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Photographers are protecting environment with their wors

12/03/2021 News

The final moments before the death of the last male northern white rhino, a 66-year-old elephant swimming in the ocean, and renowned primatologist Jane Goodall searching for chimpanzees in Tanzania in the early 1960s; these are all moments captured in a collection of powerful photographs that have been donated to raise funds for conservation projects, CNN reports.

Works by 100 photographers from around the world will be sold until the end of the year by Vital Impacts, a non-profit that provides financial support to community-orientated conservation organizations and amplifies the work of photographers who are raising awareness of their efforts. Contributing is a who’s who of nature photography, including Paul Nicklen, Ami Vitale, Jimmy Chin, Chris Burkard, Nick Brandt, Beth Moon, Stephen Wilkes and Goodall herself.

“Each image has a really profound story behind it,” said Vitale, an award-winning photographer and co-founder of Vital Impacts. “I worked really hard when I was curating this to make sure that these photographers are diverse, but the one thing they all share is this commitment to the planet. They’re using their art to help conservation.”

An inspiration to the world’

Goodall’s photograph of herself, sitting with a telescope on a high peak in Gombe, Tanzania, was taken around 1962 using a camera that she fastened to a tree branch. “I was pretty proud of myself. I love that picture,” said Goodall in a video message for Vital Impacts. All the proceeds from her self-portrait will go to supporting her Roots & Shoots program, which educates young people and empowers them to care for the world.

Jane Goodall's "Self Portrait," from the early 1960s, in Tanzania. — Jane Goodall`s “Self Portrait”, from the early 1960s, in Tanzania.

“It’s breathtaking work,” said Vitale, who only found out that Goodall was a photographer after reaching out to her about supporting the program. “She’s been such an inspiration to the world. This one woman has had such an impact for the betterment of the planet.”

Vital Impacts has tried to make the print sale carbon neutral by planting trees for every print that is made. Sixty percent of profits from the sale will be divided between four groups involved in wildlife or habitat protection: Big Life Foundation, Great Plains Foundation’s Project Ranger, Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots program, and SeaLegacy. The remaining 40% will go to the photographers to help them continue their work.

‘Our shared life raft’

Vitale was a conflict photographer for a decade before becoming a wildlife photographer. She hopes that people will be “inspired by all of this work” and that the photographs make people “fall in love” with our “magnificent planet.”

“The planet is our shared life raft and we’ve poked some holes in it, but it’s not too late,” added Vitale. “We can all do little acts that can have profound impacts. That’s kind of why I named it ‘Vital Impacts,’ because I think very often we are all so disconnected and don’t realize how we are interconnected. Everything we do impact one another and shapes this world.”

One of her photographs in the print sale, “Goodbye Sudan,” shows Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, being comforted by one of his keepers, Joseph Wachira, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in northern Kenya moments before the rhino’s death in March 2018. Now, two females are all that remains of this species.

"Goodbye Sudan" by Ami Vitale shows the moments before the death of the last male northern white rhino in 2018. — “Goodbye Sudan” by Ami Vitale shows the moments before the death of the last male northern white rhino in 2018.

“It’s such an important story to me because it made me realize that watching these animals go extinct is actually like watching our own demise in slow motion, knowing that it’s going to impact humanity,” said Vitale.

“It’s so deeply interwoven. That’s what led me down this path and now I really try to find these stories which show us a way forward, where people are learning how to coexist and protect wildlife and the habitats that we all share.”

Which Christmas tree should you choose to save the climate?

11/30/2021 News

It’s the time of the year when most Americans finish Thanksgiving leftovers and venture out in search for the best holiday sales. More importantly, they plan their household centerpiece of the season: the Christmas tree, CNN reports.

While some revel in the scent of a real tree and the joy of picking one out at a local farm, others prefer the simplicity of artificial trees they can reuse for Christmases to come.

But consumers are becoming more climate-conscious, and considering which tree has the lowest impact on our rapidly warming planet has become a vital part of the holiday decision. Plus, choosing a planet-friendly tree will likely get you on Santa’s good list.

So, which kind of tree has the lowest carbon footprint — a natural tree or a store-bought plastic tree? It’s complicated, experts say.

