Thanks for signing up for the Green Life email newsletter. According to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, 2019 was the second-biggest year for coal plant retirements as massive facilities like the Rockport plant in Indiana and the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona shuttered. An even bigger concern is the threat of “fugitive emissions”—the methane that leaks out of wellheads, compressor stations, and pipelines (check out this awesome New York Times investigation). Optimising Environmental Laboratory Performance... International Environmental Technology October 2020, Airborne Microplastics: Understanding Our Exposure. Climate Strike in San Francisco | Photo by Sam Murphy. In Germany alone, some 1.4 million people marched to call for climate action, while another 300,000 people packed the avenues of Australia and a quarter million jammed Lower Manhattan. Photo by Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA/AP Images. An April poll by CNN found that 82 percent of registered Democrats cited climate change as a top priority they want a presidential candidate to focus on, beating out every other issue. AL3 6PH A week later, similarly massive protests rocked Italy, Canada, and New Zealand. For more information, visit our Privacy PolicyX. E info@labmate-online.com. That must mean it’s time for my annual roundup of the most important environmental stories of the past year. People are suffering. As the new year approaches, we all need to be ready and prepared to tackle the 5 main environmental threats in 2019. Between 2015 and 2019, the percentage of Democrats who said that climate should be a top priority for Congress and the president has increased from 46 percent to 67 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. Sign up for the Green Life for updates on living well and doing good from, protests swept the planet as millions of people filled the streets, the increasingly dire warnings coming from scientists, Thunberg thundered during the UN Climate Action Summit in September, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey, both Democrats, unveiled a resolution, means different things to different people, An April poll by CNN found that 82 percent of registered Democrats, every major Democratic presidential candidate has issued some kind of climate change plan, coal-fired power plants keep closing at a brisk pace, Earthjustice and its clients have won 32 of them, or 86 percent, for the first time ever, renewables generated more power than coal, According to reports from the Rocky Mountain Institute, the United States’ trajectory toward being a top gas exporter, methane is 80 times more heat-trapping than CO2, a dozen cities nationwide have put in place bans on gas hookups for new construction, Well, that’s pretty much what happened in Oregon last summer, According to Colorado College’s annual Conservation in the West survey, While that figure was a fraction of the annual fires that were taking place in the mid-2000s, except for squabble with French president Emmanuel Macron, ), the Amazon is at risk of reaching a self-destruct tipping point, Indigenous communities are maintaining a posture of resistance, Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man, Prescribed Burn Associations Are One Answer to California’s Megafires, Endangered Condors Become Casualties of the California Wildfires. Of course, it’s not all kumbaya. Such moves have emboldened the agribusiness interests, loggers, and land grabbers who have long posed a threat to the health of the Amazon. Climate Change Becomes an Election Issue Photo by AP Photo/Chris Carlson. Your UN meeting should be all inclusive of world conditions. When it comes to electoral politics, climate change is here to stay. Human activities have disturbed half of global marine environments, and about 60 percent of fisheries are being “maximally sustainably fished”—that is, being pushed to the edge of collapse. The spectacle was truly world-historical: On Friday, September 20, protests swept the planet as millions of people filled the streets to demand that global leaders take bold action to address the climate crisis. Due to the fracking boom, the United States has a glut of cheap gas, which is incentivizing plans for a massive build-out of gas-fired power plants, pipelines, and export facilities. In the Southeast, the Atlantic Coast, Mountain Valley, and Potomac pipelines have been delayed by federal courts. 