I've Looked at Clouds from Both Sides Now

Penn State, Microplastics impact cloud formation, likely affecting weather and climate, just not very much. 

Scientists have spotted microplastics, tiny pieces of plastic smaller than 5 millimeters, in some of the most pristine environments on Earth, from the depths of the Mariana Trench to the snow on Mt. Everest to the mountaintop clouds of China and Japan. Microplastics have been detected in human brains, the bellies of sea turtles and the roots of plants. Now, new research led by Penn State scientists reveals that microplastics in the atmosphere could be affecting weather and climate.

The study, published today (Nov. 7) in the journal Environmental Science and Technology: Air, demonstrated that microplastics act as ice nucleating particles, microscopic aerosols that facilitate the formation of ice crystals in clouds.

This means that microplastics could impact precipitation patterns, weather forecasting, climate modeling and even aviation safety by influencing how atmospheric ice crystals form clouds, explained Miriam Freedman, professor of chemistry at Penn State and senior author on the paper.

“Throughout the past two decades of research into microplastics, scientists have been finding that they're everywhere, so this is another piece of that puzzle,” Freedman said. “It’s now clear that we need to have a better understanding of how they're interacting with our climate system, because we’ve been able to show that the process of cloud formation can be triggered by microplastics.”

Oh my god, plastics cause clouds that block the sun, they rain and snow on everyone. So many things we could have done, but clouds got in the way! 

They found that the average temperature at which the droplets froze was 5-10 degrees warmer than droplets without microplastics. Typically, an atmospheric water droplet without any defects freezes at about negative 38 degrees Celsius, explained Heidi Busse, a graduate student at Penn State and lead author on the paper. Any kind of defect in the water droplet, whether that’s dust, bacteria or microplastics, can give ice something to form — or nucleate — around. That tiny structure is just enough to trigger the water droplet to freeze at warmer temperatures.

So, basically, microplastics act just like any other form of dust, which is much more prevalent in the environment than microplastics.  

A great songwriter, crazy as a bedbug. 

Dutch Cutie Warns of War on Hamburgers

At WUWT, The Global War on Farming: ‘Net Zero and the American beef industry cannot coexist’

Don't be afraid of the length of the video; the second half is a question and answer session.

The Dutch have, indeed, proposed some absolutely insane agricultural policies, in the name of preventing climate change, or even downwind nitrogen deposition from ammonia and nitrous oxide emissions from fertilized land, including downright confiscation.

She's right, if it isn't stopped in Europe, and likely, even it it is, it will be attempted in the United States.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Meanwhile In The Kitchen up on time and under budget at The Other McCain.

MD Supreme Court Makes Chicken Shit Decision

From the Balmer Sun, Maryland Supreme Court says ammonia rules for chicken farms are sufficient. Environmental groups disagree.

The Maryland Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Maryland is doing enough to regulate gaseous ammonia emitted by the state’s poultry houses, overturning a lower court ruling.

The 6-1 decision reversed a 2021 ruling from the Montgomery County Circuit Court that would have required the Maryland Department of the Environment to regulate the smelly, harmful gas under a water pollution permit issued to chicken farms and other animal feeding operations, since the gas can pollute state waterways. The majority of the state Supreme Court justices felt that Maryland’s original water pollution permit, issued in 2019 under Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, was sufficient, since it called on animal feeding operations to adopt “best management practices” to curtail ammonia pollution.

The case began in 2020, when the Assateague Coastal Trust, an environmental group, challenged the Maryland permit. The Trust also had challenged previous iterations of the permit for chicken farms, to no avail. In the 2020 case, the group found success as the Montgomery County court agreed that Maryland would have to reconsider the permit and add restrictions on the amount of ammonia released.

But MDE appealed in 2021, and the state Supreme Court sided with the agency. “The Legislature has given broad discretion to the Department to establish permit terms and conditions as the Department determines are necessary,” the decision released Wednesday said. “The text of the statute does not instruct the Department as to how it must make these determinations or the water quality controls that must be included.”

In a statement Wednesday, Maryland Environment Secretary Serena McIlwain, who serves under Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, called the court’s decision “a win for the Chesapeake Bay.”
. . .
The Delmarva Chicken Association, which represents poultry farmers in the region and has supported the agency’s original permit in court, also cheered Wednesday’s decision. “We’re glad the Maryland Supreme Court recognized this challenge to the 2019 permit lacked merit and mischaracterized the law‚” Holly Porter, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “This is the third consecutive time these activists have tried and failed to persuade courts to overrule science-based, legally sound water quality regulations.”
. . .
But environmental advocates, who have long pushed for tighter controls on the chicken houses that dot the Eastern Shore, argued the ruling deals a blow to the state’s effort to clean up the Chesapeake. “We have a substantial source of unregulated pollution and the agency has chosen to do nothing about it,” said Brenda Davis, the Coastal Trust’s executive director, in a statement Wednesday. Part of why environmental groups have sought regulation under the Clean Water permit process is because Maryland animal feeding operations, as a category, aren’t required to get Clean Air Act permits.

Beach and Air Quality Report 6/7/23

Yesterday evening the air smelled faintly of smoke. This morning it was down right oppressive. This is smoke from the wildfires in Canada, and not local burning. You can see how the horizon fades out looking north toward Breezy Point, about 10 miles away.

The air quality index in both Baltimore and DC are abysmal today, code red, nevertheless, we risked a walk on the beach. 

It was a low tide, almost near astronomical, after several days of above normal tides, with good lines of shell and gravel and we found a bunch of teeth, 40, and a couple of crab claws. These are 3 of my better.

