Harvested News

Rubbish trucks clear the streets twice a day, while residents have made sorting and recycling their household waste a habit. “We were among the dirtiest cities in Indonesia. This made us very embarrassed and determined to change the situation,” former city mayor Asrun told The Straits Times in June. His son took over the post this month. His biggest success was setting up Kampung Mandiri…

"Plan A" remains tackling the problem at its source. But efforts to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions have fallen woefully short and cannot, most scientists agree, avert catastrophic climate change on their own. Here is a "Plan B" menu of geoengineering solutions that can be broken down into two categories: dimming the sun, which remains highly controversial, and capturing carbon dioxide (CO2). Solar radiation management…

Fall is always a good time to create new habits, including coffee consumption. And coffee chains are always looking for ways to get you to drink their java. But the coffee industry faces big changes. For restaurant operators, there's no better hook than coffee to get repeat business. Most recently, many chains used International Coffee Day (Oct. 1) as an excuse to offer coffee at…

While governments and environmental groups have committed to re-foresting depleted parts of the world, "We aren't doing the work fast enough," added Lauren Fletcher. Fletcher, who spent 20 years as an engineer at NASA and Lockheed Martin (LMT), thinks he has a solution: drones. His company, BioCarbon Engineering, uses drones and data analysis to do large-scale replanting in areas that would otherwise take years to…

This was highlighted in a joint report by WWF-Malaysia and its counterpart from Indonesia entitled “The Environmental Status of Borneo 2016” which was tabled during Experts Dialogue held in conjunction with the 10th Anniversary of the Heart of Borneo (HoB) initiative at Borneo Tarakan University, Tarakan, North Kalimantan, Indonesia, today. In a joint statement released by WWF-Malaysia and WWF-Indonesia, it was stated that the joint…

Myanmar's coastal areas of Tanintharyi, Ayeyawaddy and Rakhine are abundant with coral reefs, mangroves, sea grass beds, mud flats, estuaries and sand dunes, playing an important role in environmental diversity and the sectors of agriculture, forestry, fishing and tourism. However, part of the mangroves are being damaged by locals, who clear the areas for prawn breeding, fishing, mining, waste disposal and oil spilling, while the…

Speaking ahead of key climate talks in Bonn next month she urged politicians to recognize that indigenous communities around the world were the most effective custodians of millions of hectares of forest “which act as the world’s lungs”. “Indigenous people’s rights need to be protected in the best way possible, not just for them but because they are also able to provide solutions to many…

In the process, the Philippines, an island nation that ranks third among countries most at risk from climate change, will become a testing ground for a human rights approach to climate liability. The commission is investigating whether the collective contribution to global warming by 47 coal, cement, oil and gas companies has violated Filipinos’ basic rights to life, water, food, sanitation, adequate housing and self-determination…

Lori Fomenko and Amir Erfanian, both from UConn's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, started the ClimaMedia project a little less than a year ago. Since then, they have produced half a dozen videos simplifying highly technical climate change research so that the general public can understand and, hopefully, act. As scientists and millennials, Fomenko and Erfanian saw a huge gap between how the scientific…

As climate change aggravates these hydro-meteorological events, countries with long coastlines such as Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines are especially exposed. The only lasting response is to cut greenhouse gases and contain global warming. Meanwhile, we had better build far greater resilience to the danger. In Asia-Pacific, climate change is exacerbating storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves. Last year saw the highest temperatures on record and…

The results, published in the journal Science, contradict prior work in suggesting that these forests — including the Amazon rainforest but also huge tropical forests in Indonesia, Congo and elsewhere — have become another net addition to the climate change problem. However, the accounting also implies that if the current losses could be reversed, the forests could also rapidly transform into a powerful climate change…

“Mangroves are now highlighted as a major carbon sink in relation to the greenhouse gas emission for climate change mitigation,” said Rex Sadaba of the University of Philippines-Visayas who conducted the study from May to August this year. Carbon sinks remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. “They sequester carbon dioxide and make that into their leaves, into their stem and keep it into their biomass,”…

"The Government of Indonesia is currently preparing the establishment of the Environmental Fund Management Agency (BPDLH), in which there is Climate Change Funding Window, and REDD + funding is part of the funding in the Climate Change Funding Window," Director General of Climate Change Control at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) Nur Masripatin said, Wednesday (9/27/2017), in a written statement. The establishment of…

In addition, more than 20 other countries where Tiffany has stores and facilities – including Canada, China, and much of Europe – will also use regionally sourced renewable energy credits to account for 100% of their respective electricity use in 2017. In total, the above achievements mean that approximately 85% of Tiffany’s worldwide electricity use in 2017 will be countered by the purchase of renewable…

Members of this growing group - Thai Agro Business Association (TABA), Thai Crop Protection Association (TCPA), and CropLife Asia among others - personally delivered a letter recently to the Office of the Prime Minister sharing this sentiment and conducted a briefing for members of the media today. "Thailand Farmers deserve solutions and our support -- not scare tactics peddled by activists," said Mr. Pramote Tirapraiwong…

“It is important for us to ensure the values of a designer are not just to design and throwing old spaces. With all the things happening in the age of climate change, there is even a bigger need of consciousness and awareness from the students to be a good designer and be equipped with the good values that community can benefit,” Nippon Paint Group General…

But the otherwise reassuring number hides a serious imbalance, they reported in the science journal Nature Plants. Such gardens, which often double as research centres,house only a quarter of tropical flora, as opposed to 60 percent of plants native to temperate climes. Species diversity is far richer in the tropics, but more than 90 percent of vegetal safe havens are in the northern hemisphere. Plants…