Famous French cheeses at risk from climate change

Paris: Global warming is threatening the production of some of France's most famed cheeses because increasingly frequent extreme weather is affecting how much fresh local grass cows eat.

Fourme d'Ambert blue-veined French cheese from the
region of Auvergne is among the cheeses at risk.

Producers say it is becoming physically impossible to respect appellation rules imposed on a number of cheeses that limit the amount of dry hay livestock can consume.

And they are increasingly having to ask French food authorities to relax those strict conditions so they are allowed to sell their cheeses.

Read the story from The Age by Henry Samuel - “Famous French cheeses at risk from climate change.”

How could degrowth tackle environmental issues and social inequities?

The “degrowth” movement has recently picked up traction among academics and activists by advocating substantial cuts to production and consumption to address existing environmental issues and social inequities.

Author of "Housing for Degrowth" Associate Professor Anitra
Nelson from the RMIT Centre for Urban Research. 

After nearly two months launching her new book in 21 cities across Europe, Associate Professor Anitra Nelson is back in Melbourne to explain how degrowth could work in Australia and to launch Housing for Degrowth as part of the 2019 National Sustainable Living Festival.

What exactly is “degrowth” and a degrowth approach to future sustainability?

The degrowth movement critiques market societies, where the dynamic of growth is essential to the way economies operate but results in substantial global environmental destruction, including dangerous levels of carbon emissions and climate change.

In response, degrowth advocates call for reductions in both production and consumption, i.e. diminished energy and material flows through our society. Such reduction is a common aim of all who aspire to planetary sustainability.

The degrowth approach is distinct because we focus on growth as a cultural, economic, political and social imperative of market societies and, therefore, the need for a holistic program to achieve degrowth.

Read the story from RMIT University by Anitra Nelson - “How could degrowth tackle environmental issues and social inequities?”

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions climb again amid climate policy vacuum

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, fuelled by the expansion in gas exports and production, according to new figures published by the Department of Environment and Energy.

 Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen 1.3% in the year to March. 

The government quietly published its quarterly emissions figures on Friday afternoon, a public holiday in Victoria and the day of the release of the interim royal commission report into the banking sector.

The figures show that Australia’s policy vacuum on climate continues to drive emissions upward and further away from the country’s Paris targets.

The data show emissions climbed 1.3% in the year to March 2018.

The March quarter for which the data was published recorded a 0.3% increase.

Read the story from The Guardian by Lisa Cox - “Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions climb again amid climate policy vacuum.”

US and UK oil corporations start to flaunt the spoils of imperial conquest

After 15 years of repudiating claims that the invasion of Iraq was only initiated to seize Iraqi resources, large oil corporations fronted by former architects of the war who vacated to the private sector are flagrantly advertising their contracts for exploration and production of Iraqi oil fields to potential investors.

The British oil and gas company BP won the contract to operate the Rumaila Oil Field back in 2009, and now proudly boast of its new drilling capabilities on Twitter. Rumaila is simply huge; by some measures it is the third largest reserve of crude oil on the planet, and is currently extracting 100 million dollars worth of oil every day – enough to cover the annual health budget of Iraq under the wartime rule of the US coalition every five days.

Read the Amity Underground story - “US and UK oil corporations start to flaunt the spoils of imperial conquest.”

Central America's first hydrogen fuel cell bus hits the road

GUANACASTE, COSTA RICA – Just off a quiet road amid sparsely wooded fields are four rows of solar panels and a single wind turbine. The power they generate is sent a few feet away to a small-scale hydrogen production and storage plant, a cluster of structures and tanks surrounded by a chain-link fence. Next to that is a sleek digital dispenser with a gas-station style hose to deliver the compressed hydrogen to a vehicle.

Hydrogen fuel cell bus ‘Nyuti’ at the hydrogen dispenser. 

Specifically, it’s a boxy 35-passenger bus called “Nyuti” (which means “star” in the local Chorotega indigenous language) that sits in the adjacent parking lot. This is Central America’s first hydrogen transportation “ecosystem” and, seven years after the effort to introduce hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in Costa Rica began, Nyuti is taking to the road.

Read Robin Kazmier’s Yale Climate Connections story - “Central America's first hydrogen fuel cell bus hits the road.”

New U.S. Record-Level Oil Production! Peak Oil Theory Disproven! Not

Well, I’m amazed and impressed. Tight oil production has pushed total United States petroleum output to more than 10 million barrels a day, a rate last seen almost a half-century ago. It’s a new U.S. record. Fifteen years ago I was traveling the world with a Powerpoint presentation featuring a graph of U.S. oil production history. That graph showed a clear peak in 1970 and a long bumpy decline thereafter.

My message: as went the U.S., so would go the world at some point in the fairly near future. Peak oil—the inevitable moment when global oil supplies started drying up—would be a watershed for industrial societies, leading to economic contraction, geopolitical crisis, and social upheaval.

So is it time for a retraction? The optics are certainly unfavorable for peak oil theorists like me. Our forecasts obviously failed, in that none of us expected the current surge in U.S. output. But permit me to offer some context.

Read the Resilience story by Richard Heinberg - “New U.S. Record-Level Oil Production! Peak Oil Theory Disproven! Not.”

