---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Dave Alexander

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features West Coast blues piano player Dave Alexander. Enjoy!

^{Dave Alexander - Lonesome Train Blues}

"They could do worse, and they undoubtedly will."

-- Thomas Reed

---

News and Opinion

And now, news analysis for optimists:

Exit of Victoria Nuland Presents Opportunity for Peace in Ukraine

President Biden began his State of the Union speech with an impassioned warning that failing to pass his $61 billion dollar weapons package for Ukraine “will put Ukraine at risk, Europe at risk, the free world at risk.” But even if the president’s request were suddenly passed, it would only prolong, and dangerously escalate, the brutal war that is destroying Ukraine.

The assumption of the U.S. political elite that Biden had a viable plan to defeat Russia and restore Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders has proven to be one more triumphalist American dream that has turned into a nightmare. Ukraine has joined North Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and now Gaza, as another shattered monument to America’s military madness.

This could have been one of the shortest wars in history, if President Biden had just supported a peace and neutrality agreement negotiated in Turkey in March and April 2022 that already had champagne corks popping in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian negotiator Oleksiy Arestovych. Instead, the U.S. and NATO chose to prolong and escalate the war as a means to try to defeat and weaken Russia.

Two days before Biden’s State of the Union speech, Secretary of State Blinken announced the early retirement of Acting Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, one of the officials most responsible for a decade of disastrous U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

Two weeks before the announcement of Nuland’s retirement at the age of 62, she acknowledged in a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that the war in Ukraine had degenerated into a war of attrition that she compared to the First World War, and she admitted that the Biden administration had no Plan B for Ukraine if Congress doesn’t cough up $61 billion for more weapons.

We don’t know whether Nuland was forced out, or perhaps quit in protest over a policy that she fought for and lost. Either way, her ride into the sunset opens the door for others to fashion a badly needed Plan B for Ukraine.

The imperative must be to chart a path back from this hopeless but ever-escalating war of attrition to the negotiating table that the U.S. and Britain upended in April 2022—or at least to new negotiations on the basis that President Zelenskyy defined on March 27, 2022, when he told his people, “Our goal is obvious: peace and the restoration of normal life in our native state as soon as possible.”

Instead, on February 26, in a very worrying sign of where NATO’s current policy is leading, French President Emmanuel Macron revealed that European leaders meeting in Paris discussed sending larger numbers of Western ground troops to Ukraine.

Macron pointed out that NATO members have steadily increased their support to levels unthinkable when the war began. He highlighted the example of Germany, which offered Ukraine only helmets and sleeping bags at the outset of the conflict and is now saying Ukraine needs more missiles and tanks. “The people that said 'never ever' today were the same ones who said 'never ever' planes, 'never ever' long-range missiles, 'never ever' trucks. They said all that two years ago,” Macron recalled. “We have to be humble and realize that we (have) always been six to eight months late.”

Macron implied that, as the war escalates, NATO countries may eventually have to deploy their own forces to Ukraine, and he argued that they should do so sooner rather than later if they want to recover the initiative in the war.

The mere suggestion of Western troops fighting in Ukraine elicited an outcry both within France–from extreme right National Rally to leftist La France Insoumise–and from other NATO countries. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted that participants in the meeting were “unanimous” in their opposition to deploying troops. Russian officials warned that such a step would mean war between Russia and NATO.

But as Poland’s president and prime minister headed to Washington for a White House meeting on February 12, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told the Polish parliament that sending NATO troops into Ukraine “is not unthinkable.”

Macron’s intention may have been precisely to bring this debate out into the open and put an end to the secrecy surrounding the undeclared policy of gradual escalation toward full-scale war with Russia that the West has pursued for two years.

Macron failed to mention publicly that, under current policy, NATO forces are already deeply involved in the war. Among many lies that President Biden told in his State of the Union speech, he insisted that “there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine.”

However, the trove of Pentagon documents leaked in March 2023 included an assessment that there were already at least 97 NATO special forces troops operating in Ukraine, including 50 British, 14 Americans and 15 French. Admiral John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, has also acknowledged a “small U.S. military presence” based in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to try to keep track of thousands of tons of U.S. weapons as they arrive in Ukraine.

