Huffington Post (Global Warming)
1 Minute to Save the World: Climate Change Shifts Foreign Policy Paradigms
The rift between humanitarian aid and military response in regions close to or in disaster stricken areas of the Middle East, specifically Pakistan, is becoming ever larger. These needs however, aren't mutually exclusive of each other. The challenges brought on by climate change might very well shift U.S. foreign policy strategy altogether in the near future to better combine the two initiatives for effective organizational implementation and indeed possible displacement prevention.
Though President Obama has requested nearly $334 million for international climate adaptation in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget, it is merely a step in the right direction, falling far too short for what is needed overall. In 2009, only ten percent of the US's foreign disaster aid budget was devoted to disaster risk reduction which is estimated to have reached $86.7 million. However, the United Nations are estimating at least five times that amount alone is needed to deal with the disaster response in Pakistan, calling for over $460 million dollars to mitigate the crisis. If the US commits more earlier, it should reason that less would be needed following the strike of disaster, but that kind of forward planning has been in short supply.
Thus far, the U.S. has promised almost $76 million dollars in relief efforts to Pakistan, and has additionally sent 19 helicopters to help transport relief supplies. By comparison however, the U.S. Government sent nearly $1 billion in aid in response to the tsunami.
With unlimited speculation as to it's reasons and causes among experts, climate change represents an even larger speculation in its future effects. Correlation between climate change and natural disasters must be made official and enter the public vernacular in order to appropriately advance future preparation and response efforts. Without a doubt, scientists confirm that climate change is the culprit the recent flooding in Pakistan, displacing so many and killing others. So why shouldn't the US address climate change strategy in the form of disaster preparations to prevent?
Six and a half million Pakistanis still need food, water, and medical supplies on account of abnormal air patterns. Scientists worldwide have recorded new temperature highs this summer, with some reporting them as the hottest in 130 years. The higher ocean temperatures lead to more water vapor entering the atmosphere, leading to an abundance of oversaturated air that is not able to be equally dispersed. This then inhibits the likelihood of extreme precipitation, causing the flooding Pakistan is seeing now. This abnormal airflow is creating varying pressure extremes, blocking warm saturated air from moving west to east as is supposed to occur.
Predicting such events is difficult and is therefore ultimately unpreventable, but preparation is the key element, both simple and applicable. At present however, only 35% of what the UN is calling for with regard to funds needed to assist Pakistan is being matched by the US and UK combined. Should disaster preparation include tactics centric to climate change, the amount of money allocated to help those at risk will equate to considerable savings in both life and indeed funds. Equally great is the incentive to foster partnerships in developing and implementing these preparations, facilitating good will while increasing political stability.
Earlier in the year, the US Department of State promised $250 million to help with Afghani refugees fleeing into Pakistan. What often flies under the radar is that internal skirmishes between the Pakistani government and militants have displaced almost 1 million Pakistanis already, joining the 2 million Afghani refugees estimated to be residing in Pakistan. With the recent flooding in the region, the problem is further compounded, increasing the amount of resources needed as well as undermining U.S. foreign policy efforts thus far.
Zamir Akram, Pakistani ambassador to the U.N. center in Geneva, said floodwaters now cover an area roughly the size of England - images of which are coming back via the satellites. Estimates put the number of displaced people at somewhere between 15 million and 20 million, and the Pakistani government believes over 1,600 are confirmed dead.
Climate change is a force to be reckoned with and to be reckoned with urgently. If the U.S. intends to continue to respond to humanitarian needs abroad, it must factor the preparation efforts needed for climate change among those most at risk. Preparation surely increases effective response.
By the team at 1minutetosavetheworld, an innovative and international campaign and competition, raising awareness to the global challenges of climate change.
Though President Obama has requested nearly $334 million for international climate adaptation in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget, it is merely a step in the right direction, falling far too short for what is needed overall. In 2009, only ten percent of the US's foreign disaster aid budget was devoted to disaster risk reduction which is estimated to have reached $86.7 million. However, the United Nations are estimating at least five times that amount alone is needed to deal with the disaster response in Pakistan, calling for over $460 million dollars to mitigate the crisis. If the US commits more earlier, it should reason that less would be needed following the strike of disaster, but that kind of forward planning has been in short supply.
