Media Shunning Global Warming Topic?
With almost a half million acres of charred land across Oregon one watchdog group says that the topic of global warming was one of the least covered stories for 2017. Lisa Hymas with media matters says with the total amount of devastating weather stories across the United states the climate in Washington has been the main detractor to receiving appropriate media coverage.
“And they’re just the sort of thing that climate scientists have been telling us that we will see. And some media outlets are telling people that, but too many of them are not. They’re not connecting the dots between extreme weather like hurricanes and wildfires and floods to climate science.”
Hymas says that 2017 was the most expensive wildfire season on record with several dozen wildfires across Oregon alone. While climate change may not cause any single hurricane to form or wildfire to break out, she says there is good science that explains the interaction between the two. She says a series of papers was recently published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society where researchers around the world analyzed 27 extreme weather events. They found that human-caused climate change drove 21 of those events.
“Climate change does exacerbate events. It makes them more extreme. So, I think sometimes journalists shy away from it because the science can be a little bit complicated to explain. But I would encourage the media to talk directly to scientists and let them explain the connections that they’re finding.”
Hymas says the media is critical for shifting the public’s perspective on climate change and that the country needs to switch to a clean-energy system as soon as possible to avert its worst effects.
Recycling Takes A Hit
According to Lane County 2016 was the year for recycling. A Department of Environmental Quality report shows the county sent more to recycling locations than to landfills, but this was not a good thing overall according to experts. Recycling had gotten so convoluted that many items that were going to landfills ended up causing some long term problems. The biggest problem was the trouble that non-recyclable items were finding their way into the mix and corrupting the batches causing China to put a halt to accepting dirty loads. According to Dave Twombly at Central Coast Disposal, much of the recycling that went to China had to be diverted to their landfills causing the Chinese government to fine the agencies responsible for the glut. These were not American companies but the blowback quickly hit American Shores causing new regulations for accepting recycling. In addition, Twombly says that things like plastic bags gum up the sorting of recyclables and can shut down equipment for hours while they remove items from clogged machinery. This causes long shut downs for companies and that causes money. While it is not something that he wants to do, Twombly says an upcoming internal audit may show the necessity to increase residential and commercial removal costs which may in turn mean a several percentage point increase.
Red Kettles Overflow
The total is currently 27 thousand and counting. Sam Spayd, coordinator for the Salvation Army bell ringing campaign says that money is still coming in / in the form of checks and he expects the dollar amount to continue upward. Spayd said that an anonymous donor will be matching up to the 27 thousand dollars. He also says that it was the tireless effort of volunteers that made it possible. This year the Salvation Army set up a local account so that the money raised in western Lane County gets to stay local and provide relief for people in need on the coast. 90 percent of the monies will remain right here.
