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Archive for November, 2015
Brazil to sue mining companies BHP & Vale for $5bn over dam disaster
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 28th, 2015
Guardian: Brazil’s government has announced it will sue mining giants BHP Billiton and Vale for $US5.2bn after the deadly collapse of a dam at an iron ore mine sent 60 million cubic meters of mud and mine waste cascading into the Atlantic ocean and left more than 13 people dead.
Environment minister Izabella Teixeira said a lawsuit would be filed demanding that the companies and the mine operator Samarco, which they co-own, create a fund of 20 billion reais to pay for environmental recovery and compensation...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Brazil to sue mining companies BHP & Vale for $5bn over dam disasterGrassroots leader’s murder in Peru signal to opponents of mining, son says
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on November 28th, 2015
Mongabay: The son of the president of a reforestation association who was murdered on November 19 vowed to continue his father’s work in Peru’s southern Amazonian forest.
Alfredo Vracko had settled on the land in the Amazonian lowlands, not far from the Madre de Dios River, in 1975.
Vracko’s property is across the Interoceanic Highway from the buffer zone of the Tambopata National Reserve, in an area known as La Pampa, which has been a hot spot for illegal mining for nearly a decade.
The son of the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Grassroots leader’s murder in Peru signal to opponents of mining, son saysSeaweed Cultivation Ushers Waves of Change in Sundarbans
Posted by Inter Press Service: Oishanee Ghosh on November 27th, 2015
Inter Press Service: In Bengal’s mangrove forests, the effects of climate change are forcing men to leave their families in search of work. But now, seaweed farming is offering the women left behind financial stability and empowerment. At sunset, Kanchan Mondal would set off every evening to find odd jobs, leaving her children at home. Like many women in her village in Sundarbans of Bengal, her husband left to find work in the city, forced away by the ever-encroaching seawater that has left their farmlands barren. ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Seaweed Cultivation Ushers Waves of Change in SundarbansPakistan to argue its case at Paris summit
Posted by Tribune: None Given on November 27th, 2015
Tribune: Pakistan will argue its precarious situation and risks to its economy owing to fast changing climate at next week’s global summit in Paris, vowed Federal Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid on Friday. “The case for Pakistan’s exposure to the climate change risks and prevailing opportunities would be compellingly presented at the climate change conference,” Hamid told a news conference in Islamabad. Hamid, who will be leading a 27-member Pakistan delegation at the two-week moot in Paris from...
Rising Temps, Invisible Threats: Climate Change Spurs Disease Fears
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2015
NDTV: Winter was oddly mild in northern Texas in 2012, a year that saw few snowflakes and barely any ice. When the cold failed to show up, the spring mosquitoes arrived in droves, carrying disease.
The insects multiplied during an unusually muggy May, when temperatures hit the 90s and then stayed there. On June 20, Dallas recorded the season's first case of West Nile virus. By late August, there were nearly 400.
Nineteen people would die in the greater Dallas area in the worst West Nile outbreak...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Rising Temps, Invisible Threats: Climate Change Spurs Disease FearsAustralia: Farmer attitudes to climate change across generations
Posted by Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Lucy Barbour on November 27th, 2015
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The nation's farmers could be considered the sentinels of climate change; they are more attuned than most to long-term changes in weather patterns.
But many of them are yet to be convinced that man-made climate change is real, arguing that floods and droughts are cyclical and extreme temperatures are nothing new.
It is a view some younger producers are now challenging and they are reshaping their farming practices to suit the changing climate.
Josh Gilbert's family has farmed at Nabiac in...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Australia: Farmer attitudes to climate change across generationsBrazil to sue BHP, Vale for $5 billion damages for dam burst
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2015
Reuters: Brazil's federal and state governments plan to sue the owners of the Samarco iron ore miner for 20 billion reais ($5.24 billion)in damages caused by the burst of a tailings dam, Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira told reporters on Friday.
Samarco is a joint venture between the world's largest mining company, BHP Billiton Ltd, and the biggest iron ore miner, Vale SA.
The dam burst earlier this month unleashed 60 million cubic meters of mud and mine waste that devastated a village, killed...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Brazil to sue BHP, Vale for $5 billion damages for dam burstExtreme heatwaves may hit Europe in the short term
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2015
ScienceDaily: Regional climate projections for the two coming decades (2021-2040) suggest enhanced probability of heatwaves anywhere in Europe, which would be comparable or greater than the Russian heatwave in 2010 -- the worst since 1950 -- according to a JRC-led article published today in Environmental Research Letters. Using an improved heatwave index, the article also ranks the 10 record-breaking heatwaves that have struck the continent in the last 65 years. The findings are based on the use of the Heat Wave...
“París Is Not the End of a Climate Change Process but a Beginning”
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 27th, 2015
Inter Press Service: Chilean President Michelle Bachelet says the climate summit in Paris "is not the end of a process but a beginning," and that it will produce "an agreement that, although insufficient with respect to the original goal, shows that people believe it is better to move ahead than to stand still." In this exclusive interview with IPS, held shortly before Bachelet headed to the capital of France, the president reflected on the global impacts of climate change and stressed several times that the accords...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on “París Is Not the End of a Climate Change Process but a Beginning”How Many Climate Change Refugees Should America Let In?
Posted by EcoWatch: Gary Wockner on November 27th, 2015
EcoWatch: The United Nations estimates that climate change will create 200 million migrants and refugees throughout the world. How many climate change refugees should America let in?
A vote in the U.S. House of Representatives last week created a firestorm of controversy about how many refugees from Syria should be allowed in the U.S. The House vote, which would further restrict Syrians from entering America, received support from nearly all the Republicans and 47 Democrats, including my Colorado Democratic...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on How Many Climate Change Refugees Should America Let In?