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Hawaiian Island Important for Seals and Turtles Washed Away by Hurricane

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

A small Hawaiian island that was an important habitat for endangered species has entirely disappeared, The Huffington Post confirmed Tuesday.

East Island in the French Frigate Shoals, an atoll around 550 miles northwest of Honolulu that formed part of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, was entirely washed over by storm surge from Hurricane Walaka this month, Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) satellite images show.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

“I had a holy shit moment, thinking ‘Oh my God, it’s gone,'” University of Hawaii climate scientist Chip Fletcher told Honolulu Civil Beat. “It’s one more chink in the wall of the network of ecosystem diversity on this planet that is being dismantled.”

East Island was only 11 acres—around a half mile long and 400 feet wide. But it was an important habitat for endangered Hawaiian monk seals, Hawaiian green sea turtles and several species of seabirds.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) protected species division director Charles Littnan told The Huffington Post he was not yet sure what the island’s loss would mean for the wildlife that depended on it, but that similar small islands were increasingly likely to disappear as climate change leads to sea level rise.

“This event is confronting us with what the future could look like,” Littnan said.

Another nearby island, Trig Island, also disappeared this year due to wave activity, but its erosion had been predicted for years, Honolulu Civil Beat said.

Hawaiian monk seals are among the most endangered marine mammals in the world, The Huffington Post reported. Around 80 percent of their population lives in the northwestern Hawaiian islands.

The French Frigate Shoals had decreased in importance as a prime breeding ground for the seals in recent years, but 16 percent of their total population still lives there, and 30 percent of those have their pups on East Island, Honolulu Civil Beat reported.

Twelve pups were born there in 2018, and NOAA told The Huffington Post that all but one were weaned before the storm struck. Littnan said scientists won’t know for sure how the hurricane impacted the seals until they return to research next year.

Hawaiian green sea turtles also relied on the island for breeding. 96 percent of the species nests in the French Frigate Shoals, and half lay eggs on East Island. All the adult turtles had left by the time the storm arrived, but 19 percent of the nests on East Island and 20 percent of the nests on nearby Tern Island were destroyed in the storm.

Source: Eco Watch

Biking for Beers in Bologna

Photo-illustration: Unsplash

The Italian city of Bologna is offering discounts on products such as beer, ice creams and cinema tickets for people who adopt greener forms of transportation.

Its ‘Bella Mossa’ scheme, which roughly translates to ‘good job’, aims to incentivise cycling, walking and taking public transport over driving in petrol and diesel cars.

The anti-pollution initiative works using an app, through which users can log up to four green journeys a day to earn points, which can in turn be swapped for rewards.

It also shows users how much carbon dioxide they have saved.

Around 100 local businesses are signed up to the programme, which is funded by the EU and local government.

Last year the app recorded 3.7 million kilometres of green journeys, with more than 16,000 rewards claimed in total.

Source: Energy Live News

Microplastics Found in Human Poop for the First Time

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Tiny pieces of plastic measuring less than five millimeters in length—or roughly the size of a sesame seed—have become a nearly ubiquitous presence in our world. Scientists have found the particles, better known as microplastics, everywhere from the oceans, the air to tap and bottled water as well as beer, and table salt. But a new pilot study detailed at yesterday’s United European Gastroenterology meeting adds a somewhat surprising hiding place to the list: human stool.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Wired’s Robbie Gonzalez reports that a team of Austrian researchers led by Philipp Schwabl, a physician-scientist at the Medical University of Vienna, asked eight participants from eight different countries—Austria, Italy, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia and the United Kingdom—to track their food consumption over the course of one week and provide a stool sample at the end of the testing window.

Back in the lab, the scientists screened the stool for 10 types of microplastics, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is commonly used in plastic bottles and shopping bags, and polypropylene (PP), which is found in bottle caps and rope. Nine of the 10 varieties were ultimately detected, with PET and PP topping the list. All eight of the samples tested positive for plastics.

