‘Garbage’ models and black boxes? The science of climate disaster planning

“What humans have been doing for decades now is what I call a ‘plastification’ of the landscape and oceans. The study confirms the global-scale nature of microplastic transport in the atmosphere...”

"Cinema Verde has featured two films on phosphate mining over the years - both about mines in Florida which have long been know as dangerous for the environment. In 2019, Mining Phosphorus by Alan Toth, won the Local Award at Cinema Verde. In our first year, 2010, we featured the Phosphate Dilemma by Carter Lord, which was about the mines which have now put Florida in this state of emergency. Learn more about phosphate mining here: http://protectpeaceriver.org/ "

“Conservationists say the incident could be the tip of an iceberg, and warn that the drug could wipe out many of Europe’s vultures as well as harming related species, including golden eagles.”

It’s not just about the money... ”forestry companies and the government say the cut must continue in order to protect jobs in an industry that has experienced steep job losses and mill closures in recent years.”

"With dozens of countries struggling to manage both staggering debt and mounting climate disasters, some financial leaders are calling for green debt relief."

"People who may have eaten fish asked to come forward as authorities investigate sea life deaths"

"Analysis finds 77% of directors on boards of seven US banks have ties to ‘climate-conflicted’ groups, as banks continue to finance projects like the Line 3 oil pipeline"

"In a new set of photos, environmental degradation in the Amazon is explored to shine light on ‘a hideously complex story"

"The New York Democratic representative spoke to NPR this week hours before final details on Biden's much-awaited infrastructure package were released. That plan would spend $2 trillion over eight years, much of it on mitigating the climate crisis. It is the first of a two-part push on an expansive array of infrastructure initiatives, green energy projects, as well as social programs that the administration refers to as "human infrastructure," that is estimated to be around $3 trillion to $4 trillion."

"An Irish mechanic in London has developed a kit to transform classic Italian scooters into clean-riding electric machines."

“The climate emergency is not a game and we can’t just spin our way through it. We need to think about where our materials come from, how they’re made and interrogate the whole supply chain – from construction to demolition and reuse.”

“A clear definition of who is overburdened by pollution paves the way for the state to swiftly direct resources and take other action to combat said pollution.”

"Research shows rising temperatures since 1960s have acted as handbrake to agricultural yield of crops and livestock"

"Pesticides are one factor cited by scientists for the plunging populations of some insects. Insects play vital roles in the ecosystems that sustain humanity, in particular by pollinating three-quarters of crops."

"Testing by The Guardian and Consumer Reports found high levels of potentially harmful PFAS in Pittsboro, North Carolina, and regulators have struggled to keep pace."

"It is undeniably horrific that more than 2.8 million people have died of Covid-19 in the past 15 months. In roughly the same period, however, more than three times as many likely died of air pollution. This should disturb us for two reasons. One is the sheer number of air pollution deaths – 8.7 million a year, according to a recent study – and another is how invisible those deaths are, how accepted, how unquestioned."

"The investment “will put a new, diverse generation of Americans to work conserving our public lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, and advancing environmental justice through a new Civilian Climate Corps, all while placing good-paying union jobs within reach for more Americans,” reads a lengthy fact sheet on the plan."

A mama bear hilariously herds uncooperative cubs across road. CNN's Jeanne Moos reports human mothers can relate.

"The evidence of positive effects from nature includes studies on specific psychological conditions such as depression, anxiety and mood disorder. Access to nature has also been found to improve sleep and reduce stress, increase happiness and reduce negative emotions, promote positive social interactions and even help generate a sense of meaning to life. Being in green environments boosts various aspects of thinking, including attention, memory and creativity, in people both with and without depression. “The evidence is very solid,” says psychologist Marc Berman at the University of Chicago."

"The administration established a multi-agency target of deploying 30 gigawatts, or 30,000 megawatts, of wind energy by 2030, enough to power 10 million homes for a year and slash 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions."

"A battery recycling plant blanketed Latino communities with chemicals – and thousands of properties remain toxic"

"A dusky dolphin jumps out of water in Kaikoura bay in Kaikoura peninsula, South Island, New Zealand. Kaikoura is recognised as one of the best places in the world to regularly encounter wild dolphins in their natural environment."

"The bill is light on specifics but sets out a general framework for directing at least $1 trillion per year over the next decade to rapidly weaning the United States off fossil fuels and replacing corroded water systems, increasing benefits for home care workers, remediating toxic industrial sites, and propping up new, localized food producers, among other things. The bill lays out an expansive vision of how to slash the nation’s planet-heating emissions in half and balance the racial and regional gaps in wealth and health, issues that have animated the party’s base and inflected once-sleepy debates over roads and rail funding with the energy of a new-wave civil rights movement."

