WV’s very good geothermal energy is deep (30,000 feet)

From an Article by Blaine Friedlander, Cornell Chronicle, November 11, 2021

Welcome to the Cornell University Borehole Observatory – known as CUBO. An unremarkable gravel parking lot just off campus will soon house one of Cornell’s most important living laboratories.

By summer 2022, the university plans to drill a 10,000-foot hole to verify whether conditions underground will allow clean, reliable and renewable Earth Source Heat – Cornell’s name for direct heating with geothermal liquids – to warm the entire Cornell campus during the winter and help reduce the university’s carbon footprint to zero.

The first important step is drilling this exploration well to confirm the technical viability and ensure the safe operation of the system. About 80 students, faculty, staff and Tompkins County neighbors learned all about Earth Source Heat and how it would work at an open house hosted by the university on Nov. 9 in that parking lot.

“Cornell has been advancing research, monitoring and modeling for years,” said Sarah Carson Zemanick, director of the Campus Sustainability Office. “This open house, and the interactions with those Cornellians involved, helped bring Earth Source Heat out of our labs and into a tangible and exciting reality for the community.”

The test borehole aims to understand Earth Source Heat’s viability and safety prospects. At the surface, the diameter of the hole will be about the size of a hula hoop. The sides of the hole will be encased in cement and steel, and will narrow as it deepens. When the hole reaches 10,000 feet – about two miles below the surface – its diameter will be about 8 inches, the size of a small frying pan. For perspective, the hole’s depth equals more than 7 Empire State Buildings.

Linda and Buzz Lavine, from Dryden, New York, peppered Cornell geologist Ole Gustafson, Ph.D. ‘20, of Facilities and Campus Services, with questions about the physical borehole. Linda Lavine asked, “How long will it take to drill the hole?”

Engineers expect it takes about two months to drill a well down to 10,000 feet, where the Earth’s temperature approaches nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit – close to water’s boiling point, Gustafson replied. He said that the CUBO well drilling operation will take a bit longer, since he, along with engineering and geology professors, will want to extract a lot of data during the test’s drilling stages.

If this initial borehole test confirms the right subsurface conditions, Cornell may propose a demonstration: Two new wells would be drilled so that hot subsurface water can be extracted from one well and returned down a second well for reheating by the Earth. At the surface, heat exchangers would transfer the warmth of the hot fluid from the subsurface to another loop of water to circulate around campus and warm the buildings.

Local environmental scientist Noah Mark, of the nonprofit Community Science Institute, attended the open house to learn more about the Earth Source Heat process and discuss the quality of the recirculating water.

With a long poster showing the borehole layers in hand, Terry Jordan and Patrick Fulton, professors of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (College of Engineering) explained the strata to attendees. Anthony Ingraffea, the Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering Emeritus, never paused talking to the large crowd at his station. Also answering questions were Jeff Tester, professor of sustainable energy systems in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Steve Beyers, the lead Earth Source Heat engineer with Facilities and Campus Services.

Danielle Bucci ’23 and Jay Sangwan ’23 stayed well past sunset and asked Sarah Brylinsky, assistant director of the Campus Sustainability Office, if this form of heat harmed the environment. Brylinsky said Earth Source Heat poses very little ecological disturbance. “There’s no taking down trees or disrupting the environment,” she answered.

Bucci, an environmental and sustainability major (CALS) said of combining Earth Source Heat and Lake Source Cooling: “There are really no environmental drawbacks and the environmental risks are low,” she said. “Cornell is the only university in the Northeast doing this.”

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See also: Geothermal Energy Research in West Virginia, WV Geological & Economic Survey, Morgantown, WV

Small scale production of egg plants in Bangladesh

By Blaine Friedlander, Cornell Chronicle, October 12, 2020

The world’s small-scale farmers now can see a path to solving global hunger over the next decade, with solutions – such as adopting climate-resilient crops through improving extension services – all culled rapidly via artificial intelligence from more than 500,000 scientific research articles.

