Resilience Roundup – Mar 27

March 27, 2015

NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.

 Image Removed

A roundup of the news, views and ideas from the main stream press and the blogosphere.  Click on the headline link to see the full article.


We’re treating soil like dirt. It’s a fatal mistake, as our lives depend on it

George Monbiot, The Guardian
Imagine a wonderful world, a planet on which there was no threat of climate breakdown, no loss of freshwater, no antibiotic resistance, no obesity crisis, no terrorism, no war. Surely, then, we would be out of major danger? Sorry. Even if everything else were miraculously fixed, we’re finished if we don’t address an issue considered so marginal and irrelevant that you can go for months without seeing it in a newspaper.

It’s literally and – it seems – metaphorically, beneath us. To judge by its absence from the media, most journalists consider it unworthy of consideration. But all human life depends on it. We knew this long ago, but somehow it has been forgotten. As a Sanskrit text written in about 1500BC noted: “Upon this handful of soil our survival depends. Husband it and it will grow our food, our fuel and our shelter and surround us with beauty. Abuse it and the soil will collapse and die, taking humanity with it.”

The issue hasn’t changed, but we have. Landowners around the world are now engaged in an orgy of soil destruction so intense that, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, the world on average has just 60 more years of growing crops. Even in Britain, which is spared the tropical downpours that so quickly strip exposed soil from the land, Farmers Weekly reports, we have “only 100 harvests left”


Mobility in Cities is About Space – Proven Powerfully in Pictures!

Brent Toderian, Planetizen
…Regardless of the energy source for cars in your community, the biggest mobility challenge in cities is the massive amount of space that cars demand. Space to drive in, and space to park in. Space for cars even when the cars aren’t using it – dedicated space for "potential cars." It’s staggering really, how much of a city is set aside for cars, and how unwilling we often are to even share that space with other uses and users…

This aritcle is all about the images! See them here. – SO


France Says New Roofs Must Be Covered In Plants Or Solar Panels

Ari Phillips, Think Progress
The sky’s the limit under France’s new green rooftop law.

According to a new French law approved on Thursday, rooftops on new buildings in commercial zones across France must either be partially covered in plants or solar panels.

Green roofs, which cover rooftop space with a layer of grasses, shrubs, flowers, and other forms of flora, offer a number of benefits. They create an insulating effect, reducing the amount of energy needed to heat or cool a building depending on the season. They increase local access to green space, which often comes at a premium in urban environments. They retain rainwater, thus decreasing runoff and any related drainage issues. They provide a space for urban wildlife, such as birds, to congregate and even nest, and they reduce air pollution by acting as natural filters.

Green rooftops also significantly reduce the urban “heat island” effect in which urban areas are noticeably warmer than their surroundings. The heat island effect can cause large cities to get 1.8°F to 5.4°F warmer than surrounding areas in the day, and 22°F warmer at night, according to the EPA. This effect happens when buildings, roads, and other developments replace formerly open land and greenery, causing surfaces to become moist and impermeable, and to warm up…


Food Waste Pioneers

Dan Saladino, BBC Food Programme
Dan Saladino hears three stories of how three very different individuals are reimagining food waste – solving problems, discovering flavours, and changing lives. Chido Govera grew up in rural Zimbabwe, and was orphaned aged seven. She suffered abuse and struggled to find enough food for herself and her younger brother. But she found a way out of her situation – through the power of mushrooms – becoming an acknowledged specialist in growing edible fungi using food and agri-waste. Chido is now teaching hundreds of orphans and other vulnerable people in Zimbabwe and beyond how to break the cycle of poverty and abuse, and delicious mushrooms are at the heart of it all. Isabel Soares, an engineer from Portugal, set up Fruta Feia (or ugly fruit) to deliver perfectly good fruit and veg that were being discarded by the big retailers, to a willing community. Its community co-operative model is now wildly successful in Lisbon.

Listen | iTunes


Costa Rica Has Gotten All Of Its Electricity From Renewables For 75 Days Straight

Katie Valentine, Think Progress
Costa Rica got 100 percent of its electricity from renewables for 75 days straight this year, the state-run Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) announced this week.

The Latin American country hasn’t had to use fossil fuels at all so far in 2015, due to heavy rains that have kept hydroelectric power plants going strong. Wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal energy have also helped power the country this year.

“The year 2015 has been one of electricity totally friendly to the environment for Costa Rica,” ICE announced in a press release in Spanish this week…


Wall Street Losing Millions From Bad Energy Loans

Nick Cunningham, Oilprice.com
Oil companies continue to get burned by low oil prices, but the pain is bleeding over into the financial industry. Major banks are suffering huge losses from both directly backing some struggling oil companies, but also from buying high-yield debt that is now going sour.

The Wall Street Journal reported that tens of millions of dollars have gone up in smoke on loans made to the energy industry by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and UBS. Loans issued to oil and gas companies have looked increasingly unappetizing, making it difficult for the banks to sell them on the market.

