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☆ Brazil touts climate credentials as Amazon deforestation falls — but draws criticism over oil bet
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-29 | by ( Sam Meredith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

It's welcome news for Lula, who has promised to achieve zero deforestation in the Amazon by 2030 and is seeking to repair his country's environmental reputation. The government, however, has received criticism over its plans to open new oil fields near the mouth of the Amazon River. Dave Benett | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty ImagesThe Amazon is critical in absorbing the planet's carbon dioxide — making it a vital bulwark in the fight against climate change. Txai Surui, an indigenous leader and activist from the Brazilian Amazon, welcomed the trend of falling Amazon deforestation but criticized Lula's administration for its willingness to potentially develop offshore oil. "How are you doing agreements about deforestation and all these things and yet you want to explore [for oil]?"

Persons: Michael Dantas, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Lula, Jair Bolsonaro's, Guajajara, Bolsonaro, Sonia Guajajara, Txai Surui, Dave Benett, Buda Mendes, Rui Costa, Costa, Lula's, Surui, Brazil's, Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Andressa Anholete, Guillermo Lasso, Tipping, Brazil's Guajajara Organizations: Afp, Getty, CNBC, IBAMA, FUNAI, Indigenous Peoples, Petrobras, Reuters, Amazon, Nature Sustainability, U.N Locations: Manaquiri, Amazonas, London, Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, Annabel's, England, Brazil, Maracana, Rio de Janeiro, Buda, Planalto, Brasilia, Ecuador

☆ The Colorado River Is Shrinking. See What’s Using All the Water.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Elena Shao | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

This week, the states that rely on water from the Colorado River reached a temporary deal with the Biden administration on sharing what’s left. Within agriculture, livestock feed is the largest water user, at 55 percent. A limited resourceThe Colorado River system stretches across seven states in the Southwest and Mexico, and a complicated set of decades-old laws determines who gets water from the river, and how much. “But that’s not the reality.”The chart above captures both river water and groundwater withdrawals, but river water makes up the vast majority (about 87 percent) of water use in the basin, according to the study’s authors. About that alfalfaThirty-seven percent of the water used in the Colorado River basin goes toward growing alfalfa and hay used largely to feed dairy cattle.

☆ From swimming pools to gardening, the rich's privileged lifestyles are driving urban water crises, study says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Anmar Frangoul | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Published in the Nature Sustainability journal this week, the peer-reviewed research looked at the South African city of Cape Town, which has experienced severe drought in recent years. For the study, researchers split Cape Town's urban population into five social groupings and then modeled water consumption. "Informal dwellers and lower-income households constitute together 61.5% of Cape Town's population but consume a mere 27.3% of the city's water." "Specifically, privileged water consumption is unsustainable because in the short term, it disproportionally uses the water available for the entire urban population." Longer term, the report described what it called privileged consumption as constituting an environmental threat to the status of local water sources.

“One of the worst things you can hear from your child is them screaming ‘I don’t want to die! Residents across the state are just beginning to understand the full extent of the damage, especially in marginalized communities, as they recover from the deluge. But instead of work, Naranjo and other farmworkers are faced with some 20,000 flooded farmland in Salinas, according to early estimates from the Monterey County Farm Bureau, a nonprofit association of farmers and ranchers. When asked if he would return to work soon, Naranjo answered: “I don’t know.”Cars driving through a flooded roadway in Planada, Calif., on Jan. 10. “In my head, I thought if it was that bad, someone would come tell us, but no one ever did.

Criptomoneda a crescut cu 118,3% față de cea mai scăzută valoare din acest an, de 27.734 dolari, pe 4 ianuarie. Bitcoin a mai atins pragul de 60.000 de dolari pe 1 aprilie și pe 18 martie. Moneda virtuală, care a înregistrat o creștere susținută anul acesta, vine însă cu riscuri pe termen lung pentru mediu. Generarea criptomonedelor necesită cantități semnificative de putere de calcul și de energie electrică, iar creșterea achizițiilor lasă în urmă o amprentă de carbon puternică. Pe măsură ce bitcoin a crescut în popularitate, China a devenit un mecca al tehnologiei.

Persons: Criptomoneda, Bitcoin, Sinan Kufeogl Organizations: Nature, CNN, Universitatea din Locations: China, Cehia, Qatar, Danemarca, Irlanda, Bangladesh, Universitatea din Cambridge, Chinei, Italia, Arabia Saudită, Paris

Search resuls for: "Nature Sustainability"

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