An average of 20 microplastic particles were present in every 10 grams of feces, but Inverse’s Emma Betuel notes that overall quantities were all over the map, with different samples including between 18 and 172 particles per 10 grams. The microplastics measured between 50 and 500 micrometers; for comparison, a single strand of human hair is about 100 micrometers thick.

Tiny pieces of plastic measuring less than five millimeters in length—or roughly the size of a sesame seed—have become a nearly ubiquitous presence in our world. Scientists have found the particles, better known as microplastics, everywhere from the oceans, the air to tap and bottled water as well as beer, and table salt. But a new pilot study detailed at yesterday’s United European Gastroenterology meeting adds a somewhat surprising hiding place to the list: human stool.

Wired’s Robbie Gonzalez reports that a team of Austrian researchers led by Philipp Schwabl, a physician-scientist at the Medical University of Vienna, asked eight participants from eight different countries—Austria, Italy, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia and the United Kingdom—to track their food consumption over the course of one week and provide a stool sample at the end of the testing window.

Back in the lab, the scientists screened the stool for 10 types of microplastics, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is commonly used in plastic bottles and shopping bags, and polypropylene (PP), which is found in bottle caps and rope. Nine of the 10 varieties were ultimately detected, with PET and PP topping the list. All eight of the samples tested positive for plastics.

An average of 20 microplastic particles were present in every 10 grams of feces, but Inverse’s Emma Betuel notes that overall quantities were all over the map, with different samples including between 18 and 172 particles per 10 grams. The microplastics measured between 50 and 500 micrometers; for comparison, a single strand of human hair is about 100 micrometers thick.

As Laura Parker writes for National Geographic, the test subjects’ food diaries offer a thorough list of potential plastic culprits. Of the three men and five women, all aged 33 to 65, two chewed gum on a daily basis, while six ate seafood during the week in question. All dined on plastic-wrapped food and drank from plastic water bottles.

But Schwabl tells Wired’s Gonzalez that it’s unclear which of these items left plastic lurking in the participants’ stool. The seafood, plastic packaging or even traces of table salt could be behind the unwelcome discovery.

Then again, the culprit could be something else entirely: Richard Thompson, a marine scientist at the U.K.’s University of Plymouth who was not involved in the study, tells National Geographic’s Parker that it’s possible PET particles simply fell from curtains or clothing onto the subjects’ plates, silently mingling with a tasty seafood dish before hitching a ride to the intestines. (Earlier this year, Thompson and his colleagues published a paper comparing the risk posed by airborne plastic fibers that land on food during preparation with that of eating Scottish mussels exposed to seaborne plastics particles. Interestingly enough, the airborne fibers posed a greater threat to human test subjects.)

Inverse’s Betuel notes that the presence of plastics in participants’ stool suggests some particles are still hiding inside the body. As Schwabl explains, microplastics may build up in the intestine over time, causing inflammation and potentially affecting the gut’s tolerance and immune system. Although the effects of microplastics on human health are still under investigation, previous animal studies have shown the pesky particles can affect the bloodstream, lymphatic system and even the liver.

According to Deutsche Welle, microplastics are either intentionally manufactured (think exfoliating beads seen in facial scrubs) or the product of larger plastic items, such as packaging or clothing fibers, breaking down over time. Researchers have found evidence of microplastics in animals across the global food chain, but this is the first time the particles have been spotted in human excrement.

Still, Schwabl tells National Geographic’s Parker that the team’s findings are far from conclusive, especially due to the pilot study’s small sample size.

“We didn’t study harm,” Schwabl concludes. “We showed there are microplastics in human stool. Up to now, people believed it, but now we know it. That’s important.”

Source: Smithsonian

 

UN-Backed Fund Pledges $1bn for 19 Climate Action Projects

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

It was set up to respond to climate change by investing in low-emission and climate-resilient development

A UN-backed fund has pledged to invest more than $1 billion (£0.77bn) in climate mitigationprojects in developing countries.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board approved the grants for 19 new projects in nations including Brazil, India, Pakistan, Philippines and Colombia.

