climate
Paris (AFP) - Scientists Geoffrey Hawtin and Cary Fowler, who on Thursday received the prestigious World Food Prize for "their work to preserve the world's heritage of seeds", are on a mission. Their vocation is to safeguard as many seeds as possible so that one day the world can benefit from their genetic characteristics. Their work is all in the name of protecting global food security. Hawtin and Fowler helped set up a world reserve of seeds dug into a glacier on the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard in the Arctic -- where 1.25 million samples are now stored for preservation in the cold. It was...
AFP
Greensboro (United States) (AFP) - Growing up, Devante Cuthbertson assumed he might have to leave his North Carolina hometown to pursue a career, but a new multi-billion-dollar Toyota battery plant is offering him a reason to stay put. The 28-year-old from Greensboro is among students of an apprenticeship program at Guilford Technical Community College, working three days weekly with the automaker with an eye on future employment. "At one point, I felt maybe I'd go to a different state or a different country and try different job avenues," Cuthbertson told AFP. But when the Toyota tie-in "cam...
AFP
New York (AFP) - The oil industry's public relations strategy has evolved from climate science denial to "disinformation and doublespeak" to counter meaningful environmental policies, US congressional Democrats said in a report Tuesday. The report accuses oil giants such as ExxonMobil and Chevron -- along with industry trade groups -- of a long-running campaign aimed at defending the industry's interests at the expense of the planet. "Big Oil has run campaigns to confuse and mislead the public while working unceasingly to lock down a fossil fuel future," said Maryland Democratic Representative...
AFP
New York (AFP) - Climate change is a major issue on the US political agenda, yet the country's Green Party and its candidate Jill Stein are next to invisible in the presidential race. Making her third tilt at the White House, Stein is relying on her positions on issues outside of the environment to stay in the mix. According to a recent poll, she is pulling around three percent support, after finishing with 0.4 percent and one percent of votes in 2012 and 2016, respectively. "Our first priority is to get on the ballot," a step requiring thousands of signatures, explains the 73-year-old doctor...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - The United States on Thursday announced sweeping new rules requiring coal-fired plants to eliminate nearly all their carbon emissions or commit to shutting down altogether, a keystone of President Joe Biden's agenda to confront the climate crisis. Hailed by environmental groups as a "gamechanger," the regulations take effect from 2032 and will also mandate that new, high capacity gas-fired plants slash their carbon dioxide output by the same amount -- 90 percent -- a target that would require the use of carbon capture technology. It comes as Democratic incumbent Biden faces ...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - The world is currently experiencing its second major coral bleaching event in 10 years, with reef systems from Australia to Florida teetering on the brink of disaster following months of record-breaking ocean heat, a US agency announced Monday. The consequences of coral bleaching are far-reaching, affecting not only the health of oceans but also the livelihoods of people, food security, and local economies. Severe or prolonged heat stress leads to corals dying off, but there is hope for recovery if temperatures drop and other stressors such as overfishing and pollution are...
AFP
New York (AFP) - Despite the recent cancellation of a next-generation US nuclear plant, backers of the carbon-free power source remain hopeful new projects will come on line by the end of the decade. Late last year, the US energy company NuScale announced it was pulling the plug on a small modular reactor (SMR) project in the western state of Idaho. The project -- the sole SMR design yet to be approved by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- faced exploding costs that took the estimated price from $5.3 billion up to $9.3 billion. The "collapse of NuScale's project should spell the end for s...
AFP
Los Angeles (AFP) - The booming use of electric vehicles in parts of California is reducing CO2 emissions in those areas, a study showed Thursday, bolstering a key pillar of the state's drive towards net zero. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, say a network of sensors set up around the San Francisco Bay Area -- where Teslas and other EVs are a common sight -- has logged a small but steady drop in the volume of planet-warming carbon dioxide being pumped out every year. "We show from atmospheric measurements that adoption of electric vehicles is working, that it's having the ...
AFP
New York (AFP) - The US conglomerate General Electric, co-founded more than 130 years ago by Thomas Edison, is opening a new chapter in its history on Tuesday: its break-up into three independent entities which will then concentrate on their disparate core businesses. The group announced its "spin-off" project in November 2021, which was to be carried out in several stages. An initial split took place in January 2023 with the creation of GE HealthCare, bringing together all the health care activities. The official finalization of the separation comes Tuesday, with General Electric disappearin...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Climate change is causing heat waves to slow to a crawl, exposing humans to extreme temperatures for longer than ever before, a study published in Science Advances said Friday. While previous research has found climate change is causing heat waves to become longer, more frequent and more intense, the new paper differed by treating heat waves as distinct weather patterns that move along air currents, just as storms do. For every decade between 1979 to 2020, researchers found heat waves slowed down by an average of five miles (eight kilometers) an hour per day. "If a heatwav...
AFP
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