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Climate Change

CLIMATE CRISIS

One of the biggest icebergs in recorded history just broke loose from Antarctica

13th July 2017

The Washington Post reports: Scientists have announced that a much-anticipated break at the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica has occurred, unleashing a massive iceberg that is more than 2,200 square miles in area and weighs a trillion tons. Also, Nagraj Adve on why India must heed the cracking of this Haryana-sized Antarctic ice shelf….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Deadline 2020: Just three years before global climate tipping point

12th July 2017

From Common Dreams: Humanity has just three years left to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions before risking a climate-safe world. After roughly 1°C of global warming driven by human activity, ice sheets are melting, summer sea ice is disappearing in the Arctic and coral reefs dying from heat stress— entire ecosystems are starting to collapse….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Watch: Climate scientist Manoj Joshi on emerging unfamiliar climates worldwide

11th July 2017

From CarbonBrief: Billions of people across the world – possibly half the global population – could see climates they’ve never experienced before by the middle of the century, a new study says. One of the authors, Manoj Joshi of the University of East Anglia, speaks on the future emergence of unfamiliar climates across the world….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Mapped: How the West massively outsources carbon emissions to the rest

9th July 2017

Carbon Brief reports: A startling 22% of global CO2 emissions stem from the production of goods that are consumed in a different country. However, traditional inventories do not include emissions associated with imports. While Western countries have reduced domestic emissions recently, some of this reduction has been offset by increasing imports from countries like China….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Why meat eaters should think much more about soil

3rd July 2017

John Sauven writes in The Guardian: Farm animals that are raised intensively require a staggering amount of animal feed and water. Livestock production occupies the vast majority of agricultural land and is the main reason why nearly 50% of the wildlife we share our planet with has disappeared since the start of the industrial revolution….

Development/Growth

Modi govt’s environment policy endorses everything that bodes well for business

2nd July 2017

From The Wire: From its environmental track record, one thing that emerges is the current government’s penchant for innovation, be that its earliest initiative – wanting to ‘reform’ (or dismantle) key environmental laws – or the subsequent interventions that have ended up in subverting the management of natural ecosystems, spanning forests, rivers, coasts and wetlands….

ALTERNATIVES

Can we live without progress?

1st July 2017

Kurt Cobb writes: The idea of progress is embedded in the socio-economic system, and we cannot attack carbon emissions without attacking the idea of progress itself. If the progress we’ve made since the beginning of industrial civilization only leads to a complete reversal of all our supposed gains, can we really call what’s happening progress?…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Capitalism and the destruction of life on earth: Six theses on saving the humans

30th June 2017

As global capitalist economic growth accelerates planetary ecological collapse, Richard Smith argues that – impossible as it may seem at present – only the most radical solution -the overthrow of global capitalism, the construction of a mostly publicly-owned and mostly planned eco-socialist economy is the only alternative to the collapse of civilization and ecological suicide….

Coral reef in Papua New Guinea's Kimbe Bay. Almost all coral reefs may experience bleaching by 2050

David Doubilet/National Geographic

Conserve/Resist

The oceans can’t protect us anymore—here’s why

27th June 2017

From National Geographic: Our waters have borne the brunt of global-warming for decades, but dying corals, extreme weather, and plummeting fish stocks are signs that it can handle no more. And people are already experiencing direct consequences, such as more extreme weather events, says a new report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature….

ALTERNATIVES

Solar power: Do the ends justify the means?

25th June 2017

From World Economic Forum: People often have an idealised view of solar as the perfect clean energy source. Direct conversion of sunlight to electricity, no emissions, no contamination, perfectly clean. This however overlooks the messy reality of how solar panels are produced, right from the extraction of materials to scaling up the power generation process….

Economy

How India is killing the country’s largest economy of the poor

24th June 2017

From Down To Earth: About 70 per cent of India’s livestock is owned by 67 per cent of the small and marginal farmers and the landless, who shifted to livestock in face of uncertain rain and dwindling income. New restrictions on cattle slaughter will severely cripple the livestock economy which is now bigger than crop economy….

Caglecartoons.com

CLIMATE CRISIS

With the U.S. out of Paris, what is the future for the global climate fight?

18th June 2017

From Yale Environment 360: World leaders insist Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement will not deter other nations from carrying out their commitments. But the departure of America creates new challenges. The concern is whether the rest of the world will prove as determined to abide by the Paris-accord as some analysts claim….

Bookshelf

‘A reckoning for our species’: the philosopher prophet of the Anthropocene

17th June 2017

From The Guardian: The chief reason that we’re waking up to our entanglement with the world we’ve been destroying, Timothy Morton says, is our encounter with the reality of hyperobjects –the term he coined to describe things such as ecosystems and black holes, which are “massively distributed in time and space” compared to individual humans….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The shocking connection between doomsday maps and billionaire land acquisitions

16th June 2017

From Forbes Magazine: With all of the knowledge of future mapping, do the world’s financial leaders know something we don’t? Consider how many of the richest families have been grabbing up massive amounts of farmland around the world. All property far away from coastal areas and in locations conducive to self-survival, farming and coal mining….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Spotlight: Here’s how India has warmed from 1901 till 2017

12th June 2017

Here are the key findings from Centre for Science and Environment’s study of how India has warmed over the years, also plotted in animation. The analysis looks at temperature trends in the country –both annual and seasonal– from 1901 till recent years. It finds that the country has been getting warmer continuously, consistently and rapidly….

Climate Justice Action Network

ALTERNATIVES

What is Eco-Socialism? Who is an Eco-Socialist?

11th June 2017

The determinant element in the concept of eco-socialism is the prefix eco. And that means the rejection of industrialism. A good socialist only needs to rejects capitalism. But to be an eco-socialist one must also reject industrialism as a future perspective for mankind, and agree to a program of de-industrialization (now often clumsily called de-growth)….

ALTERNATIVES

It only takes a few countries to kickstart a decarbonisation revolution

9th June 2017

From The Conversation: This latest study looked at the trends driving decarbonisation in three key sectors of the global energy system – power, transportation and buildings. It found that, in these fields, it has taken only a few players to set in motion the kind of transformations necessary to meet the Paris Climate Agreement’s targets….

(From left) Johnson Jament, Lisba Yesudas and Robert Panipilla

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Speech by representatives of indigenous fisher folk at the first UN conference on oceans

8th June 2017

Friends of Marine Life (FML), is a Kerala-based organisation that specialises in seabed ecosystem studies and also helps promote sustainable fishing. Three of it’s members, who hail from the state’s indigenous fishing community, the Mukkuva, were recently invited the first UN conference on the world’s oceans. The text of speeches they delivered at the conference….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Do you really know your fish? Presenting the Fish Calendar

4th June 2017

Fish are the last wild food, but our oceans are being picked clean, giving marine wildlife little chance to regenerate. Amrita Gupta speaks to the team behind a new seafood calendar. Until now, there was no such resource for fish eaters, yet the need for awareness about the seafood we consume has never been greater….

CLIMATE CRISIS

China, India become climate leaders as West falters

27th May 2017

Climate Central reports: Two years after the Paris climate accord, climate policies are advancing in developing countries but stalling or regressing in richer ones. Here’s a trip around the world, assessing how pro-climate and anti-climate forces are faring in key nations and regions, showing how recent developments are affecting the languishing fight against global warming….