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Showing posts from October, 2019

Save the Wilderness. A music video by Eric Bogle and Larry Powell

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With special thanks to Eric Bogle, for granting me permission to use his song for this video! Thanks, Eric! You are the greatest! Larry.

Rising sea levels pose threat to homes of 300m people – study

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The Guardian Photo by  Christian Ferrer Figure based on new analysis of coastlines is more than three times previous estimate. Story here.

Glacial rivers absorb carbon faster than rainforests, scientists find

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The Guardian Ellesmere Island, northern Canada. Satellite photo by NASA. ‘Total surprise’ discovery overturns conventional understanding of rivers. Story here.

The Real Case for Saving Species: We Don’t Need Them, But They Need Us

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YaleEnvironment360 Conservationists argue that humans need to save species in order to save ourselves. The truth is we could survive without wild species — but they can’t survive without us, and the moral argument for protecting them and the beauty they bring to the world is overwhelming. Story here. Red-winged blackbird. A PinP photo.

Trump’s Justice Dept. Sues California to Stop Climate Initiative From Extending to the Province of Quebec.

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The New York Times The Trump administration took another legal shot at California on Wednesday, suing to block part of the state’s greenhouse gas reduction program and limit its ability to take international leadership in curbing planet warming emissions. Story here.

Understanding extinction — humanity has destroyed half the life on Earth

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CBC Radio A PinP photo. There's less life overall, and much of it is domesticated plants and animals instead of wildlife.    More here.

Much of the Earth is still wild, but threatened by fragmentation

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PHYS ORG   Seismic lines dissect northern Alberta, Canada. Photo by Roland Roesler Half of the Earth's land surface not covered with ice remains relatively wild—but many of these "low human-impact" areas are broken into small, isolated pieces, threatening their future. Story here. RELATED: The more we carve up natural landscapes with roads and fields, the closer we’re pushing large predators like lions and wolves, toward extinction. by Larry Powell

Ban oil, gas, bottom trawling in CANADA'S marine protected areas, panel urges

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THE STAR Image by NOAA. --> A panel that has spent the year studying marine protected areas (MPAs) in Canada says no oil and gas development, seabed mining, or bottom-trawling fishing should be allowed within their boundaries. More here. RELATED: New research finds that “marine reserves” – tracts of ocean where fishing is banned – are protecting fish, the coral reefs where they live and vast undersea "gardens," a lot more than once thought. By Larry Powell.

Powerful storms may be causing offshore ‘stormquakes’

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ScienceNews Ocean waves by   Fir0002 Strong ocean swells hammer ridges in the seafloor and produce the earthquake-like shaking. More here.

Amazon Watch: What Happens When the Forest Disappears?

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YaleEnvironment360 Amazon fires, August 2019, some deliberately set to make way for agriculture. Satellite image taken by MODIS. At a remote site where the world’s largest rainforest abuts land cleared for big agriculture, Brazilian and American scientists are keeping watch for a critical tipping point – the time when the Amazon ceases to be a carbon sink and turns into a source of carbon emissions. Story here.

Busting more carbon tax myths. A letter-to-the-editor.

by Dan Soprovich. Conservative politicians lie about the carbon tax. Jason Kenny, Doug Ford, Andrew Scheer … you know who the rest are. And Conservative politicians have been lying about the carbon tax for more than a decade. When the Stephane Dion Liberals proposed a carbon tax in 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper lied about it. At the time, my dear departed Uncle Jack, who made millions of dollars from the oil industry, sent me an Internet article indicating that a poor retired couple in New Brunswick would be terribly impacted by the Liberal’s proposed carbon tax. However, that was simply not true. The proposed carbon tax included a rebate so that folks at the lower end of the economic spectrum would not be hurt (very similar to the carbon tax implemented by the Trudeau Liberal government). The Stephane Dion Liberals also provided an online calculator at the time. When I applied the circumstances of the retired couple within the calculator, the inconvenient truth was that the coup

Lakes worldwide are experiencing more severe algal blooms

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PHYS ORG Lake Winnipeg. Satellite photo by European Space Agency. The intensity of summer algal blooms has increased over the past three decades, according to a first-ever global survey of dozens of large, freshwater lakes. Story here.

Parched peatlands fuel Indonesia's blazes

Science   Fires set illegally to clear forests and peatlands for agricultural use in Indonesia are once again generating an acrid haze that has spread across that country and its neighbors. But a number of scientists say the haze emergency—which sent scores to hospitals with respiratory problems and led to school closures and flight cancellations—could have been worse. In the years since the last major haze event in 2015, Indonesia has moved to restore peatlands, making them more fire-resistant; enhanced restrictions on converting primary forests to agricultural lands; and stepped up enforcement of bans on fires. Experts praise the progress but say even more needs to be done, particularly in area of enforcement of laws holding plantation operators liable for fires on their lands even if they don't deliberately start them.

Carbon tax most powerful way to fight climate crisis: IMF

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Rural Manitobans need to stop electing Tories if we hope to make progress on climate mitigation. (Opinion)

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by Larry Powell I believe we rural Manitobans need to do a deep “re-think” of how we traditionally vote if we want to do anything meaningful about our looming climate catastrophe. In my own riding of  Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa, for  example, we're about to elect Dan Mazier (l.), to a four-year term as our Conservative Member of Parliament. While he wouldn't accept the label of " climate-denier"  (he does use solar panels to help power his farm and has been endorsed by an environmental group), he’s still echoing on social media, his own party’s shrill opposition to the carbon tax. (In my books, this makes him a candidate for that label.)  Despite the fact the tax applies to fossil fuels only, is refundable and exempts many farm fuels like the ones Mazier burns on his own farm, he a mazingly concludes, it will “increase the cost of almost everything!”  In my mind, one cannot be a true supporter of climate action while opposing a price on carbon.  

We’re Just Starting to Learn How Fracking Harms Wildlife

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EcoWatch A PinP photo. Spills highlight the dangers that come with unconventional fossil-fuel extraction techniques that go after hard-to-reach pockets of oil and gas using practices like horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing (otherwise known as fracking). Details here.