text
stringlengths 194
357k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| url
stringlengths 15
1.89k
| climate_prob
float64 0.5
1
| source
stringclasses 1
value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Huffington Post released an article today that looks at the impact of sewage overflow from Superstorm Sandy in New York and New Jersey. The article points out how storm surge will result in overflow events and how rising sea levels will only exacerbate these events resulting in more severe discharges.
The 11 billion gallons of untreated or partially treated sewage spilled due to storm surge in New York and New Jersey must be seen as a warning for all coastal cities. We must consider this warning as we rebuild Miami-Dade’s sewage system. As sea levels rise storm surges will increase in intensity and frequency. Miami-Dade’s facilities must be built to withstand these storm surges to avoid the kind of spills seen in the northeast.
“Princeton, N.J.-based Climate Central said that future sewage leaks are a major risk because rising sea levels can make coastal flooding more severe…The collective overflows – almost all in New York and New Jersey and due to storm surges – would be enough to cover New York City’s Central Park with a pile of sewage 41 feet high, Climate Central said.”
Read More Here:
Sandy Sewage Report: 11 Billion Gallons Of Untreated or Partially Treated Waste Was Released. www.huffingtonpost.org
On April 9, 2013 Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper, along with 131 other organizations, undersigned a letter to the United States Senate urging them to oppose advancing the Water Resources Development Act of 2013 (S. 601). This letter, put together by the Water Protection Network, points out significant problems in this bill:
“Particularly troubling are the streamlining provisions (Sections 2033 and 2032) which will force agency staff to make uninformed decisions, to rubber stamp unacceptable projects, and prioritize deadline compliance over effective review. They do this by:
Requiring the Corps of Engineers to carry out the shortest review possible; Establishing arbitrary and unreasonably short deadlines for the public and resource agencies to comment;
Establishing arbitrary deadlines for resource agency decisions and recommendations;
Allowing the Corps to elevate multiple technical and substantive disagreements all the way to the President; and
Directing the Corps to impose multiple and ongoing fines on resource agencies that miss deadlines or disagree with the Corps on issues fully within the expertise of the resource agencies.
These provisions also could give the Corps control over reviews that are clearly outside of its jurisdiction, including consultation under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, review under the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, and reviews under laws governing activities in coastal areas and public lands.
Additionally, the bill threatens to exacerbate our nation’s fiscal deficits by rolling back long- established cost-sharing rules and expanding federal responsibilities into areas that have been the financial responsibility of non-federal project sponsors. If enacted as reported, the bill will result in overspending, overcapacity, and substantial and unnecessary damage to the nation’s major estuaries and harbors. Title VIII of the bill would immediately more than double spending on harbor maintenance without assurance of the cost-effectiveness or true need for the dredging. In addition, the Title eliminates the current 50 percent non-federal cost share for maintaining deep draft harbors from 45 to 50 feet of depth, making these costs 100 percent federal responsibility. The provision also makes dredging and maintenance of all approach channels to berths along federal navigation channels and all upland confined disposal of contaminated dredged sediments a 100 percent federal responsibility, rather than the current 100 percent non-federal responsibility. No one has ever even estimated the costs of such an expansion. This would likely cause increases in dredging of contaminated areas that otherwise never would have been contemplated, increasing toxic releases into the nation’s bays and estuaries. We strongly urge rejection of this title as representing a major setback for the nation’s water policy that will be both environmentally-damaging and represents an improper shift of spending and water project responsibility to the taxpayers.”
For more information on the 2013 WRDA see: http://www.waterprotectionnetwork.org/sitepages/downloads/WRDA_2013_NWF_Memo_EPW_Committee_3-18-13_Final.pdf
It is difficult to consider ourselves surrounded by nature in Miami, FL. In the city, on the interstate, or in the supermarket it is easy to think of ourselves removed from the nature of Muir’s Yosemite or Thoreau’s Walden pond. An essay called “Thirteen Ways of Seeing Nature” by Jenny Price, suggests that we reconsider how we think about nature in our city. She writes about nature in L.A., but her message applies to all cities.
Miami is confronted with a decrepit sewage system and the problems that this system is causing for the health of our environment. Our connection to nature is real whether we recognize it or not. We must consider difficult questions like “how are we connected to the nature around us?”, “how do we affect the health of the nature around us?”, and “how do we depend on the nature around us?”. As we move into a future full of challenges like Climate Change these questions are going to become more and more important.
I would encourage everyone to read this article by Jenny Price:
As Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper reflects on a successful clean-up this past week-end, it seems appropriate to consider another clean-up that happened two weeks ago.
On Sunday, March 3rd, Sean Bignami, was jogging on Virginia Key and came across an enormous pile of trash left over from the 9 mile music festival the night before.
Sean spoke with staff who where standing around the festival site who said they could not pick up the trash because the wind was blowing it around. Sean took pictures and videos of the scene with his phone and posted them online along with a request that people join him the next day to help clean up the area.
Four graduate students joined Sean the following morning and picked up enough trash to fill 25 garbage bags!
Sean was unable to get a satisfactory response from the festival supervisor or the Miami parks department regarding accountability for this trash or penalties for the negligence on the part of the festival organizers.
The systems in place that are designed to prevent the festival from leaving piles of trash failed, and it is unclear if the festival will be held accountable. Regardless of this failure, the immediate response from concerned residents must be seen as a message to institutions who ignore the sanctity of our Bay. Biscayne Bay is home to concerned stewards, like Sean Bignami, who will not stand quietly while polluters leave trash on our shores.
Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper wishes to celebrate the stewardship shown in this story. Thank you Sean, and all who came out to help clean up after the 9 mile festival left their trash to be blown into the Bay!
See the article Miami Newtimes blog posted about this story here:
On Sunday, March 17, 2013, Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper and Sierra Club put on a clean-up at Peacock Park in the Grove. Volunteers paddled nearby waters and gathered a huge amount of trash. Thank you to the stewards of Biscayne Bay who volunteered their time to put a dent in the amount of trash in our waters.
Thank you for a successful clean-up!
There is plenty of trash to pick up in Biscayne Bay.
Join Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper and the Sierra Club this Sunday, March 17th, for a paddle clean up at Peacock Park in the Grove (2820 Mcfarland Road, Miami, FL 33133). The clean up will start at 9 am and end at 2 pm. We will launch next to the boardwalk. Please bring your own gloves and trash bags. The Sierra club has a limited number of canoes, so we are encouraging attendees to bring their own kayaks, canoes, or paddle boards. If you do not have a boat, please contact Mark at Sierra Club to reserve a canoe. (contact Mark with any questions: email@example.com/ 305 632 7514)
(Miami, February 28, 2013) - Samples of beach water collected at Dog Beach on Virginia Key did not meet the recreational water quality standard for enterococci. By state regulation, the Florida Department of Health is required to issue an advisory to inform the public in a specific area when this standard is not met.
An advisory for Dog Beach on Virginia Key has been issued because two consecutive samples collected at the beach exceeded the federal and State recommended standard for enterococci (greater than 104 colony forming units per 100ml for a single sample).
Additional beach water samples at the Dog Beach on Virginia Key have been collected and further results are pending.
The advisory issued recommends not swimming at this location at this time. The results of the sampling indicate that water contact may pose an increased risk of illness, particularly for susceptible individuals.
The Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County has been conducting marine beach water quality monitoring at 17 sites, including Dog Beach on Virginia Key, weekly since August 2002, through the Florida Healthy Beaches Program. The sampling sites are selected based on the frequency and intensity of recreational water use and the proximity to pollution sources. The water samples are being analyzed for enteric bacteria enterococci that normally inhabit the intestinal track of humans and animals, and which may cause human disease, infections, or illness. The prevalence of enteric bacteria is an indicator of fecal pollution, which may come from storm water run-off, wildlife, pets and human sewage. The purpose of the Florida Healthy Beaches program is to determine whether Florida has significant beach water quality concerns.
For more information please visit the Florida Healthy Beaches Program Website: http://www.doh.state.fl.us and Select “Beach Water Quality”, from the A-Z Topics List.
We just posted the second edition of the Paddle Out Guide. We are excited to be able to provide you with this updated material. Keep this guide close to your kayak or canoe as an aid in your exploration of our beautiful Biscayne Bay. We have posted the guide below for your convenience, but you can always find the Paddle Out Guide at bbwk.org/paddle-out. Go out and enjoy our Bay!
Thank you Julie for speaking at the Grassroots festival on behalf of BBWK
Thank you to everyone who came out to see Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper (BBWK) speak at the Sustainability Fair this weekend at the Grassroots festival!
Julie Dick, a BBWK representative, spoke about our current projects and initiatives, helping connect the festival to some of the issues that face the Bay that surrounded the event.
BBWK was invited to speak alongside the Center for Biological Diversity, Surfrider Miami, and the United States Green Building Council Florida Chapter. We are honored to have shared the stage with such great organizations.
Thousands of people attended the festival, many of whom camped along the water. We are happy such a festive event took place amidst the beauty of our Bay.
Virginia Key and Key Biscayne are barrier islands which are, by their nature, exposed to the elements.
On February 15, 2013 the Village of Key Biscayne sent Carlos Gimenez, Mayor of Miami, a letter asking Miami-Dade County to take another look at the plans to improve the central wastewater treatment plant located on Virginia Key. Key Biscayne is concerned that the plans do not adequately consider the impacts of climate change, such as increased sea levels and stronger storm surges, and do not include funding for flood mitigation. Considering Virginia Key is a barrier island, and therefor more vulnerable to weather and flooding, makes these oversights in planning for a wastewater treatment plant on this Key particularly alarming.
Key Biscayne supports the County’s immediate plans to address Clean Water Act outflow violations, deteriorated conditions at the Virginia Key facility, and of sewer lines identified as being at risk of rupturing, including the 54 inch under-bay line from Miami Beach to Fisher Island to Virginia Key. At the same time, the Village of Key Biscayne, situated just south of Virginia Key, is relying on the County to protect their natural environment. As long as infrastructure improvement plans do not address these long-term issues the residents of the adjacent island community of Key Biscayne will be understandably concerned for their quality of life. Key Biscayne is already plagued by foul odors from the central wastewater facility and occasional sewage spills.
Community voices like key Biscayne, calling for better sewage infrastructure, are the impetus for Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper’s legal initiatives for this issue. If the County will not address the concerns of local residential and business communities, or the needs of our fragile natural resources, then legal action may be the only way we can ensure that the County properly address these issues.
|
<urn:uuid:2cb3abbd-7305-4de9-8d53-6b9b8e8641a0>
|
http://bbwk.org/
| 0.9721
|
fineweb
|
My family has planned a cruise vacation in February. While I'm excited to visit the Caribbean, I'm unsure about the impact on the environment. How bad is a cruise's carbon footprint?
- Emmy Silverthorne
I wish I had better news but cruises are on the heavy side of the carbon emissions scale. Don't get me wrong, we all deserve vacations to exotic places during our mountain winters. When choosing your vehicle of transportation to paradise, consider your carbon footprint.
Nina Rastogi, from The Green Lantern, determined carbon emissions for a seven-day Carnival cruise from Miami, via the Cayman Islands, Honduras, Belize and Mexico, to Florida (a whopping 1,826.5 miles) is equivalent to a personal emission of 2,137 pounds of CO2 (roughly a ton). A round-trip flight on a jet from Miami to Grand Cayman would emit around 340 pounds of CO2. Big difference!
Rastogi points out that a cruise ship provides more than a seat on an airplane - there's also accommodation and entertainment (which leads to a host of additional waste and environmental impacts). Not to mention the flight or drive to the destination of the cruise. That's two strikes on your carbon footprint. Ouch!
In between ports, cruise ships serve as a floating hotel and party boat. All that partying and all-you-can-eat buffets leads to more waste. Friends of the Earth found that a 3,000-passenger cruise ship (the average) produced about 210,000 gallons of human sewage, eight tons of garbage and more than 130 gallons of toxic waste on a one-week voyage. I know we like to let loose on vacation but can't we be responsible travelers at the same time?
If you remember, only a year ago, the Costa Concordia was grounded off the island of Giglio, along the Tuscan coast. With 2,380 tons of onboard fuel reserves, the damages to the environment and the popular tourist destination could have been catastrophic. As a silver lining, the incident did bring international focus on the operations of cruise lines everywhere. Especially, their impact on our planet.
Internationally, big-ship vacations have increased in popularity with nearly 20 million passengers cruising in 2012. Even though cruises allow people to see a variety of destinations all on one trip, Responsible Vacations found cruises bring limited economic benefit to local communities and small businesses.
The Daily Green reported that a cruise ship generates more air pollution than 12,000 cars in a single day. A frightening statistic when you consider that prior to 2012's new international fuel standards, most cruise lines burned a cheap grade, "dirty" fuel. Critics argue that most cruise lines get away with doing the bare minimum, squeezing through loopholes.
There are cruise lines that have made some environmental strides like the Cunard Line, which has improved the coating on the hull to reduce air emissions. Holland America purchases electricity when stationed at port, as opposed to burning more fuel. The Norwegian Cruise Line offloads used cooking oil in Hawaii for recycling into bio-diesel. At the Port of Miami, the line has donated approximately 1,300 gallons of cooking oil to an organic farmer. The farmer has converted the oil into 870 gallons of bio-diesel to power farming equipment. Celebrity Cruises has installed solar panels to power the ship's elevators and LED lights, saving up to 50 percent on energy demands.
Then there's the whale-size impact of wastewater from the ginormous ships. There are three basic types of wastewater on cruise ships. Bilge water is oily, engine run-off and condensation that collects in the bilge of the ship and is eventually pumped out. Grey water comes from onboard showers and sinks. Last is the dreaded black water, which comes from the toilets and drains of the infirmary.
In addition to sewage, it is estimated that an average cruise ship generates 1 million gallons of gray water and 25,000 gallons of oily bilge water. Most, if not all, cruise lines now employ onboard wastewater purifying systems. However, they must use mechanical, chemical and biological measures to allow the "clean" byproduct to be discharged at sea.
If you do choose a cruise, remember it is not solely the company's responsibility to ensure sustainability. Each of us, whether at home or on vacation, has to do our part to decrease our carbon footprint.
Onboard, be sure to turn off the lights when not in your cabin; don't let your eyes become bigger than your belly while grazing through the massive buffets; and take public transit or walk when at port. Also, the elevators and mechanical doors should be for folks with limited mobility. In addition to saving energy and fuel, using your legs is a great way to avoid the 10-pound souvenir around your waistline. Anchors aweigh!
Ask Eartha Steward is written by the staff at the High Country Conservation Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to waste reduction and resource conservation. Submit questions to Eartha at firstname.lastname@example.org.
|
<urn:uuid:84c4d3bd-d0de-49cd-8ef2-bc2718fb409b>
|
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20130131/NEWS/130139989
| 0.9925
|
fineweb
|
"Republicans Held Disaster Relief Hostage Several Times In 2011"
Tropical Storm Issac continues to bear down on the Gulf Coast on Monday, with the National Hurricane Center predicting that it will become a Category 1 hurricane before it makes landfall. There’s a chance that the storm will hit New Orleans nearly seven years to the day that Hurricane Katrina decimated the city.
Republicans have largely canceled the first day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay, Florida, due to the storm, which swiped southern Florida yesterday. But in 2011, House Republicans displayed far less concern for the victims of natural disasters, attempting to slash funds for disaster preparedness and response, as Slate’s Dave Weigel noted at the time:
According to the House Appropriation Committee’s summary of the bill, the [GOP’s 2011 continuing resolution] funds Operations, Research and Facilities for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association with $454.3 million less than it got in FY2010; this represents a $450.3 million cut from what the president’s never-passed FY2011 budget was requesting. The National Weather Service, of course, is part of NOAA — its funding drops by $126 million. The CR also reduces funding for FEMA management by $24.3 million off of the FY2010 budget, and reduces that appropriation by $783.3 million for FEMA state and local programs.
House Republicans several times that year held disaster relief hostage, demanding that the funding be offset with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. The GOP pulled the same trick when Missouri was hit by a deadly tornado in May, when Virginia was affected by an earthquake, and when Hurricane Irene struck America’s east coast.
Republicans eventually struck a deal with Democrats as part of last August’s Budget Control Act that should make it easier to fund disaster relief. However, the House Republican budget reneged on that agreement, setting the stage for more disaster relief shenanigans when the country can least afford political games.
|
<urn:uuid:fcba416c-75b0-40b3-8485-4a351caf328d>
|
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/27/749511/hurricane-disaster-relief-cuts/?mobile=nc
| 1
|
fineweb
|
I was asked to speak to the Quinte Field Naturalists recently about personal steps towards sustainability. I knew this group had a great many “birders” in it, so I was a bit apprehensive. Birders in my area have been very outspoken against big wind. So let me state three things here first.
- I love wind power. Big, small, local, at my house, in the ocean, in fields, I love wind power. This is my bias.
- Wind turbines kill birds. Not many, but some. How many is what is relevant.
- Big wind turbines take some getting used to. Even though I love the look of big wind turbines, I am the first to admit that when 90 of them went up on Wolfe Island, they changed the look of the landscape. I don’t think it’s in a bad way, but many in my province do.
Ontario is blessed with lots of wind power. Big open areas, especially near large bodies of water, are windy. Ontario includes shoreline on Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. They are great lakes indeed. Not only is it a mind-boggling amount of fresh water, it’s a huge potential clean energy resource because the wind sweeps across these large bodies of water.
Our province enacted “The Green Energy Act” which is one of the most progressive clean power programs in the world. We now have lots of wind turbines and solar panels in service or being planned. The Green Energy Act shifts all the risk for the power generation from the government to individuals and corporations. If you put up a wind turbine, you pay for it, you pay to get the power lines to it, you pay to insure it and all that the province does is commit to purchase the electricity you generate at a fixed price. In a province that is saddled with 10 of billions of dollars worth of debt from our nuclear plants, and 10 of billions of dollars worth of obligations to decommission those plants and dispose of their waste and insure them while they operate, it’s a great deal for taxpayer and ratepayers.
But enough of my proselytizing. People in this province don’t seem to like green energy. Or they claim to be supportive of “wind power” or “hydro power” or “solar power,” just not anywhere near where they live. Europe hasn’t had the kind of push back we have in this province and I don’t understand why it’s so strong here. But the opposition is very vocal.
We hear a lot about wind turbines killing birds. So when I spoke to this group I was expecting pushback on the topic. I decided that I’d better do some research to share with this group.
I found a website for the “Fatal Light Awareness Program” or “FLAP” (http://www.flap.org/) They are a group of birders who are concerned by how many birds get killed by large buildings. Their report states that 14,000 migratory birds die every day in Toronto. There’s photo of just some of the dead birds that they have collected. It’s heart breaking.
Under their “Birds and Buildings” menu they have this “Hierarchy of Threats” chart. It is backed up by this report from the NRC. (Go to http://www.wind-watch.org/docviewer.php and scroll down to find it on the right-hand side NRC_Wind_Report_050307.pdf)
According to this report, collisions with buildings kill 976 million birds a year, high tension wire collisions kill at least 130 million, and on and on. Wind turbines are about .003% of the total. These numbers are likely to grow as the number of turbines increase and wind turbines do kill birds, but apparently much less than other hazards. I’ve never heard anyone in this province suggesting that we take down power lines, buildings, communication towers or that we ban hunting, house cats or vehicles. And yet these obstructions and hazards are a far greater threat to birds than wind turbines.