The results are synthesized in 10 new research papers – authored by 77 scientists, researchers and librarians in 23 countries – as part of Ceres2030: Sustainable Solutions to End Hunger. The project is headquartered at Cornell, with partners from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).

The papers were published concurrently on Oct. 12 in four journals – Nature Plants, Nature Sustainability, Nature Machine Intelligence and Nature Food – and assembled in a comprehensive package online: Sustainable Solutions to End Hunger.

Ceres2030 employed machine learning, librarian savvy and research synthesis methods to quickly scan a trove of thousands of scientific journals for ideas and websites from more than 60 agencies that can help eradicate world hunger.

Principal Investigator Jaron Porciello of Cornell University

“Moreover,” Porciello said, “we are synthesizing this scientific information to make it useful for an audience – like policymakers – that needs science to make decisions.”

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal No. 2, known as SDG2, calls for ridding the world of hunger by 2030. Currently, more than 690 million people – about 8.9% of the world’s population – are food-insecure, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that global statistic could easily rise by 10 million people a year from now, and by nearly 60 million people in five years.

If recent trends continue, the number of people around the world affected by hunger would surpass 840 million by 2030, according to the FAO.

Ideas from the array of papers published in the respective Nature publications can be implemented instantly. Around the world, for example, small-scale farmers are rooted in their agricultural ways, often holding on to traditional farming methods that may impair their own food security and livelihoods.

In an evidence-synthesis study about small-scale producers in low-and middle-income countries in Nature Plants, Cornell researchers found that a key to adopting drought-tolerant crops was people – extension experts teaching farmers ways to move forward.

Researchers and librarians reviewed more than 200 journal articles that revealed how extension and education helped small-scale farmers adopt climate resilient crops to achieve steady production, even in the face of climate change, said Maricelis Acevedo, senior research associate in the Department of Global Development.

“How do we make sure that technologies that we develop based on science can have a positive impact on a farmer’s livelihood?” Acevedo said. “We can do all the science, but if we don’t communicate effectively with farmers, they won’t get the right information.”

Acevedo worked on the study with Cornell colleagues Hale Tufan, senior extension associate in global development; Kate Ghezzi-Kopel, evidence synthesis librarian at Mann Library; and Porciello.

Reviewing scientific literature can reveal knowledge gaps. In the evidence-synthesis paper about feed interventions and the livelihoods of small-scale livestock keepers in Africa, Asia and Latin America, in Nature Plants, nearly 23,000 papers were identified by human expertise and artificial intelligence. Only 73 of them were included in the final analysis, and just six reported evidence of adopting new livestock feed methods.

The authors, including Debbie Cherney, professor of animal science, and Erin Eldermire, head of Cornell’s Flower-Sprecher Veterinary Library, at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine, found that while many papers examined the technical aspects of a livestock feed supply, they rarely accounted for nutrition.

Cornell researchers’ work on accelerating evidence-informed decision-making for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals using machine learning in Nature Machine Intelligence, describes how Porciello group developed Persephone, the machine-learning model they used for the gargantuan task of reviewing research. Joining Porciello on the paper were graduate student Maidul Islam ‘21; Stefan Einarson, director of information technology in the Department of Global Development; and Haym Hirsh, professor of computer science.

In a review of the contributions of farmers’ organizations to smallholder agriculture, in Nature Food, Ghezzi-Kopel and other authors said formal farmer groups not only provided needed structure to market produce, but encouraged natural resource management, improved food security and helped the environment.

Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature, will present the entire package of Ceres2030 papers to Gerd Müller, Germany’s Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, at the online event, “A World Without Hunger is Possible – What Must Be Done,” Oct. 13 at 4 a.m. EDT. The program will include remarks by billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The prospects for the reaching the United Nations’ anti-hunger goal is promising, Porciello said. “We’re trying something new that hasn’t been done before,” she said. “We know the tools weren’t there, the methods weren’t there and the teams weren’t in place. Now, we’ve created some staircases to make science and world reality connect a little bit more. This approach could be replicated to build a scientific evidence base for many of the world’s most complex policy problems”

Acevedo, Porciello and Tufan are faculty fellows at the Cornell Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.

