28 June 2016, DESMOG, Obama Admin Approved Over 1,500 Offshore Fracking Permits in Gulf of Mexico and Mainstream Media Has Ignored It. On June 24, the independent news website TruthOut broke a doozy of a story: the Obama Administration has secretly approved over 1,500 instances of offshore hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the Gulf of Mexico, including during the Deepwater Horizon offshore spill disaster. Albeit released on a Friday, a day where many mainstream media reporters head out of the office early and venture to late-afternoon and early-evening Happy Hour specials at the bars, the TruthOut story has received deafening silence by the corporate-owned media apparatus. Google News, Factiva and LexisNexis searches reveal that not a single mainstream media outlet has covered the story. TruthOut got its hands on the story via documents provided by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). CBD explained inpress release that they “obtained the information following an agreement that settled a lawsuit challenging the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s and Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s failure to disclose documents regarding the scope of offshore fracking in the Gulf under the Freedom of Information Act.” CBD also has published a list of all of the instances of offshore fracking in the Gulf of Mexico provided to it by BOEM, both inlist-form and in visual map form. Read More here
Category Archives: PLEA Network
17 June 2016, The Guardian, What would a global warming increase of 1.5C be like? How ambitious is the world? The Paris climate conference last December astounded many by pledging not just to keep warming “well below two degrees celsius,” but also to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5C. That raised a hugely important question: What’s the difference between a two-degree world and a 1.5-degree world? Given we are already at one degree above pre-industrial levels, halting at 1.5C would look to be at least twice as hard as the two-degree option.So would it be worth it? And is it even remotely achievable? In Paris, delegates called on the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to report on the implications of a 1.5C target. They want the job done by 2018, in time to inform renewed talks on toughening emissions targets beyond those agreed upon in Paris. But the truth is that scientists are only now getting out of the blocks to address what a 1.5C world would look like, because until recently it sounded like a political and technological impossibility. As a commentary published online in Nature Climate Change last week warned, there is “a paucity of scientific analysis” about the consequences of pursuing a 1.5C target. To remedy this, the paper’s researchers, led by Daniel Mitchell and others at Oxford University, called for a dedicated program of research to help inform what they described as “arguably one of the most momentous [decisions] to be made in the coming decade.” And they are on the case, with their own dedicated website and a major conference planned at Oxford in the fall. So what is at stake? There are two issues to address. First, what would be gained by going the extra mile for 1.5? And second, what would it take to deliver? Read More here
17 June 2016, Climate News Network, Warming raises global economic threats. Research shows that the effects of extreme heat and weather events on production of raw materials has far-reaching and costly financial implications. Climate change is likely to affect the global economy− and it may already have begun to affect raw material supplies from tropical regions, according to new research. That is because, in a global economy, the flow of wealth depends on a secure supply chain, and productivity that depends on outdoor work in the tropics could become more precarious in a warming world. Even in a temperate zone country such as Australia, researchers have linked heat extremes with economic losses. And climate-related disasters are on the increase, claiming not just lives but a growing economic toll. Research has also indicated that, without drastic action, some regions may reach temperatures that could make them uninhabitable. Heat exhaustion But there is already evidence that at temperatures around or above 25°C, labour productivity declines. At significantly higher temperatures, heat exhaustion becomes a hazard. And if output falls at a source of materials, then workers far away who depend on those supplies will also see their productivity falter. Two German scientists report in Science Advances journal that they tracked economic traffic from 26 industry sectors – including mining, quarrying, textiles, forestry and agriculture – all the way to final demand in 186 countries. They matched temperature, population and global economic connections from 1991-2011, and then fed into their computer simulations the known consequences of heat stress on workers. Their finding was that interdependence had increased, and with this interdependence had come vulnerability.Read More here
10 June 2016, Environmental justice Australia, Victorian climate change laws: A state stepping up. The Victorian government today released their intentions to change Victoria’s climate change laws. Climate change is real, and it’s happening now. The devastating bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef due to warmer water is not something that can be dismissed or hidden, despite the best efforts of the Federal government – and yet Australia is still ticking off on new coal mines. With the federal election just around the corner, there’s a very real possibility that we’ll get another three years of Turnbull government tinkering around the edges of the real, lasting changes we need to make to avoid the worst climate change scenarios. But we do not need to wait for federal government action. State governments can take on the role of action on climate. Today the Victorian government are promising to do just that. Their plans for Victoria’s climate laws draw heavily on Environmental Justice Australia’s proposed Climate Charter. A report by the Independent Review Panel suggested that the government embrace many of our proposed measures. They include emissions targets enshrined in law, and provisions that mean climate change will need to be taken into account in a whole range of government decision and policies – embedding climate change considerations throughout the Victorian Government. Read more here