Tag Archives: alo

Put down that polar bear pic and back away slowly.

by Gudrun8111 Posted on October 27, 2016

The Ross Sea marine reserve, which covers 600,000 square miles of the Southern Ocean off coast of the Antarctic, will be protected from commercial fishing for the next 35 years. Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international consortium of governments, approved it unanimously on Thursday.

At nearly twice the size of Texas, the area is home to over 10,000 species of flora and fauna, including penguins, seals, whales, seabirds, and fish.

But Ross Sea is also important for the valuable role it plays in research on the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems.

Secretary of State John Kerry celebrated the park as “one of the last unspoiled ocean wilderness areas on the planet,” and a sign of “further proof that the world is finally beginning to understand the urgency of the threats facing our planet.”

There are some environmentalists who say the designation doesn’t go far enough. World Wildlife Foundation’s Chris Johnson noted that the agreement must be made permanent.

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Put down that polar bear pic and back away slowly.

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Junk food is a human rights issue, a U.N. expert warns.

by LelandDuCane Posted on October 26, 2016

Turns out, they’re not all true.

The Republican presidential nominee appeared on Herman Cain’s radio show on Tuesday, and he had quite a bit to say about wind and solar power, and birds too. Here’s part of the transcript, courtesy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with our fact-checking notes added in brackets:

Trump: Our energy companies are a disaster right now. Coal. The coal business is — you know, there is such a thing as clean coal [False]. Our miners are out of work — now they’re just attacking energy companies like I’ve never seen them attack anything before.

They want everything to be wind and solar. Unfortunately, it’s not working on large-scale [False]. It’s just not working [False]. Solar is very, very expensive [False]. Wind is very, very expensive [False], and it only works when it’s windy [False].

Cain: Right.

Trump: Someone might need a little electricity — a lot of times, it’s the opposite season, actually. When they have it, that’s when you don’t need it. So wind is very problematic [False] and — I’m not saying I’m against those things. I’m for everything. I’m for everything.

Cain: Right.

Trump: But they are destroying our energy companies with regulation [False]. They’re absolutely destroying them [False].

Cain: But their viability has to be demonstrated before you shove it down the throats of the American people. That’s what you’re saying.

Trump: In all fairness, wind is fine [True]. Sometimes you go — I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Palm Springs, California — it looks like a junkyard [False]. They have all these different —

Cain: I have.

Trump: They have all these different companies and each one is made by a different group from, all from China and from Germany, by the way — not from here [False]. And you look at all these windmills. Half of them are broken [False]. They’re rusting and rotting. You know, you’re driving into Palm Springs, California, and it looks like a poor man’s version of Disneyland [False]. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen [False].

And it kills all the birds [False]. I don’t know if you know that … Thousands of birds are lying on the ground. And the eagle. You know, certain parts of California — they’ve killed so many eagles [False]. You know, they put you in jail if you kill an eagle. And yet these windmills [kill] them by the hundreds [False].

But solar and wind power are on a meteoric rise, whether Trump likes it or not.

Original article – 

Junk food is a human rights issue, a U.N. expert warns.

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Donald Trump Knows Nothing About His Own Businesses

by PreciousBlubaugh Posted on October 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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With only 14 days left before Election Day, it hardly feels worth it to highlight Donald Trump’s latest public declaration of ignorance, but I have another point to make about today’s Trump Follies. Here is Donald on Obamacare:

Well, I don’t use much Obamacare, I must be honest with you, because it is so bad for the people and they can’t afford it. And like, for instance, I’m at Trump National Doral in Miami, and we don’t even use Obamacare. We don’t want it. The people don’t want it, and I spend more money on health coverage, but we don’t use it.

The obvious point to make is that Trump obviously has no idea what Obamacare is. He’s apparently under the impression that it’s some kind of option that employers can choose as group insurance for their employees. Ha ha. What an idiot.

And that’s true enough. But did you notice something else? Once again, Trump has made it clear that he has no idea how his own businesses are run. This is hardly the first time, either. As near as I can tell, Trump’s job as CEO of the Trump Organization is to (a) watch a lot of TV, (b) appear on a lot of TV, (c) make command decisions about what kind of marble to use in the bathrooms, and (d) threaten to sue people who get in his way. Beyond that, he appears to play no real role in running things.

This explains, for example, his promise last year to release his tax returns. He made that promise because he had no idea what was in them. It was only later, when someone on his finance team apparently pointed out what they contained, that he reneged on his promise. It also explains his frequent business failures. He was in love with the Plaza Hotel but had no idea what it was worth or how to run it. He loved the idea of owning an airline but had no clue about the shuttle market. He loved the casino business, but was entirely ignorant about casino operations. He loves to play golf, but doesn’t understand the business of golf. Etc. He’s spent his whole life diddling around in businesses that seemed interesting, but without knowing anything about them or understanding how to run them.