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The 17 United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) to transform our world:

GOAL 1: No Poverty, GOAL 2: Zero Hunger, GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being, GOAL 4: Quality Education, GOAL 5: Gender Equality, GOAL 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, GOAL 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, GOAL 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth, GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, GOAL 10: Reduced Inequality, GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, GOAL 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, GOAL 13: Climate Action, GOAL 14: Life Below Water, GOAL 15: Life on Land GOAL 16: Peace & Justice Strong Institutions, GOAL 17: Partnerships to achieve Goals

Heavy sustained rains bring down boulders onto the roads in WV and elsewhere

From Prof. David Lodge, Cornell University, February 5, 2020

Can this planet be saved? Yes, we think so !!

In this timely program, David Lodge, director of Cornell’s Atkinson Center for Sustainability, will challenge us with bold ideas that may help us and our planet survive our current environmental challenges.

We’ll weigh the costs and benefits of changing the ways we produce human necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and water—to conserve energy and finite natural resources.

Join us in figuring out how to minimize environmental impact without diminishing economic growth and our quality of life.

Details: July 5 to 11, 2020 on Campus in Ithaca, NY

Course highlights — 1. Explore the controversies surrounding efforts to reduce and respond to climate change.

2. Discuss the urgent need for more sustainable practices and policies. Become acquainted with the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, the hub of collaborative sustainability research at Cornell University.

3. Learn about the work of the passionate experts and innovators, theorists, practitioners, business leaders, and philanthropists who are developing strategies and shaping policy to protect our planet.

4. Discover how you can participate in sustainability efforts.

Faculty for This Course Professor David Lodge

David Lodge serves as Cornell University’s first Francis J. DiSalvo Director of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. His academic home is Cornell’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, with a joint appointment in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences..

David has led research on freshwater biodiversity as part of the United Nations’ Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and led an expert subcommittee providing advice to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on reducing biological invasions from the ballast water of ships. He recently served as a Jefferson Science Fellow in the U.S. Department of State.

Under David’s leadership, Cornell Atkinson Center is focused on working with NGO, corporate, foundation, and government collaborators to move knowledge to action in reducing climate risks, accelerating energy transitions, increasing food security, and advancing the One Health Initiative.

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See also: CLEARWAY Signs Power Contracts for WV Wind Farm, WV News, February 6, 2020

CHARLESTON, WV — Clearway Energy Group announced Thursday that it signed power purchase agreements with AEP Energy and Toyota for Clearway’s 110-megawatt Black Rock wind farm, in Grant and Mineral counties, West Virginia.

The power contracts will enable both AEP Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Electric Power, and Toyota to meet their energy management objectives while helping each company achieve their respective clean energy goals.

“We’re thrilled that Black Rock will provide economic benefits to AEP Energy and Toyota while helping meet their sustainability goals,” said Craig Cornelius, CEO of Clearway Energy Group. “Black Rock, along with our nearby Pinnacle wind farm, reaffirms Clearway’s commitment to West Virginia and wind energy’s growing role in the state’s economy and environment.”

Prof. Mahowald speaks up on urgency

From an Article by Christian Elliott, Cornell Chronicle, February 25, 2019

Natalie Mahowald, a lead author on the recent United Nations’ special report on global warming, will deliver the keynote address at the 2019 Polson Institute Future of Development symposium, March 8 from 2-5:30 p.m. in B25 Warren Hall. This is the main campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. The symposium is free and open to the public.

Mahowald, the Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and four other speakers will discuss carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. Mahowald is a faculty director for Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.

This is the first in a series of symposiums on climate change hosted by the Polson Institute.

“What’s particularly exciting about these symposia is how they address questions of equity, justice and the distribution of risks in relation to some of the proposed climate solutions,” said Lori Leonard, professor of development sociology and director of the Polson Institute.

