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Archive for December 6th, 2012
Should Environmentalists Just Say No to Eating Meat?
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Marc Gunther on December 6th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: Like plastic bags, coal, and SUVs, beef has few friends in the environmental community. Most environmentalists would point to beef -- in particular, beef cattle that spend their final days in confined feedlots -- as being responsible for an array of ills -- the greenhouse gas emissions that the cattle generate; the groundwater pollution from their manure; the use of antibiotics in animal feed; the vast quantities of monoculture corn grown to feed the cattle; and the enormous amount of chemical fertilizers...
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Poor countries demand action at UN climate talks
Posted by Associated Press: Michael Casey on December 6th, 2012
Associated Press: A delegate from typhoon-hit Philippines demanded Thursday that ministers at the United Nations climate talks put aside their political differences and take bold steps to combat global warming.
In an emotional appeal, Naderev Sano spoke of the ''heartbreaking tragedy'' of Typhoon Bopha, which has so far killed more than 350 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless, and urged participants at the U.N. climate conference in the Qatari capital to stop procrastinating on committing to halting...
Will Philippines delegator’s tears change our course on climate change?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 6th, 2012
Guardian: When a senior diplomat at global talks breaks down in public, it is a signal that other countries must pay attention. It happens rarely, but it can have a dramatic effect.
On Thursday, it happened in a full plenary session of the COP18 climate talks at Doha.
Naderev Saño, the lead negotiator of the Philippines delegation, got halfway through his prepared statement and then stopped.
He wanted to relate the tortured negotiations to the tragedy unfolding in his own country when typhoon Bopha...
Farmers are the ones ploughing money into agriculture
Posted by Guardian: José Graziano Da Silva on December 6th, 2012
Guardian: New data compiled for the Food and Agriculture Organisation's State of Food and Agriculture report, published on Thursday, shows that farmers are, by far, the greatest source of investment in agriculture.
Farmers in low- and middle-income countries invest more than $170bn (£105bn) a year in their farms – about $150 (£93) a farmer. This is three times as much as all other sources of investment combined, four times more than the public sector's contribution and more than 50 times the size of official...
Toxic threads: Greenpeace puts fashion pollution on parade – in pictures
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 6th, 2012
Guardian: A new investigation by Greenpeace International has found a wide range of hazardous substances in the effluent of communal wastewater treatment plants in the Binhai and Linjiang industrial zones of Zhejiang province, China, as well as in a nearby river after a pollution accident. Textile manufacturing facilities within these zones supply many different companies, including international clothing brands, but identifying whether individual suppliers are releasing hazardous substances is almost impossible...