Which countries have the highest percentage of renewable energy – care to guess? I suspect that names like Germany, Denmark or Spain might spring to mind. They’re certainly making good progress, but they’ve got nothing on the world’s renewable energy leaders. There are countries in the world powered entirely by renewable energy, and some that are even net exporters of green electricity.
These pioneers are overlooked for a variety of reasons. For one thing, they’re out of the way places. Agencies tracking the progress of renewable energy often focus on the OECD countries or the G20 and forget to look elsewhere (like this .. http://www.nrdc.org/energy/12060701.asp ). Sometimes they have patchy data and are omitted from research.
Most often its a matter of categorisation – what is and what isn’t considered renewable energy. Hydroelectric and geothermal electricity generation are frequently listed separately from solar, wind and tidal energy, even though they are technically renewable too. There are various reasons for this. A large dam might be clean energy, but disastrous for the environment in other ways. If it runs off melting ice, a dam could be renewable but not actually sustainable in practice in the long term.
Others simply leave hydro and geothermal out because they’re older technologies, and including them in renewable energy statistics might make people complacent about their percentages. This categorisation issue is actually quite a problem. US States each decide independently whether they will count hydropower as renewable or not, which rather confuses national energy targets.
Still, taking that broader perspective, here are some forgotten pioneers of the renewable energy world:
* Lesotho – The small mountainous African country of Lesotho also has practically 100% renewable electricity, thanks to the Lesotho Highlands Water Project .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesotho_Highlands_Water_Project . The network of dams exports water into South Africa, providing almost all of Lesotho’s power along the way. The project has its controversies, including serious corruption.
* Albania – with large scale hydroelectric facilities, Albania used to be a net exporter of electricity. Unfortunately droughts have seriously reduced the capacity of its dams, and along with widespread corruption and the stealing of electricity, there are now power shortages. Nevertheless, the country runs on around 85% .. http://ws2-23.myloadspring.com/sites/renew/countries/Albania/profile.aspx .. renewable electricity.
* Paraguay – Itaipu dam, one of the world’s largest, provides 90% of Paraguay’s electricity and 19% of Brazil’s. It cost $20 billion, took 30 years to build, and displaces 67.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year.
* Bhutan – Another small mountainous country that can boast electricity as one of its major exports, Bhutan wires 75% of its power to India.
* Mozambique – Mozambique’s energy infrastructure tells a sad story, with the ambitious Cahora Bassa dam completed just in time for the outbreak of civil war. Underused throughout the 80s, it came back online recently and now exports electricity into South Africa and Zimbabwe.
* Norway – Britain’s top three sources of electricity are gas, coal and nuclear. Norway’s are hydroelectric, geothermal and wind, but they’re an interesting case. Norway’s renewable energy sector has developed to serve the export market rather than domestic consumption. If you look at Norway’s generating capacity it would be around 98% renewable, but if you look at the country’s consumption, that falls to 24% because most of the clean energy Guarantees of Origin have been sold to neighbouring countries.
I could also mention Costa Rica, Laos, Colombia, Malawi, Nepal, Belize, and a dozen others. Many African countries, with small domestic consumption, have renewable energy percentages to shame the G20. I don’t mention these examples because I necessarily recommend their approach or endorse the projects concerned. Some of them are controversial, others have been badly managed or are rife with corruption. Besides, not everyone has a big river they can dam, or mountain regions that can support hydropower systems.
I mention them because I keep reading news articles mentioning the world leaders in renewable energy, and naming Germany, Denmark and Spain. And I keep hearing people dismissing ‘renewable energy’ as unworkable, and then only talking about onshore wind and solar PV.
Warm start to winter ahead as May temperatures set record
Peter Hannam Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald May 23, 2014 - 11:21AM
Beachy weather to continue a while longer. Photo: Kirk Gilmour
Sydney is all but certain to smash long-term temperature records for May, with the start of winter also likely to see unusually warm weather.
The city is expecting another day of temperatures close to 7 degrees above average for the month, with a top of 26 degrees forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology for Friday.
So far this month, maximums have been running at an average of 23 degrees, ahead of the 22.7-degree record set in 1958.
“The current average is the warmest on record and all the temperatures for the next week are above that record,” said Ben Domensino.
The idea of China with air so polluted you can't see a block turning to solar power makes you wonder just how the hell will that work? Chicken on the egg?
China plans to take more than five million ageing vehicles off the roads this year in a bid to improve air quality, with 330,000 cars set to be decommissioned in Beijing alone.
Pollution has emerged as an urgent priority for China's leaders as they try to reverse the damage done by decades of breakneck growth and head off public anger about the sorry state of the nation's air, water and soil.