Also speaking will be:

>>> Robin Chazdon, a professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast and executive director of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation, who will discuss the global potential of natural forest regeneration to conserve biodiversity and maintain indigenous cultural practices in tropical forest regions;

>>> Erin Burns, associate policy director at Carbon 180, a Washington think tank that champions global warming mitigation efforts, who will speak on developing federal policy to address carbon removal technology and practices;

>>> Wil Burns, co-executive director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University, will address the transnational challenges of carbon removal and the limitations of existing international law and treaties; and

>>> Ben Cashore, professor of environmental governance and political science at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, who will discuss ways to decarbonize the atmosphere and the social implications of those choices.

The event is co-sponsored by the Atkinson Center and the Cornell Institute for Climate Smart Solutions.

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Dire levels of CO2 will decimate oceans | Cornell Chronicle

Prof. Mahowald to Congress: Act now to arrest climate change | Cornell Chronicle

Vice Provost Wendy Wolford opens conference

Edited from an Article by Tom Fleischman, Blaine Friedlander, Susan Kelley, and Krishna Ramanujan, Cornell Chronicle, November 14, 2018

As a pre-eminent research institution and New York’s land-grant university, Cornell is uniquely suited to tackle “grand challenges” like the ones discussed at the November 8 – 9 Global Grand Challenges Symposium, according to Wendy Wolford, Cornell vice provost for international affairs.

University President Martha E. Pollack, who kicked off the event, concurred. “As a university, Cornell is both distinguished and distinctive,” she said. “We have a reputation and a presence that is global, with some of the best faculty and resources of any university anywhere.”

Today’s challenges “require a commitment to engagement, a drive to continue reaching out in a time when connecting across difference is more critical … than just about anything else,” Pollack said.

Wolford organized the symposium, at which panelists from across campus, plus keynote speakers from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the University of Notre Dame, laid out some of the most pressing issues of our times, as well as possible paths to solutions.

One of the goals of the symposium was to identify themes to be considered for Cornell’s Global Grand Challenge 2019-20, a yearlong dedication to a topic through new curricular, scholarly and engaged work across campus. The Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs will announce the selected grand challenge early next year.

Opening Plenary: ‘Bridging Divides’

Wolford, who is also the Robert A. and Ruth E. Polson Professor of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and interim director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, moderated the opening plenary. She invoked the words of Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her remarks: “[T]here is no single story. There is no single challenge that stands above all others, and there is no single solution. Indeed, one person’s solution can be another person’s problem.”

Wolford encouraged diverse thinking and participation: “By definition, we have to work together to build a just, sustainable and connected world, where differences are valued, where inequality is mitigated and exchange is encouraged.”

Mariët Westermann, executive vice president for programs and research at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, delivers the opening plenary keynote address.

The keynote was delivered by Mariët Westermann, executive vice president for programs and research at the Mellon Foundation. Her talk, “International Education in an Age of New Nationalisms,” was a history lesson, a report on the state of democracy and higher education, and a call to action.

“If the specter of World War III no longer motivates international education as it did in the 20th century,” she said, “today we have violent threats and economic inequality as drivers of mass migration and enmity to take the place of that specter. International education can be a bulwark against these kinds of threats today.”

Rachel Dunifon, interim dean of the College of Human Ecology, identified “the war on facts” – or the notion that facts don’t matter or perhaps may not even exist – as a challenge to be tackled. She suggested three steps that universities can take in the defense of facts: greater engagement in policymaking; improved communication of research; and giving researchers “time, funds and knowledge to collaborate with policymakers and practitioners.”

Daniel Fitzgerald, director of the Center for Global Health and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, sees education as the grandest of challenges. “[W]e need to increase access to education for all children, all the way through adolescence, so that they can all develop to their full potential as adults,” he said.