Thus far, the U.S. has promised almost $76 million dollars in relief efforts to Pakistan, and has additionally sent 19 helicopters to help transport relief supplies. By comparison however, the U.S. Government sent nearly $1 billion in aid in response to the tsunami.
With unlimited speculation as to it's reasons and causes among experts, climate change represents an even larger speculation in its future effects. Correlation between climate change and natural disasters must be made official and enter the public vernacular in order to appropriately advance future preparation and response efforts. Without a doubt, scientists confirm that climate change is the culprit the recent flooding in Pakistan, displacing so many and killing others. So why shouldn't the US address climate change strategy in the form of disaster preparations to prevent?
Six and a half million Pakistanis still need food, water, and medical supplies on account of abnormal air patterns. Scientists worldwide have recorded new temperature highs this summer, with some reporting them as the hottest in 130 years. The higher ocean temperatures lead to more water vapor entering the atmosphere, leading to an abundance of oversaturated air that is not able to be equally dispersed. This then inhibits the likelihood of extreme precipitation, causing the flooding Pakistan is seeing now. This abnormal airflow is creating varying pressure extremes, blocking warm saturated air from moving west to east as is supposed to occur.
Predicting such events is difficult and is therefore ultimately unpreventable, but preparation is the key element, both simple and applicable. At present however, only 35% of what the UN is calling for with regard to funds needed to assist Pakistan is being matched by the US and UK combined. Should disaster preparation include tactics centric to climate change, the amount of money allocated to help those at risk will equate to considerable savings in both life and indeed funds. Equally great is the incentive to foster partnerships in developing and implementing these preparations, facilitating good will while increasing political stability.
Earlier in the year, the US Department of State promised $250 million to help with Afghani refugees fleeing into Pakistan. What often flies under the radar is that internal skirmishes between the Pakistani government and militants have displaced almost 1 million Pakistanis already, joining the 2 million Afghani refugees estimated to be residing in Pakistan. With the recent flooding in the region, the problem is further compounded, increasing the amount of resources needed as well as undermining U.S. foreign policy efforts thus far.
Zamir Akram, Pakistani ambassador to the U.N. center in Geneva, said floodwaters now cover an area roughly the size of England - images of which are coming back via the satellites. Estimates put the number of displaced people at somewhere between 15 million and 20 million, and the Pakistani government believes over 1,600 are confirmed dead.
Climate change is a force to be reckoned with and to be reckoned with urgently. If the U.S. intends to continue to respond to humanitarian needs abroad, it must factor the preparation efforts needed for climate change among those most at risk. Preparation surely increases effective response.
By the team at 1minutetosavetheworld, an innovative and international campaign and competition, raising awareness to the global challenges of climate change.
Read more: Climate Change, Climate Crisis, Global Warming, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
John DeCock: Don't Drink the Tea! Vote and Be Active in the 2010 Elections
Everyone knows that a good cup of tea relies on two things: the quality of the tea leaves and the quality of the water. The Tea Party Movement seems not to care about either.The blend of tea leaves with which this political movement is brewing are tainted by elements that contribute misinformation, ignorance and divisive, violent rhetoric. Sprinkled with a note (well not actually a note, more like a plangent wail) of racism, a pinch of flim-flam and an unsavory dose of Fox News, this tea is downright toxic.
And what about the water we're using for this brew? Do tea party candidates support safe, clean water? It seems not. In general, the candidates and leadership range from indifferent to outright hostile to the environment. To see what's at stake for the environment in this election, it's helpful to look at a few candidates supported by the Tea Party.
Let's start with Tea Party favorite Michelle Bachmann (R-Minnesota); during last year's climate bill debate she had this to say:
Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that's on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that -- that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth.
Representative Bachman has also called for an "armed and dangerous" opposition to climate change initiatives which she considers "voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax."
Pat Toomey, running for the Senate in Pennsylvania has a 0% rating by the League of Conservation Voters as a Representative from from Pennsylvania's 15th District. He's received almost $300,000 so far from the oil and gas industry and supports drilling for oil in Lake Erie, as well as continued deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. He supported oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, voted no on raising fuel efficiency standards, no on tax incentives for alternative fuels and supported the Bush-Cheney national energy policy. The Tea Party loves him!
