The United Kingdom's Green Revolution Stalling?

While the global recession has cut jobs across every industry in all countries, one of the worst hit has been the environmental sector in the United Kingdom, according to the Environmental Data Services’ latest report.

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David Carr, the report’s assistant editor, finds that “public spending cuts and a sluggish economy are now hitting green collar jobs, but some growth is expected.”

Growth prospects in green jobs are most likely to be seen in legislation-driven sectors such as waste, energy, efficiency, and sustainability – especially those areas related to carbon reduction.

Despite this, major job losses are under way at government departments and councils across the country. “Environmental roles are not being spared the axe,” says Carr.

Experts are blaming economic weakness, public spending cuts, and a lack of policy clarity for undermining the UK’s progress towards a greener economy.

The report finds that, “The public sector is being particularly hard hit. More than three quarters of those in public administration roles said their organization’s environmental employment levels are falling.”

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Running Out of Resources: Countries Need To Learn How To Do More With Less, Says The U.N.

The greatest threat to most countries, today, doesn’t come from outside forces as much as it comes from their own internal economic stresses caused by depleting resources. The world is already running out of high quality natural resources such as oil, cooper, and gold, says a new report by the United Nations Environmental Program.

A South African palladium mine. Photo by Precious Metal News.

The report found that the best and most easily accessible mineral ores and fossil fuels are being exhausted at an extremely rapid pace. It estimates that by 2050, humanity could devour an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuel, and biomass per year – three times the current consumption rate.

These findings represented an unsustainable future in terms of both resource use and emissions. Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N.’s environmental program expressed his views in a speech saying, “People believe environmental ‘bads’ are the price we must pay for economic ‘goods.’ However, we cannot and need not continue to act as if this trade-off is inevitable.

“Transitioning to low carbon, resource efficient, green economies is needed in order to stimulate growth, generate decent kinds of employment, and eradicate poverty in ways that keep humanity’s footprint within planetary boundaries.”

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Global Warming’s Double Whammy: Reducing World Crop Yields and Increasing Food Prices

While many people still refuse to believe that global warming is real, the evidence for it continues to slowly grow, bringing frightening consequences – massive food shortages around the world, and skyrocketing prices for what food there is.

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This is especially true for staple crops, like wheat and corn. For most major agricultural countries, rising temperatures have had a damaging effected crop yields, resulting in below normal levels, especially of wheat and corn, said a new study by Stanford University.

David Lobell, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of environmental Earth science at Stanford, said that he and his colleagues examined the temperature and rainfall records of major crop-growing countries over the last 30 years and did a comparative analysis of their crop yields.

The researchers found that global wheat production was 5.5 percent lower than what it would have been had climate remained stable. They also found that global corn production was lower by almost four percent.

Russia, India, and France suffered the greatest drops in wheat production relative to what they might have had without global warming. The largest comparative losses in corn production were seen in China and Brazil.

“Yields in most countries are still going up, but not as fast as we estimate they would be without [these] climate trends,” Mr. Lobell told the Stanford Report.

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United States Trying to Figure Out: Who Suffers When Our Toxic E-Waste Leaves The Country?

Workers in China taking apart e-waste to recover precious metals. Stock photo.

Like most people who don’t think about their trash once it’s out the door, U.S. officials have done the same thing when it comes to being aware of what happens to electronic waste (computers, televisions, cell phones, etc.)  when it leaves the country.

To get a better scope of the problem, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has just awarded a $2.5 million grant to the United Nation’s Institute of Sustainability and Peace to help authorities track electronic waste shipments leaving the country.

Currently, there’s a lack of basic information on shipments of electronics from the U.S. to other countries. It’s hoped that the new funding will help authorities get more information about where the waste is going; who’s getting it; and the quantities that they are getting.

The grant will also give support to nations in both Africa and Asia that are coping with often illegal imports. Tons of electronics are shipped everyday from the U.S. to developing countries that are both incapable of rejecting the imports and can’t properly handle the materials.

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Pending Dam Decision: Killing Local Livelihoods in the Mekong River Region For Power Export

Villages along the Mekong River in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic are sure to see the destruction of their way of life, say environmentalists, if the go-ahead is given during a meeting this Tuesday to decide whether a first of series of dams should be built on the lower mainstream of the river.

A section of the Mekong River in Lao. Photo courtesy of .traveladventures.org.

If built, the Xayaburi Dam would be the largest of eleven large dams proposed to be built on the river. The decision to build must be agreed on by the Mekong River Commission’s member countries of Lao, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

International Rivers, one of the environmental groups working to create public pressure to stop the dam, estimates that “the project would resettle around 2,100 people and directly affect a further 202,000 people living near the dam due to impacts on the river’s ecology and fisheries.”

A preliminary evaluation by the commission in 2009 also highlighted potential concerns including adverse effects to the river’s biodiversity, such as the dam’s potential to “block [fish] migration routes and lead to [the] fragmentation of habitats.”

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