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As the rest of the world is beginning to realize that fracking comes with more downsides than upsides, Australia is readying itself for a fracking boom, eyeing basins on Indigenous land.

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#australia, #climate, #gas, #plastic

Fabrice Monteiro’s best photograph: a spirit emerges from a rubbish dump in Senegal ‘The model is holding a child’s doll, looking out over the wreckage. It represents the future generations we’re condemning to environmental catastrophe’Outside Dakar, Senegal’s capital, is a rubbish dump with its own name: Mbeubeuss. The land on which it sits was once flat swampland. It began as a landfill site in 1968; today, it is a mountain of rubbish. It has accumulated so much plastic waste from the city that to reach it you have to drive on a road of compacted trash.This is not the Africa I grew up in. As a child here in the 1970s and 80s, it was not like this. But when I returned in 2012, I was shocked at what I found. Here in Senegal, there was plastic waste everywhere – at roadsides, in trees, everywhere. The younger generation don’t know any different: it’s just part of their environment now. I decided I wanted to shoot a series to raise awareness of environmental issues in Senegal, in the hope that people would realise that things do not have to be this way. I wanted to connect environmental issues with the cultural interests of the population, and started researching animism – the belief that objects and the natural world are imbued with spirits.Animism is connected to nature: it was about praising nature in all its different elements, working with it not against it, and living in harmony with it. Much of that was lost with globalisation and the modern way of living. With this series, I wanted to create a series of spirits sent by Mother Earth to warn humankind about its neglect and destruction of the environment.Each of the shots in the series addresses one environmental concern: coastal erosion, oil spills, sanitation and the burning of the land for agriculture, for example. But this image, the first I shot for the series, was about plastic consumption.I had the idea to make a dress that was a continuation of the trash mountain, so it looked as though this spirit was emerging from the piles of rubbish. I collaborated with a Senegalese stylist called Doulsy who had been working with recycled materials and can sew pretty much anything: he was the perfect person to create this costume. It needed to have a sense of scale: the model is sitting on a barrel of oil to give that height to the figure. We wanted to strike a balance between working with abandoned materials and making something that looked like a fashion editorial.But more than anything this image is a message: the model is holding a child’s doll, looking out over the wreckage. It represents the future generations that we’re condemning to environmental catastrophe through our overconsumption.At first, I only intended to make 10 images. They were all going to be shot in Senegal, and distributed to people here. But I felt uneasy when the work was finished: it felt like I was drawing attention to Africa for the wrong reasons. I was concerned it made the continent look uniquely polluted, as though this isn’t a problem all over the world. The only reason Europe doesn’t look like this is because it ships its waste out to us.So I continued the series, shooting all over the world, from Australia and the destruction of the coral reefs to the US and the damage wrought by coal mining. My work is about unity, about revealing the ways in which we are all connected, to each other and to nature. Taking this series global helped achieve that.My work has always been a mix of different things, a kind of blending of different disciplines and cultures denoted in the French word métissage. I’m European and I’m African. I grew up in a culture heavily influenced by voodoo, while also reading western comics. I’m a fashion photographer but I’m also an industrial engineer. My work represents all of that.Across all I do, I’m interested in identity and how we separate ourselves from those we consider the “other”. Throughout history, humankind has created an idea of the other in order to justify his or her exploitation. It is an idea that was central to slavery and colonialism. But it’s also at the heart of our approach to the environment. Only because we see ourselves as apart from the natural world, or superior to it, can we continue to treat it this way.Today, people talk about the anthropocene era: a geological term for a time in which nature is being fundamentally changed by humanity. But it suggests that humanity as a whole, not the specific capitalist system we have created, is the problem. In fact, it is the system that is the problem, and the system that needs to be opposed.Fabrice Monteiro’s CVBorn: Namur, Belgium, 1972.Trained: Self-taught.Influences: Alexander McQueen, Malcolm Ferdinand.High point: “Realising that I can make a living from my creative work.”Low point: “Working on environmental subjects and understanding how dire the situation is. It scares me.”Top tip: “Always try to explore outside boundaries.” Fabrice Monteiro has been shortlisted for Prix Pictet prize, to be announced on 15 December. The work of all 12 shortlisted artists will be at the V&A, London, from 16 December.TopicsArt and designMy best shotPhotographySenegalAfricaPlasticsPollutionfeaturesReuse this content