Like many Tea Party Candidates, Marco Rubio running for Senate in Florida supports dirty and dangerous energy sources as a priority. From his web site:
I support a comprehensive energy plan that encourages nuclear energy, exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and environmentally safe leasing of oil and natural gas fields in the outer continental shelf and on federally owned lands with oil shale in the West.
Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul believes "We have a president who is forcing the EPA down our throats." He says, "we're not going to get jobs with a busybody EPA that's in our way." Not surprising for a guy who wants coal substantially deregulated and prefers "more local over federal" oversight (i.e. stop bothering us with those damned environmental safeguards and worker protection laws).
Polling shows that tea party voters are driven by their passion and willat a much higher rate than your average middle of the road, liberal or progressive voter. The left, disappointed that the president has done things that they don't like, or has failed to deliver on some expectations, are feeling apathetic about the election. Snap out of it! Don't you remember the previous eight years?
The Tea Party Movement is dangerous to core American and human values. They are dangerous to health and safety, to the environment, to the poor, to the stability of our economy and the safety of our communities. Fueled by anger, fear and a feeling of powerlessness, they are being managed by Fox News and its pundits and funded by a handful of self-interested billionaires.
If they get a foothold in our government it will be because we didn't vote in November and we didn't work between now and then. We didn't campaign for their opponents, we didn't fund advocacy groups and join campaigns to rise up against the noise and challenge the fundamentally dishonest messages that they are trying to force down America's throats like so many EPA officials in Rand Paul's Alternate Universe Kentucky.
There are two tea party models in popular culture, the Boston Tea Party, after which this current crew aspires unsuccessfully to model themselves, and The Mad Tea Party from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. In the latter, the Mad Hatter was based on hat makers of the era who had given themselves brain damage by ingesting mercury. That might be a better model for the new tea party since, if environmental regulation was degraded consistent with their values, we'd have an even greater number of cases of mercury poisoning to contend with.
In the words of the late Bob Marley: "Get up, stand up. Stand up for your rights." In the words of Walt Kelly: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Note: Click here to see Clean Water Action's political endorsements. If you want to join our professional canvass and be part of the opposition to anti-environment candidates, click here.
Read more: Tea Party Movement, Rand Paul, 2010 Elections, Climate, Clean Water, Koch Industries, Fox News, Bachmann, Global Warming, Offshore Drilling, Mario Rubio, Pat Toomey, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Paula Gordon: NOT My Cup of Tea
Finally! Jane Mayer's identified the engine and the mind of the PR blitz know as the Tea Party. She's blown Charles and David Koch's cover sky high, doing the work we should expect of a reporter. First, a boundless "Thank You!" for "Covert Operations: the billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama" (The New Yorker, 8/20/2010). Here's why this exemplary journalist heartens me: truthfulness is the antidote to the lies, half-truths and distortions which pour from the Tea-Bangers via their dangerously inattentive or obtuse agents: the main stream media. (Fox appears to be an exception; the network seems willfully dishonest.)
Now. We have an election to win. And here's what the bad guys envision for us if we fail to do the work required -- required -- to win it.
"We have a radical philosophy," chief brother Charles Koch told an editor at the libertarian magazine Reason. His goal? Tear government "out by the roots." Public be damned, including the sheep Kochites push around, the frightened fringe that chants words they've been programmed to believe without considering or understanding the consequences, or knowing they're being led astray.
Who are these guys? Why are they so intent on annihilating both our Constitutional government and everything progressive about the United States? And what of their privately-held Koch Industries, oil-drenched and unreasonable profitable?
Ms. Mayer sums it up with admirable restraint: "The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry -- especially environmental regulation." Here's the other shoe. Charlie and Dave have been "giving money to 'educate,' fund, and organize Tea Party protesters, turning their private agenda into a mass movement." (The Koch's deny that they directly fund Tea Party activity. Ms Mayer connects the dots ... it's Koch money laundered through "non-partisan" non-profit organizations.)
