Saturday, 16 February 2019

Be a patriot, eat less beef: grist

click to enlarge
As Josh Harkinson noted this week, cows are the United States’ single biggest source of methane — a potent gas that has 105 times the heat-trapping ability of carbon dioxide. That’s one major reason why beef’s greenhouse gas footprint is far higher than that of most other sources of protein, according to an EWG study. (Though it’s consumed at a fraction of the rate of beef or chicken, lamb is by far the most carbon intensive of the major meats, according to EWG, since the animal’s smaller body produces meat less efficiently but still produces a lot of methane.)

And EWG’s estimate of beef’s impact may actually be on the conservative side: A study released this week found the greenhouse gases associated with beef to be even higher.



So what should you eat instead of beef? One answer: Chicken, which has a carbon footprint roughly a fifth the size of beef’s.
Read grist article 

#veganism  #vegetarianism  #carbon footprint  #greenhouse gases  #meat  #chicken  #methane 

See also New Report Warns Geoengineering the Climate Is a '...

Friday, 15 February 2019

Ecocidal Maniacs: How Complacent, Fact-resistant Humans are Destroying the World: Fractal Enlightenment

human cultures pollute and destroy the planet
Gas nozzle ecocide
"We all intuitively sense that there is something fundamentally unhealthy and unsustainable with the way our human cultures pollute and destroy the planet, but most of us do not have the moral courage to admit that we’re part of the problem. Cognitive dissonance too easily slips in and pacifies us against the discomfort. And so the vicious cycle continues.

This dissonance is so powerful that it compels people to remain ignorant to a great many things. The majority of us think we know the way the world works, when really we have forgotten that everything is connected. This can be extremely dangerous."

Read the original Fractal Enlightenment article

Image source:
Gas nozzle ecocide
Frantz Fanon quote
Brittany Jackson art

#ecocide  #climate change  #global heating  #cognitive dissonance  #climate change deniers

  See also: New Report Warns Geoengineering the Climate Is a '...

How the Fossil Fuel Industry Got the Media to Think Climate Change Was Debatable: Medium

Business interests actively worked to make scientific facts seem like partisan opinions.

Read the Medium article

Thursday, 14 February 2019

Does Climate Change Mean I Can’t Have Kids?

Future children in a hotter Earth?
child

"Like a growing number of potential parents, I’m questioning the ethics of bringing children into a warming world."

 "Future children. The thought of them is why — when my mother made the comment about my grandfather — my satisfaction was tinged with sadness and worry.

This year, I’ve begun to question if I can have children.

I don’t mean “can” in the biological sense, but in the ethical
#climate change  #climatechange  #children   #globalwarming  #youth  #extinction
Climate Change and Childbearing
sense. I don’t know if I can have children in a world rapidly approaching unlivable temperatures, rising seas, and mass extinctions."

NSW Greens launch plan for 1 million households to have solar in four years


The NSW Greens have today launched a $1.25 billion comprehensive plan to ensure at least one million extra households in NSW can either install solar panels or be part of community renewable energy schemes within four years.  The Household Solar Plan is part of the Greens Roadmap to 100% Renewable Energy by 2030 and involves:



  • Mandatory solar plus batteries for all new dwellings - 350,000 in four years
  • $2000 rebate for rooftop solar and batteries for 500,000 households
  • Solar panels on all public housing and government buildings - 110,000 public housing tenants receive electricity rebates
  • A community solar offset scheme for apartment owners and renters - 200,000 participants in four years
  • A Fair Price for Solar - mandatory extra 4.4c/kW for avoided health and social costs


Tuesday, 12 February 2019

Research: Young people's burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions: ESD

Global surface temperatures
"Continued high fossil fuel emissions unarguably sentences young people to either a massive, implausible cleanup or growing deleterious climate impacts or both." 

A dire opportunity: rural communities in the face of climate change: CRA

Another key element from all of the reports mentioned here is the need for negative emissions through soil health
Soil Health - Decarbonisation
"So, how far behind are we, and how much do these new reports change the conversation? In 2017, James Hansen, who is a native Iowan and one of the top climatologists in the world, published a report with some updated figures. We have already warmed the world beyond 1° C and have enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to commit ourselves to at least 1.3° C. To stay at or below 1.5° C would mean keeping atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration to 350 parts per million (ppm) or lower, hence the name of the activist group 350.org. We crossed the threshold of 400 ppm in 2013.