Lorin Warnick, Ph.D. ’94, the Austin O. Hooey Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, closed the opening plenary by identifying “planetary health” – including issues of disease transmission, mass extinction, sustainable food production – as a major challenge facing humanity. Cornell and the education of its students, he said, can be a big part of the solution.

“We should pursue our research and outreach projects that have value in their own right,” he said, “while always remembering that those activities provide an essential foundation for education programs. It’s through the education and work of our graduates that we’ll have our biggest and most enduring impact.”

Plenary 2: ‘The Way Forward’

“Today we are experiencing a kind of national narcissism that ignores the global nature of the major issues facing our globe,” Provost Michael Kotlikoff said in his opening remarks. “The remedy for this condition is facts, research and education. … This symposium brings us together toward that goal.”

Keynote speaker Raymond Offenheiser, director and Keogh School Distinguished Professor of the Practice at the Notre Dame Initiative for Global Development, University of Notre Dame, and former president of Oxfam America, said a grand challenge should “assume a 20-year timeline.” He outlined five areas that he said were fundamental to human existence: taming technology – including artificial intelligence and robotics – for the workforce; mitigating climate change; managing the migration of people brought about by climate change and political, economic and other upheavals; feeding 9 billion people by 2050; and values: “To embrace agency, voice, equity and inclusion,” Offenheiser said.

Eduardo Peñalver ’94, the Allan R. Tessler Dean and professor of law at Cornell Law School, said migration is an issue where law will play a major role, and solutions will require international agreements. “Law is really the matrix that weaves everything together,” he said.

Kathryn J. Boor ’80, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean and professor of food science in CALS, responded to the need to feed the world. The challenge will be to provide an “adequate, safe and nutritious food supply to meet the needs of a growing global population and to do so without a parallel and commensurate increase in inputs to grow that food, and also to do so without degrading our environmental conditions,” she said.

Panelist David Erickson, associate dean for research and graduate studies and the Sibley College Professor of Mechanical Engineering, named a number of key challenges facing engineers. These included developing carbon sequestration methods, restoring and improving urban infrastructure, providing access to clean water, securing cyberspace, engineering better medicine and advancing personalized learning.

Plenary 3: ‘The View From the Regions’

Keynote speaker Kaushik Basu, the Carl Marks Professor of International Studies and professor of economics in the College of Arts and Sciences, said technological advances are creating challenges, such as global inequality and the erosion of global democracy, on par with those posed by the Industrial Revolution. “We are probably at a juncture of that kind,” he said.

These challenges stem from labor-linking technology that allows workers to be employed by companies in other countries. While this technology has resulted in higher wages, workers now receive a smaller overall share of profits.

On the other hand, technology offers an opportunity for developing countries with digital connectivity and the rule of law. The economies of Rwanda, Ethiopia and Bangladesh are growing at 7 to 8 percent per year, he noted.

With one-seventh of the world – nearly 1 billion people – living below the poverty line, Cornell must offer not only top-tier research ideas but also a moral commitment to lessen global inequality, he said. “You’re serving a common human interest,” he said.

Other panelists – directors of Cornell’s regional studies programs – discussed the lessons gleaned from across the globe on issues such as income inequality, the diminishment of democratic institutions, language extinction and climate change.

Closing Plenary: ‘Grand Challenges’

Plant breeder Ronnie Coffman, the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor, suggested two challenges to address: localizing food systems as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and pushing back on science misinformation.

Sustainability, itself, is a grand challenge, said David Lodge, the Francis J. DiSalvo Director of the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. “Research, the main product that universities have to offer in the sustainability arena, is often – at best – going to contribute a small part of a solution. We need to speak more boldly and more loudly and more publicly about what we know,” he said.

Wolford ended the symposium with remarks that punctuated a day and a half of ideas. “Why do we care about the many challenges facing the world today?” she asked. “We heard two types of answers: We care because we can; we care because we should.”

