I've been attempting to make my way through Naomi Klein's book This Changes Everything on capitalism vs climate change. It's been rough. Not only is this book a motherfucking dense read, it's also filled with the most depressing news ever. For example: free trade agreements that are actively preventing climate change policies from happening, the ( Read more... )

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A great video on the future of agriculture. Foley focuses primarily on the technical challenges of doubling our food production and feeding the planet by 2050. The first half of the video was pretty much old hat for me, but the second part with the new innovations and potential places to improve yields was interesting. I'll have to keep in mind the ( Read more... )

Went to UMelb's public forum on soil carbon sequestration tonight. As it turns out, agricultural soils aren't the best for soil carbon sequestration. Not that they CAN'T increase soil organic carbon, and by all means that farmers should do anyway because of all the benefits for soil health, but in terms of decreasing CO2 in the atmosphere, it ( Read more... )

The Australian federal government on Sunday announced its long-awaited plans for pricing carbon pollution. PIARN Convenor Snow Barlow has provided the following summary of the key issues and implications for the land-based sector of the Australian Government’s Securing a Clean Energy Future plan.

( Carbon pricing plan )

Cans bring BPA to dinner, FDA confirms.: Federal chemists have confirmed what everyone had expected: that if a bisphenol-A-based resin is used to line most food cans, there’s a high likelihood the contents of those cans will contain at least traces of BPA. (Science News ( Read more... )

Places in the US that face the most environmental risk. An interesting interactive map!

Climate change beliefs are starkly partisan: What Americans believe about climate change depends almost entirely on their political affiliation and not their scientific understanding, according to a new national study that found the same dynamic in two regions ( Read more... )

Climate Dog Video: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)

(sorry for some reason, couldn't upload the video =P)

This is one of the reasons why Australia's been getting an unusually wet summer after 13 years of drought. Courtesy of Australia's Department of Primary Industries, see their website here for more Climate Dog videos

Do regulations kill jobs? House report draws on businesses' answers: The Republican staff of a key House oversight committee has expressed a degree of sympathy for industry arguments that federal environmental regulations are killing jobs. Washington Post

Let me just quote from the article -

In an interview, Robert Reich, who served as labor ( Read more... )

Bill McKibben's Eaarth: Just finished reading Eaarth, which was a quick read actually, but had a powerful message. McKibben argues that the planet we are living on now is no longer the planet that our grandparents' generation grew up on. This new planet, Eaarth, had been altered by human influence so much that it's on a new trajectory with new ( Read more... )

'The planet won't be destroyed by global warming because God promised Noah,' says politician bidding to chair U.S. energy committee.: A Republican congressman hoping to chair the powerful House Energy Committee refers to the Bible and God on the issue of global warming. [London Daily Mail, United Kingdom ( Read more... )