Climate Crisis, Biosphere & Societal Collapse

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4757140

The EU executive’s proposal to postpone the implementation of the regulation on imported deforestation for one year was approved by the Brussels hemicycle with 371 votes in favour, 240 against, and 30 abstentions. On the final vote, socialists, greens and leftists opposed it, with the same compactness with which the popular and far-right supported the text, while the liberals split.

The EPP, which had tabled 15 controversial amendments to the Commission’s new text, announced before the vote that it was withdrawing some of the most significant ones: the proposal for a two-year delay and several exemptions for traders on supply chain control charges. According to a statement on the sidelines of the vote by Christine Schneider, a People’s Party MEP who signed all of the amendments, the EPP withdrew the amendments because it got reassurances from the European Commission in return, particularly the commitment to review the guidelines for companies and make sure to avoid an overlap of bureaucratic burdens between companies.

B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says the teenager in Children’s Hospital with Canada’s first presumptive case of avian flu is in critical condition. Henry said the teen was admitted late on Friday and their condition varied over the weekend but that as of Tuesday they had taken a turn for the worst.

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• In the last 125 years, bobcats have recovered significantly from extremely low numbers, with several million individuals found throughout North America today.
• Living at the interface of urban and rural environments, bobcats face many human-caused dangers, including loss of habitat to roam, automobiles, and rodent poisons.
• Bobcats help reduce the spread of diseases from animals to humans partly because they and other large mammals are poor disease vectors. Bobcats also prey on the small rodents that easily transmit pathogens.
• It’s legal to hunt bobcats in most of the United States. California, which has for five years closed the bobcat season, may reinstate hunting in 2025. Some researchers suggest that regulators should more carefully consider the role thriving wildcat populations play in protecting human communities from zoonotic diseases before expanding hunting.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4664483

Three years ago, a court in The Hague backed a case by Friends of the Earth and 17,000 Dutch citizens requiring Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions significantly, in line with the Paris climate accords.

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At the time, the 2021 ruling marked the first time a court had ordered a private company to align its workings with the Paris climate agreement, meaning that it was not sufficient for a company simply to comply with the law - it had to comply with global climate policy too.

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The appeals court judge said that companies such as Shell were obliged to contribute to combating climate change based on the human right to protection against dangerous climate change.

However, the court said Shell was already working to reduce its emissions and the court could not establish whether it should make a 45% cut or another percentage, as there was no current accepted agreement in climate science on the required amount.

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Environmental groups can now take their case against Shell to the Supreme Court - meaning that a final verdict in this far-reaching case may still be years away.

[Edit typo.]

For many places that are used to seasonal snow, there could likely be a day in our lifetime, where folks see their last blizzard. Their last big snowfall.

Makes me cherish the cold and the snow even more.

Edit hope random thoughts like this are ok here.

Not only Europe, most of us are not ready to accept the reality of extreme weather

Geoengineering? Surely, WCGW?

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/4332042

Australia has described the outcome of a meeting between members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources as a "backwards step".

Attendees said Russia and China vetoed all proposed measures, including one to renew existing krill management measures.

Conservationists say member countries should regroup and figure out how to tackle Russia and China ahead of the next meeting in 2025.

What were they thinking?? Since the devastating floods in Derna, it is no longer a warning. We are completely unprepared for climate change disasters, and it's going to get worse.

I can only agree

Here is more information: https://www.stopeacop.net

A group of 28 NGOs have written to 34 banks, insurance companies and the Chinese government, urging them to deny financing and other support for oil and gas projects in Uganda.

The letters, written by U.S.-based Climate Rights International (CRI) and 27 Africa-based NGOs, follow a report detailing numerous human rights violations and environmental harms at the Kingfisher oil project sites in Uganda. Similarly, Uganda’s Tilenga oil fields also face scrutiny over their ecological and social harms, including impacts on wildlife and displacement of local communities.

Both Kingfisher and Tilenga are co-owned by French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company Uganda Ltd. (CNOOC), and the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC). Both projects are also part of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline initiative (EACOP), where TotalEnergies is a major partner. The initiave aims to transport oil and gas from Uganda to Tanzania for export.

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Major banks and insurance companies in Europe, Japan and North America have ruled out support for the projects, he added. “Now it’s time for all banks and insurance companies, whether in Europe, China, the Gulf States, Africa, or elsewhere, to publicly rule out any continuing or further support.”

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Subsidized minivans, no income taxes: Countries have rolled out a range of benefits to encourage bigger families, with no luck

The findings come before the government's first budget later this month, and with a cost of living crisis that has driven soaring use of food banks.

According to the report by non-governmental organisation the Trussell Trust, almost a quarter of children under four are facing extreme poverty.

"Shockingly, 46 percent more children are facing hunger and hardship than two decades ago. That equates to one in five children growing up trapped in this situation," the trust said in a statement.

A UNICEF report last year found that the UK -- a G7 and NATO member, and the world's sixth biggest economy -- has one of the highest rates of child poverty among richer countries.

In 2013, Chinese mining company Chinalco (中国铝业集团有限公司) sparked an international conversation about extractive impacts with the news it had successfully relocated an entire Peruvian town of 5,000 residents to clear space for a copper mine. At the time, the relocation project in Morococha, central Peru, was touted as a solution to protect villagers from pollution and environmental degradation as a result of mining practices, and as a potential template for Chinese overseas investment in Latin America.

Ten years later, experts describe the move as a “tragedy.”

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Many residents and environmental activists argue that the company has failed to honor its promises. A 2019 study by the National University of Central Peru revealed that most of the population of New Morococha believes their economy, job stability, and access to social benefits promised by Chinalco have not been fulfilled.

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Since 2013, 96 percent of the residents in Old Morococha have been compelled to relocate to a flood-prone wetland area, which is also isolated from the central highway. The situation is even worse for some 20 families who have refused to resettle.

“The remaining families in Old Morococha are facing daily harassment from the Chinese mining company Chinalco,” Borda said. “Every day, they are destroying the few houses of the settlers, until the last brick disappears.”

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According to the Geological, Mining, and Metallurgical Institute of Perú (INGEMMET) 2017 report, the city of Old Morococha faces an “imminent, non-mitigable danger” due to severe risks, including visible structural damage, proximity to mining waste and tailings, and ongoing seismic hazards exacerbated by active mining operations. The combination of these factors renders any mitigation efforts ineffective, underscoring the extreme vulnerability of the area.

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[The Ingemmet report] concluded that frequent floods and liquefaction of soils caused by earthquakes may affect the safety of residents living in buildings of New Morococha, where most urban facilities, including schools, religious temples, and health centers, were built within 26 months between 2010 and 2012. The report said the company has not yet informed residents of what they would do to mitigate those risks.

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