Roots
tag > Regenerative
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China's Yangtze River Basin to Recover Biodiversity (telesur)
The Asian longest river boasts one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world. However, the protection situation of some rare and unique aquatic species is grim. China began a 10-year fishing moratorium in 332 conservation areas in the Yangtze River basin, which will expand to all the natural waterways of the river and its major tributaries from no later than Jan. 1, 2021. "The biodiversity is recovering in the Yangtze. The species number has so far increased to 79 in the Jiangsu section from 48 at the beginning of 2017," said Zhang Jianjun, the Jiangsu Province's Agriculture Department Deputy Director.
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This is half the number of trucks that cross the France/UK channel on a normal day
"This is half the number of trucks that cross the channel on a normal day. One port. All that weight. The energy used to move them. The nature depleted to produce their contents. The debt. Yes, and the livelihoods that depend on them. Behold: the 'before' shot of sustainability."
Image source: Supermarkets airlifting fruit and vegetables to UK amid shortage fears
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Time for some home truths about deforestation - by Laura Spinney
"Between 1850 and 1920, we Europeans cut down 95m hectares of forest across Africa and Asia to make way for farms and plantations "
"Conservation and over-exploitation of the world’s resources were born in the same time and place – Europe during the industrial revolution – and have proceeded in parallel ever since. Both spring from Europeans’ search for Eden after they had destroyed it at home"
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Talk by Herbert Simon at the Earthware Symposium, Carnegie Mellon University (Oct.2000, one year before his death) - reflection on how technology and knowledge will continue to shape the world
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"the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practiced, embodied, or realized."
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In Pictures: How much plastic are you eating? (aljazeera)
Plastic production surged in the last 50 years, and we could be ingesting the equivalent of a credit card of plastic a week.
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The Social Life of Forests (NYTimes)
Trees appear to communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi. What are they sharing with one another? The question of whether plants possess some form of sentience or agency has a long and fraught history.
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China Expanding Weather-Control Program To Make Artificial Rain, Snow (businessinsider)
The practice of "cloud seeding" was discovered in the US in 1946 by a chemist working for General Electric. China launched its own similar program in the 1960s. Dozens of other countries -- including the US -- also have such programs, but Beijing has the world's largest, employing around 35,000 people, The Guardian reported. In a statement, China's State Council said that the country's cloud seeing project will expand fivefold to cover an area of 2.1 million square miles and be completed by 2025. (China encompasses 3.7 million square miles, meaning the project could cover 56% of the country's surface area.) The project will be at a "worldwide advanced level" by 2035, the State Council said, and will help alleviate "disasters such as drought and hail" and facilitate emergency responses "to forest or grassland fires."
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“Soil, not oil, holds the future for humanity” - Vandana Shiva
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Question: Does the human experience of life (a comprehensive view on well-being etc.) linearly improve, the more energy we use?
This should be a central point of investigation when dealing with radical perspectives and agendas, such as this: Tesla CEO says electric cars will double global electricity demand
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World is ‘doubling down’ on fossil fuels despite climate crisis – UN report (Guardian)
G20 governments have committed more than $230bn in Covid-19-related funding to fossil fuel production and consumption to date, far more than the $150bn to clean energy
Global soils underpin life but future looks ‘bleak’, warns UN report (Guardian)
It takes thousands of years for soils to form, meaning protection is needed urgently, say scientists
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Tesla CEO says electric cars will double global electricity demand
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday that electricity consumption will double if the world’s car fleets are electrified, increasing the need to expand nuclear, solar, geothermal and wind energy generating sources. Increasing the availability of sustainable energy is a major challenge as cars move from combustion engines to battery-driven electric motors, a shift which will take two decades, Musk said in a talk hosted by publisher Axel Springer.
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Germany energy regulator to close 4,788MW of coal plants
Germany’s energy regulator says as much as 4,788MW of coal-fired power generation capacity will cease to be marketable from January 1, as part of a policy to take carbon-polluting capacity out of the market, according to a Reuters report.
The move reflects Germany’s commitment to ending the fossil fuel age, idling the equivalent of five nuclear power plants in one step, while also cushioning the impact on utilities, regions and employment.
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International lawyers draft plan to criminalise ecosystem destruction (The Guardian)
Plan to draw up legal definition of ‘ecocide’ attracts support from European countries and small island nations.
Mariana Mazzucato: We may need climate lockdowns to halt climate change
We are approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilization will require dramatic interventions
#Comment: While such ideas might sounds appealing and progressive on first sight, on deeper reflection they are rather crazy and twisted: It is a play-book for eco-fascism. Large scale cooperation is obviously the key to solving the climate and biodiversity crisis - its been the driving force of humanity since the beginning. Yet even more centralisation of power is in my opinion not necessary nor helpful to foster more cooperation - on the contrary, it is what got us into these crisis in the first place. On closer introspection, massive power centralisation is precisely the defining characteristic of these"global climate regime" proposals made exclusively by WEIRD People ("Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich & Democratic"). Plus, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes and who gets to decide what is "ecologically sound"? Lawyers, economists, politicians, bankers and military leaders (the likely arbiters of this regime) certainly strike me as far from ideal.
#Regenerative #Economics #Military #ClimateChange #Cryptocracy
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China bans all imports of solid waste (2020)
The Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment last week announced details about the country’s upcoming ban on all materials it classifies as “solid waste,” including recovered fiber. The new announcement puts the new ban details in writing, but industry insiders have anticipated the policy for over a year. And shipping companies have moved away from accepting shipments of recyclables bound for China.
Through September of this year, the U.S. exported 1.86 million short tons of recovered fiber to China, suggesting potential challenges in 2021 for brokers looking to move this material to alternative markets.
China’s ban on imported waste to have huge impact on global recycling industry (2018)
China has officially banned its four-decade long practice of importing foreign garbage in 2018, a move experts believe will promote more sustainable ways to dispose of and recycle waste worldwide. “This ban will send shockwaves around the world, and force many countries to tackle the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude we’ve developed towards waste,” said Liu Hua, Greenpeace East Asia plastic campaigner.
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Narrative: Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough
Reality: Heliogen Is Bill Gates’ Latest Venture That Is Only Good For Oil & Gas - Part1 & Part 2
#Comment: This story is indicative of the mindset of global "elites" which suddenly proclaim to care about climate change et cetera: Tech-fetishist control-freaks can't seem to accept, that in reality "we have solutions already that are much easier to integrate" is true in most cases.
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Political power and renewable energy futures: A critical review (sciencedirect)
We theorize connections between energy systems and democractic political power.
Renewable energy opens opportunities for democratic energy development.
Tensions for energy democracy concern governance, technologies and competing agendas. Attention is needed regarding how and for whom new energy soures are concentrated.
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Tasmania declares itself 100 per cent powered by renewable electricity
The Tasmania government has declared that it has become the first Australian state, and one of just a handful of jurisdictions worldwide, to be powered entirely by renewable electricity. In a statement released on Friday, Tasmanian energy minister Guy Barnett said that state had effectively become entirely self-sufficient for supplies of renewable electricity, supplied by the state’s wind and hydroelectricity projects.