In a wide-ranging action plan to cut emissions over the next two years, China's cabinet, the State Council, said the country had already fallen behind in its pollution targets over the 2011-2013 period and was now having to step up its efforts.
As many as 5.33 million "yellow label" vehicles that fail to meet Chinese fuel standards will be "eliminated" this year, the document said. As well as the 330,000 cars in Beijing, 660,000 will be withdrawn from the surrounding province of Hebei, home to seven of China's smoggiest cities in 2013.
According to Beijing's environmental watchdog, vehicle emissions in Beijing were responsible for about 31 percent of the hazardous airborne particles known as PM 2.5, with 22.4 percent originating from coal burning.
Beijing plans to limit the total number of cars on the road to 5.6 million this year, with the number allowed to rise to six million by 2017.
Last year it cut the number of new licence plates by 37 percent to 150,000 a year and is also paying for another 200,000 ageing vehicles to be upgraded.
The State Council document did not say how the plan would be implemented, but Beijing's municipal government has previously offered subsidies of between 2,500-14,500 yuan (US$400-2,300) to drivers who voluntarily hand in their ageing vehicles to be scrapped.
However, the subsidy didn't cover "yellow label" cars that fail to meet even minimum gasoline standards.
Beijing currently forbids vehicles that do not meet required standards from entering the city, but officials have admitted that China currently lacks the monitoring and policing capability to ensure all cars make the grade, and drivers have also found ways to avoid detection.
"Many vehicles have problems and many didn't even meet the standards when they came out of the factory, and fining them on the streets isn't the way to solve this problem," said Li Kunsheng, an official responsible for transport emissions at the Beijing municipal environmental bureau.
The policy document also set new targets for the closure of coal-fired heating systems as well as the installation of equipment to reduce sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions at power stations, steel mills and cement plants.
It said China was aiming to cut carbon emissions per unit of economic growth by more than four per cent this year and more than 3.5 per cent in 2015 as it tries to meet a binding 17 per cent target set in its 2011-2015 five-year plan.
China also seeks to reduce energy consumption per unit of growth by 3.9 percent this year and next in order to meet a 16 percent target for the 2011-2015 period.
In a report on human rights, China said its spending on energy saving and environmental protection in 2013 rose 14.2 percent year-on-year to 338 billion yuan (US$54 billion).
"Focusing on solving the major environmental problems that seriously endanger people's health, (China) investigated and punished harshly illegal pollution and environmental crimes, so as to safeguard people's right to a healthy and clean environment," it said.
Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, (ret.) talks with Rachel Maddow about how Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and state legislators protected the oil and gas industry from being held accountable for pollution that has destroyed vital protective coastal wetlands.
Rachel Maddow reports on the influence of the gas and oil industry in Texas politics and a town where the water has become flammable and yet the state has ruled that a connection cannot be made to nearby fracking activity.
The House approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization bill on Thursday that would bar the Pentagon from considering climate change and its implications for national security. Erik Simonsen via Getty Images
by Kate Sheppard Posted: 05/23/2014 6:37 pm EDT Updated: 05/27/2014 8:59 am EDT
WASHINGTON -- The House passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization bill on Thursday that would bar the Department of Defense from using funds to assess climate change and its implications for national security.
None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation's Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order 12866.
"This amendment will prohibit the costs of the President's climate change policies being forced on the Department of Defense by the Obama Administration," wrote McKinley in a memo to House colleagues on Thursday that was obtained by The Huffington Post. "The climate is obviously changing; it has always been changing. With all the unrest around the [world], why should Congress divert funds from the mission of our military and national security to support a political ideology?"
Research suggests, however, that the Department of Defense has a number of reasons to be worried about climate change. The department said in its own evaluation last year [ http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121237 ] that climate change presents infrastructure challenges at home and abroad. Meanwhile, a March Pentagon report [ http://washingtonexaminer.com/pentagon-warns-of-climate-change-threat-multipliers/article/2545075 ] found that climate change impacts are "threat multipliers," and that the rapid rise of global temperatures and associated extreme weather events could exacerbate issues like "poverty, environmental degradation, political instability and social tensions -- conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence."
Nor is climate change a threat that the Obama administration dreamed up to distract the DOD. A National Intelligence Assessment issued during the George W. Bush administration [ http://grist.org/article/hot-zones/ ] concluded that climate change poses a significant threat to national security. And just this week, Tom Ridge, who served as homeland security secretary under Bush, said that climate change is "a real serious problem [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/tom-ridge-climate-change_n_5366457.html ]," one that "would bring destruction and economic damage" if we ignore it.
