Is it ok for scientists to weep over climate change?
Roger Harrabin, The Guardian
The devastating impact CO2 emissions are having on oceans recently brought one professor to tears during a radio interview. But does such passion validate or weaken science in the audience’s eyes?
Should scientists show emotion while discussing their science? I ask because a professor of ocean geology wept as she discussed with m
e the impact carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are having on the sea. She fears we are acidifying and heating the ocean so fast that her young daughters may no longer enjoy coral reefs and shellfish by the end of the century.
And as we pondered the future, her passion for the oceans triggered tears…
Climate change is a matter of human rights, agrees UN
Sébastien Duyck, RTCC
Last Thursday the Human Rights Council sent a strong signal to the ongoing climate negotiations by adopting by consensus a new resolution on climate change and human rights.
The resolution, championed by Bangladesh and the Philippines, emphasizes the importance of addressing the adverse consequences of climate change for the human rights of all, and in particular of those most vulnerable.
It also stresses the importance of enhanced action and cooperation on adaptation…
CO2 emissions threaten ocean crisis
Roger Harrabin, BBC
Scientists have warned that marine life will be irreversibly changed unless CO2 emissions are drastically cut.
Writing in Science, experts say the oceans are heating, losing oxygen and becoming more acidic because of CO2.
They warn that the 2C maximum temperature rise for climate change agreed by governments will not prevent dramatic impacts on ocean systems.
And they say the range of options is dwindling as the cost of those options is skyrocketing…
Trees are latest victims of California’s four-year drought
Haya El Nasser, Al Jazeera
California Gov. Jerry Brown issued a stern warning when he ordered unprecedented 25 percent cuts in water use from every one of the state’s 400 urban water suppliers in April: “People should realize we are in a new era. The idea of your nice little green lawn getting watered every day, those days are past.”
Since then, green lawns have turned brown or been ripped out to heed the governor’s conservation mandate and state officials announced Wednesday that residential water use this May was down an impressive 29 percent from May 2013.
The good news is that conservation goals are being met. The bad news is that there are millions of unintended victims of this civic allegiance: Trees.
Nature has already killed an estimated 12 million trees in California’s forests since the drought began four years ago — most falling victim to an outbreak of the bark beetle pests that attack trees weakened by drought…
Drought Sends U.S. Water Agency Back to Drawing Board
Coral Davenport, New York Times
Drew Lessard stood on top of Folsom Dam and gazed at the Sierra Nevada, which in late spring usually gushes enough melting snow into the reservoir to provide water for a million people. But the mountains were bare, and the snowpack to date remains the lowest on measured record.
“If there’s no snowpack, there’s no water,” said Mr. Lessard, a regional manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that built and operates a vast network of 476 dams, 348 reservoirs and 8,116 miles of aqueducts across the Western United States…
“The bureau is headed into a frightening new world, an uncertain new world,” said Jeffrey Mount, an expert on water resource management with the Public Policy Institute of California.
Drought Pushes Nevada Ranchers to Take On Washington
Julie Turkewitz, New York Times
Around here they call it “going Bundy”: allowing cattle to graze illegally on federally owned land. For months, ranching families in this tiny community have itched to do it — both because of the relentless drought, which has left their own land dry and their animals hungry, and because of the anti-Washington streak that runs deep in this part of the rural West, where people fervently believe that the government owns too much land.
Last month, the Filippini family finally did it: They released hundreds of cattle onto federal land here at the border of Lander and Humboldt Counties, an arid patch that straddles part of the old Pony Express cross-country mail route of 1860 and 1861. Drought has reduced the grass cover here to less than four inches of stubble in some creek beds, a level that leads to a ban on grazing…
Canada’s latest oil extraction methods put new pressures on environment
Aljazeera
Editor’s note: This is the third in a four-part series on Canada’s oil boom. The first story explored the low-paid temporary foreign worker economy, while the second examined a new regulatory process that the country’s aboriginal people say is failing them.
Steam injection exploits previously untapped reserves, but at what cost?…
Bernie Sanders’ Plan To Make Solar Power More Accessible
Ari Phillips, Think Progress
On Tuesday, Vermont Senator and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders introduced legislation aimed at making it easier for low-income families to take advantage of solar power. The bill, called the “Low Income Solar Act,” came the same day that the Obama Administration announced a similar program aimed at installing 300 megawatts of renewable energy in federally subsidized housing by 2020.
The Sanders bill would aid in this effort by providing $200 million in Department of Energy loans and grants to help offset the upfront costs associated with installing solar panels on community facilities, public housing and low-income family homes, according to a press release. The projects would also have to prioritize loans for female- and minority-owned businesses, as well as target specific regions including Appalachia, Indian tribal lands, and Alaskan native communities…
Refracking Is the New Fracking
Dan Murtaugh, Lynn Doan, Bradley Olson, Bloomberg
The technique itself is nothing new. Oil crews across the world have been schooled on its simple principles for generations: Identify aging, low-output wells and hit them with a blast of sand and water to bolster the flow of crude. The idea originated somewhere in the plains of the American Midwest, back in the 1950s.
