We now have less than 2 years to stop building any new stuff that uses fossil fuels

22/03/201722/03/2017 Stephen CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, ECOLOGY, economics, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, global warming, News, Pollution and Toxics, Science, Science/Tech, sustainability climate, electricity, extreme weather, nature, Science, Security

The original headline of the article said we had 5 years but now it’s less than 2 years to stop building any new stuff that uses fossil fuels. Here’s lightly updated repost.

Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist

By Stephen Leahy

[Authors note: One of the most difficult and important articles I’ve written in 20 years of environmental journalism. Originally published Sept 6 2014 @Vice Motherboard]

Here’s the frightening implication of a landmark study on CO2 emissions:

By 2018, no new cars, homes, schools, factories, or electrical power plants should be built anywhere in the world, ever again, unless they’re either replacements for old ones or carbon neutral. Otherwise greenhouse gas emissions will push global warming past 2˚C of temperature rise worldwide, threatening the survival of many people currently living on the planet.

Every climate expert will tell you we’re on a tight carbon budget as it is—that only so many tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) can be pumped into the atmosphere before the global climate will overheat. We’ve already warmed temperatures 0.85˚C from pre-industrial levels, and the number rises every year. While no one thinks 2˚ C is safe, per…

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Be Part of a New Collaborative Approach to Media Coverage of Climate

18/10/201317/10/2013 Stephen 1 Must Read, arctic, CANADA, CLIMATE CHANGE/GLOBAL WARMING, Energy, ENVIRONMENT, global warming, Media, News, OCEAN climate, climate change, cop, Environmental journalism, Indiegogo, journalist, live blogging, perks, reporting, Science, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Frustrated by the lack of interest in climate coverage by mainstream media, 15 young journalists on 4 continents want to bring a new collaborative approach to climate change journalism. This is a voluntary effort to both increase and improve reporting called the Climate News Mosaic (CNM).

They need your help for their first collaborative project to connect what’s happening at the UN climate conference (COP) in Warsaw this November with climate impacts/perspectives on the ground from their home countries.

Here’s how it will work:

* 2 or 3 journalists will go to the COP in Warsaw to report and co-ordinate. The rest will be back home doing local coverage on climate. Everyone contributes and shares interviews, links to reports, sources, A/V and so on.

* Members (mainly freelancers) do articles, audio and video for their own outlets. Some 25-30 original stories in at least 4 languages will be made available for use in whole or in part by any media outlet anywhere in the world.

* A live blog placed on a number non-profit news sites like IPS, Earth Journalism Network , and others will bring the public a wealth of current info on what is happening at the Warsaw COP but also from other countries. (i.e. a short video from Warsaw, a photo from a rally in San Francisco, a soundbite from a press conference in Nairobi, a quote from an interview with an Italian scholar.)

Learn more about CNM participants on this global map with short bios.

I’m sort of the mentor having used crowd-sourced funding to support my science and climate journalism the past 4 years. That support kept me going and in 2012 I was a co-winner of the Prince Albert/United Nations Global Prize for media coverage of climate change.

For-profit media owners are simply not interested in good science and environment reporting. Coverage of climate change has been in sharp decline since the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009. Even the New York Times closed its environment desk this year. It’s not that there isn’t a lot to report on. Quite the opposite.

Here’s how you can help:

Please spread the word about this project. We need to raise $6000 for travel, accomodation and other costs to do the Warsaw COP reporting. Please click on Indiegogo to contribute what you can. (There are ‘perks’ for contributors including a Google Hangout.)

This is a fresh new idea: Independent journalists in different countries working together to provide all of us with the news and information on the most important issue of our time.

Please join in and help out.

Catch less fish, Make More $

11/12/200711/12/2007 Stephen Agriculture/Food, ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, Global Issues and Perspectives, News, OCEAN, sustainability , fish stocks, Science

By Stephen Leahy

Dec 11 (IPS) – Catch less fish. Make more money.

Could this be the solution to the global overfishing crisis?

Australian economists writing in the current issue of Science magazine think so.

Reducing fish catches in the short term will bring fishers big profits later. And that profit potential may finally persuade an intransigent fishing industry to agree to lower catch limits, they say.

“Bigger stocks mean bigger bucks,” says co-author Quentin Grafton, research director at the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University (ANU).

“Our results prove that the highest profits are made when fish numbers are allowed to rise beyond levels traditionally considered optimal,” Grafton said. Continue reading →