Tag Archives: resources

New Data Proves Trump Is Completely Wrong About California’s Drought

by NoelKelsall Posted on June 3, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

California’s drought is far from over. Despite recent news that reservoirs are brimming in northern parts of the state, and a speech from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump denying the drought, the snowpack level is low and temperatures are high.

A June 1 report from California’s Department of Water Resources shows that current snow water equivalents—the amount of water contained in the state’s snowpacks—are at just 23 percent of the normal amount. Average temperatures in the state are still at record highs. “Runoff forecasts are below average,” agency spokesman Doug Carlson said in an email. “Despite the rain in the north and the relatively full reservoirs, things are still not looking good for the drought.”

California Department of Water Resources

Of course, none of this is great news for the impending fire season: Moisture from El Niño caused new grasses to sprout—which, when combined with dry trees, become a recipe for wildfires. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told SF Gate on Tuesday that the relief brought by precipitation was temporary. “What we saw this spring is that snowpack has come down faster than we’ve seen,” he said.

Just five days before the snow water data was released, Trump suggested that environmentalists were inventing the water problems plaguing the state. He told supporters that when he asked farmers whether there was a drought, they said: “No, we have plenty of water.”

Source: 

New Data Proves Trump Is Completely Wrong About California’s Drought

Posted in FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Sprout, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New Data Proves Trump Is Completely Wrong About California’s Drought

For Once, Something Genuinely Good for the Earth Is Happening on Earth Day

by WilliamsLockyer Posted on April 22, 2016

green4us

World leaders are in New York City to sign the first global agreement on climate change. This image from the 1968 Apollo 8 mission helped inspire the first Earth Day. NASA A lot of champagne was popped on the night of Saturday, December 12, when diplomats from almost every country on Earth finalized the text of the historic global agreement to combat climate change. In the Paris Agreement, countries committed to hold global temperature increases to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, an ambitious target considering that the world is already more than halfway to that limit. The deal also laid out a system for wealthier nations to help poorer ones pay for adapting to unavoidable climate impacts. But finalizing the agreement was only one step on the long road to actually achieving its aims. The next step is happening today, on Earth Day, as heads of state and other top officials from more than 150 countries will gather at the United Nations headquarters in New York City to put their signatures on the deal. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was a driving force in Paris, will sign the document on behalf of the United States. Signing the document is mostly a symbolic step, indicating a country’s intent to formally “join” the agreement at some later stage. In order to “join” the agreement, national governments have to show the UN the piece of domestic paperwork—a law, executive order, or some other legal document—in which the government consents to be bound by the terms of the agreement. Some small countries, including some island states that are among the most vulnerable to climate impacts, are expected to offer up those documents at the same time they sign. Other countries will take longer. The agreement doesn’t take legal effect until it is formally joined by both 55 individual countries and by enough countries to cover 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (a threshold that essentially mandates the participation of the US and China). The World Resources Institute made a pretty cool widget for experimenting with various ways to reach those thresholds. You can play around with different options to see what it would take. Once countries start signing the agreement, the widget will automatically update accordingly: President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping have promised to join the agreement this year. Obama is expected to join using an executive agreement, which will allow him to avoid sending the deal to Congress. (Executive agreements account for the vast majority of US foreign commitments.) He’s able to do this because the US says it can fulfill its Paris promises without any changes to domestic laws; instead, the Obama administration is holding up its end of the bargain by imposing new EPA regulations on emissions from power plants. Unlike a treaty, an executive agreement does not require ratification by the Senate. It’s not bulletproof; a future president could unilaterally abandon from the deal. But for Obama, there’s a clear incentive for pushing to reach those 55 countries/55 percent thresholds as quickly as possible: Once the agreement goes into force, it requires a four-year waiting period before a country can withdraw. In other words, in the event that either Ted Cruz or Donald Trump—both vociferous climate change deniers—succeeds Obama in the White House, they wouldn’t be able to back out of the agreement until their (*shudder*) second term. The odds are against the agreement taking force before Obama leaves office, because adoption by the European Union—which in the Paris Agreement acts as a singular unit—requires domestic actions by all of its 28 member states, which could take some extra time. Still, if the next president bails, he or she will have to pay a heavy diplomatic price for it, cautioned Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “Walking away from the agreement would instantly turn the US from a leader to a defector,” he said, “and would almost certainly trigger a diplomatic backlash that would hamper our other priorities.” The upshot is that the US will likely join soon after today’s signing ceremony. A slew of other nations will follow, and the Paris Agreement will become binding international law sometime before 2018, when it calls for a global check-in on emission reductions. Of course, none of this puts the world any closer to averting devastating climate change than we were back in December. As they stand today, the country-level plans (nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, in UN jargon) enshrined in the agreement fall woefully short of the “well below” 2 degrees C target. The chart below, from a recent analysis by MIT and Climate Interactive, shows a variety of possible future scenarios. The blue line is what would happen without the Paris Agreement—a world where the impacts of climate change would be truly horrific and many major cities would become uninhabitable. The red line shows what will happen if countries stick to their current commitments. The green line is what a successful outcome of the Paris Agreement would look like (and, to be clear, even that level of warming will come with severe consequences): Climate Interactive/MIT Sloan As you can see, by 2025 or so countries need to be doing far more than they have committed to thus far. The Paris Agreement states that in 2020, at the next major international climate conference, countries must roll out new plans that go well beyond their current ones. So we’re very much not out of the woods yet. But we’re moving in the right direction, at least. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the holiday has generally declined into little more than a “news” hook for corporate communications people to harass reporters about eco-friendly guns and cheeseburgers and other dumb stuff. So it’s kind of nice to see the day being used for something of actual historical significance.