Don't be fooled by the seductive "libertarian" label. These guys hide behind the reference to "liberty" and they abhor our very American embrace of "...liberty and justice for all." Their advocacy is liberty for me and mine without government interference*. It's a notion that's functionally nonsensical at best, at worst totally antagonistic to what is best about the United States. John Donne summed it up exactly right, a long time ago: "No man is an island."**
Libertarians seek a "Night Watchman" state. They appear to believe that the one -- and only -- legitimate action of government is to protect protect private property and its owners, i.e., themselves. Libertarians are one step away from anarchists, who preach a gospel of no government whatsoever. None.
To further Koch Industries' parochial, self-aggrandizing and destructive interests, the Kochs exploit the naivety and ignorance of people frustrated by the damage we've all endured during the rule of Republicans.
Put another way, the extremism of these ideologues and their retainers is indistinguishable from their will to maximize their own profits, at the expense of the rest of us. Anything that gets in their way (specifically government) must be brought to heel. Or eliminated.
The only effective check on the power of great wealth is the collective will of the people whose forbearance has made that accumulation of wealth possible. The people's will can be manifested in a mob or in government. I prefer the latter.
In a republic, attacking the government is ultimately an attack on the people. If the government has failed, its failure represents a failure of the citizens it represents and in whose name it acts. This is the genius and the danger of representative government. All prattle to the contrary, this is what the Constitution is all about.
Though not a secret, it has not been well known that these two Kochs have so much money that their combined fortune is rivaled only by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Fortunately, The New Yorker gave Ms. Mayer plenty of room to show some of the consequences. Let me whet your appetite:
Why would Kochs hate environmental regulation? Koch Industries is among the nation's top ten polluters.
Fossil fuels are the backbone of Koch Industries. The record shows Kochs fund climate change deniers. Big time. The Smithsonian Institution displays the "David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins" which pushes the Koch-theory that climate change is good for you.
Profits from fossil fuels are greatly enhanced by other Koch businesses, including Georgia Pacific. It produces and relies on formaldehyde -- a known carcinogen -- while David Koch sits on the National Cancer Institute's National Cancer Advisory Board.
Kochs have deliberately undermined our national integrity. A few examples:
They've funded the notorious Federalist Society. It's been key to how we've ended up with a Supreme Court that declares corporations are people, never mind that corporations live forever, can't be jailed, have tax-convenient multiple addresses overseas, and can buy any policy or politician they choose. ( Admirably focused, Ms. Mayer chose not to explore this particular thread.)
Koch money stokes and soaks think tanks from the Cato Institute (their money funded its launch in 1977) to the Heritage Foundation.
They've bought their way into mainstream academics. Consider the Mercatus Center. It's buried deep in Virginia's publicly funded George Mason University and is reputedly the epicenter of anti-regulation fervor across the Potomac.
There's more. Lots more.
I certainly welcome and applaud this exemplary journalism. With equal fervor, I am appalled this it is "news" at all.
Is Jane Mayer the only reporter who learned anything from Watergate and its mantra, "Follow the Money"? OK, so we'll never get a full accounting of all that the Kochs have spent until we tighten the tax code. Ms. Mayer found plenty that's public information and readily available. She also did the reporterly thing, she asked questions. Where was everybody else? Apparently reading and watching one another's detritus, while the "tea party" floated in a sea of oil and formaldehyde ... nasty, toxic stuff.
Mainstream media's monumental failures have cost us as dearly on the domestic front as even it acknowledges it's cost us on the foreign one. They've vastly inflated the importance of this sideshow when they should and COULD have known better.
So President Obama's considerable accomplishments are all the more praiseworthy. Aided and abetted by a willfully uncritical media, he's been forced to grapple with a misinformed public, a misguided (or worse) Congress and a totally obstructionist "Republican" party. We elected this President. A new team in Congress is required -- required -- to get what we, the vast majority of Americans, demanded on that historic day.
Check out Jane Mayer if you haven't. Internalize her findings: we've been Koched. Then spread the word. Contrary to the prior administration and to the fevered rhetoric of extreme right wingers, this President does not believe that he makes laws. Writing laws is the responsibility of Congress. It's up to us to help elect a Congress ready to support President Obama. After all, we elected him to get us out of the deep hole the Republicans dug and pushed us into. We've always known that corporatists and their retainers will do whatever is necessary to hold onto the power they have and to grab more. We now have hard -- and oh, so current -- evidence.