This website; http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/collisions/index.html, has some American stats.
Another important point is that climate change is wreaking havoc on all creatures, especially birds. We had two weeks of summer last March, then the worst heat and drought on record around here. How can that not have a major impact on such a vulnerable creative? Climate change is a far greater risk to birds and wind turbines represent a solution, albeit not the perfect one. I don’t think many people will deny that any more.
An article from the November 2, 2012 Toronto Star entitled “Birders swoop in for diverted flights” talked about the many birders who went to Fort Erie for the opportunity to see birds that they’ve never seen before. Hurricane Sandy had blown these birds to the Great Lakes. Some birds will die because they need food that is only available in salt water. Ron Rideout, a biologist for Bird Studies Canada, is quoted as saying “The Atlantic birds don’t get back home because they generally don’t fly over land and may become confused. They fly around in circles and die of starvation or exhaustion.”
It is important for wind turbines to be located and built properly to limit their risk to migratory birds as much as possible.
Afterwards I spoke individually to a number of people and everyone seemed to have stories about birds at risk. One person told me about his friend whose job involves going out early in the morning, before commuters have arrived, to clean up the dead birds from the night before around tall office buildings. Another person had spent two weeks at an East Coast bird rockery this past summer. He noticed that many of the newly hatched chicks died. He mentioned his observation to a government research scientist and the scientist had observed this as well. The scientist suggested that the warming of the ocean water was causing fish to move further offshore which made it difficult for the parents to find food to feed their young.
I believe those opposed to wind turbines and those in favor of wind turbines share the same desire for a stable climate that birds (and all life on the planet) can thrive in. I sit at my computer and watch birds successfully dodge the guy wires of my wind tower every day. I have never, ever, seen a bird make contact with one of them or a blade on the turbine. I have never found a dead bird or bat at the base of my wind turbine.
As I sit at my computer I often hear the “thud” of a bird that has hit one of my windows. Most of the time they fly off but about once a month I find a dead bird below a window that wasn’t so lucky. My window killed it. And don’t get me started on “Lizzie the Terminator Cat.”
If I was a bird and my option was extinction because of lack of food or other climate-related fate like getting blown hundreds of miles from home in a super storm, versus having to navigate the blades of a wind turbine, I’d take my odds with the turbine every time.
Photo courtesy of Kenneth Herdy/FLAP
For more information about Cam Mather or his books, please visit www.cammather.com or www.aztext.com
|
<urn:uuid:60c797ae-7f3e-4fe4-ae92-1727e125e1a9>
|
http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/wind-turbines-bird-kills.aspx
| 0.9822
|
fineweb
|
We determined the temporal dynamics of cambial activity and xylem cell differentiation of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) within a dry inner Alpine valley (750 m asl, Tyrol, Austria), where radial growth is strongly limited by drought in spring. Repeated micro-sampling of the developing tree ring of mature trees was carried out during 2 contrasting years at two study plots that differ in soil water availability (xeric and dry-mesic site).
In 2007, when air temperature at the beginning of the growing season in April exceeded the long-term mean by 6.4 °C, cambial cell division started in early April at both study plots. A delayed onset of cambial activity of c. 2 wk was found in 2008, when average climate conditions prevailed in spring, indicating that resumption of cambial cell division after winter dormancy is temperature-controlled. Cambial cell division consistently ended about the end of June/early July in both study years. Radial enlargement of tracheids started almost 3 wk earlier in 2007 compared with 2008 at both study plots. At the xeric site, the maximum rate of tracheid production in 2007 and 2008 was reached in early and mid-May, respectively, and c. 2 wk later, at the dry-mesic site. Since in both study years, more favorable growing conditions (i.e., an increase in soil water content) were recorded during summer, we suggest a strong sink competition for carbohydrates to mycorrhizal root and shoot growth. Wood formation stopped c. 4 wk earlier at the xeric compared with the dry-mesic site in both years, indicating a strong influence of drought stress on cell differentiation. This is supported by radial widths of earlywood cells, which were found to be significantly narrower at the xeric than at the dry-mesic site (P < 0.05).
Repeated cellular analyses during the two growing seasons revealed that, although spatial variability in the dynamics and duration of cell differentiation processes in Pinus sylvestris exposed to drought is strongly influenced by water availability, the onset of cambial activity and cell differentiation is controlled by temperature.
|
<urn:uuid:929a3bd5-5987-4fe8-874c-c16e03349b9f>
|
http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/solr/reg?term=author%3A(%22Oberhuber%2C+Walter%22)&filterQuery=author_s%3AVEIT%2C%5C+BARBARA&sortby=score+desc
| 0.9934
|
fineweb
|
North American Governments Agree to Protect Wilderness
The United States, Canada, and Mexico agreed this week to work together to protect wilderness areas across North America.
The cooperation agreement establishes an intergovernmental committee to exchange research and approaches that address challenges such as climate change, fire control, and invasive species in land, marine, and coastal protected areas throughout the continent.
"This agreement will allow for the exchange of successful experiences, monitoring, and training of human resources, as well as the financing of projects that will protect and recover wild areas," said Mexican President Felipe Calderón at the opening ceremony of the Ninth World Wilderness Congress in Mérida, Mexico.
The three nations have long cooperated on wilderness management - programs have straddle the U.S.-Canadian border since 1910 and the U.S.-Mexican border since the 1930s. Yet the memorandum of understanding is the first multinational agreement on wilderness protection, according to Vance Martin, president of the Wild Foundation.
Article continues: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6316
|
<urn:uuid:afd9b0c7-34ee-48cf-883c-0f2614e4c3c7>
|
http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/40691/print
| 0.9999
|
fineweb
|
Student Green Energy Fund Proposals Due
The Student Green Energy Fund (SGEF) was established to help USF become an environmentally sustainable campus but we can’t accomplish this without YOU!
Submit your proposal for projects that will use renewable energy technologies or improve energy efficiencies that directly lower the university’s energy costs. Current students and/or employees can submit a proposal and we encourage collaboration among departments.
The SGEF is administered through the Patel School of Global Sustainability at USF.
For more information visit www.usf.edu/GreenEnergy
|
<urn:uuid:3815b483-b705-423f-ab9d-41a41598db29>
|
http://news.usf.edu/article/templates/?a=4735&z=187
| 0.9996
|
fineweb
|
Plans released in November show commitment to transitioning from coal to clean energy to address air pollution and climate emissions
This is part one of a two-part blog covering China’s new 13th Five Year Sub-plans on Climate, Environment and Power, written with Noah Lerner, Princeton-in-Asia Fellow in NRDC's Beijing office
With uncertainty hanging over the U.S.’s future climate contributions under the Trump Administration, three new Thirteenth Five Year sub-plans released recently by the Chinese government on controlling greenhouse gas emissions, environmental protection and development of the power sector provide assurance that China will continue to deepen its environmental and climate actions regardless of any change in U.S. policies. These sub-plans add concrete measures and targets to the climate goals outlined in China’s overall 13th Five Year Plan for Economic and Social Development released last spring. (See our previous analysis on that plan). The Greenhouse Gas Control and Environmental Protection plans reinforce what is happening on-the-ground in China as the country is likely to achieve its third year in a row of reducing coal consumption, contributing to a reduction of its carbon dioxide emissions by about 0.7% last year.
China’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Control Work Plan and Power Sector Development 13th Five Year Plans (FYPs) came out just as countries convened in November for the COP22 climate negotiations in Marrakesh, Morocco, while its Ecological and Environmental Protection 13th FYP (hereafter referred to as the Environmental Protection 13th FYP) was released later in the month. Covering a comprehensive set of policies, these documents lay out benchmark goals for 2020 that will put China on track to over-achieve its 2030 Paris goals, strengthen enforcement of environmental laws and standards, and continue its transition to low carbon energy. While challenges remain, including addressing the remaining pipeline of planned coal power plants that risk becoming stranded assets under China’s low carbon transition, the policies set a clear direction for continued action that will help reduce China’s and global greenhouse gas emissions, and improve environmental quality and public health in China. In this blog post, we discuss the significance of the GHG control and Environmental 13th Five Year Plans. The climate implications of the Power Sector plan will be covered in a second blog post.
China’s Roadmap for Controlling Greenhouse Gas Emissions During the Next Five Years: Strengthening control of CO2 emissions and coal consumption
The State Council released its 13th Five Year work plan to control GHG emissions (Chinese) in early November just before the Marrakech COP, reaffirming China’s commitment to do its part in combatting global climate change. The plan begins by reiterating a key climate goal: China will peak its CO2 emissions by 2030 and make its best efforts to peak earlier. To do this, the work plan sets out a range of targets and policies related to controlling and reducing CO2 emissions, including reiterating goals to reduce China’s carbon intensity (CO2 emissions per unit of GDP) by 18% by 2020 compared to 2015, reduce energy intensity by 15%, increase non-fossil energy to 15% of the energy mix (from 12 percent at the end of 2015), and increase forest stock volume and coverage to 16.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) and 23.04 percent, from 15.14 bcm and 21.66 percent as of 2015.
The GHG Control work plan also reiterates a total energy consumption cap target of 5.0 billion tons of coal equivalent and a coal consumption cap target of 4.2 billion tons for 2020. This 4.2 billion coal consumption cap target was included in the 2014-20 Energy Development Strategy Action Plan, but this is the first time that a 13th Five Year Plan has included the target. Both the GHG Control work plan and the Environmental Protection 13th Five Year Plan include strengthened policies on controlling coal consumption, given the importance of this task to controlling China’s GHG emissions and its PM 2.5 and other air pollution. The GHG Control work plan notes that severe air pollution regions and cities should continue to reduce their coal consumption after 2017, the final year of the 2013 Air Pollution Action Plan that established the original coal consumption reduction mandates for the Jing-Jin-Ji (Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei), Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu) and Pearl River Delta regions.
Recognizing that reducing coal consumption is key to improving air quality, the Environmental Protection 13th FYP (Chinese) adds a goal to reduce coal’s share of total energy consumption to 58 percent by 2020, compared to 64 percent in 2015. It also establishes specific coal consumption reduction targets for key air pollution regions: Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Henan and the Pearl River Delta are to reduce their coal consumption by about 10 percent by 2020, compared to 2015; while Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui are to reduce their coal consumption by about 5 percent. Given the significant coal consumption in these regions, this will result in a reduction in coal consumption of about 140 million tons by 2020 if the regions all fulfill their targets. This would be equivalent to eliminating the annual coal consumption of South Korea, thus demonstrating the Chinese authorities’ continued focus on transitioning China’s energy structure from coal to cleaner energy.
Also under focus is reducing coal consumption in China’s cities, requiring all prefecture-level cities that do not meet China’s air quality standards to achieve an 18% reduction in their average annual PM 2.5 levels by 2020. The Environmental Protection 13th FYP specifically calls on China’s 10 cities with the worst air quality, to continue to implement their plans to reduce coal consumption. The use of “dispersed coal,” i.e., the coal for residential heating and cooking and small-scale industrial boilers, mainly in rural areas, also comes under aim, given its disproportionate contribution to air pollution. In Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, for example, studies have found that cleaning up dispersed coal emissions could reduce PM 2.5 levels by up to 32%. The GHG Control work plan and Environmental Protection plan set targets to reduce dispersed coal use by replacing it with natural gas and electric heating, expanding district heating and green buildings, and upgrading and phasing out smaller inefficient boilers. Urban areas with district heating and natural gas networks are to ban the use of dispersed coal.
Given that China’s coal consumption was 3.96 billion tons in 2013 and has continued to fall in 2014, 2015 and this year, we believe the 4.2 billion ton and 58% coal consumption cap targets can be achieved and even improved upon. The China coal consumption cap project’s research for the 13th Five Year Plan coal cap policy recommends a 2020 coal cap target of 3.5 billion tons and 55 percent of total energy consumption, achievable by reducing excess industrial capacity, expanding energy efficiency and non-fossil energy, and implementing fiscal, tax and market measures to account for coal’s environmental and climate impacts. Strengthening implementation of national, sectoral and local coal cap targets to reduce coal consumption to 3.5 billion tons (compared to the study’s reference scenario of 3.9 billion tons) would reduce PM 2.5 emissions by 1 million tons and prevent 71,000 premature air-pollution-related deaths per year, while helping China contribute greatly to addressing global climate change by avoiding 850 million tons of CO2 emissions.
The GHG Control work plan includes several other key measures to address coal consumption and develop low carbon models, as well as address other non-CO2 GHG emissions:
- Large power generation companies must achieve a fleet-wide average of 550 grams of CO2 emissions per kWh by 2020, which requires that they continue to expand their low-carbon generation resources such as wind and solar while limiting the operation of their coal power plants. This strengthens the 2015 target of 650 grams of CO2 emissions per kWh. According to the 13th Five Year Plan for Electricity Development, Chinese coal power plants in 2015 consumed an average 318 grams of coal equivalent per kWh, emitting 890 grams of CO2 per kWh, while a wind or solar farm emits zero. Based on 2016 electricity generation data, the Chinese electricity system as a whole in 2016 emitted about 620 grams of CO2 per kWh. While the 550 grams of CO2 per kWh is a significant target, there is a need for greater transparency, including a regular scorecard on how power generators are doing in meeting this target.
- The work plan directs economically developed regions to peak earlier than the national 2030 target, including supporting efforts by the 23 Chinese member cities of the Alliance of Peaking Pioneer Cities (APPC) to set targets and develop plans to peak early. It also sets specific carbon intensity reduction targets of 12-20.5% for each province, and calls for establishing 50 pilot “near-zero emission zones,” expanding the current low-carbon cities program from 42 to 100 cities, and establishing 80 low-carbon industrial zones. It also calls on certain heavy industry sectors to peak their CO2 emissions by around 2020.
- Finally, the plan notes that China will establish a national carbon market next year, which will cover all enterprises that emit over 10,000 tons of coal equivalent in eight major industries. By pricing carbon, China is seeking to expand the role of market forces in developing, manufacturing and operating low carbon energy sources, technologies and practices. The work plan calls for strengthening monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) at the national, local and enterprise levels, and developing a complete carbon cap-and-trade system by 2020 with active trading, strict management, and transparency.
- Importantly, China’s GHG Control work plan is looking beyond CO2 to strengthen policies to control other GHG emissions, including methane and HFCs. This includes reducing methane emissions in the agricultural sector and in municipal waste and sewage treatment. In line with the recent Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the State Council’s GHG Control work plan also calls for developing an action plan to control the emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), man-made “super greenhouse gases” used as refrigerants and other applications. The plan also sets new targets for controlling emissions of one type of HFC, HFC-23, a greenhouse gas with 14,800 times the warming effect of CO2, requiring that all HFC-23 emissions basically be destroyed according to the standard, and reducing HCFC-22 production and consumption (HFC-23 is a by-product of HCFC-22) so that production in 2020 is 35% less than that in 2010.
With the GHG Control and Environmental Protection 13th Five Year Plans, China is showing its commitment to deepening policies to reduce coal consumption, develop low carbon technologies and policies, and pursue a path towards cleaner development. Key to this energy transition will be greening the electricity sector. In our next blog, we review the 13th Five Year Plan for power sector development and the challenges and policies needed to develop a low-carbon power sector.
|
<urn:uuid:5994fbb3-a67e-478d-8154-2495aa1b5339>
|
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/alvin-lin/chinas-new-plans-deepen-action-climate-change
| 1
|
fineweb
|
Nearly a decade ago, California policymakers, facing a frightening future of shriveling snow packs and rising seas, created the nation’s most aggressive program to combat global warming.
The 2006 law mandated broad reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Now, as the deadline approaches, Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic lawmakers are intensifying their efforts. They are crafting emissions-reduction targets for 2030 and 2050 that will be far more difficult to meet. One bill seeks to slash petroleum use in vehicles to levels not seen since Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.
Yet as the debate continues, a number of questions remain unanswered. Among them: Will other states or nations follow California in pursuing deep emissions cuts? Will California be able to meet the new targets, and if so, how? What are the total costs and benefits of the programs? How much will the price of gasoline and electricity increase?
Here’s some of what we do know:
- The state has emerged as a global leader in fighting climate change, despite producing only about one percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. It has created a dizzying array of programs to cut pollution, from reducing the carbon content of motor fuels to capping emissions at large factories.
- The 2006 law, Assembly Bill 32, established a goal of cutting the state’s greenhouse gas emission to 1990 levels by 2020. To meet that goal, emissions need to fall by six percent between 2013 (the latest year for which figures are available) and 2020. Brown and other political leaders expect that to happen. However, emissions have fallen only slightly since 2009, when the recession ended.
- An executive order issued by Brown this spring would reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. That will be much harder to achieve. Over the 10 years leading up to Brown’s deadline, emissions must fall up to seven times as fast as during the preceding decade. And emissions would have to fall another 40 percentage points by 2050 if a bill currently before the Assembly passes.
- Cutting emissions brings costs. To date, consumers in the state have seen an estimated three to five percent rise in electricity rates, and are paying about an extra dime per gallon of gasoline, due to specific climate-related programs. Going forward, a study by a San Francisco consulting group found that deep emissions cuts by 2030 could carry costs of up to $23 billion yearly. That figure could go higher by 2050, according to the group, which did not tally the health benefits of cleaner air or the climate benefits of lower emissions.
- Despite the pioneering policies, emissions have fallen more slowly in the state than in the rest of the nation. Greenhouse gas emissions in California dropped by 7 percent from their peak in 2004 to 2013, compared to 9 percent nationwide over the same period. Reducing emissions is harder here because the state’s economy is already relatively energy-frugal.
When AB 32 passed, establishing the nation’s first broad plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, environmentalists hoped the action would touch off a revolution. The target established by the law was ambitious, especially considering the continuing population and economic growth. It built on an earlier groundbreaking bill to reduce the greenhouse gases in car exhaust.
“We realized under AB 32 and the car bill, we’re not just talking about polar bears and arctic ice caps but this was real impacts to California,” said Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, an author of both bills. Melting mountain snows, rising seas, and poor health resulting from warmer temperatures — all resonated with Californians, she said.
At a signing ceremony for AB 32 on San Francisco’s Treasure Island, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger predicted that major nations like Mexico, Brazil, China and India would join the fight against climate change. So would the federal government.
“Trust me,” Schwarzenegger said to applause, as international flags fluttered behind him in the breeze. “I am convinced of that, that this will happen, because nothing is more important than protecting our planet.”
Change did not come as swiftly as Pavley and Schwarzenegger had hoped. Democrats and some Republicans in Congress tried to pass a bill that would cap greenhouse gas emissions nationally, but it failed. Pavley’s effort to clean up cars’ tailpipes did eventually become the basis of a national policy. But federal rules on climate change still lack the breadth of California’s. Nations like China and Brazil have also moved slowly, at least until recently.
But the state has forged ahead, still hoping to sow inspiration beyond its borders. To stop climate change, the whole world — not just California — must participate. As Brown travels to the Vatican this week and to a major United Nations climate change summit in Paris in December, he will surely argue that if one of the world’s largest economies can slash emissions, others can too.
A kaleidoscope of programs has arisen to accelerate California’s shift to a clean economy. The broadest and perhaps most controversial of these is a cap-and-trade policy, which subjects the state’s most-polluting companies to a cap on their greenhouse gas emissions and allows them to trade credits to pollute. The California Chamber of Commerce has challenged the legality of a key feature of the program. The state has prevailed so far, but the lawsuit is working its way through an appeal.
