Refugia Newsletter #42
The debt ceiling deal, the dratted Line 5, peregrine falcons, and talking economics
Refugia News
Look at my tomatoes and peppers! Heirloom and grown from seed, people! Please do not ask about the eventual tomato/pepper-over-sunk-cost ratio. It will not be good. And serious gardeners, please feel free to chuckle at my beginner’s attempts. But hey, I’m learning. The next step this summer is to replace the turf grass in two front yard sections with native plants. More on that when there’s something to see.
I know, I know: everyone is looking droopy in the heat. They’re about to get a nice drink from the drip hose.
In Refugia Faith event news, the good people at Circlewood (featured in newsletter #40) hosted a lovely conversation on May 24, interviewing me about all things refugia. They have kindly shared the recording here, in case you’d like to have a listen.
Mostly these days, I’m digging into all that good summer reading I’ve been looking forward to. Here’s your juicy quote of the day, from Ellen Davis’s Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture, a book I should have read long ago. In chapter 1, Davis considers the Hebrew Bible’s attention to proper care for land and water, juxtaposing that study with modern abusive practices like mountain top removal and industrial agriculture. Apparently, apathy about land abuse is nothing new. Even the prophets of ancient Israel lamented that people didn’t seem to care about how their actions affect the earth they depend on. After examining the prophet’s laments in Jeremiah 4, Davis writes that, for Jeremiah,
The whole land/’eres/earth is bound to be devastated, and yet the people are not aggrieved. The earth itself goes into mourning, and the heavens don black (Jer. 4:28), but there is no indication that the people respond to the prophetic summons to put on sackcloth and wail (4:8). [//] And what about us? If we as citizens of the industrialized world are not yet stricken to the heart, then why not? The prophetically informed answer is the we lack the healthy imagination to see and feel as we should.
Davis’s thesis is that an “agrarian” re-reading of the Hebrew Bible can help us regain that imagination.
This Week in Climate News
OK, let’s talk about that debt ceiling deal. Now that both houses of Congress have passed the bill in question, we can all heave a sigh of relief—and also survey the mess on the floor where the sausage got made.
Thankfully, Pres. Biden refused to budge on the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act designed to accelerate the clean energy transition. (Republicans aimed to gut these provisions and to include rollbacks on environmental protections. No deal.) However, good ol’ Joe Manchin (D-WVa) is going to get his pipeline. You might recall that Manchin (who receives more fossil fuel money than any other congressional representative) tried to hold the IRA hostage over the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which is currently tied up in legal delays in his district. So, yes, it’s galling that he’s managing to get his way anyway.
Apparently, one can make one’s own vegan sausage. I cannot vouch, but here’s one recipe.
The MVP is a dirty little project, meant to bring gas from fracking operations to the East Coast. According to Timothy Puko in the May 29 Washington Post,
Construction for Mountain Valley has relied on eminent domain to seize private property, repeatedly violated clean-water laws and gone billions of dollars over budget. It committed more than 500 violations in the two states, according to a count from the environmental group Appalachian Voices.
Just Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission needed to provided a further environmental review of the project, which could have put its completion off until 2024, according to the independent research firm ClearView Energy Partners.
How did the MVP get a free pass in the debt ceiling bill? Well, it was a bargaining chip. More broadly, it has to do with “permitting reform.” For any energy infrastructure to get built, the project has to go through an elaborate permitting process that includes environmental impact analyses of various kinds. It’s complicated—I can’t say I understand it all. And it takes a long time. Permitting reform is necessary for a clean-energy infrastructure build-out if we want it to happen fast. But if we make permitting easier and faster, then fossil fuel projects could also get an easier ride. That’s the dilemma.
If you’re interested in the detailed ingredients for the sausage on permitting reform, you need to read about NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act. That’s the federal permitting law for any large-scale infrastructure, like power lines. The debt ceiling deal includes some language about making NEPA requirements more streamlined, and climate analysts are worried that indeed this will make it easier to shove through fossil fuel projects. This article by Robinson Meyer in HeatMap explains the details.
Will the MVP matter? Well, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), one of Congress’s climate champions, suggests that even though it’s a foolish piece of work, the MVP would have gotten built anyway. That project, along with the Willow project, are high-profile concerns, but in this excellent interview with Emily Atkin of Heated, Sen. Whitehouse explains that the those backward steps, however unfortunate, will be more than outweighed by the real work toward emissions reductions and clean energy happening through many other means. For instance, work to eliminate methane leaks and improve methane regulation at home and abroad, and especially, implementing the IRA well. It’s the non-sexy, non-headline, truly wonky stuff that will do the heavy lifting on energy transition.
Deeper Dive
Here’s a simple climate solution: shut down Enbridge Line 5 pipeline. Well, it would be simple, except for the usual power of the industry to operate in bad faith, for huge profit, against everyone else’s interests. Indulge me on this one, as it hits close to home here in Michigan.
