Group items tagged

Pacific Northwest shellfish producers are the first harbingers of a trend that may have wide ranging implications for the broader fishing industry: ocean acidification. By proactively seeking out adaptation solutions early on, the Northwest shellfish industry is attempting a self-rescue that may provide important lessons as other commercial species begin feeling the impacts of increasing acidification.

The four governments, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia committed to take action to expand the adoption of zero-emissions vehicles, with a goal of 10 percent of new vehicle purchases by 2016.

The White House last week outlined plans to get the US offshore wind industry off the ground. The White House has awarded Maine, Rhode Island, New York and Massachusetts each a grant of $600,000 to support offshore wind development. It has also established an interagency group in support of offshore wind. As part of that effort, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans to offer areas off the coasts of North Carolina and New Jersey. GovTech.com (10/2) 

Global trade has made it easier to buy things. But our consumption habits often fuel threats to biodiversity - such as deforestation, overhunting and overfishing - thousands of miles away. Now, scientists have mapped how major consuming countries drive threats to endangered species elsewhere. Such maps could be useful for finding the most efficient ways to protect critical areas important for biodiversity, the researchers suggest in a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. For example, the maps show that commodities used in the United States and the European Union exert several threats on marine species in Southeast Asia, mainly due to overfishing, pollution and aquaculture. The U.S. also exerts pressure on hotspots off the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and at the mouth of the Orinoco around Trinidad and Tobago. European Union's impacts extend to the islands around Madagascar: Réunion, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The maps also revealed some unexpected linkages. For instance, the impact of U.S. consumption in Brazil appears to be much greater in southern Brazil (in the Brazilian Highlands where agriculture and grazing are extensive) than inside the Amazon basin, which receives a larger chunk of the attention. The U.S. also has high biodiversity footprint in southern Spain and Portugal, due to their impacts on threatened fish and bird species. These countries are rarely perceived as threat hotspots.

Offshore wind is slowly taking off in the US, according to this analysis. Observers say that this trend can be seen in Massachusetts' proposed offshore wind bill, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's plan to hold an offshore wind auction for a tract of space off the coast of New York and Maryland's continued work on the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act. Some say these advances and several others could help the nation's fledging offshore wind industry reach critical mass.

Canada's two largest west coast ports are offering financial incentives to the most efficient vessels that enter the ports. Port Metro Vancouver's Eco-Action program and Prince Rupert Port Authority's (PRPA's) Green Wave program will reward ship owners based on the Carbon War Room's A to G Greenhouse Gas Emissions rating, which benchmarks the energy efficiency of shipping fleets.

historian tries to hold oil and gas companies responsible for Louisiana's disappearing coast

One year after Superstorm Sandy devastated the East Coast, 20 major U.S. brands including Starbucks, Unilever and Mars, Inc. are calling for the White House to follow through on climate change preparedness efforts outlined in the Climate Action Plan announced by President Obama on June 25.

Amazon Web Services plans a wind farm in North Carolina that will help power Amazon data centers. The wind farm is expected to generate 670,000 megawatt-hours per year after it comes online at the end of 2016. Amazon's goal is to eventually power its operations using 100% renewable energy

Just as it was being called out for using the dirtiest mix of energy among Internet giants, Amazon Web Services  announced this week a deal to build an 80-megawatt solar farm to power its east coast data centers. It will invest $150 million towards construction of a solar farm in Virginia where the majority of its data centers exist - and where the incumbent utility Dominion Virginia relies on fossil fuels for all but 2 percent of its generation. 

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

On July 20th, James Hansen, the former NASA climatologist who brought climate change to the public's attention in the summer of 1988, issued a bombshell: He and a team of climate scientists had identified a newly important feedback mechanism off the coast of Antarctica that suggests mean sea levels could rise 10 times faster than previously predicted: 10 feet by 2065. The authors included this chilling warning: If emissions aren't cut, "We conclude that multi-meter sea-level rise would become practically unavoidable. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea-level rise could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization."

Thanks to the U.S. fracking boom, the world is coasting on a wave of cheap natural gas. As far as official forecasts suggest, that wave should last for decades to come. But a new analysis that takes a higher-resolution look at shale gas suggests that wave could crash far sooner than producers expect. And with the rest of the world anticipating cheap American gas, a crash could sends shocks rippling across borders

Bonaire (pop. 14,500), a small island off the coast of Venezuela, is famous for its beautiful marine reefs, which are visited by 70,000 tourists every year. What many of the tourists don't realize is that the majority of the electricity powering their needs comes from renewable energy. Yet for the residents of Bonaire, the switch from fossil-fueled to renewable energy systems has made a world of difference.

But this success story has been underscored by a tense struggle over water, which Dow needs to keep production afloat, and which is in short supply in Texas amid the state's debilitating drought and its water users' increasing thirst. When Dow Chemical, one of the largest manufacturers of chemicals and plastics in the world, announced a multibillion-dollar expansion on Texas' Gulf Coast last summer, Gov. Rick Perry had yet another example to add to his list of explosive economic growth on Texas soil.

Along the oceanside bluffs just north of Goleta, one farm is producing 20 to 25 varieties of organic produce using a sustainable farming method that uses as little as 10 percent of the amount of water used in traditional agriculture.

At the University of Miami's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Brian McNoldy and other researchers have been accumulating sea level data from Virginia Key (a small island just south of Miami Beach) since 1996. Over those nineteen years, sea levels around the Miami coast have already gone up 3.7 inches.

Martin von Hildebrand, founder of the Fundacion Gaia Amazonas, is working to establish an ecological corridor protecting 333 million acres of rain forest stretching from Colombia to the Brazilian coast. That will involve finding ways to work with the loggers, miners and farmers already active in the area, he says. "We have to look at those areas where there already is something like oil, or like agriculture, or like cattle ranching and approach it from a sustainable point of view," he explains. 

Chile has created a vast marine park around the Desventuradas Islands, a few hundred miles off its coast, to protect many species that can be found nowhere else in the world. "For many years, Chile has been one of the most important fishing countries in the world," said campaigner Alex Munoz. With the marine park's creation, he added, "we're also becoming a leader in marine conservation." 

The Lego Group has set a goal to source 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. In support of the goal, Lego's parent company Kirkbi has acquired a 32% stake in Dong Energy's Borkum Riffgrund 1 wind farm off the coast of Germany. Lego CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp said the company would continue to look for opportunities to invest in renewables. In addition, he said, it is working to boost recycling and cut down on packaging in an effort to be more sustainable