But many more U.S. forces, whether inside or outside Ukraine, are involved in planning Ukrainian military operations; providing satellite intelligence; and play essential roles in the targeting of U.S. weapons. A Ukrainian official told the Washington Post that Ukrainian forces hardly ever fire HIMARS rockets without precise targeting data provided by U.S. forces in Europe.

All these U.S. and NATO forces are most definitely “at war in Ukraine.” To be at war in a country with only small numbers of “boots on the ground” has been a hallmark of 21st Century U.S. war-making, as any Navy pilot on an aircraft-carrier or drone operator in Nevada can attest. It is precisely this doctrine of “limited” and proxy war that is at risk of spinning out of control in Ukraine, unleashing the World War III that President Biden has vowed to avoid.

The United States and NATO have tried to keep the escalation of the war under control by deliberate, incremental escalation of the types of weapons they provide and cautious, covert expansion of their own involvement. This has been compared to “boiling a frog,” turning up the heat gradually to avoid any sudden move that might cross a Russian “red line” and trigger a full-scale war between NATO and Russia. But as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned in December 2022, “If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong.”

We have long been puzzled by these glaring contradictions at the heart of U.S. and NATO policy. On one hand, we believe President Biden when he says he does not want to start World War III. On the other hand, that is what his policy of incremental escalation is inexorably leading towards.

U.S. preparations for war with Russia are already at odds with the existential imperative of containing the conflict. In November 2022, the Reed-Inhofe Amendment to the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) invoked wartime emergency powers to authorize an extraordinary shopping-list of weapons like the ones sent to Ukraine, and approved billion-dollar, multi-year no-bid contracts with weapons manufacturers to buy 10 to 20 times the quantities of weapons that the United States had actually shipped to Ukraine.

Retired Marine Colonel Mark Cancian, the former chief of the Force Structure and Investment Division in the Office of Management and Budget, explained, “This isn’t replacing what we’ve given [Ukraine]. It’s building stockpiles for a major ground war [with Russia] in the future.”

So the United States is preparing to fight a major ground war with Russia, but the weapons to fight that war will take years to produce, and, with or without them, that could quickly escalate into a nuclear war. Nuland’s early retirement could be the result of Biden and his foreign policy team finally starting to come to grips with the existential dangers of the aggressive policies she championed.

Meanwhile, Russia’s escalation from its original limited “Special Military Operation” to its current commitment of 7% of its GDP to the war and weapons production has outpaced the West’s escalations, not just in weapons production but in manpower and actual military capability.

One could say that Russia is winning the war, but that depends what its real war goals are. There is a yawning gulf between the rhetoric from Biden and other Western leaders about Russian ambitions to invade other countries in Europe and what Russia was ready to settle for at the talks in Turkey in 2022, when it agreed to withdraw to its pre-war positions in return for a simple commitment to Ukrainian neutrality.

Despite Ukraine’s extremely weak position after its failed 2023 offensive and its costly defense and loss of Avdiivka, Russian forces are not racing toward Kyiv, or even Kharkiv, Odesa or the natural boundary of the Dnipro River.

Reuters bureau in Moscow reported that Russia spent months trying to open new negotiations with the United States in late 2023, but that, in January 2024, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan slammed that door shut with a flat refusal to negotiate over Ukraine.

The only way to find out what Russia really wants, or what it will settle for, is to return to the negotiating table. All sides have demonized each other and staked out maximalist positions, but that is what nations at war do in order to justify the sacrifices they demand of their people and their rejection of diplomatic alternatives.

Serious diplomatic negotiations are now essential to get down to the nitty-gritty of what it will take to bring peace to Ukraine. We are sure there are wiser heads within the U.S., French and other NATO governments who are saying this too, behind closed doors, and that may be precisely why Nuland is out and why Macron is talking so openly about where the current policy is heading.

We fervently hope that is the case, and that Biden’s Plan B will lead back to the negotiating table, and then forward to peace in Ukraine.

Max Blumenthal : (The GrayZone) - Who Runs US Foreign Policy?

Israel broke international law with tank shelling that killed journalist, UN finds

An Israeli tank that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six others in Lebanon last year fired two 120mm rounds at a group of “clearly identifiable journalists” in violation of international law, a UN investigation has found.

