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‘On every roof something is possible’: how sponge cities could change the way we handle rain
Amsterdam is home to 45,000 sq metres of ‘blue-green’ roofs, which absorb rainwater and allow it to be used by building residents to water plants and flush toilets
You might visit Amsterdam for its canals, and who could blame you, really. But the truly interesting waterways aren’t under your feet – they’re above your head.
Beautiful green roofs have popped up all over the world: specially selected plants growing on structures designed to manage the extra weight of biomass. Amsterdam has taken that one step further with blue-green roofs, specially designed to capture rainwater. One project, the resilience network of smart, innovative, climate-adaptive rooftops (Resilio), has covered more than 9,000 sq metres (100,000 sq ft) of Amsterdam’s roofs, including 8,000 sq metres on social housing complexes. Citywide, the blue-green roof coverage is even bigger, estimated at more than 45,000 sq metres.
Continue reading...Methane emissions from gas flaring being hidden from satellite monitors
Use of enclosed combustors leaves regulators heavily reliant on oil and gas companies’ own flaring data
Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed.
Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring.
Continue reading...Sequía en el canal de Panamá: el fenómeno del Niño fue clave, según estudio
Big oil spent decades sowing doubt about fossil fuel dangers, experts testify
US Senate hearing reviewed report showing sector’s shift from climate denial to ‘deception, disinformation and doublespeak’
The fossil fuel industry spent decades sowing doubt about the dangers of burning oil and gas, experts and Democratic lawmakers testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
The Senate budget committee held a hearing to review a report published on Tuesday with the House oversight and accountability committee that they said demonstrates the sector’s shift from explicit climate denial to a more sophisticated strategy of “deception, disinformation and doublespeak”.
Continue reading...Flooding in a Kenyan Natural Reserve Forces Tourist Evacuation
What Makes a Society More Resilient? Frequent Hardship.
Los chilenos que salvaron el valle del Cochamó
Drought That Snarled Panama Canal Was Linked to El Niño, Study Finds
Australia news live: Pauline Hanson ‘plainly targeted’ Greens senator with well-known racist phrase, court told
Final submissions begin in racial discrimination case brought by Mehreen Faruqi against Hanson. Follow the today’s news live
As we flagged earlier, the treasurer Jim Chalmers will today announce foreign investment changes, with approvals to be made quicker and greater scrutiny to be placed on potential risks.
You can read all the details on this from Peter Hannam below:
Right now, we treat investments from right around the world more or less the same. We want to streamline it for the less-risky investments so we can devote much more time and energy and resources to screening the sorts of investments that we’re seeing in critical industries – like critical minerals, critical infrastructure, critical data, and the like.
This is all about strengthening the foreign investment framework to make sure that investment is in the national interest. We want to maximise the right kind of investment, but we want to minimise risk and that’s what these changes I’ll announce today are all about.
Continue reading...Corn to Power Airplanes? Biden Administration Sets a High Bar.
Energy Dept. Releases New Efficiency Rules for Water Heaters and Other Appliances
G7 agree to end use of unabated coal power plants by 2035
Agreement gives leeway to countries heavily reliant on coal and allows power plants fitted with carbon-capture technology
Ministers from the G7 countries agreed on Tuesday to end the use of unabated coal power plants by 2035 – but left the door open for those heavily reliant on coal to breach the deadline.
After two days of talks in Turin, Italy, they published a pledge to “phase out existing unabated coal power generation in our energy systems during the first half of 2030s” to curb the rise in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Continue reading...How Locals Saved ‘the Yosemite of South America’
Great Barrier Reef’s worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard: ‘It looks as if it has been carpet bombed’
Scientists stunned by scale of destruction after summer of storm surges, cyclones and floods
Beneath the turquoise waters off Heron Island lies a huge, brain-shaped Porites coral that, in health, would be a rude shade of purplish-brown. Today that coral outcrop, or bommie, shines snow white.
Prof Terry Hughes, a coral bleaching expert at James Cook University, estimates this living boulder is at least 300 years old.
Continue reading...Cows Are Just an Environmental Disaster
U.S. Plan to Protect Oceans Has a Problem, Some Say: Too Much Fishing
Biden Administration Moves to Speed Up Permits for Clean Energy
Big oil privately acknowledged efforts to downplay climate crisis, joint committee investigation finds
Internal documents revealed by committee show companies lobbied against climate laws they publicly claimed to support
Big oil has privately acknowledged its efforts to downplay the dangers of burning fossil fuels, US Democrats have found.
Major fossil-fuel firms have also pledged support for international climate efforts, but internally admit these efforts are incompatible with their own climate plans. And they have lobbied against climate laws and regulations they have publicly claimed to support, documents newly revealed by the committee show.
Continue reading...How climate policies are becoming focus for far-right attacks in Germany
Politicians fear perceived costs of green transition are driving poor and rural voters to parties such as AfD
Raising his voice above the pounding drums and honking tractors, Lutz Jankus, a city councillor from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), distanced himself from the furious protest unfurling before him.
“They’re rightwing extremists,” he said about Free Saxony, a loose political movement that includes neo-Nazis and skinheads, as his colleagues began to pack up their tent on the side of the square in the centre of Görlitz.
Continue reading...‘The Greens are our enemy’: What is fuelling the far right in Germany?
The far right are on the march in Germany and the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany has become the most popular party in several states. Immigration and a sense of being economically left behind have been driving factors in the rise in popularity but the Green party and the federal government’s climate policies have also borne the brunt of public anger. The Guardian travelled to Görlitz, on the German border with Poland, to find out to what extent Germany’s green policies are fuelling the far right
• How climate policies are becoming focus for far-right attacks in Germany
Continue reading...