The world is full of negative news, and the planet seems to be in an ecological crisis, and this can be downright disheartening and disenfranchising because we feel that there’s nothing that each one of us can do is an individual that can make any difference.
Highlights
How many of the world’s problems can be solved in a garden
The problem with the industrial food system and how a garden can eliminate it
Compost and other soil building strategies to build fertile and carbon rich soil
How fertile soils reverse climate change
Harvesting rainwater for soil building and carbon sequestration
Empowering you to make ecological and regenerative choices and develop your own solutions to the ecological problems of the world
Wanted Rains - Created Floods, Hail and Snowstorms
PROLOGUE: Dubai Has 4 Years of Rain in 2 Hours - After 9 Cloud Seeding Flights - There is only so much moisture in the atmosphere - so if other countries are seeding clouds to make it rain (China, Dubai, India) does that explain why countries like Australia are missing out?! It has been going on since many years (see down below report from 2017).
UAE rains: 9 cloud seeding flights have been completed, more to take place
It started just with overcast skies in Dubai on Saturday Image Credit: Evangeline Elsa
Dubai: Will it rain more in the UAE tonight? Yes, according to the National Center of Meteorology.
An NCM source told Gulf News that nine cloud seeding flights have been completed since Thursday. The weather forecaster added: “There were some cloud seeding flights we launched today and it is going to continue."
Last week, when the UAE weather bureau noticed that clouds from the western regions of the country were going to pass over the country, they were quick to put the team on standby for cloud seeding flights, to enhance the rainfall in the region.
The forecaster added that “The clouds are now over southern and Eastern areas such as Al Ain.
Just like the weather, climate changes, of course. No reasonable person can argue otherwise.
This change can be natural or unnatural (i.e. artificially created by corporations and governments). Drop a few nuclear bombs here and there and you’ll successfully plunge Earth into a nuclear winter for hundreds of years. Therefore, it’s completely possible for governments and big corporations to alter the Earth’s climate.
Governments and corporations are already altering the weather EVERY DAY by injecting chemicals into the sky to make it rain or snow through a process called “cloud-seeding.”
In 2030, we ended the climate emergency. Here’s how:
Underneath the article, you can read more about these photos of 20,000-year-old ice cores extracted in Greenland and Antarctica. The images shown here are all from the series Climate Archive by photographer Suzette Bousema.
If words make worlds, then we urgently need to tell a new story about the climate crisis. Here is one vision of what it could look and feel like to radically, collectively take action.
Feral Dromedar in Australia - Among the global outcry against this brutal killing spree, also Somalis, the world's best camel-herders, have decried the senseless action- Image copyright Getty Images
By BBC - 08. January 2020
Thousands of 'camels' (actually Dromedars) in South Australia will be shot dead from helicopters as a result of extreme heat and drought.
A five-day cull started on Wednesday, as Aboriginal communities in the region have reported large groups of camels damaging towns and buildings.
"They are roaming the streets looking for water. We are worried about the safety of the young children", says Marita Baker, who lives in the community of Kanypi.
PROLOGUE: The sheer scale of global inequality is almost too staggering to comprehend: The richest 1% capture $19 trillion in income each year. That's more than the GDP of the "poorest" 169 countries *combined* - a list which includes Norway, Switzerland, Argentina and Saudi Arabia. But who can trust the IMF in this sudden shift of policy announced just before the 2020 World Economic Forum meeting in Davos ??? It sounds rather like a final alarm-call before the revolution that would leave none of the Takers unscated and certainly also do away with the IMF and the so-called United Nations, who owns it, and their thrive for global governance..
IMF boss says raise taxes on the rich to tackle inequality
A man begging in Glasgow. Photograph: Findlay/Alamy Stock Photo
Kristalina Georgieva calls for rethink of economic policies to better help those left behind
Raising income tax on the wealthy will help close the growing gap between rich and poor and can be done without harming growth, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said.
Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, said higher marginal tax rates for the better off were needed as part of a policy rethink to tackle inequality.
In a sign of how the IMF has moved away from the tax-cutting approach that once formed a central part of its policy advice, Georgieva said there needed to be a different approach to tackling what had become “one of the most complex and vexing challenges in the global economy”.
Authorities in Niger have arrested at least 335 Sudanese refugees, accusing them of burning down a refugee camp just outside the city of Agadez in the north of the country.
Officials said the camp was burned down after nearly 1,000 refugees protesting in front of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Agadez were forcibly dispersed.
Zebras and Waterbuck at Majete Wildlife Reserve, Malawi. Jason I. Ransom
By Mucha Mkono, Jason I. Ransom, Katarzyna Nowak, Patrick O. Onyango - 07.
Conservationists don’t always agree about the best ways to reinforce the protection of nature. Debates about it can become confrontational.
But at the heart of the issue is how to include more people in conservation efforts. As a group of scientists, we believe it is important to steer the discussion towards a more diverse and inclusive blueprint for protecting biodiversity and ecosystems.
In a letter to the journal Science, we argue that the model of trophy hunting in Africa to finance conservation is neither sustainable nor equitable. We offer some alternatives. We suggest meeting the needs and values of a variety of stakeholders and local communities. Doing so involves empowering people to participate in decisions that affect them.
Day turns into night during Australia's forest fires.
As record fires rage, the country’s leaders seem intent on sending it to its doom.
By Richard Flanagam - 03.
