Open Letter to Director Watson and Washington Dept. of Ecology to Please Do a Climate Analysis of Northwest Innovation Works’ (NWIW) Proposed Fracked Gas-to-methanol Refinery in Kalama

UPDATE: Columbia Riverkeeper reported "a broad coalition of over 30 community organizations representing tens of thousands of people from across the Northwest urged the Washington Department of Ecology and Governor Jay Inslee to deny the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery, proposed in Kalama, Washington. Over the past 40 days, thousands of commenters urged denial of the massive refinery, which would use up to 320 million cubic feet of fracked gas per day, more than all of Washington’s gas-fired power plants combined. At least 6,000 comments were submitted in opposition to the project. [par break] Altogether, Ecology concluded the methanol refinery would cause 4.6 million tons of climate pollution every year for 40 years—making it one of Washington’s largest sources of climate pollution."  In addition to Columbia Riverkeeper, organizations working "to deny the . . . refinery" included Washington Environmental Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, Natural Resources Defense Council, Food & Water Watch, 350 Seattle, 350 Tacoma, NoMethanol360.org (Kalama), Lower Columbia Stewardship Community, Green Energy Institute, Don & Along Steinke, Earth Ministry/Washington Interfaith Power & Light, Friends of the San Juans, STAND.earth, 350 PDX, Breach Collective, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Save our Wild Salmon, Neighbors for Clean Air, Rogue Climate, Portland Audubon Society, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, Oregon Conservancy Foundation, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Power Past Fracked Gas Coalition, Stop Fracked Gas PDX, Stop Zenith Collaborative, Climate Action Coalition, Sunrise PDX, and First Unitarian Church of Portland.

UPDATE: Columbia Riverkeeper reported "The Washington Department of Ecology just extended the Kalama methanol comment period deadline to October 9, 2020."

Last night I, and 88 others, attended the Kalama Methanol Pre-hearing Rally and Comment Workshop organized by Sierra Club, and this morning I sent the email below to support "a Climate Analysis" and consider earthquake risk to what could become "the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery in Kalama, Washington" if money and politics win instead of conscience and common sense.  Please consider opposing this project by using the Washington's Department of Ecology Website, mailing comments to Rich Doenges, Department of Ecology, PO Box 47775, Olympia, WA 98504-7775, or giving oral comments during one of three online public hearings. Register for online hearings here.

Director Watson and Dept. of Ecology:

I have fished the Columbia River and her tributaries for 50 years, and I'm concerned about impacts on salmon.  I worked the Pacific Ocean as a commercial salmon troller and charter captain, and now I mainly fish the rivers.

In addition to climate impacts, I understand the proposed gas-to-methanol site is unstable as noted in the draft EIS explaining soil at the plant site has a “moderate to high liquefaction susceptibility”  in the event of an earthquake.

I saw a July 13, 2015, New Yorker article by Kathryn Schulz noting "In fact, the science is robust, and one of the chief scientists behind it is Chris Goldfinger. Thanks to work done by him and his colleagues, we now know that the odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three." The article continues "In the Pacific Northwest, the area of impact will cover some hundred and forty thousand square miles, including Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, Salem (the capital city of Oregon), Olympia (the capital of Washington), and some seven million people. When the next full-margin rupture happens [odds are 'are roughly one in ten'], that region will suffer the worst natural disaster in the history of North America, outside of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which killed upward of a hundred thousand people."  

Therefore, I imagine building the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery in Kalama is about as smart as building the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima Prefecture, near the Pacific Ocean about 33 feet above sea level partly to reduce operating costs of seawater pumps.  You know the result of that. Charles Perrow wrote in the April 1, 2011 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists  "Currently our approach to risk is 'probabilistic,' and the probability of a tsunami seriously damaging the Fukushima Daiichi plant was extremely small. But we should also consider a worst-case approach to risk: the 'possibilistic' approach, as Rutgers University sociologist Lee Clarke calls it in his 2005 book Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination. In this approach, things that never happened before are possible. Indeed, they happen all the time." 

In short, in addition to the obvious climate impacts, a one in three chance of a big earthquake hitting Kalama in the "next fifty years" should be enough risk to say "No."

