HAB Bulletin: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory - Ann Arbor, MI, USA

NOAA provides forecasts of blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria blooms, in Lake Erie from July to October. Some cyanobacteria blooms can grow rapidly and produce toxins that cause harm to animal life and humans so scientists describe them as harmful algal blooms (HABs). Coastal communities can use NOAA's forecasts as a decision making tool.

NOAA bulletins provide analysis of the location of cyanobacteria blooms, as well as 3-day forecasts of transport, mixing, scum formation, and bloom decline. During the Lake Erie HAB season, which typically begins in July, bulletins are emailed to subscribers twice weekly during a bloom.

Below, you will find the latest HAB Bulletin. Please visit the NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services website at https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/hab/lakeerie.htm for official forecast information or to subscribe to receive the bulletin directly in your inbox.

Continue reading at: HAB Bulletin: NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory - Ann Arbor, MI, USA

1 dead, 5 injured, 7 missing in Kentucky pipeline explosion

Junction City, Ky. – A regional gas pipeline ruptured early Thursday in Kentucky, causing a massive explosion that killed one person, hospitalized five others, destroyed railroad tracks and forced the evacuation of a nearby mobile home park, authorities said.

Some homes were consumed by the blaze when firefighters extinguished the flames hours later, Lincoln County Emergency Management Director Don Gilliam said.


A fire burns after an explosion near Junction City, Ky. A regional gas pipeline owned by Enbridge ruptured early Thursday in Kentucky, causing a massive explosion that killed one person, hospitalized five others, destroyed railroad tracks and forced the evacuation of a nearby mobile home park, authorities said. (Photo: Naomi Hayes, AP)

“The part of the area that has been compromised, there’s just nothing left,” Gilliam said when asked whether residents might return to their trailer homes. “The residences that are still standing or damaged will be accessible. There doesn’t really look like there’s any in-between back there. They’re either destroyed or they’re still standing.”

Continue reading at: 1 dead, 5 injured, 7 missing in Kentucky pipeline explosion

Reshaping development pathways in LDCs - Climate CoLab

What are solutions to restore degraded landscapes, helping communities in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) become more climate resilient?

Climate change, population growth, conflicts, and food and nutrition insecurity are linked with ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss. Climate change is projected to exacerbate the process of ecosystem degradation through the intensification of extreme weather events, undermining the resilience and sustainability of agriculture and food systems and further endangering livelihoods of already vulnerable communities.

With the increasing threats that climate shocks and stresses present, there is an urgent need to reshape development pathways into prioritizing proactive disaster risk reduction instead of reactive measures in the devastating aftermath of the event. Particularly the poorest and most vulnerable countries, such as the LDCs, suffer the worst effects of climate change and experience the highest rates of damage and loss to their natural ecosystems. To foster the climate resilience of these countries, incremental measures must give way to concerted efforts fostering transformation if we are to solve the root causes of vulnerabilities.

To reshape development pathways for the overall achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the UN Climate Resilience Initiative (A2R) and the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP)[1], are calling for innovative, scalable solutions and best practices to restore degraded ecosystems, helping vulnerable communities in LDCs become more climate resilient.

Supported by the UK Department for International Development

Read more at: Reshaping development pathways in LDCs - Climate CoLab

EU Lending Bank To End All Fossil Fuel Financing By 2020

After years of pressure from environmental campaigners, the European Investment Bank, the lending arm of the European Union, has proposed to end financing for all fossil fuels by 2020. It would be the first multilateral financial institution to make such a commitment.

It may have been the tough confirmation battle of the incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that convinced the EIB to make the policy change. During her meetings with European Parliament political groups ahead of her confirmation vote, Von der Leyen embraced the idea of French President Emmanuel Macron to create a European climate bank, saying she would transform the EIB into such an entity.


