Villaraigosa originally hoped to eliminate coal from the city’s energy consumption by 2020, but issues with contracts and changes in leadership at the DWP have slowed his plans.

The city’s utility plans to sell its 21 percent interest in the Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona, and convert the Utah power plant to natural gas.

“There’s no utility in the country going faster and further,” Evan Gillespie of the Sierra Club said.

Eliminating the city’s consumption of coal-fired energy from the two plants would be equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road.

Via

The post L.A. Moves to End Reliance on Coal by 2025 appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

The dominant Kenyan running squad has taken a big hit in the last two months. Wilson Erupe Loyanae and Nixon Kiplagat Cherutich for two years. Moses Kiptoo Kurgat was suspended for one year.

“The number is growing and we are not happy about the statistics,” David Okeyo, Athletics Kenya’s secretary general, said. “We only hope that the culprits remain at a manageable level and that the (doping) issue is not as widespread as previous reports have indicated.”

Via

The post Kenyan Marathoners Suspended for Doping appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

John Huston is a pretty common name for a pretty uncommon man. The Huston that I talked to has just left for the Canadian Arctic. He is on a three-month expedition on the remote Ellesmere Island, where he will see more polar bears than people. Huston spoke with us about what it takes to make it in one of the wildest places on the planet.

Why do you go on polar expeditions?
It鈥檚 not easy to be concise about this. I like expeditions because they challenge me in ways I like鈥攖o solve problems, work with people around the globe. I like the long-term challenges you face and that you have to commit to it. I love the simple life. It goes beyond beauty and thrill, which fade. I love forced creativity. You develop a special camaraderie that takes work and time to create. You never know exactly what is going to happen until you get on the ice, and I love that.

How do you train for a three-month journey?
Our loads are going to be about 150 pounds. It鈥檚 really important to do a lot of core-strengthening multi-joint exercises to avoid injury. My body is not as forgiving as it was in the past, but I have changed my training to accommodate that. I lose my pectoral muscles quickly as my body starts to burn calories more quickly in the cold.

The other part of my training is for endurance. I walk around on the grass and snow on the shore of Lake Michigan and pull tires. This basically simulates the motions of pulling my sled. It鈥檚 super-boring, but it also preps me psychologically. You can go crazy out there pulling for hours, but with training you just let your mind go.

That ties into the last part of my training, the mental side. I have to think of problems that we may encounter and how we can solve them. If you鈥檙e not training, I doubt your commitment.

What do you eat while you train?
I eat a mostly vegetarian diet, but I put butter on everything. I need to gain as much weight as possible in order to not starve out there. I will make milkshakes with peanut butter and fudge, but it can be a lot of stress just to eat enough.

Why do you travel to the Arctic in general?
I鈥檓 a cold-weather specialist and I love the brisk weather. The Arctic is incomparable to anywhere else, but it鈥檚 kind of like a desert. I want to see the changes occurring because of climate change before this beautiful biome disappears.

The starkness of the Arctic has isolated humans for centuries. I get to visit places that have been untouched by man. It can be very abstract to most people who don鈥檛 go there.

How did you get excited about this? What is your inspiration?
I was inspired by the experience of polar explorers, not the glory. I read Shackleton as a kid and the most interesting thing was the journals full of positive experiences and success even though many were sailors with no expedition experience.

That鈥檚 expedition life. The home logistics are gone. You can dial in and focus because time moves at a different pace. We live in a fast-paced society. Although I鈥檓 not trying to find it, I find the whole experience meditative.

Ellesmere Island is like a mythical jewel of Arctic wilderness. There are huge glaciers and deep mountain valleys with icy fjords.

We want to celebrate the last major expedition there by Otto Svedrup. He is an unsung hero and I want to bring his story to life. We are going to create a documentary about how an expedition works, to advocate for climate change education and to celebrate him.

What are you most excited about for this trip?
Ellesmere is extraordinarily remote. There鈥檚 very minimal human presence. You can travel for two months and never see people. The wildlife is also less afraid of humans; they鈥檙e much more curious because they鈥檝e never been hunted before.

I want to get to know the land and the ice. The world up there is constantly shifting in a dance with the Arctic Ocean. It gives you a sense of your humanity.

What are you most nervous about?
I鈥檓 nervous about two things: our mode of travel and our route. No one has ever kite-skied on Ellesmere Island before and there are a lot of propulsion variables. There aren鈥檛 specific destinations we want to reach. I鈥檓 also nervous about route stress. This isn鈥檛 like going to the North Pole where I had a set goal.

Ellesmere also has the densest polar bear population in the world. I don鈥檛 have any experience with bears yet, and you can get comfortable and then next thing you hear a bear. That鈥檚 why we are bringing the dogs; they are the best bear-alert system possible. They will run free while we are ski-sailing and then hunker down with us at camp.