Ohio Legislature Votes To Delay And Weaken State's Renewable Energy Law
ASSOCIATED PRESS
by Kate Sheppard Posted: 05/28/2014 4:59 pm EDT
The Ohio House of Representatives approved a bill on Wednesday that would roll back the state's renewable energy and energy efficiency law, making Ohio the first state to reverse standards meant to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
The new measure would pause required increases in renewables and efficiency for two years, and would also weaken the standards when they come back into effect in 2017. The original plan called for a 5.5 percent increase in renewables by 2017, while the revised measure lowers that to a 3.5 percent increase.
Rep. Robert Hagan, a Democrat from Youngstown who voted against the bill, said in a statement that its supporters are "clinging to outdated modes of energy generation."
"As the rest of the country is moving forward on energy efficiency and independence, Ohio is moving backward,” Hagan said. “Reversing our Renewable Portfolio Standards is completely irrational, and unfortunately Ohio consumers and businesses are the victims of the absurdity."
An Ohio poll [ http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/PollPrintLCV.pdf ], which the environmental group League of Conservation Voters commissioned earlier this month, found that 77 percent of respondents wanted the state to increase the amount of energy it draws from renewables. While the poll of registered voters in the state found general support for renewables, only 18 percent of respondents said they had heard "anything at all" about the rollback bill. When given an explanation of the bill, 37 percent said they thought Kasich should oppose it. Only 18 percent said he should support it. (The vast majority -- 45 percent -- said they didn't know enough about the measure to say either way.)
Ohio has been a leader in green jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a study [ http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ggqcew.pdf ] in March 2013 that ranked the state fifth in the country in terms of green jobs, with 137,143 positions in manufacturing, construction and other jobs that "produce goods and provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources."
“This bill tells clean energy companies that Ohio is closed for business at a time when they’re helping the state’s economy rebound," said Jeff Gohringer, national press secretary for the League of Conservation Voters. "The governor has a really clear choice to make on whether Ohio moves forward with the rest of the country on clean energy or forces these companies out of the state."
Rachel Maddow reviews the long history of new pollution control regulations to address problems like acid rain and ozone depletion, and the freak-outs and dire warnings by industry advocates about economic disasters that never came to pass.
William Reilly, former EPA administrator under President George H. W. Bush, talks with Rachel Maddow about the challenges to bringing environmental regulation and pollution controls against industry resistance.
by Walter Einenkel Mon Sep 22, 2014 at 01:30 PM PDT
On Wednesday this past week (Sept. 17), White House Science Advisor John Holdren made his way to speak with the Committee on Science, Space and Technology–a Republican lead brain trust. He was there to answer questions about President Barack Obama's climate change initiative. Dr. Holdren brought his chalk, his number 2 pencil and probably a vat of Tums.
Next up [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud7fHTswj5k (just below, as embedded)] is the Representative from Texas's 36th congressional district, Steve "I-don't-need-no-earth-science-teacher" Stockman and his baffling obsession and complete mystification with wobbling.
And if that didn't break your brain you need to sit down, grab a hold of your armchair, because Rep. Larry Bucshon [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqaeAnLf2ng (just below, as embedded)] is going to bring it home with a classic diddy of an idea: the 97% of climatologists' literature on the subject of climate change is not worth his reading time because, you know, conspiracy:
Yes. Dr. John Holdren deserves a medal for not standing up and making all of these grown men sit in the corners of the chamber, wearing dunce caps. He doesn't point out that there is not a single subject these men could speak to more intelligently than he–including what happens in their districts is my guess. Dr. John Holdren is an important example to all of us who deal with climate deniers and people who, on any given subject, can seem deliberately obtuse. We have facts on our side. We have logic on our side. We have reality on our side. We have humanity on our side.
The historic People's Climate March takes place in New York City while a House of Representatives committee struggles with the basic principles of global warming. (10:25)
Politicians that are either willfully ignorant or grossly unqualified for the commentary they provide to their constituent are everywhere in Washington. Rep Steve Stockman (R-TX) seems ignorant to the fact that the melting ice causing the rise in the ocean is on land.
Anti-intellectualism in the media is rampant. Host Greg Gutfeld shows a proud ignorance. He does not realize renewable implies that in the short term the consumption of the energy source must create net zero carbon emissions.
Until their undeserved platform is removed, guys like these present a clear and present danger to the country.
In this interview, Dr. Tarpley reviews the writings of John P. Holdren, the current White House science advisor. This interview conclusively exposes scientific elite's true agenda, world-wide genocide and the formation of a global government to rule.
Historian and author Webster Tarpley exposes how White House science czar John P. Holdren, who infamously co-wrote a 1977 textbook in which he advocated the formation of a "planetary regime" that would use a "global police force" to enforce totalitarian measures of population control, including forced abortions, mass sterilization programs conducted via the food and water supply, as well as mandatory bodily implants that would prevent couples from having children, is a Malthusian fanatic in the tradition of the arcane anti-human ideology that originated amongst British aristocracy in the 19th century.