Flotsam and Jetsam - It's No Laughing Matter, Twitter Files #17 Out

From the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 03.02.23, The Lid: Biden Chuckles When Talking About Two Brothers’ Fentanyl Deaths and Victory Girls: Mom Of Fentanyl Victims To Biden: “How Dare You Laugh?!”  At Hat Hair KT reports the Mom of two sons dead from fentanyl horrified that Biden laughed while telling their story. Natt Margolis at PJ Media wants you to WATCH: Joe Biden Laughs While Talking About Fentanyl Deaths. Also, at Hat Hair, reminder from John Sexton a Majority of voters, plurality of Democrats say Biden is too old to run again. Capt. Ed at Hat Hair WaPo: "Republicans seize®!" again, this time on train derailment; Manchin: "Pete is not getting high grades right now"  Breitbart,  Scientist Slams EPA for Not Testing for Cancer-Causing Chemical in East Palestine. Dioxin.  At ET, Biden Wants His Record Out There as 2024 Approaches "No presidential declaration from Biden in House Dem pep talk as he challenged McCarthy, ostracized 'MAGA Republicans'"

Capt. Ed, TrumpWorld: Murdochs soft-banning Trump from Fox News "This can’t last long, however, especially while covering a presidential campaign. Fox News doesn’t need to provide live broadcasts of Trump rallies the way they did in 2015-16 and again in 2019-20, but they do need to cover candidates somewhat fairly." Brian Parsons at Am Thinks about  A Subtle Way for Establishment Republicans to Sabotage Trump. Tim Young at Am Great, sees Another Get-Trump Witch Hunt in Georgia. "Emily Kohrs, the giggling foreman of a Georgia grand jury, betrays her bias on CNN."

From the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 03.02.23,Shark Tank: Former Judge Accuses DeSantis Of Violating U.S. Constitution. Without his Fox post, Napolitano has become a Republican scold. Speaking of which, KT highlights Liz Cheney's next career move. College prof at UVA.

From the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 03.02.23, Mary Chastain at LI notes Fetterman’s Chief of Staff Won’t Tell Anyone How the Hospitalized Senator is Introducing Legislation, “Why is the chief of staff of a United States Senator blocking people on Twitter who are asking about the Senator’s constitutional ability to vote on or introduce legislation?” Matt Vespa at Town Hall asks Has Someone Taken Over Fetterman's Office Because He Can't Do What Was Just Announced. Insty announces Di-Fi's hospitalization, WITH HER AND FETTERMAN HOSPITALIZED, DO THE DEMOCRATS HAVE A WORKING MAJORITY IN THE SENATE? Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, hospitalized in San Francisco for treatment of shingles. "Also, do you usually hospitalize people for shingles?" At her age, they're not taking chances. Now with both Fetterman and Di-Fi out, the Senate is temporarily 49-49, requiring Kamala Harris to break ties if necessary.

At PM, Kari Lake brings election lawsuit to Arizona Supreme Court, good luck. At Da Fed Vicky Marshall introduces you to  Three Dead People Jocelyn Benson Wants To Keep On Michigan’s Voter Rolls and Eddie Scarry wants to know why, If The Dominion Defamation Lawsuit Is A Slam Dunk, Why Are CNN And The New York Times Lying About It? Reflex. Natalia Mittelstadt at JTN reminds us that Months before Fox News, HBO aired voting machine allegations in a documentary. It wasn’t sued. "A 2020 HBO documentary highlighted allegations that Dominion voting equipment is vulnerable to hacking. Also at Da Fed, Biden’s DHS Just Revealed How It Plans To Use Your Tax Dollars To Interfere In U.S. Elections, focusing on getting out the "urban" vote. Jay Valentine at Am Think thinks about How to Lose in 2024 "The Zuckerberg boys will march into leftist-dominated cities - again, writing checks and controlling election machinery.  They know who voted, who did not vote, who never votes (and vote them), how many votes are needed. Each of these actions has a common characteristic -- it happens within 2-3 weeks during early voting!"

Ace, Merrick Garland: We Have Brought Charges Against 34 People For Allegedly Blocking Access to Abortion Clinics and Only Two People for Attacking Pro-Life Counseling Centers Because "We Equally Apply the Law." "He literally excuses this glaring disparity in prioritization of resources by saying, it's harder to catch the people attacking pro-life counseling centers because they do their crimes at night." At Breitbart, Merrick Garland Says DOJ Has Prosecuted More Pro-Lifers Because Attacks Occurred ‘During the Daylight.’  Sundance at CTH, Senators Grill Attorney General Merrick Garland About a Weaponized DOJ, Yet Miss the Person Doing the Weaponization. He thinks Lisa Monaco is running the DOJ. At Da Caller, ‘An Unbelievable Show Of Force’: Sen. Hawley Goes After Merrick Garland For Arrest Of Pro-Life Father. Nice Deb at Am Great, Josh Hawley Torches Merrick Garland Over FBI’s ‘Unbelievable Show of Force’ Against Pro-Life Family. Dan Chaitin at Da Wire reports Garland Claims Ignorance About Leaks From Trump, Biden Docs Investigations "I know nossing, nossing." Also, Merrick Garland Hungry For Expanded DOJ: ‘We Don’t Have Enough’ Reading between the lines, Bob Spencer at PJ Media concludes Okay, So It Looks as if the Justice Department Probably Has Spies in Catholic Churches 

In a heated exchange with Gestapo chief Merrick Garland at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) directly challenged Garland’s viciously corrupt and politicized “Justice” Department, and zeroed in on the once-respected agency’s targeting of traditionalist Roman Catholics. While Garland maintained, in the teeth of the available evidence, that the department is not actually targeting Catholics, he claimed not to know how many spies and informants the feds have in those hotbeds of terrorism, traditional Catholic parishes. In other words, he didn’t say they didn’t have any such spies and informants.

From the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 03.02.23, Weasel Zippers, FBI Director Defends Agency Targeting Pro-Lifers. Bob Hoge at Red State, Christopher Wray's Failing PR Campaign to Save the FBI's Reputation. At TechCrunch, Secret Service and ICE conducted warrantless stingray surveillance, says watchdog. Why? Because they could. 

Insurrection alert! At Da Mail, Code Pink protesters interrupt first House China committee hearing - as lawmakers discuss country's role in Fentanyl trade, the spy balloon fiasco and a potential war over Taiwan. 

