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End of the polar bear by the 2030s, another major pandemic in the 2080s… and a sixth mass extinction by 2100: SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH reveals how those born today could witness these scenarios unless we save the planetSIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH reveals how those born today could witness sixth mass extinction

SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: The natural world is fading. The evidence is all around. It has happened during my lifetime. I have seen it with my own eyes. If we do not take action now, it will lead to our destruction. David Attenborough is pictured left with a young elephant, right with a chimpanzee and inset on Belaveno beach, Madagascar. The catastrophe will be immeasurably more destructive than Chernobyl. It will bring far more than flooded lands, stronger hurricanes and summer wildfires. It will irreversibly reduce the quality of life of everyone who lives through it, and of the generations that follow. Humankind, for as long as it continues to exist on this Earth, might be living on a permanently poorer planet. I am now 94. I have had the most extraordinary life, exploring the wild places of our planet and making films about the creatures that live there. In doing so, I have travelled widely around the globe. I have experienced the living world first-hand in all its variety and wonder and witnessed some of its greatest spectacles and most gripping dramas. Now, I feel I must bear witness not only to the wonders I have seen, but to the devastation that has occurred in my lifetime - whole ecosystems destroyed, habitats swallowed up by farming and living space as populations grow, species all but wiped out. 

Sad prediction, but who is to say even the human will be alive by then the way crime & pollution is going.

 

Yes he has been warning for years, but unless world leaders move a lot faster there is not a lot of hope, we can only do things on a smaller level, I say all the time watch where you spend your money, research the companies behind the products you buy and vote for the right leaders who will do something not promise something. We have the worst leader currently for the destruction of the environment ever, we are going backwards in Australia.

I just watched a film online called "Need to Grow" was really inspiring what some people are doing and what we can all do to solve some of our problems. You can find it on the Food Revolution Network.

I also recommend the film and book by David Gameu "2040"

I am making a big effort this year to improve my little patch, even if I am only renting.

 

What the human population has done to this planet is heartbreaking -- 

The Indigenous peoples seemed to take care of and respect the planet but not the white races

Its almost like we are not from here because if we were we surely would look after the place more

What the human population has done to this planet is heartbreaking -- 

Agree !!!

 

I am amazed!

 

39,000-year-old cave bear is discovered perfectly preserved and baring its TEETH in Siberia: Scientists hail discovery of 'world importance'

39,000-year-old cave bear is discovered perfectly preserved in Siberia

Russian scientists have discovered a 39,000-year-old perfectly preserved cave bear (right and left) in Yakutia, Siberia. A cub from the same species was found during a separate dig (inset). Until now, only bones have been found of cave bears, a prehistoric species or subspecies that lived in Eurasia from around 300,000 to 15,000 years ago. The two finds were hailed today by a Russian expert as being of 'world importance'. The soft tissue of the adult cave bear - Ursus spelaeus - was preserved through tens of thousands of years in its permafrost grave.

 

Amazingly preserved. What a find.

Where the mosquitoes are so bad they are KILLING cattle: Insects displaced by Hurricane Laura bleed cows, deer and other livestock in Louisiana to deathThick clouds of mosquitoes from Hurricane Laura kill cows, deer and other livestock in

Farmers in a five-parish area in Louisiana have probably lost 300 to 400 cattle as mosquitos leave the animals anemic and bleeding under their skins. A deer rancher lost about 30 of his 110 animals, many of which had already been sold. Livestock deaths from mosquitoes aren't a new phenomenon, having also occurred after Hurricane Lili in 2002 and Hurricane Rita in 2005.

Wow how horrific, horrible way to die, poor things, never knew this happened, trouble is when the natural eco system is broken things like this can happen. For instance frogs who eat mozzies are more senstitive to environmental damage.

Yes Incognito dreadful way to die and yes all because of the environmental damage caused by GREED

UN report finds build-up o greenhouse gases hit new record despite lockdownsBy David Twomey -  321 0 

Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere hit a record high this year, a United Nations report showed today, as an economic slowdown amid the coronavirus pandemic had little long-term effect.