Some of the programmes supported include renewable energy, geothermal resource risk mitigation, water supply and rural electrification projects.

The GCF was set up to respond to climate change by investing in low-emission and climate-resilient development to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries and help vulnerable socities adapt to the unavoidable impacts of global warming.

GCF Co-Chair Paul Oquist said: “Climate finance and climate project formulation are the two greatest bottlenecks to climate action in developing countries. GCF has a critical role to play in both.”

Source: Energy Live News

Uber to Introduce Clean Air Fee to All London Rides

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Uber will charge its customers in London an extra 15p per mile on every trip to help its drivers buy electric cars.

The ride-hailing app hopes to create a £200m fund from the levy to encourage almost half of its 45,000 drivers to use fully electric vehicles by 2021. The firm hopes its London fleet will be fully electric by 2025.

Uber said the clean air fee would mean an extra 45p on the average three-mile trip in the capital, on top of normal fares, but every penny would go towards helping drivers upgrade their vehicles or other green initiatives should that money not be used.

The fund was announced as part of a clean air plan, as Uber continues its efforts to prove itself to Transport for London after it initially decided not to renew its licence to operate last year.

Uber’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, said the initiative, a world first for the company, showed it was committed to being a strong partner in the capital. “It represents our wanting our partnership in London not only to be a strong partnership but trailblazing in solving air pollution, which every great city in the world is struggling with, and our mayor here in London is looking to improve,” he said.

However, Khosrowshahi said Uber would continue to resist proposals to make its drivers liable for London’s congestion charge, unless black cabs were also forced to pay.

Under Uber’s new scheme, each driver will in effect have their own savings account towards the purchase of an electrical vehicle, based on the number of miles driven. A driver using Uber’s app for an average of 40 hours per week could expect to save about £3,000 towards a new electric vehicle in two years.

Uber said it was in talks with manufacturers to negotiate prices and ensure supply, as well as to home vehicle charging suppliers.

Khosrowshahi said: “You’re going to see many initiatives but what it adds up to is us moving from being a simple ride-sharing service to transforming to an on-demand mobility service. We ultimately want to be that go-to mobility platform – whether you’re going to move with the car or a bike or ultimately a bus or the tube service. All this is aimed at eventually replacing car ownership itself.

“Cars are unused 95% of the time and take up enormous amounts of space, in parking etc – we want to give that space back to the city.”

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Uber is also offering a diesel scrappage bonus of £1,500 in credit for its app to the first 1,000 people in London to scrap a pre-Euro 4 diesel vehicle.

Khosrowshahi said: “It’s our goal to help people replace their car with their phone by offering a range of mobility options – whether cars, bikes, scooters or public transport – all in the Uber app.”

The chief executive said he was confident most drivers would take up the chance to spend their clean air fee savings on a new electric vehicle, but the fund would otherwise be used for other green schemes. “We won’t bank it.”

The IWGB union, which represents private hire drivers, said: “We are very concerned that this latest PR move from Uber will lure drivers deeper into debt, as they struggle to finance expensive vehicles on below minimum wage income. The answer to London’s growing congestion and pollution problem is for the government and the mayor to resolutely commit to capping minicab numbers in London.

“Drivers have long ago given up on Uber to do the right thing and that is why so many will be joining our march next week with other precarious workers, as we get ready to face down yet another appeal from Uber on the worker rights case we already won on two occasions.”

The UK government has just slashed its grants for electric vehicles from £4,500 to £3,500 and abolished support for new hybrids, which many Uber drivers use.

Source: The Guardian

Global Resource Consumption ‘to Double by 2060’

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

By 2060, global consumption of raw resources is set to nearly double to 167 gigatonnes.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

That’s according to a new OECD report, which warns as the global economy expands, living standards rise and world population soars to 10 billion people, it will be mirrored by the projected increase in the extraction and processing of raw materials such as biomass, fossil fuels, metals and non-metallic minerals.

The OECD warns this in turn is likely to worsen air, water and soil pollution, as well as significantly contribute to climate change.

