Tens of thousands of people marched in Paris and in other major cities across France on Saturday demanding meaningful action on climate change. Thousands more marched in Geneva, Switzerland. This is Greenpeace Switzerland spokesperson Mathias Schlegel.
Mathias Schlegel: “Each time the climate gets warmer, even by one-tenth of a degree, it has a lot of consequences. For example, if the climate gets warmer by just 1.5 degrees, we can save certain glaciers in Switzerland; if it gets warmer by 2 degrees, we can’t save any. If the climate gets warmer by just 1.5 degrees, we can save up to a third of the oceans’ coral reefs; if it gets warmer by 2 degrees, we can’t.”
The Senate has confirmed the lawyer who defended oil giant BP from lawsuits over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill as the Trump administration’s top environmental lawyer. Jeffrey Bossert Clark was approved on a 52-45 vote Thursday after Democrats Joe Manchin and Claire McCaskill sided with Republicans to confirm him as assistant attorney general for environment and natural resources. Clark has repeatedly challenged the science of climate change, calling it “contestable.”
Back in the United States, President Trump is traveling to Georgia and Florida today to tour devastation left behind after Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle last week as one of the most powerful storms ever to strike the U.S. mainland. The hurricane left 13 people dead in Central America. The death toll in the U.S. has reached 19, with another 46 people missing and unaccounted for in Mexico Beach, Florida, where entire blocks of houses were flattened by the storm.
On Sunday, President Trump once again questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is driving global temperatures higher and leading to more powerful storms. This is Trump being questioned by Lesley Stahl of CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
Lesley Stahl: “Do you still think that climate change is a hoax?”
President Donald Trump: “Look, I think something’s happening, something’s changing, and it’ll change back again. I don’t think it’s a hoax. I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s man-made. I will say this: I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t want to be put at a disadvantage.”
Last week, a U.N.-appointed panel of climate scientists warned in a landmark report that humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate climate change or face global catastrophe—with severe droughts, floods, sea level rise and extreme heat set to cause mass displacement and poverty.
Many cacao farmers work for a very low wage, and most of them can’t afford a bar of chocolate. Metropolis brings the chocolate to the cacao farmers to give them a taste of their own work.
Meet some of the farmers in Côte d’Ivoire who grow cocoa, the primary ingredient in chocolate, to support their families and learn about the communities in which they live and some of the challenges they face.
A Chinese-built dam in Cote d’Ivoire has officially started power generation. The Soubre hydropower station is located in the west of the country and was constructed by China’s SINO Hydro company. It is currently the largest hydro-power project in Cote d’Ivoire. Upon completion the station is expected to boost the country’s entire capacity by about 10 percent . Cote d’Ivoire already has six hydropower stations and four more are due to be constructed as part of a national policy to attain a capacity of 4,000 MW by the year 2020.
Welcome to Transition Studies. To prosper for very much longer on the changing Earth humankind will need to move beyond its current fossil-fueled civilization toward one that is sustained on recycled materials and renewable energy. This is not a trivial shift. It will require a major transition in all aspects of our lives.
This weblog explores the transition to a sustainable future on our finite planet. It provides links to current news, key documents from government sources and non-governmental organizations, as well as video documentaries about climate change, environmental ethics and environmental justice concerns.
The links are listed here to be used in whatever manner they may be helpful in public information campaigns, course preparation, teaching, letter-writing, lectures, class presentations, policy discussions, article writing, civic or Congressional hearings and citizen action campaigns, etc. For further information on this blog see: About this weblog. and How to use this weblog.
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