The sharp, but short, dip in emissions earlier this year represented only a blip in the build-up of climate-warming carbon dioxide.

“Greenhouse gas concentrations, which are already at their highest levels in three million years, have continued to rise, said Professor Petteri Taalas, head of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), a UN agency based in Geneva.

Reuters Newsagency reports while daily emissions fell in April to just 17 per cent relative to the previous year, those levels were still on par with 2006 emissions, underlining how much global emissions have grown over the past 15 years.

And in June, as factories and offices reopened, emissions were back up to within fiver per cent of 2019 levels, according to the report by several UN agencies.

Even if 2020 emissions are lower than last year’s output by up to seven per cent, as expected, what is released will still contribute to the long-term concentration built up since the beginning of the industrial era.

Presenting the latest data on emissions, global temperatures and climate impacts on Earth’s oceans and frozen regions, the report showed that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 hit 414.38 parts per million (ppm) in July, compared with 411.74ppm a year earlier.

Scientists say they consider 350ppm, breached in 1988, a safe limit.

As CO2 levels have increased, global temperatures have also risen by about 1.1 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels.

Scientists says a temperature rise beyond 1.5°C or 2.0°C will lead to far worse impacts from climate change across the world, including droughts, strong storms and extreme sea level rise.

“We are really only adapted and able to deal with a very small range of possible weather,” Dr Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Oxford University, told Reuters.

“Even if this is just perturbed a little bit, we come very quickly to the edges of what we as societies can deal with.”

The report detailed how climate change is expected to put hundred of millions more people at risk of flooding.

Access to fresh water is also projected to worsen.

The number of people living in water-scarce areas by mid-century is now estimated to reach up to 3.2 billion, up from the previous estimate of about 1.9 billion.

“It is those who are the most vulnerable in society who are hit the first,” Dr Otto said.

And when you don't have access to clean water, your risk of disease increases dramatically, no amount of vaccine can save you.

 

Yes I was just reading about this, terrible.

Raging wildfires across West Coast cause air quality equivalent to 'smoking 20 packs of cigarettes', says California Gov. Newsom

The raging West Coast wildfires have created dangerous air quality conditions equivalent to smoking 20 packs of cigarettes, according to California Gov Gavin Newsom.

 

Yes and this smoke can lead to a lot of illness. Terrible how much has burned in California.

Dreadful -- poor devils -- much like we had here last summer -- I hope we are not going to get another summer like we had -- we are going to have 28 here on Thursday

UN report finds build-up of greenhouse gases hit new record despite lockdowns

How disappointing.

 

Not sure what to believe here.

 

China will not carry out mass vaccinations on its population because Covid-19 has largely been wiped out in the country, Beijing's health chief says 

Director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Gao Fu, said nationwide coronavirus vaccinations would only be necessary if there was another major outbreak.

 

Well we will never know what is true or not coming out of this country.

RARE TULE ELK ARE DYING OF THIRST AS OFFICIALS IGNORE THEIR SUFFERING

Posted by Colleen Jaskot | September 8, 2020

Rare Tule Elk Are Dying of Thirst as Officials Ignore Their SufferingImage Credit: Matthew Polvorosa Kline

Under the cover of night, animal activists carried water bottles and water troughs over the rough terrain of Point Reyes National Seashore in California to help hundreds of rare elk  at risk of dying of thirst.

Careful not to get spotted by park rangers, they worked to set up the two troughs, which would provide 150 gallons of water to the thirsty mother Tule elk and their babies.

The trapped Tule elk population at this park are dying of thirst due to a severe drought that has nearly dried up their water sources. The National Park Service (NPS) has refused to provide relief to these suffering animals, according to the nonprofit In Defense of Animals.

Nearly 450 Tule elk live on this 2,000-acre reserve, reported the Los Angeles Times. The elk are trapped behind an 8-foot fence that keeps them from roaming freely into grazing land leased to dairy and meat ranchers. The NPS has reportedly rejected offers from animal welfare organizations to provide emergency water.

