Trump Rule Would Exclude Climate Change in Infrastructure Planning

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies would no longer have to take climate change into account when they assess the environmental impacts of highways, pipelines and other major infrastructure projects, according to a Trump administration plan that would weaken the nation’s benchmark environmental law.

Sections of unused pipe, intended for the Keystone
 XL project, near Gascoyne, N.D., in 2014

The proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act could sharply reduce obstacles to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and other fossil fuel projects that have been stymied when courts ruled that the Trump administration did not properly consider climate change when analyzing the environmental effects of the projects.

According to one government official who has seen the proposed regulation but was not authorized to speak about it publicly, the administration will also narrow the range of projects that require environmental review. That could make it likely that more projects will sail through the approval process without having to disclose plans to do things like discharge waste, cut trees or increase air pollution.

Read the story from The New York Times by Lisa Friedman - “Trump Rule Would Exclude Climate Change in Infrastructure Planning.”

Scientists Want to Make Harming the Environment a War Crime

Forests burned to the ground. Rivers damaged by broken infrastructure. Animals slaughtered and driven from their habitats. The environmental impacts of war are staggering, yet they’re often overshadowed by the societal wreckage created by conflict.

Making harming the enviornment a war crime.

Now in a letter published in the scientific journal Nature, a group of scientists is urging the United Nations to make it a war crime to harm the environment during times of conflict. The UN’s International Law Commission is in talks through Aug. 8, and the scientists are calling on attending members to create a framework “to protect the environment in regions of armed conflict.”

“We call on governments to incorporate explicit safeguards for biodiversity, and to use the commission’s recommendations to finally deliver a Fifth Geneva Convention to uphold environmental protection during such confrontations,” the petition reads. 

Read the story from Global Citizen by Joe McCarthy and Erica Sanchez - “Scientists Want to Make Harming the Environment a War Crime.”

Australia Institute labels gas industry input in NT fracking impact research 'totally inappropriate’

The nation's five largest fracking companies are set to help measure the environmental impacts of fracking in the Northern Territory, presenting a "totally inappropriate" conflict of interest in the eyes of one thinktank.

An alliance called GISERA will research and
 give advice on gas development in the Territory.

Last week, the Northern Territory Government awarded a $450,000 grant to the Gas Industry Social and Environmental Research Alliance (GISERA) to deliver "independent and transparent advice on gas development in the Territory”.

This research was among the 135 recommendations the NT Government accepted when it lifted a ban on fracking earlier this year.

Read Jane Bardon’s story from ABC News - “Australia Institute labels gas industry input in NT fracking impact research 'totally inappropriate’.”

NSW’s no-cull brumby bill will consign feral horses to an even crueller fate

New South Wales’ proposed brumby legislation – which abandons plans to cull feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park – is a dangerously reckless policy that will escalate environmental impacts, escalate costs, and put horses at risk of extreme suffering.

Research suggests there is no “safe number” of brumbies
 that will avoid harm to mountain ecosystems

The New South Wales’ Deputy Premier John Barilaro was reported as saying the cultural significance of the brumbies needed to be recognised.

But the evidence regarding feral horse (brumby) impacts on the environment in the Australian alps makes it clear that large numbers of feral horses are incompatible with maintaining the ecological values of Kosciuszko National Park.

Read the piece on The Conversation by the Professor in Terrestrial Ecology from Deakin University, Don Driscoll - “NSW’s no-cull brumby bill will consign feral horses to an even crueller fate.”

Sustainable Innovation In Sport

(The obvious answer to achieving sustainability in sport is not an answer most people would want to hear – bring an end to international and national sports as both depend almost entirely on air travel, which is one of the major contributor to human-induced disruptions to Earth’s climate system. The Australian Football League (AFL) played its grand final yesterday and the success of that competition is totally reliant on air travel, both for the competitors and enthusiasts of the game.

Sport, in all its various forms, appears integral to human well-being and so our interest and effort should go into creating something equally exciting that has a prevailing localism about it – Robert McLean)

The second Sustainable Innovation in Sport gathering will be held early next year in .

For two days in February, stakeholders and influencers who are encouraging positive environmental impacts through sport will spend two days trying to understand how they can realise their aims.

This event follows a highly successful first edition of Sustainable Innovation in Sport 2015 which took place during COP21 in Paris.

The February meeting will consider economic, political and societal opportunities that enhancing sustainability in sports can offer to stakeholders in the industry.

It will amplify and bring awareness to current initiatives that are changing the face of the international sports and sustainability space, as well as focus on new policy and technologies that can be significant game changers.

Read about the two-day gathering in Munich, Germany, next year at which the discussion will be about “Sustainable Innovation In Sport.”