#cop21 James #Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks ’a fraud’ | Environment | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-hansen-climate-change-paris-talks-fraud
#cop21 James #Hansen, father of climate change awareness, calls Paris talks ’a fraud’ | Environment | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-hansen-climate-change-paris-talks-fraud
En pleine Conférence climat, l’Europe ouvre les bras aux sables bitumineux canadiens
▻http://multinationales.org/En-pleine-Conference-climat-l-Europe-ouvre-les-bras-aux-sables-bitu
Alors que la COP21 bat son plein à Paris, l’Europe commence à recevoir du pétrole issu des sables bitumineux canadiens, l’un des hydrocarbures les plus nocifs qui soit pour le climat. Les géants pétroliers comme #Total ou Shell tâchent de faire bonne figure dans le cadre de la COP21 en vantant leurs investissements dans le gaz, mais ils préparent en même temps leurs raffineries européennes à recevoir les sables bitumineux canadiens. Ces derniers commencent à envahir l’Europe, directement ou via leur (...)
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« ▻http://www.euractiv.fr/sections/energie/les-sables-bitumineux-sont-en-route-vers-leurope-319830 »
« ▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/08/tar-sands-alarm-as-us-crude-exports-to-europe-rise »
Earth has lost a third of arable land in past 40 years, scientists say
▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/arable-land-soil-food-security-shortage
The continual ploughing of fields, combined with heavy use of fertilizers, has degraded soils across the world, the research found, with erosion occurring at a pace of up to 100 times greater than the rate of soil formation. It takes around 500 years for just 2.5cm of topsoil to be created amid unimpeded ecological changes.
[...]
The erosion of soil has largely occurred due to the loss of structure by continual disturbance for crop planting and harvesting. If soil is repeatedly turned over, it is exposed to oxygen and its carbon is released into the atmosphere, causing it to fail to bind as effectively. This loss of integrity impacts soil’s ability to store water, which neutralizes its role as a buffer to floods and a fruitful base for plants.
Degraded soils are also vulnerable to being washed away by weather events fueled by global warming. Deforestation, which removes trees that help knit landscapes together, is also detrimental to soil health.
So why do soils remain sorely overlooked in the public consciousness? Part of the answer must come down to simple aesthetics: it’s much easier to appreciate the beauty of a rare flower or endangered eagle than it is to consider the health of a mysterious damp brown material that sticks to your shoes and leaves messy marks on the carpet. “Soils are out of view for much of the year, covered by grasses and foliage” says Willie Towers, a prominent soil scientist at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland. “Awareness of soil degradation is still pretty low and people generally don’t appreciate the link between soils and the food they eat.”
It’s a basic but significant PR problem in need of redress by scientists, farmers and educators, and better storytelling would go a long way to solving it.
►http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-12-16/soil-s-deep-rooted-pr-problem
#Uruguay makes dramatic shift to nearly 95% electricity from clean energy | Environment | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/uruguay-makes-dramatic-shift-to-nearly-95-clean-energy
In less than 10 years, Uruguay has slashed its carbon footprint without government subsidies or higher consumer costs, according to the country’s head of climate change policy, Ramón Méndez.
In fact, he says that now that renewables provide 94.5% of the country’s electricity, prices are lower than in the past relative to inflation. There are also fewer power cuts because a diverse energy mix means greater resilience to droughts.
It was a very different story just 15 years ago. Back at the turn of the century oil accounted for 27% of Uruguay’s imports and a new pipeline was just about to begin supplying gas from Argentina.
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Now the biggest item on import balance sheet is wind turbines, which fill the country’s ports on their way to installation.
Biomass and solar power have also been ramped up. Adding to existing hydropower, this means that renewables now account for 55% of the country’s overall energy mix (including transport fuel) compared with a global average share of 12%.