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Archive for February 26th, 2015
United Kingdom: Report: tackling food waste should be a priority
Posted by Blue and Green: None Given on February 26th, 2015
Blue and Green: Cutting back food waste could save up to $300 billion (£194bn) each year by 2030 and make a “significant contribution” to climate change mitigation efforts, according to a new report.
The report – Strategies to achieve economic and environmental gains by reducing food waste – is from the UK government’s Waste & Resource Action Programme and the Global Commission on the Economy.
Globally around a third of all food produced ends up as waste, the value of this food is more than $400 billion (£259bn)...
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In Kenya’s Mountain Forests, A New Path to Conservation
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Fred Pearce on February 26th, 2015
Yale Environment 360: Here is a good news story from Africa. A story about how conservationists and forest managers are putting local communities at the heart of efforts to protect forests on critical upland watersheds. In Kenya, local famers are replacing state officials and forest wardens in the battle against a corrupt system intent on ransacking natural resources that once reached all the way to the president’s office.
Can local control work where the state failed? Will the country’s critical “water towers” be...
Quirky Winds Fuel Brazil’s Devastating Drought, Amazon’s Flooding
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 26th, 2015
National Geographic: In São Paulo, Brazil, which is suffering its worst drought in almost a century, Maria de Fátima dos Santos has lived for days at a time with no water, relying on what she had carefully hoarded in bottles. But in the Bolivian Amazon, about 1,800 miles (2,897 kilometers) away, Nicolás Cartagena recalls the day almost a year ago when floodwaters rose to the thatched rooftops of Indian communities, destroying crops and washing away homes. The drought in South America's biggest city and the flooding...
Canada Won’t Take ‘No’ For Answer on Keystone XL
Posted by Forbes: None Given on February 26th, 2015
Forbes: Although Barack Obama issued an immediate veto of legislation from Congress that would have forced approval of the long-debated and highly contentious Keystone XL pipeline, the American president still needs to give the project -- vehemently opposed by his core constituency but favored by the Republican majority in Congress -- a clear thumbs-up or thumbs-down on his own.
That’s a decision that the Obama administration has been weighing for the entirety of its six years, leaving the Canadian company...
Salty lakes across Prairies storing carbon from the atmosphere: Study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 26th, 2015
Canadian Press: New research suggests salty lakes common across the Prairie landscape are having different climate change effects than those with softer water.
The paper, published in the journal Nature, says lakes in northern latitudes with hard, alkaline water are now helping remove carbon from the atmosphere instead of releasing it.
What`s more, climate change itself is exaggerating the effect, said co-author Kerri Finlay of the University of Regina.
"They started off like the soft-water lakes -- they...
Study predicts global warming will see Australian deserts grow bigger
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 26th, 2015
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: A United States climate study says global warming will cause Australian deserts to get bigger and expand to the south.
The study's lead researcher William Lau, of the University of Maryland, said changes in atmospheric circulation was contributing to global dryness, in terms of a reduction of relative humidity in the sub tropics.
Dr Lau said he believed the changes were directly related to prolonged droughts.
"We provide a physical basis for inferring that greenhouse warming is likely to...
Fracking banned for five years by Tasmanian Government
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 26th, 2015
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The Tasmanian Government will ban the controversial mining practice known as fracking for another five years.
Fracking involves injecting liquid at high pressure into underground rocks to extract oil or gas, and the practice has sparked controversy in New South Wales and Queensland.
Tasmanian Primary Industries Minister Jeremy Rockliff, who declared a one-year fracking moratorium in March 2014, considered 155 submissions on the subject.
Mr Rockliff said there was uncertainty around fracking,...
Alberta in Talks on Climate Policy With Eye to Keystone Approval
Posted by Bloomberg: Jeremy van Loon on February 26th, 2015
Bloomberg: Alberta is in talks with other Canadian provinces and U.S. states to cooperate on climate and environmental policies as it seeks to improve the reputation of its oil sands and win approval of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone pipeline. The oil-rich province is in discussions with governments in North America and overseas, as well as institutions, to coordinate policies aimed at lowering carbon emissions, Premier Jim Prentice said in an interview on Wednesday from Edmonton. The government plans to provide...
Bloomberg: Trade Keystone XL for Climate Deal
Posted by National Journal: Jason Plautz on February 26th, 2015
National Journal: Most environmentalists say construction of the Keystone XL pipeline would be "game over" for the climate, but former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says there's an upside--if President Obama can trade it for a climate deal with Canada.
Bloomberg, in his first official statement on the pipeline, wrote an op-ed suggesting that the contentious oil-sands pipeline can be a major chip in talks with Canada. Used correctly, he said, the pipeline can even result in a deal along the lines of the...
Is there a cancer cluster around the Alberta Tar Sands
Posted by Vox: None Given on February 26th, 2015
Vox: In 2006, Canadian doctor John O’Connor made a startling realization. Specialists had diagnosed three of his patients in the northern Alberta village of Fort Chipewyan with cholangiocarcinoma -- a deadly cancer of the bile duct. The same cancer had killed his own father years earlier in Ireland.
Only about one in 100,000 Canadians contracts this type of cancer, so the likelihood of three cases in a town of about 950 was minuscule. O’Connor suspected pollution from Alberta’s tar sands, 100 miles...