“It’s definitely a lot more nuanced and complex than you think,” Andy Finton, the landscape conservation director and forest ecologist for the Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts.

We’ve made a list — and checked it twice — of the things to know before you choose between real and artificial.

The case for artificial trees

It’s easy to imagine that reusing an artificial tree year after year is the more sustainable option. But Finton says if an artificial tree is used for fewer than six years, the carbon cost is greater than investing in a natural tree.

“If the artificial trees are used for a longer lifespan, that balance changes,” Finton. “And I’ve read that it would take 20 years for the carbon balance to be about equivalent.”

That’s because artificial trees are typically made of polyvinyl chloride plastic, or PVC. Plastic is petroleum-based and created at pollution-belching petrochemical facilities. Studies have also linked PVC plastic to cancer and other public health and environmental risks.

Then there’s the transportation aspect. According to the US Department of Commerce, most artificial Christmas trees are imported into the US from China, meaning the products are carried by fossil fuel-powered ships across the Pacific Ocean, then moved by heavy freight trucks before it ultimately lands on the distributor’s shelves or the consumer’s doorstep.

The American Christmas Tree Association, a nonprofit that represents artificial tree manufacturers, commissioned WAP Sustainability Consulting for a study in 2018 that found the environmental impact of an artificial tree is better than a real tree if you use the fake tree for at least five years.

“Artificial trees were looked at [in the study] for factors such as manufacturing and overseas transportation,” Jami Warner, executive director of ACTA. “Planting, fertilizing and watering were taken into account for real trees, which have an approximate field cultivation period of seven to eight years.”

What are the benefits of real trees?

On average, it takes seven years to fully grow a Christmas tree, according to the National Christmas Tree Association. And as it grows, it absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. Protecting forests and planting trees can help stave off the worst impacts of the climate crisis by removing the planet-warming gas from the atmosphere.

If trees are cut down or burned, they can release the carbon they’ve been storing back into the atmosphere. But Doug Hundley, spokesperson for the National Christmas Tree Association, which advocates for real trees, says the act of cutting down Christmas trees from a farm is balanced out when farmers immediately plant more seedlings to replace them.

“When we harvest the trees or cut them, we plant back very quickly,” Hundley said.

If the idea of trekking through a forest to find the perfect tree is intriguing, you can buy a permit from the US Forest Service, which encourages people to cut their own tree rather than buy an artificial one. According to Recreation.gov, cutting down thin trees in dense areas can improve forest health.

But Finton doesn’t recommend pulling a Clark Griswold and chopping down a massive tree to haul home — especially if it’s in an area you’re not permitted for. He recommends getting a tree from a local farm, instead.

“To me, the benefit of going to a Christmas tree farm, which is different than cutting a tree in the forest, is that it concentrates the impact of removing trees into one location,” he said. “And it puts the responsibility on the farmers to regenerate those trees.”

There’s also an economic benefit to going natural, since most of the trees people end up getting are grown at nearby farms. About 15,000 farms grow Christmas trees in the US alone, employing over 100,000 people either full or part-time in the industry, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.

“What we’re doing by purchasing a natural Christmas tree is supporting local economies, local communities, local farmers and to me, that’s a key part of the conservation equation,” Finton said. “When a tree grower can reap economic benefits from their land, they’re less likely to sell it for development and less likely to convert it to other uses.”

Disposal matters

Trees pile up on the curbs after the holidays are over, and the final destination in many locations is landfills, where they contribute to emissions of methane — a powerful greenhouse gas roughly 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

“Real Christmas trees ending up in landfills is very much discouraged,” Hundley said, adding that there needs to be “separate areas for yard waste where Christmas trees can go.”

But some towns and cities repurpose the trees to benefit the climate and the environment. In New York City, trees left on curbs during a certain timeframe are picked up to be recycled or composted. The city sanitation department also hosts an initiative called MulchFest, where residents can bring their trees to be chipped for mulch and used to nourish other trees throughout the city.

“When the tree is finished being used by the homeowner, it’s very easy and common in America to have the tree chopped up into mulch — and that’s stored carbon is put back in the ground,” Hundley added.

Finton also says former Christmas trees can be reused for habitat restoration; they can help control erosion if placed along stream and river banks, and can even help underwater habitats thrive if they are placed in rivers and lakes.