Holdren calls himself a "neo-Malthusian" in his own book, and as Tarpley explains, is a historical pessimist who has rejected the idea that America and humanity as a whole can progress through ingenuity, industry and economic growth. Instead, Holdren sees humankind as a cancer upon the earth. Holdren wants to set up a "Science Court," where potential developments could be blocked by government decree if they don't conform to the planned society necessary under Holdren's "planetary regime". He also seeks to institute "de-development" worldwide to prevent the third world from ever lifting itself out of poverty and roll things back to "pre-industrial civilization" where average life spans would not be much more than 30 years.
Holdren's co-author, Paul Ehrlich, is a discredited crank who wrote books in the 70's claiming that England would not exist as a land mass by the year 2000 because of climate change. As Tarpley explains, Ehrlich's warning of a "population bomb" has proven incorrect, with population in Europe, Japan and the United States falling when immigration is removed from the equation.
President Obama's Science and Technology Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, explains the polar vortex in 2 minutes—and why climate change makes extreme weather more likely going forward. Learn more at http://wh.gov/climate-change
The National Climate Assessment Explained in Less than 3 Minutes
Published on May 6, 2014 by The White House
Dr. John Holdren, President Obama's Science Advisor, introduces the National Climate Assessment and discusses President Obama's climate action plan which takes an all of the above energy approach towards combatting climate change now. Learn more at http://www.whitehouse.gov/climate-change
Climate Change & Wildfires Explained in Less Than Three Minutes
Published on Aug 5, 2014 by The White House
President Obama's Science Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, explains in less than three minutes how the growing number of intense wildfires are linked, in part, to climate change. Learn more at http://wh.gov/climate-change
We know that human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing the Earth’s temperature to rise and are creating other changes across the Earth’s climate system. One change that gets a great deal of attention is the current and future rates of sea-level rise. A rising sea level affects coastal communities around the world; approximately 150 million people live within 1 meter of current sea level.
The waters are rising because of a number of factors. First, water expands as it warms. In the past, this “thermal expansion” was the largest source of sea-level rise. But as the Earth’s temperatures continued to increase, another factor (melting ice, particularly from large ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica) has played an ever increasing role.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the largest player is the Western Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS). It is less stable than Eastern Antarctica .. http://www.theguardian.com/world/antarctica .. and is particularly vulnerable to melting from below by warmed ocean waters. Scientists are closely watching the ice near the edges of the WAIS because they buttress large volumes of ice that are more inland. When these buttressing ice shelves melt, the ice upstream will slide more rapidly toward the ocean waters.
As reported in our paper, according to some studies, “no further acceleration of climate change and only modest extrapolations of the current increasing mass loss rate are necessary for the system to eventually collapse ... resulting in1-3 metres of sea-level rise." And this is from just one component of the great southern sheets.
What we also discuss is that sea-level rise will not be uniform. Antarctica (and Greenland) are currently losing gigatons of ice each year. That ice is heavy, and we know from first-year physics courses that mass (particularly heavy items) expresses a gravitational attraction. So, all that ice sitting atop Antarctica is pulling ocean waters toward it.
As the ice melts, the gravitational force will lessen, and the waters will “slosh” away from Antarctica. In our paper, we report that sea level rise in the Northern Hemisphere will be greater than the world-wide average whereas sea levels in the region next to Antarctica may actually fall. This means that infrastructure planning on the east and west coasts of North America as well as in Europe must be prepared for a greater than average sea-level rise.
This is an exciting and rapidly evolving field of study that has tremendous implications on coastal communities and infrastructure. My colleague, Dr Ted Scambos summarized the current knowledge by saying,
"Antarctica’s ice sheet has been called the ‘sleeping giant’ of sea level, but it’s beginning to stir. Everything we’ve seen about this change points to human influences on climate – and now we’re at the point where human actions will be needed to stop it."
We will be eagerly awaiting more results on this subject over the next few months and years.
Antarctica's Ice on the Move - Antarctica's Climate Secrets
NETNebraska Uploaded on Dec 22, 2010
Antarctica is the iciest place on Earth, but not all of the ice on the continent is the same -- nor is it sitting still. Antarctica has both floating ice and land-based ice. What is the difference between ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice? How does this ice affect the stratification and circulation of global oceans? How does it affect climate? And why does melting sea ice not raise sea level but melting land-based ice sheets do? For more of Antarctica's Secrets, including teachers' guides, visit http://www.netnebraska.org/ice. .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymxi5wsqtEU
See also:
Pictured: Haunting face crying a river of tears as glacier melts into the sea
... expansion of sea ice in the Antarctic isn't new and was expected as it is a direct result of the ocean warming and the unsalted water diluting the water around Antarctic causing it to freeze faster than normal. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=109932337 .. and in reply ..
exactly right. the change in the freezing point from seawater to fresh water is a known difference. raise the freezing point, the extent of the winter ice expands, as the change in salinity is more rapid than the rate of global warming. and in the summer, the continental glaciers are flowing and calving at increasing rates which cause the phenomenon. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=109932546
“We're talking a lot about putting the brakes on emissions, but we’re actually accelerating.”
