Category: Environment

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

A tropical storm named “Emma” with wind speeds equivalent to a category 3 hurricane has been thrashing Germany, Prague and Vienna with deadly results:

Europe began feeling the effects of Emma late Friday night, according to Deutchscher Wetter Dienst (DWD), Germany’s national weather service.

Wind gusts of up to 190 km/h (118 mph) — the strength of a Category 3 hurricane — were clocked in the higher elevations of Austria, Corriveau said. Sustained winds as of Saturday night ranged from 50 km/h to nearly 80 km/h (31 mph to 50 mph). Winds were clocked at 98 km/hr (61 mph) in Denmark.

More below the jump…

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

The U.S. Department of the Interior took the Northern Rockies’ Gray Wolf off the endangered list today, opening them up for hunting as described in this earlier post from The Environmentalist’s managing editor.

CNN/AP reports that the “removal from the endangered list was announced Thursday by the U.S. Department of Interior. The loss of federal protection allows states to move forward with public hunts for the animals, possibly as soon as this fall.”

Environmental groups have promised to sue to keep the wolves on the list.

More below the jump…

Reprinted by permission from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

A study of NASA satellite data, overlaid with reported cancer statistics, has identified nighttime exposure to lighted areas as a risk factor for breast cancer:

Women who live in neighborhoods with large amounts of nighttime illumination are more likely to get breast cancer than those who live in areas where nocturnal darkness prevails, according to an unusual study that overlaid satellite images of Earth onto cancer registries.

“By no means are we saying that light at night is the only or the major risk factor for breast cancer,” said Itai Kloog, of the University of Haifa, who led the new work. “But we found a clear and strong correlation that should be taken into consideration.”

Recommendation below the fold…

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

(From The Environmentalist Managing Editor – reprinted by permission)

Al Gore, addressing a United Nations summit on green investment, warned business leaders about the consequences of investment in technologies that did not reduce the carbon footprint, given the associated costs to both society and business of climate change:

UNITED NATIONS – Al Gore advised Wall Street leaders and institutional investors Thursday to ditch businesses too reliant on carbon-intensive energy – or prepare for huge losses down the road.

“You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you – as my longtime good redneck friends in Tennessee say, I guarandamntee you – that if you really take a fine-tooth comb and go through your portfolios, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets,” the former vice president said.

More below the fold…

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

The USDA has recalled 143 million pounds of beef produced from a Chino, CA slaughterhouse, making this the largest beef recall in the U.S.:

LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday recalled 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a Southern California slaughterhouse that is being investigated for mistreating cattle.

More below the fold…

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

In a “Tokyo Declaration” announced today, Sony, Nokia and ten other well known brands have announced that they will work with the World Wildlife Fund to involve their suppliers, customers and transportation partners in the fight to halt global warming:

Tokyo – A business group including leading companies such as Sony, Nokia and Nike has come together to present the Tokyo Declaration, a joint call to tackle the urgent issue of climate change. Signing the declaration at the Climate Savers Summit 2008 held by WWF and Sony in Tokyo today, a dozen business leaders highlighted that the world’s greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by more than 50 percent by 2050, and that emissions must peak and start to decline within the next 10 to 15 years in order to keep global warming below the dangerous threshold of 2 degrees Celsius.

More below the fold…

Happy Valentine’s Day all!!!

 Here we go…

Scotland Fisherman and Conservationists Working together

“It was the islanders who first raised concerns about the decline in fish and other marine life in the bay. Arran was once renowned for its fishing, with hundreds of sea anglers flocking to the island for its annual fish festival. That was decades ago when cod, haddock, hake, dab, plaice and turbot were plentiful in the waters of the Firth of Clyde.

Today the Clyde fishing fleet is a fraction of its original size, and the white fish have gone, leaving only prawns, langoustines and a dwindling stock of scallops. Islanders said the bed of the bay had been left barren after being dragged clean by dredgers – a claim refuted by the fishermen.”