The end of life for an artificial tree is much different. They end up in landfills — where they could take hundreds of years to decompose — or incinerators, where they release hazardous chemicals.

The bottom line

Weighing the complicated climate pros and cons, real Christmas trees have the edge. But if you choose to deck your halls artificially, get a tree you’re going to love and reuse for many years.

Either way, Finton said, people should feel good about their decision and find other ways to tackle the climate crisis.

“It’s a debate, but once you’ve made a decision, you should feel good about your decision, because there’s so many other things we can do in our lives that have an even greater climate impact — such as driving less or advocating for policies that expand renewable energy,” Finton said. “Enjoy the holidays and focus on other aspects of your life to reduce the impacts of climate change.”

Google promise to develop Africa ‘s digital ecosystem

11/30/2021 News

Africa has the lowest rate of internet connectivity of any region in the world. But that also means it has the highest potential for new growth, CNN reports.

During the pandemic in 2020, nearly 20 million more Africans subscribed to a mobile service than in the previous year, according to industry trade group Global System for Mobile Communications (GSMA), with 4G connections set to double over the next four years.

Tech giants such as Google – which expects hundreds of millions more people to come online across the continent for the first time in the next few years – are moving quickly in the race for Africa’s digital inclusion.

Last year, Google’s joint report with the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation forecasted Africa’s “e-conomy” value would reach $180 billion by 2025.

This has arguably fueled the company’s commitment of a $1 billion investment in Africa, announced last month – focusing on grants for businesses, supporting entrepreneurship and a significant infrastructure plan to broaden internet access across the continent.

After the announcement, CNN’s Larry Madowo spoke to Nitin Gajria, Google’s managing director for sub-Saharan Africa, about the company’s plan to improve internet connectivity in Africa and support the continent’s digital transformation.

Larry Madowo: Google has made a big deal of investing in the digital landscape in Africa. What regions or specific sectors are you most excited about investing in?

Nitin Gajria: We were thrilled to have announced our $1 billion commitment over the next five years on the continent. These are really mainly in three areas: first, our initiatives related to connectivity, and how do we bring the power of the internet into more hands. The second part of it is how do we help entrepreneurs and small businesses succeed with the internet. And the third part of this commitment is a renewal of our non-profit partnerships on the continent.

We’ve just announced a $50 million Africa investment fund aimed at the growth state startups. That’s one of the things I’m really excited about, our initiatives related to the startup ecosystem on the continent.

LM: How is Google approaching some of the infrastructure challenges that are famous on the continent and the opportunities to build from the ground up?

NG: A few years ago, we would’ve been sitting here talking about how network coverage is a massive challenge. And I think that some of those challenges are being solved. The thing that I think about is the number of internet users that we’re going to have on the continent in the next three to five years. And how do we have the capacity to serve those users in an effective fashion with the right kind of speeds, with the right kind of bandwidth and so on.

And one of the things is “Equiano,” a subsea cable that we are building along the west coast of Africa which links Europe to Africa. We’ve already announced landing points in Nigeria, in Namibia and in South Africa. This type of capacity that Equiano is going to bring in will have a profound effect on internet speeds, on data costs and just the overall internet experience in the places that impacts.

LM: Can you talk about the role of smartphones in making sure that this is a mobile-first continent and how Google approaches that?

NG: When you look at the profile of new internet users, they tend to use the internet for very different purposes than the first billion people that got onto the internet. As an example, one really profound and interesting shift is somebody that’s never used a keyboard on a laptop or a computer ever before, and for them to encounter a QWERTY keyboard that you normally have in your phone is a really strange experience; which then sort of raises really interesting questions about how do we create an internet that one can interact with through voice or products that can work in local languages. These are the kinds of challenges that I think we need to be very aware of as the next billion people get online.

LM: We like to say in Africa that we’re not a monolith. Talk about what talent you see coming out of the continent versus the rest of the world.

NG: We know that there are going to be more young people in Africa for the foreseeable future than anywhere else in the world. And that just means that you have a base of talent that can go on to build amazing things in Africa. We also see a small but growing and thriving developer population. I do believe that developers are an essential ingredient in any vibrant internet ecosystem. We do see an opportunity and some headroom in terms of growth for developer talent.