Read article here – 

For Once, Something Genuinely Good for the Earth Is Happening on Earth Day

Related Posts

2014 Was the Year We Finally Started to Do Something About Climate Change
Could a Typo Help Save the Planet?
Obama on Climate Change: “No Challenge Poses a Greater Threat to Future Generations”
Explained in 90 Seconds: Here’s Why You Should Be Hopeful About the Paris Climate Deal
The Ugly Truth Lurking Behind the Climate Talks
This Is Not a Drill: 29 Million Brace for Massive, Historic Snowstorm

Share this:






More:  

For Once, Something Genuinely Good for the Earth Is Happening on Earth Day

Posted in Citadel, Cyber, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, Monterey, ONA, organic, organic gardening, OXO, Ringer, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on For Once, Something Genuinely Good for the Earth Is Happening on Earth Day

21 countries shrank their carbon pollution while growing their economies

by RolandoEstell8 Posted on April 5, 2016

21 countries shrank their carbon pollution while growing their economies

By on 5 Apr 2016commentsShare

There’s some handwringing even among skeptics who accept climate change is real and human-made that rising greenhouse gas emissions is the inevitable product of a growing economy. And for years, that was pretty much the case: The only time a country saw emissions dip was in an economic recession.

But that doesn’t look to be the case any longer, particularly for industrialized nations. A new analysis from the World Resources Institute (WRI), based on data from BP and the World Bank, finds 21 countries have cut greenhouse gas emissions since 2000 but have seen their economy grow all the same. That includes the United States:

World Resources Institute

The WRI analysis lends further support to a trend at the global level of decoupling emissions from economic growth. Last month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that energy-related emissions stayed flat in 2015 for the second year in a row, while global GDP had continued to grow at about 3 percent. In the U.S. alone, there was a 6 percent drop in energy-related carbon emissions and a 4 percent increase in GDP from 2010 to 2012.

It will be hard to deny this decoupling of growth and emissions, but science deniers always find a way.

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get Grist in your inbox

Link:

21 countries shrank their carbon pollution while growing their economies

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 21 countries shrank their carbon pollution while growing their economies

Republicans want to open up millions of acres of public lands to logging and mining

by AustinToRot405 Posted on February 25, 2016

Republicans want to open up millions of acres of public lands to logging and mining

By on 25 Feb 2016commentsShare

Federal lands management has been in the news ever since a group of outlaws decided to occupy a wildlife refuge in Oregon weeks ago. Well, even though the armed standoff came to a (relatively) peaceful end earlier this month and the militiamen and women have take their rightful place in federal custody, Republicans in Congress taken up their cause.

Two bills proposed Thursday by House Committee on Natural Resources Republicans Don Young of Alaska and Raúl Labrador of Idaho would allow state governors to lease millions of acres of national forests for logging. Labrador’s bill would also let industry bypass federal restrictions that protect air, water, and endangered species.