Other policies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions include a requirement for most electricity providers to get 33 percent of their energy from renewable source, such as wind farms and solar arrays by 2020, and a low-carbon fuel standard that requires producers of fuels like gasoline and diesel to make their products 10 percent less carbon-intensive by 2020.
Many other programs also exist, including goals making buildings more energy efficient, increasing the number of electric vehicles and maximizing the use of public transportation.
These rules, arcane and complex, remain largely invisible to Californians. But they result in slightly increased prices, notably at the gas pump, where economists say the cap-and-trade program has added roughly a dime to each gallon since the beginning of this year. Electric bills are also rising. The state’s Public Utilities Commission estimates that electric power rates have increased by three to five percent due to the renewable energy requirements.
“I wish we could mark on a nice spreadsheet the incremental cost for every regulation,” said Tupper Hull, vice-president of the Western States Petroleum Association.
It is difficult to find companies that have left the state specifically because of climate policies, as opposed to California’s broad basket of regulations. But industry groups and their advocates predict this will happen in the future, as policies grow stricter.
“Energy cost in the state will necessarily rise, and that will create challenges for retaining employment,” said Robert Wyman, Jr., a Los Angeles-based partner at the firm Latham & Watkins, who represents many business clients. He argues that California’s system of interlocking policies has made compliance more expensive than it would be under a single, market-oriented system, like cap-and-trade.
California officials do not know how much their climate rules have cost or saved. The Air Resources Board, the state regulatory body that oversees the greenhouse gas reductions, stated in a key document last year that the law’s impact on economic growth remains unknown. Some years earlier, a knot of studies estimated that California’s gross state product could see anywhere from a 1 percent gain to a 2.2 percent decline as a result of AB 32. The models differed in their assumptions, such as how they forecast the pace of technological change.
Proponents of AB 32 say that in addition to cleaning the air, the law has contributed to a vibrant clean-energy industry that is innovating with startling speed. A survey released in December by the Advanced Energy Economy Institute, an environmental organization co-founded by the billionaire and clean-energy activist Tom Steyer, found that employment in the state’s clean-energy sectors like solar and wind, along with nuclear and natural gas electricity generation, rose by five percent over the prior year. Another recent study, funded by the environmental innovation nonprofit Next 10, argues that using less gasoline (as electric and hybrid cars make possible) should free up spending and create jobs.
Mary Nichols, chair of the Air Resources Board, noted in an interview that jobs and investment are increasing in California. “We look at that happening at the same time that the cap and trade program has been in effect and we say, “‘What’s the problem?’” she said.
The long-term future of California’s greenhouse gas programs lies in two bills that have passed the state Senate and are being evaluated this summer by the Assembly.
Senate Bill 350 aims at three pieces of the energy puzzle — petroleum, electricity and buildings. It seeks to cut petroleum use in motor vehicles by 50 percent (a very difficult target, analysts agree), boost electric utilities’ reliance on renewable energy to 50 percent, and double the energy efficiency in buildings – all by the year 2030.
Senate Bill 32 would require the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by mid-century. It would codify into law an executive order issued by Schwarzenegger, a step that helps ensure that the goal is binding. The long-term targets are drawn from international climate science: If large nations cut their emissions that sharply, scientists believe it can limit the world’s warming.
What programs California will use to meet these tougher targets remains uncertain, though Democratic political leaders stress that they will bring more green jobs to the state and reduce unhealthy air pollution.
“Unless we do something, our economy will be severely damaged,” said state Senate leader Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, who co-authored SB 350. “The public health of our children will be severely impaired.”
An illuminating view came from a study this spring by Energy and Environmental Economics (E3), a San Francisco-based consulting group hired by the state to evaluate future greenhouse gas reductions. To reduce emissions by 26 to 38 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 — a level not quite as ambitious as the 40 percent reduction recently ordered by Brown — the group forecast a range of results, from savings of $8 billion to costs of $23 billion per year. (E3’s projections are in 2012 dollars.) A cut of 33 percent by 2030 could cost about $50 per Californian per year, the study found.
To meet those future goals, the model incorporated some technologies only minimally in use today, such as increased reliance on renewable diesel, according to Amber Mahone, director of climate policy analysis at E3. It also assumed that new or expanded regulations would be needed. For example, the analysis factored in more capture of the potent greenhouse gas methane from manure at California’s dairy farms, a sector that, for now, largely falls outside mandatory regulations.
The impact of reaching the tougher targets of slashing greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels, the E3 study found, could range from a savings of around $15 billion to costs of almost $100 billion yearly, under a scenario in which emissions fall at a steady rate. This projection is highly uncertain, Mahone emphasized.
On the human level, modeling by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, an analysis firm, found that the cap-and-trade program could raise gasoline prices by 22 cents a gallon by 2025, though there is an outside chance of prices increasing by as much as 50 cents a gallon, according to Colleen Regan, a senior analyst with the firm for North American power and environmental markets. However, Californians should need less gas as cars become more fuel-efficient or electric.
Many of these numbers are hazy predictions. What is clear is that meeting long-term targets will be difficult.
In the words of a state plan on climate change released last year, “Progressing toward California’s long-term climate goals will require that greenhouse gas reduction rates be significantly accelerated.”
Not only must the emissions reductions come faster in the future, but the reductions may also be harder. That is evident already. California has not been able to bring down its greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as the nation in recent years, as a comparison between state and federal inventories shows. Indeed, the data hint at difficulties ahead. Gasoline sales are ticking up. Emissions have been largely flat since falling steeply in 2008-9 as the recession hit, though state officials and outside analysts expect that future reductions, brought about by programs just starting to have an impact, will be sufficient to meet or exceed the 2020 goals.
“On greenhouse gas emissions, California has always been an A student,” said Ashley Lawson, a senior carbon analyst at Thomson Reuters. “So to perform any better, you have to work really, really hard to go from an A to an A plus.” The rest of the country, which is replacing coal-fired power plants with less-polluting natural gas plants, “was able to go from a C to a B, with almost no effort at all,” she said.
Critics like the Chamber of Commerce say that the drastic emissions measures planned for the future could harm the economy and take away jobs. Supporters counter that past sky-is-falling projections have not come to pass, and that technological innovation is speeding up.
When Schwarzenegger signed AB 32, above the howls of industry groups, electric cars had barely begun to hit the roadways, and a rooftop’s worth of solar panels cost more than a year at a private college. Prices have fallen rapidly since then, and California is getting cleaner.
The question for the future is whether it can get clean enough.
|
<urn:uuid:0dbdd418-d6d1-4cbc-8a6b-33df947289e8>
|
https://calmatters.org/articles/california-climate-change-policy-overview/
| 1
|
fineweb
|
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sketchbot Prototype Sculpt, COMPLETED!
*whew* What a weekend. In the midst of a 5-day heat wave here in NYC, not ideal conditions for spray painting up on the roof. Spraying out the window with fans on high, then letting the pieces dry in the air conditioned interior. (This stuff won't cure in high humidity) There was simply no way I was going to be able to hand paint the eye and logo to my satisfaction, so I came up with the idea to print out to scale on inkjet sticker labels. The diameter of my button hole punch matched perfectly with the pupil of the eye. I ended up cutting out by hand the circle of the logo and the "SB" designation for the pencil. I still have to finish painting the second sculpt, but here's what I'm bringing out to San Diego! I'm currently trying to locate some display space - if anyone has a small amount available in their booth, drop me a line.
A few additional views up on Flickr.
|
<urn:uuid:2efb27d0-73e5-4aeb-a88f-3631d3d21020>
|
http://sketchbot.blogspot.com/2008/07/sketchbot-prototype-sculpt-completed.html
| 0.9997
|
fineweb
|
Standards for Selling Carbon Offsets
MCDI is preparing its REDD project to meet the highest of certification standards for both a potential regulated carbon market (adopted under the UNFCCC process) and for the existing voluntary carbon market. The global community has spent years trying to iron out the details of a REDD+ mechanism under the UNFCCC, but negotiations have yet to result in a fully operational mechanism in place (and some believe an agreement won’t be reached until 2020). Therefore, the only REDD credits being sold and traded today are being done through the voluntary carbon market, which has a number of different voluntary offset standards to choose from.
MCDI is pursuing validation from the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standard (CCB Standard), two leading standards which are commonly used in concert to verify combined carbon offsets and co-benefits (social and environmental). We will ensure that the project is successfully audited to comply with these leading standards.
About the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS)
The Verified Carbon Standard is the most widely used standard on the voluntary market today and is closely aligned with the draft UNFCCC requirements and IPCC guidelines. VCS certifies the greenhouse gas reduction of a carbon project. Upon third-party verification, VCS issues Voluntary Carbon Units (VCUs), which represents emission reductions of one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (C02e). VCS has a carbon registry where carbon credits can be bought, sold and retired.
Projects must follow approved methodologies to prove that emission reductions are real. In addition, VCS requires that all VCUs represent GHG emission reductions or removals that are real, measurable, additional, permanent, independently verified, conservatively estimated, uniquely numbered and transparently listed.
Developing a Methodology for VCS Validation
The VCS accepts any methodology that has been approved under the United Nation’s Clean Development Mechanism. It also has a host of already approved VCS methodologies that project developers can use to quantify their project’s emissions reductions. However, for some projects, such as is the case with MCDI, there is no appropriate methodology that currently exists, and VCS allows project developers to develop their own methodology, which then needs to be assessed and validated by VCS through their methodology approval process.
MCDI is taking a unique approach to emissions reductions by focusing on generating carbon offsets by reducing fire intensity and frequency in the VLFRs where we work. We’ve adopted this approach after assessing the various drivers of deforestation in the region and identified fire as having the most significant impact on deforestation rates. So far there are no other existing REDD+ projects that focus on fire management in dry forests. Consequently, we are required to develop an innovative methodology and management practices to allow us to proceed with this approach (see assessing carbon stocks to learn more).
Therefore, working with our partners, MCDI is currently developing a new VCS methodology that will be suitable for the forest type and drivers of deforestation that apply to our project area. We seek to make our methodology as applicable as possible so that it can be widely used by anyone wishing to fund fire management in such ecosystems via the carbon market. We have partnered with an expert on the VCS methodology development process who will assist us in finalizing the methodology and seek approval and validation through VCS. If our methodology is approved it could open up a whole new frontier in REDD+ opportunities given that miombo woodlands stretch across some 2.8 million km2 of southern Africa, one of the largest expanses of fire-affected dryland forests in the world.
About the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standard
The CCB Standard is a project design standard that provides guidance and a host of regulatory steps for projects to demonstrate the multiple benefits of their land-based carbon projects. CCB Standard does not issue or register carbon credits, but instead validates a project’s socio-economic and environmental co-benefits on top of its ability to deliver robust and credible greenhouse gas reductions. The achievement of CCB Standard is typically used in conjunction with another standard (most commonly VCS) to certify a project’s carbon credits.
Both FSC and the CCB standards require biodiversity to be monitored in certified forests.
Working with our partner, Ecological Initiatives / Carbon Tanzania, MCDI has identified an appropriate biodiversity monitoring strategy that is designed, so far as it is possible, to track biodiversity responses to early burning and improved fire management. Over time we expect improved fire management practices will lead to a slow habitat shift towards thicker forest, with some wooded savannah transforming into woodland, and some woodland becoming forest. The biomass increases this will represent will be what the project sells in terms of carbon offsets.
MCDI’s community-based biodiversity monitoring method focuses on three selected indicator bird species, as well as opportunistic recording of large mammals, with data collected by community patrol teams in the REDD project villages. In addition, we intend to add a second strand of expert-led monitoring looking at relative species abundance in birds. As well as looking at broad scale shifts in the commonest birds, we will also use this to look for changes in ground-nesting birds which, we hypothesise, will be the most likely to be impacted by changes to the fire regime amongst those taxonomic groups which are relatively easy to monitor.
|
<urn:uuid:38d9bc66-ab5f-4e90-ae10-4195e1cf46b0>
|
http://www.mpingoconservation.org/what-we-do/redd/mcdis-redd-project/standards-for-selling-carbon-offsets/?L=912
| 0.9997
|
fineweb
|
There doesn’t seem to be any way to escape climate change, short of burying your head in the sand. Scientists have proven humans have impacted the planet so much that continuing to do so risks the world becoming an unsustainable living environment. There are already floods and fires breaking out more often, and the adverse weather is set to continue. A doomsday vault in Norway has been preparing for the fall of humanity, but now even that could be ruined thanks to climate change.
Preparing For The End
On an island in Norway is a bunker that people are hoping never has to be needed. Inside there are seeds of thousands of different plants and foods to help the world recover from any serious problems in the future. Called the Global Seed Vault, there are critical storage conditions to make sure the contents of the safehouse remain useable.
There is minimal oxygen pumped into the vault to slow down the aging process as much as possible, and the temperature is -0.4ºF. Now the failsafe for the planet is at risk of ruin, but how is climate change affecting it?
The structure is surrounded by a thick blanket of permafrost thanks to the icy island it is located on. This failsafe is in place to ensure the seeds do not overheat if there is an electrical fault, but due to rising temperatures, it’s failing. The Norwegian government has produced a report that suggests the Svalbard Island, where the vault is located, is suffering adverse events from climate change.
The Last 25 Years
Over the past quarter of a century, the temperature on the island has risen by a total of 18ºF. The solid ground surrounding the facility is a risk of turning to a swamp and sinking the vault, leaving humanity with no backup. With increased rainfall being recorded at the same time as the temperature rises the future looks bleak for the doomsday vault.
While many world governments are now trying to reduce their carbon footprint to give humanity the best possible chance of survival it so far isn’t enough. More efforts will have to be made in the coming years and decades to ensure not only this doomsday vault survives but the human race too.
|
<urn:uuid:80df3d06-ad27-455b-9424-cd5bb153a8c8>
|
http://brain-sharper.com/science/climate-change-ruin-doomsday-vault/
| 1
|
fineweb
|
Husky Homestead is proud to be certified by Adventure Green Alaska since 2018.
Adventure Green Alaska (AGA) is currently Alaska’s only sustainable tourism certification program, and works to promote environmentally conscientious and sustainable tourism in Alaska. AGA is a voluntary certification program of the Alaska Travel Industry Association (ATIA) for sustainable tourism businesses operating in Alaska that meet standards of economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The AGA sustainable tourism certificate program encourages tourism businesses to evaluate their operations and determine whether they use-or could be using- best management practices.
What are we doing here at Husky Homestead?
- Support local businesses and communities, as well as source as many items as possible from Alaskan businesses.
- Set company-wide sustainable practices for staff and guests (recycling, purchasing post-consumer waste products, using non-toxic cleaning products, composting of dog poop)
- Use energy-efficient practices wherever possible (LED lightbulbs, coordinate pick-ups to use the least amount of vehicles thereby limiting our carbon footprint, catch rainwater for use in watering our dogs)
- Support the Denali Zero-Landfill Initiative.
Here are some easy ways for visitors to Denali to minimize trash and waste while you travel:
- Bring a reusable water bottle to refill.
- Bring or buy a reusable bag to carry your souvenirs and supplies.
- Choose groceries with minimal packaging and recycle as you pack.
- Opt for paperless tickets and receipts.
- Recycle aluminum cans, glass, and plastics #1, #2 and #5 in the our recycle bins as well as the park’s recycle bins.
- In some remote areas, recycling services are limited, so please – if you pack it in, pack it out, and always practice Leave No Trace ethics.
|
<urn:uuid:95808f15-a684-469a-9fb2-72b7c5bd3554>
|
https://huskyhomestead.com/sustainability/
| 0.9924
|
fineweb
|
Washington — Think propane and butane are just for barbecuing? Think again: The common cooking fuels can also chill your drinks and ice cream with less energy and almost none of the global warming worries of current refrigerants.
Some of the world’s largest consumer product companies are promoting freezers and refrigerators in the U.S. that use propane, butane and other coolants that don’t trap heat in the atmosphere as much as Freon and other conventional refrigerants.
The new so-called hydrocarbon coolers — popular in Europe — are being tested by Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company at stores in the Washington and Boston areas. Meanwhile, General Electric is seeking approval to market a home refrigerator in the U.S. using a hydrocarbon refrigerant.
The new freezers take advantage of the way hydrocarbon gases absorb heat when they change from a liquid to a gas. It’s the same process when a propane tank becomes cool to the touch when you’re using it with a gas grill. The hydrocarbon refrigerant is compressed and expanded as it makes its way through the compressor and tubes surrounding the freezer.
Unlike car exhaust or power plant pollution that’s spewed directly into the air, the coolants used in most U.S. refrigerators today only enter the atmosphere when their compressors leak, or when appliances are thrown out and their refrigerant eventually escapes.
If hydrocarbons are accidentally released into the atmosphere, their effect on trapping heat is about 1,400 times less than conventional refrigerants, said Pete Gosselin, director of engineering for Ben & Jerry’s.
The fuels are flammable, of course, but current models only use the amount contained in two or three cigarette lighters. Electronic components are designed to prevent igniting a possible leak.
“It’s extremely potent,” Gosselin said. “And as the world develops, especially in developing nations, refrigeration use is one of the first technologies that comes on board.”
The appliances cost about the same as similar conventional freezers and use about 10 percent less electricity.
“And that turns out to be a huge gain in terms of your carbon footprint, that 10 percent gain in efficiency,” Gosselin said. “Every kilowatt hour that comes in the wall, comes in with a certain amount of CO2 footprint with it and if you can knock 10 percent off that, that’s huge.”
The U.S. will be playing catch-up. Unilever, which has more than 2 million ice cream cabinets worldwide, including 100,000 in the United States, now has more than 400,000 hydrocarbon-based units in Europe, Latin America and Asia, Gosselin said.
About 42,000 bottle vending machines using hydrocarbons or carbon dioxide as refrigerant also have been installed in China, Europe and Latin America by Coca-Cola, Carlsberg and PepsiCo. And McDonald’s has opened two pilot restaurants in Denmark that don’t use traditional refrigerants, according to the Refrigerants, Naturally Web site.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which allowed Ben & Jerry’s to test the new coolers, has already completed a preliminary review on the freezers, as well as the new GE refrigerator. It expects to make a proposed rule on the machines available for public comment later this year, and a final decision could be issued by early next year, said Drusilla Hufford, director of the EPA’s Stratospheric Protection Division.
|
<urn:uuid:0b63b69a-6f75-444e-946b-8fd99cc5817a>
|
https://dailyreporter.com/2009/09/28/us-companies-work-on-greener-freezers/
| 0.9691
|
fineweb
|
Flash flooding not likely to leave lasting damage on roads
ROANOKE, Va. The flash flooding which put parts of Southwest Virginia at a standstill Wednesday is fading away, and it likely has not left much of a lasting impact on the areas major roads. Virginia Department of Transportation spokesperson Jason Bond believes the flooding did not cause any major damage on any highways. He said the biggest challenge is repairing roads severely damaged by Mays rainstorm, particularly Route 116 in Franklin County and Route 460 in Giles County. The Route 116 repairs are estimated to cost $2 million, while the Route 460 repairs have an estimated price tag of $1 million. It has pulled resources off of those repair jobs onto other flooded routes.Bond projects the Route 116 repairs could finish around Labor Day.
