Tag Archives: world

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Fish more vulnerable to warming water than first thought

With medium-level human-caused climate change expected by the end of
the century, the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes will be too hot for
about 40% of the world’s fish species in the spawning or embryonic life
stages, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science. That means they could go extinct or be forced to change how and where they live and reproduce.

Until now, biologists had just studied adult fish. For adult fish,
around 2% to 3% of the species would be in the too-hot zone in the year
2100 with similar projected warming. So using this new approach reveals a
previously unknown problem for the future of fish, scientists said.

July 3, 2020

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Hundreds of elephants dead in mysterious mass die-off | Environment | The Guardian

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Might sound a little silly, but every time I hear a story about a mass of animals dying off unexpectedly — it makes me a little nervous. What’s next?

More than 350 elephants have died in northern Botswana in a mysterious mass die-off described by scientists as a “conservation disaster”.

A cluster of elephant deaths was first reported in the Okavango Delta in early May, with 169 individuals dead by the end of the month. By mid June, the number had more than doubled, with 70% of the deaths clustered around waterholes, according to local sources who wish to remain anonymous.

“This is a mass die-off on a level that hasn’t been seen in a very, very long time. Outside of drought, I don’t know of a die-off that has been this significant,” said Dr Niall McCann, the director of conservation at UK-based charity National Park Rescue.

Source: Hundreds of elephants dead in mysterious mass die-off | Environment | The Guardian

This entry was posted in General and tagged Climate Change, environment, world on July 2, 2020 by Steve.

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BP and Shell will keep (some of) it in the ground

BP and Shell, two of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world, indicated they plan to lower the official value of their assets by several billion dollars due to declining oil and gas prices. That means these companies are looking at their reserves, looking at the price of oil and the state of the world, and saying, this is not worth nearly as much as it was before. And the economics of digging it up are changing.

BP was the first, announcing in mid-June that it expects to write down up to $17.5 billion of its oil and gas holdings in its next quarterly report, a 12 percent drop from the previous valuation.

Shell joined the club on Tuesday, saying it would write down between $15 billion and $22 billion of its assets next quarter.

July 2, 2020

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WHO warns coronavirus pandemic is speeding up as countries ease lockdown rules: ‘The worst is yet to come’

The coronavirus pandemic is accelerating around the world as many countries that reopened their economies see a resurgence in Covid-19 cases, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said Monday.

“Although many countries have made some progress, globally, the pandemic is actually speeding up,” he said during a virtual news conference from the agency’s Geneva headquarters. “We all want this to be over. We all want to get on with our lives, but the hard reality is that this is not even close to being over.”

The virus has infected more than 10.1 million people around the world and killed more than 502,000 people so far, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. More than 60% of daily new cases came from countries in the Americas on Sunday, according to data published by the WHO.

June 30, 2020

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Satellites show major new methane leaks: Oil and gas industry responsible for far more methane in atmosphere than previously thought; Undetected methane leaks from energy industry are major global issue | Ernst v. EnCana Corporation

LONDON (Reuters) – Last fall, European Space Agency satellites
detected huge plumes of the invisible planet-warming gas methane leaking
from the Yamal pipeline that carries natural gas from Siberia to
Europe.

Energy consultancy Kayrros estimated one leak was spewing out 93
tonnes of methane every hour, meaning the daily emissions from the
leakage were equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide pumped out in a
year by 15,000 cars in the United States.

The find, which has not been reported, is part of a growing effort by
companies, academics and some energy producers to use space-age
technology to find the biggest methane leaks as the potent heat-trapping gas builds up rapidly in the atmosphere.

June 27, 2020

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Steve MacLellan

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Tag Archives: world

Hundreds of elephants dead in mysterious mass die-off | Environment | The Guardian