Climate Point: Fake burgers could get Texas boot, and gas lines grow after pipeline hack

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. From Palm Springs, Calif., I'm Janet Wilson. 

Apologies world, I may never be vegan, despite my beloved 20-something niece's insistence. But my husband's high cholesterol combined with my incessant concern about climate change led us to try those fake burgers from the meat section of our local grocery store recently. Guess what? I don't know how they do it, but not bad. Sauté some onions, add ketchup and they approximate the real thing. 

Turns out avoiding meat could be good for our lungs too. Air pollution from farming, particularly livestock production, is responsible for nearly 18,000 deaths a year in the United States, according to research out this week. As the Washington Post's Sarah Kaplan writes, methane, ammonia and other emissions from hog and cow manure can drift hundreds of miles, and now cause more deaths than coal-fired power plants. And not eating meat also helps to lower your carbon footprint, as HuffPost's Garin Prinia reminds us.

Where's the beef? But Texans may not be able to find popular plant-based burgers in the meat aisle for long. Prodded by the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and others, the state's House voted this week to ban words like "meat" or "burger" in such products, the Dallas Morning News reports, and sent it to their Senate for approval. Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers, two top brands, are joining free speech advocates to push back, per The Austin American Statesman.

Here are some other stories that may be of interest.

MUST-READ STORIES

Slow down. Gas lines and prices are spiking across 11 eastern states after a cyber hack on the Colonial Pipeline shut it down and led to delays in shipments and panic buying. As USA Today's Brett Molina and Nathan Bomey report, the pipeline owner restarted operations around 5 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, but said, "it will take several days for the product delivery supply chain to return to normal."

Chop chop. The Massachusetts Audubon Society made $6 million off the sale of credits for agreeing not to log trees that it never had any intention of cutting anyway. The credits, issued across the country by California's air board, were largely bought by oil companies and allowed the polluters to keep belching greenhouse gases skyward. Those eye-opening findings are in new work by ProPublica's Lisa Song and James Temple with MIT Technology Review. 

POLITICAL CLIMATE

Real news. The U.S. EPA on Wednesday made public a long-delayed account of global warming's impacts on the nation during President Donald Trump's tenure. From the loss of Alaska permafrost to the spike in summer heatwaves in American cities, the report concludes the U.S. has entered unprecedented climate territory, as Dino Grandoni and Brady Dennis write for The Washington Post. The assessment, which the Trump administration held for three years, marks the first time the agency has said such changes are driven by human-caused global warming.

Snake's blood. For millennia, Quechans have traversed Indian Pass to pray, hold ceremonies and renew the earth in the lower Colorado River Valley. Now, 12 years after they defeated a mining proposal just east of rock art, geoglyphs and prayer circles, they are again preparing to battle over what they call "snake's blood" — gold. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is considering a  proposal by a Canadian company that says it can extract an estimated 1.2 million ounces of gold without permanent damage to the landscape or water. Debra Utacia Krol with The Arizona Republic tells the tale.

Summertime blues. Joshua trees, the gangly icons of the desert, need immediate protection before another harsh summer and wildfire season set in, says WildEarth Guardians, which has asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue emergency protection, as I write for The Desert Sun. 

Taking wing. Longstanding protections for migratory birds revoked under the Trump administration could be reinstated by the U.S. Interior Department, per Matthew Brown with the Associated Press.

DIRTY WATER

Bugging out. Climate change is likely to boost pest populations, increasing pesticide use that can foul waterways. California farmers battling moths (which can destroy nearly a third of an almond or pistachio crop in the larvae-munching stage) and other scourges are already spraying larger amounts, as Liza Gross chronicles for Inside Climate News.

Watered down. Newly released emails obtained by The Arizona Republic's Ian James show that lawyers and lobbyists for mining companies, developers and the agriculture industry had a hand behind the scenes in shaping Arizona’s newly adopted clean-water rules for rivers and streams. A coalition of environmentalists have complained that the new law was far too weak to provide genuine protection. 

DIRTY AIR 

Number one. China surpassed all other nations' greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, according to new data by the Rhodium Group. The Asian superpower contributed over 27% of total global emissions, far exceeding the US — the second-highest emitter—which contributed 11% of the global total. For the first time, India edged out the EU-27 for third place, coming in at 6.6% of global emissions.

Park it. Inland Southern California has seen a boom in mega-warehouses in recent years, causing smog and soot from trucks to climb in working-class neighborhoods. After years of saying its hands were tied because it can't directly regulate big rigs, the region's air regulators passed an "indirect source" rule that will force warehouse operators to make use of clean diesel trucks and other technologies. Tony Barboza with The Los Angeles Times fills us in.

And another thing

Center stage. Italy's La Scala opera house and others worldwide are using pandemic-related shutdowns to combat climate change, per The New York Times' Rebecca Schmid. That includes recycling everything from grandiose stage sets to water bottles, installing LED bulbs, smart lighting and, next to the Sydney Opera House in Australia, creating an artificial reef.  

Global climate change is rising, which means droughts are becoming the new norm. Here's this week's federal drought monitor snapshot. As you can see, the entire West and significant swaths of the rest of the nation are parched. 

That's it for now. Have fun singing arias in the shower this week, but maybe make it a short one, to save energy and water. For more climate, energy and environment news, follow me @janetwilson66. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here.