LM: As the guy running Google in sub-Saharan Africa, what keeps you up at night?

NG: One is connectivity. Some of the most profound challenges yet the most exciting opportunities on the continent is we have 1.1 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa, (but) only about 300 million people are using the internet in any way, shape or form. So, there’s about 800 million people that have never experienced the power of the internet — how do we bridge that gap? We expect 300 million people to come online over the next five years and after that we expect a lot more.

I’m really excited about the work that various players in the ecosystem are doing. And that’s just talking about the subsea cables that are being built to serve Africa. But there’s also a ton of work being done inland from an infrastructure perspective, whether it’s by the Telco’s or other infrastructure providers and all of this collectively will hopefully go on to solve some of the connectivity challenges that we have on the continent.

Venomous sharks were found in Thames river

11/12/2021 News

London’s famous river is more exciting than we thought. Seahorses, eels, seals, and venomous sharks have all been discovered in the Thames, the results of a “health check” have shown, CNN reports.

A survey by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) revealed “positive news” for wildlife, and ecosystem recovery, the society said Wednesday.

Back in 1957, the capital city’s river was declared “biologically dead.”

But now, surprising creatures, like sharks including tope, starry smooth-hound, and spurdog – a slender fish measuring some 23 inches and covered in venomous spines — have been found.

Spurdogs can be found in deep water, and the spines in front of the shark’s two dorsal fins secrete a venom that can cause pain and swell in humans.

Tope shark, which feeds on fish and crustaceans and can reach 6 feet and up to 106 pounds, has never launched an unprovoked attack on humans, according to the UK’s Wildlife Trusts.

Meanwhile, the starry smooth-hound, which can reach up to 4 feet and 25 pounds, mostly eats crustaceans, shellfish, and mollusks.

However, the number of fish species found in the tidal areas of the river has shown a slight decline, and conservation scientists have warned that further research is needed to understand why.

The 215-mile river, home to more than 115 species of fish and 92 species of bird, faces pollution and climate change threats, ZSL warned.

The river also provides drinking water, food, livelihoods, and protection from coastal flooding to surrounding communities.

Water levels have been increasing since monitoring began in 1911 in the tidal section of the Thames, rising at some points by 0.17 inch a year on average since 1990.

“As water temperature and sea levels continue to rise above historic baselines, the estuary’s wildlife will be particularly impacted, through changes to species’ lifecycles and ranges,” ZSL warned in a statement.

How to control climate change?

11/12/2021 News

The COP26 climate summit in Glasgow has been billed as a last chance to limit global warming to 1.5C. But beyond the deals and photo opportunities, what are the key things countries need to do in order to tackle climate change? BBC reports.

1. Keep fossil fuels in the ground

Burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and especially coal, releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, trapping heat and raising global temperatures.

It’s an issue that has to be tackled at the government level if temperature rises are to be limited to 1.5C – the level considered the gateway to dangerous climate change.

However, many major coal-dependent countries – such as Australia, the US, China and India – have declined to sign a deal at the summit aimed at phasing out the energy source in the coming decades.

2. Curb methane emissions

A recent UN report has suggested that reducing emissions of methane could make an important contribution to tackling the planetary emergency.

A substantial amount of methane is released from “flaring” – the burning of natural gas during oil extraction – and could be stopped with technical fixes. Finding better ways of disposing of rubbish is also important because landfill sites are another big methane source.

At COP26, nearly 100 countries agreed to cut methane emissions, in a deal spearheaded by the US and the EU. The Global Methane Pledge aims to limit methane emissions by 30% compared with 2020 levels.

3. Switch to renewable energy

Many wind turbines and a large solar panel array in a desert valley, mountains in the distance and blue sky above. Palm Springs, California, USA

Electricity and heat generation make a greater contribution to global emissions than any economic sector.

Transforming the global energy system from one reliant on fossil fuels to one dominated by clean technology – known as decarbonization – is critical for meeting current climate goals.

Wind and solar power will need to dominate the energy mix by 2050 if countries are to deliver on their net zero targets.

There are challenges, however.

Less wind means less electricity generated, but better battery technology could help us store surplus energy from renewables, ready to be released when needed.

4. Abandon petrol and diesel

We’ll also need to change the way we power the vehicles we use to get around on land, sea and in the air.