What鈥檚 the hardest aspect of an expedition for you?
Food stress always gets me. I spend all my time daydreaming about food on the ice. I’m going to miss avocados so much.

What鈥檚 your favorite moment when you鈥檙e out in the wilderness?
It happens at the end of a long ski day. The sun doesn鈥檛 go down all the way, but the light is constantly shifting on the ice. It鈥檚 the most beautiful thing I鈥檝e ever seen. You get your camp set up and the exhaustion and the emptiness just get to you. You sit and watch the sun float on the horizon for hours.

To follow along with Huston’s journey, check out his , , and .

The post John Huston on Polar Expeditions and Polar Bears appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

While climate scientists are constantly worrying about the effects of climate change on our planet, one man is doing something to stop it. Allan Savory began work in Zimbabwe studying desertification and has become a passionate advocate for changing the way we see grasslands. I had a chance to talk with the CEO and co-founder of the Savory Institute, Daniela Ibarra-Howell, who is working with Savory to renew our land and maybe even save our planet.

Savory and Ibarra-Howell believe in , which involves careful planning, managed grazing, and accounting for the constant possibility of change.

How did you get involved in this movement?
It was a long time ago in Argentina. I was working on desertification control with the United Nations and the Argentine government in Patagonia. All the solutions we had at the time were unaffordable. I went to New Zealand to study more and I met my husband there. He introduced me to Allan Savory鈥檚 research.

The work made sense. I went to New Mexico to work on a plot of land with Savory. Then I knew I wanted to work with him.

When did it click that this was the right way to save our grasslands?
It was immediate. As soon as I went through Allan鈥檚 research all the pieces fell into place. It wasn鈥檛 just about better management, but about planning and understanding the complexity of the environment鈥攏atural, cultural, social, and political.

How did the Savory Institute come to be?
About three years ago we realized we needed a better model. We needed a bigger model in order to help our clients become more entrepreneurial, to empower others, and to inform policymakers.

How do you form relationships with the landowners who adopt your techniques?
Our work is completely community-driven. In the U.S. we work with local offices, whereas in Zimbabwe we work with smaller landowners. We learned something along the way. With private land there is more incentive for change because of the commercial interests of the owner. Unfortunately, in many of the countries we work in, there is no access to traditional financial markets.

So in order to work with a community we first find out what they want because inevitably new ways of land management will cause changes to tradition, but it must come with desire for change.

What is it like working in a diverse agrarian society like South Africa?
In South Africa we work mainly with native pastoralists with no access to markets so we have to figure out how to get funds for these people. Can we get commercial partners is always a big question. But we found in many communities that if we find the innovators in a community they will become the agents of change. These people are found in every community.

How do you deal with predation by large carnivores in places like Kenya?
We do no management of wildlife. What we do is try our best to understand its habitat needs. Everything is mapped and planned so that we are not stepping on land used for breeding at certain times of year.

In general, though, livestock do not know what to do when faced with predators, but we are experimenting with portable enclosures, which seem to be effective because lions won鈥檛 cross the barriers.

How do you train your clients?
Our training involves lots of different modules on planning, management, living with local wildlife, and sustainability. The more important question is can we execute? Sometimes we find that people understand our system in theory, but cannot put it into action for whatever reason. That鈥檚 why we like to create hubs nearby so that they can work with us.

Many areas of the world have already undergone terrible droughts and desertification. How do you start working in such challenging environments?
We will start in areas where work can still be done. In areas like the Horn of Africa and Central Australia, there is no hope without huge investments, but we start on the edges and tweak management to start rebuilding the land.

Australia actually has a huge holistic management culture in place. It鈥檚 a hugely pastoralist country and they are very aware of climate change. Our hope is that we can continue to expand to 100 management hubs by 2020.

How is the movement changing?
Producers are facing more and more climate-related problems and we think we are reaching a tipping point. We don鈥檛 have to push them; over 25 communities have contacted us to help change the way they manage land. We are sponsoring an international event at our headquarters in Boulder, Colorado, this June to talk about training and the future of agriculture.

Right now we have more demand than we can serve. That is why we want to create franchises in the communities so that they can function locally as opposed to needing our support.

But with the bigger organizations such as the U.N. and large countries, change comes slowly. They are not fluid, but we use large organizations to help us inform policymakers and to show them there are stakeholders on all sides of the issue.

Where is a country that you want to expand to, but haven鈥檛 met with success?
We would love to work in China. China is a huge country with lots of grasslands suffering from desertification. Unfortunately, current policies address the symptoms rather than the root causes of the issue just as in other countries. We don鈥檛 have enough connections though; we are just getting started in Asia, but if we got an indication that the Chinese government or businesses were interested in working with us we would jump at the chance.