At least six elk have allegedly died of thirst over the past few weeks, according to In Defense of Animals.

The NPS has a contingency plan for when the water sources completely dry up, according to ABC7. But the one remaining water source in the park is dangerous for the elk to access, and one female elk died attempting to get to it.

NPS is putting the interests of cattle farmers above those of the native animals the national park is supposed to protect, animal welfare groups claim.

“This effort is only necessary because the Tule elk are purposely trapped behind a fence,” said Fleur Dawes of In Defense of Animals in a press release. “NPS is actively preventing them from searching for water and foraging for food because the park’s cattle and dairy ranchers don’t want the few hundred wild elk competing with their thousands of for-profit cows—even though they are inside a national park.”

Contact the Superintendent of the Seashore Carey Feierabend at carey_feierabend@nps.gov and demand that water be provided to these elk to prevent future death and suffering.

“NPS is actively preventing them from searching for water and foraging for food because the park’s cattle and dairy ranchers don’t want the few hundred wild elk competing with their thousands of for-profit cows—even though they are inside a national park.”

Shameful if true.

How utterly cruel and despicable!!

And the response from the National Park Service ...

https://www.nps.gov/pore/learn/nature/tule_elk_tomales_point_faq.htm

At least they gave a response, but I guess unless we live there we do not know who is telling the truth.

Australian dig finds evidence of Aboriginal habitation up to 80,000 years ago

 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/19/dig-finds-evidence-of-aboriginal-habitation-up-to-80000-years-ago

Really interesting article. Thanks PlanB.

Yes they have been here for a long time, so who's land is it really?

well a leading US environmentalist has said the extreme dire predictions and wrong and our planet is doing fine - can;t believe how gullible intelligent peope are on all this climate change nonsense - so sad really

Really? Can you provide the article so I can read it? Why are the ice caps melting, and the sea's levels are rising, why are we having shorter and more severe winters and summers? Why are we seeing record level heating of the planet? Those studying the climate and records of past are not saying there is nothing to worry about.

UN warns World has missed all targets to save natureBy David Twomey -  226 0 

The United Nations has revealed countries are set to miss all of the targets they set themselves a decade ago to preserve nature and save Earth’s vital biodiversity.

Humanity’s impact on the natural world over the last five decades has been nothing short of cataclysmic: since 1970 close to 70 per cent of wild animals, birds and fish have vanished, according to a WWF assessment this month.

The French newsagency AFT reports last year the UN’s panel on biodiversity, called IPBES, warned that one million species face extinction as man-made activity has already severely degraded three quarters of land on Earth.

In 2010, 190 member states of the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity committed to a battle plan to limit the damage inflicted on the natural world by 2020.

The 20 objectives range from phasing out fossil fuel subsidies and limiting habitat loss to protecting fish stocks.

However, in its latest Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO), just released, the UN said not one of these goals would be met.

“We are currently, in a systematic manner, exterminating all non-human living beings,” Dr Anne Larigauderie, IPBES executive secretary, told AFP.

Ahead of the UN General Assembly and a crucial year of diplomacy for nature and the climate, the assessment found none of the biodiversity targets would be fully met, “undermining efforts to address climate change”.

The coronavirus pandemic has scuppered plans for two huge biodiversity summits this year, with the COP25 negotiations and International Union for Conservation of Nature’s global congress, both of which aim at boosting international nature preservation efforts, pushed back to 2021.

Dr Larigauderie said the global health crisis should serve as a wake-up call to world leaders.

“We’re collectively better understanding that this crisis is linked to everything we wish to discuss at COP25” talks in China, she said.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, told AFP that societies were waking up to the importance of nature.

“The situation with COVID-19 has demonstrated very clearly that deforestation, human encroachment into the wild has an impact on our day to day lives,” she said.

“The public has realised that the most dangerous species is us, human beings, and that they themselves need to play a role and put pressure on industry to change.”

