“Greta Thunberg Makes TIME’s List Of Women Who Will Change The World”

Greta Thunberg

Young people across the world have followed her path, striking and marching to make clear to adults and decision-makers that this is a true emergency’

Teenage climate campaigner Greta Thunberg has made it onto TIME Magazine’s list of 15 women who will change the world.

The upcoming issue, 2050: How Earth Changed, is dedicated to the ‘biggest crisis facing our planet’ – climate change. The United Nations estimates that of all those displaced by climate change, 80 percent are women.

‘Diverse perspectives‘ 

In a statement sent to Plant Based News, TIME editor in chief and CEO, Edward Felsenthal, said: “What you will not find in this issue are climate-change skeptics. Core to our mission is bringing together diverse perspectives. 

“Experts can and should debate the best route to mitigating the effects of climate change, but there is no serious doubt that those effects are real. We are witnessing them right in front of us. The science on global warming is settled. There isn’t another side, and there isn’t another moment.” http://bit.ly/2M2fSjN

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Climate change, poverty and human rights: an emergency without precedent

Julia Aylen wades through waist-deep water carrying her pet dog as she is rescued during Hurricane Dorian in Freeport, Bahamas. , AP Photo/Tim Aylen

 

 Hurricane Dorian has devastated communities in the Bahamas, putting the human dimensions of climate change at the forefront of the news as the world grapples with the ongoing failure of many governments to effectively decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Two recently released climate reports by the United Nations Human Rights Council provide insights into future challenges. 

The July 2019 Safe Climate report by David Boyd, the special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, clarifies the obligations of states to protect human rights from climate harms. The report also confirms the existing responsibility of businesses to respect human rights, especially as they pertain to climate change.

An earlier report on climate change and poverty, released in June 2019, was written by Philip Alston, the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. This report draws attention to the disproportionate and devastating impact of unmitigated climate change on those living in poverty.

Both reports point out that urgent action is needed by governments. Our research suggests that international human rights law may already offer useful tools to prevent and remedy climate injustice, including the responsibilities of business enterprises as reinforced in the Boyd report. Read More 

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Masses of seaweed invade Cayman shores | Cayman Compass

Sargassum in South Sound

 Weeks after government workers cleared 200 tons of sargassum from Grand Cayman’s coastlines, the invasive seaweed has returned to the island.

Fresh masses of the plant began accumulating this week in West Bay, with thick mats gathering around the West Bay Dock and Cemetery Beach. Lesser quantities were observed in Prospect.

The impact was also felt in Cayman Brac, where large masses began to build up around the southwest side of the island. http://bit.ly/2UsZQmx

Leaves of Seagrass: A Potential Fix For Sargassum [Please read from beginning of article]

BURN: Using Fire to Cool The Earth

A Dutch research vessel has been accompanying an 8000 km island that regurgitated from the mouth of the Amazon in July and could reach Tulum this winter. That plume contains 20 million metric tons of sargassum and it is still expanding in the warming waters of the Caribbean. The most sargassum removed from the Mayan Riviera in one year, 2018, was less than 1 million tons. Can the marines hope to remove 20 times that? And if they can’t, what becomes of Mexico’s $23 billion tourism industry? 

Biochar to the Rescue

Here is where questions of right and wrong start to get fuzzy. As environmental activists, we all struggle with ethical dilemmas. Is it right to solve hunger or energy challenges if, by doing so, you spur human population to new heights, with all the ecological consequences that result portends for other species and eventually our own? 

Is it right to view seaweed as manna from heaven, if by pyrolyzing it at a profit we save a tourism industry that lives and breathes by cruise ships and international air travel, jetting us toward climate Armageddon?

I have come to think it is likely to do more good than harm to close the deforestation-to-seaweed cycle by reforming that decaying biomass in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, and Seychelles that, left alone, would waft vast new quantities of methane and carbon dioxide skyward. As an Emergency Planetary Technician, I am attempting to stabilize the patient in situ. We can worry about their insurance later. 

By enlisting the financial clout of the hotel owners, tour operators, and governments, reversing climate change becomes just a little more possible. If we can transform that stinking red tide into terra preta’d forests, water filters, or new coral reefs, we can store megatons of carbon for thousands of years. That would be something. Might even be as big as, say, replanting the Amazon rainforest (which is not to say we shouldn’t do that, too, and while we are at it, replace the Ohio Valley and Californian forests before we criticize Brazil). http://bit.ly/34bGqXU Read More 

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Norway Is The First Country In The World To Ban Deforestation, More Countries Need To Follow Suit

Norway Bans Deforwatation

The Norwegian government made a pledge with Germany and the UK back in 2014, at the UN Climate Summit in New York, that they would “promote national commitments that encourage deforestation-free supply chains, including through public procurement policies to sustainably source commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef and timber.”

So far, Norway is the only country to do something towards this pledge that’s drastic enough to make a difference. They have become the first country in the world to ban deforestation. 

The Norwegian Parliament pledged that the government’s public procurement policy will be deforestation-free. 

By becoming the first country in the world to make such a large-scale move against deforestation, Norway is setting an example for other countries to consider similar policies.  Read More

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