Matt Taibbi has released a new set of Twitter files, #17. Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi "1. TWITTER FILES #17 New Knowledge, the Global Engagement Center, and State-Sponsored Blacklists" John Sexton at Hat Hair, Twitter files part 17: The government funded cottage industry of disinformation 'experts'. Ace, New Twitter Files: How Obama Created an Agency to Create Blacklists of Supposed Foreign Disinformation Operators... and How Those Mechanisms Were Almost Immediately Turned, Surprise Surprise, Against the American Conservative Movement "Matt Taibbi wrote this post as a backgrounder to the today's Twitter Files. . . "The scary angle on GEC is not so much the agency as the sprawling infrastructure of "disinformation labs" that have grown around it." Sundance Twitter File Release #17 – Matt Taibbi Outlines Obama’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) Labeling U.S. Accounts as “Foreign Actors” to Promote Media Narrative. At Da Fed Tristan Justice claims an EXCLUSIVE: House Weaponization Committee To Focus On The ‘Twitter Files’ In Second Hearing and Margot Cleveland lists 6 Ways The Censorship Complex Silences Speech It Doesn’t Want You To Say Or Hear. At Am Think Joe Fried thinks about CNN and Election Disinformation "A. Are they grossly uninformed? B. Do they know the truth but tell falsehoods anyway? C. Do they think we are stupid or naïve?" Embrace the healing power of "and." Tristan Justice, again, Twitter Bans Sen. Mike Lee After He Shared Federalist Article Criticizing Biden Foreign Policy "It’s unclear whether Lee’s post from The Federalist provoked the censorship. The senior Utah senator wrote in a follow-up tweet that the company has still not offered an explanation after the suspension was lifted." Da Caller, Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s Twitter Account Suspended, Says He Doesn’t Know Why.

Scott McKay at Am Spec, The Suppression of the ‘Lab Leak Theory’ Has Collapsed "If you admit it’s a leak from the Wuhan lab, then it’s legitimate to trace that lab’s activities and who funded it." Ace, The View Announces the Media's Defense On Its Latest Covid Lie: The Media Couldn't Admit That The Virus Might Have Come From a Lab Because Trump Said "Chyna Virus" In a Very Very Subliminally-Racist Way

At LI Mike LaChance points out Female Faculty More Likely to Support Speech Restrictions, Campus Investigations, Deplatforming. “Young faculty members and female faculty members are the least likely to tolerate heterodox speech: One in five faculty members under the age of 35 report some level of acceptance of students using violence to stop a controversial campus speaker”

From the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 03.02.23, Louder With Crowder: Tiktoker faces major backlash for calling out Jeffrey Marsh, but she hits back hard with receipts, Marvel actor dumps over what crap Hollywood has become: ‘You’re making movies for 16-year-olds and China’, and Nearly-Nude Man Dances Around in Bondage For An Audience of Babies And We’re Supposed to Be Ok With It. At Summit News, Girls Basketball Team Withdraws From State Tournament in Protest Against Transgender Player Who Dominates Games, and American Greatness, Christian School in Kansas City Gets Woke With LGBTWTFBBQ Messaging And Goes Broke. Breitbart,  Republican States Push to Ban Men from Womens’ Sports.  At Campus Reform, No more DEI at New College, "The New College of Florida Board of Trustees recently voted to abolish the college’s DEI office and programming, a move protested by the college's progressive students and faculty." From John Sexton, Princeton senior: Campus politics are driving some students to the right. Kaeley Triller at Da Fed, Aversion Therapy Is Back, And It’s Coming From The Trans Lobby.  From the Free Bacon, GOP Hawks Say the Only Thing Cut From the Pentagon Will Be 'Wokeness'  "I can't think of a worse time to cut defense spending than now"

And a message from Matt Walsh (via WeirdDave at Ace's)

This is my final response to the conservatives who’ve been lecturing me all week about my meanness. Yes, I’m aggressive and harsh and angry. You should be too:

pic.twitter.com/ehRaEivInG

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 22, 2023

All Models are Wrong, But Some are Useful

 is the old saying. Bay Journal, States challenge findings of Chesapeake computer modeling, "Figures show little progress in reducing nutrient pollution from farms"

State officials have voiced strong concerns about updated Chesapeake Bay computer modeling that shows little overall progress in controlling nutrient runoff from farmland.

The updated modeling suggests that meeting the Bay’s 2025 cleanup goals — already highly unlikely — will be even more difficult than regional leaders believed just a few months ago.

If correct, the figures indicate that work over the past decade by farmers to plant cover crops, install stream buffers, construct manure storage facilities and undertake other conservation practices were largely offset by increased crop production, more fertilizer use and more livestock.

The model revisions also show greater increases in nutrient pollution from urban stormwater than previously estimated, but those were small compared to the farm changes.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently signed off on the model changes, saying the updates followed normal procedures approved by the state-federal Bay Program.

But state officials questioned the new results at recent meetings and in written comments, citing uncertainties with the underlying data. They also worry about creating the perception within the farm community, where distrust of Bay computer modeling is already high, that efforts to reduce runoff have produced few results.

The EPA uses the computer model to track progress toward meeting nutrient reduction goals under the Bay’s total maximum daily load, or “pollution diet,” established in 2010.

The TMDL set the maximum amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that can reach the Bay each year from states in the watershed. States are to implement all actions needed to achieve those goals by 2025.

The updated calculations show estimated annual nitrogen reductions from 2009 to 2020 being 6.25 million pounds less than what was calculated just a few months earlier, largely because of new data showing the intensification of farm operations, including a sharp increase in fertilizer use.

That means the region has achieved only about a third of the 71 million pounds of nitrogen reductions needed to meet the 2025 goal. And most of those reductions came from upgrading wastewater treatment plants, a job that is mostly completed. The vast majority of future nitrogen reductions must now come from farms and, to a lesser extent, urban stormwater.

The story was better for phosphorus as the figures showed 533,000 more pounds of reductions than previously estimated.

But the region was already on track to meet phosphorus goals, while significantly off track for nitrogen, which tends to have a worse impact on Bay water quality.

State officials have questioned the underlying data, and many contend that the model results sometimes show worsening nutrient trends in places where water quality monitoring shows improvements.


“We don’t think that the data sources are the right data sources … or even the best,” said Pat McDonnell, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, at a May 17 meeting of senior state and federal environmental officials. “It just puts us, and I’m sure other jurisdictions, in a challenging position.”

Scott Mandirola, deputy secretary of environmental affairs with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, said the results showed a tenfold increase in fertilizer use in urban areas in his state’s portion of the watershed, “which I don’t believe anybody accepts as being factual.”

Andrew Wheeler, a senior adviser to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, said officials in his state have “seen inconsistencies in the [nutrient] loading data” produced by the model when compared with water quality monitoring. He called for “transitioning to more monitoring, instead of modeling, [for] assessments of progress going forward.”

