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Smoke over the skies of North America is another climate change warning
EnvironmentIt’s high time to clear the political air. Time is running out to move decisively to save the planet and mitigate the worst of what capitalism’s greed and excess is delivering. The triple scourge facing humanity must be defeated. We need to mobilize like never before and blaze new paths to a society of peace, social justice and ecological harmony.
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Three years on, Mount Polley disaster a painful reminder of never-ending horror
EnvironmentCanada’s largest mine waste disaster on August 4, 2014, saw 24 million cubic metres of mine waste and water flushed into Hazeltine and Edney Creeks and Polley and Quesnel Lakes, all part of the Fraser River Watershed. The littoral area along the West Arm of Quesnel Lake was permanently altered by the Mount Polley spill, and there is no plan to stop polluting anytime soon.
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4 Proposed Tar Sands Oil Pipelines Pose a Threat to Water Resources
EnvironmentAnalysis of public data shows that the three companies proposing to build four tar sands pipelines — TransCanada, Kinder Morgan, Enbridge, and their subsidiaries — have seen 373 hazardous liquid spills from their U.S. pipeline networks from 2010 to present. These spills released a total of 63,221 barrels of hazardous liquids during that time period.
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Climate warrior? Champion of ‘Big Oil’? Canada’s leader wants to be both
Canadian PoliticsSo, there are a lot of unanswered questions about Justin Trudeau’s leadership in the fight against climate change. What’s certain is that the pipelines and refineries Trudeau is pushing for will tie Canada’s economy — and the world’s — to tar sands oil for decades to come, even as the impacts of climate change that he warns about continue to mount.
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By 2100, Refugees Would Be the Most Populous Country on Earth
EnvironmentThe UN Refugee Agency has announced the new figures for the world’s displaced: 65.9 million. That means that 65.9 million human beings live as refugees, asylum seekers or as internally displaced people. If the refugees formed a country, it would be the 21st largest state in the world, just after Thailand (68.2 million) and just ahead of the United Kingdom (65.5 million).
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Trumping nature
EnvironmentSuch is the depth of Trump’s planned assault on environmental regulation that it bathes his predecessors in a greenish light. As the U.S. turns back the clock on its already grossly inadequate measures to mitigate the most menacing ecological fallout from industrial capitalist civilization, the countdown to ecocide accelerates. And while some of the harm Trump & Co. wreak in other policy areas may ultimately be reversible, the injury to ecosystems will be all but irremediable.
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World’s biggest coal company closes 37 mines as solar power’s influence grows
EnvironmentThe largest coal mining company in the world has announced it will close 37 mines because they are no longer economically viable. Coal India, which produces around 82 per cent of India’s coal, said the mines would be decommissioned by March 2018. The closures, of around 9 per cent of the state-run firm’s sites, will reportedly save around 8,000,000,000 rupees (£98m).
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All fossil-fuel vehicles will vanish in 8 years in twin ‘death spiral’ for big oil and autos
EnvironmentNo more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century. This is the futuristic forecast by Stanford University economist Tony Seba. His report, with the deceptively bland title Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030.
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The tragedy of liberal environmentalism
EnvironmentThe tragedy of liberal environmentalism is that it occupies the political discourse as the most pragmatic, the most possible way to a better future, but implementing this watered down, technical environmental politics is not at all smooth, or easy. It is rather Sisyphean. This is the tragic political circumstance of our times: What is framed as easy, as the most compatible with the status quo, is actually so very hard.
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A Record-Setting Climate Going Bonkers
EnvironmentAd interim, America’s 19th century frontier mentality, which helped to shape democracy in the first place, has come back to overturn democracy and dictate climatic upheaval and destruction with its concomitant sharp turn away from democratic spirits in favor of a return to Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, circa 1881.