His presidential campaign is the same thing. He thought it sounded neat to run for president but had no interest in how campaigns are actually run. If he ever became president, it would be more of the same. He’d run the country the way he runs his golf courses: making windswept exits from helicopters to deliver grand statements, and then quickly losing all interest. At best, things would toddle along without catastrophe if he picked decent people to run things. At worst, he’d pick fellow con men who would embroil him in endless scandals that made Teapot Dome look like a child’s lark.

Luckily, we’ll never have to find out.

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Donald Trump Knows Nothing About His Own Businesses

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Miami’s sea-level troubles aren’t just hitting the rich.

by CarlosFunderbur Posted on October 24, 2016

Miami Beach gets all the attention for its increased chronic flooding due to rising sea levels. But Miami’s poorer, inland neighborhoods on the other side of Biscayne Bay are also experiencing flooding from high tides.

CityLab reports on Shorecrest, an economically diverse neighborhood in northeast Miami that flooded during last week’s King Tide.

That’s just a sign of more frequent things to come. The Union of Concerned Scientists projects that by 2045, these sunny-day flooding events will increase from six to 380 times per year.

Miami has many neighborhoods across the bay from Miami Beach that are just as flood-prone but, being less wealthy, have fewer resources to deal with the impacts. Since all of Miami-Dade County lies barely above sea level, and sits atop porous limestone, even poorer neighborhoods farther inland are vulnerable.

Shorecrest residents complained to CityLab that they get less adaptation help from local government than richer neighborhoods. (Miami Beach is a separate, richer city from the city of Miami.) On Miami’s west side, predominantly low-income, Latino neighborhoods face flooding that could pollute their freshwater supply.

Florida and Miami need to get serious not just about climate adaptation, but climate justice.

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Miami’s sea-level troubles aren’t just hitting the rich.

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The pope’s call for climate action backfired in conservative America.

by KeeleyEumarrah Posted on October 24, 2016

Miami Beach gets all the attention for its increased chronic flooding due to rising sea levels. But Miami’s poorer, inland neighborhoods on the other side of Biscayne Bay are also experiencing flooding from high tides.

CityLab reports on Shorecrest, an economically diverse neighborhood in northeast Miami that flooded during last week’s King Tide.

That’s just a sign of more frequent things to come. The Union of Concerned Scientists projects that by 2045, these sunny-day flooding events will increase from six to 380 times per year.

Miami has many neighborhoods across the bay from Miami Beach that are just as flood-prone but, being less wealthy, have fewer resources to deal with the impacts. Since all of Miami-Dade County lies barely above sea level, and sits atop porous limestone, even poorer neighborhoods farther inland are vulnerable.

Shorecrest residents complained to CityLab that they get less adaptation help from local government than richer neighborhoods. (Miami Beach is a separate, richer city from the city of Miami.) On Miami’s west side, predominantly low-income, Latino neighborhoods face flooding that could pollute their freshwater supply.

Florida and Miami need to get serious not just about climate adaptation, but climate justice.

Link:  

The pope’s call for climate action backfired in conservative America.

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Donald Trump Promises to Sue Women Who Accused Him of Assault

by AkilahTeasdale Posted on October 22, 2016

Mother Jones

On Saturday, Donald Trump vowed to sue the 11 women who have come forward over the last few weeks with accusations of sexual assault against the Republican presidential nominee.

“Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” Trump claimed. “Total fabrication, the events never happened—never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”

Trump’s threat came during a speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which was plugged as a major policy speech to lay out his first 100 days in office should he win the election next month. His promise to sue his accusers wasn’t the only notable moment.

While taking a hard line on his accusers, he seems to be softening on a key campaign promise: That the US will build a wall along its southern border and that Mexico will pay for it. Now, according to his speech, his position is that the United States will pay for the wall but Mexico will reimburse the US.

Trump also promised to break up Comcast and NBC as part of a response to media bias against him during the campaign.

Excerpt from – 

Donald Trump Promises to Sue Women Who Accused Him of Assault

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Cow burps are a big problem for the climate, but a little change in diet could correct that.

by carlodame935 Posted on October 20, 2016

In a report out Thursday, the United Nations Environment Programme says pedestrians, motorcyclists, and cyclists make up nearly half of the 1.3 million people killed worldwide in traffic accidents each year. Even more alarming, it says that about “140 people will die in road accidents while you read this report.”

The fix? The UNEP calls for countries to use at least 20 percent of their transit budgets for bike lanes and safe sidewalks to encourage walking and biking over driving.

Life is especially dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists in countries with weaker economies. Governments in Malawi, Kenya, and South Africa (the most dangerous countries, according to the report) simply have less money to spend on the type of shiny, protected bike lanes you see popping up in Portland, Washington, D.C., and in bike-friendly cities across Europe.