Ann Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which includes representatives from state legislatures, said the updated findings should be used, but that states should be allowed to achieve the additional 6.25 million pounds of nitrogen reductions after 2025.

“Right now, it’s very clear that we will not reach the TMDL, [that] we will not make that pollution diet,” Swanson said. “We will hold our heads very, very high. And we will get as close as we can. And we remain with our foot on that pedal.”

As the aphorism suggests, no model can completely capture the absolute truth, but with the right data and the right coding, a model can be used to get good insights into how the system will respond to changes in inputs. But the Chesapeake Bay is pretty damn big, and I don't think the sources (and sinks) are that well known. I suspect the Bay model, by comparison, is pretty crude. Agriculture is the chosen scapegoat of the managers, all those individual decisions made by farmers for their own benefit has the regulators lusting for control.

And, I don't think they're serious about achieving a clean Bay by 2025. Then what, fire the EPA Bay Program staffers, and put them on welfare? Will the Chesapeake Bay Foundation declare victory and disband?  Nope. They need a certain amount of Bay pollution to continue.

EPA Hoist on Own Petard

WUWT, EPA Penalized for Polluting

Under the category you can’t make this stuff up, the September 3, 2021 Federal Register included a notice of a proposed settlement agreement, enforcement action alleging air pollution violations for the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Edison New Jersey facility. The federal agency responsible for compliance with environmental regulations did not comply with New Jersey boiler and emergency generator regulations.

According to the Federal Register notice:

“In November 2019, New Jersey conducted an inspection of EPA’s Edison facility and found several state law violations regarding EPA’s boilers and emergency generators. Based on

this inspection, and further information provided by EPA, New Jersey alleged the following types of violations:

• Failure to seek new general permits when the boilers and emergency generators were replaced;
• Operating the boilers and emergency generators with expired general permits;
• Operating one emergency generator on five bad air days;
• Operating one boiler on one bad air day; and
• Improper tune-ups and/or tune-up report submission for two boilers.”

EPA delegates the responsibility to inspect facilities to the states upon approval of implementation plans. On a regular basis inspectors show up at the facility and go through the permits and records to make sure everything is being done correctly. It appears that during the inspection when the boiler and emergency generator specifications were compared to the existing permits there was a discrepancy. I can only imagine the consternation of the folks at EPA when it became obvious that someone had overlooked the rules. This ended causing two violations: one for not getting a new permit and one for operating under an expired permit. Those are paperwork violations that cause no harm to the environment.

However, the inspection also found that EPA was not operating the units correctly and that does harm the environment. In non-attainment areas, facilities are required to not operate emergency generators unless absolutely necessary on “bad air days”. I am not sure exactly how “bad air days” are defined but I believe they are days when either the observed or projected air quality is close or exceeds a national ambient air quality standard. In this instance it almost certainly represents nitrogen oxides emissions and the ozone ambient air quality standard. Therefore, EPA could have contributed to a violation of the ozone standard.

Any fine should be taken out of the director of that facility's pocket. But I doubt a fine will be imposed; probably just a paperwork acknowledgment of the screwup and a promise to do better in the future.

Linked at Pirate's Cove in If All You See…

Court Overrule Maryland on Chicken Shit Smell

Bay Journal, Maryland agency seeks to overturn ruling that it must curb foul poultry air

The Maryland Department of the Environment plans to appeal a state judge’s ruling that the agency must account for ammonia discharges to the air before issuing water permits to high-density poultry farms.

The move would bring the legal clash to the Court of Special Appeals, the state’s second-highest court.

“We are committed to advancing the science, stewardship and conservation practices that seek to reduce pollution from poultry houses,” MDE Secretary Ben Grumbles said. “We are also committed to regulatory certainty in the wake of the unprecedented ruling in the lower court.”

Last year, the MDE finalized a revision to the five-year “general discharge permit” governing waste discharges into local waters from industrial-scale chicken-raising operations. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency subsequently accepted the changes.

But Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Sharon Burrell ruled March 11 this year that state officials must also regulate ammonia released into the air, because some of it falls into waters protected by the federal Clean Water Act, namely the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

On the other hand, given the prevailing winds, I suspect most of the the ammonia from Eastern Shore chicken houses is carried out to sea before it rains out.

Ammonia is a form of nitrogen, a nutrient that can trigger algae blooms in the Bay, creating oxygen-deprived “dead zones” where nearly no life exists. Reducing nitrogen runoff from farms is one of the top goals of the state-federal Bay restoration program.

MDE officials say that, if the state is also required to limit ammonia air emissions from poultry operations to improve water quality, it would open the door to regulating similar air emissions from a wide variety of sources, ranging from vehicles to landfills. Confusion and regulatory chaos would ensue, they say.

The circuit court lawsuit was initiated by the Assateague Coastal Trust, a group based in Berlin, MD, that has long opposed the chicken industry’s expansion on the Delmarva Peninsula. Maryland’s portion of peninsula boasts some 2,000 chicken houses, which emit gaseous ammonia through giant fans. The gas is largely the product of poultry urine.

The thought is generally right, but technically speaking, chickens, like all bird, do not urinate. Their feces and solid uric acid from their urinary tract are mixed together. The ammonia is produced when the uric acid is broken down by bacteria. 

I think having judges overruling state agencies responsible for regulations should be done with some care. State agencies have to consider many factors before instituting a rule, while judges get to substitute their own opinions, which may or may not be backed up by any actual knowledge.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Hane Ame ready and waiting at the The Other McCain.

The Bay Gets a New Boss

EPA Chesapeake Bay Program director to step down

Dana Aunkst, who has served as director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay Office since December 2018, announced that he is stepping down from that role to take another position within the agency.

The director position will be filled on an interim basis by Michelle Price-Fay, who heads the clean water branch of the EPA Mid-Atlantic Region, which oversees the Bay Program.

He must have been OK; I hardly remember hearing his name. It sounds like he is being putsched out as part of a clearance of Trump era figures, although as far as I know the Bay Program director is not directly appointed by the President.

Aunkst, a longtime official within the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, was named to the Bay Program director post in December 2018. He will step down effective March 28.
. . . 
His tenure came at a time when the state-federal Bay Program partnership was continually threatened with major budget cuts — or outright elimination — by the Trump administration.