The investigation by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), summarized in a report seen by Reuters, said its personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the tank opened fire, killing Issam Abdallah, a 37-year-old video journalist.

“The firing at civilians, in this instance clearly identifiable journalists, constitutes a violation of UNSCR 1701 (2006) and international law,” the Unifil report said, referring to security council resolution 1701. The seven-page report dated 27 February continued: “It is assessed that there was no exchange of fire across the Blue Line at the time of the incident. The reason for the strikes on the journalists is not known.”

Under resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 to bring an end to the war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, UN peacekeepers were deployed to monitor a ceasefire along the 120km (75-mile) demarcation line, or Blue Line, between Israel and Lebanon. As part of their mission, UN troops record violations of the ceasefire and investigate the most egregious cases.

Netanyahu and Gallant declare Israeli ground invasion of Rafah imminent

“Those who think we are delaying [the invasion of Rafah] will soon see that there is no place we cannot reach,” threatened Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on a visit to army officers in the occupied Gaza City on Wednesday. “There is no safe space, not here, not outside Gaza, not across the entire Middle East.” Gallant’s declaration that an invasion of Rafah is imminent confirms Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bellicose response Sunday, when asked about the refugee city housing over a million Palestinians, “We'll go there. We're not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn't happen again. Never happens again…

“We've destroyed three-quarters of Hamas' fighting terrorism battalions. And we're close to finishing the last part in warfare.”

Speaking by video link to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Tuesday, Netanyahu reiterated, “We will finish the job in Rafah.” Making clear that no death toll was too high, he declared, “Israel will win this war no matter what. To win this war, we must destroy the remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah… You cannot say you support Israel's right to exist and to defend itself and then oppose Israel when it exercises that right.”

He told Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Wednesday, in the words of the Times of Israel, “An IDF [Israel Defense Forces] operation in Rafah is necessary to achieve Israel’s war aims against Hamas”.

Gallant and Netanyahu’s comments lay bare the reality hidden behind a veil of “cautions” and “warnings” from Israel’s imperialist patrons. United States President Joe Biden told reporters this weekend that Netanyahu “must pay more attention to the innocent lives being lost,” adding “he’s hurting Israel more than helping Israel.” This sparked the customary speculation in the liberal media about “red lines” from Washington. But US support for the Israeli war machine was never in doubt. National Security advisor Jake Sullivan stated bluntly on Tuesday, “the reports that purport to describe the president’s thinking are uninformed speculation.” Biden’s only professed concern with “smashing into Rafah,” Sullivan continued, is that an entirely fictitious “credible plan to deal with the population there” be drawn up, purely for public consumption.

Israel To Move Civilians to ‘Humanitarian Islands’ Before Invasion

The Israeli military announced that it plans to relocate the 1.5 million Palestinians taking refuge in Rafah to “humanitarian islands.” After Tel Aviv said it was planning to attack Rafah, the White House urged Israel to develop a strategy for evacuating civilians first.

Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the Palestinians would be relocated to other areas of Gaza. “We need to make sure that 1.4 million people or at least a significant amount of the 1.4 million will move. Where? To humanitarian islands that we will create with the international community,” he told reporters. ...

Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked regions deemed “safe zones,” as well as civilians traveling along the paths that were marked as evacuation routes by Israel. ...

The military spokesman did not say when the evacuation or the assault on Rafah would begin.

Ship carrying aid nears Gaza as Cyprus puts second vessel on standby

A ship carrying aid is nearing Gaza about 48 hours after it left Cyprus, with further aid preparations being made aboard a second “much bigger” vessel. It came as the EU foreign policy chief said starvation was being used as a weapon of war.

After the 240-mile voyage, the ship will dock at a jetty being built by the World Central Kitchen (WCK), the organisation that will distribute the aid. The vessel is towing a barge carrying 200 tonnes of food which equates to almost half a million meals.

Cyprus’ foreign minister, Constantinos Kombos, said on Wednesday evening a second “much bigger” vessel was on standby in the port of Larnaca to ship more aid to Gaza. “We already have a commercial ship with much more space,” he said. “It has been here since Saturday … the whole point is to try to offer much-needed assistance to the people who are in this horrible situation.”

