QUICK NEWS, October 23: Why Eating Meat Defeats Beating Climate Change; California Opens Up To Ocean Wind
Why Eating Meat Defeats Beating Climate Change Our meat addiction is going to kill our chances of beating climate change; The case for shifting to a plant-based diet, immediately.
Eillie Anzillotti, October 18, 2018 (Fast Company)
“…New research from the World Resources Institute finds that, taking into account trends in population growth and meat consumption, agriculture alone could…[make it impossible to limit] global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius…[WRI mapped trends in population growth and animal-based food consumption from 1961 and extrapolated them out to 2050, and found people in 2050 will probably eat 70% more meat and dairy, and 80% more beef…[Beef creates] around 30 times the amount of emissions required to produce the same caloric quantity of beans. And that’s not even considering land-use implications…
…[Producing beef requires both land to grow feed, and land upon which cows can graze or pasture…[That makes it] radically less efficient than just using that land to grow produce [like beans] that humans can consume…[P]lant-based alternatives are gaining momentum…[and WRI and others have] launched a new initiative to get restaurants, companies, and hospitals to up their share of plant-based food offerings with a goal of reducing food emissions by 25% by 2030… Researchers have found that if everyone in the U.S. immediately swapped out beef for beans, we could hit 50% to 75% of our greenhouse-gas-reductions targets for the year 2020…” click here for more
California Opens Up To Ocean Wind Something New May Be Rising Off California Coast: Wind Farms
Ivan Penn and Stanley Reed, October 19, 2018 (NY Times)
“…[The U.S. Interior Department has taken] the first steps to enable companies to lease waters in Central and Northern California for wind projects. If all goes as the state’s regulators and utilities expect, floating windmills could begin producing power within six years…[Several wind developers] are expected to enter the bidding, equipped with new [floating] technology that has already been tested in Europe…California’s determination to fully rely on carbon-free electricity by 2045, mandated in a bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September, is forcing the state to look beyond solar power and land-based wind farms to meet the goal…[There are potential rewards from offshore wind development but] the potential impact on birds, fisheries and marine mammals will be closely scrutinized…
…California is a particularly opportune spot for such a project, given the length of its coast and the size of its population. And the coast offers an added advantage: winds over the ocean tend to pick up strength as the sun sets, just when the contribution of solar power is done for the day…[The Interior Department identified a parcel off Humboldt County in Northern California, and two sites in the Morro Bay area on the central coast for leases, 15 to 30 miles off the coast where they will be less visible from land and less of a hazard to seals and migratory birds.]…Offshore wind projects in California will largely benefit from existing power lines to keep costs down. Several power plants along the coast have closed or will be retired because of pollution and other environmental concerns…” click here for more
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