16 Young People File UN Human Rights Complaint on Climate Change | Earthjustice

Youth petitioners take fight for global climate change action to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child
SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
New York, NY — Today, 16 young people from around the world submitted a groundbreaking legal complaint about climate change with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Their petition shows how five regional leaders and G20 members — Respondents Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey — have known about the risks of climate change for decades. Despite that knowledge, they are failing to curb emissions, while continuing to promote fossil fuels. The climate crisis was caused and is being perpetuated by the actions and inactions of all states, but without the leadership of the respondents, the global effort to solve the climate crisis cannot succeed.
The youth petitioners are between the ages of eight and 17 and hail from Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Palau, Marshall Islands, Nigeria, South Africa, Sweden, Tunisia, and the United States. Among the petitioners is Greta Thunberg, a Swedish student climate activist, who sparked a global youth climate action movement through her Fridays for Future school strikes in 2018. Greta is joined by Alexandria Villaseñor, a fellow American activist who co-founded the U.S. Youth Climate Strike. Alexandria, inspired by Greta, conducted her own Friday climate protests outside of the New York United Nations headquarters. The other petitioners are devoted activists and educators in their own right in their home countries.

Youth petitioners display their signs before marching in the Sept. 20 Global Climate Strike in New York City.

In making their complaint, the authors narrate the impact climate change has had on their own lives, including brushes with death and loss of neighbors from wildfire or flooding; threats to traditional ways of life such as reindeer herding or fishing; significant health hazards such as dengue fever, malaria, and asthma; hardships from drought, air quality, and poisoned marine life; and mental anxiety or depression about the present and future.
Continue reading at: 16 Young People File UN Human Rights Complaint on Climate Change | Earthjustice

Deeper Insight Into 2019 Fires From Satellite Study of Amazon Rainforest

Throughout August and early September 2019, media around the world have reported on the extensive forest fires ravaging Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. Much of the concern stems from the Amazon’s significance to regulating the world’s climate. According to the Associated Press, the Amazon absorbs 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year — about 5% of global emissions. Thus, fires in the region eat away at this carbon-absorbing capacity while at the same time adding carbon to the air through burning.

This map shows the study area and location of the flux tower used.

A recent study in the peer-reviewed journal Ecohydrology headed by University of Kansas researcher Gabriel de Oliveira gives important context to the fires burning big swaths of the Amazon today, most of which were set intentionally by farmers and ranchers to convert forest into land suitable for grazing animals or growing crops. The researchers sought to discover how these changes to land cover affect the exchange of water and heat between the surface of the Amazon and the atmosphere overhead.

Continue reading at: Deeper Insight Into 2019 Fires From Satellite Study of Amazon Rainforest

Climate Strike in my Hometown Freiburg, Germany

I am so proud of the young people in my hometown Freiburg, Germany

‏Fridays for Future Freiburg @F4F_Freiburg
30,000 on the streets in a city with a population of 230,000. Freiburg stressed clearly: "We have enough from the climate cabaret (#Klimakabarett der GroKo)! Our future is non-negotiable.

#Freiburg is breathtaking! We probably hit a record here :D #GlobalClimateStrike #FridaysForFurture #Klimastreik pic.twitter.com/k3iKKHgAdR

— Fridays for Future Freiburg (@F4F_Freiburg) September 20, 2019

EPA Silent As Dicamba Drift Rages On | Pesticide Action Network

I am reading Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" published in my year of birth 1962 and it sounds like she is writing about what is going on today. "When will they ever learn?".



Each year since Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant Xtend seeds have hit the market, farmers and rural communities have braced for record levels of pesticide drift. Even with this year’s late start to planting season, 2019 may see the highest number of dicamba drift incidents yet.

Long before Xtendimax was approved, dicamba was well-known as a particularly volatile chemical - it simply does not stay where it is put, no matter how it is applied. Early advocates warned of the damage this herbicide can and would do to off-target organisms.

Bayer, however, refuses to accept that its new star pesticide is a problem. Instead, the company is taking a page out of the “deny, deny, deny” corporate playbook, while blaming applicators for applying the product incorrectly.

From its inception, the Xtend crop system was bound to be a divisive disaster for all kinds of farmers. Herbicide resistance is just another instance of Monsanto (now Bayer) promising a short-sighted “solution” to a problem of its own creation. While farmers who don’t use the Xtend system are hit with dicamba drift, crop damage, and yield loss, Bayer is reaping the financial gains of an increase in acreage planted to dicamba-resistant soybeans.




Continue reading at: EPA Silent As Dicamba Drift Rages On | Pesticide Action Network

Due to Climate Change the Landscapes We Are Familiar With Are Disappearing

Agnes Anderson, doctoral student of the School of Natural Sciences and Health of Tallinn University, recently defended her doctoral dissertation, in which she explores how the changing climate and human influence change the aeolian coastal dune landscapes. The dissertation concluded that the coastal dune landscapes are losing their distinctive features and diversity due to those influences.
The most dynamic, fragile, and attractive part of the coastal zone is characterized by the aeolian coastal dune landscapes, which extend over a 200 km² area in Estonia. Their formation is mostly determined by climate, sediments, and vegetation, which affect the movement of sand and the formation of dunes.

This is Lõimastu beach in Estonia. Credit: Tallinn University

Due to Climate Change the Landscapes We Are Familiar With Are Disappearing

The 'no-buy' movement: could you give up buying clothes and beauty products? | Environment | The Guardian

With the fashion industry’s environmental impact under scrutiny, there’s a move to eschew new stuff and wear what you already own

Splashed out in the sales? Cashed in your Christmas gift cards? The average Briton spends more than £1,000 on new clothes and shoes each year, according to the statistics agency Eurostat – and many are shelling out much, much more. But with a focus now on the environmental impact of the fashion industry, some of the bloggers, vloggers and influencers who cut their teeth sharing details of an endless array of new clothes and products, are changing tack – enter the “no-buy” movement.

Will the ‘no-buy’ movement mark the end of ‘so last season’? Photograph: Radius Images/Alamy Stock Photo

The idea is simple: instead of buying new clothes or beauty products, you make a commitment to use the things you already own. Some people, such as the beauty blogger Hannah Louise Poston, sign up to a “no-buy year” – and document their progress in much the same way that they once tracked their purchases. Others pledge not to buy for a few weeks or months or opt for “low-buy” options with a strict spending cap. A subreddit thread named MakeupRehab, offering tips and support for those undertaking not to buy new products, now has more than 50,000 subscribers.
Continue reading at: The 'no-buy' movement: could you give up buying clothes and beauty products? | Environment | The Guardian

Threat to Democratic Decision Making: ‘Information Gerrymandering’

Threat to Democratic Decision Making: ‘Information Gerrymandering’