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TOPIC: climate crisis

Green

How Climate Change May Be Triggering More Earthquakes — And Vice Versa

Researchers have identified a possible link between climate change and the frequency of earthquakes — and the quakes may also start a vicious circle of accelerating climate change.

PARIS — Between 1900 and 1950, the Earth recorded an average of 3.4 earthquakes per year with a magnitude greater than 6.5. That figured doubled to 6.7 a year until the early 1970s, and was almost five times that in the 2000s.

Their intensity would also have increased with more than 25 major earthquakes per year, double the previous periods. This is according to the EM-DAT emergency events database, which compiled the occurrence and effects of 22,000 mass disasters worldwide in the 20th century.

Can we conclude that there is a causal relationship with the rise of human activities, as some experts suggest? The idea was first suggested in 2011 by an Australian research team led by geology professor Giampiero Iaffaldano. At the time, it reported that it had found that the intensification of the monsoon in India had accelerated the movement of the Indian tectonic plate by 20% over the past 10 million years.

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Cracking Food Prices, On The Front Line Of Brazil's Egg Rush

With the price of meat on the rise, Brazilians have turned to eggs. The country is now producing 55 billion eggs a year, presenting challenges for farmers and raising questions of animal welfare. And in Brazil's "Egg Capital", the climate crisis is complicating matters further.

CURITIBA — "After the 15th, it's almost impossible to eat meat," says salesperson Cristina Souza Brito, as she leaves a supermarket in Curitiba, capital of the state of Paraná in southern Brazil.

“Chicken or beef is only available when the salary comes at the beginning of the month," she adds. "Then we get by with omelettes, fried or boiled eggs."

Since the beginning of 2021, this has been the routine in the house where she lives with her daughter, a niece and two siblings. Brazilians might be replacing meat with eggs because of their budgets: meat has increased in price above inflation and, in April 2022, it cost 42.6% more than in early 2020, according to the Institute of Applied Economic Research.

The group Food for Justice pointed out that at the end of 2020, eggs had been the food that Brazilians had been consuming more of (+18.8%), and meat recorded the biggest drop (-44%), which reinforces the idea of substitution between the two foods.

Health and economic crisis aside, Brazilians have never eaten as many eggs as they do now. Egg consumption in the country has more than doubled in the last 15 years, rising from the annual mark of 120 eggs per capita in 2007 to 257 in 2021, according to figures from the Brazilian Animal Protein Association. The current level of eggs consumed by each Brazilian over the course of a year is higher than the world average, which is 227.

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Fading Flavor: Production Of Saffron Declines Sharply

Saffron is well-known for its flavor and its expense. But in Kashmir, one of the flew places it grows, cultivation has fallen dramatically thanks for climate change, industry, and farming methods.

In northern India along the bustling Jammu-Srinagar national highway near Pampore — known as the saffron town of Kashmir —people are busy picking up saffron flowers to fill their wicker baskets.

During the autumn season, this is a common sight in the Valley as saffron harvesting is celebrated like a festival in Kashmir. The crop is harvested once a year from October 21 to mid-November.

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Good COP, Bad COP? How Sharm El-Sheik Failed On The Planet's Big Question

The week-long climate summit in Egypt managed to a backsliding that looked possible at some point, it still failed to deliver on significant change to reverse the effects of global warming.

For 30 years, developing nations have fought to establish an international fund to pay for the “loss and damage” they suffer as a result of climate change. As the COP27 climate summit in Egypt wrapped up over the weekend, they finally succeeded.

While it’s a historic moment, the agreement of loss and damage financing left many details yet to be sorted out. What’s more, many critics have lamented the overall outcome of COP27, saying it falls well short of a sufficient response to the climate crisis. As Alok Sharma, president of COP26 in Glasgow, noted:

"Friends, I said in Glasgow that the pulse of 1.5 °C was weak. Unfortunately it remains on life support."

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Green
Daniel Wetzel

COP Out! How Germany Went From Energy Policy Ideal To Moral Failure

Germany was once a leading light in the green energy transition, but no longer. The country arrives at the COP27 climate conference empty-handed and lacking in moral authority.

-OpEd-

BERLIN — The international climate change conference (COP27) that begins in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on Sunday will see Germany unveiling a new joint climate and foreign policy. For the first time ever, it will not be Germany’s environment ministry leading the negotiations around protecting the planet but its foreign office.

The move to send experienced diplomats to the conference is designed to increase Germany’s influence over global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, but it will likely have the opposite effect.

Head negotiator Germany's Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock and her State Secretary for International Climate Action Jennifer Morgan will not only arrive at the Egyptian seaside resort empty-handed but also lacking in moral authority. Germany has lost its reputation as a leading light in the move towards renewable energy. No coal-dependent developing country will be put to shame by Germany's energy and environmental policy now.

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Ideas
William Ospina

On Our Planet's Future, And The "Art Of The Necessary"

States and technology have failed to stop the destruction of the natural world, but a deceptively simple rethinking of our habits could turn the tide.

-Essay-

BOGOTÁ — From Hurricane Ian to Pakistan's catastrophic floods, we have new reminders all the time that the risk of irreparably changing living conditions on the planet is real — and more alarming in scope than we had envisaged.

Yet the solutions so far have been ineffective because it is living beings, not things, which are destroying the world.

We could blame methane from cows, or plastic or the carbon dioxide of fossil fuels, but the culprits are our diets, our use of plastic or our high-tech traveling. Industry may be responsible, but we individuals are the ones who sustain it.

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Society
Azahara Palomeque

It's Neoliberalism, Stupid: A Millennial's Plea To Break The Status Quo

I am part of a generation whose quality of life will be worse than those who came before us. This should encourage society to realize that the idea of infinite growth is a myth, and that time is of the essence when it comes to saving the environment.

-Essay-

Millennials (those aged roughly between 25 and 38) and others born after us will never be able to live better than our parents (or grandparents). There are those who will blame Netflix subscriptions or avocado toast as a pattern of expenses that, if avoided, would allow us in theory to buy a house. But the economic data is there and it doesn’t lie.

Economic growth has slowed down in a good part of the globe and, along with this, there has been a weakening of the welfare states in most Western countries. This has been coupled with a reduction in taxes for those who are the wealthiest, resulting in unprecedented wealth inequality.

Demonizing the leisure activities of the most precarious sectors not only demonstrates a conservative and prejudiced position but also a shameless ignorance in the face of a problem that has been studied by many experts.

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Green
Camila Parodi

The Dark Hidden Cost Of The Mineral That Makes Green Energy Possible

As the world moves to renewable energy, demand for lithium has surged. But the race to extract the precious mineral comes with hidden costs for local communities and the environment. So just how green is the energy transition after all?

We know that the transition to renewable energies is urgent and that fossil fuels must be replaced. But are we making the same mistake if we switch to extracting other resources using the same model?

Since 1997, U.S. company Livent has been extracting lithium, a metal that is crucial for renewable technologies, from the Salar del Hombre Muerto, a salt flat in northern Argentina.

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