BRUNY ISLAND, Australia — Australia today is ground zero for the climate catastrophe. Its glorious Great Barrier Reef is dying, its world-heritage rain forests are burning, its giant kelp forests have largely vanished, numerous towns have run out of water or are about to, and now the vast continent is burning on a scale never before seen.
The images of the fires are a cross between “Mad Max” and “On the Beach”: thousands driven onto beaches in a dull orange haze, crowded tableaux of people and animals almost medieval in their strange muteness — half-Bruegel, half-Bosch, ringed by fire, survivors’ faces hidden behind masks and swimming goggles.
This Is Why December 31 Is The Cosmic Calendar's Most Important Date
The Solar System formed from a cloud of gas, which gave rise to a proto-star, a proto-planetary disk, and eventually the seeds of what would become planets. The crowning achievement of our own Solar System's history is the creation and formation of Earth exactly as we have it today, which may not have been as special a cosmic rarity as once thought. Our planet will persist for a very long time, but just like everything else in this Universe, we won't last forever. - NASA / Dana Berry
The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it.
Our Universe has been around for 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang. This timespan is so incredibly long and so far outside our normal human experience that most of us can't even wrap our heads around it.
Speaking about events that happened thousands, millions, or billions of years ago might all seem unfathomably ancient, but they're as different from one another as they are from what happened this past year.
However, we can leverage a fun thought-experiment to help us wrap our heads around the history of the Universe: imagine that all of it — all 13.8 billion years — were compressed to fit into a single calendar year.
Each "day" on that calendar would last around 38 million years, and a single human lifetime would last just about 0.2 seconds, on average. If this were how things truly unfolded, December 31st would be the most important date of all.
Here's why.
The history of our Universe would begin with the start of the hot Big Bang on January 1st, followed by the Universe expanding, cooling, and gravitating ever since.
Prince William launches The Earthshot Prize - the 'most prestigious environmental prize in history'
Prince William joined forces with Sir David Attenborough to launch the Earthshot Prize Credit: Peter Byrne/PA
The Earthshot Prize aims to encourage and inspire people across the world to find innovative new solutions to one of the gravest problems facing the Earth.
A multi-million pound prize will be awarded to five winners a year over 10 years, comprising at least 50 solutions to the world’s greatest problems by 2030.
The Duke, 37, joined forces with Sir David Attenborough to make the announcement just as the first countries around the globe saw in the New Year and a new decade.
'I'm slowly dying here': Julian Assange tells journalist friend his health is worsening in slurred phone call from Belmarsh prison 'sounding like he's been sedated'
Julian Assange being whisked back to maximum-security Belmarsh Prison in southeast London on 20. December 2019Wikileaks founder is currently being held in Belmarsh Prison, south east London
He was jailed on May 1 for breaching bail conditions over sex offence allegations
Now his friend Vaughan Smith has claimed Assange's health is now deteriorating
It comes weeks after around 60 doctors warned about his health in open letter
Julian Assange revealed his health is worsening and said 'I'm slowly dying here' in a slurred phone call from prison on Christmas Eve, it has been claimed.
The Wikileaks founder, who is currently being held in Belmarsh Prison, south east London, revealed the news in a call with his journalist friend Vaughan Smith.
Fossil Fuel Industry Shifts from Climate Denial to “Youthwashing”
Abusing Youth to drive the corporate agenda is already widespread.
By RNN - 31. December 2019
For decades, the fossil fuel industry funded climate change denial campaigns aimed toward young people to sow seeds of doubt on climate science. As the climate crisis has worsened, it has made a subtle shift to what critics call "youthwashing.".
Story Transcript (video below)
TAYLOR HEBDEN: Youth climate activism is on the rise. But as more young people push for radical climate action, big oil is ramping up efforts to channel that energy into its own ends.
Youth climate activist Greta Thunberg called out these dynamics at the United Nations Climate Action Summit held this past September.
Australian wildfires: Tens of thousands told to evacuate in Victoria as bushfires intensify
Watertankers and helicopters and also landgrabbers and insurances have booming business - that's all Australians care for - business. Arsonists and looters.
30% of all Koalas are already dead and as many as 480 million animals could have been killed.
Authorities warn of one of most significant fire weather days in state’s history
Tens of thousands of residents and holidaygoers in the Australian state of Victoria have been urged to evacuate “immediately to survive”, as escalating bushfires threaten an area the size of Montenegro.
The popular summer holiday destination of east Gippsland is experiencing temperatures north of 40C, with strong winds expected to fan already out-of-control blazes and dry lightning forecasted to spark new fires.
Emergencies chief Andrew Crisp told those in the region to leave no later than Monday morning to avoid what authorities warned would be one of the most significant fire weather days in Victoria’s history.
Apex predator - Number of wolf packs almost double in Switzerland
Seven new births in the wild were also confirmed. (Zoo Zürich, Enzo Franchini)
Experts estimate that the country hosts between seven and nine wolf packs.
Within the space of a year, the wolf population has grown in Switzerland. According to the latest estimates of the Swiss Wolf Groupexternal link released on Sunday, at least seven wolf packs live in the country compared to four in the previous year. A pack is defined as a territorial wolf population of three or more socialised animals of both sexes.
The updated figures are from the biological year that runs from the beginning of May 2019 to the end of April 2020.
Assuming a minimum of seven wolf packs, it is estimated that there are now between 60 to 70 wolves in Switzerland.