Demonstrators display a banner calling for the EU's lending arm to stop all investments in fossil fuels at the One Planet summit organized by Emmanuel Macron (Paco Freire/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) GETTY

Continue reading at: EU Lending Bank To End All Fossil Fuel Financing By 2020

How Science Got Trampled in the Rush to Drill in the Arctic

Every year, hundreds of petroleum industry executives gather in Anchorage for the annual conference of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, where they discuss policy and celebrate their achievements with the state’s political establishment. In May 2018, they again filed into the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center, but they had a new reason to celebrate. Under the Trump administration, oil and gas development was poised to dramatically expand into a remote corner of Alaska where it had been prohibited for nearly 40 years.

Tucked into the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a bill signed by President Donald Trump five months earlier, was a brief two-page section that had little to do with tax reform. Drafted by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, the provision opened up approximately 1.6 million acres of the vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, a reversal of the federal policy that has long protected one of the most ecologically important landscapes in the Arctic.

The refuge is believed to sit atop one of the last great onshore oil reserves in North America, with a value conservatively estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars. For decades, the refuge has been the subject of a very public tug of war between pro-drilling forces and conservation advocates determined to protect an ecosystem crucial to polar bears, herds of migratory caribou, and native communities that rely on the wildlife for subsistence hunting. The Trump tax law, for the first time since the refuge was established in 1980, handed the advantage decisively to the drillers.


A visitor and a lone caribou watch each other on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain, an area in the north of the refuge known for its rich biodiversity. | Nathaniel Wilder for Politico Magazine

One of the keynote speakers at the conference that afternoon was Joe Balash, a top official at the Department of the Interior. Balash, who grew up in a small town outside Fairbanks and describes himself as “a local kid,” referred to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a “jewel,” and predicted that the entire North Slope region was “about to change in some pretty astounding ways.” The executives were there to hear him talk about what was going to come next: Before development could begin, Interior needed to complete a review of potential environmental impacts, and then get the first leases sold to industry. He recounted for the audience that on his second day on the job—right around when the tax bill was passed—then-Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt sat him down and told him that he would be “personally responsible” for completing the legally complex environmental review process for the wildlife refuge and “having a successful lease sale.”

“No pressure,” Balash said to audience laughter.

The pressure, in fact, couldn’t be greater.

Continue reading at: How Science Got Trampled in the Rush to Drill in the Arctic

Europe Sees 1.9GW Offshore Wind Boost | Offshore Wind

Europe added 1.9GW of new offshore wind capacity in the first half of 2019, up from the 1.1GW installed in the same period last year, according to WindEurope.
Countries that contributed to the new installations are the UK with 931MW, including Ørsted's Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm, Denmark with 374MW, Belgium with 370MW and Germany with 252MW.

The combined installations of new offshore and onshore wind capacity amounted to 4.9MW in H1 2019, which is an increase from the 4.5GW added in the same period last year.
Europe invested EUR 8.8 billion in the construction of future wind farms, with EUR 2.4 billion dedicated to offshore wind. These investments will result in 5.9GW being installed and connected over the next two to three years, WindEurope said.
At the end of last year, Europe set the target to have at least 32% of electricity produced by renewable energy by 2030.
According to WindEurope, Europe is also talking about a net-zero economy by 2050, but the rate of installations so far this year will not bring to the target.
Continue reading at: Europe Sees 1.9GW Offshore Wind Boost | Offshore Wind

UK solar power pioneer Solarcentury profit grows 860% in a year

Profits from subsidy-free solar farms have helped to connect millions in Africa to cheap lighting
A UK solar power pioneer has grown its profits eight-fold by investing in subsidy-free solar farms, a portion of which will help connect homes in Africa to small-scale solar-powered lighting systems.
Solarcentury, one of the UK’s fastest growing renewable energy companies, will report profits of £14.4m for the year ending in March, compared with £1.5m the year before.
A 5% share of the record profits will be channelled into SolarAid, a charity that has helped connect 2m homes in Africa to reliable electricity since it was founded by Solarcentury in 2006.
The rapidly rising profits follow a four-year growth strategy in which the company has invested heavily in building and running subsidy-free solar projects in southern Europe, Latin America and Africa.

A project manager for Solarcentury walks the lines of solar panels at a solar farm near Truro in Cornwall. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
Continue reading at: UK solar power pioneer Solarcentury profit grows 860% in a year