Northern Territory's largest onshore gas producer to increase exploration

While Territorians await the final report from the inquiry into hydraulic fracking, to be released next month, the NT's largest onshore gas producer is ramping up production.

Central Petroleum's Operations Manager James van
 Rooyen checks the East Mereenie number 7 well.

Central Petroleum will be drilling up to four new wells in March, in an effort to source gas to fill the Northern Gas Pipeline.

The $800 million pipeline will run from Tennant Creek to Mt Isa, and is due to pipe its first gas at the end of the year.

As Central Petroleum use conventional methods to extract the gas, rather than unconventional extraction, or 'fracking', the current NT moratorium in place does not apply to their wells.

Read the ABC News story by Katrina Beavan - “Northern Territory's largest onshore gas producer to increase exploration.”

The Real Question for Agricultural Sustainability

Sustainable Agriculture is the production of food, fiber, or other plant/animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment, human communities, public health and animal welfare.

The United States, for the geographical nerds out there, is surrounded and protected by two massive bodies of water: The Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Very strategic and the core for the Manifest Destiny of the 19th century.

The essence of agricultural beauty, resources and overall protection from land invasion by a neighboring nation was the main idea for the Manifest Destiny. This article is not to litigate the main purpose of that 19th century idea, but to rather bring to light one of the main pillars for that manifestation: agriculture and crops.

Read Ahmed Maneeb’s story on The Startup - “The Real Question for Agricultural Sustainability.”

Watch: How a ‘fixers club’ in Argentina is pushing back against our throwaway culture

December 1, 2017 — According to the World Bank, each year we throw away close to 2 billion metric tons (2.2 billion tons) of trash globally. By 2100, experts predict daily waste production around the world could triple.

As we’ve reported previously at Ensia, our throwaway culture is exposing people to toxic chemicals, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, impacting food security and clogging our oceans with plastic trash.

But what if we took the time to fix broken household items instead?

Read the Ensia story by Todd Reubold - ‘Watch: How a ‘fixers club’ in Argentina is pushing back against our throwaway culture.”

Severe dry to cut grain harvest in half

The severe dry that has smashed crops in NSW and southern Queensland is expected to slash total grain production this season and affect business conditions in farming communities where grain is a key industry, the nation's largest agribusiness has warned.

GrainCorp's underlying net profit surged in fiscal 2017 to $142 million.

Discussing GrainCorp's bumper full-year results for fiscal 2017, including an underlying net profit that nearly tripled to $142 million, managing director Mark Palmquist said this year's harvest would be "tremendously smaller", and in response the company would run a leaner harvest operation, with some sites to stay closed because of the lower volumes.

GrainCorp, an integrated grains handler, exporter and processor, said while the crop would be substantially smaller than last year, production would be skewed towards Victoria and southern NSW.

Rabobank senior grains and oilseeds analyst Cheryl Kalisch Gordon said Rabobank had forecast a "national drop of 41 percent from last year's record grain harvest. This is also down 19 percent on the five-year average prior to last year, which really puts the drop in context.

Read Darren Gray’s story in the Melbourne Age - “Severe dry to cut grain harvest in half.”

Coalition pledge to turn on the gas could imperil Australia's climate target

Any move to boost gas production in Victoria by drilling onshore threatens to undermine Australia's commitment to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, energy experts warn. 

  

The Coalition wants to end Victoria's
moratorium on onshore gas exploration. 

Political pressure is growing for Victoria to cut short its moratorium on onshore gas exploration, after Opposition Leader Matthew Guy joined Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in blaming the ban for soaring power prices.

The state Coalition promised on Monday to open up Victorian farmland to gas extraction before the end of the decade, reversing a ban it brought in more than three years ago in order to allay community fears about fracking.

One Melbourne-based gas drilling company is already eyeing off reserves in Gippsland and the Otways, should the Matthew Guy-led opposition take power and lift the ban. 

Read Adam Carey’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Coalition pledge to turn on the gas could imperil Australia's climate target.”

Climate crunch: Australia to fail on Paris commitments without massive renewable switch

Australia will fall short of its Paris carbon reduction targets signed under Tony Abbott unless it lifts its renewable energy production to levels higher even than Labor's plan for 50 per cent green energy reliance by 2030.

Chief Scientist Alan Finkel proposed a clean energy
target which would lock in a 28 per cent reduction
 in energy-related emissions by 2030. 

The first assessment by the Australia Institute's new Climate and Energy Program, to be released on Monday, has found that unless a higher burden is placed on the more expensive process of carbon reductions in other sectors – agriculture, transport and manufacturing – then the electricity generation sector will need to aim for a renewable energy target of at least 66 per cent by 2030, and possibly as high as 75 per cent.

That is, a power generation sector where the fossil fuel component is reduced to perhaps a quarter of the size it is now.

Power generation currently accounts for 35 per cent of total emissions, which is twice as much as the next biggest contributor, fuel combustion and transport, at 18 per cent. 

Read the story by Mark Kenny in today’a Melbourne Age - “Climate crunch: Australia to fail on Paris commitments without massive renewable switch.”