This increase comes despite a shift from manufacturing-based economies to service industries and continual improvements in manufacturing efficiency, without which, environmental pressures would be likely to be much worse.

The report predicts the biggest rise in resource consumption will be in minerals, particularly in developing economies – although it expects the recycling industry to become more competitive and grow, it estimates it will remain a much smaller industry than mining and extracting primary materials.

It warns in the absence of new emissions-cutting policies, overall emissions from materials management will grow from 28 gigatonnes to 50 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalents by 2060.

Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General, said: “Growth in materials use, coupled with the environmental consequences of material extraction, processing and waste, is likely to increase the pressure on the resource bases of our economies and jeopardise future gains in wellbeing.”

Source: Energy Live News

Man Is Healthy Only if He Takes Care of His Health

Photo: (Milka Drezgic) private archive

Milka Drezgic, Professor of Internal Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, the Belgrade University

The advancement of preventive medicine, diagnostics, and therapies, as well as technological breakthroughs in the 20th century, contribute to a better understanding of health and disease on a genetic, molecular and cellular level. Along with the longer life expectancy, achieving the optimal human health becomes a special goal. We talked to professor Milka Drezgic, M.D, in an attempt to get an answer to the question that is puzzling each one of us: do we take care of our health in a proper way?

Professor Drezgic is a renowned scientist and excellent expert, internist, endocrinologist, with a corpus of 308 scientific articles and teaching materials and to our readers, she explains the significance of this vital issue in simple words. There is no doubt that health is an intricate term, and what exactly it implies nowadays we asked professor Drezgic.

Milka Drezgic: Freud bore down that the moment a man asks himself whether there is a meaning of life, he becomes sick. As determined by the World Health Organization (WHO), health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not just an absence of diseases and enervation. It’s important here to define what social welfare is according to WHO. That would be a state of peace and security where every person regardless of religion, race, political conviction, economic conditions and gender has a right to education and work, and that gives him the opportunity to live harmoniously in a healthy environment and provides protection in sickness, enervation, and old age.

However, having in mind today’s life circumstances and all that is happening to us, it is entirely reasonable to pose a question if there is a healthy person at all and who meets the criteria for social welfare.

EP: This means that the health of any individual or the one of the whole nation should be considered in light of the interaction with the environment because the health is not just a biological phenomenon.

Milka Drezgic: Various scientific disciplines, such as biology, psychology and sociology, have their own apparent and distinct concepts which serve as a starting point in the process of defining health and diseases. Societal value criteria, predominant culture and philosophy of social units in specific periods of human history and in some territories also had a significant influence on how the health and disease were perceived.

Social medicine is as a science that examines the health of an individual in reference to his interactions with an environment. The development of social medicine has also brought a definition of health which takes health not only as a biological and psychological but also as a social phenomenon. The World Health Organization (WHO) defined human health in a broader sense in its 1948 constitution having underlined for the first time the social element as of great importance.

I want to point out that the civilisation and the life rhythm come with a substantial risk which is reflected in chronic stress. It is not manifested in apparent physical changes but in the form of mental exhaustion which leads to depression, mental disorders, reduced working ability and problems in family and social life.

Photo: Pixabay

EP: How to deal with the exhaustion syndrome?

Milka Drezgic: Just as we take care of our body’s hygiene, we have to take care of our mental hygiene which is necessary to lead the quality life. Fromm said a long time ago that a healthy man was able to work and love, so we must learn to love ourselves, to observe the world around us, and we have to learn how to enjoy in each day of our life, and not to dwell upon an uncertain future or a pleasant past.

EP: Who has the supervision of whether we are physically and mentally ready to deal with everyday life problems?