Heavy industries like shipping, steel and plastics have long opted out of climate action. That is starting to change.This article is part of our latest DealBook special report on the trends that will shape the coming decades.Heavy industry uses roughly 149 million terajoules of energy annually, or about 700 times more power than the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. The sector’s sheer scale makes reducing its carbon emissions difficult.It would require incredible amounts of heat and power for manufacturing and methods to store vast amounts of power for jets, tankers, and trucks. Trillions of dollars in global assets would need to be retired. And the main sectors in play — aviation, shipping, steel, plastics, aluminum, cement, chemicals and trucking — represent massive swaths of the economy, making it a political third rail of climate change action.But a combination of policy work, technological leaps and industry collaborations has made previously improbable changes into rallying points for more action.“You’ve actually got to move the whole economy,” said Helen Clarkson, the chief executive of Climate Group, a global nonprofit. “We don’t just get a free pass because it’s more difficult.”RMI, an organization in Colorado focused on sustainability that was previously known as the Rocky Mountain Institute, estimates that steel production, shipping, aviation and trucking alone contribute 40 percent of global carbon emissions, and if left untouched, will eat up twice the remaining global carbon budget to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by 2050.There are still immense hurdles, including funding, policy support and unsolved technological challenges. But coalitions and industry groups, including the Energy Transition Commission, which released a 2018 report about such a transition, and Mission Possible Partnership (with support from RMI) have created detailed road maps for sector transformation. The Climate Group’s Steel Zero plan to build demand for carbon-free steel, begun in December, would have been ignored a few years ago, Ms. Clarkson said, but already counts leading global construction firms as supporters.Can some of history’s highest-polluting industries be trusted? Cate Hight, a principal at RMI, admits that greenwashing is possible. But the improving accuracy of digital tools that third-party groups use to track emissions means corporations can be held more accountable.To understand how rapidly the ground is shifting, look at steel, a global industry synonymous with smokestacks and responsible for 7 percent of CO2 emissions. Green steel isn’t just a vision, but a reality.Monica Quinteiro, a site manager for the steel maker SSAB, holds up a piece of H.B.I. (hot-briquetted iron) outside the Hybrit pilot facility in Sweden. Hybrit is a fossil-free steel process.Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBeginning in 2016, the Swedish steel maker SSAB began developing a fossil-free steel process called Hybrit, which is being tested by the automakers Volvo and Mercedes-Benz.The pilot process, where iron ore is refined, or reduced, with green hydrogen and renewable energy into oxygen-free sponge iron, which is then shaped with electric arc furnaces into finished steel, will scale up to an operational commercial plant by 2026, which will produce 1.35 million tons of sponge iron annually, said SSAB’s chief technology officer, Martin Pei. Competitors such as ArcelorMittal, Midrex and U.S. Steel have also invested in cutting carbon.Though positive, these steps represent just a start. The Mission Possible Partnership, a climate alliance between industrial leaders, financiers and policy groups like RMI, estimated that the steel industry needs to invest $30 billion every year just to meet increased demand; another $6 billion is needed to make that all net-zero compliant. Green hydrogen presents a particularly lofty challenge; decarbonizing all heavy industry with this high-potency option would require so much electricity that current global electrical generation would need to double, according to RMI.Other heavy industry sectors have focused first on reducing rather than completely eliminating their carbon output.Understand U.S.-China RelationsCard 1 of 6A tense era in U.S.-China ties.