You’d think the Committee on Natural Resources would be in favor of saving those natural resources, but no.

“The natural resources committee is pretty radicalized at this point,” Bobby McEnaney, senior lands analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The Guardian. “The fact that they would react to what’s happened in Oregon to advance an agenda to take land from the federal government is seriously tone deaf. Most of this committee didn’t condemn the actions at Malheur, so this is not completely unexpected. The agenda here is being driven by oil, gas and timber industries. The Republicans are interested in a deregulation race to zero.”

There is, however, one Republican who is actually to the left of the establishment on public lands: Donald Trump.

Now, before you reconsider your vote, Trump isn’t some kind of closet environmentalist — the man is a climate-change denier after all. But Trump does seem to have a soft spot in his cold, dark heart for America’s public lands. Why? Because they’re great. “We have to be great stewards of this land,” Trump said at the Las Vegas Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show in January. “This is magnificent land. And we have to be great stewards of this land.”

Lord, help us: We actually agree with Donald Trump.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.Climate on the Mind

A Grist Special Series

Get Grist in your inbox

Source article – 

Republicans want to open up millions of acres of public lands to logging and mining

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Republicans want to open up millions of acres of public lands to logging and mining

School Lunches Just Got Way Better in These Six Cities (and It’s Not the Food)

by LesliPlunkett Posted on May 21, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

School lunches may be healthier than when you were a kid, but the wasteful and polluting materials that cafeterias serve them on have actually gotten worse. In an effort to save on labor and equipment costs, many schools switched from washable trays to disposable foam ones over the past couple of decades. But this trend is now beginning to change.

The school districts of six major cities—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, and Orlando— announced today that they will stop using polystyrene foam trays, and begin serving lunch on compostable plates.

The Urban School Food Alliance, which counts the country’s largest school districts among its members, coordinated the change after developing an affordable compostable plate made from recycled newspaper that costs just a penny more than its foam counterpart.

“Shifting from polystyrene trays to compostable plates will allow these cities to dramatically slash waste sent to landfills, reduce plastics pollution in our communities and oceans, and create valuable compost that can be re-used on our farms,” said Mark Izeman, a senior attorney for the National Resources Defense Council, which partners with the Alliance.

This shift to compostable plates by more than 4,000 schools will save an estimated 225 million petroleum-based plastic trays from going into landfill each year.

What’s next? The Alliance hopes to introduce compostable cutlery by next school year.

See original article:

School Lunches Just Got Way Better in These Six Cities (and It’s Not the Food)

Posted in Anchor, FF, Free Press, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on School Lunches Just Got Way Better in These Six Cities (and It’s Not the Food)

These Popular Clothing Brands Are Cleaning Up Their Chinese Factories

by AveryReasoner Posted on April 15, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

It’s well known that the outsourcing of clothing manufacturing to countries with low wages and weak regulations has led to exploitative labor conditions. But many foreign apparel factories also create environmental problems. The industrial processes used to make our jeans and sweatshirts require loads of water, dirty energy, and chemicals, which often get dumped into the rivers and air surrounding factories in developing countries. Almost 20 percent of the world’s industrial water pollution comes from the textile industry, and China’s textile factories, which produce half of the clothes bought in the United States, emit 3 billion tons of soot a year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

But a few basic (and often profitable) changes in a factory’s manufacturing process can go a long way in cutting down pollution. That’s the takeaway from Clean by Design, a new alliance between NRDC, major clothing brands—including Target, Levi’s, Gap, and H&M—and Chinese textile manufacturing experts.

Starting in 2013, 33 mills in the cities of Guangzhou and Shaoxing participated in a pilot program that focused on improving efficiency and reducing the environmental impact of producing textiles. The results, released in a report today, are impressive.

NRDC

The 33 mills reduced coal consumption by 61,000 tons and chemical consumption by 400 tons. They saved 36 million kilowatts of electricity and 3 million tons of water (the production of one tee shirt takes about 700 gallons, or 90 pounds, of water). While mills often needed to invest in capital up front, they saw an average of $440,000 in savings per mill—a total of $14.7 million—mostly returned to them within a year.