Natalie Mahowald, Professor of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences

Interview by David Nutt, Atkinson Center, Cornell University, October 18, 2018

In March 2017, Natalie Mahowald, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future’s faculty director for the environment, was selected by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a lead author on the “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

The final report made international headlines when it was released Oct. 8. Among its key findings: scientific evidence is clear that human activities have caused 1 C of global warming since the late 1800s, and current trends suggest if the planet keeps warming at the same rate global warming will pass 1.5 C around 2040, with disastrous consequences for humans and ecosystems alike. (In Fahrenheit, a change of 1 C is 1.8 F and 1.5 C is 2.7 F.)

In this Q&A, Mahowald discusses her role in the report, its findings and proposed solutions, and the work everyone must do to limit global warming.

How would you describe your role in preparing the IPCC report?

My title is lead author, and I worked on Chapter One: Framing and Context. I was also asked to be an author on the Summary for Policymakers, which is actually line by line approved by governments. I was in South Korea for that process last week.

Ninety-one authors and review editors from 40 countries worked on the report. What does that kind of collaboration look like?

There’s 400 pages for the whole report if you look at it in a Word file. We each have our own section that we’re the lead on. We spent a lot of time talking to each other and making sure we’re reaching consistent assessments of the peer-reviewed literature. We included citations of 6,000 articles, so it’s a huge amount of work. This report was unique in the way it was so cross-disciplinary. That means everyone speaks a slightly different language. And yet we have to make sure we speak consistently across the whole report.

How does involving that many people shape the findings?

In a lot of ways, it’s really a consensus document. This is what we can all agree to. It goes through three rounds of expert reviews, and then the governments review it. That means the results are really in the middle of what the science suggests. They’re not the most alarmist, and they’re not the most skeptical.

How do you see countries working together to address issues raised in the report?

This report is also unique in that the governments called for its creation. It came out of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The governments asked us to look at how we could limit global warming to 1.5 C, as well as a 2 C target (or 3.6 F), and what the differences would be. In previous reports, the scientists decided what the questions would be. But I think policymakers are better at figuring out what’s policy-relevant. Now we’ve passed it off to them to decide what to do with it.

Why is 1.5 Centigrade degrees significant?

The Paris Agreement had looked at the impacts of reaching 2 C, but there are some countries that are very, very sensitive to temperature and at 2 C probably these countries will be under water. So these countries called for limiting warming to 1.5 C, and the rest of the countries backed them up. Even at 1.5 C, many of these countries will be highly threatened. It’s an existential threat. Many of the Pacific Island states, they’re small, they don’t have a lot of hills or high terrain, and they will be heavily impacted by any increase in temperature.

But there’s a lot of countries, including the United States, that are going to feel the sea-level rise under 1.5 C. A lot of Florida, for example, is extremely susceptible. And pretty much the whole eastern and western seaboards are going to be heavily impacted. Any country that has a coastline, really, will feel a sea-level rise. I can’t think of a place on the planet that won’t be impacted if we move to 1.5 C or 2 C. When the report was requested, we were at about 0.9 C. We are at 1 C right now. So it is possible to limit warming to 1.5 C, but we have to act extremely aggressively to do so.

How drastic are the transitions we need to make?

In some ways they’re incremental, and some are complete transformations. One way to think about it is, “Well, how did the world look 50 years ago? What kind of technology did we use, what kind of transportation, how interconnected was the world?” It was totally different. And in another 50 years it will be totally different. As we build new infrastructure, we’ll need to think about low-carbon emissions. Depending on how successful we are, we’ll still have to adapt to climate change, even if we limit warming to 1.5 C.

What are the critical areas that need to be addressed immediately?

There are a lot of different ways to limit warming to 1.5 C, but we can’t just choose one of these options. It’s much easier to reach a lower temperature target if we change our own behavior, if we conserve energy, if we think about where our food is sourced, if we reduce food waste. In addition, we need to convert to sustainable energy, without a doubt. Luckily there’s all these innovations in wind and solar, and now they’re cheaper than using fossil fuels.

