No matter what you have read or seen so far on California’s historic Central Valley drought, you probably haven’t been touched by it as much as you will be by the following video from the New Yorker.
Terribly sad.
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Tag Archives: environment
Conservationists slam plans to dump mining waste into Norwegian fjord | Environment | The Guardian
Conservationists slam plans to dump mining waste into Norwegian fjord | Environment | The Guardian.
Norway’s image as one of the world’s cleanest, greenest countries with some of the finest unspoilt scenery will be tarnished if the government allows a giant titanium mining company to dump hundreds of millions of tonnes of waste directly into a fjord, conservationists warn.
Nordic Mining has applied to dump nearly 6m tonnes of tailings a year for 50 years into Førde Fjord, one of the country’s most important spawning grounds for cod and salmon, and a site where whales and porpoises congregate. The government is expected to give a decision in the next few days.
According to company statements, the plan is to remove around 250m tonnes of minerals from the nearby Engebø mountain. The annual waste would include 1,200 tonnes of sulphuric acid, 1,000 tonnes of sodium, 1,000 tonnes of phosphoric acid, 360 tonnes of carbonic acid and 90 tonnes of acrylamide as well as other acids, solvents and heavy metals including copper, nickel, lead, zinc and mercury.
But it contends that this will have negligible ecological effects even over 50 years. In a letter to the environment ministry last week it argues that waste deposits will cover no more than 13% of the flat fjord bottom which is less than 200 meters deep.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Walking is Going Places | On the Commons
Walking is Going Places | On the Commons.
Walking is going places.
Humans’ most common pastime–forsaken for decades as too slow and too much effort– is now recognized as a health breakthrough, an economic catalyst and a route to happiness.
Real Simple magazine (circulation: 2 million) declared “walking America’s untrendiest trend” in its February 2014 cover story. A month later Builder magazine (a construction trade journal) announced on its cover, “Walkability. Why we care…and why you should too.” The reason? Simple: “Increasingly, the market is demanding places where homeowners can hoof it.”
The New Yorker weighed in last September quoting the new book A Philosophy of Walking, which asserts that walking “makes it possible to recover the pure sensation of being, to rediscover the simple joy of existing.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Use and Abuse of the “Natural Capital” Concept « Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
Some people object to the concept of “natural capital” because they say it reduces nature to the status of a commodity to be marketed at its exchange value. This indeed is a danger, well discussed by George Monbiot. Monbiot’s criticism rightly focuses on the monetary pricing of natural capital. But it is worth clarifying that the word “capital” in its original non-monetary sense means “a stock or fund that yields a flow of useful goods or services into the future.” The word “capital” derives from “capita” meaning “heads,” referring to heads of cattle in a herd. The herd is the capital stock; the sustainable annual increase in the herd is the flow of useful goods or “income” yielded by the capital stock–all in physical, not monetary, terms. The same physical definition of natural capital applies to a forest that gives a sustainable yield of cut timber, or a fish population that yields a sustainable catch. This use of the term “natural capital” is based on the relations of physical stocks and flows, and is independent of prices and monetary valuation. Its main use has been to call attention to and oppose the unsustainable drawdown of natural capital that is falsely counted as income.
Big problems certainly arise when we consider natural capital as expressible as a sum of money (financial capital), and then take money in the bank growing at the interest rate as the standard by which to judge whether the value of natural capital is growing fast enough, and then, following the rules of present value maximization, liquidate populations growing slower than the interest rate and replace them with faster growing ones. This is not how the ecosystem works. Money is fungible, natural stocks are not; money has no physical dimension, natural populations do. Exchanges of matter and energy among parts of the ecosystem have an objective ecological basis. They are not governed by prices based on subjective human preferences in the market.
Furthermore, money in the bank is a stock that yields a flow of new money (interest) all by itself without diminishing itself, and without the aid of other flows. Can a herd of cattle yield a flow of additional cattle all by itself, and without diminishing itself? Certainly not. The existing stock of cattle transforms a resource flow of grass and water into new cattle faster than old cattle die. And the grass requires sunlight, soil, air, and more water. Like cattle, capital transforms resource flows into products and wastes, obeying the laws of thermodynamics. Capital is not a magic substance that grows by creating something out of nothing.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Environmentalists Love Plummeting Oil Prices
Why Environmentalists Love Plummeting Oil Prices.
NEW YORK — Deepwater drilling rigs are sitting idle. Fracking plans are being scaled back. Enormous new projects to squeeze oil out of the oilsands of Canada are being shelved.
Maybe low oil prices aren’t so bad for the environment after all.
The global price of oil has plummeted 31 per cent in just five months, a steep and surprising drop after a four-year period of prices near or above $100 a barrel.
Not long ago a drop of that magnitude would have hit the environmental community like a gut-punch. The lower the price of fossil fuels, the argument went, the less incentive there would be to develop and use cleaner alternatives like batteries or advanced biofuels.