Despite the clairvoyance professional magpies claim for themselves, the outcomes of the November midterm elections are NOT foreordained. The magpies are bought. We are not. With letters, emails and phone calls, challenge your local media to follow the money. Do the same to national media. Find the candidates who best represent YOUR understandings and values. Support them with donations and time.
And, most importantly, talk to everyone you know. Help them see that we're being Koched. And that the tea is toxic.
*-- "Our vision is for a world in which all individuals can freely exercise the natural right of sole dominion over their own lives, liberty and property ... ." -- from the Libertarian Party website.
**-- "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee" -- John Donne, from Meditation XVII
Now. We have an election to win. And here's what the bad guys envision for us if we fail to do the work required -- required -- to win it.
"We have a radical philosophy," chief brother Charles Koch told an editor at the libertarian magazine Reason. His goal? Tear government "out by the roots." Public be damned, including the sheep Kochites push around, the frightened fringe that chants words they've been programmed to believe without considering or understanding the consequences, or knowing they're being led astray.
Who are these guys? Why are they so intent on annihilating both our Constitutional government and everything progressive about the United States? And what of their privately-held Koch Industries, oil-drenched and unreasonable profitable?
Ms. Mayer sums it up with admirable restraint: "The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry -- especially environmental regulation." Here's the other shoe. Charlie and Dave have been "giving money to 'educate,' fund, and organize Tea Party protesters, turning their private agenda into a mass movement." (The Koch's deny that they directly fund Tea Party activity. Ms Mayer connects the dots ... it's Koch money laundered through "non-partisan" non-profit organizations.)
Don't be fooled by the seductive "libertarian" label. These guys hide behind the reference to "liberty" and they abhor our very American embrace of "...liberty and justice for all." Their advocacy is liberty for me and mine without government interference*. It's a notion that's functionally nonsensical at best, at worst totally antagonistic to what is best about the United States. John Donne summed it up exactly right, a long time ago: "No man is an island."**
Libertarians seek a "Night Watchman" state. They appear to believe that the one -- and only -- legitimate action of government is to protect protect private property and its owners, i.e., themselves. Libertarians are one step away from anarchists, who preach a gospel of no government whatsoever. None.
To further Koch Industries' parochial, self-aggrandizing and destructive interests, the Kochs exploit the naivety and ignorance of people frustrated by the damage we've all endured during the rule of Republicans.
Put another way, the extremism of these ideologues and their retainers is indistinguishable from their will to maximize their own profits, at the expense of the rest of us. Anything that gets in their way (specifically government) must be brought to heel. Or eliminated.
The only effective check on the power of great wealth is the collective will of the people whose forbearance has made that accumulation of wealth possible. The people's will can be manifested in a mob or in government. I prefer the latter.
In a republic, attacking the government is ultimately an attack on the people. If the government has failed, its failure represents a failure of the citizens it represents and in whose name it acts. This is the genius and the danger of representative government. All prattle to the contrary, this is what the Constitution is all about.
Though not a secret, it has not been well known that these two Kochs have so much money that their combined fortune is rivaled only by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Fortunately, The New Yorker gave Ms. Mayer plenty of room to show some of the consequences. Let me whet your appetite:
Why would Kochs hate environmental regulation? Koch Industries is among the nation's top ten polluters.
Fossil fuels are the backbone of Koch Industries. The record shows Kochs fund climate change deniers. Big time. The Smithsonian Institution displays the "David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins" which pushes the Koch-theory that climate change is good for you.
Profits from fossil fuels are greatly enhanced by other Koch businesses, including Georgia Pacific. It produces and relies on formaldehyde -- a known carcinogen -- while David Koch sits on the National Cancer Institute's National Cancer Advisory Board.
Kochs have deliberately undermined our national integrity. A few examples:
They've funded the notorious Federalist Society. It's been key to how we've ended up with a Supreme Court that declares corporations are people, never mind that corporations live forever, can't be jailed, have tax-convenient multiple addresses overseas, and can buy any policy or politician they choose. ( Admirably focused, Ms. Mayer chose not to explore this particular thread.)
