Climate forecast ups the ante, time for Pennsylvania to shift to clean energy
By the Editorial Board
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The Pennsylvania Climate Impacts Assessment 2021 released on May 5 affirms what Pennsylvanians already witness: rising temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events, be they dangerously hot summer days or unhinged deluges that crater infrastructure, destroy homes or crops in a flash. Recall the devastating storms of 2018 that cost $144 million in reported damages and $125 million in harm to state-maintained infrastructure.
The state assessment is one in a series in recent years and relies on federal, state and local data to project climate trends. The key takeaways? If no action is taken to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say fuel global warming, experts predict Pennsylvania’s average annual temperature will rise 5.9 degrees by mid-century. Extreme heat, days where temperatures exceed 90 degrees,
American Aquafarms’ discharge estimates spark questions
GOULDSBORO Late last week, Hancock County residents got an abstract picture of how American Aquafarms would draw and discharge sea water and dispose of waste from its proposed operation in Frenchman Bay.
But when citizens asked, the Norwegian-backed company failed to specify by whom and exactly where in the world the closed-pen technology is being used in real time commercially to grow and successfully harvest Atlantic salmon for the global market.
At a three-hour-plus online public meeting last week, American Aquafarms Vice President Eirik Jors, Portland-headquartered Ransom Consulting Engineers and Scientists’ Senior Project Manager Elizabeth Ransom and civil engineer and computer modeler Nathan Dill provided a detailed blueprint showing how American Aquafarms would discharge a total of 2 billion gallons of circulated water (23,775 gallons per second) daily from the two 15-pen sites northwest of Long Porcupine Island
As full construction on the 145-mile project in Somerset, Franklin and Androscoggin counties gets underway, including the undeveloped northern 53 miles that were under the injunction, the Maine AFL-CIO also endorsed the project.