Category Archives: environment

First Light from GOES-16 : Image of the Day – Better photos of earth climate – Will they be banned from public view if Trump thinks they support climate change facts?

Later this year, NOAA will announce a final location for GOES-16, as it will be moved into orbit to replace either the GOES-East or GOES-West satellite by the end of 2017. In addition to observing weather on Earth, GOES-16 carries instruments for monitoring solar activity and space weather.

Source: First Light from GOES-16 : Image of the Day

Five Pacific islands lost to rising seas as climate change hits – “Don’t tell the Sweet Potato Head kid… shhh!”

Five tiny Pacific islands have disappeared due to rising seas and erosion, a discovery thought to be the first scientific confirmation of the impact of climate change on coastlines in the Pacific, according to Australian researchers.The submerged islands were part of the Solomon Islands, an archipelago that over the last two decades has seen annual sea levels rise as much as 10mm (0.4in), according to research published in the May issue of the online journal Environmental Research Letters.The missing islands, ranging in size from 1 to 5 hectares (2.5-12.4 acres) were not inhabited by humans. But six other islands had large swaths of land washed into the sea and on two of those, entire villages were destroyed and people forced to relocate, the researchers found.

Source: Five Pacific islands lost to rising seas as climate change hits – Arid Zone Afforestation

Save

Thousands fill Loop after Women’s March rally in Chicago draws 250,000 – Chicago Tribune

The rally began with light-hearted music but quickly moved into difficult discussions on racism, homophobia, xenophobia and gun violence. Samantha Marie Ware, a Chicago cast member of ‘Hamilton,’ became emotional on stage recalling how she, as a black woman, once felt as though she couldn’t accomplish her goals because of her race. She encouraged the women before her to stand up.

Source: Thousands fill Loop after Women’s March rally in Chicago draws 250,000 – Chicago Tribune

News | Embassy of the Earth

A breakthrough in science, knowledge and consciousness is beginning to unfold for all human beings. As we pay attention, we begin to experience life through new perceptions of a delicately woven interdependence, cluing us in to larger patterns and expanding our knowledge and awareness of continuous flow and change. As an ABC community these larger patterns are helping us to better grow nutritious and delicious food for the world. Simultaneously this awareness directs us to allow the natural world, our eco systems to do what they do best: protect and regulate the biosphere.The case I’m making here is that there is a profound essence in the world’s smallholder farmers, fisher folk, pastoralists, forest dwellers. They are not just food producers, they are frontline custodians of biodiverse landscapes, with them lies the true regenerative power of our societies.

Source: News | Embassy of the Earth

Pan-resistant CRE reported in Nevada | CIDRAP

An aggressive infectionThe patient was a 70-year-old resident of Washoe County, Nevada who was admitted to an acute care hospital in August 2016 after an extended trip to India. She was given a primary diagnosis of systemic inflammatory response syndrome, likely resulting from an infected right hip seroma. The infection was serious; none of the 14 antibiotics physicians used to treat the woman worked.  After the CRE—identified as Klebsiella pneumoniae, one of the more common types of CRE—was confirmed by lab testing, an isolate from a wound specimen was sent to the CDC for further susceptibility testing and to determine the mechanism of resistance. That testing confirmed the presence of New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1), an enzyme that directly breaks down carbapenems, a powerful class of antibiotics that are often used to treat multidrug-resistant infections.In addition, the CDC’s antimicrobial testing showed the isolate was resistant to 26 different antibiotics, including all aminoglycosides and polymixins—another class of last-resort antibiotics. It was also intermittently resistant to tigecycline, an antibiotic developed specifically to overcome drug-resistant organisms. Essentially, there were no treatment options.