How did they accomplish all this? Below are some of the measures that were implemented:

Upgrading metering systems to monitor water, steam, and electricity use (and identify waste)

Implementing condensation collection during the steam-heavy dying process

Increasing water reuse after cooling and rinsing (some clothes get rinsed as many as 8 times; the final rinses often leave behind clean water)

Investing in equipment for recovering heat from hot water used for dying and rinsing, and from machines

Stopping up steam and compressed air leakage to increase energy efficiency

Improving insulation on pipes, boilers, drying cylinders, dye vats, and steam valves to prevent wasted energy

Continue Reading »

View original article:

These Popular Clothing Brands Are Cleaning Up Their Chinese Factories

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, Free Press, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on These Popular Clothing Brands Are Cleaning Up Their Chinese Factories

For the First Time, California Is Enforcing Water Restrictions

by LanoraKitamura Posted on April 1, 2015

Mother Jones

Today, California Governor Jerry Brown announced mandatory water restrictions for the first time in the state’s history. The announcement follows a drought of more than three years, which has officials worrying that Californians may have only one year of drinking water left.

The regulations require California cities to decrease water use by 25 percent, though, crucially, only requires agricultural users to report their water use and submit drought management plans. Agriculture accounts for about 80 percent of California’s water usage. (For more drought background, check out our past coverage on agricultural water use—almonds are the biggest suck—and municipal water use.)

From the press release:

The following is a summary of the executive order issued by the Governor today.

Save Water

For the first time in state history, the Governor has directed the State Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions in cities and towns across California to reduce water usage by 25 percent. This savings amounts to approximately 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months, or nearly as much as is currently in Lake Oroville.

To save more water now, the order will also:

Replace 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought tolerant landscaping in partnership with local governments;
Direct the creation of a temporary, statewide consumer rebate program to replace old appliances with more water and energy efficient models; Require campuses, golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscapes to make significant cuts in water use; and
Prohibit new homes and developments from irrigating with potable water unless water-efficient drip irrigation systems are used, and ban watering of ornamental grass on public street medians.

Increase Enforcement

The Governor’s order calls on local water agencies to adjust their rate structures to implement conservation pricing, recognized as an effective way to realize water reductions and discourage water waste.

Agricultural water users – which have borne much of the brunt of the drought to date, with hundreds of thousands of fallowed acres, significantly reduced water allocations and thousands of farmworkers laid off – will be required to report more water use information to state regulators, increasing the state’s ability to enforce against illegal diversions and waste and unreasonable use of water under today’s order. Additionally, the Governor’s action strengthens standards for Agricultural Water Management Plans submitted by large agriculture water districts and requires small agriculture water districts to develop similar plans. These plans will help ensure that agricultural communities are prepared in case the drought extends into 2016.

Additional actions required by the order include:

Taking action against water agencies in depleted groundwater basins that have not shared data on their groundwater supplies with the state;
Updating standards for toilets and faucets and outdoor landscaping in residential communities and taking action against communities that ignore these standards; and
Making permanent monthly reporting of water usage, conservation and enforcement actions by local water suppliers.

Jump to original: 

For the First Time, California Is Enforcing Water Restrictions

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on For the First Time, California Is Enforcing Water Restrictions

IPCC chief Pachauri resigns over sexual harassment charges

by ErmaAtkins Posted on February 24, 2015

IPCC chief Pachauri resigns over sexual harassment charges

By on 24 Feb 2015commentsShare

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, stepped down today amid sexual harassment allegations, after more than a decade leading the organization. During that time, the IPCC put out two massive reports summing up the science on climate change and won a Nobel Peace Prize. Pachauri had been planning on retiring later this year.

The harassment allegations come from a researcher at the Indian research organization Pachauri heads. From The AP:

Pachauri is being investigated in India after a 29-year-old woman accused him of sexually harassing her while they worked together at the New Delhi lobbying and research organization he heads, The Energy [and] Resources Institute.

A police report said the woman gave police dozens of text messages and emails that she alleged had been sent by Pachauri. A Delhi court on Monday ordered Pachauri to co-operate in the investigation.

Pachauri denies the allegations and has said he is “committed to provide all assistance and co-operation to the authorities.”

