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Adriana Trujillo

India to halt building new coal plants in 2022 | Climate Home - climate change news - 1 views

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    India's Central Electricity Authority released its latest draft National Electricity Plan, which lays out intentions to more than double India's clean energy capacity by 2027, according to Climate Home. The plan also indicates that the country will not build additional coal-fired energy capacity from 2022 to 2027.
Del Birmingham

Brazil's Congress moves ahead to end nation's environmental safeguards - 0 views

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    A Brazilian Senate Commission is quickly, and surreptitiously, moving forward a constitutional amendment (PEC 65) that would end the need for environmental assessment approvals for public works projects in Brazil ranging from Amazon dams to roads and canals, and oil infrastructure.
Del Birmingham

Cloud records reveal evidence of climate change - 0 views

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    Global cloud patterns have changed since the 1980s, and scientists have found these shifts are consistent with predictions from climate model simulations.
Adriana Trujillo

Norway Is The First Country To Ban Deforestation - 0 views

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    Norway became the first country to commit to zero deforestation. Norway also reportedly plans to move its carbon neutrality target year from 2050 to 2030.
Adriana Trujillo

General Mills, 'Disappointed' by Lack of National Solution, Will Label GMOs | Sustainab... - 0 views

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    On Friday, General Mills announced that it will "soon" start labeling its products that contain genetically modified organism (GMO) ingredients nationwide. With the rationale that it is impractical to label its products for just one state, the company plans to disclose GMO ingredients according to the law set to go into effect in Vermont on July 1.
Adriana Trujillo

Industrialised Nations Must Lead an Exit Strategy for Fossil Fuels - 0 views

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    Energy efficiency and renewables are indispensable weapons in the fight against climate change, but the real challenge is keeping fossil fuel reserves in the ground. 
Adriana Trujillo

World's Leading Companies Agree: Clean Power Plan Is Necessary Part of U.S. National Cl... - 1 views

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    The biggest players in technology and some of the largest consumer brands recently submitted separate friend-of-the-court briefs providing resounding support for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan.
Adriana Trujillo

West Virginia residents cope, with days of water woes still ahead after chemical spill ... - 0 views

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    A chemical spill along the Elk River in West Virginia has left close to 300,000 people without access to tap water for the past 5 days. The spill originated from a facility run by chemical company Freedom Industries.
Del Birmingham

No one knows how to stop these tar-sands oil spills | Grist - 0 views

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    Thousands of barrels of tar-sands oil have been burbling up into forest areas for at least six weeks in Cold Lake, Alberta, and it seems that nobody knows how to staunch the flow.
Adriana Trujillo

Bringing Back the Night: The Fight Against Light Pollution by Paul Bogard: Yale Environ... - 0 views