A lot of ways we’re going to reduce our impacts actually help us now. For example, if we switch off of fossil fuels like coal or natural gas and move onto something like wind or solar, air quality will improve.

What technologies and methods are available to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

There are really easy, inexpensive things that make a ton of sense, like reforesting old forests that were cut down. We can also use agricultural soils to draw down more carbon dioxide, and that makes the land more fertile and enhances biodiversity, too.

In addition, there are new technologies being developed here at Cornell, as well as other places, that can potentially sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make plastics or new fuels.

Are these technological developments achievable in the given timeline?

Climate change is really a long-term problem, so we need to be moving relatively quickly to transition from dirty energy sources to cleaner, cheaper energy sources, like wind or solar, as well as sustainable agriculture, over the next 10 years. Then in 20 or 30 years, we want to have large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal technologies, if we can develop ones that make sense and aren’t environmentally damaging or impact food security. Sooner is better, but we’re not under the gun for all technologies.

What do you say to people who are daunted by the massive amount of change that needs to occur to keep global warming to 1.5 C?

I understand it is a really big problem. Who’s going to solve it? Well, everybody’s going to have to solve it. What an individual can do, and must do, is make individual changes in energy conservation, changes in diet, and think about reducing your impact. In addition, at the city level, the state level, the government level, within businesses, within nonprofits like Cornell, we all have to be thinking about how to reduce our carbon emissions and act in a way that is consistent with our low-carbon goals. We all have to be working together.

Are there any other big takeaways from the report?

I think it is important that some of the new studies within the report show a rise of 0.5 C – which doesn’t sound like very much – actually will be felt by humans and by ecosystems. It makes a statistically significant difference in extreme precipitation, in extreme heat events, in drought occurrences. It matters. We’ve already felt climate change, right now at 1 C, and at 1.5 C we’re going to be able to tell the difference. And between 1.5 C, and 2.0 C, we’ll be able to tell the difference.

It’s also important for people to understand the impacts from climate change only get worse as the temperature rises. So if somebody says to you, “Well, we’re not going to keep global warming to 1.5 C, so let’s just give up,” that’s not the right attitude. The right attitude is we should get as low a temperature as we possibly can, and that will make it much easier for humans and ecosystems to survive.

Percent Change in Jobs with & without Fracking

The false promise of fracking and local jobs

From an Article by Susan Christopherson, Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University, January 27, 2015

In a surprise decision that led to consternation in the oil and gas industry and elation among fracking opponents, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in December banned fracking in the state. He attributed his decision to unresolved health risks associated with this drilling technique, but the governor surely also weighed the economics and the politics.

During the past five years, I’ve researched and written about the economic impacts of fracking and, as a long-time resident of New York, I have observed its fractious politics. What I’ve found is that most people, including politicians and people in the media, assume that fracking creates thousands of good jobs.

But opening the door to fracking doesn’t lead to the across-the-board economic boon most people assume. We need to consider where oil and gas industry jobs are created and who benefits from the considerable investments that make shale development possible. A look at the job numbers gives us a much better idea of what kind of economic boost comes with fracking, how its economic benefits are distributed and why both can be easily misunderstood.

Not a recession buster

Pennsylvania is one of the centers of dispute over fracking job numbers. In Pennsylvania, the job numbers initially used by the media to describe the economic impact of fracking were predictions from models developed by oil and gas industry affiliates. For example, a Marcellus Shale Coalition press release in 2010 claimed:

“The safe and steady development of clean-burning natural gas in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale has the potential to create an additional 212,000 new jobs over the next 10 years on top of the thousands already being generated all across the Commonwealth.”

These job projections spurred enthusiasm for fracking in Pennsylvania and gave many people the impression that oil and gas industry employment would lead Pennsylvania quickly out of the recession. That didn’t happen.

Pennsylvania’s unemployment roughly tracked the national average throughout the state’s gas boom. While some counties benefited from the fracking build-up, which occurred during the “great recession,” the state economy didn’t perform appreciably better than the national economy.