Milka Drezgic: Starting from the birth, the watchful eye of parents and routine check-ups of babies, and later toddlers, at primary health care, stand as the leading method for monitoring of the physical and mental development of the child. Parents and doctors have a prominent role as they react to every sign and symptom which might indicate the onset of the disease. However, it is not rare that a parent leaves a child in front of ‘the lord and master’ in the house, namely the TV, and therefore he doesn’t communicate enough with his own child, only to reveal that his toddler at the age of two is deaf, which is precisely what happened recently in one city in Serbia. Unfortunately, by the time children grow up and enter adolescence, there are even fewer check-ups, or they are not carried out thoroughly, which ends up recognising mainly the physical defects in young people. On the other hand, the information and even interest in the mental and emotional social welfare are lacking.

Read the whole interview in the new issue of the Energy portal Magazine on SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE, July 2018.

Interview by: Milka Zelić

Indonesia Hops Aboard Plastic Cleanup with Bus Bottle Scheme

Photo: Pixabay

Surabaya’s recycling incentive scheme allows trash to be traded for tickets.

The Indonesian city of Surabaya is now offering free bus rides in exchange for handing in used plastic bottles and cup.

The country’s second-largest city has launched the recycling incentive scheme, which allows customers to drop off plastic bottles and cups at terminals in exchange for tickets or use the plastic waste to directly pay for their fare.

Handing in around five bottles or 10 cups can pay for a two-hour bus ride – the plastic is then sold to recycling companies, with earnings spent on improving the service and developing green spaces in the city.

Surabaya, which currently produces around 400 tonnes of plastic waste every day, aims to totally banish the problem by 2020.

The city municipality suggests one bus can collect around 7.5 tonnes of rubbish each month.

Source: Energy Live News

Hurricane Michael Caused 1.7 Million Electricity Outages Across US

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Customers across six south-eastern states were significantly affected by the storm.

Hurricane Michael caused 1.7 million electricity outages in the south-eastern US.

That’s according to new statistics from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), which says the customers affected were spread across six states as the storm hit Florida on Wednesday, the 10th of October.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

During the next two days, the hurricane travelled through Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, with heavy rainfall and 65mph winds damaging property and infrastructure.

Outages were highest in Virginia, where peak outages affected 14% of the population, totalling 523,000 customers, with 10% of Virginian energy users also being affected, making up 492,000 people.

By the 19th of October, electricity supplies had been restored for 93% of customers.

The power load in the City of Tallahassee’s balancing authority dropped to less than a third of the forecasted peak load following Hurricane Michael’s landfall, recovering to pre-hurricane levels five days later.

Source: Energy Live News

New York Awards $3m to Nextgen Clean Energy Leaders

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

The projects are expected to reduce emissions by more than 2,000 metric tons over the next five years.

The Step Towards the Energy Efficiency: The First Typology of Schools in Serbia

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

The “National  School  Typology” study has recently been presented on the most suitable approaches to the renovation of school buildings and the improvement of energy efficiency, which will be the basis for making further strategic decisions regarding the restoration of school buildings.

Photo: GIZ (The Authors of the Study)

The study was carried out as part of the German-Serbian  Development  Cooperation  project,  which  was  im-plemented  by  the  German  Organization  for  International  Cooperation GIZ, with a participation of a team of experts from  the  Faculty  of  Architecture,  Mechanical  and  Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade, supported by the line ministries of the Government of Serbia. Based on this  typology,  now  every  school  can  recognise  its  facility  from the models defined in the study and choose the most appropriate type of restoration.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Professors  Branislav  Zivkovic  from  the  Faculty  of  Mchanical  Engineering  and  Dusan  Ignjatovic  from  the  Faculty of Architecture participated in the preparation of this study,  which  included  the  database  of  1,857  school  buildings,  out  of  3,890  schools  in Serbia,  which  was  more  than  sufficient  amount  of  sample  for  statistical  analysis.  This  base has suffered a certain “cleansing”, and the sample for analysis  has  been  reduced  to  1,268  buildings.  The  buildings  themselves  are  from  different  periods,  most  of  them  built  between  1946  and  1970.  “Considering  that  the  greatest number of school buildings dated from the period when energy consumption was not taken into account, and when the  building’s  envelope  was  not  thermally  isolated,  it  can be  concluded  that  schools  are  relatively  big  consumers  of  energy  per  unit  area,”  Professor  Zivkovic  says.  The  buildings  themselves  are  mostly  commission  buildings,  structures  planned  throughout  the  territory  of  the  Republic  of Serbia,  regardless  of  their  geographical  disposition,  size, and  age.  According  to  their  structure,  they  correspond  to the  specific  requirements  of  the  educational  process  that has  changed  significantly  during  history.  The  beginnings are  mainly  related  to  the  development  of  the  educational process itself while fulfilling the minimum requirements, whereas at the end of the 20th century we can see complex structures with very diverse contents. Diversity is mostly related to the arrangement of the buildings or whether they are planned for rural or urban areas or the sheer size of the school building itself. Smaller buildings are simple structures, composed of several units with almost no additional rooms, while large buildings are very complex.  Thus, “in the field“ we can encounter objects that, besides classrooms, barely possess elementary hygienic  facilities, but also those that have many different halls or swimming pools in their facilities.

