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Category: Climate Change

Rare earth mining may be key to our renewable energy future. But at what cost?

Rare earth mining may be key to our renewable energy future. But at what cost?

Carolyn Gramling writes: In spring 1949, three prospectors armed with Geiger counters set out to hunt for treasure in the arid mountains of southern Nevada and southeastern California. In the previous century, those mountains yielded gold, silver, copper and cobalt. But the men were looking for a different kind of treasure: uranium. The world was emerging from World War II and careening into the Cold War. The United States needed uranium to build its nuclear weapons arsenal. Mining homegrown sources…

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Relentless rise of ocean heat content drives deadly extremes

Relentless rise of ocean heat content drives deadly extremes

Inside Climate News reports: Ocean heat content reached a new record high for the fourth year in a row, scientists said Wednesday as they released their annual measurements of ocean heat accumulating down to a depth of more than a mile. The findings published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Science show that just in the past year, the planet’s seas absorbed about 10 Zetta joules of heat—equivalent to 100 times the world’s total annual electricity production. The scientists found…

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Energy firms’ fossil fuel investments radically conflict with climate change obligations

Energy firms’ fossil fuel investments radically conflict with climate change obligations

Byline Times reports: The world’s largest fossil fuel firms are spending huge sums of money on new projects that will accelerate the likelihood of climate catastrophe, according to a new report released by the financial think tank, Carbon Tracker Initiative. The report examined the future investment plans of major fossil fuel companies, assessing their compatibility with international climate obligations set at the 2015 Paris Agreement – finding that future investments were significantly misaligned with the 1.5°C target. Under the net…

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Scientists report a dramatic drop in the extent of Antarctic sea ice

Scientists report a dramatic drop in the extent of Antarctic sea ice

Inside Climate News reports: The new year started with the familiar refrain of climate extremes, as scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Jan. 3 that the sea ice around Antarctica dropped to its lowest extent on record for early January. “The current low sea ice extent … is extreme, and frankly we are working to understand it,” said Antarctica expert Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist with the Earth Science and Observation Center at the University…

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John Kerry: Rich countries must respond to developing world anger over climate

John Kerry: Rich countries must respond to developing world anger over climate

The Guardian reports: People in developing countries are feeling increasingly angry and “victimised” by the climate crisis, the US climate envoy John Kerry has warned, and rich countries must respond urgently. “I’ve been chronicling the increased frustration and anger of island states and vulnerable countries and small African nations and others around the world that feel victimised by the fact that they are a minuscule component of emissions,” he said. “And yet [they are] paying a very high price. Seventeen…

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80% of new cars sold in Norway are now electric vehicles

80% of new cars sold in Norway are now electric vehicles

CBS News reports: Electric vehicles accounted for almost four out of every five new car registrations in Norway last year, setting a new record, according to figures released Monday. Led by U.S. carmaker Tesla, which topped the list with a 12.2% market share, 138,265 new electric cars were sold in the Scandinavian country last year, representing 79.3% of total passenger car sales, the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said in a statement. In doing so, Norway, which is both a major…

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Oil, gas exploration and deforestation threaten Africa’s great carbon sink

Oil, gas exploration and deforestation threaten Africa’s great carbon sink

Olivia Rosane writes: In the center of the African continent, an immense and vital forest currently thrives. As the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest, the Congo Basin covers six countries and around 500 million acres–an area one-fourth the size of the contiguous U.S. It is a haven for both human and natural diversity, hosting more than 150 different ethnic groups and one-fifth of all Earth’s species. It directly supports the livelihoods of the 60 million people who live in or near…

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The year the U.S. became the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas

The year the U.S. became the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas

Inside Climate News reports: When environmentalists look back on 2022, they might remember it as the year the United States finally passed a major climate change law. Some advocates worry, however, that this significant victory is being undermined by a long-term trend that accelerated while that law—the Inflation Reduction Act—was being negotiated. In the first half of the year, the United States became the world’s top exporter of liquified natural gas, or LNG. Then, in September, crude oil exports hit…

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These lies about climate change just wouldn’t die in 2022

