossil fuels.”

Opposition to CP2 may already be having some effect. Advocates had expected the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to consider the project this fall but so far, the agency hasn’t. Louisiana Bucket Brigade director Anne Rolfes said last week that “every month it is not on the agenda, we consider a victory because it means that it’s not getting part of the federal approval that it needs.”

While Venture Global lacks the permission required for CP2, the Biden administration has infuriated frontline communities, scientists, and voters concerned about the climate emergency by expanding LNG exports, enabling projects like Willow and the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and continuing fossil fuel lease sales for public lands and waters.

Biden, who was elected in 2020 after running on bold climate promises, is now seeking reelection next year and could again face Republican former President Donald Trump, a major ally to the fossil fuel industry.

The president “must reject new fossil fuel projects, starting with CP2, that poison communities and that will harm young people far into the future,” Michele Weindling, political director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said Friday. “He can’t one day cave to fossil fuel millionaires and the next throw a bone to young people. That’s not how science works, and young voters know it.”

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

JESSICA CORBETT

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Full Bio 

More:

Here are more “ET’s” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:

Here is More November 2023 Climatology:

Here is More Climate and News from Friday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)

Today’s News on Sustainable Energy, Traditional Polluting Energy from Fossil Fuel, and the Green Revolution:

More from the Weather Department:

More on the Environment and Nature:

More on Other Science and the Beauty of Earth and this Universe:

If you like these posts and my work on record temperature ratios, please contribute via my PayPal widget on this site. Thanks in advance for any support. 

Guy Walton… “The Climate Guy”

2 thoughts on “Extreme Temperature Diary- Friday December 22nd, 2023/Main Topic: Biden’s Liquified Natural Gas Problem”

  1. There must be additional causes for the accelerated warming this year. How are we treating the atmosphere? Only recently man began flying and place objects in it. That is a lot of disruption.

    Reply

    • Thanks Joseph for your comment.

      In addition to usual increased concentrations of carbon and methane into the atmosphere, the other big reason for this record hot year in 2023 was the big burp from the Hunga Tonga eruption in 2022 that injected large of amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere, followed by a developing strong El Niño adding to atmospheric heat, and lastly by cargo ships not emitting their pollution, finally cleaning up their act.

      Reply

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