The energy efficiency measures should
be applied to a fully functional facility
to reduce the energy consumption

Dusan Ignjatovic, the professor at the Faculty of Architecture, says that from the historical point of view, important symbolic functions have been linked to the massive buildings so that they are often seen as very representative structures and, in a way, a “decoration” of the cities in which they were built. As of lately, they are in fact almost considered as theoretical models of the development of the educational process.  “Given this diversity, it is clear that it is a question of the quality improvement, especially regarding the energy efficiency, and a very diverse one indeed. It ranges from simple material and technical improvements to the building envelope and installed systems to the structural  changes  to  raise  the  general  level  of  the  educational process with the addition of new functional units. The variety of forms of presentation is one of the most significant challenges for the process of reconstruction and improvement,” Professor Ignjatovic says.

Photo: GIZ

By   the   analysis   and   statistical   processing   of   1,268  schools, which formed the sample for the study, ten types and  three subtypes  of  schools  were  selected  in  10  basic categories. The buildings were classified according to the construction  period, the gross area of the building, the characteristics of the thermal coating (façade, wall and roof materials, the existence of thermal insulation, the size, and the  type  of  windows),  number  of  floors  and  compactness  of  the  building.

You can read the whole article in the eleventh issue of the Energy Portal Magazine SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE, in July 2018.

Prepared by: Tamara Zjacic

Beijing Air Pollution Mystery Could Be Solved, Scientists Say

Photo: Pixabay

More than one million people die each year in China from particulate matter air pollution, but despite 15 years and billions of dollars of efforts to clean up the country’s air, dangerous winter smog persists.

Now, an international team of scientists think they have discovered the reason why: The instruments used to measure Beijing’s particulate matter pollution were misinterpreting their readings.

“Our research points towards ways that can more quickly clean up air pollution. It could help save millions of lives and guide billions of dollars of investment in air pollution reductions,” said Jonathan M. Moch, first paper author and graduate student at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences(SEAS), in a Harvard press release.

In the past, instruments had picked up on the high level of sulfur compounds and read them as sulfates. The Chinese government therefore focused on reducing sulfur dioxide pollution from coal burning power plants. But while the government was successful in those efforts, the overall air pollution levels did not decrease as expected.

That is because, as the team of researchers from Harvard, Tsinghua University and the Harbin Institute of Technology revealed in Geophysical Research Letters Thursday, a lot of those sulfur compounds were actually hydroxymethane sulfonate (HMS)—a compound formed when sulfur dioxide reacts with formaldehyde in smog or fog. The type of instruments used to measure particulate matter in Beijing can easily confuse the two.

Photo: Pixabay

The researchers ran a computer model and found that HMS compounds could make up a lot of the particulate matter found in China’s persistent winter smog.

“By including this overlooked chemistry in air quality models, we can explain why the number of wintertime extremely polluted days in Beijing did not improve between 2013 and January 2017 despite major success in reducing sulfur dioxide,” Moch said.

Moch also said the findings explained why the government’s efforts finally seemed to pay off last winter—sulfur dioxide fell below formaldehyde for the first time, so less HMS was formed.