The assessment lays out pathways to reverse nature loss during the decade to 2030, including sweeping changes to our farming system and reductions in food waste and over consumption.

A key constituent in preservation is indigenous populations which control around 80 per cent of biodiversity worldwide.

Andy White, coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative, a global coalition of more than 150 groups pushing for indigenous empowerment, told AFP there was “no longer any excuse” for not investing in these communities.

Mr White said they should be placed at the heart of conservation initiatives by boosting indigenous land rights, “a proven solution for protecting the ecosystems that are vital to the health of the planet and its peoples”.

The GBO said that some progress had been made towards protecting nature in the last decade.

For instance, the rate of deforestation has dropped by around a third compared with the previous decade.

The 20-year period since 2000 has seen protected areas increase from 10 per cent of land to 15 per cent, and from three per cent of oceans to at least seven per cent currently.

However, among the dangers to nature detailed in the report was the continued prevalence of fossil fuel subsidies, which the authors estimated at about US$500 billion annually.

Dr David Cooper, the lead author of the GBO assessment, said there were segments of society with “vested interests” preventing governments from reducing support to polluting industry.

“Subsidies are harmful to biodiversity and in most cases in the aggregate harmful economically and socially,” he told AFP.

Reacting to the UN’s assessment, Andy Purvis from the Department of Life Sciences at Britain’s Natural History Museum, said it was “shocking” that the world was set to miss all 20 of its own nature protection targets.

“We have to recognise that we’re in a planetary emergency,” he said.

“It’s not just that species will die out, but also that ecosystems will be too damaged to meet society’s needs.”

I do not believe the average person cares, reading the articles about how the British are trying to cope with their tribe!  They  fear more of having a bad Christmas than keeping themselves healthy and keeping the Planet alive and kicking.

Yes it is sad they only care about their next fix, whether it be material or what they put in their mouths.

Eat less meat, ditch oil, leave more fish in the ocean and have fewer babies: SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH sets out how mankind can pull off a miracle and save our planetSIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH sets out how mankind can pull off a miracle and save our planet

SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: By regarding the Earth as our planet, run by humankind for humankind, we have already wrought untold damage. Humans have destroyed half of the rainforests, replaced wilderness with settlements and farmland and caused an apocalyptic decline in plant, animal and insect species. We are polluting our air, draining our rivers, warming the oceans and making them more acidic. We have depleted the ozone layer and brought about potentially disastrous climate change. Humankind, in other words, has set a course for a devastating future, not just for the natural world but for itself. And if we continue, we will, like the people who once lived in the shadow of Chernobyl, risk sleepwalking into global catastrophe. What faces us today is nothing less than the collapse of the living world. Yet there is still time to change course, to find a better way of living. We can, and must, begin to put things right.

 

 

If people had less children then there would be a need for less meat and fish. Trouble is certain religious and cultural groups seem to think the more babies the better. I always said it was  madness to have a baby bonus in this country, just encourages people to have more babies. 

I don't eat meat or fish. One son and I came from a family of 3 kids. My mum came from a family of 3 kids, but my dad came from a family of 8. And my dad suffered the most poverty and hardship.

And what really gets me there a millions of refugees living in camps, and still having lots of children, putting more of a burden on society to look after them.

 

 

 

Yes I wonder why they don't do something about the refugee camps stopping any breeding?

Think the men should get the shop in refugee camps!  [grin]  that would sort out a few female issues. Husband agrees.   If they want to live in the camps they should pay towards the earths problems instead of the woman having to do the work.

 

 

I agree to bring kids into this world? --NO WAY -- things so uncertain and horrid but the religions want them to as it is more sheep to be led  -- plus the governments want them to grow up and pay taxes --

I also agree if you want to have kids -- have what you can afford --and I mean by staying at home with them till they at least start school  -- if you can't do that then do not have them leaving kids in child care is dreadful -- and you miss one of the most important times in their life.

Both my sons agree with that Plan B they refuse to have children.