Police said they would question a second woman who also accused Pachauri of sexual harassment but had not filed a police report.

The allegations have caused outrage in India, a country where women are increasingly speaking out against widespread misogyny. The outrage only intensified when, over the weekend, India’s Mail Today published examples of Pachauri’s alleged exchanges with the woman. Pachauri claims that his computer and WhatsApp accounts were hacked and he didn’t send the messages.

Some in India are also calling for Pachauri to step down from The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), where he is currently on leave. “To safeguard the interest of global climate science Pachauri should step down immediately from the Chairmanship of IPCC and TERI,” Iqbal S. Hasnain, a former professor of environmental studies, told The Hindu.

The 74-year-old Pachauri has been the subject of criticism before: He faced calls to step down in 2010 after an error was found in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment report. That same year, he put out a steamy romance novel that also raised a few eyebrows.

Of course, those who are ideologically opposed to taking action on climate change will use this scandal to attack the work the IPCC does and the science it puts out. (They already are.)

“There will no doubt be some climate change ‘sceptics’ who seek to use Dr Pachauri’s resignation as an opportunity to attack the IPCC,” Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, told The Guardian. But the IPCC’s most recent report, he said, “is the most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of the causes and potential consequences of climate change that we have ever had, and that remains true with or without Dr Pachauri as chair.”

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

View original: 

IPCC chief Pachauri resigns over sexual harassment charges

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, global climate change, LAI, LG, ONA, oven, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on IPCC chief Pachauri resigns over sexual harassment charges

5 easy swaps to reduce your water footprint

by Myrna Posted on December 8, 2014

“Your Water Footprint” is full of water-saving tips, and we’ve shared a few. Visit link:  5 easy swaps to reduce your water footprint ; ; ;

More here:

5 easy swaps to reduce your water footprint

Posted in alo, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LG, Madhava, Monterey, ONA, organic, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 5 easy swaps to reduce your water footprint

Alabama wants to use Gulf restoration funds to build a $60 million beachfront hotel

by ChristiBrothers Posted on November 25, 2014

sweet hotel, alabama

Alabama wants to use Gulf restoration funds to build a $60 million beachfront hotel

By on 25 Nov 2014commentsShare

Alabama is taking the old adage “make the best of a bad situation” to a new low. The state wants to use restoration funds awarded after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill to rebuild a hotel wrecked by Hurricane Ivan. Yep, that’s right. Nearly $60 million for a beachfront lodge that was destroyed six years before the disastrous BP spill.

Environmentalists, understandably, are peeved and trying to block the project. New Orleans-based group, the Gulf Restoration Network, is suing the Obama administration to cut the funding for the hotel.

The money comes from BP’s $1 billion down payment toward restoring the Gulf. Other projects include marshland restoration, sea turtle habitat improvements, and rebuilding boat ramps. Allocation of these funds is being overseen by the five Gulf Coast states’ trustees and four federal agencies.

Here’s NPR on how Alabama is justifying the project:

Alabama’s strategy is to use the bulk of this immediate money for recreational restoration, says Gunter Guy, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. He says that was easier to quantify than ecosystem damage.

“We believe there’s still injury out in the Gulf,” Guy says. “It could be to the fish, to the fauna, to the corals, to those kind of things. But those injuries are going to take longer to identify, and they’re going to take longer to figure out what type of remedies need to be put in place to address those injuries.”

Gunter followed that up with something that sounds straight out of The Onion:

“Sure, we could try to spend that on some more quote-unquote environmental projects, but we chose to do it on what we did because we think it’s the right thing to do,” Guy says. “Sure, is it an opportunity? Absolutely.”

Scare quotes for “environmental” projects? And the right thing to do for whom, Guy? Certainly not for the delicate ecosystems that exist along the coast that could use protection and restoration over a shiny new hotel and conference center.

Guy, buddy: We know the prospect of millions of dollars is a lot to get giddy about. But as the commissioner of your state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, you should know better. High time to put that “money” toward “the environment.”

Source:
Plan To Use Gulf Oil Spill Funds For Beach Hotel Sparks Lawsuit

, NPR.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

Read this article:

Alabama wants to use Gulf restoration funds to build a $60 million beachfront hotel

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Alabama wants to use Gulf restoration funds to build a $60 million beachfront hotel