Deforestation may be at root of Brazil drought – ‘We’re like the Titanic moving straight toward the iceberg’

By BRAD BROOKS and ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON 4 December 2014 SÃO PAULO (Associated Press) – Vera Lucia de Oliveira looks to the sky, hoping for any sign of rain. For weeks, the taps in her home have run dry as São Paulo has suffered its worst drought in eight decades, with rainfall at one-third the […]

Ecuador indigenous leader murdered days before planned Lima protest – ‘His body was beaten, bones were broken’

By Jonathan Watts and Dan Collyns6 December 2014 LIMA, Peru (The Guardian) – The body of an indigenous leader who was opposed to a major mining project in Ecuador has been found bound and buried, days before he planned to take his campaign to climate talks in Lima. The killing highlights the violence and harassment […]

First week of Lima climate talks end with no breakthrough, but hope still remains – ‘We have heard a lot about pledges. That is why the theme of the Lima conference is ‘action’.’

By Liang Junqian; Editing by Mioh Song7 December 2014   LIMA (Xinhua) – This year’s global climate conference wrapped up its first week in the Peruvian capital with no breakthrough, thus leaving heavy workload to next week’s high-level negotiations to be attended by government ministers. The 20th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to […]

Grim reality amid optimism ahead of climate talks

By CORAL DAVENPORT30 November 2014 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – After more than two decades trying but failing to forge a global pact to halt climate change, United Nations negotiators gathering in South America this week are expressing a new optimism that they may finally achieve the elusive deal. But underlying that optimism is […]

Pentagon signals security risks of global warming – ‘Droughts and crop failures can leave millions of people without any lifeline, and trigger waves of mass migration’

By Coral Davenport13 October 2014 WASHINGTON (The New York Times) – The Pentagon on Monday released a report asserting decisively that climate change poses an immediate threat to national security, with increased risks from terrorism, infectious disease, global poverty, and food shortages. It also predicted rising demand for military disaster responses as extreme weather creates […]

Edwin Chota’s dream: ‘We walk and travel through the forest because we want this place to exist without danger or violence in fifty, one hundred, or even five hundred years’

By Diego Leal and David Salisbury 9 Septemer 2014 (Forest Trends) – Always carrying a sheaf of legal documents and maps, Peruvian indigenous leader Edwin Chota tirelessly traveled from his native community of Alto Tamaya – Saweto to the city of Pucallpa, Ucayali, using the seven-day boat trip as an opportunity to plan his next […]

As Peru relaxes environmental safeguards, a Peruvian ecologist explains why he resigned from his government post – ‘You fight until you fall dead’

By Emma Marris29 September 2014 COCHA CASHU BIOLOGICAL STATION, Peru (National Geographic News) – Ernesto Ráez-Luna, a prominent Peruvian ecologist and environmentalist, has spent his career fighting for the Amazon rain forest. In 2011, he was appointed as an adviser to Peru’s Ministry of the Environment. In this role, Ráez-Luna was involved in organizing the […]

Grad student documents human price of oil in Peru – ‘I saw how many issues there are related to oil drilling: environmental issues, human rights abuses, crime’

By Drew Sterwald September 2014 (Pinnacle) – Trees and creek banks stained black with petroleum. Lakes too polluted to fish. Villagers suffering skin and organ ailments associated with contaminated water. This was just part of the evidence Shauna Stoeger (’14, M.S., Forensic Studies) uncovered when she spent four months in remote Amazonian villages to investigate […]

Four Peruvian environmental activists murdered as illegal logging continues in the Amazon

By Ludovica Iaccino9 September 2014 (IBT) – Four anti-logging activists have been slain in Peru, officials have said. The four men, who belonged to the Ashaninka community, were on their way to Brazil to attend a meeting on how to prevent illegal logging in Peru. According to other activists, the men had received several death […]

Cusco Running Club: Global warming and Peru

My guest post is up at Cusco Running Club: Global Warming and Peru. Check it out if you’re interested in the effects of abrupt climate change in the rural Andes: Global warming is real You may have heard that global warming isn’t happening, or that it’s a hoax, or that it has “paused” in recent […]

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