Catastrophic floods claim at least 25 lives in the Balkans
Catastrophic floods claim at least 25 lives in the Balkans Massive floods in the Balkans have killed at least 25 and forced thousands more to evacuate. Some 95,000 homes in Serbia are without electricity as a new wave is expected to surge down the Sava River. Allen Pizzey reports.cbsnews.com
|
<urn:uuid:0ef7a700-bf8b-4160-a765-b9c98d8ced9f>
|
https://www.wsls.com/topic/Floods/
| 1
|
fineweb
|
Oil Demand Has Collapsed, And It Won't Come Back Any Time Soon
2020 is shaping up to be an extraordinarily bad year for oil.
In the spring, pandemic lockdowns sent oil demand plummeting and markets into a tailspin. At one point, U.S. oil prices even turned negative for the first time in history.
But summer brought new optimism to the industry, with hopes rising for a controlled pandemic, a recovering economy and resurgent oil demand.
Those hopes are now fading. In a report Tuesday, the influential advisory body called the International Energy Agency revised its forecasts for global oil consumption downward, warning that the market outlook is "even more fragile" than expected and that "the path ahead is treacherous."
It's the latest in a flurry of diminished forecasts from major energy players. On Monday, oil cartel OPEC slashed its expectations of oil demand, just as Trafigura, a large oil trading company, warned that another large oil glut is building.
And energy giant BP, which has grabbed headlines with its new carbon-neutral commitments, raised the possibility that the world might never again use as much oil as it did before the pandemic.
A pair of recent OPEC reports reflect the rapid shift in mood.
Its August oil forecast assumed that by 2021, "COVID-19 will largely be contained globally with no major disruptions to the global economy." OPEC also predicted that economic activity would be rebounding steadily and oil demand would be recovering.
But on Monday, OPEC released a much grimmer forecast.
"[S]tructural changes to the global economy are forecast to persist," the oil cartel wrote. Travel and tourism "are not expected to achieve pre-COVID-19 levels of activity before the end of 2021."
The IEA, a well-regarded source of global energy data, agreed with the oil cartel's latest assessment, writing that "it is becoming increasingly apparent that COVID-19 will stay with us for some time."
"There's some negative vibes out there," said Neil Atkinson, the head of Oil Industry and Markets Division at the IEA. "It just doesn't appear to be a simple case of this horrible thing comes along in the first six months of the year and then mercifully goes away again and we can all go back to normal. It's just not happening like that."
The world still relies heavily on oil and natural gas. For 2020, OPEC predicts total oil demand will be slashed by nearly 10% — nowhere near the large-scale pivot away from fossil fuels that scientists say is necessary to fight climate change.
But from the industry's perspective, this year's decline is tremendous and destabilizing. Producers around the world are already radically rethinking their production plans, shutting down drilling rigs and hitting pause on major projects.
Many U.S. producers have gone bankrupt. Saudi Arabia, which has been trying to diversify its economy to be less reliant on oil as the sole source of prosperity, pushed the wider group of countries called OPEC+ to slash output and drag prices up out of the doldrums.
These disruptions come as a growing number of investors, regulators and even energy giants are projecting bigger shifts in oil demand in the years to come as much of the world takes action to try to limit the most damaging consequences of climate change.
BP and Shell are among the European oil and gas giants that have pledged to reshape their businesses to focus more on zero-carbon energy sources. Total, the French energy company, recently acknowledged that the shift away from fossil fuels will cause some of its current oil investments to become "stranded assets," meaning they will not be as valuable as expected in a world that has reduced its reliance on oil.
BP published its annual energy outlook this week and laid out three possible trajectories for the future of oil demand. In two of those pathways, the world would take meaningful action on climate change, and the current drop in demand — instead of being a pandemic-induced blip — would become the pivot point leading toward a lower-emissions future.
In the third path, where the world continues with "business as usual" instead of acting more swiftly to stop global warming, BP predicts oil demand would increase slightly over the next few years — but still peak within the decade.
BP says its scenarios are not forecasts, but "a range of possible outcomes."
Carolyn Kissane, an energy expert and an academic director at New York University's Center for Global Affairs, says BP's experts aren't the only ones who see a possibility that energy demand may have already peaked.
She notes many factors will affect demand — including economic developments, government policy decisions and, of course, the pandemic. And big questions remain about just how profoundly our behavior might shift as a result of pandemic disruptions.
"Maybe we are making this more dramatic, radical transition that's going to have much deeper impacts," she says. "There is that uncertainty."
Transitioning away from fossil fuels will not be quick, easy or simple, Kissane says. But it's possible the pandemic is pushing companies and oil-producing countries to think now about how to adapt to a world with reduced oil demand — one they once expected would arrive further into the future.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
|
<urn:uuid:ece90d4e-4b39-4937-ac49-4fd34360a45b>
|
https://www.tpr.org/2020-09-15/oil-demand-has-collapsed-and-it-wont-come-back-any-time-soon
| 0.9875
|
fineweb
|
This week, how to register for our next event, sponsored by Mastercard and Stripe, plus Appian on low-code/no-code solutions and predicting climate risk with Jupiter Intelligence.
Click on the headlines for more information.
Elizabeth Jenkin, CEO of Nimbla, joins Robin on Podcast 188 to discuss why she left a 20-year career as a broker to join a start-up, the differences in working with brokers and insurers and how Nimbla is helping its partners to move faster.
The way payments are made has changed significantly over the past few years. Join us at CodeNode to examine the latest digital payment capabilities and how insurance can benefit from a more inclusive approach to payments. Confirmed speakers so far include Mastercard, Stripe, Cuvva, Arma Karma and Imburse. Full details on the website.
InsTech’s Tara Allsopp interviewed Gijsbert Cox, Appian Insurance Industry Leader. Read more about the benefits of no-code/low-code software and the company’s vision for the future.
In this article, InsTech’s Ali Smedley covers what Jupiter has to offer insurers, the challenge of predicting climate change impacts and why companies are exploring their future climate risk.
MIC Global, recently granted “in principle” approval to create a Lloyd’s syndicate, is running a competition for MGAs with ideas for an innovative new embedded insurance product. MIC will provide capacity to the winners as well as help with designing and implementing the product. Visit the link below for details of the application criteria and how to apply.
Analysis from Fathom’s UK flood hazard model suggests a total of 1.35 million properties will be at risk of flooding by 2050. Professor Paul Bates, Fathom’s Chairman and co-founder, discussed the projections and using Met Office data on Sky News.
Skyline Partners has structured a parametric hurricane insurance product for the Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League (JCCUL), which provides loans to 100,000 farmers. The product, delivered with Howden Group and using capacity from Munich Re, will provide the JCCUL with a payout to replace funds lost from farmers who default on loans following a hurricane.
MAPFRE has joined the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), with the aim of achieving zero net emissions in its insurance and reinsurance underwriting portfolios. You can find out more about how insurers are looking to measure the impacts of climate change in our report, Climate Change Risk Regulation and Measurement: 22 companies to know.
Beazley will use the Cytora Platform to streamline its global risk intake and implement straight-through processing. The platform digitises and evaluates risk submissions using internal and external data sources.
The event takes place on Tuesday 10 May at 10am and will explore how loneliness has shaped our mental wellbeing. It will also explore mental health in insurance, progress made by the life & health insurance industry in recent years and opportunities for further developments.
|
<urn:uuid:1fd42d51-46a9-4c1a-9f7e-42764eb1c968>
|
https://www.instech.co/newsletter/instech-news-making-insurance-payments-pay
| 1
|
fineweb
|
Eastern North Carolina has experienced many storms in recent decades.
Dynamics of Extreme Events, People and Places (DEEPP) would like to understand how families and communities prepare for, are affected by, and recover from these events.
One of the best ways to do this is to ask people directly and DEEPP will launch a survey in six communities affected by Hurricanes Matthew, Florence and Dorian. Interviewers will be on Ocracoke and the mainland in October and November to talk to islanders on the following topics:
● storm impacts on property
● disruptions of day-to-day life
● access to recovery programs
● stress felt during and after storms
● how neighbors help each other get through challenging times
● attitudes about the future
This survey is one part of the larger DEEPP project which brings together social and environmental scientists and engineers, said Dr. Elizabeth Frankenberg, project director.
“Our broad goal is to understand the environmental, economic, social and psychological impacts of flooding in Carolina communities,” she said.
DEEPP will combine the survey data with satellite imaging, flood mapping and storm surge mapping in order to provide communities and policy makers with information they can use in preparing for and recovering from these disasters.
“We hope our work will help North Carolinians and other residents of flood-prone areas in the United States,” Frankenberg said.
Please email questions, comments or suggestions to firstname.lastname@example.org.
DEEPP is a collaborative effort of the Carolina Population Center, the Institute for Marine Sciences, the Institute for the Environment, the Odum Institute, and the Coastal Resilience Center.
The project is made possible through a Creativity Hub grant from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Growing Convergence Research award (CGR 2021086) from the National Science Foundation.
|
<urn:uuid:adef3e3c-5b80-4928-a444-e3bef0e36dd7>
|
https://ocracokeobserver.com/2020/10/10/interviewers-to-seek-islanders-thoughts-on-extreme-weather/
| 1
|
fineweb
|
The Aftermath: Pro Farmer Tour and Hurricane Irene
Aug 29, 2011
Looks like "Irene" found the big city lights of New York City simply too overwhelming and faded off into the sunset. For all of our sakes, Irene was downgraded to a "tropical storm," and the stock exchanges and all financial exchanges were open as scheduled, airlines are back up and running, transportation is starting to move, and we seem to have avoided another potential "black swan" type event.
The weather will be watched closely during the coming days as well, due to thoughts that the recent tropical storms may quickly alter weather models and current patterns across the midwest. For the most part, outside of hurricane Irene, the weather has been fairly mild this weekend. From what I am hearing, there could be some improvements in several of the key winter wheat planting areas during the next couple of weeks as rains is expected to fall in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Central and Eastern Oklahoma, and Eastern Texas. With this being the case you may want to consider coverage on a portion of your unpriced or unhedged wheat bushels. Certainly there is a chance that we make a push back to $9 in the Chicago wheat contract and beyond $11 in the Minneapolis contract, beyond that I am a little concerned. Therefore, looking at ways to help control your downside will become important as we progress.
With the Pro Farmer crop tour behind us now, the trade is now left to digest thoughts regarding their 147.9 national corn yield, and a 41.8 soybean yield. Regardless of how you feel about the Pro Farmer final estimates, one thing we need to think about, is the simple fact that if the USDA were to use the Pro Farmer numbers for just Iowa and Illinois we end up right around a 146 national corn yield average. Those two states in and of themselves are obviously going to be instrumental as we progress further into harvest, so make sure you start paying close attention to the numbers in these areas.
With continued thoughts that the US corn carryout could actually fall below 500 million bushels on lower yield estimates and fewer harvested acres, the trade seems more than content adding length and pushing "new crop" corn prices towards new all-time highs. The "outsides" appear to be providing us with a little boost this morning, and soybeans seem to be leading the charge. As November soybeans quickly approach $14.50, I urge those of you who are not at least 50-60% sold to think about pulling the trigger. As I have been mentioning, there is certainly the chance we make the run to...
For more thoughts on where I believe Corn, Soybeans and wheat Prices could make their runs, Sign-up to receive my FREE Full report. Sign-up today and you will also receive my personal cash sale recommendations as well as gain access to my full Marketing Strategy. Remember, YOUR livelihood is traded on a Global market. Prices don't react to fundamental news like they use to. In the FULL report, I bring you the inside scoop on what the Big Money players (Hedge Funds/Managed Money) are watching and how to take advantage of it! Simply follow the link below. You can also click the button below to follow my Team and I on Twitter and get daily updates on what is happening in the grain and livestock markets.
|
<urn:uuid:1b1c885e-7692-4a6f-a4ff-754ec80b68d0>
|
http://www.agweb.com/blog/Current_Marketing_Thoughts_140/the_aftermath_pro_farmer_tour_and_hurricane_irene/
| 0.9854
|
fineweb
|
Christina Aguilera + MORE to Perform Benefit Concert for Hurricane Victims
By Michael Lewittes | 9:58 am, November 1st, 2012
Christina Aguilera and Bruce Springsteen are among the artists set to perform in a benefit concert to raise money for victims of Hurricane Sandy, NBC announced on Thursday. “Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together,” will be hosted by Matt Lauer, and also include performances by Sting, Jon Bon Jovi and Billy Joel. Jimmy Fallon and Brian Williams will make appearances at the event as well.
All money raised will be donated to American Red Cross relief efforts. The event will air on on Friday at 8 p.m. EST on NBC, USA, SyFy, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, E!, Style Network, G4, and will also be live streamed on NBC.com. Will you be tuning in?
|
<urn:uuid:5fa78aa8-c53c-4d8d-a5df-dd507d7545d5>
|
http://www.gossipcop.com/christina-aguilera-hurricane-sandy-benefit-concert-nbc-bruce-springsteen-coming-together/
| 0.9893
|
fineweb
|
Originally Posted by medic92
You have no idea how bad it really is. Watch "Expelled" by Ben Stein and you'll be horrified at how far the academic world has gone to suppress those who dare to believe in God.
I've seen that movie and that entire scenario is replaying itself in the Global Warming debate as well. Scientists who dare to question the validity of "Global Warming" find themselves ostracized and their grant money cut off.
|
<urn:uuid:3f53631a-be46-43f9-bcb7-c6bf5dc1fb8b>
|
http://www.matt-hughes.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9965&postcount=7
| 0.9989
|
fineweb
|
LAKE PROVIDENCE, La. — In an agonizing trade-off, Army engineers said they will open a key spillway along the bulging Mississippi River as early as Saturday and inundate thousands of homes and farms in parts of Louisiana’s Cajun country to avert a potentially bigger disaster in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be in harm’s way when the gates on the Morganza spillway are unlocked for the first time in 38 years.
“Protecting lives is the No. 1 priority,” Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh said aboard a boat from the river at Vicksburg, Miss., hours before the decision was made to open the spillway.
The opening will release a torrent that could submerge about 3,000 square miles under as much as 25 feet of water in some areas but take the pressure off the downstream levees protecting New Orleans, Baton Rouge and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi.
Engineers feared that weeks of pressure on the levees could cause them to fail, swamping New Orleans under as much as 20 feet of water in a disaster that would have been much worse than Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Instead, the water will flow 20 miles south into the Atchafalaya Basin. From there it will roll on to Morgan City, an oil-and-seafood hub and a community of 12,000, and then eventually into the Gulf of Mexico, flooding swamps and croplands.
The corps said it will open the gates when the river’s flow rate reaches a certain point, expected Saturday. But some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside – an area known for small farms, fish camps and a drawling French dialect – have already started fleeing for higher ground.
Sheriffs and National Guardsmen will warn people in a door-to-door sweep through the area, Gov. Bobby Jindal said. Shelters are ready to accept up to 4,800 evacuees, the governor said.
“Now’s the time to evacuate,” Jindal said. “Now’s the time for our people to execute their plans. That water’s coming.”
The Army Corps of Engineers employed a similar cities-first strategy earlier this month when it blew up a levee in Missouri – inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes – to take the pressure off the levees protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.
This intentional flood is more controlled, however, and residents are warned by the corps each year in written letters, reminding them of the possibility of opening the spillway.
Meanwhile, with crop prices soaring, farmers along the lower Mississippi had been expecting a big year. But now many are facing ruin, with floodwaters swallowing up corn, cotton, rice and soybean fields.
In far northeastern Louisiana, where Tap Parker and about 50 other farmers filled and stacked massive sandbags along an old levee to no avail. The Mississippi flowed over the top Thursday, and nearly 19 square miles of soybeans and corn, known in the industry as “green gold,” was lost.
“This was supposed to be our good year. We had a chance to really catch up. Now we’re scrambling to break even,” said Parker, who has been farming since 1985.
Cotton prices are up 86 percent from a year ago, and corn – which is feed for livestock, a major ingredient in cereals and soft drinks, and the raw material used to produce ethanol – is up 80 percent. Soybeans have risen 39 percent. The increase is attributed, in part, to worldwide demand, crop-damaging weather elsewhere and rising production of ethanol.
While the Mississippi River flooding has not had any immediate impact on prices in the supermarket, the long-term effects are still unknown. A full damage assessment can’t be made until the water has receded in many places.
Some of the estimates have been dire, though.
More than 1,500 square miles of farmland in Arkansas, which produces about half of the nation’s rice, have been swamped over the past few weeks. In Missouri, where a levee was intentionally blown open to ease the flood threat in the town of Cairo, Ill., more than 200 square miles of croplands were submerged, damage that will probably exceed $100 million. More than 2,100 square miles could flood in Mississippi.
When the water level goes down – and that could take many weeks in some places – farmers can expect to find the soil washed away or their fields covered with sand. Some will probably replant on the soggy soil, but they will be behind their normal growing schedule, which could hurt yields.
Many farmers have crop insurance, but it won’t be enough to cover their losses. And it won’t even come close to what they could have expected with a bumper crop.
“I might get enough money from insurance to take us to a movie, but it better be dollar night,” said Karsten Simrall, who lives in Redwood, Miss.
Simrall’s family has farmed the low-lying fields in Redwood for five generations and has been fighting floods for years, but it’s never been this bad. And the river is not expected to crest here until around Tuesday.
“How the hell do you recoup all these losses?” he said. “You just wait. It’s in God’s hands.”
The river’s rise may also force the closing of the river to shipping, from Baton Rouge to the mouth of the Mississippi, as early as next week. That would cause grain barges from the heartland to stack up along with other commodities.
If the portion is closed, the U.S. economy could lose hundreds of millions of dollars a day. In 2008, a 100-mile stretch of the river was closed for six days after a tugboat collided with a tanker, spilling about 500,000 gallons of fuel. The Port of New Orleans estimated the shutdown cost the economy up to $275 million a day.
|
<urn:uuid:2dfa5230-e484-444e-a3b8-064545bd8e91>
|
http://newsone.com/1231035/lousiana-spillway-to-open-flooding-cajun-country/
| 0.9979
|
fineweb
|
Farmers ask NARO for disease-resistant stems
Cassava farmers in Nakasongola district have asked the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) to provide them with cassava stems resistant to the cassava brown streak disease.
The district production officer, Dr. Gerald Kitaka, said most cassava gardens have been affected and this is increasing food insecurity in the district.
Rice farmers tipped on fertiliser use
Combining different types of fertilisers will increase rice production and its nutritional content in rice growing areas in Uganda, researchers have said
According to researchers, This will reduce malnutrition and and enhance food security.
This is one of the innovations that researchers at the Africa Innovations Institute (AfrII) are promoting in the rice-growing areas of Doho in Butaleja and Kibimba in Bugiri district
Government asked to promote innovations in farming to fight climate change
Government has been asked to increase the promotion of innovations and technologies in agriculture to address the challenge of food security as effects of climate change continue to manifest in agriculture.
The call was made by the chairman of the Africa Innovations Institute(AfrII), Prof George William Otim Nape, during a press conference.
