Green Conservatives call for earlier UK coal power phase-out | Environment | The Guardian

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Damian Carrington:  The UK should close all its coal-fired power stations two years earlier than the government’s pledge of 2025, according to green Conservatives including former energy minister Lord Greg Barker.

The move would not cause the lights to go out, would cut both carbon emissions and air pollution and would boost cleaner energy projects, according to a report from Bright Blue, a thinktank of Tory modernisers.

The report also concludes that if the troubled Hinkley C nuclear plant is cancelled it could be replaced by renewable energy.  Source: Green Conservatives call for earlier UK coal power phase-out | Environment | The Guardian

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Great Barrier Reef: diving in the stench of millions of rotting animals – video | Environment | The Guardian

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GR:  Watch this short video to get a clear idea of what’s happening to coral.

Richard Vevers from the Ocean Agency had never experienced anything like the devastation he witnessed in May diving around the dead and dying coral reefs off Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. When his team emerged from the water, he says, ‘We realised we just stank – we stank of the smell of rotting animals.’ The reefs around the island have been ravaged by coral bleaching caused by climate change.  Special report by Josh Wall and Michael Slezak, theguardian.com.  Source: Great Barrier Reef: diving in the stench of millions of rotting animals – video | Environment | The Guardian

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Florida harbor dredging threatens corals | Summit County Citizens Voice

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GR:  This seems like the wrong time to be destroying coral.  Is the pursuit of economic progress driving Florida and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers mad?

Bob Berwyn:

Activists plan lawsuit to win more environmental protection

Staff Report:  Even with coral reefs around the world under the global warming gun, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is seeking approval for a controversial Florida dredging project that could smother parts of the only coastal barrier reef in the continental United States.

But a coalition of environmental and community groups have banded together to try and the the Corps to provide mandatory, common-sense protections for reefs near the Port Everglades dredging project near Fort Lauderdale. The project’s goal is to increase coastal access for larger ships.Critics of the project say similar dredging at PortMiami injured and killed Endangered Species Act-listed staghorn corals and buried alive more than 200 football fields of reef habitat. They claim the damage stemmed from the Corps’ failure to collect and use accurate, up-to-date information or adequately account for potential impacts to nearby reefs.  More:  Florida harbor dredging threatens corals | Summit County Citizens Voice

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Nuclear power or waste? Asking the wrong questions | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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nuclear waste 4Steven Starr:  This is a discussion in which, as Manpreet Sethi has noted, all the participants “either argue in favor of nuclear power or decline to argue against it. … [T]hey see no need to eliminate nuclear energy.” That is, the Bulletin has selected experts who may suggest new policies or technological fixes for the nuclear industry, but will not call for the industry’s abolition.

nuclear waste 3I am a senior scientist with Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group that does call for abolition. Physicians for Social Responsibility is deeply concerned about the medical and ethical consequences of the ongoing production of enormous amounts of high-level nuclear waste. Such waste, hundreds of thousands of tons of it, sits in “cooling pools” next to nuclear power reactors; many individual pools contain more cesium-137 than was released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons tests combined. These utterly lethal radionuclides will require some form of supervision for hundreds of thousands of years if they are to be prevented from entering the biosphere. Thousands of generations of human beings will have to perform the supervision.

nuclear waste 2Only one country, Finland, has begun work on a permanent repository for high-level waste, but it is not yet operational. The only permanent site for low-level waste in the United States, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, is currently closed due to mishaps including a 2014 radiation release. Hence the entire world provides no good examples of safe permanent storage.  More: Nuclear power: Asking the wrong questions | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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Australia’s politicians – the dance band on the Titanic – theme for June 16 « Antinuclear

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Christina MacPherson:  Personalities of the leaders, Tax cuts, tax concessions, negative gearing – blah, blah – these are the big issues for the coming election. That’s what Australia’s politicians and media tell us.

That’s all not going to matter so much when the droughts, floods, bushfires hit. Or when sea level ruins beach resorts, bayside suburbs and towns. When Pacific islanders need refuge. And Australia has become even more of an international pariah, on climate change and on refugees.

Australia, but South Australia especially, could face the risk of becoming known as the world’s nuclear toilet – with the loss of the clean agriculture reputation, and with the financial burden of managing radioactive trash, after the foreign nuclear corporations have gone bankrupt.