Sincerely,

Scott T. Starbuck

Thinking of Orwell’s 1984, Australia’s 2019-2020 Fires That Killed or Destroyed Habitat for Nearly Three Billion Animals, Oregon’s 500,000 Citizens Widely-reported as Fleeing Fires, or Ordered to Prepare to Flee Yesterday, and California and Washington Fires, as Climate Crisis Morphs into Climate Tsunami

In George Orwell's novel 1984, he wrote “It is not merely that speeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. [ . . . . ] And if the facts say otherwise, then the facts must be altered. Thus history is continuously rewritten. This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability of the regime as the work of repression and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love. [par break] The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc.”

“Australia’s 2019-2020 Fires That Killed or Destroyed Habitat for Nearly Three Billion Animals” may be easier for readers to understand if they see just one rescued Koala.  The “Nearly Three Billion” number, from a July 28, 2020 bbc.com article citing the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), also noted an Australian “royal commission inquiry” “has heard overwhelming evidence from scientists who said the unprecedented frequency and severity of the blazes were a result of climate change.”

I know some people mistakenly think La Niña in the Pacific Ocean is the major reason for Oregon’s current historic fires that various media sources noted burned about a million acres.  The Los Angeles Times reported Sept. 10, 2020, “So far, this [La Niña] is fairly weak.”  In contrast, oregonlive.com’s Ted Sickenger noted Sept. 13, 2020, “ The [‘rare’ east] winds were the main culprit in making the catastrophic infernos as fast moving as they were.” and “there is broad consensus that climate change is driving higher temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns and drought cycles across the west and in Western Oregon. [ . . . . ] A 2019 report by the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute found that fire risk due to climate change is projected to increase across the state by mid-century, with the largest increases in the Willamette Valley and Eastern Oregon.”

I could write many things about these fires in Oregon, California, and Washington, but instead I’ll repeat the end of my poem “Reframe, Redefine” from my book Hawk on Wire:

Reframe, Redefine

 

How many years

did the naming monkey

fool me?

 

As Earth warms,

soothing words attempt

to pacify

 

but the ancient voice,

old as missing rain,

says look, look, look.

 

#

I recall in the film I Am, the Dalai Lama said the most important meditation of our time is critical thinking followed by action.

My Review of Planet of the Humans, and My Thoughts on Climate Tsunami

I read Jeff Gibbs' interview regarding his controversial film Planet of the Humans which I saw. In Gibbs' interview he noted "All of the data in the form of charts and graphs are from the most recent year available, typically 2019 or 2020."  The problem, as Dave Borlace notes, is Gibbs' main arguments in the film about such things as solar panels and electric cars are from long ago, not "2019 or 2020."  However, I like Gibbs' argument about "a vast amount of energy storage which does not exist at scale" which is what Paul Kingsnorth also said. 

According to Borlace's evidence, this Gibbs' statement is the wrong focus: "Switching from carbon based energy sources to so-called 'renewables,' even if it was possible, INCREASES our dependency on, and consumption of, non-renewable resources, hastening the demise of industrial civilization." Overall, carbon-burning is the main problem with the focus being fossil fuels, and while switching to "renewables" will increase dependency on non-renewable items used to make them, favoring "carbon-based energy" is what is currently "hastening the demise of" all civilizations and all human, and non-human, life on Earth.

Regarding Gibbs' nuclear energy analysis, I have to agree with James Hansen. The window of opportunity for meaningful action is rapidly closing. Specifically, Brian Kahn, citing Science Advances issue 02 Sep 2020, reported at GIZMODO, "the Bering Sea hasn’t seen a winter like 2018 in at least 5,500 years. The study also shows that the world may have locked in irreversible changes that will leave the sea completely ice-free this century. [ . . . . ] Miriam Jones, a paleoclimate researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey, led the new research [ . . . . ] Perhaps the most shocking part of Jones and her team’s analysis is the tie between Bering sea ice and carbon dioxide. [ . . . . ]  [T]he results suggest that it’s possible today’s sea ice is coming into equilibrium with carbon dioxide levels from 100 years ago."  Obviously, if that is true, 50 and 100 years from now will mean horror film-scale melting. 