Which is pretty routine practice during Republican administrations; they propose to eliminate CPB, or at least merge it back into EPA region 3, and the Congress routinely restores it. Everybody gets good press with their base, and nothing changes. 

Aunkst was at the center of a controversy in January 2020 when, responding to a question at a Chesapeake Bay Commission meeting, he described the region’s 2025 cleanup deadline as “aspirational” and said that the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load — which established numeric nutrient reduction goals for each state — is “not an enforceable document.”

While a TMDL is not strictly enforceable itself, regulatory actions — such as all discharge permits — are required to be consistent with a TMDL. Environmental groups saw the statement as a signal that the EPA was stepping way from its Bay commitments, and it drew sharp criticism from lawmakers.

In other words, he told the truth. Myself? I expect a whole lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when the  Bay Diet goals remain largely unmet in 2025 (which is coming right up), but not a lot of new ideas as to how to bridge the gap.

Price-Fay has played a role in regulatory activities that support the Bay Program in the past and has overseen the region’s water discharge permit program. She has also overseen grant programs that assist states with water quality improvement projects, promote green infrastructure and control runoff pollution. She’s also been involved in the National Estuary Program and implementation of the Delaware River Basin Conservation Act.

Bill Jenkins, who has been acting deputy director of the Bay Program office since the beginning of 2021, will continue in that role.

A new Bay Program director will not be named until after the Biden Administration selects a new administrator for the EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region.

Earth Shattering News - Air Near Chicken Coops Dusty and Stinks

Air monitoring finds ammonia, particulates higher near poultry farms, but far below limits

An air quality monitoring project looking at the impact of poultry operations on surrounding residential areas has released its first data about the lower Eastern Shore.
The data indicates that airborne substances of concern are higher near high concentrations of poultry farms, but the measures are far below recommended limits.

The project is a joint effort by the Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. — an industry advocacy group — and the Maryland Department of the Environment, which is in charge of collecting and publishing all data. The project also has monetary support from the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

The network of ambient air monitoring stations is the first project to compare ambient ammonia levels on the Eastern Shore to those in the city of Baltimore, according to DPI. The project's aim is to collect data on residential air quality in the vicinity of poultry operations.

"The launch of this data-gathering effort reflects the chicken community’s firm commitment to transparency and to being a good neighbor,” said Holly Porter, executive director of DPI, in a statement. “We share with all Marylanders an interest in better understanding how farms, suburbs and denser cities can coexist on the Eastern Shore, and this ambient air monitoring network furthers that understanding."

No doubt disappointing people who want to further regulate the chicken farming on the Eastern Shore.

Can WuFlu Save the Bay?

Probably not, but it can make it a little cleaner: Scientists Link Less Traffic To Lowest Nitrogen Dioxide Levels On Record Along I-95 Corridor

Satellite imagery is confirming what scientists have thought for weeks now; our reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic is translating to cleaner air.

Scientists say the air along the I-95 corridor is as clear as it has been in decades — with Nitrogen dioxide levels down — due to the stay-at-home orders that are currently in effect.

“First of all, we know this is going to be good for Marylanders’ lungs,” Ben Grumbles, Secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment, said.

NASA scientist Ana Prados teaches climate change policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She says the decrease of Nitrogen dioxide in the air is connected to more people staying home.

“There’s a tight relationship between human activities and the quality of the air that we breathe,” Prados said.

NASA has a sliding tool on its website where you can compare a five-year average of air quality, with one from this March. It’s the lowest Nitrogen dioxide level on record.

“What it tells us is human activity has slowed down,” Prados said. “There’s been a slowdown in the economy, and people are not moving as much.”

Grumbles says the decrease in Nitrogen dioxide translates to cleaner water in the Chesapeake Bay, too.

“About a third of the Nitrogen pollution to our cherished Chesapeake Bay is from the air,” Grumbles said.

We already know it will be good for Striped Bass and oysters and bad for shad.

Pennsylvania Riverkeeper Wants to Punish Exelon Over Conowingo Dam

Ted Evgeniadis,  Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper: Maryland must demand more of Exelon to address Conowingo sediment problems

On January 31, 2014, Exelon submitted to MDE an application for a water quality certification. That application included copies of the resource studies that had been completed as part of the FERC relicensing process. However, the studies were insufficient for MDE to make conclusions and impose conditions for the protection of water quality. MDE requested for more studies specifically on Sediment Transport in the Lower River and Upper Chesapeake Bay. At this point, Exelon withdrew and resubmitted its application multiple times due to their inability to produce the required studies the state of Maryland needed to issue the certification.

Furthermore, recent case law states that one year means one year for a state to issue a 401 water quality certification, in that a withdrawal and resubmission does not constitute a new application request. Unfortunately, Exelon used this court decision and petitioned FERC pleading that MDE waived their right to the 401 certification issued in May 2018. By petitioning FERC, Exelon instilled fear through the ranks at MDE and coerced them behind closed doors, without public input, to enter into a grossly insufficient relicensing settlement agreement which falls short of protecting Maryland’s waterways.

It is not acceptable to have a state waive its enforcement authority based on a payment of money that provides no assurance of water quality improvement. Additionally, the public and interested parties like our organization and Waterkeepers Chesapeake must have input into what will happen to the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay over the next 50 years. As it is now, virtually all of the substantive portions of the settlement will not be incorporated into the 50 year federal license agreement – which means there is no public input, scrutiny and, more importantly, no ability to enforce these provisions.

The settlement agreement provides insufficient funds to deal with the risks that Conowingo operations pose to the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay, specifically sediment and nutrients. It includes statements of intent without assurances that the initiatives and actions under the agreement will actually be fulfilled by Exelon. There is no enforcement power for the public to make sure the terms of the settlement are fulfilled in a sufficient manner. It requires payments made by Exelon to go to the State’s Clean Water Fund, which can be reallocated or raided by the Governor at any time over the next 50 years. Also, it does not mention any appropriation of funding for upstream water quality improvements to combat sediment and nutrient load to the dam’s reservoir

The Susquehanna River is a public resource and should not be sold off to a private company for exclusive use without ensuring that the impacts to the public have been properly mitigated. Therefore, MDE and Governor Hogan should increase their funding ask from Exelon before fully signing off on the agreement, or nix the agreement entirely and continue pursuing the more protective Water Quality Certification. The settlement should specifically include more funding for the Sediment Disposal Study and Resiliency Initiatives mentioned. The State should also build realistic assurances into the agreement that the terms will be fulfilled, not just statements of intent.

