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Climate Change & Conservation eNews

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A Student Led Local Princeton Climate Strike Took Place In Hinds Plaza In Princeton NJ On Sept 20 As Part Of The Global Climate Strike
Bumper DeJesus

Andlinger Center speaks: Why the messenger matters in climate action

“Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg has rocked the global stage as an advocate for climate action since the sixteen-year-old began skipping school to strike outside of the Swedish Parliament last year. In December 2018, she demanded a secure environmental future from international leaders at the United Nations (UN) COP24 Climate Change Conference. Her efforts galvanized millions to participate in a “Global Climate Strike,” ahead of the UN’s Climate Action Summit last month. Thunberg made a statement by traveling to New York for the meeting in a racing boat equipped with solar panels and hydro-powered generators, a zero-carbon trip, instead of by plane…”

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Sunset Cornfield Midwest
Pixabay

Unfamiliar ground: Bracing for climate impacts in the American Midwest

Reporters from across the Midwest explore the climate risks and the strategies communities are using to adapt.

Think of a Minnesota with almost no ice fishing. A Missouri that is as hot and dry as Texas. River and lake communities where catastrophic flooding happens almost every year, rather than every few generations.

This, scientists warn, is the future of the Midwest if emissions continue at a high rate, threatening the very core of the region’s identity…

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Aududon Extinct Bird Collage
Audubon Society

Two-thirds of North American birds are at increasing risk of extinction from global temperature rise

Check out Audubon's report with three different warming scenarios to explore how increased warming makes more species more vulnerable. They also provide suggestions on what can be done.

By stabilizing carbon emissions and holding warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, 76 percent of vulnerable species will be better off, and nearly 150 species would no longer be vulnerable to extinction from climate change.

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Climate Youtube Screen Grab Kids Shoveling

The paradox of global warming and colder winters

Sharing stories that help people understand how climate change is impacting weather is really helpful. Many don't understand how cold weather snaps are actually increasing due to climate change.

Is there a link between the vanishing Arctic sea ice and extreme weather? Many prominent climate researchers think so.

That’s because warming temperatures in the Arctic are altering the behavior of the polar jet stream, a high-altitude river of air that drives weather patterns across the globe. As the winds that propel the jet stream weaken, storms, droughts, and extreme heat and cold move over continents at slower rates, meaning bad weather can stick around for longer. Check out this video—it’s nicely done.

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Large Swaths Of Forest Have Been Cut Down In Brazil In Recent Decades To Make Room For Farming
Andre Penner/AP

To Slow Global Warming, U.N. Warns Agriculture Must Change

“Humans must drastically alter food production to prevent the most catastrophic effects of global warming, according to a new report from the United Nations panel on climate change.

The panel of scientists looked at the climate change effects of agriculture, deforestation and other land use, such as harvesting peat and managing grasslands and wetlands. Together, those activities generate about a third of human greenhouse gas emissions, including more than 40% of methane…”

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The Government's First Ever National Target To Reduce Food Waste Will Encourage Farmers To Donate More Of Their Imperfect Produce To The Hungry
iStockphoto/NPR

It’s Time To Get Serious About Reducing Food Waste, Feds Say

Word that Americans throw away about one-third of our available food has been getting around.

Now there’s an official goal aimed at reducing that waste.

Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency — along with many private-sector and food-bank partners — announced the first ever national target for food waste.

“[We’re] basically challenging the country to reduce food waste by 50 percent by the year 2030,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack tells The Salt…

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Peter Melnik A Fourthgeneration Dairy Farmer Owns BarWay Farm Inc In Deerfield MA He Has An Anaerobic Digester On His Farm That Converts Food Waste Into Renewable Energy
Allison Aubrey/NPR

Farmers are using food waste to make electricity

You, your community members, and your land trust can help policy makers understand how farmers can be part of the solution. You can also promote composting at home, in urban, and in suburban areas—in addition to the methane digester described here.

If you piled up all the food that’s not eaten over the course of a year in the U.S., it would be enough to fill a skyscraper in Chicago about 44 times, according to an estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And, when all this food rots in a landfill, it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. In fact, a recent report from the United Nations from a panel of climate experts estimates that up to 10 percent of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food waste

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Yellow Warbler
Brian Collier/Audubon Photography Awards

New Audubon Science: Two-Thirds of North American Birds at Risk of Extinction Due to Climate Change

NEW YORK (October 10, 2019) – Today, the National Audubon Society announced a groundbreaking climate report, Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink. “Two-thirds of America’s birds are threatened with extinction from climate change, but keeping global temperatures down will help up to 76 percent of them. There’s hope in this report, but first, it’ll break your heart if you care about birds and what they tell us about the ecosystems we share with them. It’s a bird emergency,” said David Yarnold, (@david_yarnold), CEO and president of Audubon…

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Migrating Shorebirds At Kimbles Beach NJ
Jacqueline Larma/AP

North America Has Lost 3 Billion Birds, Scientists Say

‘Over the past half-century, North America has lost more than a quarter of its entire bird population, or around 3 billion birds.

That’s according to a new estimate published in the journal Science by researchers who brought together a variety of information that has been collected on 529 bird species since 1970.

“We saw this tremendous net loss across the entire bird community,” says Ken Rosenberg, an applied conservation scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. “By our estimates, it’s a 30% loss in the total number of breeding birds…”‘

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Nuthatch On Log
Pixabay

Most US birds are facing extinction unless we take action

One of the ways your land trust can help is to convey that unless we reduce fossil fuel consumption soon, much of what land trusts are working to conserve will be lost to climate change. This article offers several suggestions.

Like the canary in the coal mine, birds foreshadow danger to humans. Our nation’s birds are facing more and greater threats to their survival than ever before.

A study published in September in Science journal documented that since 1970, North America has lost about 3 billion birds, more than one in four birds on the continent. The National Audubon Society just released a report, Survival by Degrees, finding that 389 bird species in North America are at risk of extinction due to climate change, and more vulnerable than ever from rising temperatures and climate-related events.

The report clarifies what can be done…

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