Source: Pan-resistant CRE reported in Nevada | CIDRAP

Modern Benefits from Ancient Seeds: The Hunt for Wild Fava | Civil Eats

After considerable study, it turns out the seeds are wild ancestors of Vicia faba, commonly known as the fava bean. Fava is considered by the conservation organization Crop Trust to be one of the most important crops in some parts of the world. Fava’s health is a critical matter even in places where people don’t consume it very much: it’s the most effective natural nitrogen fixer known to agriculture.Nitrogen is essential to building nutrient-rich soil, but it’s quickly used up by cereal crops like wheat, which, when eaten in conjunction with fava and other legumes, provide an inexpensive, balanced diet to the world’s estimated 375 million vegetarians. Any crop’s wild ancestors hold important information about how to make modern domesticated varieties more resistant to disease, drought, and other devastating effects of climate change. But traces of a wild ancestor of Vicia faba, long presumed extinct, proved utterly elusive—until el-Wad.The six seeds, each measuring about 5 millimeters in length, were discovered by paleobotanist Valentina Caracuta; she published her findings in Scientific Reports this past November. Caracuta dug the seeds up from the earliest levels of an ongoing excavation of a Natufian habitation. The Natufians were a hunter-gatherer culture that inhabited the Levant (or eastern Mediterranean) from about 13,000 to 9,700 BCE.

Source: Modern Benefits from Ancient Seeds: The Hunt for Wild Fava | Civil Eats

Arctic ice melt now affects world weather | Green Prophet

Polar vortex, the term attributed to the recent frigid weather patterns that recently put much of North America, Europe and even the Middle East into the deep freeze, is now slated to become even more frequent, due to the increasing melt-down of the earth’s Arctic ice cap. This phenomena is caused by a weakening of the normal jet stream air currents that encircle the earth’s arctic regions, due to higher than average summer temperatures. As a result, these “meandering” jet stream air currents are now dipping into the more southern regions, bringing with them frigid Arctic air.Fortunately, these polar air dips usually last only a week or two; but they are intense enough to make northern American cities like Chicago, Detroit and New York City experience frigid temperatures of well below zero; often combined with heavy snowfall and strong winds. Many European cities experience intense these winter weather bouts as well. Climatologists and other scientists studying the adverse weather patterns are now tying these jet stream dips to faster than expected melting of Arctic ice, especially in the polar region.

Source: Arctic ice melt now affects world weather | Green Prophet

Native Seeds Sustain Brazil’s Semi-Arid Northeast | Inter Press Service

In bottles and small plastic barrels, he stores the seeds of corn, bean, sorghum, watermelon and other locally planted species, in a shack next to his house, in the middle of land that is now sandy and covered with dried-up vegetation.More than a thousand homes that serve as “seed banks”, and 20,000 participating families, make up the network organised by ASA to preserve the genetic heritage and diversity of crops adapted to the climate and semi-arid soil in Brazil’s Northeast.Saving seeds is an age-old peasant tradition, which was neglected during the “green revolution”, a period of agricultural modernization which started in the mid-20th century and involved “an offensive by companies that produced the so-called ‘improved’ seeds,” which farmers became dependent on, said Antonio Gomes Barbosa, a sociologist who is coordinator of ASA’s Seed Programme.

Source: Native Seeds Sustain Brazil’s Semi-Arid Northeast | Inter Press Service

AMAZON WATCH » New Witch Hunt in Ecuador Against Indigenous and Environment Defenders

The Shuar situation about which Acción Ecológica had been sounding the alarm involved the escalation of the conflict between the Shuar community of Nankints, the government, and a Chinese mining conglomerate Explorcobres S.A. (EXSA). The government had granted EXSA rights to mine for copper in the area of San Carlos Panantza, which overlaps with Shuar ancestral territory, without seeking the consent of – let alone properly consulting with – the Shuar, despite the fact that international and Ecuadorian law require such consultation. As the mining project moved forward, the Shuar tried to engage various government entities in dialogue.Those attempts at dialogue were brutally interrupted in August when military and police forces forcibly evicted Shuar families from land the company needed for the mine. After a lack of adequate response from the government, in late November the Shuar attempted to return to those lands and were met with heavy police and military presence, including air assaults. When the vice president of FICSH tried to mediate, he was arrested. Instead of heading calls from regional and national indigenous federations for mediated dialogue, the government continued its heavy-handed approach, and the conflict escalated. Last week those protests turned violent, resulting in several injuries and the death of one policeman. The government then declared a 30-day “state of emergency” – essentially the suspension of rights and due process – and sent in the military, complete with armored tanks. President Rafael Correa wasted no time in taking to the airwaves and Twitter to defame the Shuar, calling them “semi-delinquents” and implying that they’re using extortion for material gain.

Source: AMAZON WATCH » New Witch Hunt in Ecuador Against Indigenous and Environment Defenders