‘Catastrophic’: Sierra Leone sells rainforest for Chinese harbour

A $55m (£39m) deal struck by the government of Sierra Leone with China to build an industrial fishing harbour on 100 hectares (250 acres) of beach and protected rainforest has been criticised as “a catastrophic human and ecological disaster” by conservationists, landowners and rights groups.

The gold and black sands of Black Johnson beach fringe the African nation’s Western Area Peninsula national park, home to endangered species including the duiker antelope and pangolins. The waters are rich in sardines, barracuda and grouper, caught by local fishermen who produce 70% of the fish for the domestic market.

Solar Panels Are Starting to Die. What Will We Do With the Megatons of Toxic Trash?

Solar panels are an increasingly important source of renewable power that will play an essential role in fighting climate change. They are also complex pieces of technology that become big, bulky sheets of electronic waste at the end of their lives—and right now, most of the world doesn’t have a plan for dealing with that.

But we’ll need to develop one soon, because the solar e-waste glut is coming. By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects that up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life, and that the world will be generating about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually. While the latter number is a small fraction of the total e-waste humanity produces each year, standard electronics recycling methods don’t cut it for solar panels. Recovering the most valuable materials from one, including silver and silicon, requires bespoke recycling solutions. And if we fail to develop those solutions along with policies that support their widespread adoption, we already know what will happen.

Lithium mining for 'green' electric cars is leaving a stain on the planet

In 2018, the International Energy Agency (IEA) made a prediction that had the potential to disrupt the auto industry: by 2030, there would be nearly 125 million electric vehicles owned by people around the world, they said. That was a significant increase compared to the 3.1 million electric vehicles globally owned in 2017.

“The uptake of electric vehicles is still largely driven by the policy environment,” the IEA said in the report. “The 10 leading countries in electric vehicle adoption all have a range of policies in place to promote the uptake of electric cars.”

Paper straws and you

There are approximately 1.3 billion people in India — and several hundred million cows.

The amount of methane gas those cows produce likely equals, or maybe even exceeds, all the carbon emissions of California, New York and Connecticut combined.

It would seem that, here in the U.S., our environmental warriors against greenhouse gas should be calling for an end to all these cows.

Environmentalists Didn’t Expect This Would Happen When They Busted Up Dams

Dam busting is a grand tradition of American environmentalism. In 1966, when the Sierra Club and allies got Congress to prohibit new dams in the Grand Canyon it was “a turning point, the biggest victory yet for conservation,” according to the PBS documentary A Fierce Green Fire.

At the innermost center of an environmentalist’s hell “stands a dam,” wrote John McPhee, the godfather of nature writing, back in 1971. “Possibly the reaction to dams is so violent because rivers are the ultimate metaphors of existence, and dams destroy rivers.”

There Are a Few Things Environmentalists Actually Do Agree On

Sometimes the most vicious fights occur over the smallest differences. Brutal battles have pitted Catholics that kneel in prayer against Protestant sects that stood before the same God. There’s a (possibly apocryphal) story from the US House of Representatives about a senior politician explaining that internal conflict between Congressional chambers was more important than fights between Republicans and Democrats. “Republicans aren’t the enemy,” the Democratic old timer says in one version of the story. “Republicans are the opposition. The Senate is the enemy.”

Métis Accuse Oilsands Giant CNRL Of Economic Retaliation Over Environmental Concerns

In her 68 years, Margie Wood has seen the landscape around her transformed from isolated wilderness to an intensive industrial zone. She has lived her life in the heart of what is now the Alberta oilsands.

Today her community is surrounded by open pit mines and massive upgrading plants. Pipelines and service roads snake through the trapline she once shared with her father.

On Nature's Death Row: Alberta's Coveted Foothills Forest

The sound of water is loud in a land muffled by snow. No human sound penetrates this broad valley between tapering extensions of the Rocky Mountains, 100 kilometres southwest of Grand Prairie, Alberta. A stray beam from the low winter sun washes the landscape in pink. A young doe caribou makes her way to the water. She's thin, ribs visible beneath her winter coat. At the water's edge she lowers her head to drink.

Suddenly grey shapes burst from the shadows. The swiftest comes racing over her own hoof-trail, leaps and sinks sharp teeth deep into her haunch, lacerating ligament. Within minutes, the doe's struggle is over. The wolves settle in to eat.

Bernie Sanders’s Radical Environmental Proposal

There isn’t much daylight these days between the Democratic candidates on the environment. Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Martin O’Malley all agree that humans are responsible for climate change and that it’s one of the world’s most pressing problems. To that end, they support clean energy tax breaks, reject drilling offshore and in the Arctic, and oppose the (now-rejected) Keystone XL pipeline.

But there’s one environmental issue where Sanders truly stands apart: He wants to ban hydraulic fracturing outright. Clinton and O’Malley have proposed lesser measures, and show no sign of going further. That’s an indication of just how radical Sanders’s stance really is, but it also raises an important question: Is a fracking ban remotely plausible?

Why Is Apple Lying About Powering Its Data Centers With Renewable Energy?

It seems that these days, everywhere you look, journalists and environmental activists are praising Apple for powering its data centers with "100 percent renewable energy," as the company puts it.

