Fox 2 News Headlines A Marathon spokesperson told Fox 2 they sold the pet coke. It is now the property of Koch Carbon. Koch Carbon is part of Koch Industries, run by Charles and David Koch.
When the huge black mounds that sit on the riverbanks of southwest Detroit just appeared one day, residents were puzzled and concerned.
“One of the biggest concerns when we saw the black piles is what is it, and where is it coming from?” said State Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit). She said residents contacted her worried that the black piles could be toxic.
U.S. Reps. Gary Peters, a Democrat from Bloomfield Township, and John Conyers, a Democrat from Detroit, sent a joint letter to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality urging the agency to consider the material's potential impact on the river and nearby residents.
"We fear the storage of petroleum coke along the river poses a potential threat to water and air quality. The material may contain trace amounts of metal and could have damaging health impacts if fugitive dust enters the air. Petroleum coke that enters the water may continue to frustrate efforts to prevent contamination from runoff," according to the letter.
This is your Moment of Clarity #233: For the first time in 3 million years the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide is over 400 parts per million. Scientists say this is well beyond a sustainable level, and it's increasing every day.
Today, Monday May 13th, New Yorkers from Occupy the Pipeline, Occupy Sandy, and over twenty partner groups will march and rally to greet President Obama when he attends a fundraiser with members of the 1% at the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue.
Carbon dioxide levels have now surpassed 400 parts per million, a long-feared milestone. We must act now.
Gather in Bryant Park starting at 5 (meet near the fountain off 6th avenue at 41st Street). Reverend Billy and his choir will lead us off with a rousing blessing and song. We'll begin to march at 5:30, then rally in front of the Waldorf Astoria at 6:30. Please wear yellow and orange to demonstrate your support for a clean energy future.
Event Partners: 350 NYC, 350 NJ, 350.org, 99Rise, Brooklyn For Peace, Coalition Against the Rockaway Pipeline (CARP), CREDO, CUNY Divest, Food & Water Watch, Global Kids Inc., Green Party of NY, Human Impacts Institute, NYC Friends of Clearwater, NYU Divest, Occupy the Pipeline, Occupy Sandy, Restore the Rock, Sane Energy Project, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Sierra Club National, United for Action, World Can't Wait, WESPAC, YANA (You Are Never Alone).
350 parts per million = safe level of carbon in the atmosphere. And the namesake for the 350 movement. This explains what's it's all about
There are some records we'd rather not see broken. Carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time since the U.S. government began recording the concentration of the gas in the air, and likely the first time in millions of years. High levels of carbon dioxide traps heat in the atmosphere and increases global temperatures. The last time it reached 400 parts per million was in the epoch called the Pliocene at least 3 million years ago, when sea levels may have been as much as 60 to 80 feet higher than they are today. For all of human civilization, carbon-dioxide levels have hovered around 280 parts per million.
Already we're seeing the deadly effects of climate change in the form of rising seas, wildfires and extreme weather of all kinds, and passing 400 PPM is an ominous sign of what might come next.
The safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmostphere is 350 parts per million, but the only way to get there is to immediately transition the global economy away from fossil fuels and into into renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable farming practices in all sectors (agriculture, transport, manufacturing, etc.).
While the level fluctuates seasonally and varies across different latitudes, this is yet another sign that our dependence on fossil fuels is out of control.
What This Means
Bill McKibben, Co-Founder, 350.org: "We're in new territory for human beings--it's been millions of years since there's been this much carbon in the atmosphere. The only question now is whether the relentless rise in carbon can be matched by a relentless rise in the activism necessary to stop it."
Dr. James Hansen, Former NASA Climatologist: "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced ... to at most 350 ppm."
Payal Parekh, Coordinator, Global Power Shift: "Crossing the 400 ppm threshold is a somber reminder that we haven't taken the action we need. Nevertheless there is good reason for hope -- activists all across the globe are fighting the fossil fuel industry and demanding clean, just and affordable solutions to our energy needs. At Global Power Shift, a convergence in Istanbul this June, 500 mostly young climate activists from 135 countries will come together to plan a global strategy for change. Upon returning home they'll escalate action and create the global power shift our world needs to push for 350 ppm."
Brad Johnson, Campaign Manager, Forecast the Facts: "May 9, 2013, is a historic day in the worst possible sense of the word. For the first time in the history of the human race, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen above 400 parts per million, NOAA reports. During the ice ages as homo sapiens ("wise man") evolved, levels were between 180 and 300 ppm. During the rise of human civilization, CO2 concentrations were only 280 ppm. Hundreds of billions of tons of fossil-fuel pollution have poisoned our climate, bringing to our world increasingly extreme floods, droughts, and wildfires. We must respond with urgent resolve to end this uncontrolled experiment on our only home.
"Yet the Republican Party maintains climate change denial as a central tenet of their party platform, and President Obama refuses to admit the threat projects like the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline pose to our future survival. The scientific observations are not in doubt, and the facts are not negotiable. We are fed up, and we will continue to hold those who are pushing us off the climate cliff accountable."
Deirdre Smith, West Coast Fossil Free Organizer: "My grandmother said that we are always walking toward our goals or away from them. As we reach 400PPM I am thinking about her, and wondering which way the the Board of Trustees from any of the 40 fossil free campus campaigns I work with are walking. Perhaps, this will be the moment we decided to walk toward our common goals, to treat each moment as a chance to invest in our future. That's what my grandmother would hope, that's what I hope, that's what students are fighting for now."
A new study shows that the speed of warming in the past 100 years is unprecedented, and by the end of this century the planet will have gotten hotter than ever.
The Earth is warmer now than during 70 to 80 percent of the time stretching back to the last Ice Age, according to researchers from Oregon State and Harvard universities who studied data from more than 73 global sites.
The findings also show that temperature-change rates are accelerating, Shaun Marcott, a scientist at Oregon State in Corvallis and one of the paper’s authors, said yesterday in an interview. The study was published today by the journal Science.
The research is the longest global reconstruction of temperature records over the last 11,300 years and mirrors results covering the past 2,000 years. The study may provide additional context in refuting “arguments that what we’re experiencing today is part of some natural climate variability,” Marcott said.
"The decade from 1900 to 1909 was colder than 95% of the last 11,300 years," according to CNN, which obtained a copy of the study. "Between 2000 and 2009, it was hotter than about 75% of the last 11,300 years." “From 1900 to 2000, we go from the cold end of that spectrum to the warm end of that spectrum -- the rates of change we’re seeing are unprecedented,” Marcott said. “We should still be cooling, but we’re not.”
Today, delegates from nearly two hundred nations are gathering in Qatar for the UN'sThis new campaign is spreading an urgent message face-to-face all over the country, as this group of activists visit over twenty cities in the USA. Their message: it's simple math. We can burn 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming – anything more than this risks total catastrophe for all life on the planet. The problem: fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five more times the safe amount . . . And they’re planning to burn it all – unless we rise up to stop them."> COP18 – the latest round of UN climate talks aimed at cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.
While they all try to talk it out in Qatar, Bill McKibben and his grassroots initiative with 350.org may achieve far more on the ground than any solemn swear of re-commitment to the Kyoto Protocol will at Qatar. This new campaign is spreading an urgent message face-to-face all over the country, as this group of activists visit over twenty cities in the USA. Their message: it's simple math. We can burn 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming – anything more than this risks total catastrophe for all life on the planet. The problem: fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five more times the safe amount . . . And they’re planning to burn it all – unless we rise up to stop them.
