Amazon’s Jeff Bezos pledges $10 billion fund to tackle climate change

Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,’ says Bezos, whose net worth is estimated to be around $130 billion

His company is often criticized for its environmental record, but Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the world’s richest man, said he was committing $10 billion to a new fund to tackle climate change. In a post to his 1.4 million followers on Instagram on Monday, the e-commerce tycoon said the Bezos Earth Fund would “fund scientists, activists, NGOs — any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world.”

“Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” said Bezos, whose net worth is estimated to be around $130 billion. Hundreds of Amazon employees last month signed a blog criticizing the online retail giant’s climate policies and demanding it do more to tackle climate change. Amazon has been accused of creating vast amounts of waste from the packaging it uses for doorstep deliveries, as well as for the greenhouse gas emissions from huge fleets of vehicles.

The company, which in December said its workforce had hit 750,000, has also been denounced over its carbon footprint because of the high energy consumption of its server farms for its lucrative cloud computing activities. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share,” Bezos said in his announcement on Monday…

How India performed in managing forests, water and plastic waste in 2019

PM Modi on many occasions in 2019 announced plans to rid the country of single-use plastic by 2022

Let’s take a look at how India performed in managing its forests, water and waste. India approved 99% of proposals to fell forests for non-forestry uses (until June 2019). It ranked 13th among the most water-stressed nations in 2019. And as the prime minister urged the nation to stop using single-use plastic, states and cities remained underprepared.

Forests

In the first six months of 2019, out of 240 proposals seeking diversion of forest land, the government of India only rejected seven–98.99% of forest land considered for diversion was allowed to be put to non-forestry uses, as per this August 2019 analysis of the Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment (LIFE), a Delhi-based advocacy.

This rate of diversion “is a matter of serious concern”, said the analysis. The forest area approved for diversion till June 2019 was about 92.20 sq km. This, combined with diversion approvals from 2017 and 2018, amounts to 588.20 sq km–larger than the union territory of Puducherry–

About 43% of forest land recommended for diversion in 2019 falls in ecologically sensitive wildlife habitats, the analysis said. Over 500 projects were cleared in India’s Protected Areas and their ‘Eco-Sensitive Zones’ by the National Board of Wildlife over the four years of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government between June 2014 and May 2018. In comparison, the preceding United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had cleared 260 projects between 2009 and 2013, as IndiaSpend reported in September 2018.

Amazon fires releasing CO2 stored in forests, impacting global climate: ESA

Burning continues in the Amazon despite a 60-day ban on land-clearing fires that was announced last month by President Jair Bolsonaro

New satellite images published on Monday by the European Space Agency show an increase in air pollution in the Brazilian Amazon while fires burned in the region last month. Several maps showed more carbon monoxide and other pollutants in August than in the previous month, when there were fewer fires. The agency said fires released carbon dioxide once stored in the Amazon forests back into the atmosphere, potentially having an impact on the global climate and health.

Burning continues in the Amazon rain forest  despite a 60-day ban on land-clearing fires that was announced last month by President Jair Bolsonaro. Data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research showed the number of fires in all of Brazil has surpassed 100,000 so far this year, up 45 per cent compared to the same period in 2018.

Renata Libonati, a professor in the department of meteorology at the Rio de Janeiro Federal University, said that aside from gases, the burning of forests also released particles into the atmosphere. Health experts say studies show that air pollution, whether it is small particles or gases, leads to an increase in cardiovascular conditions and lung problems, especially among young children and the elderly.

The number of people treated for respiratory issues increased sharply in August at the Cosme e Damia Children’s hospital. But small particles can also be transported by winds in cities that are not immediately close to where the fires are taking place….

Don’t hold your breath: Amazon fires aren’t depleting Earth’s oxygen supply

There’s enough oxygen in the air to last for millions of years, and the amount is set by geology rather than land use

Don’t hold your breath: Amazon fires aren’t depleting Earth’s oxygen supply on Business Standard. There’s enough oxygen in the air to last for millions of years, and the amount is set by geology rather than land use

Current Affairs: Fires in the Amazon rainforest have captured attention worldwide in recent days. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in 2019, pledged in his campaign to reduce environmental protection and increase agricultural development in the Amazon, and he appears to have followed through on that promise.

The resurgence of forest clearing in the Amazon, which had decreased more than 80% following a peak in 2004, is alarming for many reasons. Tropical forests harbor many species of plants and animals found nowhere else. They are important refuges for indigenous people, and contain enormous stores of carbon as wood and other organic matter that would otherwise contribute to the climate crisis.

Some media accounts have suggested that fires in the Amazon also threaten the atmospheric oxygen that we breathe. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted on Aug. 22 that “the Amazon rain forest – the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen – is on fire.”