A large storm like Hurricane Agnes has a 40% chance of happening over the license term with that probability increasing with climate change. A storm of that magnitude will scour out millions of tons of harmful sediment that the dam has collected, and then deliver it downstream where it will smother submerged aquatic vegetation, fish habitat, oyster beds and inevitably create large "deadzones" in the Bay. This is the single largest threat to the Chesapeake Bay and Exelon is choosing to ignore the facts and claim their dam does not implicate water quality. It may be another state’s silt coming downstream but that dam has blocked it and its reservoir is now full.

It's understood we all need power and the dam will continue to stand upright, so let's make sure this proposed settlement gets revised to reflect true and accurate measures Exelon must take in order to protect aquatic species, fish migration, water quality now and for the future, while producing and selling power at a fair rate of return that does not monopolize this public resource’s intrinsic value. We urge the congressional delegation of PA and MD to contact the Hogan Administration and MDE and demand more for the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay. We ask the public and other environmental groups to participate in our action alert and sign our petition found here https://bit.ly/2FpBUK4 . This settlement agreement will set national precedence in hydropower relicensing so it’s critical that Exelon is held accountable over the license term and pays its fair share to protect the river and Bay for the next 50 years.

The Conowingo Dam, which protected the Chesapeake Bay from sediments running down the Susquehanna River for most of a century, was purchased by Exelon long after it was built. I still fail to see why that is Exelon's fault that the dam is no longer protecting the Bay.

If I were Exelon, I'd threaten to give it back to the state.

Chickenshit Air Monitoring in Maryland

Department of the Environment to Monitor Air Near Poultry Houses

The Maryland Department of the Environment will sample the air from newly installed monitoring stations on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore in answer to ongoing questions regarding the potential effects of large poultry houses on air quality.

MDE will collect preliminary data on levels of ammonia and particulate matter near poultry houses for comparison with air quality in other parts of Maryland. The Lower Eastern Shore Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Project will be done under an agreement with the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment and Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. (DPI), who together have committed more than $500,000 to the effort.

MDE is responsible for technical aspects of the monitoring such as the specification of equipment and the collection and analysis of air monitoring results. This effort is scheduled to continue for one year. At that point, MDE will review results and consider relevant input on any further steps that might need to be taken.

“The Hogan administration is committed to sound science and environmental leadership in agriculture,” said Maryland Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles. “This innovative partnership for air quality monitoring will provide useful information to the public.”

Two new monitoring stations will be installed on the Lower Shore with equipment to measure ammonia and particulate matter while collecting information on weather conditions. Establishing the monitors near poultry houses is designed to provide results representative of any effects of concentrations of poultry houses throughout the Eastern Shore.
. . .
One of those two new stations will be upwind from poultry houses and one will be downwind to allow for a comparison. Moreover, equipment to measure ammonia levels will be added to two existing MDE monitoring stations that already measure particulate matter to provide additional “baseline” levels for comparison with the stations near poultry operations. One will be north of the Lower Shore and one will be on the western shore.

Nothing says bad science like n = 2.

About Those Clean Electric Cars

New report suggests broad adoption of electric vehicles may actually increase air pollution

New report suggests EV’s are out of reach for the average American, and broad adoption will actually cause an increase in traditional air pollution
. . .
Using a recent forecast prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Lesser’s analysis shows that, over the period 2018 – 2050, the electric generating plants that will charge new EVs will emit more air pollution than the same number of new internal combustion engines, even accounting for air pollution from oil refineries that manufacture gasoline.

What’s more, EV subsidies benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. A nationwide survey of EV owners in 2017 found that 56% had household incomes of at least $100,000 and 17% had household incomes of at least $200,000. In 2016. median household income for the US as a whole was less than $58,000.

Given that ZEV's are heavily subsidized, this amounts to the poor and middle class buying expensive toys for the rich.

Abstract

Many claim that “zero-emissions vehicles” (ZEVs), especially battery-powered electric vehicles, should replace most, if not all, cars and trucks powered by gasoline-burning internal combustion engines. The primary rationale is to reduce air pollution and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

To effect this change, governments are spending billions of dollars to subsidize electric vehicles. These subsidies include state and federal tax credits for purchasing ZEVs and programs to subsidize the installation of vehicle-charging infrastructure in businesses, households, and along highways. Several states also have mandated the sale of ZEVs. For example, an executive order signed by California governor Jerry Brown in January requires 5 million ZEVs to be on the state’s roads and highways by 2030.

Will these subsidies and programs accomplish their objectives? And at what cost? A review of the literature finds few cost-benefit studies on these key questions.

KEY FINDINGS

1. Broad-based adoption of ZEVs will increase overall emissions of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and particulates, compared with the same number of new internal combustion engines. The simple fact is that, because of stringent emissions standards and low-sulfur gasoline, new gasoline-powered cars and trucks today emit very little pollution, and they will emit even less in the future.
2. While new ZEVs will reduce CO2 emissions compared with new internal combustion vehicles, the overall reduction will be less than 1% of total forecast energy-related U.S. CO2 emissions through 2050. That reduction will have no measurable impact on world climate—and thus the economic value of CO2 emissions reductions associated with ZEVs is effectively zero.
3. Subsidies for ZEVs and the required infrastructure to support them benefit the higher-income consumers who can afford to purchase them at the expense of lower-income consumers who cannot. In California alone, the total cost of ZEV subsidies, including federal tax credits and state rebates for ZEV purchases, as well as subsidies for private and public charging infrastructure, is likely to exceed $100 billion.

READ FULL REPORT (PDF)

When somebody I knows brags about their all electric "smart car", I call it a coal burner, and then explain that, in our area, a solid majority of power is made by coal combustion. Although, if they live in Baltimore, it's partly nuclear powered as well.

I also like to ask them if they will support the siting of new power plants required to create the additional power needs required to charge electric cars close to their houses, and whether they will support additional major power lines to bring in the power. Both things are routinely opposed by all the right thinking enviroweenies who long for clean electric cars.