To make matters worse, much of the credit issued by the big banks have been tied to oil field services firms, rather than drillers themselves – companies that provide equipment, housing, well completions, trucks, and much more. These companies sprung up during the boom, but they are the first to feel the pain when drilling activity cuts back. With those firms running out of cash to pay back lenders, Wall Street is having a lot of trouble getting rid of its pile of bad loans…


Antarctic ice shelf thinning is accelerating, reveals new study

Robert McSweeney, Carbon Brief
A new study reveals ice shelves in the western part of the continent are melting much faster than a decade ago. Satellite data from three separate missions shows melting of these vast, floating ice shelves has increased by 70% in the last decade.

If current warming trends continue, the researchers say the ice could thin so much that these icy ‘gatekeepers’ risk collapsing, unlocking parts of the ice sheet to faster ice loss…


Keeping warming to 2 °C is not enough to save species

Fred Pearce, New Scientist
Is the world’s target of limiting global warming to 2 °C too high, or too low? Does it even make scientific sense? The consensus around the target, which was agreed at climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009, seems to be coming unstuck.

Back in October, US climate analysts David Victor and Charles Kennel called it scientifically meaningless and politically unachievable. We should get used to the idea of something warmer, they said.

Now the target has been denounced as "utterly inadequate", by Petra Tschakert of Penn State University in University Park, who has been involved in a UN review of the target. She wants a 1.5 °C target instead. Writing in the journal Climate Change Responses, she says this lower limit is necessary if we want sea levels to rise less than a metre, to protect half of all coral reefs, and to still have some ice during Arctic summers…


Smithsonian Stands By Wildly Misleading Climate Change Exhibit Paid For By Kochs

Joe Romm, Climate Progress
The Smithsonian risks damaging its reputation by having a polluter-funded science denier on the payroll and a wildly misleading Koch-funded exhibit that downplays the risks posed by human-caused climate change. It’s time for the world’s self- proclaimed “largest museum and research complex,” to live up to its mission — and its own climate statement — and cut ties with the anti-science, pro-pollution crowd.

Last month, a New York Times exposé revealed that Dr. Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, “has accepted more than $1.2 million in money from the fossil-fuel industry over the last decade while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his scientific papers.” This included funding from Exxon-Mobil and “at least $230,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.” The Koch brothers have become an even bigger funder of disinformation on climate science than Exxon Mobil.

During this period, Soon has advanced a repeatedly-debunked theory arguing that humans are not the primary cause of global warming. In October, the Smithsonian itself put out a climate statement, which makes clear that such a view is simply anti-scientific. The Smithsonian explains, “Scientific evidence has demonstrated that the global climate is warming as a result of increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases generated by human activities.”

The newly uncovered documents show that “Dr. Soon, in correspondence with his corporate funders, described many of his scientific papers as ‘deliverables’ that he completed in exchange for their money.”

Even more shocking, the Smithsonian repeatedly signed off on contracts (viewable here) with Southern Company Services — a coal company and long-time funder of science denial — requiring the Smithsonian to provide the coal utility “advanced written copy of proposed publications … for comment and input.”


Progress and Controversy Arrive With New Rules for Fracking on Public Lands

Abrahm Lustgarten, Propublica
The new rules announced Friday by the Obama administration governing how energy companies frack for oil and gas on federal lands managed to anger environmentalists and the industry alike, but represent a significant step toward protecting drinking water resources in some of the most heavily drilled parts of the country.

The rules mark the first time the federal government has stepped in to enact protections to limit risks posed by a technology that has been both criticized for causing environmental harm and credited with making the nation one of the leading producers of oil and gas…


TEP would slice rooftop solar rate benefits

Tony Davis, Arizona Daily Star
New Tucson Electric Power home solar customers relying on “net metering” to save on their electric bills would face a $22-per-month increase under a TEP proposal.

The utility asked the Arizona Corporation Commission Wednesday to approve what it calls a more equitable price for electric service, while still offering solar users significant savings. They say it would reduce the “subsidy” that other electric customers pay to cover costs incurred by solar customers.

The proposal is controversial. The Sierra Club opposes it, as do other local and state solar advocates. They see it as a measure that would chill the growing solar industry, which offers clean air and no greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional coal-fired electricity…


Gold in faeces ‘is worth millions and could save the environment’

Hannah Devlin, The Guardian
Fortunes could be saved from going down the drain by extracting gold and precious metals from human excrement, scientists suggest.

Sewage sludge contains traces of gold, silver and platinum at levels that would be seen as commercially viable by traditional prospectors. “The gold we found was at the level of a minimal mineral deposit,” said Kathleen Smith, of the US Geological Survey.

Smith and her colleagues argue that extracting metals from waste could also help limit the release of harmful metals, such as lead, into the environment in fertilisers and reduce the amount of toxic sewage that has to be buried or burnt.

“If you can get rid of some of the nuisance metals that currently limit how much of these biosolids we can use on fields and forests, and at the same time recover valuable metals and other elements, that’s a win-win,” she said…


A Shift to Humility: Resilience and Expanding the Edge of Change

Krista Tippett, Andrew Zolli, BEING
Disruption is around every corner by way of globally connected economies, inevitable superstorms, and technology’s endless reinvention. But most of us were born into a culture which aspired to solve all problems. How do we support people and create systems that know how to recover, persist, and even thrive in the face of change? Andrew Zolli introduces "resilience thinking," a new generation’s wisdom for a world of constant change.

From 2013 but worth a listen.

News clippings image via shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission.

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