"His account, though, also put a spotlight on Brazil’s illegal mining industry, which has flourished in recent decades in Indigenous territories and other parts of the Amazon that are supposed to be sanctuaries. The illegal mine where he was headed is in the Maicuru reserve, where no human activities are allowed beyond those meant to protect the forest."

“There’s a natural tendency to find the single silver bullet to a problem, but with climate change it’s more like silver buckshot,” he said. “We need to deploy the heck out of renewables and electric cars and heat pumps and everything else today, like crazy. We don’t have time to only develop longer-term options.”

"The Florida Spring Council and Santa Fe River have filed a legal challenge against the approval of the Seven Springs Consumptive Use Permit that allows the extraction of around one million gallons of water per day near Ginnie Springs for Nestle’s bottling operations."

The oil industry knew at least 50 years ago that air pollution from burning fossil fuels posed serious risks to human health, only to spend decades aggressively lobbying against clean air regulations, a trove of internal documents seen by the Guardian reveal.

Researchers have worked out a way to transform food scraps, used cooking oil, animal manure and wastewater sludge into jet fuel with a carbon footprint 165% lower than standard jet fuel, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The climate movement’s problem is not a lack of solutions, it’s a lack of political power,” Stinnett told HuffPost this week. “We need to mobilize every day in every election in every state to amass so much political power that we’re impossible to ignore.”

More than 100 constitutions across the world have adopted a human right to a healthy environment, often serving as a powerful tool to protect the natural world.

A steadily growing trend in investment went fully mainstream in 2020 as a record number of corporations pledged to go “net zero” and move to cancel out the carbon emissions they produce to halt a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.

A review of 250 wood-burning stove certifications found unexplained data omissions and atypical lab practices.

The main focus of the War Legacies Project is to document the long-term effects of the defoliant known as Agent Orange and provide humanitarian aid to its victims.

At first, Andrew Christ was ecstatic. In soil taken from the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet, he’d discovered the remains of ancient plants. Only one other team of researchers had ever found greenery beneath the mile-high ice mass.

On the Outer Banks, homeowners in Avon are confronting a tax increase of almost 50 percent to protect their homes, the only road into town, and perhaps the community’s very existence.

To Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), that spending looks more like triage than investment. On Saturday, the first-term congressman is set to unveil a $1.16 trillion proposal to fund climate-friendly retrofits at every K-12 public school in the nation, hire and train more teachers, and beef up funding for low-income and disability-focused programs.

Toronto’s previous ‘smart city’ plan had drawn criticism as a sinister manifestation of ‘surveillance capitalism’ and for promising more than it could deliver.

More trees near the home was associated with a reduced risk in antidepressant use, information that can help urban planners

As Japan marks the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the global conversation around the merits of using nuclear power to tackle the climate crisis remains hot. Many environmentalists are opposed, pointing to the risk of nuclear meltdowns and the difficulty of properly disposing of nuclear waste.

Scientists say residents should expect to see more intense rainstorms more frequently as the planet warms

A combination of cold weather, a decline in seagrass due to development and contaminated waterways have put Florida on pace for its highest number of manatee deaths in a decade.

Alas, time has shown that the resources on this planet are not infinite, and it does not take much creativity to see how future generations will judge our mindless littering of oceans, the extinction of species after species or our still widespread indifference toward climate change.

At least 403 manatees have died in Florida so far in 2021, four times the five-year average up to this point in the year, according to state wildlife officials. That includes 169 dead manatees (42%) in Brevard County.

There have been many monumental changes since then, but for those of us who work as climate scientists this period has also brought some entirely new and sometimes unexpected insights.

Ten years after a devastating earthquake and tsunami led to a nuclear meltdown in northern Japan, residents are readjusting to places that feel familiar and hostile at once.

Climate change may not be as gradual as scientists previously assumed. In fact, recent evidence points to an environmental "tipping point" that could drastically change the climate and appearance of the continents.

They found that the sharks reared in the warmest temperatures weighed significantly less than those raised in average temperatures, and they exhibited reduced metabolic performance.

The move is one of several steps that the Biden administration has taken to push an agenda that looks to address the dangers posed by global climate change.

On Monday, Baikal hosted a hockey match, called the "Last Game" intended to bring awareness to climate change and also how to safeguard the lake itself with its unique ecosystem.

Researchers found cows belched out 82% less methane after putting small amount of seaweed in their feed for five months

The end of humankind? It may be coming sooner than we think, thanks to hormone-disrupting chemicals that are decimating fertility at an alarming rate around the globe.

In 1994, John Elkington coined the phrase 'Triple Bottom Line, referring to Profit, People, and Planet'. The importance of all three together seemed more of a prophecy than a reality when it was written.