“We think there could have been a shorter way if they had gone straight at formaldehyde,” Moch told The Boston Globe.

Major sources of formaldehyde pollution in Eastern China include emissions from vehicles and chemical or oil refineries, so the researchers recommend that China now work on reducing pollution from these sources.

The research team now plans to directly measure HMS levels in Beijing using altered instruments and to use models to assess the importance of HMS formation to pollution across China.

28,000 Jobs at Risk in North of England over Low-Carbon Economy

As many as 28,000 jobs will be lost in the north of England in the next 12 years under the government’s drive towards a low-carbon economy, a thinktank has warned.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said in its report that the region could be at the heart of a “clean energy revolution” – with a potential for 46,000 new green jobs – but instead faced economic decline under current plans.

Luke Murphy, an associate director at IPPR and co-author of the report, said: “With nearly half of the UK’s renewable energy being produced in the north, it is clear that the region is ideally placed to deliver a green jobs revolution of 46,000 new jobs by 2030.”

Murphy described the move towards a low-carbon economy as an “urgent necessity” to limit the impact of global warning. He urged ministers to commit to a more ambitious decarbonisation policy “where communities are protected from decline” which he said must be at the heart of its industrial strategy.

The north of England produced 48% of the UK’s renewable electricity between 2005 and 2014, the report said, yet the region is also home to the largest number of coal and gas power stations in England.

The report, published on Monday, calls on the government to “learn from the mistakes of the past” and avoid a repeat of the catastrophic economic decline that followed the closure of coal, steel and shipbuilding industries across the north since the early 1980s.

Yet, the thinktank said, proposals to limit the damaging effect on communities and help workers retrain were not mentioned in the government’s industrial or clean growth strategies.

The report concluded: “If the government continues to ignore these workers, there is a real risk that the transition to a low-carbon economy will result in jobs losses or the forced acceptance of low-quality jobs, an increase in people on welfare benefits and an increase in local deprivation.”

Josh Emden, a research fellow at IPPR and co-author of the report, said: “The government must learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure that this time there is a just transition into the low-carbon energy sector and beyond, for workers in the north of England who have powered the UK for decades.

“The good news is that the opportunity is there for the north of England to become a powerhouse for the UK once again, provided the government takes the critical policy action needed.”

The government is reviewing its target to cut greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050 in the wake of a landmark report by the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) earlier this month.

Leading climate change experts warned there was only 12 years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

A government spokesperson said: “The move to a cleaner, greener economy is one of the greatest opportunities for our country.  With the potential to create 2 million new jobs by 2030, clean growth is a key focus of our modern industrial strategy.

“Last week, we celebrated our first Green GB Week, showcasing the benefits clean growth will bring to all parts of society – from new businesses and jobs to leaving our environment in a better state than we inherited it.”

Source: The Guardian

Climate Change Is Exacerbating World Conflicts, Says Red Cross President

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Climate change is already exacerbating domestic and international conflicts, and governments must take steps to ensure it does not get worse, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross has said.

Peter Maurer told Guardian Australia it was already making an impact and humanitarian organisations were having to factor it into their work far earlier than they were expecting.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

“In many parts of the world where we work it’s not a distant engagement,” he said.

“When I think about our engagement in sub-Saharan Africa, in Somalia, in other places of the world, I see that climate change has already had a massive impact on population movement, on fertility of land. It’s moving the border between pastoralist and agriculturalist.”

Maurer, who was in Australia to speak about the changing nature of modern conflict, said concern about the impact of climate change in the Pacific was “enormous”.

He said changing rainfall patterns change the fertility of land and push populations, who may have settled and subsisted in one area for centuries, to migrate.

“It’s very obvious that some of the violence that we are observing … is directly linked to the impact of climate change and changing rainfall patterns.”

Earlier this month the United Nation’s climate panel, the IPCC, gave the world just 12 years to make the drastic but necessary changes. Its report said emissions had to be cut by 45% before 2030 if warming was to be restricted to 1.5C.

