English references

The startup Gigablue announced with fanfare this year that it reached a historic milestone: selling 200,000 carbon credits to fund what it describes as a groundbreaking technology in the fight against climate change . But outside scientists frustrated by the lack of information released by the company say serious questions remain about whether Gigablue’s technology works as the company describes. Their questions showcase tensions in an industry built on little regulation and big promises — and a tantalizing chance to profit.

A study led by the Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health at the University of California, Irvine has revealed possible links between exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in drinking water and an increased risk of certain childhood cancers.

The faces are different, but it’s the same authoritarianism. Keir Starmer’s team might not look or sound like Donald Trump’s, but its policies on protest and dissent are chillingly similar. So is the reason: coordinated global lobbying by the rich and powerful, fronted by rightwing junktanks.

DOGE is gutting federal agencies to install AI across the government. Democracy is on the line, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Eryk Salvaggio.

Britain’s crackdown on climate protest is setting “a dangerous precedent” around the world and undermining democratic rights, the UK director of Human Rights Watch has said. In the UK “laws criminalising protests undermine democratic rights”, the NGO says in its latest annual world report, published on Thursday, adding that in the past year “the UK continued to crack down on and criminalise climate protests”.

British police arrest environmental protesters at nearly three times the global average rate, research has found, revealing the country as a world leader in the legal crackdown on climate activism.

Campaigners receive longest ever sentences for non-violent protest after being convicted of conspiracy to cause public nuisance

In this week’s Down To Earth newsletter: The global crackdown against climate activists and groups is clearly part of the fossil fuel industry’s strategy to crush dissent and keep burning the planet

International lawyer challenging dangerous deep water petroleum production offshore Guyana

European nations must end the repression and criminalisation of peaceful protest and urgently take action to cut emissions in line with the Paris climate agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders has said.

Watchdogs warn of rights violations as governments crack down on disruptive protests.

Unesco joint research dating back 15 years found violence and intimidation against about 750 reporters and 44 murders

European and US oil and gas majors have made profits of more than a quarter of a trillion dollars since Russia invaded Ukraine, according to a new analysis by Global Witness marking two years since the conflict began. After posting record gains in 2022 off the back of soaring energy prices, the big five fossil fuel companies paid shareholders an unprecedented $111 billion in 2023. In the hottest year ever recorded, this figure is some 158 times what was pledged to vulnerable nations at last year’s COP28 climate summit.

In the UK and around the world, those who challenge rich corporations are being hounded and crushed with ever-more inventive penalties, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

NEW YORK – Bloomberg today released a research paper detailing the development of BloombergGPTTM, a new large-scale generative artificial intelligence (AI) model. This large language model (LLM) has been specifically trained on a wide range of financial data to support a diverse set of natural language processing (NLP) tasks within the financial industry.

INTERLAKEN, Switzerland, March 20, 2023 -- There are multiple, feasible and effective options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change, and they are available now, said scientists in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released today. ...

The heat made the city’s roads buckle. Train rails warped, causing long commuter and freight delays. City workers watered bridges to prevent them from locking when the plates expanded. Children riding in school buses became so dehydrated and nauseous that they had to be hosed down by the Fire Department. Hundreds of young people were hospitalized with heat-related illnesses. But the elderly, and especially the elderly who lived alone, were most vulnerable to the heat wave....

The Daily Express removed an article quoting a prominent climate science denier, after an energy company that claims to sell power that is “good for the planet” and “good for your soul” said it was reviewing whether to remove its advertising from the website.

Résumé fr - Alain Vézina - Au cours des 11 700 dernières années, pendant lesquelles la civilisation humaine s'est développée, la Terre a vécu dans ce que les géologues appellent l'époque holocène. Aujourd'hui, la science nous dit que l'époque de l'Holocène s'est achevée sur l'échelle des temps géologiques et qu'elle a été remplacée par une nouvelle époque, plus dangereuse, l'Anthropocène, qui a débuté vers 1950. L'époque de l'Anthropocène se caractérise par une "faille anthropique" dans les cycles biologiques du système terrestre, marquant un changement de réalité dans lequel les activités humaines sont désormais la principale force géologique ayant un impact sur la terre dans son ensemble, générant en même temps une crise existentielle pour la population mondiale. Qu'est-ce qui a provoqué ce changement massif dans l'histoire de la Terre ? Dans cette étude exhaustive, John Bellamy Foster nous apprend qu'un système mondialisé d'accumulation du capital a incité l'humanité à faire son propre ni

With the Australian Actuaries Institute Climate Index reaching the highest rainfall and temperature levels since the index was launched in 2018, it is not surprising that the Actuaries Institute’s latest Green Paper has warned of climate change’s impact on home insurance affordability in Australia.