Climate Change & Environment
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Climate Change Refugees' Plea to Stay in NZ

Ioane Teitiota and Angua Erika and their three New Zealand-born children have lost claims for refugee status due to global warming.

Mr Teitiota has been battling deportation to Kiribati since 2011, when he overstayed his visa.

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China's Carbon Count could be Overstated by 14 Percent Nature

International organizations could be overestimating emissions from China, the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gas because of problems in the way they calculate their data, said a study published by Nature on Wednesday.

With talks on a new global climate accord set to take place in Paris in December, China, the world's biggest producer of climate-warming gas, has promised to bring emissions to a peak by "around 2030", but it remains unclear how much CO2 China is actually producing and how much it will produce in 15 years.

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Japan’s Move to Restart a Nuclear Reactor is a Good Decision

THE MELTDOWN in 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor terrified people in the densely packed nation of Japan, persuaded the government to close all reactors and turned public opinion there and in many other places decidedly against the technology.

Yet last week Japan restarted a reactor at the Sendai nuclear power plant. More Japanese nuclear units could begin producing electricity again soon. This should not concern the world. It should be a relief.

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Brazil’s Illegal Loggers Downscale to Avoid Satellite Detection

Brazil’s drive to nip illicit tree-felling in the bud has shifted the nature of the problem, according to researchers.

Small-scale illegal logging is – proportionally speaking – on the rise, says a report by the Climate Policy Initiative and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.

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Now Google Can Tell you Whether it’s a Good Idea to Put Solar Panels on Your Roof

Despite its benefits, switching to solar power can be a daunting prospect for the average homeowner. From the cost of purchasing or leasing your own solar panel system to uncertainties about how much power it’ll actually generate, taking the leap can seem like a risk.

A new Google project is seeking to allay some of these concerns with a tool that estimates the amount of energy and savings solar power could generate for any given home. Project Sunroof, which just launched in pilot form on Monday, allows users to search their address and find out the number of square feet available on their roof for solar panels, the number of hours of usable sunlight that could be generated, and the amount of money it could save. It’s currently available for residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, Fresno and Boston.

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'Diamonds from the Sky': Scientists Spin Wonder Materials from Thin Air

Reducing the greenhouse emissions has been an international goal for years, but now scientists have a solution about the carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere: They want to turn them into nanofibers.

A group of scientists from George Washington University, led by Dr. Stuart Licht, say they have developed a technology to economically convert atmospheric CO2 directly into highly valued carbon nanofibers.

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Rich Nations’ Climate Plans Fall Short of Hopes for Paris

Developed nations are on track to cut their greenhouse emissions by almost 30 percent by 2030, Reuters calculations show, falling far short of a halving suggested by a U.N. panel of scientists as a fair share to limit climate change.

Australia became on Tuesday the last big developed nation to submit its strategy for cuts in the run-up to a U.N. summit in Paris in December, rounding off pledges by nations led by the United States, the European Union and Japan.

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Plastic ‘Shade Balls' The Hypnotizing Tool California is Using to Save Water

California is experiencing one of its most severe droughts on record, and its local municipalities have an astounding strategy to save water: turn their reservoirs into massive, floating ball pits.

During the past couple years, cities across the state have dumped millions of “shade balls” — black, plastic balls weighted down with water — into their reservoirs.

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Obama to Visit Alaska, But Enviros Cry Foul Over Arctic Drilling

President Barack Obama is traveling to Alaska later this month to visit the front lines of climate change, which he called "one of the greatest challenges we face this century" in a video posted Thursday.

The effects of climate change in Alaska are "our wake up call," the president said.

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Climate Change Is Getting Its Own Museum

“The ambition of the museum is to be a lab and a hub of climate awareness by making things concrete and giving people a shared space,” Massie said. “It’s critical to building people’s confidence that what they do and say and think about climate can matter.”

Massie is a lawyer by trade, but she now runs the Climate Museum Launch Project, an idea that came to her in the wake of Sandy’s floodwaters in 2012. What started as a vision in her head has since been sketched by architects, approved by the New York Board of Regents and is about to see its first round of seed funding this fall.

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