Separately, a new land route was used to deliver food to northern Gaza for the first time in three weeks, the UN said. In southern Gaza, an aid warehouse run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees was bombed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which said four people were killed. ...

Hamas said the delivery of aid by sea was inadequate to meet the needs of people who are in desperate need of food, water and medical supplies. “The ship’s cargo does not exceed that of one or two trucks, and it will take days to arrive,” Salama Marouf, the head of the Hamas government media office, said in a statement. “It is still unknown where it will dock and how it will reach the shores of Gaza. Moreover, it will be subject to inspection by the occupying army.”

UN Staffer Among Dozens Killed, Injured by Israeli Attack on Rafah Food Center

At least five people including a United Nations humanitarian worker were killed and more than 20 others wounded Wednesday by an Israeli attack on a Rafah food distribution center serving starving Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), told the BBC that as many as 60 people were working at the warehouse for food and other essential humanitarian supplies when it was bombed by Israeli forces.

"Today's attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement. "Every day, we share the coordinates of all our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict. The Israeli Army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday."

An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said the "precise strike" targeted and killed an alleged Hamas commander, Mohammed Abu Hasna, whose name was on a list of victims provided by Gaza officials.

UNRWA noted that it has recorded "an unprecedented number of violations against its staff and facilities" by Israeli forces "that surpasses any other conflict around the world."

According to the agency:

• At least 165 UNRWA team members have been killed, including while in the line of duty, since October 7;
• More than 150 UNRWA facilities have been attacked by the IDF, with some totally destroyed;
• More than 400 people have been killed while seeking shelter under the U.N. flag;
• Tunnels have reportedly been found under UNRWA facilities and installations used for IDF military activities; and
• UNRWA staff have reportedly been mistreated and humiliated while in Israeli detention centers.

UNRWA says its workers have been beaten and waterboarded by Israeli troops in an attempt to force them to make false confessions about their participation or complicity in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

"The United Nations, its personnel, premises, and assets must be protected at all times," Lazzarini stressed. "Since this war began, attacks against U.N. facilities, convoys, and personnel have become commonplace in blatant disregard to international humanitarian law."

Columbia Anti-Semitism Task Force WON’T Define It, Violence Against Muslim Students UNRESOLVED

25 Groups Demand Biden 'Urgently Comply With US Law' and End Israel Arms Sales

More than two dozen human rights groups on Tuesday implored U.S. President Joe Biden "urgently comply" with domestic law by suspending arms sales to Israel and pressuring its far-right government to end its genocidal policy of blocking aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza.

In a joint letter to Biden, the 25 organizations asserted that his administration's "unconditional arms transfers and other security assistance" to Israel apparently "violate Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act (22 U.S.C. § 2378-1), which prohibits the United States from providing security assistance or arms sales to any country when the president is made aware that the government 'prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.'"

"U.S. weapons, security assistance, and blanket political support have contributed to an unparalleled humanitarian crisis and possible war crimes in Gaza," the groups wrote. "We demand that you urgently comply with U.S. law, end U.S. support for catastrophic human suffering in Gaza, and use your leverage to protect civilians and ensure the impartial provision of humanitarian assistance."

Putin's Tough Warning Macron: Troops Targets, West Not Trusted Talks Dangerous; Ukr Border Disaster

Companies paid top executives more than they paid in US taxes – report

Top bosses at some of America’s largest companies have received more in pay than their companies paid in federal taxes, according to a new report.

Senior executives at 35 different firms – from Tesla to T-Mobile US – received compensation worth more than the net tax payments of their respective employers between 2018 and 2022, the research found. All the companies generated billions of dollars in profit over the same period.

Analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) found the collective net federal income tax bill of all 35 companies was negative $1.72bn over the five-year stretch – meaning they collectively received more money back from the government in refunds than they paid.

Over the same period, executive compensation for senior executives at these firms – including salaries, bonuses, perks, benefits, stock options and stock awards – stood at $9.49bn.

The advocacy groups called on Congress to increase the corporate tax rate, claiming that raising it from 21% to 28% would generate $1.3tn in revenue over a decade. Donald Trump signed a law in 2017 that slashed business taxes.