Line 5 is part of the pipeline that carries Alberta tar sands oil (and liquid natural gas projects) from Western Canada, through Michigan, and into Eastern Canada. It was built in 1953. It is already 20 years past its 50-year design expiry date and has leaked 34 times, including a 1-million-gallon leak into the Kalamazoo River in 2010. The most vulnerable area of the pipeline is under the Straits of Mackinac, where the pipeline is degraded and subject to powerful currents, anchor strikes, and Enbridge’s neglect. A leak in the Straits would be disastrous for Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsula coastlines, affecting water, wildlife, business, tourism, and more. But there are other vulnerable places on the pipeline, too.
Just last week, a group of Indigenous women leaders called on Pres. Biden to shut down the pipeline because of a new and imminent threat, riverbank flooding:
Due to recent flooding, erosion of a local riverbank has led to Line 5’s centerline to be within 11 feet or less of the river waters, creating an immediate threat. The letter notes that erosion from receding waters or the next rainfall could cause a “guillotine rupture” – a vertical break causing oil to gush from both sides, poisoning the Bad River watershed and Lake Superior, impacting the Great Lakes region which holds one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water, and provides drinking water for 40 million people in North America.
I’ve been following the Line 5 story for years now, and it’s been a weary fight. The pipeline has been operating on a 1953 easement, and every attempt to shut the thing down results in bad-faith actions from Enbridge. Their more recent delay tactic is a proposed replacement tunnel. This article in the March issue of Sierra Magazine features amazing graphics and some of the details of the ongoing battle:
During their first terms in office, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and attorney general Dana Nessel carried through on a campaign promise: They revoked the easement across the Straits of Mackinac and ordered Enbridge to decommission Line 5. The company refused to comply. Enbridge continues to fight the shutdown order in the courts while pursuing a tunnel under the straits, a project that, according to the best estimates, could cost a billion dollars or more. Opponents suspect that the proposal may be nothing more than a stalling tactic to extend the life of Line 5. A battle over the fate of the aging pipelines is now playing out in federal and state courts.
A screen shot of the incredible data animation in the Sierra Magazine article. Article produced by Geoff McGhee.
As Traverse City activist Barbara Stamiris wrote on May 6 in the Northern Express:
From a planetary perspective, it’s a no-brainer. If the world’s most dangerous pipeline has an easy solution, get the oil out of the water. Now.
Refugia Sighting
A quick sighting and then two just-fun things for you today.
First, the sighting. When I visited Pella, Iowa, in March, I was treated to a lovely dinner party by the Friends of Big Rock Park, a lively citizen group that managed to protect an 83-acre public park from marauding… frisbee golfers? Well, it wasn’t so much about the devastating environmental impacts of frisbee golf, though that would have required some unfortunate tree-cutting. More worrisome was the growing trend of motorbike riding in the quiet woods. The point was: what does it mean to “use” land well as a community? The Friends of Big Rock successfully persuaded the city to keep the park reserved for hiking and small gatherings at the pavilion. They promised to help maintain the park, and they partnered with other community groups to get people enjoying the park in its more natural state. The result: a refugium for both wildlife and people.
Friends of Big Rock Dave Timmer and Sheril Graham with me at Big Rock Park. There really is a big rock! (Dave is gazing into the future, obviously.)
Now, just for fun. The peregrine falcon cam at the Mercantile Library in Cincinnati, Ohio! You really must spend a few minutes watching the three still-fluffy peregrine falcon babies in their rocky nest. Thanks to my friend Jana Riess for this link. And for helping us figure out that peregrine falcon babies are called “eyases.”
Finally, for a little glimpse at how the group Pique Action is helping to inform young adults about climate change, take a look at the new YouTube show called Unf***ing the Planet (I use more asterisks here than they do because I am old-school). It’s a cheeky, irreverant, but informative “desk show” with real information about climate matters. Host Hazel Thayer is genuinely funny—and they do bleep all the bad words. Here’s the pilot episode, on fast fashion’s climate impacts (it’s about 14 minutes long).
The Not-So-Wayback Machine
My most recent blog post on The Reformed Journal blog was, if I say so myself, a bit of a scorcher. I’m basically taking religious people to task (especially church-going Christians) for their economic idolatries. This was all coming off reading the first book on my list this summer, Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth.
My thesis is that, at church,
We don’t touch economic mythologies (I use that word deliberately) because to do so would be too dangerous, divisive, inflammatory, and let’s say it: blasphemous. Certain economic principles have become quasi-religious beliefs in American culture and we in the church dare not disturb them.
My proposal: We can do better.
Image credit: Geekflare.com
OK, I’m headed out to the Lake Michigan shore today for a little beauty-basking. Hope you have some beauties to relish in your day, too.
Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture is on my reading list too!!! Sounds like you recommend it!