Tag archives for China
Posted by I would like to thank Peggy Liu, Christine Chen and Phoebus Xu of the Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE) for facilitating my visit to Tianjin Eco-city in September, 2012. Special thanks to the administration of the Eco-city for the tour and presentation provided during the visit. As the new Chinese leadership takes…
Posted by National Geographic Contributing Writer Bryan Christy offers observations and suggestions on what the priorities should be for the newly announced U.S. initiative to form a global coalition to protect wildlife in their environments and end the illicit global trade in wildlife goods. “If I could offer only one suggestion on how to reduce wildlife crime, it would be this: Look to the grass roots,” Christy says.
Posted by 
Some 1.2 million people asked the 25 member governments of the Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR, composed of 24 countries and the EU) to take action during their annual meeting this week to conserve Antarctic marine ecosystems. Most of them answered this call and were prepared to work on proposals…
Saving Other Turtles from George’s Lonesome Fate
Posted by Wildlife Conservation Society on October 24, 2012 For turtle species numbering in the hundreds or less, we may only have a few years before we lose these marvels of evolution forever. We have the ability to make a difference, and we have the ethical responsibility to respond. We must act now to ensure that future generations have the opportunity to spot a turtle in the wild and that no species finds itself reduced by human greed or mismanagement to one last, lonesome representative.
Posted by By Catherine Zuckerman Frog: It’s what’s for dinner. Frog fallopian tubes, to be exact. On a recent episode of The Amazing Race, contestants jetted off to Shanghai and had to down a Chinese delicacy known as hasma. Described as “frog fallopian tubes,” the meal looked daunting—picture a mound of small, milky-white, jiggling blobs. To kick…
Experts Debate a Link between Climate Change and Extreme Weather
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on October 11, 2012 As the 2012 harvest season comes to a close, pumpkins appear to be one of the few successes for farmers following the severe drought felt across many parts of the United States. Damage to the nation’s two largest crops, corn and soybeans, puts these staples below demand for the first time since 1974, while the rising cost to feed cattle drives up…
Posted by Would you be surprised to learn that China is a world leader in sustainable seafood? This video shows how fish farmers in China use some ingenious and low-impact traditional methods to produce more fish than any other country. It’s Slow Food on a massive scale, it’s permaculture, and it tastes great. Along with fish, the…
This article is based on a field visit I made to Guangxi, China in June 2012 as part of a broader research project on sustainability in the pearl farming sector supported by the Tiffany & Co. Foundation. Special thanks to the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences (particularly Xiaoqing Huang and Hongsheng Chen) for facilitating my…
More than 100 Coal Plants Shutting—But How Much Difference Will It Make?
Posted by Mason Inman on March 8, 2012 After public pressure, Chicago will shut two aging coal-fired power plants, and the owner of one of the power plants, Midwest Generation, may shut its other four coal plants in Illinois. Since the start of 2010, more than 100 coal plants have been slated for early retirement. A major reason for coal plants shutting has been public opposition to…
Obama Calls for “All of the Above” Energy Strategy for America
Posted by Mason Inman on January 26, 2012 In President Obama’s third State of the Union address, he devoted more time than before to covering energy issues, calling for an “all-out, all-of-the-above” approach to boosting production of every kind of domestic energy, fossil as well as renewable. Obama also asked the country to imagine “a future where we’re in control of our own…
U.S. Rejects Tar Sands Pipeline from Canada—For Now
Posted by Mason Inman on January 19, 2012 Under pressure from Congress to make a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, planned to connect Canada’s tar sands region with the U.S. Gulf Coast, the Obama administration has decided to reject the pipeline proposal. “This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline” that did not…
Surprise Deal Emerges at United Nations Climate Talks
Posted by Mason Inman on December 15, 2011 In a surprise turnaround, the United Nations climate talks managed to produce a new deal to eventually curb global emissions moving forward. In a press release announcing the agreement, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) called it a “breakthrough.” The new agreement marks a break from the Kyoto Protocol, which divided the world…
Record 443 Rhinos Killed by Poachers in South Africa in 2011
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on December 14, 2011 It has been a bad year for rhinos in South Africa. Many more got killed than in 2010, the 333 toll of which was described with words like “shocking” and “outrageous”. Most thought it couldn’t get worse.
It’s got much worse. The tally for 2011 is at least 433. It could end up being higher, for even as the year drew to a close, reports kept coming in of more dead rhinos found with gruesome wounds or just stumps left where their horns had been.
