As Climate Change Hits the Southeast, Communities Wrestle with Politics, Funding

Like hundreds of other cities, Louisville, Kentucky, is searching for a path to address climate change.

Hurricane Florence flooded out a contaminated
 Superfund site in Cheraw, South Carolina. 

Mayor Greg Fischer has declared a climate emergency, proposed a climate action plan and set a goal of reducing citywide carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050. 

To get there, however, Fischer needs the cooperation of the region's electric utility, Louisville Gas and Electric Co., which depends on coal and, with its related companies, has committed only to cutting carbon emissions 70 percent from 2010 levels by 2050.

Even that more modest commitment, though, is now in doubt, based on recent comments by LG&E's chief operating officer, Lonnie Bellar, at an energy conference last fall, dominated by coal interests. In discussing his company's own carbon reduction plan, Bellar declined to make any promises about a clean energy future.

Read the story from Inside Climate News by James Bruggers  - “As Climate Change Hits the Southeast, Communities Wrestle with Politics, Funding.”

EPA chief Scott Pruitt tells coal miners he will repeal power-plan rule Tuesday: ‘The war against coal is over’'

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
 Scott Pruitt at the White House in June. 

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told coal miners in Kentucky on Monday that he will move to repeal a rule limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, assuring them, “The war against coal is over.”

Speaking at an event in Hazard, Ky., with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Pruitt said his agency will publish the new proposed rule Tuesday.

“Tomorrow, in Washington, D.C., I’ll be a signing a proposed rule to withdraw the so-called Clean Power Plan of the past administration, and thus begin the effort to withdraw that rule,” Pruitt said.

Read the story from The Washington Post - “EPA chief Scott Pruitt tells coal miners he will repeal power-plan rule Tuesday: ‘The war against coal is over’.”

The untold story of 'Black Saturday' is being repeated

Victoria’s “Black Saturday” bushfires were responsible for the immediate deaths of more than 170 people.

A tragic as that is, what is not truly publically acknowledged is that more than 300 people died in the extreme heat that lead up to that rather difficult February day in 2009.

Similar difficulties are being experience elsewhere.

Louisville, in Kentucky, America, has just 0.2 of the country’s population, but six per cent of America’s heat related deaths.

“Louisville, Urbanful reports, “is the fastest-warming city in the U.S., with a summer heat island effect of 20 degrees—meaning that in Louisville’s downtown, temperatures can be a full 20 degrees higher than the surrounding areas.”

A story headed: “How Louisville is leading small cities in the charge to go green” discusses what the city is doing to counteract this heat-island effect.