Ditching petrol and diesel cars and switching to electric vehicles will be critical.

Lorries and buses could be powered by hydrogen fuel, ideally produced using renewable energy.

And scientists are working on new, cleaner fuels for aircraft, although campaigners are also urging people to reduce the number of flights they take.

5. Plant more trees

A UN report in 2018 said that, to have a realistic chance of keeping the global temperature rise under 1.5C, we’ll have to remove CO2 from the air.

Forests are excellent at soaking it up from the atmosphere – one reason why campaigners and scientists emphasize the need to protect the natural world by reducing deforestation.

Programs of mass tree planting are seen as a way of offsetting CO2 emissions.

Trees are likely to be important as countries wrestle with their net-zero targets because once emissions have been reduced as much as possible, remaining emissions could be “canceled out” by carbon sinks such as forests.

6. Remove greenhouse gases from the air

Emerging technologies that artificially remove CO2 from the atmosphere, or stop it being released in the first place, could play a role.

A number of direct-air capture facilities are being developed, including plants built by Carbon Engineering in Texas and Climeworks in Switzerland. They work by using huge fans to push air through a chemical filter that absorbs CO2.

Another method is carbon capture and storage, which captures emissions at “point sources” where they are produced, such as at coal-fired power plants. The CO2 is then buried deep underground.

However, the technology is expensive – and controversial, because it is seen by critics as helping perpetuate a reliance on fossil fuels.

7. Give financial aid to help poorer countries

New Delhi, India – July 25, 2018: A poor boy collecting garbage waste from a landfill site in the outskirts of Delhi. Hundreds of children work at these sites to earn their livelihood.

At the Copenhagen COP summit in 2009, rich countries pledged to provide $100bn (£74.6bn) in financing by 2020, designed to help developing countries fight and adapt to climate change.

That target date has not been met, although the UK government, as holders of the COP presidency, recently outlined a plan for putting the funding in place by 2023.

Many coal-dependent countries are facing severe energy shortages that jeopardize their recovery from Covid and disproportionately affect the poor. These factors stop them from moving away from polluting industries.

Some experts believe poorer nations will need continuing financial support to help them move towards greener energy. For instance, the US, EU and UK recently provided $8.5bn to help South Africa phase out coal use.

If global warming will be over 1.5 degrees Australia’s Great Barrier Reef will die

11/04/2021 News

A study released on Friday by an Australian university looking at multiple catastrophes hitting the Great Barrier Reef has found for the first time that only 2% of its area has escaped bleaching since 1998, then the world’s hottest year on record, Reuters reports.

If global warming is kept to 1.5 degrees, the maximum rise in average global temperature that was the focus of the COP26 United Nations climate conference, the mix of corals on the Barrier Reef will change but it could still thrive, said the study’s lead author Professor Terry Hughes, of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

“If we can hold global warming to 1.5 degrees global average warming then I think we’ll still have a vibrant Great Barrier Reef,” he said.

Bleaching is a stress response by overheated corals during heat waves, where they lose their colour and many struggles to survive. Eighty percent of the World Heritage-listed wonder has been bleached severely at least once since 2016, the study by James Cook University in Australia’s Queensland state found.

“Even the most remote, most pristine parts of the Great Barrier Reef have now bleached severely at least once,” Hughes said.

The study found the corals adapted to have a higher heat threshold if they had survived a previous bleaching event, but the gap between bleaching events has shrunk, giving the reefs less time to recover between each episode.

Australia, which last week said it would not back a pledge led by the United States and the European Union to cut methane emissions, needs to do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Hughes said.

“The government is still issuing permits for new coal mines and for new methane gas deals and it’s simply irresponsible in terms of Australia’s responsibilities to the Great Barrier Reef,” he said.

The Great Barrier Reef is comprised of more than 3,000 individual reefs stretching for 2,300km (1,429 miles). The ecosystem supports 65,000 jobs in reef tourism. Globally, hundreds of millions of people depend on the survival of coral reefs for their livelihoods and food security.

“If we go to 3, 4 degrees of global average warming which is tragically the trajectory we are currently on, then there won’t be much left of the Great Barrier Reef or any other coral reefs throughout the tropics,” Hughes told.