Born in Kole district, Northern Uganda, Professor Otim-Nape is one of Africa’s leading agricultural development experts. He has devoted most of his career and life for the development of cassava, a crop about which he talks with zeal and passion. He is greatly remembered for “solving the problem of cassava mosaic disease that nearly brought the crop to extinction” (Rotary International Vocational Award (1999-2000). Prof OtimNape
has received many national and international awards including Science Excellence Award presented in 2008 by HE Y.K Museveni, the President of Uganda; Lifetime Achievemnt Award; and Outstanding Research Leadership Award, among others. On 5th April 2016, Professor Otim-Nape was a special guest of the International Funds for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome, Italy. His mission was to: “change the world’s perception that cassava is a poor man’s food”, and to do this in a 12 minutes inspiring and thought provoking talk that was televised and recorded in front of a live studio audience of Ambassadors, senior government officials and staff from UN agencies. The full version of the talk is reproduced below. A live version of the talk shall be available at: HYPERLINK http://cava2.unaab.edu.ng/
New study of Uganda soils begins
Experts have commenced a new study of Uganda soils to develop a National Soil Atlas to map areas where various agricultural activities can be favorably carried out in order to promote sustainable agriculture.
The study is being carried out under the Vital Signs project, a scientific, tested monitoring system that provides integrated data and tools.
Government to promote cassava as an alternative to wheat and barley
The hope is that a shift to cassava will increase the market for the locally grown cassava and also reduce import costs on the part of the manufacturer.
This was revealed by the director Crop Resources at the ministry of agriculture animal industry and fisheries (MAAIF) Opolot Okasaai in a recent meeting on the Cassava Two (CAVAII) at Silver Springs hotel in Kampala.
Awoja wetland project launched
The Water and Environment Ministry in conjunction with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have launched a four-year project aimed at managing the Awoja wetland system in Teso sub-region
Can wetlands, Agriculture co-exist?
Initially, human settlements primarily occurred in fertile areas along rivers and
from the early beginning of agricultural activities, riverine wetlands have been
recognised as valuable land areas for food and fodder production, because
they have fertile soils.
One man's passion leads to change in community
Anthony Arukol’s passion for growing different types of trees and encouraging others to do the same is leading to a change in his community. The benefits include better fodder for cattle and income generation through sale of seedlings.
Prof. George Nape Pioneer fighter against the cassava mosaic
In 1988, Professor George Nape got a directive from the agriculture ministry to research about a strange disease that had devastated cassava plantations in most parts of Buganda, including Luweero. Nape set up a team of researchers from Serere Research Station, in Serere district, to establish the extent of the damage. Their discovery showed that the disease, cassava blight, had destroyed large hectares of land.
|
<urn:uuid:4ffbf616-b6db-4d4c-a289-1bb5bbedaaa1>
|
https://www.afrii.org/news/
| 0.9905
|
fineweb
|
The revolutionary SKYACTIV-X engine, due to be released in 2019, will be the world’s first commercial gasoline engine to run on compression ignition. Using innovative technology, Mazda has combined the power of a high-revving gasoline engine and the fuel efficiency of a diesel. The Spark Controlled Compression Ignition (SPCCI) improves engine efficiency by up to 20-30 percent over the current SKYACTIV-G engines.
These advances in engine technology will play a significant part in Mazda’s ‘Sustainable Zoom-Zoom 2030’ vision. With the release of SKYACTIV-X, reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 50 percent of 2010 levels by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050 will be an achievable goal.
To learn more about SKYACTIV-X, watch the video or read about the revolutionary technology.
|
<urn:uuid:2aa77c17-ccba-42f7-976b-0f559f9f4635>
|
https://www.mazda.com.au/imagination-drives-us/performance---skyactiv-x/
| 0.9992
|
fineweb
|
A container filled with sensible supplies and a little bit of heart is on its way to Vanuatu.
The Victoria Vanuatu Physician Project (ViVa), in conjunction with Disaster Aid Canada and the Compassionate Resource Warehouse packed a shipping container to the brim with much-needed disaster relief – construction, medical, school, recreation and skill development supplies for the nation made up of 80 islands in the South Pacific in the aftermath of Cyclone Pam.
“It’s been really wonderful and ViVa feels very fortunate,” said ViVa spokesman Dr. Jeff Unger.
The Victoria emergency room physician and his family spent seven months living on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu while Unger worked as a volunteer physician as part of ViVa. The Victoria-Vanuatu Physician Project is a small, grassroots, not-for-profit organization that supplies a physician to staff the 40-bed Lenakel Hospital on Tanna. Over its 24 years more than 40 Greater Victoria physicians and their families have made the trip.
The Ungers returned to their Oak Bay home shortly before the devastating cyclone brought winds reaching 320 km/h, spreading devastation across 22 islands in the archipelago and impacting 188,000 people, 60,000 of them school-age children.
“Obviously this has touched a chord with some people and we’re committed mid to long term to really help rebuild there as some organizations that have been active there are pulling away now,” Unger said.
ViVa will continue its partnership with an Australian team through Rotary International.
“We’ve done work with them for hospital maintenance the last 15 years. We know how they work and they do great work and the funds will go directly to what’s needed,” Unger said.
Funds will come from some ViVa already holds, private donations, and some they will continue to raise in what they see right now as a three- to five-year plan.
The first container that left Victoria May 9, was filled with post-disaster supplies such as tents that will house 10 people, water purification means, tarps and tools, things needed in the immediate sense.
“It was just something that we thought would be tangible and effective and really worthwhile within a few weeks of the disaster occurring,” Unger said. “One of the things we realized after this is disaster preparedness is not something that’s a reality there.”
ViVa purchased the container which will stay onsite at the hospital and serve as a safe storage facility for future disaster supplies.
A load of soccer balls and pumps offered by Spank It Sports and two sets of jerseys donated by Victoria soccer clubs offer a bit of spirit lifting beyond housing and fresh water.
“We are really thankful for the response people have had. People have been really generous here in Victoria… and across Canada,” Unger said, adding ViVa has raised over $50,000 and will continue to co-ordinate ongoing efforts with other local organizations.
|
<urn:uuid:8742a89e-a7a0-4f82-9495-e4015d511da3>
|
https://www.oakbaynews.com/news/needed-supplies-set-sail-for-vanuatu/
| 0.9967
|
fineweb
|
Due to extensive flooding in the school district, all Lake Bluff Schools will be closed on Friday, September 13, 2019.
People in the district should know about the following hazards
- The viaduct is closed.
- On Greenbay Road people should be able to go around the flooded area south of 176.
- Skokie Valley Road to West Washington is flooded.
- Maple is shut down in areas between East Center Ave and East Washington Avenue due to down utility lines.
Please stay safe. More information will be posted on our websites in the days to come.
|
<urn:uuid:a6519453-0de4-4ce6-ab5c-e9b328dc9ec6>
|
http://www.lb65.org/lake-bluff-middle-school/news/1665651/all-lake-bluff-schools-are-closed-on-friday-september-13-2019
| 0.9997
|
fineweb
|
North Metro water suppliers ask customers to conserve
April 28, 2021
As warmer spring weather takes hold and homeowners enact plans for lawncare and landscaping, North Denver Metro water providers are banding together to ask residents to use their water carefully. A dozen suppliers have joined together to help educate the public on wise water use.
According to a recent press release, despite heavy snow on the front range in March, mountain snowpack is still below average in some areas and streamflow levels are expected to be low to average in the future. Compounding this fact, some water sources used by area providers including Niwot's Left Hand Water District, were impacted by summer wildfires. Depending on how flows occur throughout the season, these sources could further be affected by debris from a harsh runoff or spring storm.
No restrictions will be put in place for Niwot 2021
Despite awareness of these water supply issues, Christopher Smith, general manager of Left Hand Water District, said that residents don't need to be overly concerned, they just need to take common sense, simple conservation efforts. "We're telling people to be responsible. It's like remembering to turn out the lights when you leave a room," he said.
Smith emphasized that this year, there are no water restrictions in place for customers of Left Hand Water District. Instead, he places an emphasis on conserving now to better manage water for later on.
"Water resource managers can't be reactive, we have to be proactive," he said. "... Each water resource manager faces the same question, and we're working together to remind the end user that it's their job to pitch in."
Smith said, "A lot of our communities are quite close to each other. What you don't want to have is confusing mixed messaging from the different municipalities. That's unnecessary because we do work in the same world and we know each other. We're a team in this."
Niwot's neighbors, including Boulder, Longmont, Lafayette, Louisville, Erie, and Broomfield are part of a north metro drought coordination effort that produced the information campaign. Erin Messner, water resources manager for the City and County of Broomfield helped organize the recent communications effort. "A group of us with some similar water supplies found it has been useful to coordinate with each other and develop a common language of issues that we can share with our customers.
She added, "Regionally, our climate/weather conditions can change so much from one area to the next [in Colorado] so it's useful for us in the north metro area to work together."
Suggestions to lower water use
As part of their effort, the group identified eight things that customers, including Niwot residents, can do to support wise water use:
1. Wait to water lawns. Don't turn on sprinklers too early in the season, wait until May if possible. Leaving lawns dormant longer will save water without compromising plant health.
2. Water less frequently. Watering twice a week will make grass roots grow deeper and allow the grass to last longer without water. You also may want to pay attention to your watering schedule. An example of a water wise schedule is setting each zone to water for five minutes then wait an hour, water for five minutes again, wait one more hour, then water for a final five minutes. This allows water to have time to absorb into dense and compact soils.
3. Water in the evening, night or early morning. Watering landscapes in the early morning or at night will help reduce water loss.
4. When it rains, water accordingly. Watch the weather and reduce watering schedules during times of rain. Soil moisture sensors or rain sensors can automatically adjust watering schedules when it rains or consider installing a WaterSense smart irrigation controller.
5. Let grass grow longer before cutting it. Raise lawn mower blades and protect lawns from heat by letting grass grow longer (3-3.5"). A taller lawn provides shade to the roots and helps retain soil moisture, so your lawn requires less water.
6. Water lawns, plants and trees - not roads and sidewalks. Check your irrigation systems to make sure the lawn – and only the lawn – is being watered. Also, sweep driveways and sidewalks with a broom instead of spraying with a hose – but don't send debris down the storm drain or into the street gutter.
7. Fix leaks. Check your sprinkler system monthly for broken sprinkler heads and damaged irrigation lines. A well maintained system will save both money and water.
8. Plan ahead and plan efficiently. If possible, delay new lawn installations for a non-drought year and avoid planting during the mid-summer heat. Incorporate water-wise plants and turf when planning landscape renovations or installations.
Left Hand Water District has conservation incentives
There are a number of incentives available to Left Hand Water District customers who are looking to conserve. These include incentives for efficient toilets and clothes washers as well as landscape water controllers. Anyone interested can learn more about them at the district's website at lefthandwater.org.
|
<urn:uuid:45fad1ed-4d9e-4d3f-b73f-33ad8d2160ac>
|
https://www.lhvc.com/story/2021/04/28/news/north-metro-water-suppliers-ask-customers-to-conserve/6190.html
| 0.9919
|
fineweb
|
Do you like working outdoors in the fresh air, or like the idea of working with animals? You might enjoy working with engines or machinery, or want to help save the world from the impact of global warming! If this all seems wide ranging, then you will find that this career area stretches across many disciplines, abilities and areas of expertise, from science or forestry, to fishing or mechanics!
The aquaculture industry in Scotland as part of their Aquaculture 2030 strategy hope to increase the number of jobs from around 8,800 to 18,000.
Lantra (the Sector Skills Council for food based and environmental businesses) have developed a new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) resource which highlights how STEM is used within land-based, environmental conservation and aquaculture careers. This helps to demonstrate the range of careers available in these sectors.
This career area is concerned with the natural world and appeals to those interested in animal care, the countryside, planting and landscaping, and the environment.
Jobs and courses are available in agriculture, aquaculture and fishing, arboriculture and horticulture, earth studies, environmental and rural resource management, environmental services, forestry and working with animals.
To see the routes to getting into each of these sectors, take a look at our Career Pathway.
According to Lantra, advances in technology, such as automation to reduce human labour, means there is increasing demand for highly skilled staff in this industry. As well as essential skills and knowledge, for example, health and safety, literacy and numeracy, the most sought-after skills are:
In many cases, job prospects can depend on where you live, or are prepared to live, as well as on the type of work you do and your qualifications.
Growing awareness of climate change and the need for sustainable development is also creating opportunities for younger entrants with transferable skills.
|
<urn:uuid:f8c73d1f-557a-4285-88be-e7c237890ca8>
|
https://www.planitplus.net/CareerAreas/View/2?sectorId=8
| 0.9993
|
fineweb
|
Are you aware that more than 50% of the planet’s wetlands are completely dried out? All over the planet aquifers and water systems are stressed. Systems that keep ecosystems alive and feed our human population are drying up at alarming rates. Rivers, lakes and aquifers are disappearing. Water scarcity is so severe it has created a global water crisis, threatening the health of people, animals and our entire planet.
Where Did All The Water Go:
Humans have controlled and caused much of what is currently happening in regards to water scarcity through the privatization of water and controlling lakes, rivers and streams. From building dams to industrial irrigation humans, not Mother Nature, are deciding where water flows. As climate change occurs, and temperatures rise, many freshwater areas no longer in existence. Droughts are becoming more common in many parts of the planet, while glaciers and snowpacks melt. All of these changes can be mitigated with mindful consumption and releasing control of our water systems.
Water Scarcity Facts:
- 41% of the world’s population lives in river basins that are under water stress.
- 1.1 billion people lack direct access to water.
- 2.7 billion people live with water scarcity.
- Globally, about 4.5 billion people live within 50 kilometers of a water resource that is polluted or running dry.
- By 2050, five times as much land is likely to be under “extreme drought” than lands which are currently in this condition.
- In 2050, increased population will result in a 19% increase in agricultural water consumption.
- In the US, thermoelectric power plants account for nearly 50% of all freshwater withdrawals.
- Since 1960 – there has been a 55% drop in available fresh water.
- It is estimated that by 2030, there will be a 40% gap between water demand and water availability.
- Studies estimate that by 2050, between 150 and 200 million people could be displaced as a consequence of desertification, sea level rise and an increase in extreme weather.
How can I make an impact:
Action 1: Global Goodness
- Reduce your consumption. By preserving the fresh water we have now, we can reduce our direct impact on water levels.
- Change your behavior. Support companies that are working toward water preservation. Many of the products we buy come out of countries that are currently experiencing water scarcity. Check out www.theconsciousbuyer.com to explore over 500 amazing companies that are doing their part to reduce their water consumption.
Action 2: Planet Protector
- All of Action 1
- Implement water catchment or water harvesting techniques; this helps reduce the amount of tap water used to water your outdoor landscaping.
- Tell Congress we want increased water regulations. Companies and communities need to be responsible for their impact on water shortage. Stricter regulations will prevent the loss and pollution of the water supply.
- Stay Informed. For more facts and statistics on water scarcity CLICK HERE.
Action 3: Earth Angel
- All of Action 1 & 2
- Support initiatives that are starting water projects in developing countries. Areas in India and Sub-Saharan Africa are currently experiencing the highest areas of water scarcity.
- Get real about climate change. Go to www.healtheplanet.com to learn more about climate change and the many ways you can make a positive impact.
- Choose to be an Ambassador for Change, and always Spread Love and Spread Light.
|
<urn:uuid:31796d47-1249-43f4-a828-93bb8869e748>
|
https://healtheplanet.com/100-ways-to-heal-the-planet/water-scarcity-global-water-crisis/
| 1
|
fineweb
|
Rise in Agricultural Production Hinges on Bots
The world population is expected to hit a whopping number of 9 billion by 2050. What is expected to follow is a dramatic rise in agricultural production, doubling to meet the coming demand. This need has caused farmers to turn to robotics as a solution for the future. Various industries are using robotics to disrupt their respective industries.
Customer service, packaging and shipping, manufacturing, and transportation are all buying more robot employees. Due to the growing population, rise of AI and new developments in robotics, agribusiness has embraced robotics.
From nursery planting to shepherding and herding, here are some of the robots already in agriculture.
Powered by the sun, this lightweight GPS, fully autonomous drone has the ability to use its solar power to run all day. The robot uses its complex camera system to target and spray weeds. Because of its very precise arms, the robot uses 90% less herbicide, making it 30% cheaper than traditional treatments. A fleet of these robots could easily replace human farm labor down the road.
Naio Technologies have a host of robots that not only act as the perfect farm hand using techniques that preserve and protect the local environment.
Drones will play a huge role in monitoring large areas of crops. Agribotix is a low-cost tool for farmers, to collect crop data over time, or in real-time. From taking precise aerial photos to recording video, the company’s collection of drones even has infrared sensors that can measure the health of crops while in the air.
These are only examples of three of nine bots already working in the fields.
read more at interestingengineering.com
|
<urn:uuid:8cd68771-5cfd-4d93-96d3-fd27582a870c>
|
https://seeflection.com/17117/9-agri-bots-key-to-future-of-farming-advances/
| 0.7269
|
fineweb
|
Best Management Practice
Synonyms: BMP, BMPs, Stormwater BMP, Stormwater BMPs
Best Management Practices (in terms of stormwater) are techniques or methods that aim to manage the quantity and improve the quality of stormwater runoff in a cost-effective manner. BMPs often aim to replicate natural processes and, depending on their design- can offer several social, environmental, and financial benefits to people who live nearby or downstream of the installed BMP.
Stormwater BMPs intend to reduce or eliminate pollution and contaminants collected by runoff before the runoff reaches local streams or other waterways. The ideal place to stop pollution is at the source. Once pollutants, contaminants, or unstable nutrient levels reach streams or rivers, they can be a real threat to the health of humans, wildlife, and stream ecosystems.
Stormwater BMPs also aim to restore water flow regimes to their natural state. Because many urban and suburban areas have hard, impervious surfaces that- before human intervention- would otherwise be forests or meadows, stormwater flows extremely quickly into storm drains and into local streams. This rapid flow causes flash flooding and stream bank erosion, additional threats to humans and stream ecosystems. BMPs retain water on site or soak stormwater into the ground, helping to reduce flooding concerns.
No one BMP can solve all issues related to stormwater runoff. The important thing to remember is every effort helps! Any practice or combination of practices you can contribute on your property has a positive impact on water quality and quantity related problems and will benefit you and the environment.
|
<urn:uuid:3cc5c774-0279-4534-9609-a0136089fa66>
|
https://stormwater.allianceforthebay.org/glossary-of-terms/best-management-practice
| 0.998
|
fineweb
|
James Cameron's Sanctum has been floating around for a while - since 2006, to be exact - what with the little matter of Avatar to attend to, but it's finally spashing down and Universal have unleashed a couple of new clips to whet your appetite.
Sanctum is loosely based on the experiences of Aussie subsea explorer Andrew Wight, who found himself trapped in an underwater cave network by flash flooding back in 1988. He survived the ordeal to co-write the script, which sees master diver Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) step into his flippers as the head of an expedition to explore the South Pacific's Esa-ala Caves.
As you can see from the second of the breathless snippets, things quickly go awry in a serious way when a tropical storm hits.
McGuire and his fellow divers - 17-year-old son Josh (Rhys Wakefield), Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffudd) and 'Crazy' George (Dan Wyllie), among them - are forced to find an alternative exit as the oxygen runs out.
|
<urn:uuid:54d89520-bf97-4665-9870-145a8345e539>
|
http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=30004
| 0.9992
|
fineweb
|
Living with Beijing's 'air-pocalypse'
Several factors linked to rapid development blamed for Beijing's air quality problems
"Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in...." my wife Ana blurted into a song this week, as she gazed eastwards through the window of our apartment in downtown Beijing.