According to the new carbon budget, global greenhouse gas emissions rose by 2.3 percent in 2013 over 2012. The authors estimate that emissions will riseanother 2.5 percent in 2014, to a level that is 65 percent above emissions in 1990—the benchmark year established in the Kyoto Protocol.
The fourth major emitter, the European Union, actually cut its emissions in 2013, such that the global rise was 11 percent less than it otherwise would have been.
“In 2007 China overtook the U.S. in overall carbon emissions, but on a per capita basis we always thought of them as much smaller,” says McKinley, who was not involved in the research published Sunday. “But since then their emissions have been rising rapidly.”
According to the Nature Geoscience review, the world’s emissions in 2013 were 5 metric tons per person. China’s were 7.2 metric tons per person, the U.S. produced 16.4, the EU produced 6.8, and India produced 1.9. In 1990, China produced 2.2 metric tons per person, and the United States produced 19.1.
Cumulative emissions from 1870 to 2013 total 1,430 gigatons for the world, including 161 gigatons from China, 370 from the U.S., 328 from the European Union, and 44 from India.
Another important conclusion from the data is the role the state of the economy plays in emissions, notes Davis. “A lot of people thought the reason the U.S. emissions were down [in recent years] was because of the natural gas boom, in that we have substituted gas for coal,” he says. Natural gas emits about half as much CO2 as coal to produce the same amount of electricity.
Switching coal-fired power plants to gas has indeed helped slow emissions, Davis says, “but if you dig in deeper you see that a lot of the reason why our emissions were down was because of the recession, and with the economy improving they are on the rise again.” Relatively cold winters have also required the use of more fuel for heating.
In Nature Geoscience, Friedlingstein and his colleagues write that the world has already used up two thirds of the CO2 emissions quota that scientists say will keep the planet from warming more than 2°C (3.6°F). Beyond that temperature threshold, serious consequences are expected from sea-level rise and widespread disruption of weather patterns.
The remaining emissions quota “will likely be exhausted in a further 30 years at the 2014 emissions rates,” the scientists write.
Davis says the current political climate suggests there’s a good chance the international community “won't ever reach a binding agreement” on climate. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is individual goals set by national and even state and city governments, he says.
The reports out Sunday show that the world “has wasted a lot of time,” Davis adds. “We're well on our way to some pretty scary global warming, and we can't afford to waste any more time. It's going to be a political shift that's necessary.”
A New Way to Divide Responsibility?
Part of the barrier to reaching a global agreement on climate change has been the perception by developing countries that they would be forced to bear an unfair amount of the burden. Why should they limit development based on fossil fuels, they ask, when it was that very process that allowed developed nations to rise to affluence?
The paper written by Davis and his colleagues attempts to outline one way the burden could be shared.
The researchers consider two basic principles for distributing the global emissions quota: “inertia,” under which countries would continue to emit the same share of global emissions as they do now, and “equity,” under which countries would be allowed to emit according to their population, with per capita emissions being the same everywhere.
The first principle would hamstring developing countries, while the second one would force developed countries to immediately scrap existing infrastructure, such as fossil fuel plants that were just built, says Davis. A practical approach to dividing up the emissions quota, his team suggests, will have to be a blend of the two principles.
Countries that have had high emissions in the past, such as the United States and Europe, would be able to emit a little more going forward, although they would be asked to taper emissions in the coming years. Developing countries with historically lower emissions would not be able to raise their emissions as much as developed countries did in the past, but they would still be allowed to power some of their economic growth with fossil fuels. The rest would be powered by an increasing investment in renewables.
McKinley calls the approach “a really nice way of dealing with the distribution of emissions.”
It’s a compromise approach, Davis admits, but it could allow the world to stay under the overall quota that would cap warming at 2°C—unlike the current trajectory, which will soon overshoot it.
Greg Craven summarized why by examining the extreme possible outcomes in his viral climate ‘decision grid’ video.
[...]
Support for climate action is broad and growing
In fact, there are few groups that don’t support significant action to curb carbon pollution. The US military views climate change as a serious threat. The Pope is rumored to be planning a major effort to encourage an international agreement on climate policy targets in 2015. A growing number of faith groups support climate action, viewing it as an issue of stewardship. Even a majority of non-Tea Party Republicans agree that the planet is warming and support an international treaty that requires the United States to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide 90% by the year 2050.