At 1.5C, 10 million fewer people would be affected by rising sea levels, and the proportion of the world’s population exposed to water stress could be 50% lower.

A 2016 study, which examined three decades of data, determined that a 1C rise in temperatures in a country reliant on agriculture correlated with a 5% increase in migration to other countries.

“When [populations] start to migrate in big numbers it leads to tensions between the migrating communities and the local communities. This is very visible in contexts like the Central African Republic, like Mali and other places,” said Maurer.

He said it was up to governments, not humanitarians, to develop the policies needed to deal with the “root causes” of climate change.

“As a humanitarian I am used to political decisions … never [being] as fast as we hope for them, or as generous or as big, but it’s encouraging an increasing number are recognising the importance of the issue and are taking steps to reduce the impact of climate change on our habitat – the Paris Agreement is an important step forward,” he said.

“For us we hope the international community will soon enough take necessary steps, so at the end of the day they won’t have to pay by increasing humanitarian impacts which, again, we already see in other conflicts.”

Donald Trump said little about the IPCC report, having already pledged to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.

This made things difficult for everyone else, Ola Elvestuen, Norway’s environment minister, said last month, but still called for countries to transition away from fossil fuels, embrace electric cars and halt deforestation.

The Australian government largely dismissed the IPCC report and its recommendations – which included the rapid phase out of coal – as well as the pleas of Pacific Island nations.

Australia has no formal energy or climate change policy, and the Coalition government at one point flagged pulling out of the Paris Agreement.

MPs and ministers maintain that Australia is on track to meet emissions reductions targets, despite official government figures on emissions suggesting Australia will not, according to current projections.

On Sunday Australia’s treasurer and former energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, rejected the suggestion it should get his government rethink its policies. He said the government did not intend to “reduce emissions at the expense of people’s power bills”.

Anote Tong, the former president of Kiribati, was in Australia this week advocating for action.

“It’s not about the marginal rise in price or reduction in price of energy, it’s about lives, it’s about the future,” he told Guardian Australia.

Maurer said there were now more people displaced than ever before, approaching 70m across the globe. Two thirds are displaced internally, and most of those who fled would go to a neighbouring country.

“At the end of the day there is no single policy that allows in any satisfactory way a response to these issues, but there are multiple things which can be done,” he said.

Source: The Guardian

 

Plastic Straws and Cotton Buds Could Be Banned in England in a Year

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Environment Secretary Michael Gove has launched a consultation on the proposals.

Plastic straws, drink stirrers and cotton buds could be banned within a year in England under government plans to reduce pollution.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Source: Energy Live News

Cherry Blossoms Are Blooming Across Japan: It’s October

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Each year, Japan’s iconic cherry blossoms herald the arrival of spring. But after a bout of extreme weather, blooms are being reported several months early.

Photo-illustration: Pixabay

The Japanese weather site Weathernews said it had received more than 350 reports of blossoms throughout the country. The flowers usually appear in March or April.

It’s not unusual for sakura to arrive ahead of schedule, however experts said it’s rare for the flowering to be so widespread.

“We get reports every year of cherry blossom blooming early, but those are confined to specific areas,” Toru Koyama, a senior official with the Flower Association of Japan, told Reuters. “This time we are hearing about it from all over the country.”

Koyama explained that the leaves of cherry blossom trees contain a chemical that suppresses the pink and white flowers from blooming. But two powerful typhoons this September—including devastating Typhoon Jebi—stripped the trees of their leaves or exposed them to salt water. Without the presence of the growth-inhibitors, the trees flowered early.

What’s more, temperature swings brought by the storms may have tricked the bulbs into thinking it was spring.

The early blooms should not spoil the 2019 hanami, or the traditional flower-viewing season. The number of flowers blooming early is still small, so viewers are unlikely to notice much difference, Koyama added.

Regardless of this year’s major storms, cherry blossoms in Japan are emerging increasingly early, and scientists say that climate change is likely the culprit.

Source: Eco Watch