How the chemicals industry’s pollution slipped under the radar While the industry has an important role to play in moving to low-carbon economies it’s also hugely carbon intensive and predicted to become more soIt’s one of the biggest industries in the world, consumes more than 10% of fossil fuels produced globally and emits an estimated 3.3 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, more than India’s annual emissions – yet the chemicals sector has largely slipped under the radar when it comes to climate.The shipping industry faces a climate crisis reckoning – will it decarbonize?Read moreThis sprawling industry produces a huge range of products, many of which support other industries – pesticides for agriculture, acids for mining, lubricants for machinery, ingredients in cleaning agents, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals and plastics.While the industry has an important role to play in moving to low-carbon economies – providing coatings for solar panels, lightweight plastics to reduce vehicles’ energy consumption and insulating materials for buildings – it’s also hugely carbon intensive and predicted to become more so. Oil companies have been betting on chemicals as a way to remain profitable as the world pledges to turn away from fossil fuel energy. The International Energy Agency predicted that petrochemicals could account for 60% of oil demand in the next decade.The chemicals sector is the largest industrial user of oil and gas but it has the third-largest carbon footprint – behind steel and cement – because only about half of the fossil fuels that the industry consumes are burned for their energy. The rest is used as feedstock for products such as plastics with the emissions released only when these products reach the end of their lives, for example, when waste plastic packaging or an old mattress is incinerated.Lowering the industry’s emissions is possible but technically daunting. Plus this large, complex industry, which supports millions of jobs worldwide, has significant political and economic clout. “They’ve become a bit of an untouchable sector for many politicians,” said Jan-Justus Andreas, who leads industrial policy at the Norwegian environmental non-profit Bellona Europa.Yet the chemicals industry is finding itself increasingly under scrutiny – both from nations that need to meet ambitious emissions reduction targets and from researchers, scientists and campaigners calling on the industry to cut its polluting products.Moving away from dirty energyOne way to lower emissions is to focus on chemical plants – improving efficiency and switching to low-carbon energy.Most of the industry’s direct carbon dioxide emissions come from burning fossil fuels to power chemical transformations, many of which take place at high temperatures and pressures. These emissions could be significantly reduced if the industry moves away from dirtier fuels such as coal.If renewable wind or solar energy is available, certain chemical processes that are already driven by electricity, such as the production of chlorine used to make other materials such as PVC pipes or solvents like chloroform, could immediately become low carbon. And chemists continue to look for ways to power traditionally heat-driven chemical transformations with electricity instead – such as the process of converting nitrogen to ammonia, mostly used for fertilizer, which requires temperatures of about 500C (932F).While chemical companies are counting on efficiency improvements and investing in renewable energy to meet their climate goals, many chemical products themselves cannot be decarbonized because they are made of carbon, said Martin Scheringer, an environmental chemist at the public research university ETH Zurich.Removing fossil fuels from the raw materials used to create carbon-based chemicals and materials is crucial, said Jonatan Kleimark of the non-profit ChemSec. Kleimark likens products made from fossil fuels – such as clothes, toys and paints – to a carbon debt, because the carbon embedded within them will only be emitted in the future. “The longer we wait to change, the larger debt we will build, and that will be very hard to do something about if we don’t start,” Kleimark said.Are clothes made from recycled materials really more sustainable?Read moreTo stop adding to this debt, chemicals and materials could be made with sources of carbon that are already above ground, such as plants. Bioplastics – made with plant materials such as sugar, corn or seaweed – are booming, for example, as companies and scientists try to remove fossil fuels from plastic production.Another idea is to turn waste products into raw materials for the chemical industry. Chemists have been using agricultural waste or waste plastics – even the ultimate waste material, carbon dioxide – as feedstocks. A Berlin-based startup, Made of Air, is attempting to create plastics from wood waste, while an Icelandic company, Carbon Recycling International, turns captured carbon dioxide emissions into methanol, used in fuels and for making other chemicals such as formaldehyde.‘Why don’t you deal with someone else first?’But all these ideas – especially those involving a shift in feedstocks – are very hard to implement.Technologies to turn agricultural or plastic waste into new chemicals are still unproven on a large scale and using carbon dioxide as a raw material will require vast amounts of zero-carbon energy.Manufacturers making products with plants rather than fossil fuels need to ensure that they do not create new problems through deforestation, destroying wildlife habitat, raising food prices or increasing the use of water or pesticides. Biomass resources also tend to be more spread out, whereas traditionally, chemical plants stay close to where fossil fuel resources are easily accessible.“With renewable feedstocks, you will need to reestablish new supply chains,” said Zhanyun Wang, a senior scientists at ETH Zurich. In addition to delivering a steady stream of renewable raw materials to chemical plants, the new supply chains would need to be competitive with well-established ones making products from fossil fuels at low prices, Wang said.The clean power infrastructure requirements alone are tremendous. Electrifying Europe’s chemicals sector would require 4,900 terawatts of renewable electricity, according to an estimate by the European Chemical Industry Council, almost double the total amount of electricity Europe generated in 2019.“If you are a lobbyist for the chemical sector, showing those numbers helps you to put your head down again and say, ‘Look, firstly I’m too important and valuable, and secondly, it’s really, really difficult to deal with me, so why don’t you deal with someone else first,’” Andreas said.Currently, that someone else refers to the cement and steel industries, said Andreas. The internal competition between the three industries to avoid scrutiny is unhelpful, he said, because they could benefit from developing an industrial strategy together.The exhaust gases from steel and cement plants could serve as valuable feedstocks for chemical plants. All three industries need large-scale renewable electricity or carbon capture facilities, which require significant investment. The financial risks involved in building these new facilities could be mitigated, Andreas said, if the new facilities serve multiple operations instead of a single steel mill or fertilizer plant.Governments could also help build the necessary infrastructure or help companies gain access to renewable feedstocks, said Rebecca Dell, who directs the industry program at the San Francisco-based ClimateWorks Foundation.But with less than 30 years to 2050, time is short. If there are no delays, typically, it takes about seven years for companies to get a new process up and running, Dell said. “We have to move a lot faster.”Simplifying productsOne important, but neglected, lever for cutting emissions from the chemical sector is to simply use and produce fewer chemicals. “That would lead very directly to a reduction in CO2 emissions and also reduce the toxification of humans and the environment,” Scheringer said.The overuse of materials such as plastics, fertilizers and other synthetic chemicals has caused devastating effects on ecosystems and human health. Plastic debris chokes waterways and wildlife, fertilizer-laden runoff from fields can cause algal blooms and create dead zones in coastal areas.These impacts have led policymakers and consumers to cut back – for instance, many cities and countries now have prohibitions on some single-use plastics. “It’s an attempt to reduce plastic itself as a pollutant in the landscape, more than concerns about greenhouse gases, but we can make simultaneous progress on more than one front,” said Dell.Studies have also found that being more precise about applying fertilizer could save farmers money and keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.It is less straightforward to cut back on some of the chemicals that are used to make consumer products, but Scheringer, Wang and others have proposed a way to start. Alarmed by the dangers of some cancer-causing PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals”, researchers have suggested eliminating PFAS from their “nice-to-have” applications – such as nonstick cookware, long-lasting mascara, or water-repellent surfer shorts that don’t need the level of high performance that “forever chemicals” confer.‘Forever chemicals’: the hidden threat from the toxic PFAS on your shelfRead moreThe researchers recommend that “forever chemicals” be used only in really important products, such as protective gear or medical devices that save lives. The same philosophy could be applied to identify and eliminate other chemicals that have been unnecessarily formulated in products, such as adding antimicrobials to soaps that can already kill germs.Simplifying the chemical ingredients in products has an added benefit: they are easier to take apart or recycle when they are no longer useful. Wang points to the example of carbon black, the chemical used as a pigment in food takeout boxes. The pigment serves no technical function other than providing colour and it is used because food looks more appealing set against a black background, Wang said. But the pigment also means the takeout boxes are invisible to devices that use light to sort plastics at sorting facilities, making them impossible to recycle.The chemical sector is producing more than consumers need, Wang said: “The business model is driven by how many chemicals you sell, it’s not necessarily driven by the added societal value of the chemical.”But the “enormous demand” for products is also a big driver – and perhaps harder to address, said Kleimark. “We’re standing in front of a really, really big challenge because there we cannot rely on technologies, but on changing the way we do things today.”TopicsEnvironmentGreen lightClimate crisisGreenhouse gas emissionsChemistryCarbon capture and storage (CCS)PlasticsOil and gas companiesfeaturesReuse this content