  • France
  • within an hour of workers leaving
  • cannot be turned on before sunset
  • ...61 more annotations...
  • two years
  • designed to eventually cut carbon dioxide emissions by 250,000 tons per year, save the equivalent of the annual energy consumption of 750,000 households, and slash the country’s overall energy bill by 200 million Euros ($266 million).
  • “reduce the print of artificial lighting on the nocturnal environment
  • lighting in many parts of the world is endangering our health and the health of the ecosystems on which we The good news is that light pollution is readily within our grasp to control.rely
  • ecological light pollution, warning that disrupting these natural patterns of light and dark, and thus the structures and functions of ecosystems, is having profound impacts
  • China, India, Brazil, and numerous other countries are becoming increasingly affluent and urbanized
  • glowing white
  • Connecticut and California — have enacted regulations to reduce light pollution, but most nations and cities still do little to dial down the excessive use of light
  • LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, can improve our ability to reduce and better regulate lighting
  • “blue-rich
  • disruptive to circadian rhythms.
  • reducing
  • or Loss of Night
  • 30 percent of vertebrates and more than 60 percent of invertebrates are nocturnal
  • bright lights
  • All are potentially impacted by our burgeoning use of artificial light
  • We have levels of light hundreds and thousands of time higher than the natural level during the night
  • computer-generated maps that dramatically depict the extent of light pollution across the globe
  • Every flip of a light switch contributes to altering ancient patterns of mating, migration, feeding, and pollination, with no time for species to adapt
  • 2012 study of leatherback turtles
  • “artificial lighting of the nesting beaches is the biggest threat to survival of hatchlings and a major factor in declining leatherback turtle populations.”
  • eflected light of the stars and moon from the beach to the ocean
  • follow the light of hotels and streetlights
  • drawn off-course by artificial light
  • between 100 million and 1 billion, we don’t really know — killed each year by collision with human-made structures
  • our outdoor lights are irresistible flames, killing countless moths and other insects, with ripple effects throughout the food chain
  • natural pest control
  • for bats
  • artificial light disrupts patterns of travel and feeding since many bat species avoid illuminated areas.
  • that street lighting influences the migratory pattern of Atlantic salmon,
  • studies on light pollution, ranging from research into the socio-political challenges of cutting light pollution in the Berlin metropolitan area to the effects of light pollution on nocturnal mammals
  • composition of entire communities of insects and other invertebrates.
  • humans
  • nocturnal light disrupts our sleep, confuses our circadian rhythms
  • hormone melatonin
  • most disruptive to our body’s
  • blue wavelength light tells our brain that night is over,
  • consequences of excessive exposure to light at night include an increased risk for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease
  • American Medical Association
  • “risks and benefits of occupational and environmental exposure to light-at-night
  • “new lighting technologies at home and at work that minimize circadian disruption
  • are concerned about the impact of some new lighting
  • make LEDs a
  • these lights may actually make things significantly worse
  • often brighter than the old lights they are replacing
  • LEDs could “exacerbate known and possible unknown effects of light pollution on human health (and the) environment” by more than five times.
  • preventing areas
  • recommends limits for the amount of light in five different zones of lighting intensity
  • banning unshielded lighting in all zones.
  • researchers have identified numerous practical steps to reduce light pollution:
  • spectral composition of lighting (
  • limiting the duration of lighting
  • altering the intensity
  • the Model Lighting Ordinance
  • simple act of shielding our lights — installing or retrofitting lamp fixtures that direct light downward to its intended target — represents our best chance to control light pollution
  • lines of shielded lighting fixtures
  • light equals safety, and darkness danger
  • with little compelling evidence to support common assumptions.
  • The objection
  • For example, ever-brighter lights can actually diminish security by casting glare that impedes our vision and creates shadows where criminals can hide.
  • light effectively than abundantly
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    As evidence mounts that excessive use of light is harming wildlife and adversely affecting human health, new initiatives in France and elsewhere are seeking to turn down the lights that flood an ever-growing part of the planet
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    mounts that excessive use of light is harming wildlife and adversely affecting human health, new initiatives in France and elsewhere are seeking to turn down the lights that flood an ever-growing part of the planet.
Brett Rohring

Are 90 Companies Responsible For Nearly Two-Thirds Of Global Warming? - 0 views

  • A new study from the Colorado-based Climate Accountability Institute suggests that 90 companies are responsible for almost two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
  • The top 90 emitters include 50 investor-owned energy companies like BP, ExxonMobil and Shell, along with 31 state-owned companies and some nation-states themselves. 83 of the 90 are coal, oil and gas producers and the remaining seven are cement manufacturers.
  • Based on studies published during the past several years, the IPCC found that in order to have at least a 66 percent chance of limiting global warming to, or below, 3.6°F above pre-industrial levels, no more than 1 trillion tonnes of carbon can be released into the atmosphere from the beginning of the industrial era through the end of this century.
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  • The IPCC report estimates that we’ve already used 531 billion tonnes of that budget as of 2011 by burning fossil fuels for energy as well as by clearing forests for farming and myriad other uses. That means we’re on the wrong side of the carbon budget, with 469 billion tonnes left.
  • "It increases the accountability for fossil fuel burning," climate scientist Michael Mann told the Guardian. "You can't burn fossil fuels without the rest of the world knowing about it."
Del Birmingham