These lies about climate change just wouldn’t die in 2022

USA Today reports: There was a time – a recent time – when concern about the environment was relatively bipartisan, not a cultural flashpoint. A Republican, President Richard Nixon, established the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. In the 1980s and 1990s, bipartisan majorities voted to strengthen the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, led by a Republican – Rhode Island’s Sen. John Chafee. Those days are gone, and today a wide range of misleading statements and outright lies…

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Brazil’s Lula picks Amazon defender for environment minister

Brazil’s Lula picks Amazon defender for environment minister

The Associated Press reports: Brazil´s President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced Thursday that Amazon activist Marina Silva will be the country´s next minister of environment. The announcement indicates the new administration will prioritize cracking down on illegal deforestation even if it means running afoul of powerful agribusiness interests. Both attended the recent U.N. climate conference in Egypt, where Lula promised cheering crowds “zero deforestation” in the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest and a key to fighting climate change, by…

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From climate exhortation to climate execution

From climate exhortation to climate execution

Bill McKibben writes: There are about a hundred and forty million homes in the United States. Two-thirds, or about eighty-five million, of them are detached single-family houses; the rest are apartment units or trailer homes. That’s what American prosperity looks like: since the end of the Second World War, our extraordinary wealth has been devoted, above all, to the project of building bigger houses farther apart from one another. The great majority of them are heated with natural gas or…

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Republicans see little resistance from the business lobby after ‘anti-woke’ attacks

Republicans see little resistance from the business lobby after ‘anti-woke’ attacks

Politico reports: Republican lawmakers are vowing to crack down on big investment managers pushing climate and social agendas. But the Wall Street giants are finding they have few defenders in Washington to help fend off the assault. The multitrillion-dollar asset managers — primarily BlackRock and its outspoken CEO Larry Fink, Vanguard and State Street — aren’t getting cover from major business trade groups whose members are divided on the issue. And they have no Republican allies, according to interviews with…

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Can geoengineering fix the climate? Hundreds of scientists say not so fast

Can geoengineering fix the climate? Hundreds of scientists say not so fast

The Guardian reports: As global heating escalates, the US government has set out a plan to further study the controversial and seemingly sci-fi notion of deflecting the sun’s rays before they hit Earth. But a growing group of scientists denounces any steps towards what is known as solar geoengineering. The White House has set into motion a five-year outline for research into “climate interventions”. Those include methods such as sending a phalanx of planes to spray reflective particles into the…

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As a climate change-induced drought wears on, wildlife, livestock and people face deadly consequences

As a climate change-induced drought wears on, wildlife, livestock and people face deadly consequences

Georgina Gustin writes: A wildebeest has toppled into a ditch at the edge of a dusty track, its shoe-box-shaped head twisted upward, a single gaping chomp out of its flank. Isack Marembe and Kisham Makui study the animal’s body and everything around it, doing a roadside postmortem. “A hyena,” Marembe says. But the culprit wasn’t a hyena. The hyena just happened to pass by and take a bite from the dead wildebeest’s side. The killer was—it is—an enduring drought driven…

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Postal Service will electrify trucks by 2026 in climate win for Biden

Postal Service will electrify trucks by 2026 in climate win for Biden

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. Postal Service will buy 66,000 vehicles to build one of the largest electric fleets in the nation, Biden administration officials announced Tuesday, turning to one of the most recognizable vehicles on American roads — boxy white mail trucks — to fight climate change. Postal officials’ plans call for buying 60,000 “Next Generation Delivery Vehicles” from defense contractor Oshkosh, of which 45,000 will be electric, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told The Washington Post. The agency…

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The role of billionaires in directing climate policy

The role of billionaires in directing climate policy

The Washington Post reports: They are not elected to any office. But in the fight against global warming, the world’s billionaires have more influence than many heads of state. As government struggles to move quickly to contain greenhouse gases, ultrawealthy investors and philanthropists are increasingly grabbing the reins, using their fortunes to guide the transition to cleaner energy toward their favored projects and market strategies. They are men with household names like Jeff Bezos (net worth: $113 billion, according to…

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