Sudan, the last male northern white rhino on the planet. Photo: Ed Barthrop / Ol Pejeta Conservancy
By Tisha Wardlow March 18, 2015
Plan A was to make conditions as perfect as possible to breed the last remaining northern white rhinos. Ol Pejeta [ http://www.olpejetaconservancy.org/ ] did everything they could to make that a possibility.
Plan B was to cross-breed the northern whites with the southern whites to at least perpetuate this precious gene pool. Somehow they would still live on; their genes remaining part of rhino populations to come.
But for the last living male, named Sudan, and the two remaining females, Najin and daughter Fatu, this will not be an option. All three are getting on in age. Najin (25) has weak knees and cannot endure the breeding attempts. In a cruel twist of fate, Fatu (14) is infertile, and Sudan (38) has weak sperm.
So now what? There's no superman, no magical 11th hour miracle, no known options left to us. This is extinction. Watch, appreciate and admire them while they breathe.
Human greed and ego have slaughtered this species to the point of irreversible catastrophe. We are witnessing the last of the northern white rhinos. It is inevitable.
But the big question is: will we learn from it? Will we allow it to happen again? The Sumatrans, the Javans — they are dangerously close to the same fate. Black, white and greater one-horned rhinos aren't much further behind them.
We must not let the northern whites die in vain. It is our duty to learn from them, and to prevent the future decimation of rhinos and other species on our planet. The future of rhinos is not doomed, it is in the balance, waiting for us to determine the outcome. Vigilance, commitment and determination can preserve the rhinos, and in the end, our own fates as well.
You can be a part of the final days by "adopting" the northern whites at Ol Pejeta: Adopt a northern white rhino [ http://www.helpingrhinos.org/get-involved/adopt-a-rhino/ ]. Proceeds are used on their care, as well as care of the other rhinos at Ol Pejeta.
Brazil confirms rising deforestation in the Amazon
Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com March 14, 2015
Remnant Brazil nut tree in a landscape cleared for soy fields. Photos by Rhett A. Butler
The Brazilian government has officially confirmed that deforestation in the Amazon is pacing sharply higher than a year ago.
Figures released last week by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) shows that forest clearing detected by DETER — a short term deforestation monitoring system based on coarse satellite imagery — is 63 percent higher for the twelve months ended January 31, 2015 relative to the year earlier period.
The data lends further weight to figures released earlier by Imazon, a Brazilian NGO, which showed forest destruction pacing 161 percent ahead of last year's rate. Imazon's short-term deforestation tracking system is also based on coarse satellite imagery. Both systems are intended to serve as alert systems to enable law enforcement against illegal forest clearing rather than comprehensive assessments of forest loss.
Comparison of INPE's DETER data with Imazon's SAD data. Both DETER and SAD are short-term alert systems based off NASA MODIS data. The chart shows monthly data as well as the 12-month moving average to reduce noise. On a historical basis, the recent uptick in forest loss is small.
However looking at the trend on a shorter basis reveals the magnitude reveals the significant increase in forest loss in recent months.
Both Imazon and INPE tally overall forest loss in the Amazon on an annual basis for the year ended July 31, corresponding to the height of the dry season when the largest extent of the Amazon is cloud-free. Those assessments use higher resolution Landsat data, which requires more analysis but provides a more precise estimate of how much forest was cleared during the previous year. Imazon also tracks forest degradation caused by selective logging and fire, which usually greatly exceeds the area cleared each year.
While the new data is preliminary, it is nonetheless alarming, raising concerns that Brazil's recent progress in curbing deforestation in the world's largest rainforest may be in danger of reversing. The short-term forest loss numbers from both systems are the highest recorded in about six years. It's the fastest acceleration since consistent record-keeping began in 2007.
INPE's PRODES system is based on higher resolution Landsat data and serves as the "official" annual estimate for deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The chart includes short-term MODIS-based DETER and SAD data on a second axis for comparison. Until recently, aggregated monthly data in both systems has pretty closely matched annual data, but that correlation has weakened over the past couple of years.
Some environmentalists are blaming changes in the country's forest code for the rising rate of forest [my: degregation?]. In 2012, the agribusiness lobby in Congress pushed through new legislation that relaxed environmental regulations governing maintenance of forest cover on private land and eliminated penalties for illegal clearing by small farmers.
But macroeconomic factors may offer a better explanation. The recent economic downturn in Brazil has hit its currency, the real, making export-driven agriculture more profitable since soy and cattle products sold in international markets fetch dollars, while costs are paid in less valuable reais. At the same time, grain and meat prices have risen off their financial crisis lows. A more profitable farm sector makes speculative forest clearing a more attractive option relative to other investments, especially in the context of a flagging Brazilian stock market.