Koch money stokes and soaks think tanks from the Cato Institute (their money funded its launch in 1977) to the Heritage Foundation.
They've bought their way into mainstream academics. Consider the Mercatus Center. It's buried deep in Virginia's publicly funded George Mason University and is reputedly the epicenter of anti-regulation fervor across the Potomac.
There's more. Lots more.
I certainly welcome and applaud this exemplary journalism. With equal fervor, I am appalled this it is "news" at all.
Is Jane Mayer the only reporter who learned anything from Watergate and its mantra, "Follow the Money"? OK, so we'll never get a full accounting of all that the Kochs have spent until we tighten the tax code. Ms. Mayer found plenty that's public information and readily available. She also did the reporterly thing, she asked questions. Where was everybody else? Apparently reading and watching one another's detritus, while the "tea party" floated in a sea of oil and formaldehyde ... nasty, toxic stuff.
Mainstream media's monumental failures have cost us as dearly on the domestic front as even it acknowledges it's cost us on the foreign one. They've vastly inflated the importance of this sideshow when they should and COULD have known better.
So President Obama's considerable accomplishments are all the more praiseworthy. Aided and abetted by a willfully uncritical media, he's been forced to grapple with a misinformed public, a misguided (or worse) Congress and a totally obstructionist "Republican" party. We elected this President. A new team in Congress is required -- required -- to get what we, the vast majority of Americans, demanded on that historic day.
Check out Jane Mayer if you haven't. Internalize her findings: we've been Koched. Then spread the word. Contrary to the prior administration and to the fevered rhetoric of extreme right wingers, this President does not believe that he makes laws. Writing laws is the responsibility of Congress. It's up to us to help elect a Congress ready to support President Obama. After all, we elected him to get us out of the deep hole the Republicans dug and pushed us into. We've always known that corporatists and their retainers will do whatever is necessary to hold onto the power they have and to grab more. We now have hard -- and oh, so current -- evidence.
Despite the clairvoyance professional magpies claim for themselves, the outcomes of the November midterm elections are NOT foreordained. The magpies are bought. We are not. With letters, emails and phone calls, challenge your local media to follow the money. Do the same to national media. Find the candidates who best represent YOUR understandings and values. Support them with donations and time.
And, most importantly, talk to everyone you know. Help them see that we're being Koched. And that the tea is toxic.
*-- "Our vision is for a world in which all individuals can freely exercise the natural right of sole dominion over their own lives, liberty and property ... ." -- from the Libertarian Party website.
**-- "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee" -- John Donne, from Meditation XVII
Read more: Deniers, David Koch, Tea Party, President Obama, The New Yorker, Koch Industries, Libertarians, Georgia Pacific, Journalism, Corpocracy, Formaldehyde, Mainstream Media, Mercatus Center, Tea-Bangers, Jane Mayer, Midterm Elections, Charles Koch, Climate Change, Corporatists, Federalist Society, Anarchists, Smithsonian, Politics News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Bill McKibben: Why Obama Should Put Solar (Back) on the White House Roof
The bad news everyone knows. The strongest attempt ever to pass climate legislation through the U.S. Congress came up short earlier this summer. The inside-the-Beltway green groups took what seemed to be the route of least resistance: a very tame piece of climate legislation larded with special prizes for special interests. They worked it as hard as it could have been worked -- and in the end it didn't even come close. The fossil fuel industry and their allies in D.C. barely had to break a sweat shooting it down.
So -- barring some unforeseen development -- we're not going to see significant action on the federal level about climate for at least the next two years.
And that means we're far less likely to see significant international action on climate, since it's hard for other governments to muster the political will to make tough choices when the U.S. is punting.
So what do we do with those two years? I think we use them to build a movement, which explains the solar panel we're hauling south from Maine.
The story is painful even to consider. This panel went up on the White House roof in 1979, with then-president Jimmy Carter (in a wide tie, and with a bushy haircut) promising that it would still be there in the year 2000, producing hot water from the sun for whoever was then president. In fact, it didn't make it through the next decade -- it came down in the Reagan years, a symbol of our decision to turn away from the idea of limits and veer sharply down the path we've trod ever since.