Better still Celia  -- my Son has not got any either

Australian PM Morrison's approval rating rises, poll showsEmmys 2020 Live Blog: Winners, surprises and biggest moments

a tree next to a body of water: Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

A new fight is brewing between farmers north and south of the Murrray-Darling Basin over the New South Wales government’s plan to license floodplain harvesting for the first time later this year, as doubts arise over data on river flows and the amounts being extracted.

A regulation which makes the practice legal in the meantime is set to become the flashpoint this week, with the minor parties and Labor planning to disallow it.

Floodplain harvesting involves capturing floodwaters flowing across the flat plains of the north-west of NSW and Queensland using levees and other irrigation channels. The water is then diverted into enormous on-farm storages and used primarily to irrigate cotton.

Many of these structures have been built over the last three decades without any approvals and there is little information about how much water is being taken.

A parliamentary committee looking at the regulation found the NSW government has no clear idea of how much water is being harvested, or its impact on the river’s health.

It is due to table a report of its findings on Tuesday and the regulation looks set to be disallowed.

Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann said the current level of floodplain harvesting raised serious questions about whether the health of the river could be delivered in the future.

“By legalising this take it essentially spells the end of the lower Darling river,” she said.

‘‘If you are going to license floodplain harvesting you would need to audit it to make sure it is sustainable. Instead we are taking an approach of first-in, best-dressed and who ever built the largest dams wins,” she said.

Independent MP Justin Field said: “It will lock in a compensatable [water] right that we will be forced to pay for in the future as we realise that the numbers about sustainable take were wrong.”

There is now growing evidence that as a result of this harvesting, the amount of water reaching the Murray-Darling River has dropped dramatically.

The Wentworth group of Concerned Scientists issued a report earlier this month saying it had found that 20% of the water expected under the basin plan at Ramsar Wetlands did not arrive.

How much water is being taken by floodplain harvesting and never finding its way to the river is a matter of debate and there is deep anger about the quality of data available about water usage in NSW.

The committee discovered last week that data provided on the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment’s website about how much water was taken out of the Barwon-Darling catchment in 2019-20 (almost all of it between February and April when the drought broke) changed dramatically in the space of two days.

On Tuesday the website said 473GL. By Thursday it had been revised to 237GL.

The department said it was an error. “The recent annual usage update incorrectly added figures rather than replacing them, doubling usage numbers across all valleys. This was an error and the department corrected numbers as soon as it was made aware of the issue,” a spokesman told the Guardian.

The department confirmed there are no usage figures for floodplain harvesting and this data didn’t include floodplain harvesting volumes.

Controversially the government lifted an embargo designed to protect the first flows after the drought broke in February after irrigators in the north warned their on-farm water infrastructure would be damaged if they were not allowed to direct floodwaters into their storages.

The NSW water minister, Melinda Pavey, told the committee around 30GL had been taken during the four-day period when the restrictions were lifted. The department said the final figure was 29GL.

It says “a substantial portion” of inflows in the northern basin were protected from extraction and that much of the water made it down to the lower Darling.

But trying to verify this figure is almost impossible. There is not even reliable data about the capacity of storages that have been built.

“The department estimates there is around 239GL of storage capacity in the Barwon-Darling,” the departmental spokesman said.

“Most of these storages are primarily used for water taken under unregulated river licences, not floodplain harvesting,” the department said.

But farmers in the south strongly disagree.

Chris Brooks, who represents the southern irrigators in the Murray Valley, said he believes the regulation was a surreptitious way for the northern irrigators to lock in their rights to floodplain harvesting.

He was concerned because the practice of flood plain harvesting was having measurable impacts on the southern part of the river system.

He said the Darling was meant to provide up to 39% of the flows to Adelaide under the 2016 water-sharing plans but had ceased to flow. The result was more pressure on the Murray to provide downstream water with the result that water prices had risen and allocations for less secure water licences in the south had been cut.

“When you look at this regulation, it would have created a new class of water take, called ‘passive take’. Fortunately all the minor parties have agreed to vote in favour of the disallowance motion,” Brooks said.