But as today’s engineers start applying the procedure to the horizontal wells that went up during the fracking boom that swept across U.S. shale fields over the past decade, something more powerful, more financially rewarding is happening.
The short life span of these wells, long thought to be perhaps the single biggest weakness of the shale industry, is being stretched out. Early evidence of the effects of restimulation suggests that the fields could actually contain enough reserves to last about 50 years, according to a calculation based on Wood Mackenzie Ltd and ITG Investment Research data.
So far, a few hundred refracks of shale wells have been done in the U.S., a figure that Vincent predicts will grow to at least 3,000 over the next two years. And IHS Inc. forecasts they will come to make up as much as 11 percent of all hydraulic fracturing activity in the country by 2020…
It’s easy for things to go wrong. If poorly executed, the maneuver could take oil from the producing zones of other wells, or worse yet, ruin a reservoir. Then there’s the concern that some industry analysts have that a refrack only accelerates the flow without increasing the actual total output over the life of the well. EOG is among the drillers that remain reluctant to start using the procedure…
Under Spain’s gag law, covering the news could cost you
Marc Herman, Znet
One evening last month, a police helicopter swooped over my neighborhood of mid-sized apartment blocks in Barcelona. The city has very little street crime; L.A.-style police pursuits coordinated by helicopters overhead are exceedingly rare. The police helicopter was flying low enough that my windows rattled.
I walked to a plaza near my house, where the helicopter was hovering. A bystander said a demonstration near the plaza had become violent, and a group of vandals had shattered the windows of a neighborhood bank. Police were looking for the perpetrators.
A few minutes later, a van pulled up and six riot cops in helmets and body armor leapt out. The cops ran aggressively at a group of young people nearby, who screamed and put their hands up. The cops had batons out and one was swinging a gun used to fire tear gas or non-lethal projectiles. I raised my phone to take a picture. Then, to my surprise, I lowered it.
That is partly because the police eased off at the last minute, searching the suspects respectfully (their backpacks turned out to be full of snacks). But the other reason I hadn’t snapped the picture was that I realized it would be hard to publish. A new law taking effect in Spain today could subject its publisher to a 30,000 Euro ($34,000) fine.
The so-called Citizen Security Law makes it illegal to disseminate pictures, video and other content deemed “damaging” to Spain’s police and security forces. Coinciding with a wave of demonstrations over austerity programs and bank bailouts, the law criminalizes demonstrations in front of some government agencies and public buildings, and includes stiff fines for documenting the police response…
Iowa Makes a Bold Admission: We Need Fewer Roads
Eric Jaffe, City Lab
Per capita driving has peaked in America, and with that new normal comes the question of whether or not we should be spending limited transportation funding on building new roads. If nothing else the driving trends support the wisdom of a “fix-it-first” policy that focuses on highway maintenance over expansion.
Iowa DOT chief Paul Trombino recently took that logical conclusion one step further. During an Urban Land Institute talk, Trombino told the audience he expects the state’s overbuilt and unsustainable road network to “shrink,” according to Charles Marohn of Strong Towns. Iowans should figure out which roads “we really want to keep” and let the others “deteriorate and go away.”…
Cargo Bike Logistics on Harbours and Rivers by Copenhagenize
Mikael Colville-Andersen, Copenhagenize
Urban logistics is just one of the many challenges facing our cities. After Copenhagenize worked for three years on the European Union project Cyclelogistics, we have cargo bikes on the brain and provide cargo bike logistics as one of our services. We also live in a city with 40,000 cargo bikes in daily use. As ever, we look for solutions not only for other cities, but our own. During the Cyclelogistics project we determined that there is a massive potential for shifting goods delivery to bikes and cargo bikes. 51% of all motorised private and commercial goods transport in EU cities could be done on bicycles or cargo bikes.
Solar-Powered Plane Soars to New World Records
Elizabeth Goldbaum and LiveScience, Scientific American
A solar-powered airplane currently soaring over the Pacific Ocean, from Japan to Hawaii, has set a slew of new world records, logging the farthest and longest flights made so far in a solar-powered aircraft.
The Solar Impulse 2 plane set the new distance and duration records when it flew 3,519 miles (5,663 kilometers) in 80 hours. The solar-powered aircraft is currently partway through a planned journey around the world.
"Can you imagine that a solar-powered airplane without fuel can now fly longer than a jet plane?!" Bertrand Piccard, chairman, co-founder and alternate pilot of Solar Impulse (the company that owns the plane), said in a statement. "This is a clear message that clean technologies can achieve impossible goals!"…
