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Archive for June, 2015
Genetically Modified Mosquito Sparks Controversy in Florida
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
Yale Environment 360: When people think of genetically modified organisms, food crops like GM corn and soybeans usually come to mind. But engineering more complex living things is now possible, and the controversy surrounding genetic modification has now spread to the lowly mosquito, which is being genetically engineered to control mosquito-borne illnesses. A U.K.-based company, Oxitec, has altered two genes in the Aedes aegypti mosquito so that when modified males breed with wild females, the offspring inherit a lethal...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Genetically Modified Mosquito Sparks Controversy in FloridaCan China’s top-down approach fix its environmental crisis?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
Guardian: China has the largest and one of the most dynamic clean tech sectors in the world. The close to $90bn invested in clean tech last year puts it well ahead of both the EU and the US. For all the recent troubles of companies such as Hanergy, China has some of the world’s largest solar, wind and other green tech companies. As growth slows in western markets, they are increasingly looking for business at home. There is good reason for this too. China burns almost half the coal in the world, and accounts...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Can China’s top-down approach fix its environmental crisis?Crop adjustments may lessen climate change’s econ effects, economist says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
PhysOrg: If countries and farmers make adjustments in what crops they grow and where, then the effects of climate change on the global economy may not be as severe as feared, a Stanford economist says. Dave Donaldson, an associate professor of economics, wrote in a new policy brief for the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research that because of agriculture's small share in total gross domestic product for nations around the world, the expected impact on global GDP could be considerably smaller if...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Crop adjustments may lessen climate change’s econ effects, economist saysReport: building climate resilience essential business survival
Posted by Blue and Green: Charlotte Malone on June 4th, 2015
Blue and Green: A new report argues that businesses need to begin building their climate resilience if they are to survive in the future. The paper explains that $200 billion (£130bn) of investments will be needed each year globally to combat $1 trillion (£650bn) of losses from climate impacts within the next two decades.
The report – Climate change and business survival – has been published by Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute and Mott MacDonald. It explains that investing in improved...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Report: building climate resilience essential business survivalShell CEO: Industry must tackle climate change
Posted by MarketWatch: Sarah Kent on June 4th, 2015
MarketWatch: Royal Dutch Shell PLC's (RDSA) chief executive on Thursday urged the oil industry and governments to work more closely to tackle the "massive challenge" presented by climate change and growing energy demand. "I believe 20 years from now if we don't act global public opinion will be unforgiving," Ben van Beurden told an OPEC seminar in Vienna. The Anglo-Dutch oil major's head said that the world is undergoing a profound energy transition as demand continues to grow and climate change concerns mount....
Fossil fuel divestment is rational, says former Shell chairman
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
Guardian: The former chairman of Shell has said that investors moving their money out of fossil fuel companies is a rational response to the industry’s “distressing” lack of progress on climate change. Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, who spent almost four decades at Shell and rose to be its chairman, also said the big oil and gas companies had been calling for a price to be put on CO2 emissions for 15 years but had done little to make it happen. His striking remarks are the most supportive of divestment made by any...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Fossil fuel divestment is rational, says former Shell chairmanUN weighs up climate threat in new development goals
Posted by RTCC: None Given on June 4th, 2015
RTCC: The UN released a rough text of revamped international development goals on Wednesday, inserting tracts on energy and climate for the first time.
‘Sustainable Development Goals’ to take effect next year until 2030 will update the Millennium Development Goals, an anti-poverty push established at the turn of the century.
The list is set to grow from eight to 17 main objectives, as it widens it scope to tackle evolving challenges like climate change.
The “plan of action for people, planet and...
Inspectors find ruptured Calif pipeline badly corroded
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
Reuters: A section of pipeline that ruptured sending as much as 2,400 barrels of crude oil into the Santa Barbara coastline in May was severely corroded, federal regulators said on Wednesday.
Third-party inspectors estimated that corrosion of the line owned by Texas-based Plains All American Pipeline had degraded to 1/16th of an inch, said a U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) corrective action order document.
The May 19 spill dumped as much as 2,400 barrels (101,000...
Drought, water shortages become top worry for Californians: poll
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
Reuters: California's devastating drought has become the top concern for residents for the first time, as the most populous U.S. state experiences mandatory water cutbacks, according to a poll released on Wednesday.
More than one-third, or 39 percent, of likely voters surveyed by the Public Policy Institute of California named water shortages and the drought as the state's most pressing issue, followed by 20 percent who said jobs and the economy were of biggest concern.
It was the first time the state's...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Drought, water shortages become top worry for Californians: pollRanchers defy U.S. in grazing parched Nevada lands, environmentalists say
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 4th, 2015
Reuters: A Nevada ranch defied U.S. drought closure orders in grazing cattle on federally managed land, environmentalists said on Wednesday, comparing it to action by another Nevada rancher that led to an armed standoff last year with federal agents. The ranchers in the Battle Mountain area in northern Nevada let their livestock graze on Tuesday at the North Buffalo allotment managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Western Watersheds Project said in a statement. "The ranchers generate public sympathy...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Ranchers defy U.S. in grazing parched Nevada lands, environmentalists say