Category Archives: Environment

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Rich Countries Drag Feet at Climate Talks

Stephen Leahy

Floods devastated the Mauritian capital, Port-Louis, on Mar. 30 but locals can expect the island to be affected by more floods, landslides and cyclones in the coming years because of climate change. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS


Floods devastated the Mauritian capital, Port-Louis, on Mar. 30 but locals can expect the island to be affected by more floods, landslides and cyclones in the coming years because of climate change. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPS

UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 7 2013 (IPS) – Another week of international climate negotiations ended in Bonn, Germany last Friday, but there was little mid-level bureaucrats could do when world leaders remain in thrall to the fossil fuel industry, say environmentalists.

“The main barrier to confronting the climate crisis isn’t lack of knowledge about the problem, nor is it the lack of cost-effective solutions,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Continue reading →

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For Kenya, when it rains, it pours destruction all over

Daily Nation

Jane Awuor and Jane Achieng in their flooded homestead in Kojiem village, Nyando on April 1, 2013. They were unsure of their next move after flood waters marooned their home in Kojiem village in Nyando. Deaths and loss of property have been reported as the rains pound parts of the country. Photo/TOM OTIENO

Jane Awuor and Jane Achieng in their flooded homestead in Kojiem village, Nyando on April 1, 2013. They were unsure of their next move after flood waters marooned their home in Kojiem village in Nyando. Deaths and loss of property have been reported as the rains pound parts of the country. Photo/TOM OTIENO

At least 40 people had been killed in Rift Valley, 21 in Eastern Kenya, seven in the coastal region, four in Western and two in central Kenya. As a result of the urgent humanitarian work needed, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has appealed to the international community for about Sh290 million to support Kenya Red Crioss as it scales up assistance for the affected communities.

The pictures streaming in from across the country tell it all; it has been a month of rain, rain and more rain.

And when it rains that much in these parts of the world, disaster is always a heartbeat away. Continue reading →

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Nicaragua cloud forest ‘under siege’ by illegal loggers

BBC

By Matt McGrath Environment correspondent, BBC News

The Bosawas Reserve is a critically important rainforest but native people say it is being destroyed by "colonists"

The Bosawas Reserve is a critically important rainforest but native people say it is being destroyed by “colonists”

A famed rainforest in Nicaragua is under growing threat from illegal loggers, say indigenous leaders.

The Bosawas Biosphere Reserve is Central America’s largest tropical, forest with clouds constantly drifting over the hilly terrain.

But the Mayangna and Miskito people who live there say 30,000 hectares a year are being deforested by “colonists”. Continue reading →

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BRICS cook the climate

Pambazuka News

The BRICS are surpassing the US and the EU in terms of emissions of greenhouse gases. The Durban summit was an opportune moment to ask and answer many questions regarding the BRICS’ economic strategies and to radically reduce their levels of emissions.

Patrick Bond
As they met in Durban on March 26-27, leaders of the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – must own up: they have been emitting prolific levels of greenhouse gases, far higher than the US or the EU in absolute terms and as a ratio of GDP (though less per person). How they address this crisis could make the difference between life and death for hundreds of millions of people this century. Continue reading →

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Scottish government approves windfarm opposed by Donald Trump

env

The US businessman’s Trump International golf course at Menie Estate also caused controversy, not least for building on an area of protected dunes. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

The Guardian

Billionaire property magnate attacks decision to build experimental offshore windfarm near his golf course as ‘purely political’

Scottish ministers have given the go-ahead to an experimental offshore windfarm site near Aberdeen after ignoring Donald Trump‘s angry threats of legal action to block the project.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the European offshore wind deployment centre (EOWDC) proposal, alleging the turbines will ruin the view from his £750m golf resort, which overlooks the North Sea and sits several kilometres north of the site’s boundary.
Continue reading →

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EDF drops lawsuit against environmental activists after backlash

britain

EDF’s West Burton power station in Nottinghamshire. The energy firm claims activists caused damage in excess of £5m. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

The Guardian

Energy company accused of undermining peaceful protest with civil action against campaigners who occupied power plant

The energy company EDF has dropped a £5m civil lawsuit against a group of 21 activists who occupied one of its gas-fired power plants for a week in October 2012, in a move described by supporters of the demonstrators as a “humiliating climbdown”.

EDF faced a strong public backlash against its civil suit, which was described by opponents as an attempt to undermine peaceful protest in the UK, after details of the action were published in the Guardian.
Continue reading →

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Climate Change Will Force Billions More Into Poverty, Warns UN

climate

Global Day of Action Climate March, December 3rdh 2011, UN climate summit 2011 in Durban, South Africa. (Ainhoa Goma / Oxfam International via Flick r/ Creative Commons License)

Common Dreams

Global South getting ‘raw deal’ from ‘monster child’ of industrialization: climate change

- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

A lack of action against climate change will force up to three billion people into extreme poverty by 2050, according to the United Nations 2013 Human Development Report, released Thursday.

Unless actions are taken to avert climate change by a coordinated global community, the report argues, extreme weather, environmental disasters, deforestation, and air and water pollution could halt or reverse any progress made in recent years to lift people in the world’s poorest communities out of poverty. Continue reading →

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Encore: Ending the Silence on Climate Change

Bill Moyers Journal

climate-2

Remember climate change? The issue barely comes up with any substance in our current political dialogue. But bringing climate change back into our national conversation is as much a communications challenge as it is a scientific one.

This week, in an encore broadcast, scientist Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, joins Bill to describe his efforts to galvanize communities over what’s arguably the greatest single threat facing humanity. Leiserowitz, who specializes in the psychology of risk perception, knows better than anyone if people are willing to change their behavior to make a difference.
Continue reading →