Average American consumes 50,000 pounds of raw materials annually for the stuff they buy - 0 views

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    on average, each of us in the U.S. uses 25 tons of raw materials every year to produce our stuff and our energy. That is the weight of about 20 cars. By comparison, the average Chinese person uses 12 tons and the average Indian only 4 tons of raw materials per year.
Adriana Trujillo

White House targets methane gas emissions - The Washington Post - 0 views

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    The White House has announced a new plan to reduce America's methane emissions, which are thought to account for up to 14% of the country's total greenhouse emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency will monitor methane emissions from the fossil-fuel sector, and the Interior Department will develop a plan to capture and sell methane emitted by coal mines on federal land. The effort will depend on "cost-effective, voluntary actions and common-sense standards," said Dan Utech, special assistant to the president for energy and climate change
Adriana Trujillo

U.S. EPA Lists Nation's Top Renewables Users - Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) - 24/7 Wall St. - 0 views

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    For the seventh year in a row, Intel is at the top of the heap when it comes to commercial buyers of clean energy, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's annual Green Power Partnership report. Kohl's, Microsoft, Whole Foods and Google round out the top five in this year's ranking.
Adriana Trujillo

Mountaintop removal for coal hurts water quality and harms fish, study says - The Washi... - 0 views

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    Mountaintop-removal mining is changing water chemistry and harming fish stocks in the Appalachians, federal researchers say. "We're seeing significant reductions in the number of fish species and total abundance of fish downstream from mining operations," says biologist Nathaniel Hitt.
Adriana Trujillo

Endangered Orangutans Gain From Eco-Friendly Shifts in Palm Oil Market - 0 views

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    Deforestation due to palm oil production is the single biggest threat to orangutans, but new deforestation-free standards that cover about 60% of the industry could help secure the primate's future. "We can now break the link between palm oil and the extinction of orangutans," says Michelle Desilets, executive director of the Orangutan Land Trust.
Adriana Trujillo

Obama seeks faster phaseout of popular coolant in effort to curb greenhouse gases - The... - 0 views

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    President Barack Obama is pushing American companies to abandon the use of a chemical coolant called R-134a in refrigerators, air conditioning systems and other industrial applications. R-134a is in a class of chemicals that can be up to 10,000 times as powerful a greenhouse gas per ounce as carbon dioxide.
Adriana Trujillo

Obama in Alaska: Climate-change deniers 'are on their own shrinking island' - LA Times - 0 views

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    President Barack Obama made a forceful call for climate action Monday, calling out "the cynics and the deniers" who stand in the way of carbon regulations and warning that the failure to act would "condemn our children to a world they will no longer have the capacity to repair." Obama said the price of inaction was intolerably high, while the cost of action would be less than critics claim. "On this issue, of all issues, there is such a thing as being too late. That moment is almost upon us," he said
Adriana Trujillo

How Europe's climate policies led to more U.S. trees being cut down - The Washington Post - 0 views

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    European climate policies are creating new demand for biomass, which power plants now have an incentive to burn instead of coal. That's leading to dramatically increased logging along the eastern coast of the U.S., even as researchers question the eco-friendliness of biomass-based power generation
Adriana Trujillo

Plastic made from pollution hits U.S. market - 0 views

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    Two childhood friends spent a decade, beginning in college, figuring out how to cheaply make plastic from carbon that's been captured from the atmosphere.
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    Two childhood friends have teamed up to market AirCarbon, a plastic produced using carbon drawn from industrial atmospheric emissions. Their process could enable carbon-negative manufacturing. "I wish I had been smart enough to figure this out," says William Dowd, a former biotechnology research director at Dow Chemical. "I was astounded by what they were able to do
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