The world should adopt faster to the climate crisis – UN report

11/04/2021 News

The gap is widening between the impacts of the climate crisis and the world’s effort to adapt to them, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme, CNN reports.

The annual “adaptation gap” report — which published Thursday amid the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow — found that the estimated costs to adapt to the worst effects of warming temperatures such as droughts, floods and rising seas in low-income countries are five to 10 times higher than how much money is currently flowing into those regions.

In addition to promising to limit warming, governments from wealthy nations in the 2015 Paris Accord reaffirmed their commitment to contribute $100 billion a year to poorer nations to move away from fossil fuel and adapt to climate change-fueled disasters. This is because developing nations, particularly those in the Global South, are most likely to endure the worst effects of the climate crisis, despite the small amount they contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the UNEP, said this is why climate finance — funding for low-income countries to fight the climate crisis — is vital.

“The Paris Accord says adaptation and mitigation funding needs to be in a degree of balance,” Andersen told CNN. “Those in poorer countries are going to suffer the very most, so ensuring that there’s a degree of equity and a degree of global solidarity for adaptation finance is critical.”

But the report found that $100 billion a year — a pledge which wealthy nations have so far been unable to achieve — isn’t even enough to match the demand. Adaptation costs for low-income countries will hit $140 to 300 billion each year by 2030 and $280 to 500 billion per year by 2050, UNEP reports.

In 2019, only $79 billion of climate financing flowed into developing nations, according to the latest analysis.

As the climate crisis intensifies, adaptation measures are becoming more critical. Global scientists have said the world should try to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — a critical threshold to avoid the worst impacts. But Thursday’s report suggests this threshold will be breached sooner than previously imagined, and some climate impacts are already irreversible. Wildfires, droughts, record heat waves and deadly floods terrorized parts of the Northern Hemisphere this summer.

“While strong mitigation is the way to minimize impacts and long-term costs, increased ambition in terms of adaptation, particularly for finance and implementation, is critical to prevent existing gaps widening,” the report’s authors wrote.

Roughly 79% of all countries have adopted at least one adaptation plan, policy or strategy to stem the impact, a 7% increase since 2020. Meanwhile, 9% of countries that don’t currently have a plan or policy in place are in the process of developing one.

But the report says implementation of these adaptation measures is stalling. A separate UNEP report found that 15 major economies will continue to produce roughly 110% more coal, oil, and gas in 2030 than what’s necessary to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, which will worsen climate change-fueled extreme weather events and make adaptation all the more critical.

At a forum on vulnerable countries at COP26 this week, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on wealthy nations, banks and shareholders to “allocate half their climate finance to adaptation” and “offer debt relief” for low-income nations.

“Vulnerable countries must have faster and easier access to finance,” Guterres said. “I urge the developed world to accelerate delivery on the $100 billion dollars to rebuild trust. Vulnerable countries need it for adaptation and for mitigation. [They] are not the cause of climate disruption.”

One way to tackle this, according to the report’s authors, is to use Covid-19 recovery stimulus packages as an opportunity to deliver green and resilient adaptation measures to developing countries. The twin crises of climate change and the pandemic have stretched economic and disaster response thin, but authors say it proves the world can adapt to the worst impacts of warming temperatures.

The adaptation gap report comes at a critical time as world leaders gather at COP26 to discuss the probability of keeping the goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius alive, as well as also ensuring that wealthy, fossil fuel-generating nations hold on to their promise of transferring $100 billion a year to low-income countries, particularly in the Global South.

Andersen said one thing is clear: “The more we delay climate action, the more adaptation will become important, especially for the most poor, who are going to be hit the hardest.”

What TV news green activists should watch?

10/29/2021 News

When environmental activists, government officials and corporate leaders descend on Glasgow for COP26, there will be plenty of articles, videos and books floating around that extol the virtues of being green. One piece of content unlikely to be circling much is Blown Away: The People Vs Wind Power, a documentary currently airing on Fox News in the US. But Glasgow attendees would do well to watch it, FT reports.

The film features Tucker Carlson, the genial-looking TV host with a dyspeptic streak who underwent a conversion from bow-tie-wearing prep into rightwing barker in the Trump era. In the 26-minute film, he travels across the country to “expose the hidden costs of the green energy agenda”. What he seems most angry about is the “death and destruction brought on by these monstrosities” known as wind turbines.