All this suggests some topics for conversation at the upcoming COP22 in Morocco, such as adaptation and how to pay for it. While rich countries like the United States pull out the stops with flashy bike corrals, countries most at risk from climate change don’t necessarily have enough funds to adapt to a warming world.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2017 budget is $98.1 billion. Malawi’s total 2016/2017 budget? About $1.65 billion.

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Cow burps are a big problem for the climate, but a little change in diet could correct that.

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Climate change enjoyed its 2 seconds of fame in the final debate

by ConcepcionGerlac Posted on October 20, 2016

Five minutes and twenty-seven seconds were spent on climate change and other environmental issues in the three presidential debates, 2 percent of the total time — and that was pretty much all Hillary Clinton talking. (Surprise, surprise.)

There wasn’t a single question on climate policy, and only one that directly related to energy — thank you, Ken Bone.

How does that compare to debates in past years? We ran the numbers on the past five election cycles to find out.

The high point for attention to green issues came in 2000, when Al Gore and George W. Bush spent just over 14 minutes talking about the environment over the course of three debates. The low point came in 2012, when climate change and other environmental issues got no time at all during the presidential debates. Some years, climate change came up during the vice presidential debates as well.

2016 total: 1 minute, 22 seconds in the first presidential debate, and 4 minutes, 3 seconds in the second. Climate got just a split-second in the vice presidential debate. Clinton only name-dropped climate change once in the final debate, adding a whole two seconds to the grand total.

2012: 0 minutes.

2008: 5 minutes, 18 seconds in two presidential debates. An additional 5 minutes, 48 seconds in a vice presidential debate.

2004: 5 minutes, 14 seconds in a single presidential debate.

2000: 14 minutes, 3 seconds in three presidential debates. 5 minutes, 21 seconds in a vice presidential debate.

In total, over the five election seasons we looked at, climate change and the environment got 37 minutes and 6 seconds on the prime-time stage during the presidential and vice presidential debates. That’s out of more than 1,500 minutes of debate. Not an impressive showing.

A note about how we arrived at these times:

We parsed questions asked of candidates and searched the transcripts for keywords like “climate,” “environment,” “energy,” and “warming.” We cross-referenced the transcripts with video of the debates. Only the mentions that pertained to fighting climate change, cleaning up the environment, and reducing emissions counted. President Obama’s passing reference to clean energy jobs in 2012 didn’t count, nor did discussions of energy security, because they were in the context of the economy and not fighting climate change.

Election Guide ★ 2016Making America Green AgainOur experts weigh in on the real issues at stake in this election

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Climate change enjoyed its 2 seconds of fame in the final debate

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Rising seas could zap billion-dollar space equipment.

by JudiWilsmore220 Posted on October 19, 2016

According to a study by Australian researchers, adding very small amounts of a particular seaweed to bovine diets could reduce the amount of methane cows release by up to 99 percent.

The seaweed, Asparagopsis taxiformis, produces a compound called bromoform that disrupts the enzymes that make methane in a cow’s gut, the Conversation reports. And methane in cows’ guts is a serious issue because it escapes into the atmosphere in the form of burps (and to a lesser degree, farts). Livestock is a major global contributor to methane emissions, and methane traps 86 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame.

While this reduction in cow methane has only been demonstrated in the lab, if adding seaweed works in the field, it could be a big benefit to this ol’ planet we call home — and further evidence that seaweed in general may be the salty savior we’ve been looking for. Beyond its potential application in reducing cow burps, seaweed is also inexpensive, resilient, easy to grow, and improves aquatic ecosystems by filtering excess nitrogen and phosphorous from the watershed and reducing ocean acidification.

So while we are loathe to attach the term “miracle” to any food, seaweed might actually warrant it.

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Rising seas could zap billion-dollar space equipment.

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Oil companies should be scared of electric vehicles.

by Sheila23Nhgcdkm Posted on October 19, 2016

According to a study by Australian researchers, adding very small amounts of a particular seaweed to bovine diets could reduce the amount of methane cows release by up to 99 percent.

The seaweed, Asparagopsis taxiformis, produces a compound called bromoform that disrupts the enzymes that make methane in a cow’s gut, the Conversation reports. And methane in cows’ guts is a serious issue because it escapes into the atmosphere in the form of burps (and to a lesser degree, farts). Livestock is a major global contributor to methane emissions, and methane traps 86 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame.

While this reduction in cow methane has only been demonstrated in the lab, if adding seaweed works in the field, it could be a big benefit to this ol’ planet we call home — and further evidence that seaweed in general may be the salty savior we’ve been looking for. Beyond its potential application in reducing cow burps, seaweed is also inexpensive, resilient, easy to grow, and improves aquatic ecosystems by filtering excess nitrogen and phosphorous from the watershed and reducing ocean acidification.

So while we are loathe to attach the term “miracle” to any food, seaweed might actually warrant it.

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Oil companies should be scared of electric vehicles.

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