The old tune from the Broadway show "Hair" seemed apt. This is the fourth consecutive morning that we woke up staring at a gray haze.
It's another bad-air day in Beijing. You can barely see. You can barely breathe. But you can feel -- and even taste -- the grit floating in the air.
The World Health Organization has set healthy level of Air Quality Index at 25 micrograms, while Beijing considers a 300 reading as "Bad" and 500 as "Hazardous." Last weekend, however, it breached 700!
"I'm getting itchy," complained my daughter Michelle, 22, visiting us from New York. "I could feel it at the back of my throat."
Longtime expatriate residents in the Chinese capital jokingly call it the "Beijing tickle," a nagging cough that takes a long time to shrug off.
Air pollution is a major problem in China because of the country's rapid pace of industrialization, reliance on coal power, explosive growth in car ownership and the sometimes disregard for environmental laws.
It is now paying the price of rapid development.
In 2007, China overtook the United States as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to China's Ministry of Commerce. It is also the No. 1 source of carbon emission worldwide, state-run China Daily reported recently.
Added to this, the World Bank says 20 of the 30 most polluted cities in the world are in China.
Health is the big casualty.
Almost 400,000 premature deaths are recorded in China each year, with the majority related to pollution, according to the World Bank's "Cost of Pollution in China," a report based on official Chinese figures.
A growing number of individuals and institutions are looking to find last-gasp solutions.
The government has already shut down high-polluting factories, built new subway lines, and allocated state subsidies to reduce the cost of public transport.
Beijing bans vehicles from the road one day a week to reduce heavy traffic and vehicle emissions.
It also imports natural gas from other provinces to rely less on coal for heating and cooking.
As part of a long-term solution, Chinese researchers are producing prototypes of solar and electric cars to replace gas-fueled vehicles.
So far, these measures have not produced consistently blue skies and clean air.
Green activists complain that even though government regulations have improved, laws are often ignored.
One of Beijing's big problems has been the city's geography, as it is surrounded by mountains shaped like a horseshoe.
When pollution blows in from the heavily industrial neighboring towns and cities, it builds up and, in windless days, gets trapped over the capital.
In fact, this is not the first time bad air has bedeviled Beijing. I remember one day last year when the U.S. embassy's air monitoring system reported the pollution level as "crazy bad."
What can we Beijing residents do about it?
Wear face masks? Unless you use heavy-duty ones, I am told, they do not really make much difference.
Turn on air-purifiers full blast? We've never used one at home, although my friends swear they help.
"The truth is there isn't a lot people can do about ambient air pollution," said Deborah Soligsohn, an environment and energy specialist at the World Resources Institute, a U.S. based think tank.
"Ambient air pollution is not nearly as large a health risk as more immediate forms of air pollution. Tobacco is a much larger killer, and indoor air pollution from poorly ventilated wood and coal fires has traditionally been a much larger killer in the developing world. Smoky restaurants and bars can have levels as high as these recent air pollution numbers."
I know a few expat friends who have decided to relocate out of Beijing and were mainly turned off by its bad air.
"What did you think of Beijing?" I asked David Van Dyke, who lived and worked in Beijing for nearly seven years before relocating to Canada last year.
"Mostly liked it, save for the Internet (censorship) and pollution," he said.
Meantime, some residents have resorted to humor and sarcasm online to vent their frustration.
"I love my city, but I refuse to be a human vacuum cleaner," netizens re-tweeted on Weibo, China's microblogging social media. "We want clean air, and we want to breathe freely."
Others posted pictures wearing face masks of various shapes and designs.
A page of Sohu.com featured a section covered with haze, with a note saying the headlines have been obscured by a massive smog. "Click on it, and it will clear up." Once it cleared it, the title read: "We live in a "toxic gas.'"
"Don't worry," Henry Ngo posted on my Facebook page. "Smokers are inhaling worst air than this. And they did not die immediately!"
Is this now the new "normal"?
Soligsohn, who lived in Beijing for 14 years, does not think so.
"This is a confluence of bad events," she assured me. "Pollution is definitely a problem. It hasn't gone away, but there is no reason to believe an extreme reading is anything other than an extreme."
There seems to be no quick solution.
"This is complex and takes time, but the work has begun," Soligsohn added.
"It took cities like London and Los Angeles almost half a century to get from really dirty air to pretty clean air, and LA has never actually fully met EPA standards, which have become tougher with new information."
Five days after what some have dubbed Beijing's "air-mageddon," the sunshine has reappeared, and the air has actually turned relatively clear.
My daughter points out that London and Los Angeles have confronted pollution as well. As long as the Chinese recognize it is a problem, they will eventually be able to strike a balance between a clean environment and a thriving economy."
Wind has dispersed some of the smog, although my chest remains heavy and my throat is still itchy.
Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
<urn:uuid:db96f4aa-79a9-4d58-b588-660c7da987d3>
|
http://www.kcci.com/news/national/Living-with-Beijing-s-air-pocalypse/-/9357144/18198130/-/view/print/-/jl5uvc/-/index.html
| 0.9694
|
fineweb
|
2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season Birdseye Discussion #83
...AUGUST 19 2012...9:40 PM EDT...
As expected...Gordon weakens to a category 1 hurricane while bearing down on the southeasternmost Azores (Sao Miguel and Santa Maria) at this hour. Weather conditions in those islands are about to become severe...and not clear up until sometime tomorrow after Gordon passes. See first special feature section below.
The tropical Atlantic is extremely active at this hour. If two of any of the following areas of interest become tropical storms in the next three days...we will be tied or ahead of the record 2005 Atlantic hurricane season...with 10 tropical storms before August 22:
Area of Interest Invest 95-L...Even though Helene and its remnant low have become assimilated into the Mexican-SW US summer monsoon low pressure field...upper winds in the western Gulf of Mexico are still favorable for tropical activity...and we already have a new pop-up disturbance in the western Gulf that has been upgraded to Invest 95-L. See 2nd special feature section for further details.
Area of Interest Invest 94-L...see 3rd special feature section for latest info on this strong tropical wave.
Other Areas of Interest...Pop-up weather in the south-central Caribbean Sea has made landfall in Central America and can no longer develop (paragraph P7). Two additional tropical waves...one ahead of and the second behind Invest 94-L...also have organized t-storm activity and cyclonic turning (see paragraphs P9 and P10). Because the tropical wave in paragraph P10 was introduced into the National Hurricane Center (NHC) tropical weather outlook while I was writing this discussion...I have just granted it a special feature section on this blog. See 4th special feature section for details on paragraph P10 tropical wave.
...ATMOSPHERIC FEATURES BIRDSEYE CHART...
This chart is generated based on surface analysis from the National Hurricane Center TAFB at 1800Z, and the 1916Z-released HPC analysis.
In light blue is upper air analysis, with 200 mb wind barbs calculated by GOES satellite imagery showing the upper-level wind direction. Based on the 200 mb wind barbs, blue-dashed lines are locations of upper troughs, blue-zig-zag lines are locations of upper ridges. Blue Ls are locations of upper lows, blue Hs are locations of upper ridges.
In red is surface analysis, with solid lines indicating locations of surface fronts, dashed lines indicating locations of surface troughs, and zig-zag lines indicating surface ridge axes. Ls indicate surface lows, Hs indicate surface highs.
...THERMODYNAMICS BIRDSEYE CHART...
This chart is generated using GOES water vapor satellite imagery. Brown indicates dry air. White, blue, and purple indicates moist air. An increase in moisture indicates slower air parcel lapse rates with elevation and hence an increase toward instability.
Sea-surface temperatures are overlaid with light blue isotherms. The 26 deg C isotherm is highlighted in red. Waters at and south of the 26 deg C isotherm indicate low-level warmth and hence faster environmental lapse rates with elevation (more instability). Waters north of the 26 deg C isotherm indicate slower environmental lapse rates with elevation (less instability).
...SPECIAL FEATURE...HURRICANE GORDON...
For Hurricane Gordon...my latest forecast (versus the NHC's) is shown in Figure 1 below.
Track-wise for Gordon...earlier in discussions #80 and #81...I had a track that passed Gordon's center over 30W-35N...then pass just south of Santa Maria. NHC at that time was proposing the center to pass north of 30W-35N and then pass between Santa Maria and Sao Miguel. My southward bias at the time was due to me giving more credence to low-level ridge intensification W of Gordon...as the low-level ridge S of Greenland (paragraph P2) merges with low-level Atlantic ridge (paragraph P4)...and by accounts in paragraph P2...this is beginning to occurr. Well tonight...it appears that Gordon's center is tracking in the middle between my and NHC's solutions from that time...which means Gordon's center will pass very near or over Santa Maria in the next hours. This is what is shown by the NHC at this hour...and I also agree with this solution. In Figure 1...the aforementioned intensification of the low-level ridging to the west is what causes the rightward bend in Gordon's track as a non-tropical remnant cyclone.
Intensity-wise...weakening continues as Gordon crossed the 26 deg C isotherm early this morning and into cooler waters. Gordon has been more-or-less following the weaknening rate shown in Figure 1 of discussion #82...so I maintain this weakening rate in Figure 1 below (this is a slightly slower weakening rate when compared to today's 5 PM EDT NHC advisory). This means I am forecasting Gordon to hit Santa Maria with category 1 hurricane force winds in the overnight...with the current track and current hurricane wind radius suggesting the east half of Sao Miguel also getting some hurricane force winds. The frontal zone draped near the Azores has been obliterated as Gordon has moved in...but Gordon's t-storms will gradual collapse over the more stable air over cooler waters such that it still becomes non-tropical.
Figure 1: Forecast for Hurricane Gordon this evening.
Impact swath in Figure 1 is drawn based on the tropical storm wind radius shown at the NHC 5 PM EDT advisory...then extrapolating that along the forecast track. I shrink it later on based on the forecast weakening.
...SPECIAL FEATURE...WEST GULF OF MEXICO DISTURBANCE INVEST 95-L...
While over east-central Mexico...Tropical Depression Helene and its remnant low quickly became ill-defined within the low pressure field of the Mexican/SW US summer monsoon. Despite this...outflow from W Atlantic upper ridge (paragraph P1) continues to enhance t-storms in this area...which have re-organized about a 1010 mb surface low that apperas to be centerd just offshore of Mexico and over W edge of Gulf of Mexico waters...judging by latest visible satellite imagery. Because of how well-organized the low is on visible...I am considering this a special feature on this blog. This low has been classified as Invest 95-L rather than ex-Helene...which tells us that officially this is not recognized to be the remnants of Helene.
Perhaps it is no surprise that disturbed weather in this area lingers...based on previous discussions on this blog (paragraph P6 discusion #81...paragraph P6 discussion #80...paragraph P5 discussion #79). All of these discussions suggested disturbed weather that would linger here for days...and perhaps that the frontal zone from paragraph P1 would dive south into this area and add to the activity...which indeed is beginning to occur. Satellite animations suggest surface low Invest 95-L is stationary...trapped in a low-level ridge weakness associated with this front...with the Atlantic low-level ridge (paragraph P4) to the east and west US/Canada low-level ridge to the north (paragraph P1) providing conflicting steering. Based on low-level GFS model animation...I expect 95-L to remain stationary thru 72 hrs...then begin drifting northward to south Texas beyond that time as the blocking low-level ridge to the north gets pushed eastward by the next frontal system in the mid-latitudes. With upper winds staying favorable thru this time...a tropical depression or storm is possible...so interests along the NE Mexico and south Texas coast shoudl monitor this system carefully. Even if no tropical cyclone development occurs...the risk of persistent rains could cause flooding problems.
...SPECIAL FEATURE...TROPICAL WAVE INVEST 94-L...
Strong tropical wave now WSW of the Cape Verde Islands is still showing impressive t-storm activity and cyclonic turning in those clouds. Within the paragraph P5 upper ridge...t-storm latent heat release has generated a warm core upper anticyclone aloft....which has reducing the easterly shear and enhanced the upper outflow. As a result...tropical cyclone formation is still likely...and I am predicting a 100% chance of a tropical depression or tropical storm out of this system eventually. I predicted tropical cyclone formation from this system sometime today...but it appears this has been delayed due to some level of dry air ingestion (source of dry air in paragraph P4).
In special update #82A...I had provided a 5-day (120 hr) outlook for this system...which is now a 4-day (96 hr) outlook. The paragraph P numbers in that outlook still fit with the mid-latitude and tropical belt discussion P numbers in this dicsussion as well. As a current 4-day outlook...I still stand behind that forecast for now...but I would say that the threat of a major hurricane in the NE Caribbean area is reducing due to the delay in this system becoming a tropical cyclone. So far...the track forecast shown in that outlook is doing quiet well. The more WNW track I show (which brings the storm into Hispaniola by day 4) has a northward bias compared to the main GFS model run...but on the other hand is in the midst of the spread of GFS's ensemble members.
...SPECIAL FEATURE...EASTERN ATLANTIC TROPICAL WAVE...
Another tropical wave has emerged from Africa recently...located well east of Invest 94-L...southeast of the Cape Verde Islands...and featuring cyclonic turning and organized t-storm activity. As I was writing this discussion...it has been introduced into the NHC tropical weather outlook...and likewise I have voted to give this a special feature section due to its organization.
As mentioned in the Invest 94-L forecast (special update #82A)...there is an upper vortex that is expected to form east of 94-L...associated with relatively lower pressures east of 94-L's upper anticyclone. Latest 200 mb wind barbs in above atmo chart reveal this upper vortex is already forming. Will have to carefully monitor if this emerging upper vortex suppresses or enhances the outflow of this tropical wave...depending on its relative position to this wave. If outflow enhancement occurs...tropical cyclone formation risk from this system is going to increase.
P1...Upper trough over the eastern US/Canada persists. Strong surface frontal cyclone supported by divergence from this upper trough...located over southern Hudson Bay...has weakened to 1004 mb under the less divergent upper vortex that is a product of its local cool air advection. Warm air advection ahead of this surface cyclone now supports W Atlantic upper ridge. W Atlantic upper ridge still has a SW-NE tilt...now stretching from E Mexico (where it supports the upper outflow of 95-L) to the central Atlantic waters E of Bermuda. Meanwhile...upper convergence on the back side of this upper trough has been supporting surface ridging...with 1020 to 1022 mb centers over the western US/Canada as seen in the upper-left of the above atmo chart.
P2...Upper trough regime over Atlantic high seas persists. Frontal cyclone just offshore of Europe in previous discussion is still performing a meandering loop beneath cyclonic flow of amplified Atlantic high seas upper trough. Western upper convergence of Atlantic high seas upper trough supports a 1023 mb ridge just south of Greenland. Shortwave upper trough from Atlantic Canada is merging with Atlantic high seas upper trough...therefore losing its identity. Surface cyclone supported by this shortwave has moved from SE of Newfoundland to the waters W of the Azores while chasing Hurricane Gordon. Upper covnergence on back side of high seas upper trough is causing the 1023 mb ridge south of Greenland to merge with Atlantic surface ridge in paragraph P4...so either this surface cyclone will become squashed out of existence from this surface ridge development...or alternatively will dive southeastward on the east side of this surface ridge development.
P3...Elongated upper trough in the central Caribbean has been pushed westward into central America in last 24 hrs as it retrogrades about W Atlantic upper ridge mentioned in paragraph P1.
P4...Atlantic surface ridge with 1020 mb to 1023 mb centers is supported by a few upper convergent sources while stretching from the central Gulf of Mexico to the waters offshore of W Europe....including convergence SE of the of the W Atlantic upper ridge (paragraph P1)...and convergence behind Atlantic high seas upper trough (paragraph P2). In conjunction with south sides of W Atlantic upper ridge (paragraph P2) and E Atlantic upper ridge (paragraph P5)...south side of this surface ridge is helping to waft Africa desert dry air westward across the Atlantic tropics.
...TROPICAL BELT DISCUSSION...
P5...Upper ridge across the eastern tropical Atlantic persists. Hurricane Gordon continues to be near the north edge of this upper ridge. T-storm latent heat release from Gordon continues to locally inflate this edge of the upper ridge...which has resulted in an embedded shortwave upper trough south of Gordon. T-storm latent heat release from tropical wave Invest 94-L is causing this upper ridge to concentrate into an anticyclonic center over Invest 94-L.
P6...Upper vortex in central tropical Atlantic is retrograding westward...thanks to growing W Atlantic upper ridge (paragraph P1) to its NW. The upper vortex is currently passing north of the Lesser Antilles.
P7...Visible satellite imagery shows that yesterday's disturbed weather in the south-central Caribbean with light cyclonic turning has made landfall in Central America. The landfall and suppression beneath the paragraph P3 upper vorticity means that tropical cyclone formation is no longer possible with this system. Relatively new E Caribbean upper ridge that enhanced this disturbance yesterday still persists.
P8...Tropical wave that was in the eastern Caribbean in the previous discussion is now in the central Caribbean. It is currently beneath split flow upper divergence between the E Caribbean upper ridge in paragraph P7 and upper vorticity in paragraph P3...so an upheaval in t-storms with this tropical wave is possible during the next hours.
P9...Tropical wave midway between the Cape Verdes and Lesser Antilles continues producing t-storms extending hundreds of miles west of Invest 94-L. There remains enough cyclonic turning is in these clouds such that the NHC TAFB analyzed a 1010 mb low on the south end of this tropical wave as of 1800Z TAFB (and as shown in above atmo chart). Its t-storms remain supported by outflow beneath the E Atlantic upper ridge (paragraph P5)...coupled with enhanced poleward outflow streaming into paragraph P6 upper vortex.
P10...Another tropical wave has emerged from Africa recently...located well east of Invest 94-L...southeast of the Cape Verde Islands...and featuring cyclonic turning and organized t-storm activity. As I was writing this discussion...it has been introduced into the NHC tropical weather outlook...and likewise I have voted to give this a special feature section due to its organization. See 4th special feature section above for details on this system.
|
<urn:uuid:8bed863c-30ca-4df5-9e97-72ff889b0d8d>
|
http://espanol.wunderground.com/blog/NCHurricane2009/comment.html?entrynum=167
| 0.9924
|
fineweb
|
by Kellee Terrell
Lisa Jackson may have the most important job in the world. The air we breathe and earth we live on will be affected for years to come based on what she does. Jackson, 50, has been running the Environmental Protection Agency since 2009 (she was tapped by President Obama in 2008), and has led the outfit in a completely different direction, especially as it concerns climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, and how we dispose of our chemicals.
Her job—fighting for our right to have clean air, water, and land—is no easy task. But this tenacious New Orleans native comes with more than 25 years of serious science cred. She studied chemical engineering at Tulane and Princeton Universities, and worked at the EPA for 15 years before becoming New Jersey’s environmental commissioner in 2006.
Yet, despite her impressive résumé, Jackson approaches this huge role with little ego. In her eyes, it’s about helping others. “This job is my highest calling. It’s a combination of public service, the environment, and the ability for me to focus and give communities across the country a seat at the table when it comes to their health.”
MY FAMILY’S GUMBO RECIPE IS… heavily guarded. My mother would kill me if I told anyone. That recipe goes back generations.
ONE OF THE PRESIDENT’S BEST CHARACTERISTICS IS… that he won’t accept the excuse of, “Well, this is the way that we have always done things.” He is constantly pushing us to think about the best solution and how to do it more efficiently.
WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING… I turn on Prince and dance. Prince is still the man.
SPOTIFY VS. ITUNES… It used to be iTunes, but now I’m into Rhapsody.
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IS… a health issue. Heart disease, cancer, and respiratory illnesses are three of the top four most fatal health issues in this country. And they have all been linked to pollution.
|
<urn:uuid:8436a134-74bf-4d24-922c-56abe431e670>
|
http://uptownmagazine.com/2012/06/confessions-lisa-jackson/
| 0.5501
|
fineweb
|
These videos are getting better and better. Here's some stats
and figures on the recent US heatwave from Peter Sinclair.
Published under a CC
license. You are welcome to reproduce material for
non-commercial use, credited 'Carbon Brief' with a link to the
article. Please contact us for commerical use.
Published by Climate Brief Ltd - Company No. 07222041
|
<urn:uuid:fff6f093-1e06-4da8-b095-be2c8cb1175d>
|
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/08/essential-climate-video-on-us-heatwave
| 0.9998
|
fineweb
|
A variety of rare wildlife encounters is making this winter’s scenery even more picturesque and quintessentially Coloradan.
Six hikers missing on the Lost Man Loop trail near Aspen have been found safe.
Fire crews are slowly getting control of the West Fork Complex Fire in southwest Colorado.
The flag at a command post for a huge wildfire burning in southwestern Colorado is flying at half staff.
The West Fork Fire is the biggest wildfire burning in Colorado and has so far burned more than 90,000 acres, but on Saturday there was 2 percent containment.
People were allowed back to the southwestern Colorado town of South Fork on Friday, a week after residents and visitors were forced to evacuate because of a massive wildfire.
Some firefighters from Hawaii are the scene of the massive wildfire burning in southwestern Colorado.
The massive wildfire burning in southwestern Colorado is finally slowing down a bit.
This is what counts as good news in Colorado’s wildfire season: a breezy day but at least not three straight hours of winds blowing at 25 mph or more.
Crews defending small homes, a ski area and a handful of roads against an erratic wildfire in Colorado’s southwest mountains hoped Monday for a break – any break – in the weather that will allow them to launch a more strategic assault.
|
<urn:uuid:85bdb2df-6815-4b86-8159-a5d2a936c7a1>
|
http://denver.cbslocal.com/tag/south-fork/
| 0.9997
|
fineweb
|
ATLANTIC CITY – Hurricane Irene is weakening and may not be the “apocalypse” that authorities in multiple states are making it out to be.
The worst storm in the history of the world?
Armageddon? The apocalypse?
Once in a lifetime storm?
Well, looks like Irene was just teasing us. Yes, it is a major storm, but “Armageddon” – probably not.
Dr. Simon Atkins, CEO, of Advaned Forecasting Corporation as the hype over Hurricane Irene is overblown. He predicts that “North of Delaware, most hurricane force winds will very likely be gusts, not sustained winds.”
Atkins goes on to say that, “The demise of Irene has already begun. There is no visible eye. The storm intensity is down to 99 mph. This would be a low-end category 2 or a strong category 1 storm, while 36 hours ago some predicted a catastrophic category 4 storm. Air Force Reserve aircraft have found that Irene’s eyewall has collapsed, and the central pressure has risen — rising pressure means a weakening storm.”
But that’s not stopping Mayor Bloomberg from putting the fear of God into New Yorkers:
“Do not be fooled by the sun outside—that is the calm before the storm,” Mr. Bloomberg warned during a televised news conference from City Hall Friday afternoon. “You can’t wait until there are gale force winds and driving rains arrive. It will be too late then. You have to start your preparations to leave right now.”
Many New Yorkers were ignoring his warnings. This woman on Coney Island Beach didn’t seem worried:
He issued mandatory evacuations for all New Yorkers in Zone A. He shut buses, trains and subways. Governor Cuomo said he would shut down the George Washington Bridge and the Tappan Zee Bridge, if winds get over 60 mph. Basically, the Mayor and Governor were telling New Yorkers to… “get out!!”
Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, was blowing a lot of wind himself. “I want everybody off the beaches. If you stay on the beaches, I’m personally gonna come over and beat your a**.”
Dr. Atkins told WWN. “The reduction in storm intensity likely confirms that this storm is not going to be as monstrous as it has been publicly forecast to be. Yes, it will be windy. However, north of Delaware most hurricane force winds will very likely be gusts, not sustained winds.”
Advanced Forecasting Corporation, modeled the following predictions:
1) There will be wind damage over eastern-most North Carolina as well as some storm surge flooding up the Pamlico Sound. Some houses in the Hamptons will be flooded and destroyed. Flooding might occur in New York’s Battery Park Subway station and on the FDR Drive since the city could get up to 8 inches of rain. There may be some New England neighborhoods submerged due to rivers overflowing.
2) With 90% confidence, we predict a total damage bill below $1 billion. Unless there is an unexpected secondary or tertiary event, this is not going to be a huge-loss storm.
So, will it be Armageddon or a Hard Drizzle? What do you think?
|
<urn:uuid:6a54e5ac-b375-482b-a53d-970dba58fdce>
|
http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/37632/irene-weakens/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=15d01e1108
| 0.9995
|
fineweb
|
The long-growing crack in the Larsen C ice shelf, one of Antarctica’s largest floating platforms of ice, appears to be reaching its inevitable end. Scientists with Project MIDAS, working out of Swansea University and Aberystwyth University in Wales and studying the shelf by satellites and through other techniques, have released a new update showing that the crack grew a stunning 11 miles in the space of just one week between May 25 and May 31.
Shareholders in Exxon Mobil have backed a motion requiring the company to assess the risks from climate change. The plan, proposed by investors including the Church of England, was supported by over 62% of those eligible to vote.
The European Commission president has said that it was the duty of Europe to stand up to the US if President Donald Trump decides to pull his country out of the Paris climate change accord. Jean-Claude Juncker said that the Americans can't just get out of the agreement, adding that it takes three to four years to pull out.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, which will lead the task of identifying the unknown Argentine combatants buried at the Darwin cemetery in the Falkland Islands, and currently in Buenos Aires, will be arriving in the Islands next Saturday and work is expected to begin as had been anticipated on 19 June.
Prime Minister Theresa May could lose control of parliament in Britain's June 8 election, according to a projection by polling company YouGov, raising the prospect of political turmoil just as formal Brexit talks begin.
J&F Investimentos, controlling shareholder of the world's largest meatpacker JBS SA,, agreed to pay a record-setting 10.3 billion real (US$3.2 billion) fine for its role in corruption scandals that threaten to topple President Michel Temer. The settlement meant Brazil's sweeping graft investigations have now led to the world's two biggest leniency fines ever levied, Brazilian prosecutors said.
|
<urn:uuid:f0deb5e5-ae1d-4b1c-a37d-5708d2bf0cc6>
|
http://en.mercopress.com/2017/06/01
| 0.9916
|
fineweb
|
Paris – Wind is the fastest growing renewable energy in Europe – making up a third of new energy here, with 20 turbines added every working day in 2008, according to EU statistics.
What the European wind energy industry now wants is to expand – offshore. Ocean winds are a stronger and more predictable form of energy than the ones on land, and the industry is pushing a $57 billion investment to allow broad-winged turbines to spin at sea.
Offshore wind is “absolutely” a significant new resource, argues Walt Patterson, an associate at Chatham House and author of “Keeping the Lights On,” adding that “the big question mark is not sticking the stuff in the ocean, but how to get the electricity ashore.”
A report released in Stockholm Monday by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) argues that offshore turbines could provide 10 percent of Europe’s energy by 2020 – avoiding some 200 tons of C02 emissions.
Currently, 11 sets of the wind-powered turbines are circling off Europe’s shores, with 21 under construction, mostly in Great Britain. At the moment they only contribute about .02 percent of Europe’s electricity needs.
EU energy czar Andris Piebalgs backed the EWEA’s ambitious plans to harness ocean winds, saying in Stockholm that the European commission is “committed to doing everything we can to support offshore wind developers and make sure their… projects come to fruition.”
The EWEA Stockholm wind conference, called “Oceans of Opportunity,” comes at a time when Europe is focusing on climate control and job creation. Offshore turbines are also seen as a solution to complaints from Europeans who do not want the gargantuan turbines in their backyards.
Complaints and hurdles
But people also have complaints about turbines at sea. Complaints that the turbines ruin ocean views have slowed US efforts to get a project started off the coast of Massachusetts. The US has virtually no offshore wind energy, though the Obama administration has started to work on the issue.
There are also economic limitations, since electricity produced by offshore turbines is more expensive to deliver to consumers. There are also maintenance concerns involving storms at sea and corrosion from salt water. Mr. Patterson says the biggest hurdle is making the power deliverable.
“It’s a chicken and egg question, really,” says Patterson. “If you are the industry, do you wait for the cables to be laid on the ocean floor, or do you build the fields and then hope they are laid?”
The industry was boosted by a recent EU law requiring that 20 percent of Europe’s energy be obtained from renewable sources by 2020. Some 15 European states are planning offshore projects, according to the EWEA report. “There is huge developer interest in offshore wind power,” Arthuros Zervos, president of EWEA, said in a statement Monday. “The scale of planned projects is far greater than most people realize.”
Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported on Monday that Germany is about to begin construction of a wind farm 12 miles off its Baltic coast that German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said would produce 12,000 megawatts of electricity, bringing Germany “closer to our goal of producing 25,000 megawatts offshore by 2030.”
This week the American electric giant GE, which produces nearly a quarter of the turbines for wind power worldwide, said it will enter the offshore market for the first time.
The Financial Times reported Monday that GE is expected to invest “hundreds of millions” in developing offshore turbines. The FT reported that GE “is also buying ScanWind, a small Norwegian-Swedish turbine company for 18 million, giving it access to new turbine technology, tested in harsh conditions on the coast of Norway.”
The EWEA in Stockholm presented data asserting that all of Europe’s energy needs could one day be met by eight fields of turbines roughly the size of 10,000 square kilometers, off the coasts of EU states.
|
<urn:uuid:0c6b2775-b4e0-4237-90d0-4fba91652163>
|
http://www.newsologist.com/europes-57-billion-plan-to-put-windmills-in-the-ocean/
| 0.9992
|
fineweb
|
Last night, January 19th, 2017, I wondered this as I walked through western Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Memorial Drive, in a neighborhood where somewhat posh residential houses open up into some sudden strips of concrete retail, the filthy river and the glittering Boston skyline just in view. It is not a beautiful place. It is also only ugly to the extent that most architectural products of this age are ugly: morally, even if not aesthetically. Not that I always separate the two. In any case, I wondered how long all the human-made structures that I saw would stay. The electronics store, the gas station, the stoplight, the skyscraper.
One answer is, “It will stay until somebody tears it down and builds something else.” The more geological, morbid option, which I intend to reflect upon today, assumes the likelihood of non-interference by humans, meaning that the human species would be extinct by the time that these stone, metal, and other components began to naturally erode and collapse into nothingness.
I am not asking this question because I expect people will read and take action. As it happens, I am only a fledgling in the countless sums of voices who, possessing some vital belief, have tried to be heard by more than their immediate circle; I am even only a fledgling in the countless sums of voices whose vital beliefs constitute a truth, a prophecy, a desperate plea. Instead, I am writing this because it is the stupid, ridiculous human instinct to record, whether some extraterrestrial archaeologist should ever stumble upon the (digital) evidence and be capable of decoding it, or whether we say only to the absolute, perfect void that we were here. Not many will see what I say here right now. It does not matter. My words are meant for anyone, everyone, but equally for no one— the prospect of no one.
In light of such, I will not worry about whether my words are pretentious. I often find that when I write for an audience, I try to mitigate my mind’s natural gravitas with lighter-hearted phrasing, witticisms, self-deprecation, and so forth. The pretentious quality that I discern or fear others discerning— this arises when I have retreated far into my own stream of consciousness, thinking only of the thing I’m trying to say, relying on a lexicon and psychological environment that derived from reading old literature when I was quite young. But this is what I must rely upon now. I need this writing to be as authentic as possible, not because it ought to be my last, but because it is the first thing I have written in full acknowledgment of what I largely expect constitutes the final descent of my species.
How long will it stay?
. . . .
In my childhood, I remember learning about some grotesque crimes against humanity. They were explained in books and television programs and statements by adults, usually quite sanitized. It was at least enough for me to grasp the simplest facts of what happened, why things were so terrible. Chief examples would be the history of African slavery in the United States, or the Holocaust. At the time I didn’t think either of these things had much to do with me. For a long time I didn’t understand that I had an ongoing role to play as a person with pale skin, European ancestry, and a background of what could be called cultural whiteness. I also didn’t understand that I would come to belong to several demographics targeted in the Holocaust itself, even though I was not Jewish; nor did I know that a slim branch of never-met family members had been, in fact, German Jews. Even in my ignorance, I still knew such past events, and the people who perpetuated them, merited my horror. I had no trouble summoning empathy. No, the real trouble lay in how I imagined some curtain to have been drawn between the events of my own time and the events of people older than me, elderly people, dead people, forgotten people. I lived in a world where certain US residents were called ornery for having human needs now that they weren’t literal plantation slaves anymore (contemporary observation: for the most part). I lived in a world where Nazis were cartoonish, silly men who got outwitted by clever GIs and punched by dashing archaeologists. I don’t miss that time of my development.
What I do miss was the mood surrounding another thing I kept learning about, which was the natural world. My planet, the Earth. I attended preschool, kindergarten, and primary school from about 1990 to 1998, and in this time the capitalist “green revolution” had not yet superseded a different sort of environmentalism. Many of the ideas were the same, of course. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Save the rainforest. Protect endangered species. Don’t waste water. Don’t create pollution. Don’t harm the ozone layer. Don’t contribute to the greenhouse effect, the source of global warming. In the early 1990s, however, this felt different in the sense that, at least in my own education, we were taught these principles to contribute to a glorious, wonderful cause that would help preserve life on this planet— a cause that was winning. We weren’t past any climate tipping points. We hadn’t caused as much damage as we eventually would. We needed to worry, but we also needed to hope and celebrate. It was going to be all right.
That sentiment could have distorted the truth, or it could have been tragically misplaced optimism. I still long for that sense of heroism. It is very gone now. It has been replaced by a sunkenness in my guts, a tightness in my throat. A hollowness, a sorrow, floating on top of a simmering fear that has also dwelt with me since I was extremely young. I speak of the fear of apocalypse.
Raised with an atheist outlook, which I preserve in a highly augmented and problematized form today, I dreaded no Day of Judgment or various equivalents. Briefly, when I learned about the very idea of Hell, I had some nightmare about it, but this didn’t concern me. The most religious fear I felt was when I first read about Ragnarök, when the Fenris wolf is prophesied to eat the Sun. That story, though in truth more complicated than a pure, final, “everything dies” tale, hit closest to the fears that did consume me. Each time that I learned of various Earth-destroying cosmic events that could or would eventually occur, I went paralytic with terror. Asteroid or comet impacts; the planet being consumed by the expanding Sun; the universe as we know it ending with heat death, collapse, or who knows what. I couldn’t bear to think about black holes, even though the Earth is not likely to ever fall into one. The mere prospect of such annihilation petrified me. I felt keenly betrayed by the notion that life should come into existence, that sentient forms of it should evolve, only to have no ultimate chance. We would have billions and billions of years, alone or not alone, but we were slated to perish by the laws of physics.
It did not seem fair at all. It seemed as appallingly unfair as the idea that I could be born, enjoy living, accomplish things, collect spectacular memories, and yet ultimately die with no hereafter to welcome me. On long car rides with my family, when night fell I would stare out the window at the stars, and I would cry childishly but in silence at this impossible, absurd tragedy. The stars were the symbol of things enduring despite all odds, and yet even they would have to lose their fire.
. . . .
Here are some of my vital beliefs.
That humans are relatively hairless chimpanzees that have evolved a general tendency toward an erect bipedal gait, opposable thumbs, and fully developed linguistic faculties, although there are variations across the gene pool.
That we chimpanzees occupy some temperament midway between the common chimp and the bonobo, between the warring killers and the fucking hedonists.
That it is against universal wisdom and morals for humans to detach ourselves from the Earth by pretending we are better than other animals, or pretending we are not tool users, or pretending we are not omnivores, or pretending we are not naturally and inextricably violent.
That it is also against such wisdom and morals for us to detach ourselves from the Earth by pretending our absolute self-interest will have no consequence for life as we know it, or pretending that satisfying instrumentality requires engaging in exploitation, or pretending we need no standards for how to behave toward one another and the rest of life, or pretending we are not also naturally and inextricably peaceful.
That extinctions must happen if a species has lost its place in the cycle of things.
That extinctions must be fought if such a loss is due to a wider imbalance that threatens the whole ecosystem, particularly if the species’ absence would cause further destabilization.
That life in its broadest sense is good, and should be preserved, even while preserving so many evils within it. Even while preserving the more intrinsic forms of death and violence.
That a socioeconomic order predicated upon eternal expansion and profit will always serve as a destabilizing force, threatening all ecosystems, threatening all participants, threatening itself, making itself the greatest and worst joke that our witty species has ever played.
That there are few things humans have ever built which could be called unnatural, but that in terms of causing non-intrinsic forms of death and violence, capitalism might be called the greatest unnaturalism, the greatest virus, the meta-virus, the meta-death that is far worse than ordinary death.
That we are exquisitely close to running out of time.
. . . .
I am an emotional writer. When I write something that has hurt inside me for a long while, I weep as I scrawl or type. Somehow, I have not wept yet today. Today I am sad but also perplexed, puzzling. Weighing. Fighting the last vestiges of denial. I do not know if my tears belong with denial or with acceptance. When I know, maybe they will spill.
. . . .
By this point, anyone reading this when it’s published or with the relevant background knowledge could see that I have written this on the day that a particular man was officially inaugurated as the President of the United States. He is a despicable, infuriating, repugnant wretch.
But I am not writing simply because I had such boundless hope before he achieved his power and now, only now, is it dashed. For me it is not like that. That would be pathetically, embarrassingly naïve. Over the past several years of shared political struggle and my own private struggles, following various news stories about the latest undesired climate change milestone, the latest labor abuse, and so forth, I have already grown fairly convinced that the species is digging its own grave, and possibly the graves of everything else on this spinning rock.
I will provide two long quotes from a very important essay that I first read some day not long after it was published. One:
We are living in a mass extinction event. This is not a theory. Over half the species on earth will be extinct by 2050. Let me repeat that fact: over half the species on earth will be extinct by 2050. We are on track to kill off 75% of life in no longer than 300 years, assuming we make it that far. This is the fastest and largest extinction event in history, including that of the dinosaurs. If we understand the example of the wolves, we can see that these are not discrete losses, they represent the unravelling of the entire warp and weft of life. In The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert, she reports the extinction rate in the tropics is now 10,000 times the background rate.
… Seawater so acidic that the shells of molluscs are dissolving. Oceans overfished to the extent that they resemble deserts, seabeds ploughed to destruction, micro-particles of indigestible plastic poisioning bird life and turtles, reefs bleached, plankton populations which are the building blocks of all ocean life disappearing. Ocean acidification is predicted to double by 2050. Ocean acidification triples by 2100. The death of the seas is inevitable. Of freshwater I will say that the draining of aquifers is ongoing, that fracking threatens the water table and that wars over water are going to rage in the coming years.
