Read the full article on http://www.climatechangenews.com/ “In Mexico, cars will soon run on cactus. A company has built the world’s first digester to make biogas from the desert plant’s fruit, according to media reports. The fruit or prickly pears are pureed, mixed with manure, then left to decompose, producing methane. That gas is used for […]
“For the past two years, the 100,000 residents of Flint, Michigan, drank, cooked and bathed with lead-contaminated water. Rates of lead poisoning—which can impair brain development and cause other serious health ailments—among the area’s children have skyrocketed, from 5 percent before the water turned bad to 16 percent today.”
“Morocco’s King Mohammed VI switched on the first phase of the world’s largest concentrated solar plant today in the southern town of Ouarzazate. A ceremony was held to officially inaugurate Noor 1 and break ground on the second phase which includes the Noor 2 and 3 projects.”
“The UK’s first supermarket ‘wonky vegetable’ box goes on sale on Friday, containing enough ugly potatoes and knobbly carrots to feed a family of four for an entire week for just £3.50.
The Asda box is filled with in-season winter vegetables and salad ingredients at a price that is 30% cheaper than standard lines.
The vegetables – currently carrots, potatoes, peppers, cucumber, cabbage, leeks, parsnips and onions – have been selected from farmers’ crops because they are misshapen, have growth cracks or are smaller or larger than average. The produce is washed but the discount reflects the fact that customers may need to spend extra time peeling it or they might not be able to use the whole vegetable.”
Read the full article on http://www.solarcrunch.org “France is planning on a project to build 1000 kilometers of road with specially designed solar panels. This project will supply 5 million people in France with electricity if it is successful. Though many solar experts are skeptical of this project, the french government has given the go ahead […]
“World leaders have begun to get serious about fighting climate change, but we still face the incredible risk of a rising sea in this century and far into the future. According to Climate Central, a research organization, a 4-degree Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) global temperature increase, which is our current path, could result in sea level rise that would submerge land where 470 – 760 million people now live.
If the world’s governments actually meet the declared goal of the UN climate summit in Paris and reduce and draw down carbon emissions, keeping the world to a 2 Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) temperature increase, 130 million would need to evacuate over coming decades. To understand how serious this could be, here’s some perspective: 4 million Syrians have fled their homeland since their civil war began in 2011, with 380,000 making their way to Europe this year. Imagine millions more on the move each year, all over the world, and the political, social, and environmental effects of this migration.”
“The year was more than a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit warmer than the last global heat record—set all the way back in 2014—according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration figures released on Wednesday. A quarter of a degree may not sound like much, but on a planetary scale it’s a huge leap. Most previous records were measured by hundredths of a degree.”
“‘The best research currently available estimates that there are over 150 million tonnes (165 million tons) of plastics in the ocean today,’ [a] report reads. ‘In a business-as-usual scenario, the ocean is expected to contain 1 tonne (1.1 tons) of plastic for every 3 tonnes of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish (by weight).’
In other words, in just 34 years, plastic trash in the ocean will outweigh all the fish in the sea.”
From http://democracynow.org – Jane Goodall is one of the world’s leading voices on the issue of climate change and protecting the environment. A renowned primatologist, Goodall is best known for her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees and baboons. At the U.N. climate summit in Paris last month, Goodall talked Republican climate change denial, the link between diet and climate change, her hopes “to save the rainforests” from corruption and intensive farming, and how climate concerns drove her to be a vegetarian.
“The Sierra Club applauds President Obama and Sec. Jewell for their leadership in reforming the federal coal leasing program and putting an immediate stop to all new and modified coal leasing. This program is broken, outdated and does not consider the threat of climate change in our communities and thanks to the Obama administration’s leadership, we can proudly say that big coal’s destructive reach over our public lands is coming to an end.”