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WHO Unveils Alarming Data on Air Pollution

submitted by George Hurlburt

          

Smog in central London in 2011. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

care2.com - by Lizabeth Paulat - January 24, 2016

New figures to be released from the World Health Organization show some incredibly alarming statistics on global pollution. The impact it has on health cannot be understated. According to the data it kills more people annually than HIV and Malaria combined. Yet the misery doesn’t stop at death. It also causes millions to suffer from chronic illnesses such as asthma and lung inflammation.

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ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLES AND RESEARCH WITHIN THE LINKS BELOW:

CLICK HERE - The Guardian - Shock figures to reveal deadly toll of global air pollution

CLICK HERE - Nature - The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale

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Study: Oceans Trapping Heat at Accelerating Rate

insidebayarea.com - by Seth Borenstein - January 18, 2016

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Nature Climate Change - Industrial-era global ocean heat uptake doubles in recent decades

WASHINGTON -- The amount of man-made heat energy absorbed by the seas has doubled since 1997, a study released Monday showed.

Scientists have long known that more than 90 percent of the heat energy from man-made global warming goes into the world's oceans instead of the ground.

And they've seen ocean heat content rise in recent years. But the new study, using ocean-observing data that goes back to the British research ship Challenger in the 1870s and including high-tech modern underwater monitors and computer models, tracked how much man-made heat has been buried in the oceans in the past 150 years.

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By 2050, There Will Be More Plastic than Fish in the World’s Oceans, Study Says

           

A September 2008 photo released by the Ocean Conservancy on March 10, 2009, shows a trash-covered beach in Manilla, Philippines. (Tamara Thoreson Pierce/Ocean Conservancy/AP)

CLICK HERE - REPORT - World Economic Forum - The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Independent study tallies 'true catch' of global fishing

washingtonpost.com - by Sarah Kaplan - January 20, 2016

There is a lot of plastic in the world’s oceans.

It coagulates into great floating “garbage patches” that cover large swaths of the Pacific. It washes up on urban beaches and remote islands, tossed about in the waves and transported across incredible distances before arriving, unwanted, back on land. It has wound up in the stomachs of more than half the world’s sea turtles and nearly all of its marine birds, studies say . . .

. . . But that quantity pales in comparison with the amount that the World Economic Forum expects will be floating into the oceans by the middle of the century.

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The Geopolitics of Cheap Oil

             

THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

huffingtonpost.com - by John Feffer - January 7, 2016

The market was supposed to save the planet.

That, at least, was the argument of many economists grappling with the problem of climate change. As fossil fuels became scarcer, they pointed out, the price of oil and natural gas would go up. And then other options, like solar and wind, would become cheaper, particularly as investment flowed into that sector and drove down the cost of new technologies.

And voila: The invisible hand would gradually turn down the global thermostat.

It’s a ridiculous argument.

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What Will it Take to Fix the Porter Ranch Leaking Gas Well?

                      

Southern California Gas Co. released these images of two ways it can potentially stop the Aliso Canyon gas leak by pumping fluid directly into the well or via a relief well. (Image courtesy of SoCalGas) 

dailynews.com - by Gregory J. Wilcox - December 19, 2015

The latest attempt by Southern California Gas Co. to kill its leaking well above Porter Ranch amounts to a deep shot in the dark.

All the repair crew has to do is hit a 7-inch target at the bottom of a shaft a mile and a half under Oat Mountain at the northern rim of the San Fernando Valley.

Undoubtedly, it’s a complicated situation, one industry expert said.

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China's Market Convulsions Threaten Petrostates from Russia to Venezuela

             

latinamericanpost.com - by Keith Johnson - August 29, 2015

The Chinese contagion that sparked “Black Monday” is especially worrisome for crude oil prices, which this summer were thought to have finally found a floor after a year of steady price declines. But that floor suddenly looks rotten: U.S. benchmark crude prices fell well below $40 a barrel on Monday, their lowest levels since the depths of the global financial crisis.

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Business Facilities: 2015 State Rankings Report

Posted by:  Albert Gomez

By Business Facilities Staff
from the July/August 2015 Issue annual-rankings-report

We’ve revamped our Metro and Global rankings this year to include some new technology oriented benchmarks. The new Metro category entries include Advanced Manufacturing (Specialization), Tech Jobs Leaders, Fastest Broadband and STEM Leaders. Our Global Rankings this year also include a new ranking for Leading ICT Hubs (European Cities).

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100% renewables by 2045 is now the law in Hawaii

Link to Article:  http://www.argusmedia.com/News/Article?id=1051970

Hawaii law sets target of 100pc renewables by 2045

 

9 Jun 2015, 2.15 pm GMT

Washington, 9 June (Argus) — Hawaii's governor David Ige (D) signed legislation making the island state the first in the US to set a mandate for all electricity to come from renewable resources.

The governor signed HB 623, which requires electric utilities to supply 100pc of their sales with renewables by 2045. The new renewable portfolio standard includes interim targets of 30pc by 2020, 40pc by 2030 and 70pc by 2040. HB 623 replaces a previous standard that called for 15pc by 2015, 25pc by 2020 and 40pc by 3030. The bill takes effect on 1 July.

Ige said the move to local sources of energy will help the state's economy, which relies on about $5bn/yr in oil imports. Fuel oil provides about 70pc of the state's electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

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Coal Crash: How Pension Funds Face Huge Risk From Climate Change

           

Coal is moved on a conveyor belt at the PT Bukit Asam open pit coal mine in Tanjung Enim, South Sumatra province, Indonesia. Photograph: Dadang Tri/Getty Images

Special report: The plummeting coal sector and a growing green divestment movement is leaving firms who still invest in fossil fuels and connected pension holders heavily exposed

theguardian.com - by Damian Carrington and Caelainn Barr - June 15, 2015

The pension funds of millions of people across the world, including teachers, public sector workers, health staff and academics in the UK and US, are heavily exposed to the plummeting coal sector, a Guardian analysis has revealed.

It has also found that just a dozen people, including the owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich, own coal reserves equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of China, the world’s biggest polluter. The UN, which advocates a shift to clean energy, has more than $100m (£65m) invested in coal through its own pension fund.

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Sheldon Whitehouse: Sue Fossil Fuel Companies For Climate Fraud

By Daniel Marans, 06/03/2015 4:16 pm EDT

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has a new plan to combat climate change: sue fossil fuel companies for fraud.

In a May 29 op-ed in The Washington Post, Whitehouse argued that the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to discredit climate science and attack environmentalists may constitute deliberate deception of the kind the tobacco industry perpetrated in previous decades. In 2006, a federal judge found the tobacco industry guilty of fraud in a civil lawsuit brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Cigarette companies' efforts to hide the health effects of tobacco consumption included lying about the findings of their own studies on smoking.

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