Nationally, the oil and gas industry employs relatively few people compared to a sector like health care and social assistance, which employed over 16 million Americans in 2010. The drilling, extraction and support industries employed 569,000 people nationwide in 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Although it grew faster than other sectors of the economy, the core of oil and gas employment constitutes only one half of one percent of total US private sector employment. This total includes jobs unrelated to shale development and jobs that preceded the shale boom. As for job growth, the EIA indicates that 161,600 of these jobs were added between 2007 and 2012. Drilling jobs specifically increased by only 6,600.

Impressive growth percentages notwithstanding, that is not a lot of jobs. In 2010, more than 143 million people were employed in the US, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In Pennsylvania, the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative (MSSRC) report on shale employment in the Marcellus states found that shale development accounts for 1 out of every 249 jobs, while the education and health sectors account for 1 out of every 6 jobs.

FedEx drivers?

The central issue with job projections is how many additional jobs are credited to oil and gas development beyond the relatively small number of people directly employed in oil and gas extraction.

In December 2014, Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry reported that just over 31,000 people were employed in the state’s oil and gas industry. That figure was higher than the federal data indicates, but appears to be reasonable. However, what’s striking is that the Department attributed another 212,000 jobs to shale development by adding employment in 30 “ancillary” industries.

All employment in these related industries – including such major employers as construction and trucking – was included in this attributed jobs figure. Thus, a driver delivering for FedEx or a housing construction worker were “claimed” as jobs produced by the shale industry.

This is eye-rolling territory for economists. They know that attributing two additional jobs to every one directly created in an industry is very generous. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania attributed seven additional jobs to each one created in the oil and gas industry.

Depending on how broadly you define the state’s oil and gas industry, between 5,400 and 31,000 people were employed in Pennsylvania before many of the rigs started pulling out in 2012 to head west. Certainly, jobs in other sectors were also created, but a generous estimate would be 30,000 to 60,000 rather than the hundreds of thousands claimed by industry promoters.

QCEW is the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a federal-state cooperative program that is based largely on the quarterly Unemployment Insurance reports filed by employers. Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, Author provided.

The MSSRC report demonstrates that only a tiny portion (under 1%) of jobs in many of these 30 industries could be related to shale development activities, and further, that Pennsylvania employment in these industries overall changed little before, during, and after the shale boom.

The real winner: Texas

Beyond the exaggerated numbers, a geographic blindness obscures our view of fracking jobs. Where do the workers extracting gas in Pennsylvania or Ohio live and spend their money? Where are the best jobs located? While the fracking industry may support the national economy as a whole, some places are winners and others are losers.

In Ohio, where extraction continues because its shale holds both natural gas and other valuable “wet gas” hydrocarbons, a series of investigative reports by The Columbus Dispatch showed that at least a third of the workforce in drilling areas are transient workers. In the four Ohio counties with the most shale permits, the number of local people employed actually decreased between 2007 and 2013.

This tells us that the production sites aren’t necessarily the places that get the economic boost. The most skilled workers on drilling crews are from Texas and Oklahoma and they return home to spend their earnings. Northern Pennsylvania drilling crews spent much of their money in the Southern Tier of New York.

My own research on the geography of shale jobs shows that Texas has derived the lion’s share of the benefits from US fracking. Texas has consistently had around half the jobs in the oil and gas industry (currently 47%). During the 2007-2012 shale boom, Pennsylvania gained 15,114 jobs in the drilling, extraction and support industries, but Texas gained 64,515 – over four times as many jobs. Texas not only has much of the skilled drilling workforce, but the majority of the industry’s managers, scientists and experts, who staff the global firms headquartered in Houston. Still, even in Texas, energy-related jobs constitute only 2.5% of the state’s now more diversified employment.

What does this tell us about New York’s decision on fracking? Andrew Cuomo may have decided that the state would do better providing finance capital to the oil and gas industry from Wall Street rather than taking on high-risk, low-reward fracking production. _________________________________

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net