That said, a Tesla looks like a blast:



Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Hockey Girls" up and ready for action.

Is Bay Improvement in the Air?

The Chesapeake Bay's water quality has improved significantly. We may now know why.

Researchers with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science have found a surprising explanation for the improved water quality in the Chesapeake Bay: cleaner air.

Professor Keith Eshleman (ESH'-el-men) in the center's Frostburg office said in a statement Tuesday that his team found nearly universal improvement in water quality since 1986 across the Upper Potomac River Basin. The area includes parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Eshleman says the improvement is mainly due to reduced levels of atmospheric nitrogen dioxides following implementation of the Clean Air Act in 1990. The law limited emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Eshleman says the reductions lowered the amount of excess nitrogen falling across the region and causing algae blooms in waterways.

That's the hype; now where's the data? From The EPA Chesapeake Bay Program (Click pic to enlarge):

The claim seems pretty dubious. Direct deposition to the tidal waters is small, and even halving it is not a big contributor. More importantly, forest and non-tidal water atmospheric deposition has actually grown slightly. It looks to me like agriculture and waste water and combined sewage overflow have contributed to the majority of the decrease in nitrogen pollution into the Bay.

EPA Set to Red Flag Stock Cars

EPA Seeks to Prohibit Conversion of Vehicles Into Racecars

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a regulation to prohibit conversion of vehicles originally designed for on-road use into racecars. The regulation would also make the sale of certain products for use on such vehicles illegal. The proposed regulation was contained within a non-related proposed regulation entitled “Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Efficiency Standards for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Engines and Vehicles—Phase 2.”

The regulation would impact all vehicle types, including the sports cars, sedans and hatch-backs commonly converted strictly for use at the track. While the Clean Air Act prohibits certain modifications to motor vehicles, it is clear that vehicles built or modified for racing, and not used on the streets, are not the “motor vehicles” that Congress intended to regulate.

The EPA seeks to regulate everything by redefining everything into something they can regulate. And the Obama administration is rooting them on the whole way.

“This proposed regulation represents overreaching by the agency, runs contrary to the law and defies decades of racing activity where EPA has acknowledged and allowed conversion of vehicles,” said SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting. “Congress did not intend the original Clean Air Act to extend to vehicles modified for racing and has re-enforced that intent on more than one occasion.”
. . .
The EPA has indicated it expects to publish final regulations by July 2016.

And I'm sure they will be very receptive to comments contrary to their scheme. How trivial must the added pollution from modified conventional cars be.

First, they came for the stock cars, but I did nothing because I don't race stock cars.

Linked in Wombat-socho's "Rule 5 Monday: Half Price Chocolate Day Edition" at The Other McCain.

Good Old German Engineering . . .

. . . or maybe software. It was recently revealed that the Volkswagen Company has jiggered the software in a number of it's diesel cars to evade anti-pollution testing, by having the software detect when it was being subjected to emissions inspection, and select a mode that minimized emission, and then switching back to a more powerful, more polluting mode in actual driving.

U.S. and California environmental regulators on Friday accused Volkswagen AG of deliberately circumventing clean air rules on nearly 500,000 diesel cars and the company could face penalties of up to $18 billion.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency alleged that Volkswagen used software in four-cylinder Volkswagen and Audi diesel cars from model years 2009 to 2015 to circumvent emissions testing of certain air pollutants.

“Put simply, these cars contained software that turns off emissions controls when driving normally and turns them on when the car is undergoing an emissions test,” Cynthia Giles, an enforcement officer at the EPA, told reporters in a teleconference.

The company has "voluntarily" promised to recall the affected vehicles and "repair" them and faces billions in fines. I wonder how many people will refuse to take their car back to VW to have it crippled?

But Jazz Shaw at Hotair thinks what they did, while definitely violating the spirit of the law, may well have been within the letter:

The way most of the regulations are written seems to indicate that the vehicle must have a functional system of this type which is accurately monitoring system performance and meets the maximum emissions requirements at the time of testing. Obviously the VW vehicles in question were doing just that. But cars today have all sorts of bells and whistles which drivers can use to customize their driving experience. They can switch from “performance” mode to “economy” mode with the push of a button. Things like that obviously affect the vehicle’s emissions. Other such options are available. And when you think about it, the “disable device” was really just putting the car into a different mode of operation which includes heavy emissions control. When it was disconnected and ready to head back out on the road it was switching back to a different mode with a bit more performance. None of that changes the fact that the emissions were within the required limits at the time of testing.

Which would confirm my thought that automotive engineers are all teenage hot rodders at heart. Is it worth a billion dollar gamble in court? The words of laws used to matter, but now in the Obama era, only the intentions seem to count.

The other questions that seem germane are how how widely is this practiced within the auto industry, and how did the Feds and California figure it out?

Exit question: how likely is it that the geniuses at VW and Audi were the only ones to dream this up? This sounds like the sort of thing that a group of engineers might assume was never going to be found out because who is going around doing extra testing of vehicle emissions outside of an inspection station? (In fact, I’m still wondering how the EPA caught on to this unless VW had a disgruntled whistle blower among their ranks.) Are the big, American automakers scrambling right now to cover their own code?

Two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead.

Chesapeake Fascists Plot Bay Future

My alternative title to: Summit offers new approaches to Bay restoration

Nutrient limits for individual farms. Better environmental enforcement. More technical assistance for farmers. An honest discussion about population. Greener development.

Those were among the ideas proposed by a panel of Bay experts on Tuesday about policy changes that could lead to greater improvements for the Chesapeake, where three decades of work — and billions of dollars — has produced only slow progress in improving water quality and forging a more sustainable watershed.

“The Chesapeake Bay Summit: Charting a Course” was presented by Maryland Public Television and broadcast on numerous other public television stations throughout the watershed to offer alternative solutions.

Sounds innocent so far, but let's take a look at some of their specific recommendations:

Obstacle: Agricultural nutrient management requires substantial unsustainable public subsidies and has weak accountability.

Alternative: Require farms to operate under nutrient caps and make subsidies conditional on attainment of the caps.

Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, said current efforts to reduce nutrient runoff from farms are costly and likely unsustainable. He instead called for a “performance based” approach to managing agricultural nutrients in which farmers would have targets established for individual farms.

Can you imagine the paperwork required for individual farms to measure and account for their nutrient fluxes? It would make filing taxes seem like a minor detail.