But at around $75 a barrel, the price is high enough to keep investments flowing into alternatives, while giving energy companies less reason to pursue expensive and risky oil fields that also pose the greatest threat to the environment.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Lessons from B.C.’s carbon tax | Blog Posts | Pembina Institute
Lessons from B.C.’s carbon tax | Blog Posts | Pembina Institute.
It’s been hailed as an environmental and economic “success,” a “textbook case” in carbon pricing and “on the right track” toward good economic policy. British Columbia’s carbon tax has been in place for six years, and all available evidence shows it’s working.
Here’s the big news: per capita fuel use covered by the tax has dropped by 16 per cent in the province relative to 2008 (the year the carbon tax came into effect), and so too has carbon pollution. That’s good for the environment. Meantime, B.C.’s economy has outpaced the rest of Canada’s over the same period. That’s great for jobs and the economy.
Our new backgrounder summarizes B.C.’s terrific success with its carbon tax. The economic, environmental and social lessons are worth reflecting upon — both in B.C. and in jurisdictions considering similar carbon pricing approaches, as what we see in B.C. is a leading example of how to price carbon effectively.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
25th Anniversary: Thatcher Tells UN Markets Must Face Limits to Prevent Climate Change | DeSmog UK
25th Anniversary: Thatcher Tells UN Markets Must Face Limits to Prevent Climate Change | DeSmog UK.
Margaret Thatcher was at the height of her premiership when she took to the podium at the United Nations general assembly on the global environment held at the UN building in New York on 8 November 1989.
Margaret Thatcher took to the stage at the United Nations and outlines her mission to save the world: “It is life itself – human life, the innumerable species of our planet – that we wantonly destroy. It is life itself that we must battle to preserve,” she told the world’s political leaders.
“It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.”
The darling of the free market would directly address the apparent conflict between ecological conservation and economic growth: “We must have continued economic growth in order to generate the wealth required to pay for the protection of the environment. But it must be growth which does not plunder the planet today and leave our children to deal with the consequences tomorrow.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
What Is the Carbon Limit? That Depends Who You Ask by Fred Pearce: Yale Environment 360
What Is the Carbon Limit? That Depends Who You Ask by Fred Pearce: Yale Environment 360.
How much carbon can we safely emit into the atmosphere without the planet suffering dangerous climate change? It would be good to know. The world’s governments have agreed that “dangerous” should mean any warming above two degrees Celsius. And in recent reports, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has tried to translate that into a future carbon budget.
But too many different numbers are still floating around. We could have more than 500 billion tons of carbon that we could safely emit, or the real figure might be close to 100 billion tons — it depends on whose estimates you decide to accept.
The carbon budget looks to be one of the most critical single metrics for keeping planet Earth a safe place to live through the coming century. So it would be a good idea to get to the bottom of the discrepancies, especially since the countdown to dangerous climate change may be shorter than the lifetime of a new coal-fired power plant.
Here is an attempt to cut through the statistical fog.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
When the Shale Runs Dry: A Look at the Future of Fracking | DeSmogBlog
When the Shale Runs Dry: A Look at the Future of Fracking | DeSmogBlog.
If you want to see the future of the shale industry — what today’s drilling rush will leave behind — come to Bradford, Pennsylvania.
A small city, it was home to one of America’s first energy booms, producing over three quarters of the world’s oil in 1877. A wooden oil rig towering over a local museum commemorates those heady days, marking the first “billion dollar oil field” in the world.
But times have changed dramatically in Bradford. Most of the oil has been pumped out, leaving residents atop an aging oil field that requires complicated upkeep and mounting costs. Since its height in the 1940’s, Bradford’s population has steadily declined, leaving the city now home to only 8,600 people, down from over 17,000.
The story of Bradford these days is a story of thousands of oil and gas wells: abandoned, uncapped, and often leaking.
To drive through McKean County, home to Bradford and much of the Allegheny National Forest, is to witness an array of creative ways people have found to hide the remnants of this bygone boom. Rusted metal pipes — the old steel casings from long abandoned wells — jut from lawns and roadsides. Mailboxes are strapped to some of the taller pipes. In autumn, abandoned wells are tucked behind Halloween props and hay bales in front yards.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How you make big companies listen | Queen of Green | David Suzuki Foundation
How you make big companies listen | Queen of Green | David Suzuki Foundation.
Companies aren`t required to itemize specific fragrance ingredients, not even known allergens. But with your help we brought this message to the government and companies. (Credit: Lindsay Coulter)
I’m no doctor. But people often ask me, “What cream should I use or make for my rash?”
My advice: Stop using scented laundry soap, dryer sheets, lotions and home cleaners!
You already know scents can make you sick. Many of you have helped the David Suzuki Foundation combat potential allergens like “fragrance” and “parfum” (and other undesirables in household cleaners and cosmetics).
Over the years, we asked you to:
- Avoid the Dirty Dozen
- Write to cosmetics companies asking exactly what is meant by “parfum” or “fragrance” in their product ingredients
- Break up with toxic home cleaners, like Windex
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Plastic Society – Moving Towards Plastic Independence
The Plastic Society – Moving Towards Plastic Independence.