This concern led to a unique collaboration between all stakeholders, eventually resulting in the proposals for significant no-take zones to allow fish stocks to recover. Such zones have been set up before in the UK – a pilot project in 2003 around Lundy Island reported significant recovery in marine life after just 18 months. This is, however, the first time such an effort has been brought about through grassroots collaboration, rather than top-down planning. The result is a significant area of marine habitat that will be left undisturbed by fishing, with an even larger area set aside for strict management:

Green up your cell phone!!

UN Sec Gen encourages global green economy

In a remarkable step into the worlds of high finance and climate politics, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was in Chicago last week to encourage U.S. business leaders to help reshape the world’s economic future by investing in low-carbon markets.

In a February 7 speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Secretary-General Ban asked his audience to enter an “age of green economics,”? with the United Nations as a partner.

70,000 Stirling solar generators to be placed in Southwest

On a perfect New Mexico winter day – with the sky almost 10 percent brighter than usual – Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled Jan. 31 on SES’s “Serial #3” solar dish Stirling system at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility.

Osborn says that SES is working to commercialize the record-performing system and has signed power purchase agreements with two major Southern California utilities (Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric) for up to 1,750 megawatts (MW) of power, representing the world’s two largest solar power contracts. Collectively, these contracts require up to 70,000 solar dish engine units.

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

A Valentine’s Day reminder, given chocolate’s status as a conflict substance, that ethical (and tasty!) chocolate is readily available. Why is this important? With Fair Trade chocolate:

* Forced and abusive child labor practices are prohibited

* Farming families earn a price that is adequate to meet their basic human needs

* Environmentally sustainable production methods are required

Where to buy Fair Trade chocolate and other Fair Trade goods?

A partial list is available here

Happy Valentine’s Day from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

Ta!

The National Geographic Channel is premiering 6 Degrees tonight (8PM EST/9PM PST), which tracks the consequences of catastrophic climate change, degree by degree (YouTube preview):

Webpage

Terrifying stuff, to be sure, the show is not without controversy, as it focuses on doomsday scenarios, but perhaps it’s best to see what we’re facing at the upper limit.  

For a more measured prediction (but equally troubling, imo), a previous essay on the Nine Tipping Points.

Since that surge is working so well, I guess we’re just going to have to keep surging. Forever. According to The Hill:

This year’s battle over Iraq war funding officially kicked off Wednesday as Defense Secretary Robert Gates reluctantly offered a price tag for the first time: $170 billion for fiscal 2009.

Speaking at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Gates only gave the number after Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) pressed him, but rejected his own estimate right off the bat, calling it a number that “will inevitably be wrong, and perhaps significantly so.”

“I will be giving you precision without accuracy,” warned Gates.

Levin insisted that he give his best estimate for next year’s war-funding needs.

“Well, a straight-line projection, Mr. Chairman, of our current expenditures would probably put the full-year cost, in a strictly arithmetic approach, at about $170 billion,” Gates responded.

Of course, Gates made clear that the number could be wrong; and I’m guessing he didn’t mean wrong as in an overestimate. But the Administration is very conscious of the drain on our federal budget. Not the drain from the war, mind you, the other drain. On Monday, the Washington Post reported that Bush wants to do something about it. Like slash and burn. You know- the low priority stuff.

President Bush plans to unveil a $2.5 trillion budget today eliminating dozens of politically sensitive domestic programs, including funding for education, environmental protection and business development, while proposing significant increases for the military and international spending, according to White House documents.

Overall, discretionary spending other than defense and homeland security would fall by nearly 1 percent, the first time in many years that funding for the major part of the budget controlled by Congress would actually go down in real terms, according to officials with access to the budget. The cuts are scattered across a wide swath of the government, affecting a cross-section of constituents, from migrant workers to train passengers to local police departments, according to officials who read portions of the documents to The Washington Post.

And one very important person is already on board.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I hope we in Congress will have the courage to support it.”