This is a satellite image of the oil spill clean up effort in the Gulf of Mexico. This photo comes courtesy of Flickr user DigitalGlobe-Imagery.
Panel: Gulf oil spill could happen again
- “The crisis was not some fluke stemming from poor decisions by a handful of bad apples in the oil industry and in government. Instead, the commission decries an industry-wide problem: “the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur.”"
Oil findings boost chance of corporate criminal charges
- “Months of investigation by a presidential commission and other panels reinforce the likelihood that companies involved in the Gulf oil spill will be slapped with criminal charges that could add tens of billions of dollars to the huge fines they already face, legal experts said Thursday.”
- “Purchasing this amount of renewable energy will avoid about 50,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually.”
- The Empire State building is also 40 percent more efficient thanks to improvements.
Report: Top 10 places to save for endangered species
- IPCC: Estimates 20 percent to 30 percent of species will face increased risk of extinction if global temps rise 3+ degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels.
With REDD, could financial markets become species’ extinction risk?
- “The emergence of a Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) mechanism for protecting forests could introduce new risks for biodiversity by linking conservation finance to exotic financial derivatives, warn researchers writing in the journal Conservation Letters.”
- “Conservation initiatives generally require long-term, stable sources of funding,” they write. “Given the scale of REDD+ projects and financing, and the high expectations in some quarters that REDD+ will reform conservation finance and protect imperiled biodiversity, current and future projects tied to REDD+ financing might be exposed to significant risks.”