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Archive for May, 2015
OHA trustees vote rescind support Thirty Meter Telescope
Posted by Star-Adversiter: None Given on May 4th, 2015
Star-Adversiter: Spectators crowded the Office of Hawaiian Affairs board room as the board reconsidered its support of the Thirty-Meter Telescope Thursday morning.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs voted Thursday afternoon to rescind its support for building one of the world's largest telescopes near the summit of Mauna Kea.
After hearing four hours of testimony, the trustees voted 6-1 in favor of rescinding their 2009 support of the Big Island telescope. However before the vote, they passed an amendment that...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on OHA trustees vote rescind support Thirty Meter TelescopeIn symbolic blow, Native Hawaiian panel withdraws support for world’s largest telescope
Posted by Science: Ilima Loomis on May 4th, 2015
Science: Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA)—a state agency established to advocate for Native Hawaiians—voted Thursday to withdraw their support for construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano. The vote follows weeks of protests by Native Hawaiians who say the massive structure would desecrate one of their most holy places. The protests have shut down construction of the telescope, which would be the world’s largest optical telescope if completed....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on In symbolic blow, Native Hawaiian panel withdraws support for world’s largest telescopeUN scientists warn time is running out to tackle global warming
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2015
Guardian: Governments are running out of time to address climate change and to avoid the worst effects of rising temperatures, an influential UN panel warned yesterday.
Greater energy efficiency, renewable electricity sources and new technology to dump carbon dioxide underground can all help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the experts said. But there could be as little as eight years left to avoid a dangerous global average rise of 2C or more.
The warning came in a report from the Intergovernmental...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on UN scientists warn time is running out to tackle global warmingWorld headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2015
Guardian: The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
Anything built from now on that produces carbon will do so for decades, and this "lock-in" effect will be the single factor most...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warnsWestern towns hard-hit by climate change unite, target coal for funds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2015
Denver Post: Ten Western mountain towns feeling the effects of climate change are launching a campaign that targets the coal industry, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars a year from companies to help communities adapt.
The "Mountain Pact" towns in Colorado and neighboring states contend that, because coal is a major source of heat-trapping greenhouse gases linked to climate change, the industry should pay more to help deal with the impact.
In a letter being sent this week to federal officials, lawmakers...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Western towns hard-hit by climate change unite, target coal for fundsClimate Change Speeds Extinctions
Posted by Scientist: Kerry Grens on May 4th, 2015
Scientist: If increases in greenhouse gases stay on pace, species will go extinct at an ever-increasing rate, according to a study published last week (May 1) in Science. In the worst-case scenario, global warming will contribute to wiping out one of every six species. “Perhaps most surprising is that extinction risk does not just increase with temperature rise, but accelerates, curving upward as the Earth warms,” Mark Urban, a University of Connecticut ecologist and the author of the study, told Smithsonian.com....
Mauna Kea’s Thirty Meter Telescope Project Further Protests
Posted by NY City News: None Given on May 3rd, 2015
NY City News: In what can be seen are the most aggressive move of the protesters against the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in the last seven years, was yesterday’s blockade along the way that led to the construction site.
Thursday saw the Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees take a strong stand on the question of the TMT by withdrawing support, which it earlier promised. The TMT, construction of which commenced in March, now stands deferred, much to the opposition from the Hawaiian people.
The TMT has been...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Mauna Kea’s Thirty Meter Telescope Project Further ProtestsGlobal warming will kill off species worldwide: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 3rd, 2015
Associated Press: Global warming will eventually push one out of every 13 species on Earth (7.7 per cent) into extinction, a new study projects. It won't quite be as bad in North America, where one in 20 species (five per cent) will be killed off because of climate change, or Europe, where the extinction rate is nearly as small. But in South America, the forecasted heat-caused extinction rate soars to 23 per cent, the worst for any continent, a new study published Thursday in the journal Science states. University...
Star-Crossed on a Hawaiian Mountaintop
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 2nd, 2015
New York Times: Sometime in the 2020s, when an international consortium completes the Thirty Meter Telescope, the most powerful telescope on the planet, astronomers will gaze from the 14,000-foot summit of Mauna Kea volcano, on the Big Island of Hawaii, out to the edge of the observable universe. Or maybe they won’t. With a militant advocacy not often seen in the Aloha State, a small group of Native Hawaiians and their sympathizers have managed to stall the $1.4 billion project, which was to begin construction...
Anonymous: Still Trolling After All These Years
Posted by Gizmodo: Adam Clark Estes on May 2nd, 2015
Gizmodo: Yesterday, an environmentalist faction of Anonymous took down a Hawaiian state government website and a site for the Thirty Meter Telescope project, a controversial effort to build the world’s second largest telescope atop Mauna Kea. You’ve probably never heard of Operation Green Rights. But that’s the point. Believe it or not, Anonymous still exists. Through focused groups like Operation Green Rights, the quasi-infamous and purportedly leaderless band of hacktivists is still stirring up shit. They’re...