The post Daniela Ibarra-Howell on Saving the World’s Grasslands appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Normally around March 4, Yellowstone begins hiring crews to plow the park’s roads. Because of the sequester, which took effect March 1, the park was forced to cut $1.8 million from its budget. Park Superintendent Dan Wenk decided to save some money by allowing the spring sun to do some of the melting and open the park a couple of weeks late, which would have saved $250,000.

Businesses in the area pressed for an alternative because they could lose millions of dollars in tourist revenue, on which the region is heavily dependent. They are working with the local governments and the state plows to open the park’s roads on May 3, instead of the new date, May 17.

Leaders from the community warned that this shouldn’t set a precedent for the future. Wenk assured them that he would work for a long-term solution.

鈥淚 have told [the business communities] that this is a one-year solution and if these cuts of the sequestration are continued into the fiscal 2014 budget, we will have to evaluate all options for future years.鈥�

Wenk has said he would consider closing Yellowstone to winter visitors if sequestration stays in effect next year. Fewer than 100,000 snowmobilers and other tourists trek to the park in winter.

The park is finding other savings to cover the cuts through a hiring freeze, a reduced seasonal workforce, and leaner visitors services.

Via

The post Yellowstone Locals Pitch in to Open Park appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Park rangers found Foster near Ypsilon Lake with “numerous” injuries Monday afternoon and transported her to a hospital. Laurienti’s body could not be immediately recovered.

A park spokesman said that Blitzen Ridge, from which the pair descended, includes sections of technical rock that can be hazardous in winter.

Via

The post Climber Dead in Colorado Avalanche appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

The rescue centre at Annecy received a brief call from the father at around 3 p.m. on Saturday, saying that his son had fallen and disappeared.

“He said he could no longer see him and couldn’t get to him,” said Captain Patrice Ribes, the deputy commander of the mountain rescue gendarmerie at Chamonix.

“We think the father tried to find his son after he called us and asked for rescue. We believe he fell as he tried to find his son.”

While officers are still investigating the circumstances, Captain Patrice Ribes of the mountain rescue gendarmerie of Chamonix said that the pair might have mistaken the trail. “They could have got lost, because in winter you can’t see the path because it disappears under the snow as it crosses the corridors and one can very easily fall,” said Ribes. “It’s a slide of snow and ice, with rocky ledges at regular intervals and if you don’t have crampons or icepicks, it’s impossible to stop.”

He said the pair had been equipped for a day walk, with “trekking-type shoes with tread soles that are not suitable for a snow- and ice-covered winter mountain.”

Via

The post Father and Son Die Hiking in Chamonix appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

The that the threats were limited to Austria, but they are cooperating with German authorities as well. The , but so far there has been no sign that any products have been tampered with at any stores. Police did not comment on Red Bull’s statement but said that they were close to finding those responsible.

Red Bull’s co-founder, , is worth a reported $7.1 billion and is Austria’s richest person. Red Bull’s sales rose 12 percent in 2011 to $5.6 billion.

Via

The post Red Bull Blackmailed With Poop Contamination appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

The race organizer admitted later that the stage was too difficult with a 27 percent climb so steep that some riders got off their bikes and pushed them uphill.

Phinney’s bike chain broke, but he chased his way up to rejoin the main group of cyclists. With about 80 miles left, Phinney was in a group of riders that began discussing dropping out of the race, which is more common than you might think.

Not Phinney, though. The rest of the group quit the race, but he kept pedalling on in the rain. The son of Olympian Davis Phinney who lives with Parkinson’s disease, Phinney said remembering his father’s struggles kept him in the fight.

. “I knew that if my dad could be in my shoes for one day鈥攊f all he had to do was struggle on a bike for six hours, but be healthy and fully functional鈥攈e would be me on that day in a heartbeat,” Taylor Phinney said. “Every time I wanted to quit, every time I wanted to cry, I just thought about that.”

His father didn’t find out until later about his son’s race, he said to him in an email, “You make me so happy and beyond proud鈥攁nd that is better than any medicine and can defeat any disease.”

Via

The post Taylor Phinney Last in Tirreno-Adriatico Stage appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Seavey and his son Dallas are now the oldest and youngest Iditarod champions in history. Dallas won the race last year at the age of 25.

“,” said Seavey on a livestream on the race site. His win earned him $50,400 and a 2013 pickup truck.

Above-freezing temperatures on the Yukon River led to overflow that created hazardous, weak ice conditions. Granted, Seavey’s a badass, but the lately retired 101-year-old marathoner still might give him a run for his money.

Via

The post Iditarod Champ Is Oldest in History appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.