Pyroplastics look just like real pebbles. (University of Plymouth)Campaigners have warned that British beaches are being inundated by a form of plastic pollution that looks exactly like rocks.The so-called ‘pyroplastics’ are believed to be remnants of plastic that has been burnt or melted, researchers said. They have been spotted this week in Wales.Hilary Rowlands, a founding member of Tywyn Beach Guardians in Gwynedd, told North Wales Live: “It’s only when you pick them up, and feel how light they are, that you realise they are not stones at all.”There’s not a single beach I’ve combed where I haven’t come across them. Sometimes they are covered in oil or impregnated with the toxins that come from burning plastic.”It’s all dangerous, both to the environment and the marine life.Read more: Melting snow in Himalayas drives growth of green sea slime visible from space”The longer-term concern is that they will break down into microplastics and threaten marine food chains.”Pyroplastics look almost exactly like pebbles, and are created when plastics are heated during manufacturing processes.Researchers began to analyse the ‘rocks’ in recent years after people spotted them on beaches in Cornwall – initially thinking they were real pebbles.The lumps of plastic also weather like real rocks, and shed microplastic into the environment.Some of the lumps could be as much as half a century old, according to Andrew Turner of the University of Plymouth.Read more: A 1988 warning about climate change was mostly rightTurner writes: “Pyroplastics are derived from the burning of plastic. Some may look like various burnt pieces of plastic amalgamated together, while others look remarkably like pebbles once they have been eroded down by the elements.”They have probably been in existence since we started burning plastic to dispose of it (perhaps 80 years or so). Some of the now restricted chemicals we find in pyroplastics suggest they have been around since at least the 1960s.Story continues”Burnt plastic on beaches is likely to be derived from many sources, including burning waste on the beach itself, collapse of old landfill sites, historical burning of waste at sea and contemporary burning of plastic waste on small island states.”Pyroplastics are found worldwide, with samples having been located on Atlantic beaches in Spain and the Pacific beaches of Vancouver.Watch: Nigerian artist’s installations draw attention to world’s plastic waste