… The Earth itself is exhausted, soil degradation endemic, washed with its nitrogen fertilisers into our already poisoned seas. The living Earth is fragile, it takes a hundred years to form a centimetre of topsoil. Farmland is a limited resource and eroding fast. Industrial pollution has destroyed 20% of the farmland in China – I am not sure that you, or I, can grasp quite how much land that is. Globally 38% of farmland is now classified as degraded. Human population continues to grow, as our ability to feed it, and our infrastructures, buckle. Insect populations will soon not be able to pollinate the crops. It is not just the bees, with climate change animals and insects are being born out of sync with their food sources. As I have said before, the wheel of the year has been broken.
… The air and fire are perhaps what should give us most concern. We thought we had more time. That man-made climate change would be tackled. It has not, and it will not be, as Government and Corporate interests are one and the same, namely infinite growth. This is where you should feel the knot of fear in your stomach. The CO2 emissions that are wreaking havoc now are the result of what we burned forty years ago. Since then we have engaged in an orgy of denial and consumption. There is no tech-fix in the Anthropocene, the age of manmade climate change. Nothing has been done.
What mainstream scientists are not telling you is that the impact we are having is creating self-reinforcing feedback loops. Essentially they focus on a single domino when we have an entire array triggered and falling. Methane release from thawing Arctic Tundra is particularly worrying. We are facing NTE: Near Term Extinction.
… Estimates for the time that this process will take, the process of extinction, range from fifty to three hundred years.
If you prefer reassurances you can ask the New Agers about their ‘global awakening product’ or believe the green wash of the venture capitalists who will seek to cash-in on the death of the biosphere with equally implausible schemes and vapourware tech-fixes. The governments and scientists will continue to lie to you to prevent the panic that disrupts shopping as usual; however, the cracks in the official narrative are beginning to show. Most will choose to keep mainlining what Dmitri Orlov calls hopium from the sock puppets squawking out of the idiot box. However, I predict the next generation are going to be angrier and their witchcraft more radical than you or I could dream. They will realise that there is nothing to lose, rather than this generation which seems concerned only about the size of their pension pots – not the fact that they have cost us all the earth.
… Extinction is a difficult realisation. After you have worked through the denial, you are going to need to cry in order that you can offer up the sacred lament. The five steps of the grieving process are well known, delineated by psychiatrist Kübler-Ross; they are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance. Everyone here will be somewhere on this scale and it is important for you to understanding this process as you come to terms with these facts.
The essay is entitled “Rewilding Witchcraft”, by Peter Grey, and if you are able to still view that link and read it, I hope that you will, whoever you are. It means more to those of us who are witches, myself included, and I do not agree with every single sentence; it almost feels worth remarking here that Kübler-Ross’ theory has been fairly questioned and reconfigured these days. But I read these words in 2014 or 2015 and I knew they were bitterly correct, for the most part.
No matter who is in charge of the United States’ government or any government, so long as we remain committed to the intertwined monstrosity that is Capital & State, the environmental movement will not succeed. Nor shall basic human rights struggles succeed. Although it is a fallacy to speak of animal rights in the same way one speaks of human rights, it is folly to place a division between environmental and socioeconomic revolution. The same forces that destroy human lives are the forces that destroy ecosystems and the very planet’s habitability for life. It is imperative, it is utterly— utterly, utterly, UTTERLY FUCKING UTTERLY— imperative that a critical mass of individuals turn away from Capital (or State) and stop hoping State (or Capital) will save them. They cycle together. Each forms the other. They are a twin ouroboros, without being the beautiful kind.
But I did think for a time that while the result of revolutionary struggle would be the toss of a coin, a chance that in those fifty to three hundred years from now— let’s put a clear date upon that, let’s look ahead to 2317— something momentous would have happened that began to save us. Until recently I thought that while we were already tipping down some horrible slope into the abyss, we might have the resources and tools to find our way to the other side and climb up the slender ladder.
When the presidential election took place two months ago, some of those resources began to slip out of our hands, and the ladder began to splinter and crack. It does not feel like the toss of a coin. Now it is the roll of a die, and the die is weighted, and our odds are no better than one in six. We can perhaps survive, still, and the rest of life with us, but we now must recognize the strong, severe probability that nothing will endure, and after the last life has been extinguished in a few centuries or millennia, the Earth will exist as a quiet lump of carbon with a poisonous atmosphere and some strange, gradually disintegrating artifacts from its multi-million year experiment with self-replicating entities. The best case scenario, so-called, might be that we meet no such fate, but only after enduring unfathomable tolls to human life and the extinction of at least as many species as predicted. There are a range of outcomes in between.
If such an outlook seems needlessly fatalistic— Trump, it’s only a name, I can say his name— my counterargument is that it probably isn’t fatalistic enough. If it were, I would have given into my socioeconomically cultivated suicidal impulses today, or well before today.
Let me put it this way.
Yes, Trump is a single, disgusting vermin. Yes, his regime is only so many vermin. Yes, contrary to the narcissism of many who live in this country, what happens here does not always have an overwhelming effect on what happens beyond our borders. And yes, the historical record indicates that all fascists lose power eventually (usually, and very importantly, by violence, not by nonviolence). I agree with these statements so heartily that I wish very much as if I could have gone through this Friday as if it were any other day— one more day of the Earth’s riches growing stained and toxic. A calamitous event, the inauguration, but only a drop in the poisoned pool of many other calamities. This thought has its appeal not only when thinking in geological terms but also in revolutionary terms, for we should not require the existence of an immensely powerful fascist leader in order for us to take action against Capital & State. And a fragment of my mind continues to think this way. It is an important fragment, well worth heeding in other respects.
Unfortunately, we must also consider certain pragmatic issues beyond how a Trump-like figure in any country would produce a serious existential threat to marginalized members of its populace, even with people like me included. Even if we are witnessing the endgame of the US Empire, this collapse comes when the specific footholds of the empire remain exceptionally capable of influencing the fate of the environment and the fate of homo sapiens. Compared to some people, I am not tremendously concerned about nuclear warfare. If anything, Trump’s purported coziness with Putin would be a boon in avoiding nuclear war unless various other aspects of societal collapse tipped some dominoes that we have not yet foreseen losing balance. (I also could not give a single shit-smeared damn about how much Putin influenced this election, but that is a topic for another day, except to add that I find Putin about as odious as Trump on the whole.) Rather, my already mentioned ecological concerns drive the sense of meta-death today.
This craven scum and his nauseating alliance of capitalists, military officers, Bible-thumpers, and Randians— they do not only seek to kill art and beauty, they do not only seek to exterminate those of us on the margins as if we were so many freaks crawling in the way of their vision (we are, O let us continue to be, O please). The United States’ industry, both internally and in its trade dealings, has a disproportionately large impact on the planet’s climate, the quality of the planet’s resources, and the necessary species diversity both within and beyond our borders. The darkest seat of Capital sits here, whatever may happen with State, for at least a few more decades, by my reckoning. And the newly inaugurated scum are actively working to ruin our final, desperate chance to make the national changes that we so badly need in order to still enter the abyss and climb back out when the centuries have passed.
I do not really think they see it that way. It is fatal stupidity of the highest, most cataclysmic order, nothing more.
If enough other countries besides this one can do double, triple the work that they already ought to be doing, perhaps this country’s failure to cooperate will not matter. But I doubt this.
. . . .
I know that others besides me have written essays on this same subject. Not only the one that I mentioned, either. There are a great deal. I do notice, however, a tendency in other essays to either close with sudden strange platitudes about what we can still accomplish, how we can take solace, etc., or close with no propositions for any solutions. Neither variety is guaranteed to carry a liberal slant, but sometimes that element shines through, malignantly twee. “We still have each other.” “Love is the only thing that will see us through.” “As awful as this is, I don’t know what to do about it.” “I’m just done. If you have any suggestions, let me know.”
I would like to not close any such fashion. First, I would like to quote two individuals who, though white and male, sometimes said some good things.
… it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.
— Samuel Beckett
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.
— Bertolt Brecht
I cannot presume who has or does not have anybody. I cannot presume anything about love, a construct as much as a fool’s hope, a destroyer as much as a creator. Instead, it is extremely likely that we will perish, we as ourselves now or we as our species later, and those who perish may perish quite alone and without any love left.
If we do wish for any solace, any solution, these things will come only from reflecting, often, upon exactly how much we stand to lose, and the increasingly inevitable fact that we will lose every single part of it. Certain natural, logical conclusions from directing one’s thought to such ozymandian waste, and those conclusions will form a large portion of my future writing, here and elsewhere.
What I will say in short form just now is that continued collaboration with Capital & State will drive all the nails in our coffin; it will be the end, the absolute and total end. The last shred of a future can only be seized by divesting ourselves, carefully yet efficiently, of that ouroboros. You— you, if you did read all of this— must inoculate yourself against that virus. You must acquaint yourself with revolutionary thought. I must further acquaint myself with it, and I must make plans to do more than I have done, and I must follow through. If you continue to collaborate with the thing destroying us, I have nothing else that I can say except that you are part of the problem.
You, personally, are helping to select us for extinction. I, personally, may not be doing enough. No; I am not, not yet, perhaps ever. It is terrifying to consider that even with the most obvious choice before us, not enough of us will make it, or make it to the extent that it must be made.
How long will it stay?
D. Llywelyn Jones
|
<urn:uuid:ad86d6aa-a06b-4aaa-af9c-ce9d90fcf9c3>
|
https://dllywelynjones.net/2017/01/20/how-long-will-it-stay/
| 0.6651
|
fineweb
|
Set in 2045, Ready Player One (RP1) creates a picture of a utopic virtual reality where everyone can participate in the story of their dreams. It’s a multimillion-dollar preview of the technological takeover that VR thought leaders are trying to build right now. In describing the relevance of Ready Player One for today’s moviegoers, director Steven Spielberg explains, “The fabric of our economy is crumbling. It’s a good time to escape. In the near future, virtual reality will be a superdrug.”
And escape, they do. To Oasis, a virtual reality world so enticing it is the opioid of the masses. “People are hooked on digital fantasies,” Spielberg says. Perhaps Spielberg is right. Between global warming, an ocean full of plastic, and random acts of terror, there are good reasons to escape from the real world in 2045. In the world RP1 paints, Columbus, Ohio is a dystopian city of “stacks.” It’s no wonder the Oasis experience is so popular—it’s literally the only place to go.
Of course Oasis wasn’t built in a day. It may be years before Virtual Reality is embraced by the public or delivers the same visceral Hollywood blockbuster effects that cost millions. And yet in 2018, there are digital worlds already built that offer audiences movie-worthy entertainment where social networks and video gaming collide: the cartoon-based meet up space like Altspace; the community of Second Life; the life-simulation sandbox game The Sims; world-building creation tools of massive online multiplayer Minecraft; and the avatar-driven social destination IMVU. Beyond mere escapism, the best of these virtual worlds promise, an opportunity to play, experience, or socialize beyond the limitations of the real world. That social aspect of the online experience is exactly what IMVU gets right.
As IMVU CEO Daren Tsui explains, “Virtual worlds can be the next generation social platform connecting people in a realistic way. Instead of posting past each other on Facebook or Instagram, IMVU users experience interactions that are life-like. In IMVU I can see the smirk on my friend’s face when I say something witty; I feel the psychological angst of standing too close to another avatar; I sense the warmth of a hug.”
With just a few button-clicks, IMVU offers access to a rich world of digital experiences designed to simulate real life and enable you to connect with friends in ways impossible on traditional social media networks or video games. Create an avatar (it’s going to be much better looking than anything you can imagine, but you’ll get used to it), visit a late night DJ lounge and the next thing you know, your avatar is on stage dancing with four or five other avatars who are potentially from four different corners of the globe. And those moves your avatar is busting out? All pre-programmed by the creator of the room. If you want to make a friend, just start chatting.
For those that haven’t heard of IMVU or remember virtual worlds from over a decade ago, CEO Daren Tsui is quick to point out IMVU is growing. While he reels off enviable metrics such as 200 million users who can explore over 10,000 rooms and purchase over 40 million items made by 50,000 creators, Tsui explains there are deeper reasons for IMVU’s continuing popularity. “Instead of world building we focus on why people connect,” Tsui says. “We all have the need to make friends, share experiences, hang out, and have fun. IMVU makes it easy to do that with your own avatar, to engage in a real conversation. I can see their nonverbal cues. When I high-five someone in IMVU, I feel elated.”
Ensuring that experience is immersive and engaging is Lauren Bigelow, Chief of Product at IMVU. Bigelow, who recently joined IMVU from a neuroscience startup, thinks people who describe IMVU as a mere role-playing game are missing the point.
“We’re more than a game,” Bigelow says. “At our core—in life and in IMVU—we are hard wired to make emotional connections with people. At IMVU, we’re studying ways to help people meet new people and deepen their social relationships. The shared experiences in IMVU help people bond. We‘re here to spread the power of friendship. And that, according to various research, helps you be happier and live longer.”
New features designed to make the shared experience on IMVU more engaging include Doppel, a technology experiment that uses facial tracking built into the new generation of smartphones to mirror a user’s expressions onto an avatar in real time. Wink at your front-facing camera and your avatar winks. Sing and your avatar sings. Laugh and your avatar laughs with you. The results are uncanny, mesmerizing and brilliant.
When it comes to capturing nonverbal cues, the animations in Doppel have a degree of nuance to which Tsui says, “We’re doubling down on Doppel’s facial mirroring ability. When I can smile, wink, make a video clip and Facetime with another avatar in a 3D room… now we really are in the realm of Ready Player One.”
While RP1 posits a world gone wrong, IMVU envisions a world of deepening friendships and more connected experiences. Clarity, a user who lives in Florida says, “We are all on IMVU for the same reason: to find people, communicate, and share things.”
Clarity admits she’s pretty obsessed with IMVU. She’s on IMVU “typically every other day, talking about real-life stuff” with her sister who lives across the country. “Joining IMVU”, Clarity says, “allows us to have a relationship as sisters. We can do the same thing on IMVU that we would do in the real world, like go shopping, chat, and listen to music.”
It’s one thing to meet up on IMVU and talk with your sister. But what about making new friends? For Whims, an IMVU Creator based in Tucson, the process of building closer friendships depends on how often friends can meet on IMVU. “Frequency builds familiarity,” she says. “You meet someone, you hit it off, you have a good time, so you want to meet and chat with them again.”
Over time, Whims says, as friendships deepen, “you are inclined to be more open.” Plus, she says, “the avatars in IMVU provide a wall of protection that allows you to be more yourself. There’s an openness because there is a level of anonymity. You can be freer on IMVU than in real life. And because you are both on IMVU she says, there’s already a built-in shared interest. Making friends on IMVU offers a level of comfort that might not be there in-person.”
DarkAngel5 has been on IMVU since 2005 when she was one of the first 30 members to join. Today, “I know thousands of people,” she says. As a moderator DarkAngel5 has a front row seat on how people use their avatar to reflect their changing moods. “As users spend more time on IMVU they create an identity of what they want to be,” she says. “Avatars are fluid. One day a person may create an avatar as a furry and join a Furry room. The next they may create a different avatar and join a Fantasy neighborhood. I love the personas created, and the diversity. People are on IMVU every single day to have fun.”
For Victor Zaud, Senior Vice President of Marketing at IMVU, the connected experience that IMVU creates is a fundamental part of its appeal. “What makes IMVU unique” he says, “is that you can bring the friends you already have, you can make new friends, and you can do it from anywhere. You just need a mobile phone and the IMVU app.” Instead of passively scrolling through a social media feed, Zaud says, “IMVU is being social.” It’s all about deepening real friendships through shared experiences and connecting your soul to an avatar you love.”
What’s interesting to Zaud is what happens in a world where everyone looks equally fabulous. After a while he says, “You begin to look past the physical representation of an avatar to focus on who people really are. Naturally you demand more of a connection. When your avatar makes a friend, it touches your heart. You feel something.”
The world of the future in Spielberg’s RP1 is dark. So dark, people escape from it to Oasis. The future of social shines brighter in IMVU, where people are joining for the ability to connect with people in a way as close to real life as possible. It doesn’t take a thousand dollars worth of VR gear to find it. As anyone who has ever joined IMVU knows, all it takes is four bars, some good friends, and a place to post up and create shared experiences that deepen relationships. That, and an avatar that slays.
|
<urn:uuid:54ef3f32-7e52-45ae-8340-b5b2a370da66>
|
http://www.imvuguide.com/news/official-blog/oasis-can-wait-digital-worlds-are-ready-for-ready-player-one/
| 0.9166
|
fineweb
|
By Ada Anioji
As many as 100million West Africans, a third of the population, will be affected by a rain-borne flood in the next few days, The Difference has learnt.
Nigeria’s National Orientation Agency has accordingly alerted especially those living along the banks of the River Niger, of imminent flooding in “mid-2016”.
A statement issued by Fidel Agu, the Deputy Director of Press of NOA, in Abuja on Tuesday, stressed the need for those affected to relocate immediately.
According to the statement, the alert has become necessary following intelligence reports from the Office of the National Security Adviser and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The statement said the Niger River Basin traversing the Republics of Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria would be flooded in mid-2016 due to forecasted heavy downpour.
The statement warned that as many as 100 million people would be affected along the flood path of the more than two million square kilometers Niger River Basin.
The statement therefore advised all the affected ‘to take serious pre-cautions, including relocation from the banks of the Niger River and minimising activities on the river to avoid being victims of the flood.”
The statement also urged traditional rulers and other leaders of flood prone communities along the Niger River flood to take necessary measures.
It said: “Traditional rulers and leaders should mobilise their communities for urgent action to avoid loss of lives and property by the coming flood.”
The NOA, however, assured Nigerians that all relevant government organs and other stakeholders had been alerted and measures were being put in place to ensure their safety.
The agency urged Nigerians to cooperate with government in its efforts toward mitigating the effects of the imminent flood.
|
<urn:uuid:f5def48a-656a-4827-9711-8cc0b68abd89>
|
https://thedifferencenews.com/west-africa-gets-flood-alert/
| 1
|
fineweb
|
Someone stole a bunch of unreleased Radiohead music so now the band is releasing it
Radiohead says a trove of unreleased music has been stolen for ransom. But instead of paying up, the band will release it in aid of environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion.
Guitarist Jonny Greenwood tweeted that about 18 hours of material from around the time of Radiohead’s 1997 album, ‘‘OK Computer,’’ was stolen from singer Thom Yorke’s minidisc archive last week.
Greenwood said Tuesday that instead of paying the $150,000 demanded by hackers, ‘‘we’re releasing all 18 hours on (music-sharing site) Bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion.’’
Fans can buy the music for $18 for the next 18 days. Greenwood said it was never intended for release and was ‘‘only tangentially interesting.’’
Extinction Rebellion, which stages direct-action protests against climate change, thanked Radiohead ‘‘from the bottom of our hearts.’’
|
<urn:uuid:e1485c90-ced3-42df-a488-1aae6b2f7a9f>
|
https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2019/06/11/someone-stole-bunch-unreleased-radiohead-music-now-band-releasing/aIQelDwTWRsAl1pESDdieP/story.html
| 0.9981
|
fineweb
|
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
No dataset card yet
- Downloads last month
- -