Image: Pierre Markuse (Flickr) Editor’s note: the figures in this article were confirmed using multiple sources, including Grist, the Telegraph, and Inside Climate News. However, the sources are about a week old so the affected areas are probably larger This summer’s unprecedented temperatures have melted and dried vast regions of arctic permafrost, which have begun … Continue reading Arctic Permafrost Infernos→
By Andrew Gilligan / The Telegraph The finding, which threatens the entire rationale of the onshore wind farm industry, will be made by Scottish government-funded researchers who devised the standard method used by developers to calculate “carbon payback time” for wind farms on peat soils. Wind farms are typically built on upland sites, where peat … Continue reading Wind farms will create more carbon dioxide, say scientists→
A series of recently released studies make it clear that wind power is not going to save us—not from global warming, not from high extinction rates, and not from the system of high-energy-consumption industrial exploitation that is killing the planet.
Let’s start with the most damning findings: even the most large-scale shift to wind power cannot slow greenhouse gas emissions enough to have any positive effect on the climate, although it may manage to make things worse. Why? ... Continue reading →
By Andrew Gilligan / The Telegraph Thousands of Britain’s wind turbines will create more greenhouse gases than they save, according to potentially devastating scientific research to be published later this year. The finding, which threatens the entire rationale of the onshore wind farm industry, will be made by Scottish government-funded researchers who devised the standard … Continue reading Study: UK wind farms devastate peatlands, produce high carbon emissions→
By Bangor University Growing oil palm to make ‘green’ biofuels in the tropics could be accelerating the effects of climate change, say scientists. Researchers from Bangor University found the creation of oil palm plantations are releasing prehistoric sources of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. The findings throw into doubt hopes that biofuels grown in … Continue reading New report shows “green” biofuels made from palm oil accelerating climate change→
By Oliver Milman / The Guardian The world’s densest population of orangutans is set to be “extinguished” by a massive new wave of fires that is clearing large tracts of a peat swamp forest in the Indonesian island of Sumatra, conservationists have warned. Environmentalists claim that satellite images show a huge surge in forest blazes … Continue reading Palm oil industry burning Indonesian orangutans into extinction to build plantations→
By Agence France-Presse Surging demand for palm oil in India for cooking and everyday grocery items is driving tropical forest destruction in Indonesia, Greenpeace said Tuesday. In its report “Frying the Forest” the group called on Indians to boycott products by brands Britannia, ITC, Parle and Godrej, such as biscuits and soap, until the companies … Continue reading Palm oil industry rapidly destroying Indonesian forests→
By Mongabay Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil processor and trader, has hired a major lobbying firm to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s ruling that palm oil-based biodiesel will not meet greenhouse gas emissions standards under America’s Renewable Fuels Standard, reports The Hill. Wilmar Oleo North America hired lobbying firm Van Ness Feldman to … Continue reading Lobbyists for palm oil industry try to reverse EPA decision against carbon-intensive biodiesel→
By Kathy Marks / The Independent Fires raging unchecked in an Indonesian peat swamp forest could wipe out the remaining Sumatran orang-utans which live there, conservationists are warning. The forest is one of the last refuges of the great apes. The illegal fires, started by palm-oil companies clearing land to plant the lucrative crop, are … Continue reading Peat swamp forest set ablaze by palm oil companies, killing more than a hundred orangutans→
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay Environmentalists have targeted the oil-producing tar sands in Canada in part because its crude comes with heftier carbon emissions than conventional sources. Now, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found an additional source of carbon that has been unaccounted for: peatlands. Mining … Continue reading Tar sands project could emit up to 47.3 million tons of carbon by devastating peatlands→
