Extinction, Monsoons, Activism, Nuclear, Renewables

The Change Within: The Obstacles We Face Are Not Just External. One of the most disturbing ways that climate change is already playing out is where warming causes animals to fall out of step with a critical food source, particularly at breeding times, when a failure to find enough food can lead to rapid population losses.

 

Research indicates that weather shocks cause increased crime rates. Will changing climate and weather patterns have any impact on murders and robberies? One recent study, which focuses on India, is not encouraging.

 

India’s rain woes grow bigger, scientists worried. Too little is understood about how pollution and rising temperatures are impacting the monsoon. But new research shows that they are surely having an impact on the climate.

 

Solar project won’t qualify for last of Oregon’s $10 million energy tax credits. The sun may have finally set on a $10 million state tax credit that was repeatedly resurrected by developers and state regulators to support an on-again-off-again solar project in south-central Oregon.

 

Spain’s wetlands wonder is under threat for a second time in 16 years. Doñana National Park, a haven filled with rare birds and wildlife survived a toxic flood. Now, tourism, an oil pipeline, demand for water and the return of mining have left it on a knife edge.

 

Duckweed is cleaning up ponds, lagoons. Duckweed is the subject of an experiment at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences that shows how the plant virtually eliminates pollution by removing nitrogen and phosphates from water.

 

Persecuted and Imprisoned for Environmental Activism. Around the world, environmental activists are imprisoned for peaceful acts to save us all.

Megan Rice, 82, a Roman Catholic nun and activist against nuclear arms, in Knoxville. Rice and two male accomplices await an October trial after breaching security at the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation in Tennessee on July 28. (Photo: Shawn Poynter / The New York Times)

 

Getting Arrested to Resist Keystone XL Is Legally Justified.Direct action in protesting the Keystone XL pipeline is necessary to prevent a far greater harm. These actions represent not only the assertion of a public right, but also the fulfillment of a citizen’s duty under US law and the US Constitution.

A #NoKXL activist is arrested during a sit-in outside TransCanada’s Houston offices in 2013. (Photo: Aaron M. Sprecher / NoKXL)

 

Google’s ‘green’ energy plan: Build, learn, expand. Google and other top US corporations are switching to renewable energy as a way to burnish their brands. 

Sunlight is concentrated onto a boiler on Tower One at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert. Steve Marcus/Reuters/File

 

Construction halted at Taiwan nuclear plant after protests. Taiwan said Sunday that it would stop construction at a controversial nuclear power plant, after tens of thousands of protesters blockaded a main street in the capital calling for the project to be scrapped.

Taiwanese people carry a flag with the radioactivity trefoil symbol in an anti-nuclear demonstration last March. Another rally was held in April. David Chang/EPA

 

Local anti-fracking activist wins world’s largest environmental prize. The world’s largest environmental prize has been awarded to an Ithaca-based lawyer who has helped organize fracking bans in dozens of New York communities.

Helen Slottje. (Goldman Prize)

 

Efforts to zap bacteria in food are slow to catch hold. The nuclear energy that Frank Benso uses to kill bacteria in fruit and oysters has won widespread support from public health officials and scientists, who say it could turn the tide against the plague of foodborne illness.

Gunner Nelson uses the Gray Star Genesis II Unit to irradiate oysters at Gateway America in Gulfport. (Sean Gardner/For The Washington Post)

 

Long-struggling California condor may soar again. The Yurok tribe has secured support for new reintroduction sites for the critically endangered California condor, on the heels of a historic state law banning the use of lead bullets, the main cause of the birds’ high mortality in the wild.

A tagged California condor soars along the coast of Big Sur. The agreements may lead to the first release of captive-bred condors into the northern half of their historic range – the Redwood Coast of Northern California. (AP Photo/Ventana Wildlife Society, Tim Huntington)

 

Renewables Beat Fossil Fuels 6 Months in a Row. Every day seems to bring more news of another city or company that has blown past its clean energy targets, or another region where solar and wind power are now cheaper than coal and gas.

The question is no longer if we can create an economy powered by 100 percent clean energy, but how fast we can do it and who will own it. Photo credit: Wikipedia

 

 

Sources: Charlotte Observer, Christian Science Monitor, Daily Climate, Eco Watch, The Guardian, Popular Resistance, Truthout, Washington Post.

 

Paul Brown is a retired neuroscience professor whose primary interests are human rights, overpopulation, mass extinction, global warming, and the military-industrial complex. Links to all his Before It’s News articles are at /contributor/pages/189/210/stories.html.