'Blatant Censorship': Critics Blast US House Vote for TikTok Ban

U.S. progressives on Wednesday decried what they called a xenophobic censorship bill passed by House lawmakers that would ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company doesn't sell its stake in the popular social media app, with critics arguing that Congress should instead pass a comprehensive digital privacy law.

Lawmakers passed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 352-65 vote. The legislation "prohibits distributing, maintaining, or providing internet hosting services for a foreign adversary-controlled application" like TikTok, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese tech company ByteDance.

Fifty House Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against the bill.

"I voted no on the TikTok forced sale bill," Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) said in a statement. "While I have serious data privacy concerns with TikTok, this bill was rapidly rushed to a vote by the Republicans with almost no public scrutiny—and that's a recipe for unintended consequences."

"We need well-vetted, robust protections for TikTok users," Casar added. "Today's bill simply may not work."

A betrayal of the First Amendment and a great gift to authoritarians around the world, who will soon be citing this profoundly misguided bill to justify new restrictions on their own citizens' access to ideas, information, and media from abroad. https://t.co/LPmrYBLDql

— Jameel Jaffer (@JameelJaffer) March 13, 2024

If passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden—who has vowed to approve the legislation—ByteDance will have six months to divest from TikTok or it will be banned from U.S. app stores and web hosts.

Responding to the vote, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin accused the U.S. government of "resorting to hegemonic moves when one could not succeed in fair competition."

Wang added that the move "disrupts the normal operation of businesses, undermines the confidence of international investors in the investment environment, sabotages the normal economic and trade order in the world, and will eventually backfire on the U.S. itself."

Civil liberties and digital rights groups blasted the House vote, with the ACLU accusing lawmakers of "violating the free speech rights of millions of Americans who use the platform daily to communicate and stay informed."

"We have a major TikTok problem. A Gen-Z problem." Leaked audio of ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt freaking out because global youth aren't buying Israel's propaganda anymore. #FreePalestine

THIS is why they're trying to ban Tiktok: pic.twitter.com/5SIdnehDRl

— RootsAction (@Roots_Action) March 13, 2024

The peace group CodePink quipped, "As Israel drops U.S. bombs on civilians daily, they'd rather ban an app than a genocide."

---

---

Young and Women Voters FLEEING Democrats: Uncommitted Voters SPOOKING Biden?

Biden pledges billions to rebuild cities ‘torn apart’ by highways decades ago

Joe Biden hailed the beginning of $3.3bn in infrastructure spending on US projects on Wednesday “to right historic wrongs” with efforts to reconnect city neighborhoods riven by interstate highways that plowed with particular impunity through many Black, brown, Asian American and Hispanic communities decades ago.

The US president was in Milwaukee, where he traveled to announce new infrastructure investment and officially open his election campaign’s Wisconsin office in the vital swing state.

Democratic election campaigns in Wisconsin are typically run from the state capital, Madison, whereas the Biden re-election campaign has picked Milwaukee, the more industrial and diverse city on Lake Michigan, where 40% of residents are Black. The Republicans will hold their convention in Milwaukee in July.

Biden is striving to make an impact on the campaign trail in a number of swing states this week after his fiery State of the Union speech last week. He travels to Michigan on Thursday, part of the “blue wall”, along with Pennsylvania, where Biden was born and has made more campaign trips than any other state.

Donald Trump flipped all three states to win the White House in 2016, but Biden took them back four years ago and almost certainly needs to hold them if he is to secure a second term.

Judge THROWS OUT Fani Willis - Trump Charges

Judge in Georgia election case dismisses six charges against Trump and others

The Georgia judge overseeing the election-interference case against Donald Trump and 14 defendants dismissed six of the charges in the wide-ranging indictment on Wednesday, saying they were not detailed enough.

One of the 41 charges Trump and some of the co-defendants in the case were charged with was soliciting officials in Georgia to violate their oath of office. Those charges were dismissed. The other charges in the case against Trump and other defendants remain. ...

