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Australia: Climate Council call for action against global warming amid record-breaking March heat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 21st, 2016
AAP: AUSTRALIA’S record-breaking autumn heat is just a taste of what’s to come if we continue to lag behind global powers who are moving away from fossil fuels to combat climate change. Environmental experts have warned Australia will continue to experience record-breaking heat and extreme weather in the wake of a damning report that reveals a notable climb in average temperatures across the country at the start of March. Maximum temperatures in the first four days of this month were four degrees above...
ADB commits $123.3 million to improve Manila’s water supply
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 21st, 2016
Reuters: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Monday it would lend $123.3 million to the Philippines to modernize water supply in the capital, Manila, to reduce the risk of shortages as demand for water rises in the megacity. The loan will allow the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, a government-owned company supplying raw water to Manila to build a fourth tunnel, allowing it to upgrade other existing tunnels, the Manila-based lender said in a statement. "The Angat transmission system provides...
10 facts about forests for International Forest Day
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on March 21st, 2016
Mongabay: Today is International Forest Day, which was launched by the United Nations March 21, 2012 to promote the importance of forests and trees. In recognition of the designation, below are ten facts about forests. Forests cover around 4 billion hectares or 30 percent of Earth’s land surface Forests cover about four billion four billion hectares (16 million square miles). That represents about 30 percent of Earth’s land surface or eight percent of its total surface area. Ten countries hold about two-thirds...
By rejecting $1bn for pipeline, a First Nation put Trudeau climate plan on trial
Posted by Guardian: Martin Lukacs on March 20th, 2016
Guardian: Everything has a price. Everyone can be bought. We assume this principle is endemic to modern life -- and that accepting it is most obvious to the impoverished. Except all over the world, people are defying it for a greater cause. That courage may be even more contagious.
It has been in full supply in north-west Canada, where an oil giant is aiming to construct one of country’s biggest fossil fuel developments: a pipeline to ship liquified natural gas (LNG) out of British Colombia. To export it...
Climate change could see half a reservoir of Hong Kong’s potable water evaporate
Posted by Morning Post: Ernest Kao on March 20th, 2016
Morning Post: Warmer temperatures brought about by climate change could see up to 7.3 million cubic metres more of Hong Kong’s potable water – about half of the Shing Mun Reservoir – literally evaporate every year by the end of the century, an environmental group has warned.
Rainfall helps offset evaporation from reservoirs in most years, but Green Power said the lack of necessary research would jeopardise the city’s long-term water supplies as global warming caused more extreme weather patterns such as droughts...
First Flint, Now Newark…Could Lead Contamination Become a National Crisis?
Posted by WNYC: None Given on March 20th, 2016
WNYC: Tom Johnson, co-founder and energy writer at NJ Spotlight, and Mae Wu, an attorney in the Health and Environment Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington. D.C., discuss the elevated levels of lead discovered in drinking water at Newark Public Schools and explores whether this could be a growing problem across the country as lead contamination in Newark follows the ongoing problems in Flint, Michigan. Wu suggested that anyone who lives in an old building test their drinking...
Boulder funds $70K in new research on open space — including impacts of pet waste
Posted by Denver Post: Charlie Brennan on March 20th, 2016
Denver Post: Boulder's Open Space & Mountain Parks this year will once again serve as a living laboratory for a varied roster of researchers using its 45,000-plus acres and 147 miles of trails to probe scientific mysteries both exotic and earthy.
A new round of grants has been awarded this month through the department's Funded Research Program, and $70,000 in city money is going to be funneled to study everything from the impacts of pet waste on open space land to the potential effects of human recreation...
Tasmania forest logging bid dropped
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 20th, 2016
BBC: The Australian and Tasmanian authorities are abandoning their bid to have logging permitted in the Tasmanian Wilderness, a World Heritage site.
The decision comes after a report by the UN cultural agency Unesco said the area "should be off-limits to commercial logging in its entirety".
The Tasmanian Wilderness covers about a fifth of the island and is one of the world's last big temperate forests.
Conservation groups have welcomed the Unesco report and the logging decision.
In 2014 the...
Coral bleaching at Barrier Reef ‘severe’: Australia
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 20th, 2016
Agence France-Presse: Australian authorities said Sunday coral bleaching occurring in the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef had become "severe", the highest alert level, as sea temperatures warm.
Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt said while the bleaching at this stage was not as severe as in 1998 and 2002, also El Nino-related events, "it is however, in the northern parts a cause for concern".
"The reef is 2,300 kilometres (1,429 miles) long and the bottom three-quarters is in strong condition, but...
Australian government abandons campaign to log World Heritage forest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 20th, 2016
Reuters: The Australian government ended its push to log World Heritage-listed forests on the southern island state of Tasmania on Sunday, after the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO issued a report calling for the area to remain protected from logging.
Australia's government in 2014 sought unsuccessfully to have parts of the Tasmanian wilderness, some one million hectares (2.47 million acres) or a fifth of the island, removed from UNESCO's World Heritage listing to enable logging.
A United Nations...