Discovery of mummified penguin chicks provides clues to catastrophic weather events in Antarctica: scientists

Australian and Chinese scientists have discovered hundreds of mummified penguin chicks on Long Peninsula in Antarctica.

The mummified bird carcasses were found
 lying in heavy sediments in east Antarctica.

The researchers said the find sheds light on the effects of two catastrophic weather events that decimated breeding colonies in the area, and could also unlock clues about the impact of climate change on Antarctic penguin populations.

A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research —Biogeosciences analysed sediment at the site where researchers found the mummified baby birds.

Scientists said the discovery holds clues to two massive weather-related calamities that wiped out large numbers of birds, one about 200 years ago and one around 750 years ago.

Read the ABC News story - “Discovery of mummified penguin chicks provides clues to catastrophic weather events in Antarctica: scientists.”

China stakes claim on electric car market with 100 new models at auto show

Chinese car brands are staking a leadership claim in the global race to dominate electric vehicles, unveiling and promoting more than 100 new models at the country's annual auto show.

The LSEV is touted as the first mass-producible
3D-printed electric car in the world.

More than two-thirds of the hybrid and fully electric plug-in cars on display in Beijing are from Chinese brands, despite international car giants trying hard to court the huge local market with the unveiling of several new electric SUVs.

New energy vehicles (NEVs) aren't just fashionable in China's big cities — they are also being actively pushed by China's government through subsidies for manufacturers and a planned cap-and-trade quota system that will force car companies to make at least 10 per cent of their output NEVs or face fines.

Read the Bill Birtles story from ABC News - “China stakes claim on electric car market with 100 new models at auto show.”

World’s newest great ape threatened by Chinese dam

Last November scientists made a jaw-dropping announcement: they’d discovered a new great ape hiding in plain sight, only the eighth inhabiting our planet. 

A new species of great ape – the Tapanuli
orangutan – is down to just 800 individuals. 

The Tapanuli orangutan survives in northern Sumatra and it is already the most endangered great ape in the world; researchers estimate less than 800 individuals survive. But the discovery hasn’t stopped a Chinese state-run company, Sinohydro, from moving ahead with clearing forest for a large dam project smack in the middle of the orangutan population. According to several orangutan experts, Sinohyrdo’s dam represents an immediate and existential threat to the Tapanuli orangutan. 

“Building the dam means chopping the orangutan population in half,” Erik Meijaard, the director of Borneo Futures and one of the experts to describe Pongo tapanuliensis, said. “You end up with two smaller populations, and these will have much reduced chances of survival, because a small population is more likely to go extinct than a large one.”

Read the story by Jeremy Hance fromThe Guardian - “World’s newest great ape threatened by Chinese dam.”

Trump calls for some 'good old global warming' as US experiences bad weather

He once dismissed it as a “hoax” created by the Chinese to destroy American jobs, but right now Donald Trump is pining for some of that “good old global warming”.

 Climate scientists have long warned against using individual
weather events to assess global warming, but now
 Donald Trump wants some "good old global warming".

While on holiday in Florida on Thursday, the US president wondered whether global warming might not be such a problem after all.

As severe cold and record amounts of snow sweep across the US east coast, Trump wrote on Twitter that the country “could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against”. 

“Bundle up!” he added.

Read Michael McGowan’s story on The Guardian - “Trump calls for some 'good old global warming' as US experiences bad weather.”

A Chinese company is offering free training for US coal miners to become wind farmers

If you want to truly understand what’s happening in the energy industry, the best thing to do is to travel deep into the heart of American coal country, to Carbon County, Wyoming (yes, that’s a real place).

From coal mining to wind farming,
courtesy of a Chinese initiative. 

The state produces most coal in the US, and Carbon County has long been known (and was named) for its extensive coal deposits. But the state’s mines have been shuttering over the past few years, causing hundreds of people to lose their jobs in 2016 alone. Now, these coal miners are finding hope, offered from an unlikely place: a Chinese wind-turbine maker wants to retrain these American workers to become wind-farm technicians. It’s the perfect metaphor for the massive shift happening in the global energy markets.

The news comes from an energy conference in Wyoming, where the American arm of Goldwind, a Chinese wind-turbine manufacturer, announced the free training program. More than a century ago, Carbon County was home to the first coal mine in Wyoming. Soon, it will be the site of a new wind farm with hundreds of Goldwind-supplied turbines.

Read the story Akshat Rathi on Quartz - “A Chinese company is offering free training for US coal miners to become wind farmers.”

The burning question: Climate change in the era of Trump

BLOWING hot and cold doesn’t begin to cover it. In 2009 Donald Trump signed a public letter calling for cuts to America’s greenhouse-gas emissions. In 2012 he dismissed climate change as a hoax cooked up by the Chinese. On the campaign trail he promised to withdraw from an international accord, struck last year in Paris, to fight global warming. This week, as president-elect, Mr Trump said he has an “open mind” on the Paris deal and that there is “some connectivity” between human activity and climate change.

Such fickleness gives succour to pessimists and optimists alike. Those who are gloomy about the climate still expect America to ignore or withdraw from the Paris agreement, or to abandon the 1992 UN framework that underpins it. Sunnier folk hope that Mr Trump will govern differently from how he campaigned, enabling the fight against climate change to continue unabated. The reality is more complex. Mr Trump’s brand of “America First” populism will do nothing to help the planet, but neither need it be the catastrophe many fear.

Read The Economist story -“The burning question: Climate change in the era of Trump.”

Donald Trump Will Be the Only World Leader to Deny Climate Change Is Real

Donald Trump, perhaps
thinking about climate change
during the presidential
debate on September 26 in
 Hempstead, New York.

As future president, Donald Trump has promised to dismantle President Barack Obama’s progress toward improving the environment. He has supported the Keystone XL pipeline and removing regulations on the gas and oil industries. He wants to reduce the influence of the Environmental Protection Agency, which he called a “disgrace,” and scrap the Clean Power Plan, which would compel power plants to reduce their carbon emission. He wants to “cancel” the Paris climate change deal. And he also once claimed that global warming is a hoax “created by and for the Chinese.” (China clarified Wednesday that it could not in fact be to blame, because climate change negotiations were first started by the Reagan administration.)

And on Jan. 20, Trump will become the only world leader who openly and outright rejects fighting climate change.

A July report by the Sierra Club found that the leaders of the 195 independent states of the world all acknowledge climate science and the need for action. The study concludes that “if elected, Donald Trump would be the only world leader today to deny the science of climate change. In fact, a review of the data indicates that Trump might very well be the only world leader not calling for urgent climate action.” Well, now that has come to fruition.

Read the Slate story - “Donald Trump Will Be the Only World Leader to Deny Climate Change Is Real.”