The oft-repeated claim that the Amazon rainforest produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen is based on a misunderstanding. In fact nearly all of Earth’s breathable oxygen originated in the oceans, and there is enough of it to last for millions of years. There are many reasons to be appalled by this year’s Amazon fires, but depleting Earth’s oxygen supply is not one of them…

‘Great setting, great men’: Twitterati praises PM Modi in ‘Man vs Wild’

Among celebs from Bollywood, Randeep Hooda and Anil Kapoor were among the first to express their excitement and appreciation for the show on Discovery Channel featuring the Prime Minister

There has been much excitement about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appearance with British adventurer Bear Grylls on his show, Man Vs Wild, which will air tonight on Discovery Channel. Akshay Kumar took to Twitter and encouraged netizens to watch the show as it would “shed light upon pressing issues like climate change”.

Akshay Kumar wrote, “Besides being a unique show high on adventure and adrenaline, it will also shed light upon pressing issues like climate change and ways to protect our planet. Looking forward to watching our Hon. PM @narendramodiji on Man Vs Wild with @BearGrylls tonight at 9 pm on @DiscoveryIN.”

As the special episode of ‘Man vs Wild‘ featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi with its host Bear Grylls aired on Monday, it soon became among the most talked about subjects on social media. As Twitterati sang praises of the PM, ‘Man vs Wild’ trended on top in India and was on the second position worldwide.

Among celebs from Bollywood, Randeep Hooda and Anil Kapoor were among the first to express their excitement and appreciation for the show on Discovery Channel featuring the Prime Minister.

Randeep tweeted saying, “A great message to the masses of the country in Hindi translated in English for the world, Narendra Modi. Environmental Conservation is most important for the future of our planet that we all share.. for our future.. for us .. thank you Bear Grylls, DiscoveryIN, love nature.”

Where are the funds? Free public transport has appeal but doesn’t add up

The biggest drawback to free public transport schemes is the lack of funds from fares to cover maintenance and upgrades

Free open transport has clear intrigue. Urban areas in France and Germany are as of now thinking about such recommendations, to lessen traffic and air contamination. What’s more, in the UK, Labor party pioneer Jeremy Corbyn proclaimed that he would present free transport travel for under-25s, to supplement the passes officially accessible to senior residents.

Yet, the proof recommends that offering free open transport causes cerebral pains for nearby specialists – and may not be a viable method for getting workers to quit driving vehicles. Tallinn, capital of Estonia, presented free open transport for inhabitants in 2013. In any case, a 2014 study demonstrated that the majority of the general population who changed to open Public transport had recently strolled or cycled, instead of driven. A further overview in 2017 demonstrated that support had expanded by just 20% more than four years.

In the April 2018 version of German exchange production Stadtverkehr, Naumann claims that the main financially savvy approach to get vehicle drivers to change to open transport is to couple sensibly evaluated travel with serious traffic restrictions. For instance, in the English city of Sheffield, alluring transport charges and timetables used to keep vehicles out of the downtown area. From the 1970s, until the administration was deregulated in 1986, there was just no requirement for occupants to crash into Sheffield.

Finding the Funds

The greatest downside to free open transport plans is the absence of assets from charges to cover upkeep and overhauls. In Tallinn, for instance, the city’s deficient cable car framework will in the end require capital for a total recharging – or face conclusion. Hasselt, a Belgian town with a populace of 70,000, offered free transport travel for a long time until 2013, yet in the end rejected it when expenses wound up unsustainable.

Paris, then, has officially prohibited the most contaminating vehicles and offered free open transport for a couple of days every year when contamination has achieved risky dimensions because of climatic conditions. Be that as it may, as indicated by Haydock, writing in the June 2018 version of Today’s Railways EU, traffic is once in a while diminished over 10% on nowadays, and the long haul move to different types of transport is negligible.

Pollution can change wildlife behaviour

With an increasing number of factors affecting the animal behaviour, the field of behavioural toxicology is gaining traction within the environmental sciences.

A team of scientists from the University of Portsmouth has developed new scientific tests to better understand the effects of pollution on wildlife behaviour.

An organism’s behaviour is fundamentally important to their survival through feeding, finding mates and escaping predators. Any chemical which could interfere with these responses has the potential to impact the food chain.

Using small shrimp-like crustaceans called amphipods, which are commonly used to monitor environmental toxicology, the researchers have been designing experiments to best answer the questions.

In previously determining that these animals prefer to swim away from the light (negative phototaxis) and preferably be touching the sides of the tanks (positive thigmotaxis), they first set about asking whether these preferences could be altered by the size and shape of their testing tanks..READ MORE