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We Can’t Stop Congo’s Ebola Outbreak Until Communities Lead the Response

           

GOMA/The Democratic Republic of Congo - Henry Bongyereirwe/UNICEF

thenewhumanitarian.org - by Amy Daffe - August 1, 2019

. . . One year into the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the epidemic is accelerating . . .

. . . Instead of working with local leaders, outsiders arrived spreading messages that have left communities with more questions than answers. Information has not been well-tailored to different community contexts nor appropriately adapted to local languages or social norms.

As a result, cases are being hidden in communities and worryingly the contacts of those that die are largely unknown, making tracing difficult.

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Restoring Forests Could Help Put a Brake on Global Warming, Study Finds

           

This is where the world could support new forests. The map excludes existing forests, urban areas, and agricultural lands. J. BASTIN, ET. AL., SCIENCE 365, 76, 2019

CLICK HERE - STUDY - The global tree restoration potential

nytimes.com - by Somini Sengupta - April 25, 2019

. . . What if we grew new forests on vacant city lots, old industrial buildings — even golf courses?

For the first time, scientists have sought to quantify this thought experiment. How many trees could be planted on every available parcel of land on Earth, where they could go, and what impact could that have on our survival?

They concluded that the planet could support nearly 2.5 billion additional acres of forest without shrinking our cities and farms, and that those additional trees, when they mature, could store a whole lot of the extra carbon — 200 gigatons of carbon, to be precise — generated by industrial activity over the last 150 years.

Parts of the study — led by researchers at ETH Zurich, a university that specializes in science, technology and engineering — were immediately criticized.

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We have 18 months to save world, Prince Charles warns Commonwealth leaders

CLICK HERE - A speech by HRH The Prince of Wales at a Reception for Commonwealth Foreign Ministers, Clarence House, London

princeofwales.gov.uk - July 11, 2019

. . . The next 18 months will see critical meetings that will collectively determine the global agenda for the coming decade. And these, again, as you know better than I, range from the UNSG’s Climate Action Summit this September, to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of Parties in China next October, to the UNFCCC Conference of Parties to be held, I hope, in London that Autumn. Next year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting stands of course at a pivotal point in the middle of these events and will be an absolutely vital moment to consolidate consensus on the way forward, not least of which, will be the deliberations on how to increase the amount of private sector finance flowing towards supporting sustainable development throughout the Commonwealth.

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The Deep Adaptation Agenda

Jem Bendell - scientistswarning.org

CLICK HERE - Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy (36 page .PDF document)

. . . The paper, published in July of 2018, concludes “…recent research suggests that human societies will experience disruptions to their basic functioning within less than ten years due to climate stress.  Such disruptions include increased levels of malnutrition, starvation, disease, civil conflict and war – and will not avoid affluent nations. This situation makes redundant the reformist[2] approach to sustainable development and related fields of corporate sustainability. Instead, a new approach which explores how to reduce harm and not make matters worse is important to develop. In support of that challenging, and ultimately personal process, understanding a ‘deep adaptation agenda’ may be useful.”

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New Solar + Battery Price Crushes Fossil Fuels, Buries Nuclear

           

BARREN RIDGE, CA - APRIL 4: The new project will join the current large Barren Ridge solar panel array in Kern County, California. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)GETTY IMAGES

CLICK HERE - Kern County, CA - Eland 1 Solar Project

forbes.com - by Jeff McMahon - July 1, 2019

Los Angeles Power and Water officials have struck a deal on the largest and cheapest solar + battery-storage project in the world, at prices that leave fossil fuels in the dust and may relegate nuclear power to the dustbin.

Later this month the LA Board of Water and Power Commissioners is expected to approve a 25-year contract that will serve 7 percent of the city's electricity demand at 1.997¢/kwh for solar energy and 1.3¢ for power from batteries.

"This is the lowest solar-photovoltaic price in the United States," said James Barner, the agency's manager for strategic initiatives, "and it is the largest and lowest-cost solar and high-capacity battery-storage project in the U.S. and we believe in the world today. So this is, I believe, truly revolutionary in the industry."

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Here’s How AI Can Help Fight Climate Change According to the Field’s Top Thinkers

From monitoring deforestation to designing low-carbon materials

           

Steam and exhaust rise from a chemical factory and coking plant in Germany. Photo by Lukas Schulze/Getty Images

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning

theverge.com - by James Vincent - June 25, 2019

The AI renaissance of recent years has led many to ask how this technology can help with one of the greatest threats facing humanity: climate change. A new research paper authored by some of the field’s best-known thinkers aims to answer this question, giving a number of examples of how machine learning could help prevent human destruction.

The suggested use-cases are varied, ranging from using AI and satellite imagery to better monitor deforestation, to developing new materials that can replace steel and cement (the production of which accounts for nine percent of global green house gas emissions).

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Dominica’s Indigenous Innovation

           

CONCEPT DRAWING KALINAGO RESILIENCE HUB CHANNELING CULTURAL BUILDING PRACTICES AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE CENTIPEDE. PHOTO © ILLYA AZAROFF AND + LAB ARCHITECT PLLC

rocagallery.com - by Illya Azaroff - May 21, 2019

 . . . Since Hurricane Maria struck in 2017, the tiny island of Dominica is rebuilding with the aim of becoming the first climate resilient and 100% sustainable nation in the world . . . Dominica can unlock the DNA of resilience through the vernacular building practices and rich cultural history of the Kalinago people that first inhabited the island . . .

 . . . Rediscovering these historic threads of resilience have been key to developing new master plans for the territory under the Kalinago Institute for Resilience and Regeneration (KIRR), founded by my team together with leading experts and community leaders, including members of the Kalinago council of chiefs, Nichie Louis Patrick Hill and Dr. Michael McDonald. Its mission is to create a thriving Kalinago Territory as a low carbon, resilient region where citizens can live and excel within the carrying capacity of its ecosystems for multiple generations into the future.

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This Scientist Thinks She Has the Key to Curb Climate Change: Super Plants

Professor Joanne Chory at the Salk Institute, where she leads her Ideal Plant project. Photograph: John Francis Peters

Dr Joanne Chory hopes that genetic modifications to enhance plants’ natural carbon-fixing traits could play a key role – but knows that time is short, for her and the planet

theguardian.com - by Adam Popescu - April 16, 2019

If this were a film about humanity’s last hope before climate change wiped us out, Hollywood would be accused of flagrant typecasting. That’s because Dr Joanne Chory is too perfect for the role to be believable.

The esteemed scientist – who has long banged the climate drum and now leads a project that could lower the Earth’s temperature – is perhaps the world’s leading botanist and is on the cusp of something so big that it could truly change our planet.

She’s also a woman in her 60s who is fighting a disease sapping her very life.

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Dozens of Countries Have Been Working to Plant ‘Great Green Wall’ – and It’s Holding Back Poverty

           

CLICK HERE - The Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative as an opportunity to enhance resilience in Sahelian landscapes and livelihoods

goodnewsnetwork.org - by McKinley Corbley - Mar 31, 2019

More than 20 African countries have joined together in an international mission to plant a massive wall of trees running across the continent – and after a little over a decade of work, it has reaped great success.

The tree-planting project, which has been dubbed The Great Green Wall of Africa, stretches across roughly 6,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of terrain at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, a region known as the Sahel.

The region was once a lush oasis of greenery and foliage back in the 1970s, but the combined forces of population growth, unsustainable land management, and climate change turned the area into a barren and degraded swath of land . . . 

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