There are also concerns that Brazil has effectively exhausted most of the low-hanging fruit in terms of opportunities for reducing deforestation. A paper published in Since last June argued that further reductions in deforestation would be increasingly difficult without strong and direct incentives for producers to preserve forests. In other words, Brazil has made about as much progress as it can using a "stick" of law enforcement — "carrots" are now needed for further gains. Those carrots could include payments and low interest loans to farmers and ranchers who maintain forest cover above the 80 percent threshold required for legal compliance.
The Brazilian government has recently taken some steps in response to rising deforestation in the Amazon, including sending more police to the region. In late February, IBAMA — Brazil's environmental law enforcement agency — arrested Ezequiel Antônio Castanha .. http://news.mongabay.com/2015/0225-castanha-arrest-ibama-brazil-gfrn.html , the alleged ringleader of gang tied to clearance of at least 15,000 hectares along the BR-163 highway in the state of Pará. IBAMA touted the arrest as a major step in controlling deforestation in the area.
Still with rates pacing well-ahead of last year, there seems to be a high likelihood that deforestation for the 12-months ending July 31, 2015 will be substantially higher than the previous year's rate for the first time since at least the early 2000s. Only a sharp drop in clearing over the the next few months could avoid that fate.
Well! In spite of the recent upturn concern that effort since 1988 looks like it rates a "Well done Brazil!
This post was prompted on reading
How the Man Swarm Eats the Earth
by Dave Foreman – March 18, 2015 .. toward bottom ..
When it comes to Wound 7, Affluence (A) and Technology (T) are big players in how much Impact (I) one may have. However, enough small players can outweigh a few big players. What drives the logging and burning of the Amazon rainforest to make new cattle paddocks and soybean fields? Too many people having children in Brazil, plus the swelling numbers of hungry mouths in the rest of the world who crave the food many believe the “last agricultural frontier” can grow. This is leading to more of a jump in Brazil’s greenhouse gas load and to the loss of tropical forests that if kept, would go on taking carbon from the atmosphere – and be the dearest pool of manifold life left on Earth. --- http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/how_the_man_swarm_eats_the_earth posted by Stephanie here .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=112104269
F6 .. just a couple outed from your pearl .. LOLOL .. this you gotta watch more than once ..
Solar FREAKIN' Roadways!
HA! who couldn't freaking l__o--v__ E that one! .. it's supa! .. ok, this one little handy stat. ..
One major effect is rising land temperature. The numbers for the current warming phase are extreme compared to the available historical records. May 2012 was “the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average,” writes Bill McKibben.
Hiatus in global average temperatures has little effect on projected temperatures in 2100
Date: April 23, 2015
Source: University of New South Wales
Summary: The recent slowdown in the rise of global average air temperatures will make no difference to how much the planet will warm by 2100, a new study has found.
The recent slowdown in the rise of global average air temperatures will make no difference to how much the planet will warm by 2100, a new study has found.
The peer-reviewed study, published today in Nature Climate Change, compared climate models that capture the current slowdown in warming to those that do not. The study found that long-term warming projections were effectively unchanged across the two groups of models.
"This shows that the slowdown in global warming has no bearing on long-term projections -- it is simply due to decadal variability. Greenhouse gases will eventually overwhelm this natural fluctuation," said lead author and Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, Prof Matthew England.
To separate the long-term temperature outcomes from short-term variability the researchers took 200 climate simulations and re-evaluated them out to 2100 by comparing those that captured the current slowdown to those that did not.
The models were analyzed using one of two IPCC carbon emission projections.
The first was a scenario where greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise unabated through the 21st Century. The second assumes emissions are reduced to address global warming, peaking by 2040 before declining sharply.
Under the high emissions scenario, the difference in average projected end-of-century warming between the two groups of models is less than 0.1°C; a tiny fraction of the projected 5°C global warming if emissions are not curbed.
Warming of this magnitude is well beyond the 2°C threshold that is considered a target by the Australian Government and a safe limit by the IPCC.
In the past, certain lobby groups have tried to argue that the recent slowdown in the rise of global average temperatures is a reason to abandon international and national efforts to curb carbon emissions.
This study shows the slowdown merely reflects short-term variability. Long-term global warming is still set to reach dangerous levels unless carbon emissions are reduced dramatically in the coming decades.
"Our research shows that while there may be short-term fluctuations in global average temperatures, long-term warming of the planet is an inevitable consequence of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations," Prof England said.
"This much hyped global warming slowdown is just a distraction to the task at hand."
Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by University of New South Wales. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. [2 links]
Journal Reference:
Matthew H. England, Jules B. Kajtar, Nicola Maher. Robust warming projections despite the recent hiatus. Nature Climate Change, 2015; 5 (5): 394 DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2575 [1 link]
Scientists think they’ve just pinpointed the key driver of ice loss in Antarctica
An edge of the Thwaites Ice Shelf in Antarctica. ( Jim Yungel/NASA)
Video [embedded]: According to a new study, high levels of greenhouse gas emissions could cause oceans to rise by close to two meters in total (over six feet) by the end of the century, and more than 13 meters (42 feet) from Antarctica alone by 2500.
Until recently, many scientists assumed that a steady increase in air temperature around the peninsula, the product of global warming, was the primary cause behind most of the ice loss. But new research looking at the western side of the peninsula suggests that this may not be the case after all. A study [ http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6296/283 ] published Thursday in the journal Science suggests that warm ocean water may be the biggest driver of glacial retreat in that region — and it’s a problem that may not be getting enough attention.
Previous mapping projects around Antarctica “showed distinct patterns of glacier retreat around the peninsula from the earliest records to the latest, and we wanted to look into what was causing this,” said Alison Cook [ https://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/staff/geogstaffhidden/?id=14129 ], a research fellow at England’s Durham University and lead author of the new paper, in an email to The Washington Post.
In a previous study [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15845851 ], Cook and her colleagues had found that the pattern of glacial retreat on the peninsula did not match the behavior they would have expected if atmospheric warming were the main driver. And in recent years, the idea that ocean water can have a significant effect on glaciers has been gaining interest among glaciologists and climate scientists.
Many glaciers around Antarctica, particularly in West Antarctica, end at the edge of the sea. Often, these glaciers terminate in what’s known as an ice shelf — a ledge of ice that’s connected to the glacier but not grounded to the bedrock, so it essentially floats on top of the sea. These ice shelves are instrumental in keeping glaciers stable and holding back the flow of ice behind them. If they weaken or break, glaciers can quickly begin pouring ice into the water.
But because these ice shelves aren’t grounded, all the space below them is filled with ocean water, which presses against the front of the glacier right up to the point where the ice becomes connected to the bedrock. As climate change is causing not only the air around the world to warm but also the ocean, scientists are concerned that rising water temperatures may be helping to melt many glaciers from the bottom up. This process can cause ice shelves to thin and even break off, leading to rapid ice loss.
Cook and her colleagues decided to investigate whether these processes might be playing a major role on the western side of the Antarctic peninsula. This area has exhibited a clear pattern in ice loss over the past few decades, with glaciers in the south tending to retreat the most and glaciers in the north seeming to be more stable. Additionally, the researchers noted in the paper that although records of ocean temperatures around Antarctica tend to be sparse, there’s a sufficient store of data on the western Antarctic Peninsula to use for research purposes.
The researchers compared records of ocean temperatures and ice loss in the region between the years 1945 and 2009 — and they found a clear correlation. Nearly all the glaciers in the southern part of the peninsula, which flow out into regions with warm water — particularly, water that is warm at depths below about 100 yards or so — had experienced retreat during the study period. But glaciers farther north, in areas dominated by cooler waters, had experienced relative stability.
The relationship between ice loss and water temperature was further supported when the researchers examined changes in ocean temperatures and glacier behavior from the 1990s on. Records suggest that the ocean in this region warmed from the 1990s to the 2000s — and glacial retreat also began to accelerate in the late 1990s all along the coast, except for the coolest area in the northwest.
The warm water dominating the southern area comes from what’s known as circumpolar deep water, or CDW, a relatively warm water mass in the Southern Ocean. Research has suggested [ http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/antarctic-ice-shelf-being-eaten-away-sea ] that the CDW has been growing warmer in recent decades, and also that its warm waters have been creeping higher onto the ice shelves in West Antarctica, potentially causing more melting.
Understanding these processes is critical to predicting the future of the Antarctic ice sheet, according to Richard Alley [ http://www.geosc.psu.edu/academic-faculty/alley-richard ], a glaciologist at Pennsylvania State University.
“The ocean is warming, but much of the heat in the CDW that is implicated by the new paper has been in the ocean for a long time,” Alley, who was not an author of the new Science study, said by email. “Warming of the CDW may have contributed to the observed ice-sheet melting, but changes in ocean circulation bringing more CDW to the ice are clearly important, and probably most important.”
He added that these changes in the CDW have probably been influenced in part by the effects of anthropogenic climate change and associated changes in winds and water currents.
“Our results are key for making predictions of ice loss in response to ocean warming in this region,” Cook said, noting that it’s important to the influence of the ocean in future ice models. “The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the largest current contributors to sea-level rise, and the glaciers here are highly sensitive, so [they] are key indicators of how the ice will respond to future changes.”
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