Durban Plan for Climate Treaty Greeted With Mixed Feelings
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on December 12, 2011 The COP17 round of climate negotiations in Durban has once again shown just how hard it is to devise a cohesive international response to this threatening phenomenon. It is for this reason that the conference’s agreement to sign up to an all-inclusive legal commitment to reduce carbon emissions has been hailed as a major breakthrough,…
Now All GOP Presidential Candidates Express Climate Skepticism
Posted by Mason Inman on December 8, 2011 GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman expressed skepticism about the science on climate change, so now all GOP candidates are on the record as doubting either that the planet is clearly warming, or that people are responsible for most of the warming. Of all the GOP candidates, Huntsman had been the most supportive of action on climate…
Only Five Years Left to Make Transition to Low-Carbon Infrastructure
Posted by Mason Inman on November 10, 2011 The infrastructure built over the next five years could “lock in” enough emissions to push the world past its target for limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest annual update of energy trends, World Energy Outlook. The Agency is “increasingly pessimistic” about the prospect for dealing with climate change, said deputy…
Cutting Oil Use Should Be Focus of U.S. Energy Research, New Roadmap Says
Posted by Mason Inman on September 29, 2011 A major study modeled after goal-setting reports from the Departments of Defense and State, the first Quadrennial Technology Review by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), called for a shift in energy research and development priorities to reduce America’s dependence on oil. “Reliance on oil is the greatest immediate threat to U.S. economic and national security…
Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies May Be the Way to Jumpstart Climate Finance
Posted by Mason Inman on September 22, 2011 A leaked World Bank document, due to be presented at the G20 meeting in November, proposes that rich countries eliminate their fossil fuel subsidies and instead contribute the money to climate aid for poor countries to help with green energy and adaptation measures. The paper also said donor countries are unlikely to come up with the…
Ending Oil Tax Breaks Could Pay For New Jobs—and Some May Be Green
Posted by Mason Inman on September 15, 2011 President Obama unveiled a new job creation plan in a major speech to Congress last week and follow-up speeches this week, in which he called for an end to tax breaks for oil and gas companies to bring in an additional $32 billion over 10 years to pay for increased government spending. Earlier this year, Obama called…
Tar Sands Pipeline Gets Green Light in Environmental Review
Posted by Mason Inman on September 1, 2011 Hundreds of protesters—including famed climate researcher James Hansen—have been arrested in protests in front of the White House over the past two weeks, in an attempt to stop the construction of a pipeline from Canada to Texas to carry diluted tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries, mainly over concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and risks of…
Libya’s Revolution Could Provide Stimulus through Cheaper Oil
Posted by Mason Inman on August 25, 2011 After rebel forces swept into Libya’s capital, Tripoli, the country may be able to start to ramp oil production and exports again, which many analysts hope will bring down oil prices. Libya claims Africa’s largest proven oil reserves, and was producing about 1.6 million barrels a day when the production suddenly dropped to near zero in February. Many…
Scrambling to Head Off Power Outages Caused by Heat Waves, Rapid Growth, and Disaster
Posted by Mason Inman on August 18, 2011 Texas has suffered through the worst drought and one of the worst heat waves on record, pushing electricity use to a record high in an attempt to cope. Texas is the state with the largest installed wind capacity, and recently installed wind farms came through to boost the state’s electricity generation just in time. However, even this jump was…
South African Court Jails Rhino Horn Smugglers
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on August 8, 2011 A South African court effectively threw away the key when it jailed two smugglers convicted of trying to smuggle rhino horns out of the country. But the slaughter of the country’s pachyderms for the spurious healing power of their horns continues unchecked. A new scheme allegedly involves sex workers posing as trophy hunters seeking to harvest rhino horns through a legal loophole.
China Aims to Become Solar Powerhouse with New Subsidies
Posted by Mason Inman on August 4, 2011 China is already the world’s biggest solar panel manufacturer, but now it is making a move to become a major solar energy consumer as well, with a nationwide feed-in tariff to pay people or businesses a subsidy for electricity they produce with solar panels. This follows on the heels of the country’s wind energy feed-in tariff in…
Australia’s Ambitious Scheme Sets World’s Highest Price on Emissions
Posted by Mason Inman on July 14, 2011 Australia, with the highest per capita greenhouse emissions of any large developed country, will soon take on one of the most ambitious schemes to tackle climate change, with a new carbon-trading system. The planned carbon tax will start in 2012 and apply first to the 500 worst polluting companies responsible for about 60 percent of the country’s emissions,…
