Coal doesn’t help the poor; it makes them poorer

A dozen international poverty and development organizations published a report last week on the impact of building new coal power plants in countries where a large percentage of the population lacks access to electricity. The report’s conclusions are strikingly counter-intuitive: on the whole, building coal power plants does little to help the poor, and often it can actually make them poorer.

The coal-fired Castle Gate Power Plant is pictured outside Helper, Utah.

Delivering electricity to those in energy poverty is certainly important. For example, household air pollution killed 4.3 million people globally in 2012; many of those lives could be saved and health improved with the use of electric stoves to replace burning wood or charcoal. However, the question remains whether coal is the best way to deliver that electricity.

Read The Guardian story by Dana Nuccitelli story - “Coal doesn’t help the poor; it makes them poorer.”

‘Beast from the East' sweeps across Europe as Arctic warming brings freak weather

A freak warming around the North Pole is sending a blast of Arctic cold over Europe in a sign of "wacky" weather that may happen more often with man-made global warming.

Global warming could be causing the Arctic to warm
and cold blasts to be pushed over Europe.

Scientists say the northern tip of Greenland has had a record-smashing 61 hours of temperatures above freezing so far this year, linked to a rare retreat of sea ice in the Arctic winter darkness.

Arctic Ocean sea ice is at a record low for late February, at 14.1 million square kilometres. That is about a million square kilometres less than normal, or roughly the size of Egypt.

Around the entire Arctic region, temperatures are now about 20C above normal, at minus 8C.

Read the ABC News story - “‘Beast from the East' sweeps across Europe as Arctic warming brings freak weather.”