According to the film Before the Flood, India needs much more electricity now.  In the film Sunita Narain, Director General of Center for Science and Environment in Delhi, says "We have seven hundred million households who cook using biomass today. [ . . . . ] If those households move to coal[-produced electricity] you have that much more use of fossil fuel. Then the entire world is fried." I'm not a fan of biomass but I'm unwillling to criticize those who have no other options. In other words, if India burns its massive coal reserves, "probably the 3rd or 4th largest reservoir of coal in the world," climate damage will rapidly increase. It seems better to use new nuclear technology now then phase out all nuclear plants over time. 

At SCRIPPS last year I heard "In the event that geoengineering did cause disparate regional impacts, a regulatory scheme would need to develop that would contain enforceable compensation mechanisms to compensate those who suffer any damages." Sources noted China said it will use geoengineering, if needed, and I believe it is coming sooner than most realize, and likely without "compensat[ion" for those who suffer damages in other countries seriously affected. I hate hate hate nuclear energy because it seems wrong to produce waste that will be hazardous to humans for 500 thousand years (plutonium), but I hate India burning coal even more because of all the threats to survival for humans and non-humans.

For example, I'm concerned what will happen when China goes ahead with aforementioned geoengineering without "compensat[ing] those who suffer any damages," especially since India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, and seem unlikely to just let their people die on massive scales that are possible with 4 C and 5 C if Shell gets its way. 

Regarding Gibbs statement about the green movement, I think of Bill McKibben being harassed by "Right-Wing Stalkers," and how McKibben noted "when I first heard rumors of [Gibbs film 'attacks'] last summer I wrote the producer and director to set the record straight, and never heard back from them." 

Gibbs was asked "Should the more conscious and radical activists engage in environmental movements to change them from the inside or are there better places and ways to conduct this battle?"  His complete answer was "Good question. I think the most important thing is to have the correct vision. This is way bigger than a climate emergency, as dire as climate is. Our entire industrial civilization of seven going on eight billion humans is coming to a close. We either get ahead of the now emerging civilization and biological collapse or suffer the most extreme consequences. Non-human species are already suffering the most extreme consequences across the globe." Regarding this, I have long supported Extinction Rebellion because I like how it, as an organization, requires nonviolence.  Two of it's founders were Roger Hallam and Gail Bradbrook. 

I must disagree with Gibbs closing: "We learned our so-called critics are shameless in their dissembling, slandering, coordinated, and apparently well-funded attacks. They choose to ignore the larger truths to keep people distracted. Once people have seen the film, the criticism seems ridiculous." Dave Borlace does not seem to fit Gibbs' description. 

Gibbs also wrote "Now, while we still have blue whales and redwoods,songbirds and butterflies, it is a fine time to come to grips with the only hope we have: either less is the new more, or we’re going on the scrap heap of failed civilizations taking everything down with us."  Saying "it is a fine time to come to grips," and making a film attacking Bill McKibben and all green energy does not actually solve the problem.  Bill McKibben's years of sacrifice led to global awareness/fossil fuel divestment, and Roger Hallam and Gail Bradbrook's nonviolent protests, and Extinction Rebellion's three stated goals,can help. Many students challenged me about what I have done to reduce carbon, and I answered in December 2017 "short of violence against against corporate and political climate criminals, I did what I could."

On the plus side, it seems Gibbs, Moore, I, and many others, are willing to make sacrifices if they mean "blue whales and redwoods,songbirds and butterflies" Gibbs noted in his interview could have a fighting chance. My March 31, 2019 Solution to Reducing Climate Change is Purple is on par with Gibbs saying "it is a fine time to come to grips," meaning both are wildly idealistic given political reality in the U. S., and globally. 

I know we don't get to decide much but how we spend our time and energy, while, as I wrote in my last post, "I recall a Shell CEO told Hans Schellnhuber (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research), 'The climate problem is real but it is completely intractable. You can not solve it. So, let's get rich quick before the world ends, huh?'"

As carbon increases in the sky and oceans no matter what nations and individuals say, I imagine many more voices will compete for attention and meaningful action. At the least, it would be great if the U.S. could better fund birth control instead of allowing millions to die in a climate tsunami of starvation, disease, and war.  As the World Health Organization citing the Guttmacher Institute notes, "Worldwide, an estimated 214 million women in developing countries have an unmet need for modern contraception."