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Archive for June 4th, 2015
Senate considers legislation West store & conserve water
Posted by High Country News: None Given on June 4th, 2015
High Country News: Cannon Michael, a 6th generation farmer in California’s Central Valley, this week told U.S. senators about the “disturbing time” he and his family are experiencing because of his state’s multi-year drought. Because of water shortages, they'd already decided not to plant a quarter of their 10,000 acres. Then, just a few days before he testified in a Senate hearing, Michael learned that much of the tomatoes, melons and corn he did plant are in jeopardy too. The deal between state and federal officials...
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El Niño to disrupt rains, cut Africa, E Asia harvests, scientists say
Posted by Reuters: Chris Arsenault on June 4th, 2015
Reuters: Farmers in Africa and East Asia are expected to suffer crop losses as extreme weather linked to the El Nino phenomenon alters rainfall patterns, scientists told a conference on climate change in Bonn on Wednesday. The rainy season has been delayed in several African nations, and it is difficult to predict exactly how large the crop losses will be, said Sonja Vermeulen, a University of Copenhagen scientist. "Peanut farmers in Gambia, for example, have already been hit this year," Vermeulen told...
US researchers uncover secret of Greenland’s vanishing lakes
Posted by Reuters: Richard Valdmanis on June 4th, 2015
Reuters: Scientists were baffled last year after meltwater lakes atop Greenland's ice sheet suddenly drained out at rates rivaling Niagara Falls. Now a team of U.S. researchers says it has figured out the bizarre phenomenon and that could help them forecast global sea-level rise. Vertical shafts in the ice sheet, called moulins, can funnel melt water beneath parts of the glacier and lift them up. This causes cracks beneath the so-called supragalcial lakes that can empty them in days, according to scientists...
Genetically Modified Mosquito Sparks Controversy in Florida
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
Yale Environment 360: When people think of genetically modified organisms, food crops like GM corn and soybeans usually come to mind. But engineering more complex living things is now possible, and the controversy surrounding genetic modification has now spread to the lowly mosquito, which is being genetically engineered to control mosquito-borne illnesses. A U.K.-based company, Oxitec, has altered two genes in the Aedes aegypti mosquito so that when modified males breed with wild females, the offspring inherit a lethal...
Can China’s top-down approach fix its environmental crisis?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
Guardian: China has the largest and one of the most dynamic clean tech sectors in the world. The close to $90bn invested in clean tech last year puts it well ahead of both the EU and the US. For all the recent troubles of companies such as Hanergy, China has some of the world’s largest solar, wind and other green tech companies. As growth slows in western markets, they are increasingly looking for business at home. There is good reason for this too. China burns almost half the coal in the world, and accounts...
Crop adjustments may lessen climate change’s econ effects, economist says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
PhysOrg: If countries and farmers make adjustments in what crops they grow and where, then the effects of climate change on the global economy may not be as severe as feared, a Stanford economist says. Dave Donaldson, an associate professor of economics, wrote in a new policy brief for the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research that because of agriculture's small share in total gross domestic product for nations around the world, the expected impact on global GDP could be considerably smaller if...
Report: building climate resilience essential business survival
Posted by Blue and Green: Charlotte Malone on June 4th, 2015
Blue and Green: A new report argues that businesses need to begin building their climate resilience if they are to survive in the future. The paper explains that $200 billion (£130bn) of investments will be needed each year globally to combat $1 trillion (£650bn) of losses from climate impacts within the next two decades.
The report – Climate change and business survival – has been published by Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute and Mott MacDonald. It explains that investing in improved...
Shell CEO: Industry must tackle climate change
Posted by MarketWatch: Sarah Kent on June 4th, 2015
MarketWatch: Royal Dutch Shell PLC's (RDSA) chief executive on Thursday urged the oil industry and governments to work more closely to tackle the "massive challenge" presented by climate change and growing energy demand. "I believe 20 years from now if we don't act global public opinion will be unforgiving," Ben van Beurden told an OPEC seminar in Vienna. The Anglo-Dutch oil major's head said that the world is undergoing a profound energy transition as demand continues to grow and climate change concerns mount....
Fossil fuel divestment is rational, says former Shell chairman
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
Guardian: The former chairman of Shell has said that investors moving their money out of fossil fuel companies is a rational response to the industry’s “distressing” lack of progress on climate change. Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, who spent almost four decades at Shell and rose to be its chairman, also said the big oil and gas companies had been calling for a price to be put on CO2 emissions for 15 years but had done little to make it happen. His striking remarks are the most supportive of divestment made by any...
UN weighs up climate threat in new development goals
Posted by RTCC: None Given on June 4th, 2015
RTCC: The UN released a rough text of revamped international development goals on Wednesday, inserting tracts on energy and climate for the first time.
‘Sustainable Development Goals’ to take effect next year until 2030 will update the Millennium Development Goals, an anti-poverty push established at the turn of the century.
The list is set to grow from eight to 17 main objectives, as it widens it scope to tackle evolving challenges like climate change.
The “plan of action for people, planet and...