A study of five northeastern urban areas by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has discovered that these cities are leaking methane gas, a major source of CO2, at twice the rate originally estimated. The sources are leakage from both the natural gas delivery infrastructure and inefficient appliances.
Based on their findings, the researchers estimated that these five large cities—which include about 12 percent of the US population—emit over 900,000 tons of methane each year. Recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates placed methane emissions at a little over 400,000 tons, the study said, or half this new estimate.
The researchers attribute about 820,000 tons of those emissions to natural gas leaking, which isn't properly factored into EPA estimates, according to the study authors. To separate methane emissions from natural gas from other sources such as landfills, the researchers tracked ethane, which is found in natural gas but not other methane sources.
The studied cities have old infrastructure, complete with leaky pipes and inefficient appliances, the study authors say. As natural gas (which contains methane) pumps through cities, some is inevitably lost to the atmosphere. Even without decrepit infrastructure, natural gas can leak methane into the atmosphere—for example, when you turn your stove on and it clicks for a few seconds before a flame appears.
Young and Old Agree - The World is Worth Saving
Climate activist Greta Thunberg on Sunday urged people to recognize "the link between climate and ecological emergency and mass migration, famine, and war" as she was given the first Freedom Prize from France's Normandy region for her ongoing school strikes for climate and role in catalyzing the "Fridays for Future" climate movement.
The 16-year-old from Sweden received the award before a crowd of roughly 2,000 people in the city of Caen. She shared the stage with D-Day veterans and prize sponsors Léon Gautier of France, who is 96, and Charles Norman Shay of the United States, who is 95."I think the least we can do to honor them," said Thunberg, "is to stop destroying that same world that Charles, Léon, and their friends and colleagues fought so hard to save."
"All these many damages on Mother Nature make me sad," said Shay. "As a soldier I fought for freedom to liberate Europe [and the] world [from] Nazism 75 yeas ago, but this is no sense if Mother Nature is deeply wounded, and if our civilization collapses due to inappropriate human behaviors."
None Dare To Speak It
It's no secret that the Trump administration has championed fossil fuels and scoffed at renewable energy. But the Trump administration is trying to keep something secret: the climate crisis. That's according to a new analysis from the watchdog group Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) who found that more than a quarter of the references to climate change on .gov websites vanished.
The watchdog group found some disturbing trends since Trump took office in January of 2017. In his first two years in office, the terms "climate change," "clean energy" and "adaptation" dropped by 26 percent on .gov websites, as VICE reported. EDGI analyzed over 5,300 webpages across 23 federal agencies and concluded that the Trump administration has severely weakened public access to information about the climate crisis and distorted language around it.
One of the more conspicuous and troubling removals of references to climate change happened across the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website, which garners more traffic than whitehouse.gov. The report found that over half the pages (73/136) where climate change was completely removed from public view belonged to the EPA.
Just Can't Wait to be Extinct
 |
| Walt Disney Pictures |
Disney’s
most recent version of The Lion King (following the 1994 animated film and the
long running Broadway play) may become the only way people will be able to see
lions in the foreseeable future. Constrained to less than 6% of their original multi-continent range, there are fewer than 25,000 wild lions in Africa and only 600 Asiatic lions in India.
FOR EVERY LION in the wild, there are 14 African elephants, and there are 15 Western lowland gorillas. There are more rhinos than lions, too.
With fewer than an estimated 25,000 in Africa, lions are listed as vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which determines the conservation status of species.
To put things in perspective, the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) notes that lion numbers have dropped by half since The Lion King premiered in theaters in 1994.
Disney has pledged up to $3 million to lion conservation organizations. Considering that in its first 10 days of release, the latest version of The Lion King has earned $531 million worldwide, it seems Disney is just another organization exploiting wildlife for profit.
Rhino Impact Bonds
This is an interesting concept. The “rhino bond” will provide“up front” money for conservation projects in South Africa and Kenya. Those governments will be obligated to pay the bond holders both their original investment and a modest rate of return ONLY if a specific set of conservation objectives are met. This concept puts money in the field immediately instead of forcing conservation projects to compete with other social and security programs .
Black rhino numbers have fallen from 65,000 in the 1970s to about 5,500 presently. The species is said to be extremely vulnerable to extinction in the wild.
According to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the most critical threat to rhino populations is poaching for the illegal trade in rhino horn products.
The $50 million bond is based on an “outcome payments” model — a concept where investors receive financial returns only on the successful and measurable completion of the objective.Investors will pay an upfront cost for buying the bond and they will be paid back their capital and a coupon if the population of African black rhinos increases in five years. The yield on the bond will be subject to the growth of the rhino population.
“On completion of the five-year term, an independent evaluator verifies whether the RIB [Rhino Impact Bond] target has been achieved: the performance relative to the RIB target determines the investors’ return,” according to a statement from Conservation Capital.
No comments:
Post a Comment