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Authorities warn people to take health precautions as firefighters spend night responding to alarms triggered by smoke haze

Victorians started Tuesday by breathing in the worst air in the world due to smoke blowing down from bushfires in the state’s east and New South Wales.

The city centre recorded hazardous levels of fine particles in the air from 12am to 4am and had since been categorised as very poor by the Environmental Protection Authority.

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Apocalyptic scenes give glimpse of what would be normal conditions in 3C world

The bushfires ravaging Australia are a clear sign of what is to come around the world if temperatures are allowed to rise to dangerous levels, according to scientists.

“This is what you can expect to happen … at an average of 3C [above pre-industrial levels],” said Richard Betts, professor of geography at Exeter University. “We are seeing a sign of what would be normal conditions in a 3C world. It tells us what the future world might look like. This really brings home what climate change means.”

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Deadly ‘heat islands’ which have fewer green spaces and tree canopy linked to racist policies in urban neighborhoods, study finds

Deadly urban heatwaves disproportionately affect underserved neighbourhoods because of the legacy of racist housing policies which have denied African Americans home ownership and basic public services, a landmark new study has found.

Extreme heat kills hundreds of people in the US every year – more than any other hazardous weather event, including hurricanes, tornadoes and flooding, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Heatwaves have been occurring more frequently since the mid-20th century, and are expected to become more common, more severe and longer-lasting due to the climate crisis.

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US asset manager that built up fossil fuel portfolio fails to join rivals in engaging with climate

Vanguard, the world’s second largest asset manager, has refused to sign up to a group of major investors demanding that polluters respond to the climate crisis, despite its rival BlackRock relenting to pressure to do so.

The US investment manager’s decision leaves it increasingly isolated after BlackRock last week joined Climate Action 100+ (CA100+), a group of asset managers that pushes the largest fossil fuel producers to show how they will meet carbon dioxide reduction targets.

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Protest group leader Luisa Neubauer says she would lose right to criticise the company

The leader of Germany’s Friday for Future climate protests has said she turned down a seat on the board of Siemens’ new energy business amid growing anger over its role in a controversial coalmining project in Australia as she feared she would lose the right to criticise the company.

Luisa Neubauer, 23, the German face of the campaign group inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who has campaigned alongside her, said on Monday the position would jeopardise her independence if she had taken up the offer from its chief executive, Joe Kaeser, made at a meeting in Berlin on Friday.

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Rollout of new turbines is in decline amid Tory subsidy cuts, jeopardising climate targets

The government’s current energy policies have led to a sharp decline in the number of new onshore windfarms, raising fears that the UK may fall short of the renewable energy it needs to generate to meet its climate targets.

Industry data shows the ­rollout of new onshore windfarms fell dramatically after the ­government scrapped subsidy schemes four years ago.

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Paris-style proposal to counter loss of ecosystems and wildlife vital to the future of humanity will go before October summit

Almost a third of the world’s oceans and land should be protected by the end of the decade to stop and reverse biodiversity decline that risks the survival of humanity, according to a draft Paris-style UN agreement on nature.

To combat what scientists have described as the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history, the proposal sets a 2030 deadline for the conservation and restoration of ecosystems and wildlife that perform crucial services for humans.

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DHS listed activists engaged in non-violent civil disobedience targeting oil industry alongside white supremacists in documents

A group of US environmental activists engaged in non-violent civil disobedience targeting the oil industry have been listed in internal Department of Homeland Security documents as “extremists” and some of its members listed alongside white nationalists and mass killers, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The group have been dubbed the Valve Turners, after closing the valves on pipelines in four states carrying crude oil from Canada’s tar sands on 11 October 2016 which accounted for about 15% of US daily consumption. It was described as the largest coordinated action of its kind and for a few hours the oil stopped flowing.

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Some 13,000 people were evacuated from the area surrounding Taal Volcano, about 45 miles south of the capital, Manila. Authorities warned that a second explosive eruption could come in hours or days.

(Image credit: Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images)

78 out of 154 universities joined campaign in blow to big oil’s ‘social licence’, campaigners say

Half of UK universities have signed up to divest from fossil fuels in what campaigners say is a significant blow to the “social licence” of big oil.

Seventy-eight of the UK’s 154 public universities have joined the divestment campaign, either divesting or pledging to divest hundreds of millions from the fossil fuel industry.

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New Economics Foundation calls for £50bn to reboot economy on greener footing

The government fightback against the next recession should include pumping as much as £50bn into green projects, in a move that would help reboot the economy and tackle the climate emergency, according to a left-leaning thinktank.

Against a backdrop of concern among economists that Britain is ill-equipped to combat another downturn on the scale of the 2008 financial crisis, the New Economics Foundation thinktank said a green plan to beat a future slump was required.

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Gold prospectors are ravaging the Yanomami indigenous reserve. So why does President Bolsonaro want to make them legal?

Deep in the Yanomami indigenous reserve on the northern reaches of the Brazilian Amazon, the ruins of an illegal goldminers’ camp emerge after an hour in a small plane and two in a boat. No roads reach here.

Wooden frames alongside the Uraricoera River that once supported shops, bars, restaurants, a pharmacy, an evangelical church and even brothels are all that is left of the small town. The army burned and trashed it as part of an operation aimed at stamping out wildcat mining on the reserve.

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Our friends over at Slow Food Santa Fe have their first event which looks fabulous and we want to share it with our viewers. It will be a Tour and Tastings at Tumbleroots’ Taproom and Production Facility. To find out more about this event and sign up go to: Slow Food Santa Fe Tumbleroot Tour

 

Joe Kaeser says he must balance stakeholder interests as climate change activists protest company’s decision

Global engineering company Siemens will not pull out of a contract at the new Adani coalmine in Australia, rejecting calls from climate campaigners including Greta Thunberg.

President and CEO of Siemens, Joe Kaeser, announced Monday that after reviewing the rail signalling contract the company had “a legally binding and enforceable fiduciary responsibility.”

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Changes to the curriculum will put the country at the forefront of climate crisis education worldwide

Every school in New Zealand will this year have access to materials about the climate crisis written by the country’s leading science agencies – including tools for students to plan their own activism, and to process their feelings of “eco-anxiety” over global heating.

The curriculum will put New Zealand at the forefront of climate change education worldwide; governments in neighbouring Australia and the United Kingdom have both faced criticism for lack of cohesive teaching on the climate crisis. The New Zealand scheme, which will be offered to all schools that teach 11 to 15 year-old students, will not be compulsory, the government said.

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British Heart Foundation predicts current total of 11,000 particulate-related deaths per year will continue to rise

More than 160,000 people could die over the next decade from strokes and heart attacks caused by air pollution, a charity has warned. That is the equivalent of more than 40 heart and circulatory disease deaths related to air pollution every day.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF), which compiled the figures, said there are an estimated 11,000 deaths per year at the moment, but that this will rise as the population continues to age. It wants the UK to adopt World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on air pollution and meet them by 2030.

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"There are things that I could have handled on the ground much better," the PM said. Many have linked the deadly fires to climate change and blamed conservative Australian governments for inaction.

(Image credit: David Mariuz/Getty Images)

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. 

Power provided on new tariff to come exclusively from small-scale wind and solar farms

UK homes will soon be able to plug into community wind and solar farms from anywhere in the country through the first energy tariff to offer clean electricity exclusively from community projects.

The deal from Co-op Energy comes as green energy suppliers race to prove their sustainability credentials amid rising competition for eco-conscious customers and “greenwashing” in the market.

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