Never mind the fact that most Glasgow attendees view wind power as such a self-evidently wonderful thing that turbine photos plaster the COP26 programme. Carlson thinks that wind farms threaten the livelihood of fishermen (because turbines are being built offshore), harm pristine forests and jeopardise the safety of ordinary US workers, since they can sometimes fail and cause a power cut.

“This is about enrich[ing] the most powerful people in the country at the expense of the most vulnerable — it’s exploitation of the weak by the powerful,” says Carlson. “It’s foreign companies that will make a fortune.” More specifically, he hates the fact that companies from Spain, Norway and Denmark are running the turbines and that financiers such as Warren Buffett and banks including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are involved.

If you’re in Glasgow, you’re no doubt rolling your eyes by now or perhaps correctly retorting that, say, a coal mine does more damage than any Scandinavian turbine. But even if you disagree with Carlson’s attacks, it would be a mistake to ignore him for at least three reasons.

First, and most obviously, we live in an era when political tribes are losing the ability to empathise with others and when it is dangerously easy for anyone, particularly activists, to slip into groupthink. Not only has lockdown kept us trapped with our own social groups for a long period, but as we have dashed online we have tended to intensify our tribal affiliations. Technology, after all, makes it so easy to customise our identities and confirm our biases.

As a result, I suspect few Glasgow attendees even know that Carlson is so angry about wind turbines, or are likely to see clips of his diatribes in their social media feeds. Even though the show he fronts, Tucker Carlson Tonight, is the highest-rated on American cable TV, with 3.42 million nightly viewers.

Second, even if you dislike Carlson’s overall stance, there are grains of truth in some of what he says. Take his charge about elitism.

As Blown Away reports, one feature of wind farms is that they tend to be located in remote, rural areas or places subject to what wind engineers call the “Starbucks Rules”. As one explains on camera, “Never try to site a wind project within 30 miles of a Starbucks . . . because the demographic that is willing to pay a premium price for Starbucks coffee has the education and wherewithal to organise to resist wind projects.” Nimby-ism — Not In My Back Yard — predominates.

This was recently on display in the Hamptons, the wealthy enclave near New York, when a wind farm company proposed running a cable through one beach town. Such was the local outcry that the project was shelved. This is far from the only inequitable issue haunting green policies. If gas prices rise because of a carbon tax, it is poor — not elite — voters who suffer relatively more. If coal mines are shut down, it will not be urban voters who lose their jobs.

Green activists ignore this at their peril; without government action to offset these effects, we will see more episodes like the gilets jaunes demonstrations against fuel-price hikes that erupted in Paris a few years ago. And more angry Fox News coverage.

Which leads to my third point: cultural issues and affiliations matter. Covid-19 showed us you cannot beat a pandemic with medical and computing science alone. You need to shift behaviour too. The same applies to green policies. People who fear that wind turbines are destroying their livelihoods — or who define their political identity by watching Fox — will not listen to lectures by scientists. Behaviour will only change if “green” issues are presented to different communities with empathy and respect — and proper incentives.

This will not be easy. Last week, the UK government’s Behavioural Insights Team published a research paper urging ministers to use social science insights to “nudge” people to be green. However, it was withdrawn from the government’s website a few hours later.

Yet, even if the gulf between Fox News and the COP26 crowd seems hopelessly wide, neither can afford to simply dismiss or deride the other. Think of that when you see glossy photos of turbines in Glasgow; Carlson’s resistance isn’t entirely hot air.

Rome airport plans to launch flying taxis

10/29/2021 News

Passengers flying into Rome from 2024 onwards will be able to go airborne for their taxi ride into the city center too, if a project between the company operating its main airport and a German startup lifts off on schedule, CNN reports.

Startup Volocopter hopes to make Fiumicino Airport a pioneer site for the rotor-bladed, battery-powered two-seater air taxi it is developing.

Aeroporti di Roma (AdR) CEO Marco Troncone said the journey in one of the craft, which takes off and lands vertically, will take around 15 minutes, compared with 45 minutes or more by car.

The initial cost of a ride will be around 150 euros ($175), a price likely to drop as the service goes mainstream, he said.