Greenpeace named Apple tops in its 2015 "Clicking Clean" report and commended the company for being transparent about its energy use, pledging to power its data centers entirely with renewable energy, seeking to reduce and mitigate its carbon footprint, and advancing the cause of renewable energy by pushing utility companies to make it available to both large and small customers.

Why Are Hundreds Of Thousands Of Salmon Dying In The Northwest?

Each year, around July 1, thousands of sockeye salmon pass the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam on their way to their spawning grounds in northern Washington and Canada. Centuries ago, sockeye salmon runs could be as large as three million fish. Last year — in the largest run since the construction of the Bonneville Dam in 1938 — 645,100 sockeye made the trip from the Pacific through the Columbia River.

Coal Investment Is the Most Urgent Climate Threat

LONDON—The future of coal has come under scrutiny from a perhaps unlikely source—the head of the organisation representing wealthy nations that relied on coal for 32% of electricity generation last year.

Angel Gurría, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), said the scale of new investments in “unabated” coal-fired electricity generation—where greenhouse gases are emitted directly to the atmosphere—posed the most urgent threat to the Earth’s climate.

Damming the Future: The Struggle to Protect Kenya's Ewaso Ngiro River

"Had the local district officer not had a swimming pool filled with clean water, maybe there would have been more for us to drink."

- Bildad Kaggia, Kenyan trade union leader and Central Committee member of the Mau Mau. Prisoner, 1952-61, Lokitaung, British isolation camp for political prisoners convicted of using, "their power and influence over the less educated Africans [to implement] this foul scheme of driving Europeans from Kenya." (1)

"The future of Kenya is entirely in the hands of the indigenous people."

- Kaunga, indigenous rights activist, organizer of the Camel Caravan

Decade-Old Gulf Oil Spill Could Last 100 Years

WASHINGTON (AP) — A decade-old oil leak where an offshore platform toppled during a hurricane could continue spilling crude into the Gulf of Mexico for a century or more if left unchecked, according to government estimates obtained by The Associated Press that provide new details about the scope of the problem.

Taylor Energy Company, which owned the platform and a cluster of oil wells, has played down the extent and environmental impact of the leak. The company also maintains that nothing can be done to completely eliminate the chronic oil slicks that often stretch for miles off the coast of Louisiana.

It Only Took Four Months For China To Achieve A Jaw-Dropping Reduction In Carbon Emissions

China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, so small decreases in its emissions seem like monumental feats when compared to other countries. According to a new analysis, in the first four months of 2015, China’s coal use fell almost 8 percent compared to the same period last year — a reduction in emissions that’s approximately equal to the total carbon dioxide emissions of the U.K. over the same period.

The analysis, published by Greenpeace and Energydesk China, reviewed data from a number of sources, including China’s industrial output, and found that China had reduced its coal output by 6.1 percent in the first four months of 2015. The research team calculated that the drop in coal use translates into a nearly 5 percent drop in domestic CO2 emissions.

Global Carbon Dioxide Levels Topped 400 PPM Throughout March In Unprecedented Milestone

Average global levels of carbon dioxide stayed above 400 parts per million, or ppm, through all of March 2015 -- the first time that has happened for an entire month since record keeping first began, according to data released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Scientists with NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory have called the news a "significant milestone" in the growing scourge of man-made climate change.

Leona Aglukkaq Claims Federal Budget Is Best One Ever For The Environment

OTTAWA - No previous federal budget has ever done more for the environment than the one delivered this week by the Conservative government, according to Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq.

The puzzling claim during a raucous question period in the House of Commons came a day after Finance Minister Joe Oliver tabled a 518-page document that contains no new spending or specific policy measures for curbing greenhouse gas emissions and mentions the issue of a "changing climate" just once — in relation to previously funded genome research on trees.

Environment, First Nations Get Small Slices Of Budget Pie

Tuesday’s budget made it clear that doling out tax breaks to Canadians was the Conservatives’ top pre-election priority, but with not much cash to go around, that generosity left little room for spending in other areas.

The chart below shows the money allocated to different areas from 2014 to 2020, as outlined in the “Prosperous Families and Strong, Secure Communities” section of the 2015 budget. Scroll over the chart to see how much money the Tories have devoted to different program areas.

Leona Aglukkaq Prods Provinces For Better Greenhouse Gas Numbers

OTTAWA - Having missed a March 31 deadline to submit greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets to the United Nations, the Harper government is prodding the provinces to come up with better numbers.

But at least one province is accusing Ottawa of taking credit for climate change initiatives launched by other levels of government.

In letters sent to her provincial and territorial counterparts on Friday, and released publicly on Sunday, Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq urged the provinces to send more information to bolster reduction targets that Ottawa has so far only estimated based on 2014 information.

Canada passed on U.S.-Mexico climate announcement: sources

WASHINGTON/OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada declined a U.S. invitation last week to jointly announce climate policy cooperation with Mexico, with Ottawa saying it has not yet finalized its own domestic strategy, sources from both countries familiar with the discussions said on Thursday.

On March 24, three days before the United States and Mexico announced they would partner on a high-level bilateral clean energy and climate policy task force, U.S. officials approached Canadian counterparts asking them to join the effort, three sources said.

One source said that while Canadian officials said they were supportive of North American harmonization of climate policy they were not yet prepared to join the continental partners.