Australia’s government is irrelevant. The Labor opposition is a little less so. The Greens really are the only party with an awareness of the great threats now hanging over Australians.  Source: Australia’s politicians – the dance band on the Titanic – theme for June 16 « Antinuclear

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In Bangladesh, Around 1 Million Unwanted Births Per Year

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Joe Bish, Population Media Center:  The following article was published in the Daily Star newspaper of Bangladesh, and reports out on a new analysis of the 2014 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) for that country. The analysis was performed by the Bangladesh Health Ministry. If you would like to directly access the 2014 DHS, simply click here (PDF).

The headline is that the Ministry has calculated nearly 1 million of the roughly 3 million births that take place every year in Bangladesh can be accurately described as unwanted. “Here unwanted birth means either the parents didn’t want the child in that time or never,” said Karar Zunaid Ahsan, senior monitoring and evaluation adviser at the Ministry.

This troubling statistic is followed by several more: the country’s fertility decline has been stalled since 2011 at 2.3; the countrywide unwanted fertility rate is 0.7 children per woman, with regional variations; and, only 25% of Bangladesh’s public facilities purportedly offering family planning services are ready to actually provide them. It is worth noting that the fertility rate of 2.3 coincides with the U.N.’s high variant population projection for the country. That would mean, if these trends continue, that Bangladesh will cross the 200 million population mark by 2033 — not in 2050, as indicated in the article. Setting aside for a moment social and economic ramifications, what will happen to the remaining 100 Sundarbans’ forest tigers in this human population growth scenario? Country sees 10 lakh unwanted births a year.

Source: In Bangladesh, Around 1 Million Unwanted Births Per Year

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Alaskan Community Efficiency Champions Compete for Funds to Implement Energy Reduction Plans | Department of Energy

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Increasing Energy Efficiency

GR:  It is good to see renewable energy mentioned.  Let’s hope it receives more emphasis in practice.

Alaska possesses great natural beauty, but also has some of the most expensive energy costs in the United States. The Energy Department is helping many Alaskan communities adopt more sustainable energy strategies to alleviate high energy costs.

Last September, President Obama traveled to Alaska to see the frontlines of our fight against climate change firsthand. While he was there, he visited remote Alaskan communities, including Kotzebue and Kivalina. The lives of Kivalina’s residents have been so dramatically impacted by rising sea levels and coastal erosion they have had to make the difficult decision to relocate their village. So, as the President noted, while the rest of the country is becoming more aware of climate change, these communities are already living it.

I was fortunate to visit Alaska myself with Senator Lisa Murkowski a little over a year ago in part to learn about the complex energy needs of remote areas like these in a state with abundant natural resources. I saw just how essential Alaska is to our all of the above approach as we build or future energy mix, and one aspect of that work is finding ways to integrate energy efficiency and renewable energy into our system.  More:  Alaskan Community Efficiency Champions Compete for Funds to Implement Energy Reduction Plans | Department of Energy

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Rescued whale sharks released back into the ocean – in pictures | Environment | The Guardian

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Two whale sharks destined for an ocean theme park in China were rescued after an 18-month investigation by Wildlife Conservation Society, covered by investigative photojournalist Paul Hilton. The operation, supported by Indonesia’s marine police, revealed where the protected species were being illegally caught and kept in sea pens by a major supplier of large marine megafauna to the international wildlife tradePaul HiltonMonday 6 June 2016 06.29 EDT.  More:   Rescued whale sharks released back into the ocean – in pictures | Environment | The Guardian

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Experts Prepare to Welcome Black-footed Ferrets Back to Wyoming

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Not terribly long ago, the black-footed ferret vanished from the wild. Today, experts are making plans to return this endangered species to the same site where humans once thought we had seen the very last of this iconic prairie creature.

On the early morning of November 2, 1985 I watched a pickup truck crest the ridge of a dusty Wyoming two-track ranch road and disappear over the horizon. Inside it was what I thought at the time might be the last black-footed ferret ever to live in the wild. I was dead tired, having been up for the past week trying to catch that ferret, spending nights of driving laps around prairie dog colonies – the habitat and food source of black-footed ferrets – peering out to the end of the beam of a strong spotlight to find her. It was the end of a tumultuous fall, one that had been filled with bitter accusations and petty politics, and I was really too worn down to be much more than philosophical about her departure. There was no fanfare, no media presence—nothing that would have marked the day as remarkable. Even though it might have been the day that a species went extinct in the wild.  More:  Experts Prepare to Welcome Black-footed Ferrets Back to Wyoming

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