US climate change envoy John Kerry has urged the world's top 20 polluters which create 81% of emissions between them to reduce CO2 immediately.

But depending on which study you read, the annual carbon emissions from the electricity required to mine Bitcoin and process its transactions are equal to the amount emitted by all of New Zealand. Or Argentina.

Biden administration is set to unveil a new greenhouse gas reduction target at a climate meeting on 22 April, Earth Day

Rising heat and humidity threatening to plunge much of the world’s population into potentially lethal conditions, study finds

The Biden administration framed Monday’s decision as a way to increase the nation’s renewable energy capacity while creating well-paying construction jobs building turbines and other clean-energy equipment.

An insatiable global appetite for sand, one of the world’s most important but least appreciated commodities, is unlikely to let up anytime soon. The problem, however, is that this resource is slipping away.

Food discarded in homes is 74kg per person each year, with problem affecting rich and poor countries

According to iFixit, which campaigns for the right-to-repair, at least 30% of electric and electronic products are discarded when they are still in a repairable state. This kind of rubbish is becoming one of the world's fastest growing waste streams.

Avangrid Renewables, which operates 126 turbines as part of its Manzana wind power project, will finance the breeding of birds in captivity to replace any that might be killed by the 252ft diameter turbine blades.

The production of cement, the binding element in concrete, accounted for 7 percent of total global carbon dioxide emissions in 2018. Concrete is one of the most-used resources on Earth, with an estimated 26 billion tons produced annually worldwide. That production isn’t expected to slow down for at least two more decades.

Governments must halve emissions by 2030 if they intend the Earth to stay within the 1.5C “safe” threshold. But the latest set of national policies submitted to the UN shows emissions will merely be stabilised by 2030.

Millions of people in the US are drinking water that fails to meet federal health standards, including by violating limits for dangerous contaminants. Latinos are disproportionately exposed, according to the Guardian’s review of more than 140,000 public water systems across the US and county-level demographic data.

The carbon footprint of U.S. food waste is greater than that of the airline industry. Globally, wasted food accounts for about 8 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. The environmental consequences of producing food that no one eats are massive.

With travel stalled for the past 10 months, its sustainable comeback has been a popular topic. Now with Covid-19 vaccines in distribution, and the prospect of travel reviving later this year, some travel operators, local governments and nonprofit organizations are walking the talk, with new eco-oriented programs, trips, transportation initiatives and preserves.

Coal is the number-one single source for increasing global temperatures, with coal-fired electricity generation accounting for 30% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. And yet, scores of banks and institutional investors continue to pump money into supporting and expanding this fossil fuel industry, new research finds

The fossil fuel industry is using the same playbook to fight city climate plans around the country

But even on a day like today, Merrillee’s duties as the river’s guardian don’t stop. She fusses over graffiti sprayed on cypress trunks. She picks up floating beer cans and calls to report illegal campers on state-protected lands. She documents how a landowner widened the shoreline of a spring, an act of ecological malfeasance. “If not me, then who?” she asks aloud. Anyone can recognize the beauty of the river and springs, but few care to see the creep of their destruction, their death by a thousand cuts.

The world is facing a climate change problem, and climate change is facing a communication problem. The complexities and hypotheticals of climate science do not translate well to an audience who just wants to know whether the dress was blue or white. And yet, on TikTok, one of the world’s most active communication platforms, climate change is a rapidly growing topic.

Socially responsible investing has exploded across the globe and interest in it has never been higher. But there is a real chance the business and financial communities will let slip opportunities to fully capitalize on the demand.

Thanks to a decades-long association with “hippies” and “tree-huggers,” cannabis has largely been considered a green (no pun intended) industry by the masses.

We are excited to present selections from the 2021 VIRTUAL CINEMA VERDE

Chemicals are essential for the well-being, high living standards and comfort of modern society. They are used in many sectors, including health, energy, mobility and housing.

Researchers at the University of Montana are exploring the role of nanoparticles, commonly found in inner cities encumbered with pollution, in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers. Causality has not been proven, but researchers hypothesize that these nanoparticles play a large role in brain diseases.

Scientists describe the outbreak of COVID-19 in Mink farms as “reverse zoonosis.” Humans are likely to have spread the disease to Minks in captivity.

The resilience of our planet is largely dependent on its biodiversity. Today environmental degradation is threatening the extinction of plants and fungi across the planet, many of which we have yet to discover and could prove to solve many of humanity’s problems.

Posing as the international wind travel station, the Greek island of Antikythera stands where three sea’s converge and where African, American, Asian and European continental winds pass through. Antikythera is a climate scientist’s Disneyland, as the island accumulates dust from winds that span across the globe containing the data that tell today’s climate story. Read this fascinating BBC piece on how this research may change the way we think about the climate by the end of next year.