“The connection will be very swift,” he told Reuters at Fiumicino, where Volocopter was showcasing a prototype. “It will be a silent journey and … the level of emissions will be zero.”

Volocopter, founded in 2011, hopes to get a commercial air license from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) within three years and then start operations, its Chief Commercial Officer Christian Bauer said.

Rome is seen as the third most suitable European city behind Paris – where Volocopter said in June it hoped to have a service in operation in time for the 2024 Olympic Games – and Berlin for the development of air taxis, an EASA study showed.

Climate change will affect on all the countries – Biden administration

10/22/2021 News

A series of new reports from the Biden administration will issue a stark warning on Thursday: The effects of climate change will be wide-reaching and will pose problems for every government, CNN reports.

“No country will be spared from the challenges directly related to climate change,” a senior administration official told reporters in a call previewing the reports.

The four reports — which President Joe Biden called for in executive orders in January and February — not only analyze issues currently being made worse by climate change, they examine future threats facing the United States. The release includes a report on migration, a National Intelligence Estimate, and separate reports from the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security. The reports come 10 days before the President is scheduled to attend the international climate conference known as COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland.

“These analyses will serve as a foundation for critical work on climate and security moving forward,” a senior administration official told reporters during a call Wednesday evening, on the condition of not being named. “It’s important to flag that these analyses reinforce the President’s commitment to the United States making evidence-based decisions, guided by the best available science and data.”

Among the reports, which were released later Thursday morning, the administration details how climate change is driving migration, the first time the US government is officially recognizing the link between climate change and migration.

It “identifies migration as an important form of adaptation to the impact of climate change, and in some cases an essential response to climate threat,” the official explained.

That threat will cause people to move to the “nearest stable democracies that adhere to international asylum conventions and are strong economies,” they added.

In many cases, that will mean US allies or partner countries that have already experienced climate-related influxes of migration, and are vulnerable to “greater insecurity,” such as Greece, Turkey, the United Kingdom and France.

The official noted that the administration was “very careful not to frame migration as a purely negative coping mechanism.”

“Our goals remain to ensure that migration for any reason is done in a safe, orderly and humane pathway,” the official said.

Asked about migration from Central America in particular — which has been straining US resources as waves of migrants show up at the country’s southern border — the official said they would “let the report speak for itself.”

“The migration report does talk about different countries and regions that are affected by climate migration and includes countries within the Western Hemisphere, and what we can do along those lines as well,” they said, declining to get into specifics.

The White House will also release a National Intelligence Estimate — an “authoritative assessment” that represents a consensus view of all 18 intelligence agencies — that provides a “geopolitical analysis of the implications and risks to the United States” posed by climate change.

“Climate change will increasingly exacerbate a number of risks to US national security interests from both physical impacts that could cascade into security challenges, to help countries respond to the climate challenge,” the senior official said. The broad categories of risk will include increased geopolitical tension, cross-border geopolitical flashpoints as countries “take steps to secure their interests,” and the risk that climate change will destabilize countries internally.

“The Intelligence Committee judges all of these risks will increase, and that no country will be spared from the challenges directly related to climate change,” the official said.

Another report from the Department of Defense will focus on “the strategic and mission implications of climate change.” The official said it provides a “starting point” for how the Defense Department will tackle climate change and the effects it will have, laying out “a path forward.”

“Both climate change threats and the global efforts to address climate change will influence US defense, strategic interests, relationships, competition and priorities,” the official told reporters, adding that the report identifies “security implications of climate change for DoD at the strategic level, including impacts to missions, international partners, as well as risks to region, to protect our national security.”

A fourth analysis from the Department of Homeland Security gives “a strategic framework for addressing climate change to govern the department’s efforts to combat the climate crisis,” the official said.

“The strategic framework builds on DHS Climate Action Plan, and applies to strategy, plans, policy and budgets across DHS,” the official previewed. It includes plans for “empowering individuals and communities to develop climate resilience,” and building readiness to respond to increases in climate driven emergencies.

“It’s a really pivotal moment to underscore how the US is thinking about climate security, its risks, how we’re responding to many of those, and the heightened urgency we face in addressing climate change across all the different strategies and tools we have in our toolbox to demonstrate US leadership on this critical issue,” the senior administration official said.