Environment and Other News

Friend -- Outdated regulations are putting freshwater ecosystems at risk - tell Josh Frydenberg to update this list today ! In September 2016 Friends of the Earth produced the report:   Pesticides in Australian Waterways Overview . The results were shocking with 89% of the almost 200 pesticides detected having no ecological guidelines under the current system. Many of the unregulated pesticides detected are known to be harmful to animals like the long necked turtle, affect their food supply and cause havoc and destruction for fragile ecosystems in Australian waterways. Let Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg know it is time to update the ANZECC guidelines to protect our waterways . Australia’s ecological guidelines for waterways, the ANZECC Guidelines, have not been updated since the year 2000. Work is very slowly progressing to update the 2000 Guidelines. Friends of the Earth have determined that 95% of Agvet chemicals registered for use...

From The Guardian Coal isnt all that good for humanity although Tony Abbot says it is, India has closed a coal fired electricity plant down for plant for 10 days to help reduce the pollution. The plant wasnt the main cause of the extra pollution but never the less must be throwing out a lot of muck to make it worth shutting. India Indian government declares Delhi air pollution an emergency Capital’s schools closed for three days and building work halted as harmful pollutants reach level more than 16 times safe limit Young Indian runners take part in the New Delhi 10k Challenge amid heavy smog on Sunday. Photograph: Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images Michael Safi   @safimichael Sunday 6 November 2016  11.40 EST             The Indian government has declared severe levels of toxic air pollution in  Delhi an “emergency situation” as administrators announce a plan to temporarily ...

We’ve been hoping to say this for a very long time and here it is:  El Salvador’s water is safe! OceanaGold’s lawsuit against El Salvador has been dismissed -- a lawsuit that threatened the country’s last source of drinkable water. Here’s what happened: A few years ago OceanaGold, an Australian mining company, bought off Pacific Rim, a Canadian mining company with a contract to build a massive gold mine in the North of El Salvador.  The mine didn’t meet environmental guidelines and threatened the last remaining river with drinkable water in the country. As much as  90% of El Salvador's water is not safe for drinking.  Here is a picture of the pollution caused by mining to one of the country's most important rivers:  Protecting water means protecting life, so  the SumOfUs community stood, and fought, with the Salvadorans opposing the mine: Over 200,000 of us signed petitions targeting the mining company and the World Bank.  We...

Today the Paris Agreement, a global climate deal signed by 196 countries, comes into force. This is a historic moment fought for by hundreds of thousands of people on every continent. The problem is that too many governments are still taking actions that contradict the words set down in the agreement.  The new math* on climate change shows that every new fossil fuel project -- every coal mine, every gas well, every oil pipeline -- violates the goals laid out in Paris. That's why we've begun a global call to halt new fossil fuel development ahead of the next UN climate meeting in Morocco. The meeting starts next week --  help send the message that real climate action requires halting new fossil fuel projects now and building a just transition that makes 100% renewable energy accessible to all. The Paris agreement promises to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, and aim for 1.5 degrees. If you add up the carbon pollution contained in existing oil ...

The Weekly E-Newsletter from the Editors of E-The Environmental Magazine November 2, 2016 WHAT WE'RE FOLLOWING The Power of Being Lost in the Wilderness Scientists say that the human brain of today has evolved only marginally from the brain of our cave dwelling ancestors of 30,000 years ago. Could this explain our sometimes random impulses to seek out danger? Air Shepherd Uses Drones To Battle African Poachers The Lindbergh Foundation’s Air Shepherd program, developed to protect elephants & rhinos from poaching by using drones, is increasing patrols to look for poachers poisoning watering holes in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park... Polyester Fleece: Trashing Our Oceans One Washload at a Time? Polyester fleece clothing sure is cozy and...

  I remember the buzz of excitement in the room when French negotiator Laurent Fabius took to the stage and announced the Paris Agreement was universally supported by 197 countries. A year later it will come into force with 85 countries – including the US, China and New Zealand – ratifying the agreement. So what about Australia? Well... we haven’t ratified the Agreement. While the world has been surging ahead,  we’re snoozing and losing . Come with us down memory lane using our new  Climate Action Time Warp Tool  – which compares Australia's progress to the rest of the world: As one of the sunniest and windiest countries in the world,  we can be at the forefront of the renewables revolution . But while local leaders in communities, cities and states all over Australia are stepping up to the challenge – on a national front  we’re lagging behind, while the rest of the world surges ahead. World leaders will meet in Morocco next week for ...

All the latest news from the global movement for tribal peoples' rights. View this email in your browser World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) trustee Peter Flack with the forest elephant he killed. Outrageous: Baka abused to make way for trophy hunters! Baka “pygmies” are being arrested, beaten and tortured for entering their ancestral forests since they were leased to French billionaire Benjamin de Rothschild for big game trophy hunting. Armed guards threaten to shoot the hunter-gatherers on sight. Their crime? "Trespassing" in the "protected areas" to provide for their families. Meanwhile, tourists can pay de Rothschild €55,000 for the privilege of shooting a forest elephant. We think this is wrong, which is why we're giving the Baka a platform to speak out against the theft of their land and the abuse they are subject to. Please share our  video  below and  send a protest email now → The U.N. warned about cons...