2. Business News You can read our Privacy Policy here. Professor Carlin, my name is Roy Willis I'm 90 years old, I was one of the design and development engineers of the oxygen generator for atomic submarines in the early 1950's. Or, in the case of Oregon, to hold progressive reforms at bay. But there’s hopeful news. At least 10 percent of insect species are in jeopardy of disappearing. The new generation of particulate monitors. MPEL (MEMS Pellistor) for portable Flammable Ga... Where Is the UK's Most Eco-Friendly High Street? F +44 (0)1727 840 310 But as time goes on, we’re seeing new environmental concerns. Years from now (when the Green New Deal is the law of the land), it’s possible that 2019 will be remembered as the year when climate change finally became a potent issue in American electoral politics. Oregon GOP Hijacks Climate Legislation. More importantly, we need to educate the world on the effects and severity of global warming, before it’s too late. - New ASTM International standard will help test water quality By signing up, you are opting in to receive periodic communications from the Sierra Club. Public Lands Protection Remains Bipartisan. The GOP shutdown of the Oregon senate (actually, their second this year; the first one was over vaccine and gun control legislation) is of a piece with what Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone calls the "Republican War on Democracy.". Progressive and liberal voters’ newfound intensity about climate and the environment is shaping the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. - Acquisition t... International Labmate Limited If you had to pick a second adjective, ineffectual would be a smart choice. Photo by Heather Rousseau/The Roanoke Times via AP. As the fires spread, Bolsonaro did close to nothing for nearly two weeks (except for squabble with French president Emmanuel Macron), until his administration finally mobilized the army to help quench the flames. If we continue as we are, the world will suffer irreversibly. We all like to do our bit to help the environment. Of course politicly this would never happen, but it's a probable cure all for the ailment. 8. Oak Court Business Centre Hertfordshire Climate Change Becomes an Election Issue. Thanks to Outdated Laws, Growing Your Own Food Can Be Illegal. The election of right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s president. Show Description. Sign up to receive daily reports about how you can enjoy, explore, and protect the planet. It’s just that simple.” When conservative activists staged a statehouse rally in support of the missing legislators, the Oregon state police recommended shutting down the capitol building “due to a possible militia threat.” The president of the Oregon Senate then pulled the measure from consideration, and the climate legislation died an ignominious death. As the climate strikers made clear, lofty promises and incremental progress are no longer sufficient to halt rising temperatures and increasingly acidic oceans; only a sweeping, global campaign to cut civilization’s reliance on fossil fuels will do. All 7 key types of pollution – air, water, soil, noise, radioactive, light and thermal – are affecting our environment. People are dying. Find out more about efforts to measure, model and mitigate air pollution in the article, ‘Air quality networks - simplifying source apportionment, supporting pollution mitigation’. It devastates our oceans and landfills, everything we do and live with involves plastic and there seems there is no end to the production. Three-quarters of Earth’s terrestrial surface has been significantly altered by civilization. Read 1478, Jul 28 2020 Sign up for our free daily newsletter, along with occasional offers for programs that support our journalism. Mind you, the Green New Deal (at least in its most formal incarnation) remains little more than a vision. That prompted one Republican senator, Brian Boquist, to respond with a threat of violence: “Send bachelors and come heavily armed,” he told an Oregon television station. While the climate-focused candidacy of Governor Jay Inslee was short-lived, every major Democratic presidential candidate has issued some kind of climate change plan—many of them in striking detail and impressive ambition. Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, ordered state troopers to locate the AWOL senators, some of whom had fled to Idaho. While grassroots activists have been targeting the gas industry since the start of the fracking boom some 15 years ago, big green groups like the Sierra Club and Earthjustice are now making a pivot to gas. By educating people on the causes and effects of water pollution, we can work together to undo the damage humans have caused. 3. But when the bill moved to the state senate, Oregon Republicans staged a walkout to prevent the chamber from having a quorum and prevent the bill from passing. After working for years on climate legislation, Oregon assembly members passed the Clean Energy Jobs Bill, which would have put Oregon in the vanguard of states working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The report, which was prepared by more than 450 scientists, found that 40 percent of amphibian species, one-third of marine species, and one-third of corals are at risk of extinction. All of which presents the global environmental movement with a challenge for 2020 and beyond. The GreenBeston largest machine can only convert 25 tons a day, something in the order of 200 tons a day in many US states would be required on a yearly basis for many years just to clear up our present condition and the future productions. The Green New Deal means different things to different people, and it’s exactly this capaciousness that gives the idea such potency.