While world leaders dither about how to tackle climate change, an eerie echo of global warming’s destructive power has been playing out in a project created as an artistic response to this apocalypse. Even art can be destroyed by the toxic effects of our runaway carbon emissions. Even plastic art.In 2005, around the time scientists were recognizing that abnormal patterns of coral bleaching were related to rising ocean temperatures, my sister and I started to crochet simulations of living reefs. It was art meets science meets environmental catastrophe channeled through the medium of a handicraft we’d grown up with. Crochet wasn’t an arbitrary choice, for the frilly, crenelated forms of real coral organisms are biological manifestations of hyperbolic geometry — a mathematical structure easily emulated with crochet.To our surprise, our “Crochet Coral Reef” has blossomed into a community art project spread across the planet, with now nearly 20,000 crocheting participants in 50 cities and countries, almost all of them women. We have worked with crafters to create crochet reefs in London, New York, Chicago, Melbourne, Abu Dhabi, Latvia and many other places. Woolly reefs are currently underway in Germany and Canada, and in New York state and North Carolina. But it was in Finland where the forces of destruction recently played out.

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As part of the Helsinki Biennial this year we were invited to work with citizens there, and an astonishing 3,000 Finns took part. During COVID-19 lockdowns many people everywhere turned to crafts as a calmative force, and crocheting corals also offers a purposeful rejoinder to environmental devastation. Just as living reefs are made by millions or billions of tiny coral polyps, so our reefs are generated by thousands of crocheters working together. Both biological and crafty reefs exemplify the power of collaboration at scale. The Great Barrier Reef, which served as the inspiration for our project, is the largest living thing on Earth, and one of a few organisms visible from outer space.

A detail of the plastic crocheted coral.(©Institute for Figuring by Margaret Wertheim)

In addition to crocheting in yarn, we asked the Finns to use plastic. My sister and I have been crocheting plastic into corals since we learned about the horror of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2006. How ironic that as living reefs disappear, giant whorls of plastic trash are forming in the ocean, as if a kind of synthetic replacement were going on.It’s hard now to buy anything not packaged in plastic. Remember those pandemic months when we stockpiled toilet paper, each jumbo pack swaddled in a see-though plastic membrane? This emblem of viral infection became a feature of the Helsinki project when local reef organizer Lotta Kjellberg approached a manufacturer of toilet packaging about possible crafty byproducts.

As toilet paper packaging film rolls off the production line, an inch-wide strip is cut from the edge, making a perfect medium for crochet. Two hundred kilos of the stuff was delivered in a dumpster to Kjellberg’s door. In a time-consuming act of devotional recycling, she distributed it around Helsinki to libraries, craft stores, community centers, schools and senior citizens’ facilities. Tinted an elegant blueish-violet and dotted with pale splashes of ink, its availability in such quantity enabled the creation of a huge number of color-coordinated plastic corals. We could not have wished for a better scenario.

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In my first foray out of Highland Park in 15 months, I flew to Helsinki in May to work with a team of local ladies to shape thousands of individual crocheted pieces into large-scale sculptures. Along with the violet and whites of the loo-paper packaging were sparkling black videotape corals, plus others in reds, yellows and blues made out of gift-wrapping ties, grocery bags and various synthetic detritus. All of it recycled material.The four resulting artworks were magnificent testimonies to community-centered art. Gorgeous, absurd, lavish forms bursting with life — together they formed a faux ecology that rehabilitated rubbish through female craft.But over the summer, Finland experienced one of the hottest, wettest periods in its recorded history. Farther north, the Greenland ice sheet was also drenched in rain, an unheard-of phenomenon — it never rains in Greenland — and an ominous sign of the forces being unleashed in our atmosphere.At the Biennial, most of the artworks were displayed on an island off Helsinki in a series of stunning abandoned fortifications. Unfortunately, the rooms became infested with mold. Other artists’ projectors burned out, sound systems fritzed, video screens dripped with slime. But these were solvable problems. For the corals a more permanent tragedy ensued.Blobs of mold blossomed on the pedestals and understructures of the works. Possibly it had creeped into the crochet stitches too. Now, instead of traveling on to other exhibitions, these beautiful monsters have had to be destroyed. Art has imitated life. Even crocheted plastic sea creatures can’t withstand the consequences of humanity’s petrochemical ensorcellment. Killed off by climate change, this unique colony of Helsinki corals has disappeared, echoing the fate of its living cousins who also soon may be mere memories.Margaret Wertheim is a science writer and artist. The “Crochet Coral Reef,” created with Christine Wertheim, has been exhibited at the 2019 Venice Biennale and many other international venues. crochetcoralreef.org