Obstacles: Not enough enforcement of all nutrient pollution regulations.

Alternative: Greater commitment by government to undertake enforcement.
Rena Steinzor, president of the Center for Progressive Reform, said state and federal agencies need to do a better job of enforcing existing regulations to make sure efforts stay on track. For instance, she said, the EPA has said it would impose consequences on states if they don’t meet nutrient and sediment goals imposed in the Bay “pollution diet.” “That needs to happen, and that needs to happen before we fail,” she said.

I wonder what uniforms the Bay cops will have, to go with their automatic weapons?

Obstacle: Cheap energy allows sprawling development and a large human footprint on the landscape.

Alternative: Aggressive commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in all land-use, zoning and transportation decisions.

Boesch said development plans should be required to show how the project would reduce, rather than increase, greenhouse gas emissions to help meet state and national goals, especially when it relates to transportation. “If we’re going to have to reduce our emissions 50, 75 percent, why in the world would we grow and develop in ways that require automobiles to transport people?” he asked.

Make energy more expensive and less available is always a goal of choice with these folk. And finally, the inner Pol Pot starts to emerge:

Obstacle: Population growth and development.

Alternative: Set population targets within the carrying capacity of the Bay.

Wheeler said the region ultimately needs a conversation about the carrying capacity of the ecosystem — the number of people the watershed could support and still have a healthy Bay. “The reason that we’ve spent $15 billion to basically hold the ground on the Chesapeake Bay is because we’ve been paddling against the tide of population growth,” he said.
“If we’re going to make the progress to actually restore the Bay, we have to figure out how to do that. Growing smartly, more compactly — those help, but if we keep adding people, we’re still going to overwhelm it in the end. Now, we have to talk about what is an ideal target population here.”

I wonder how they propose to decide who will be allowed to live under the new regime?

"Rain Tax" Repealed, Sort Of

Still a ‘rain tax’ by any other name?

. . . one closely watched issue involved Maryland’s stormwater law — SB 863. Initially presented as the fulfillment of a campaign promise by Hogan to repeal the state’s so-called “rain tax,” in the end this legislation was supported by the Clean Water, Healthy Families coalition, which includes the following environmental groups: Maryland League of Conservation Voters, Blue Water Baltimore, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Sierra Club’s Maryland chapter.

These groups lent their support to what amounted to a revision of the rain tax that strengthens the state’s pollution-fighting position by focusing on reducing runoff and giving affected local jurisdictions . . . greater flexibility in how to fund the initiatives needed to reach goals.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation tweeted this: “We were holding our breath. The stormwater bill is now a remarkable #ChesBay victory. What a turnaround.”

Meanwhile, the governor said this: “We did not get everything we wanted and the legislature did not get everything it wanted, but Marylanders will benefit from the passage of the repeal of the rain tax.”

How did we manage to make everyone so happy and still repeal the "rain tax?"

SB 863 was originally filed as a repeal of the rain tax, and it does eliminate the mandate for jurisdictions to collect a specific fee under certain conditions by changing the word “will” to “may.” But elsewhere, it changes the word “may” to “will” to require each jurisdiction to establish a fund to pay for efforts to reach the goal, and it changes reporting requirements to increase accountability. It also imposes stiff fines for failing to meet funding requirements.

Technically, the rain tax was indeed repealed, yet its replacement should get us to roughly the same place. Is it really possible we have emerged with a stronger law that allows both opponents and supporters of the original rain tax to claim victory?

You mean, local politicians actually deciding what to tax and how much? An idea so novel it just might work. Even in Maryland.

I Hereby Expect Al Gore to Have Operations Without Anesthesia

A new global warming threat: sleeping gas

The gases used to knock out surgery patients are accumulating in the Earth’s atmosphere, where they make a small contribution to climate change, report scientists who have detected the compounds as far afield as Antarctica. Over the past decade, concentrations of the anesthetics desflurane, isoflurane and sevoflurane have been rising globally, the new study finds.

Like the well-known climate warmer carbon dioxide, anesthesia gases allow the atmosphere to store more energy from the Sun. But unlike carbon dioxide, the medical gases are extra potent in their greenhouse-gas effects.

One kilogram (2.2 pounds) of desflurane, for instance, is equivalent to 2,500 kilograms (5,512 pounds) of carbon dioxide in terms of the amount of greenhouse warming potential, explained Martin Vollmer, an atmospheric chemist at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology in Dubendorf, Switzerland, who led the new study. “On a kilogram-per-kilogram basis, it’s so much more potent” than carbon dioxide, he said.

In a new scientific paper, Vollmer and his colleagues report the 2014 atmospheric concentration of desflurane as 0.30 parts per trillion (ppt). Isoflurane, sevoflurane and halothane came in at 0.097 ppt, 0.13 ppt and 0.0092 ppt, respectively. Carbon dioxide – which hit 400 parts per million in 2014 -is a billion times more abundant than the most prevalent of these anesthetics. The team did not include the common anesthesia nitrous oxide in the study because it has many sources other than anesthetics. The team’s anesthesia-gas findings have been published online in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

9.2 parts per quadrillion (American notation, not British), at least that's pretty damn sensititive analytical chemisty, although I have my doubts about the accuracy of the first significant figure, let alone the second. But I would caution the authors to re-read the story of Fritz Haber and his plan to pay off Germany's WWI debt with gold extracted from sea water before they reach any firm conclusions (hint: there was a lot less gold there than he thought - laboratories were all contaminated with gold).

The researchers obtained their numbers by collecting samples of air from remote sites in the Northern Hemisphere since 2000, as well as aboard the icebreaker research vessel Araon during an expedition in the North Pacific in 2012 and at the South Korea Antarctic station King Sejong in the South Shetland Islands. They have also been tracking the anesthetics since 2013 in two-hourly measurements at a high-altitude observatory at Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, and from ongoing air sampling from a rooftop in a suburb of Zurich, Switzerland.

Aw, who am I kidding? If Al Gore was really worried about global warming, he'd curtail his travel schedule, drive something less ostentatious than a caravan of SUVs and have a small, modest abode run off renewable energy and disconnected from the grid. He can't even suffer life style diminishment in the interests of abating global warming. Do you really expect him to actually suffer pain?