We all know about society’s over-consumption of plastic. We’ve heard again and again that it takes up to a millennia for plastics to bio-degrade (1), and consumers worldwide are using approximately 500 billion single-use plastic bags per year (2). And the issue of micro-plastic in our oceans in the past few years have gained awareness via social media. With all this data perpetually smothering our faces on a regular basis, it really begs the question why aren’t governments providing effective immediate solutions on a macro-scale to combat society’s rampant plastic consumption? If plastics are so costly in terms of energy consumption and environmental impact, then action has to be undertaken promptly, and in this article are practical solutions as to how you can build and begin successful projects.
Sure, we have recycling plants, wonderful appropriate technology like Ubuntu Blox, that re-uses plastics to create useable bricks for house construction, Upcycling, bio-plastics and the like — truly, these are all practical and amazing ideas and technologies, but they have minimal impact on, when looking at the broader scale, the impact of plastic consumption on our planet and measures aren’t being implemented fast enough on a broad scale.
Social paradigms are certainly the major issue. Plastics are convenient, cheap and durable – so much so that they have become deeply engrained in the psyche of the consumer. The solution for shifting the paradigm and reducing consumption is twofold: local councils and governments need to introduce incentive schemes to entice consumers to reduce their personal consumption; and, education programs need to be expanded and improved upon.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Canada regulator says Kinder Morgan wins battle with B.C. suburb | Canada | Reuters
Canada regulator says Kinder Morgan wins battle with B.C. suburb | Canada | Reuters.
CALGARY Alberta (Reuters) – Canada’s energy regulator ruled on Thursday that Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP must be allowed access to a park in a Vancouver suburb in order to complete technical work for the planned C$5.4 billion($4.81 billion) expansion of its Trans Mountain oil pipeline.
In its first order on record to a Canadian municipality, the National Energy Board said the City of Burnaby must allow the company to carry out surveys and studies at Burnaby Mountain, a conservation site.
Burnaby sought to block the company’s access to the site after city officials and crews hired by Kinder Morgan clashed last month over whether the company was allowed to cut down a handful of trees on the mountain to do survey work for the new route, work Kinder Morgan said the National Energy Board had approved.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Remembering Rick Piltz, Who Fought Government Suppression of Science – The Intercept
Remembering Rick Piltz, Who Fought Government Suppression of Science – The Intercept.
Rick Piltz, a climate change whistleblower, died this weekend of cancer.
Piltz revealed in 2005 that the Bush administration was revising supposedly scientific reports to cast doubt on the existence of human-caused climate change. He leaked copies of the edited documents toThe New York Times, after resigning from his job as a senior associate for the U.S. government’s Global Change Research Office.
Piltz’s move not only drew attention to Bush’s intentional suppression of scientific fact, but also to the administration’s dubious hiring practices. Less than a week after the story was published, the official who made the edits, Philip A. Cooney,announced he would resign as chief of staff for the Council on Environmental Quality in the White House to return to his former role as a lobbyist for the petroleum industry.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Roar II | The carbon pilgrim
In a nice bit of irony, the route of People’s Climate March cut through the gaudy heart of Times Square, placing protestors under the smoky gaze of two-story tall fashion models. The contrast was delicious – and intimidating. We had marched into one of the cultural epicenters of indifference toward the steep challenges of our times and the tall canyon walls all around us mocked our suddenly puny protest. Even the neon fashion models seemed to smirk. Then in a flash, the indifference was washed away by an unexpected and joyful incident involving a tour bus, of all things. It was an encounter that lifted my spirits again.
And made me think.
It happened at the intersection of 42nd street and 7th avenue where the police had temporarily halted the long line of marchers to let traffic cross. My son and I were standing near the head of the line when an open-topped, double-decker tour bus sailed into the intersection. Spying the protestors, a group of tourists in the open-top section spontaneously raised their hands and cheered a cheer of support. We cheered right back. Wow! Watching the progress of the bus, I dropped my gaze to look at a tough New York City police officer who was directing traffic. The cheering had made him smile.
…click on link above to read the rest of the article…
Electric Power Rights of Way: A New Frontier for Conservation by Richard Conniff: Yale Environment 360
Often mowed and doused with herbicides, power transmission lines have long been a bane for environmentalists. But that’s changing, as some utilities are starting to manage these areas as potentially valuable corridors for threatened wildlife.
Nobody loves electrical power transmission lines. They typically bulldoze across the countryside like a clearcut, 150 feet wide and scores or hundreds
ROW Stewardship Council
Studies show that some power line corridors provide habitat for now-scarce birds.
of miles long, in a straight line that defies everything we know about nature. They’re commonly criticized for fragmenting forests and other natural habitats and for causing collisions and electrocutions for some birds. Power lines also have raised the specter, in the minds of anxious neighbors, of illnesses induced by electromagnetic fields.
So it’s a little startling to hear wildlife biologists proposing that properly managed transmission lines, and even natural gas and oil pipeline rights-of-way, could be the last best hope for many birds, pollinators, and other species that are otherwise dramatically declining.
…click line above for the rest of the article…