 

Video: Farmers reach 'crisis point' over shortage of labor (Sky News Australia)

 

 

I can not believe people can be roped in by Morrison -- he is nothing but a fascist and an ignorant rude egotistical bully and so full of Polly talk BS.  There is little I despise more!

 

I know what people will say --well what else have we got? the answer is NOTHING BUT we need the whole flaming crooked lot tossed out and start again with someone that is honest and fair dinkum, I will not be voting for any of them -- even independents,  as one of the main parties still would get my vote and I have had the lot of them!

We already have "water wars" going to the highest bidders, mainly overseas investors, and farmers are missing out because they cannot afford the water, cannot see how this can help farmers.

I would not worry about the so called approval rating of Scomo, it could be a rigged polll, people change once they get to voting time, when they look at the bigger picture. They even rig the unemployment rate counting anyone who has even one hour a week in a job as having a job.

Meanwhile NZ is spending billions in a green recovery for the environment creating thousands of jobs.

No matter where it is, there is ALWAYS big business in control and force Government to do their bidding.

I am still a meat eater but what I used to eat ie a single chicken breast per person, now I make it go to 2 people. Then its also not everyday anymore.

What I detested was damn beans - had Baked Beans shoved down my throat as a kid. But I left those alone and tried a new recipe (my own) and incorporated a single tin of 4 bean mix beans into a base I made, and it was great. Hubby really liked it and it was enough to serve 4. Threw it on some pasta (fettacine) to add a bit of calming quality.

At a guess the meal would be about $2.00 each, makes 4 single meals so $8.00.

I rarely eat fish, the fact the ocean is full of Nanoplastic that the fish are eating, puts me right off.

Morrison will not commit to solving anything by 2050, he can't, hes already promised more coal mines, more gas, so how can you do anything when they are going to go ahead?

 

 

Yes micro plastics are everywhere, look up the website sustainble fish to find out which ones are better to eat. Here is the link: https://goodfish.org.au/

Scomo is only interested in helping his coal/gas/oil mates.

 

Thanks for the link but wouldn't even those be affected by nanoplastics? If in tanks, farms, then they are deficient in many vitamins and minerals that the wild fish have.

Oh you are dead right about Scomo, thinks he is a one man band that makes all the decisions and doesn't need to take it through the proper channels of senate, upper and lower houses.

Unfortunately too many Australians are smitten by the money he keeps throwing around to all and sundry to prop up business, unemployed, etc. Its going to come back and bite us all in the arse in the end when taxes will rise to compensate.

I can remember Malcolm Fraser losing the election over the fact Australia was in debt for $10 million what a crock, have you seen what the hell it is now? Its just over $443 Billion.

 

I would not worry about the debt, the way the financial experts explain it is, they have borrowed off the reserve bank and the Government owns the reserve bank so they never have to pay it back, it is all digital money anyhow. Just all political.

 

Research: richest one per cent’s emissions twice that of poorest 50 per centBy David Twomey -  156 0 

New research has showed the richest one per cent of people are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest half of the world’s population, 3.1 billion people.

Despite a sharp decrease in carbon emissions due to the pandemic, the world remains on pace to warm several degrees this century, threatening poor and developing nations with the full gamut of natural disasters and upheaval.

The French newsagency AFP reports an analysis led by Oxfam showed that between 1990 and 2015, when annual emissions ballooned 60 per cent, that rich nations were responsible for depleting nearly a third of Earth’s carbon budget.

The carbon budget is the limit of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions mankind may produce before rendering catastrophic temperature rises unavoidable.

Just 63 million people, the “one per cent”, took up nine per cent of the carbon budget since 1990, research conducted for Oxfam by the Stockholm Environment Institute found.

Highlighting an ever-widening “carbon inequality”, the analysis said the growth rate of the one per cent’s emissions was three times that of the poorest half of humanity.

“It’s not just that extreme economic inequality is divisive in our societies, it’s not just that it slows the rate of poverty reduction,” Tim Gore, head of policy, advocacy and research, told AFP.