But McAfee said on Wednesday that Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, had not given enough detail in charging documents as to what specific language in the oaths of office defendants were pressuring officials to violate. The August indictment says the defendants sought to get Georgia officials “to violate their oaths to the Georgia constitution and to the United States constitution”.

That language was too vague, McAfee said on Wednesday. “The United States Constitution contains hundreds of clauses, any one of which can be the subject of a lifetime’s study,” he wrote. “The Georgia Constitution is not a ‘mere shadow’ of its federal counterpart, and although some provisions feature similar language, the Georgia Constitution has been interpreted to contain dramatically different meanings.”

“As written, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission, ie, the underlying felony solicited,” McAfee wrote in his opinion. “They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.”

RFK Jr reportedly eyeing Aaron Rodgers and Jesse Ventura as running mates

The New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the former pro wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura are at the top of Robert F Kennedy Jr’s list of potential running mates for his independent presidential campaign, the New York Times reported.

Kennedy told the paper he was speaking to Rodgers – a fellow conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine campaigner – “pretty continuously” and had been in touch with Ventura since being introduced by him at an event in Arizona last month. Rodgers did not immediately comment. Ventura’s son said his father “does not comment on speculation”.

Democrats fear Kennedy, 70 and the son of the assassinated US attorney general and New York senator Robert F Kennedy, could prove a spoiler in Joe Biden’s rematch with Donald Trump.

Polling gives Kennedy a positive favorability rating with voters, a luxury denied to Biden and Trump. A polling average compiled by the Hill shows Trump at 41.6%, Biden at 38.6% and Kennedy at 11.3%. Democrats have worked to keep Kennedy off ballots in key states.

In Kennedy’s search for a running mate, those who have turned him down include Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky; Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii; and Andrew Yang, a tech entrepreneur who failed in runs for the Democratic presidential nomination and for the mayoralty of New York City.

---

---

US energy industry gas leaks are triple the official figures, study finds

US oil and natural gas wells, pipelines and compressors are spewing three times the amount of the potent heat-trapping gas methane as the government has determined, causing $9.3bn in yearly climate damage, a new comprehensive study calculates.

But because more than half of these methane emissions are coming from a tiny number of oil and gas sites, 1% or less, this means the problem is both worse than the government has determined but also fairly fixable, said the lead author of a study in the journal Nature.

The same issue is happening globally. Large methane emissions events around the world detected by satellites grew 50% in 2023 compared with 2022 with more than 5m metric tons spotted in major fossil fuel leaks, the International Energy Agency reported on Wednesday in its Global Methane Tracker 2024 report. World methane emissions rose slightly in 2023 to 120m metric tons, the report said.

“This is really an opportunity to cut emissions quite rapidly with targeted efforts at these highest-emitting sites,” said lead author Evan Sherwin, an energy and policy analyst at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab who wrote the study while at Stanford University. “If we can get this roughly 1% of sites under control, then we’re halfway there because that’s about half of the emissions in most cases.”

Sherwin said the fugitive emissions were produced throughout the oil and gas production and delivery system, starting with gas flaring. That’s when firms release natural gas into the air or burn it instead of capturing it as it is produced during energy extraction. There are also substantial leaks throughout the rest of the system, including tanks, compressors and pipelines, Sherwin said. “It’s actually straightforward to fix,” he said.

---

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

When And Where Will A Great Power War Happen?

The Oscars Speech Smear Campaign

NYT’s Morning Newsletter Blames Everyone but Israel for Israeli Crimes

‘Our families are dying’: outrage as program fails to bring Palestinians to Canada

South Dakota Governor Signs Bill Into Law That Conflates Criticism of Israel With Anti-Semitism

Mehdi Hasan on Genocide in Gaza, the Silencing of Palestinian Voices in U.S. Media & Trump's Fascism

---

A Little Night Music

Omar Sharriff (aka Dave Alexander Elam) - Love Is Just For Fools

Dave Alexander - Blue Tumbleweed

Dave Alexander - The Raven

Dave Alexander - The Hoodoo Man

Dave Alexander - St. James Infirmary

Dave Alexander - The Rattler

Dave Alexander - San Francisco Can Be Such a Lonely Town

Dave Alexander - Sundown

Dave Alexander - Great Balls of Fire

---