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Climate Change

CLIMATE CRISIS

Revealed: first mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change

15th June 2016

The Guardian reports: Human-caused climate change appears to have wiped-out the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal species, the small rodent Bramble Cay melomys, into the history books, from its only known location. It’s also the first recorded extinction of a mammal anywhere in the world thought to be primarily due to human-caused climate change….

Sea level rise has washed away more than 50% of Ghoramara island, Sunderbans

Daesung Lee

CLIMATE CRISIS

Precautionary measures for natural calamities: A letter to the Prime Minister

6th June 2016

Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy writes: Droughts, floods, heat & cold waves will keep threatening India. We can’t expect the Paris agreement to solve the crisis associated with these extreme weather events. The way to minimize their impact is through adaptive measures by understanding the mechanism in which they occur, by quantifying the agro-climate of a region….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Richard Heinberg: The boiling pot: A graphic story

1st June 2016

This year is the hottest in history: every single month in 2016 so far has set a heat record. Slow, linear change is giving way to non-linear lurches. Extend the present temperature trend for another few months and we may go beyond the threshold of 1.5 degrees. How long until we get to two degrees? Three?…

CLIMATE CRISIS

The hidden connection between air pollution and heat spikes: India’s lethal double bind

India has an extreme air pollution problem, which kills up to 400,000 people every year. This pollution, made up of fine particles called aerosols, also has the effect of cooling the local climate by reflecting or absorbing sunlight before it reaches the ground. It is feasible that India’s pollution problem has been “hiding” extreme heat spikes….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The true cost of the obsession with GDP growth

30th May 2016

Shankar Sharma writes: It’s evident that an economic policy focusing on high GDP growth rate has not only not resulted in the elimination of poverty, but is certainly leading to accelerated depletion of our natural resources and to the unacceptable level of pollution of land, water and air, while contributing to the global warming phenomenon….

ALTERNATIVES

Charles Eisenstein: By their fruits ye shall know them

29th May 2016

If you’ve experienced the so-called impossible, then the impossibility of humanity making the transition is no longer so clear. If someone can recover from “incurable” stage 4 pancreatic cancer, what else is possible? What is the correlate of that on the level of politics or ecology? Many young people are beginning to explore this question….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Planet suffocation: Earth’s CO2 levels have crossed the tipping point

Nihar Gokhale writes: 400 parts per million (ppm) refers to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a level that has for long been considered a limit the world should not cross. On 10 May, an Australian monitoring station became the first in the southern hemisphere to record above 400ppm CO2….

ALTERNATIVES

Is a 100% renewable world possible? An informal poll among experts

26th May 2016

Ugo Bardi writes: I am reporting the results of a small survey that I carried out last week among members of a discussion forum; mainly experts in renewable energy. The question was about the possibility of obtaining a society 100% based on renewable energy sources, before it is too late to avoid the climate disaster….

ALTERNATIVES

Life in Syntropy: The story of a transformation

“Life in Syntropy” is a short film that was screened at the Paris climate talks. It tells the story of Brazilian farmer Ernst Gotsch, who bought 1,200 acres of completely deforested land on the edge of the rainforest in 1984 and transformed it into a remarkably biodiverse farm that reverses climate change by sequestering carbon….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Hitler Denial: A comic on global climate action

25th May 2016

Today, global action to stop climate change is inconceivable. Yet, in 1938, global action to stop Nazi Germany was also inconceivable. The world was in Hitler denial. Australian cartoonist Stuart McMillen, whose acclaimed long-form comics are inspired by science, ecology, sustainability and economics, takes on the most daunting challenge of our times – climate change….

Sea level rise has washed away more than 50% of Ghoramara island, Sunderbans

Daesung Lee

CLIMATE CRISIS

India’s perfect storm: Environmental and demographic stresses building up

21st May 2016

Kanti Bajpai writes: India’s water crisis is a clear sign that a storm of epic proportions is on its way. India’s per capita water availability is now below the threshold level of 1,400 cubic metres per person. If so, India is heading from ‘water stress’ to ‘water scarcity’ and the possibility of internal water wars….

CLIMATE CRISIS

How Tata Steel UK made a billion dollars from climate policies

17th May 2016

Nihar Gokhale reports: Tata Steel, which is selling its UK business, has indicated that energy – made expensive by climate change policies – caused its steel to be too costly. But, a new report says companies have made billions in profits from climate change policies like carbon-trading. Tata Steel itself made over a billion Euros….

ALTERNATIVES

How India’s forests have been lost in translation – in plantations

Peter Smetacek writes: The question, naturally, is: What are we hoping to achieve by the process of planting forests? Because we don’t have a clear answer, it is no surprise that there is not a single success story in all the “watershed management” and “afforestation” drives that the public has paid for throughout the country….

ALTERNATIVES

Pakistan’s ‘Billion Tree Tsunami’ takes hold

15th May 2016

Rina Saeed Khan reports: Under its “Green Growth Initiative”, the Imran Khan-led Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has begun a number of activities to reverse sixty years of deforestation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Along with a crackdown on the timber mafias, they have started a large scale afforestation project called “The Billion Tree Tsunami” to reverse this trend….

ALTERNATIVES

Will doubling India’s coal tax boost the clean energy sector?

14th May 2016

India in its INDC pledged to achieve 40% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel based energy resources by 2030. The carbon cess will help provide a clear and direct indication to the market of rising regulatory risks that hover over the fossil fuel industry and build business confidence in the non-fossil fuel industry….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The climate movement and the “Jobs vs. Environment” Debate

10th May 2016

Fossil fuel divestment activist Kate Aronoff writes: A growing, green industry born into a hostile labor climate is unlikely to produce steady and well-paying jobs without a fight — not to mention a cross-movement plan beyond shutting down individual infrastructure projects. Breaking Free from fossil fuels can also mean breaking into a more sustainable economy….

Kristian Buus

CLIMATE CRISIS

The time has come to turn up the heat on those who are wrecking planet Earth

8th May 2016

Bill McKibben writes: The time has come to turn up the heat on the small band of companies and people still willing to get rich off fossil fuel, even though it’s now utterly clear they’re breaking the planet. The time has come to show that we understand we’re in this together across borders and boundaries….

Nuno Andre Ferreira

CLIMATE CRISIS

Digest: The manmade forest fires of the Himalayan foothills

4th May 2016

There are almost 400 fires in the Himalayan foothills currently, which have killed five people and finished off at least 19 square kilometres of forest. The timber mafia and ordinary folks are known to illegally set fire in the Himalayan foothills, to fell trees, but its uncontrollable nature this year also points to micro-climatic changes….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Express Study: Fourth Successive ‘Drought’ in 100 Years

30th April 2016

Sunitha Natti reports: A New Indian Express analysis shows we are witnessing four back-to-back droughts for the first time in at least 100 years and are coursing through another as we speak. At least two of them were severe. Analysis of rainfall data across states for the past three decades threw up some startling findings….

Bookshelf

Bookshelf: Hot Earth Dreams by Hank Landis

John Michael Greer writes: We are about to witness the disintegration of everything that counts as business as usual, and the opening phases of a bleak new reality that author Frank Landis has sketched out in his Hot Earth Dreams—a brilliant fictional take on what the world will look like in the wake of severe climate change….