“But there is also a third cost which is that it depletes the carbon budget solely for the purpose of the already affluent growing their consumption.”

“And that of course has the worse impacts on the poorest and least responsible,” Mr Gore added.

The 2015 United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement climate deal commits nations to limit global temperature rise to “well below” two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

However, emissions have continued to rise since then, and several analyses have warned that without a thoroughly re-tooled global economy prioritising green growth, the pollutions savings due to COVID-19 pandemic will have an insignificant mitigating impact on climate change.

With just 1.0°C of warming so far, Earth is already battling more frequent and intense wildfires, droughts and super storms rendered more powerful by rising seas.

Mr Gore said governments must put the twin challenges of climate change and inequality at the heart of any COVID-19 recovery plan.

“It’s clear that the carbon intensive and highly unequal model of economic growth over the last 20-30 years has not benefited the poorest half of humanity,” he said.

“It’s a false dichotomy to suggest that we have to choose between economic growth and (fixing) the climate crisis.”

AFP reports that commenting on the Oxfam report, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an environment activist and president of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad, said that climate change could not be tackled without prioritising economic equality.

“My indigenous peoples have long borne the brunt of environmental destruction,” said Ms Ibrahim.

“Now is the time to listen, to integrate our knowledge, and to prioritise saving nature to save ourselves.”

Electrician Comes To Repair Lights For 72-Year-old, Then Enlists Entire Community To Fix Her Crumbling House—For FreeBy Judy Cole -  

Like many elderly Americans, Gloria Scott lives on a limited income. Sometimes, that means making hard choices. If money’s tight, home repair and maintenance are often the first things to fall by the wayside.

Gloria’s Gladiators/Facebook

When Scott’s overhead light fixture went out, however, she decided living in the dark wouldn’t do. Though she knew her budget would take a hit, she called in electrician John Kinney to make the necessary repairs.

Little did the 72-year-old know, she wasn’t just getting an electrician, she was getting a knight in shining armor as well.

 

Deeply troubled by the extreme state of disrepair he found Scott’s house in, Kinney couldn’t get the woman’s desperate situation out of his head. “No lights, running water… I [saw] her on a Friday and it stuck with me over the weekend… I said, ‘I got to go back there,’” Kinney told CBS.

Rather than walk away, Kinney went back to Scott’s place and started working on some other much-needed repairs—free of charge. But he didn’t stop there.

RELATED: Landscaping Pros Have Been Giving Free Lawn Care Services to Healthcare Workers, Relieving Their Stress

Kinney set up a “Nice old lady needs help” Facebook page to solicit other local tradespeople to lend a hand as well. The enthusiastic response was pretty amazing.

With an impressive chunk of the Woburn, Massachusetts community rallying to the call, so far, Scott’s home has gotten new electricical and plumbing systems, new windows, and extensive repairs to the crumbling walls, ceilings, front steps, and porch.

MORE: First Grader Turns Her Dream of Feeding Homeless People Into Reality –By Launching Her Own Foundation

 

Meanwhile outside, as neighbors toiled on landscape cleanup and new planting projects, a steady flow of food donations streamed in to feed the volunteers.

To say Scott was blown away by the outpouring of generosity is an understatement. “Look at these people!” she exclaimed. “…[You] can’t even comprehend the gratitude that I have.”

The project was such a success, Kinney decided to take it to the next level. Naming the initiative Gloria’s Gladiators, he hopes to inspire a legion of like-minded knights in shining armor—electric or otherwise—to help needy seniors in their own communities.

CHECK OUT: These ‘Detroit Mower Gang’ Volunteers Have Been Competing to Maintain City’s Old Parks

That sounds like a pretty bright idea to us.

 

It warms my heart to see so many coming to the aid of a senior. We hear too much of scams, rip offs, etc that there needs to be much of this to brighten this planet.

Thats why I like the Good News Network, it helps to soften the blow of all the bad news we here all the time, the TV news and newspapers are full of bad news.

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