But not everyone went along. Frugal folks at Unity College in Maine salvaged the panels, and put them up on the cafeteria, where they continued to produce hot water for the next three decades. Meanwhile, around the world other nations took the technology and went to work. Germany and Japan took over the lead in photovoltaic panels, but solar thermal technology like this became the special province of the Chinese.
I sat not long ago with Huang Ming, China's leading solar entrepreneur, in his space-age Sun Moon Mansion in Shandong Province looking over the stats: his HiMin Solar Energy Group has put up 60 million such systems across China--he estimated that when 250 million Chinese take a shower, the hot water is coming off their roofs. In a biting symbol of that passed torch, he keeps one of the Carter panels in his private museum.
There's no question what we should have spent the last few decades doing. But there's no point now in crying about why we didn't: the only job is to try to get back in the game, to start catching up.
Some of that means spending the money so that we can make the next technological discoveries. Many, including the Breakthrough Institute and Bill Gates, are calling for big increases in R and D funding, which might help us somehow claw our way back toward the front of the parade.
But catching up also means making use of the technology we already have, in ways both practical and symbolic. We're headed for the White House with this old panel, and with a promise from the U.S. company Sungevity that it will supply all the brand-new panels the president could ever want -- as long as he puts them up on his roof where everyone can see them. George W. Bush, amazingly enough, actually put some solar back in the White House grounds -- on the roof of a maintenance shed, and on, who knew, the Presidental Spa and Cabana. But since he didn't tell anyone, they didn't do much good. We want them up there on the roof, as visible as the White House garden, which helped boost seed sales 30 percent across the nation the year Michelle planted it.
So far, we haven't heard a word from the White House about whether they'll accept the gift and make the promise or not -- which, frankly, surprises me. I can't think of a clearer win for the president, a better reminder to the legions of young people who worked on his campaign that he is still focused on the future. He owes environmentalists more than he's given them -- by all accounts he decided not to push for the Senate legislation. He's up against tough odds in Congress, of course, given the obstructionist GOP. But they can't filibuster his roof.
What's especially poignant is that we have gotten promises from other, much less likely, world leaders -- Mohammed Nasheed, for instance, president of the entirely Muslim and quite poor Maldive Islands, the low-lying Indian Ocean nation that faces inundation from rising seas. He took the Sungevity offer, and he'll be putting solar panels on his roof on October 10 (10-10-10), the same day that thousands of groups around the world will be participating in a massive Global Work Party, putting up wind turbines and laying out bike paths. The same day we want Barack Obama, sleeves rolled up, out on his roof with a wrench.
The point of all these panels, of course, is not that we're going to solve climate change one roof at a time. (Obama is doing lots of good practical things already -- his "greening the government" effort is retrofitting federal buildings across the country with insulation, for instance). The point is that they help build the movement that we allowed to wither away.
Environmentalists lost sight of just how big a movement that would need to be. Too many groups convinced themselves that they could slide some legislation through Congress, make deals with industry, get things going without a fight. It was worth a try, but it didn't work--the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable enterprise known to man, beat us. And they will beat us again and again until there's a real, broad-based, popular, noisy movement underway in this country, a movement that can provide a currency (bodies, passion) equal to the currency the billionaire Koch Brothers can pony up to defeat climate legislation.
Some of that movement will go on at the local level, as we transform cities and towns and show what can be done. Some will be done on college campuses like Unity College, or Middlebury where I teach, which are showing the way forward. Some of it will be done in jails--I'd be very surprised if civil disobedience doesn't become a bigger part of this battle in the years ahead, if only because it's the tool we use to show our society how urgent, morally and practically, this crisis really is.
But some of it must be done symbolically. And there's no more symbolic piece of real estate on this continent than the White House. Let's hope that on the 10th of October it, at least, is transformed. It's been a long, hot summer, in the capitol as in much of the northern hemisphere. Let's make sure that next year that heat is put to some purpose -- heating the Obamas' bathtub, and helping power up a movement.
Originally posted on Yale Environment 360.
Read more: White House, 350.Org, Climate Movement, Climate Change, Clean Energy, Bill Mckibben, Global Warming, Barack Obama, Solar Power, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Michael Jacobs: Arctic oil - the battle begins
The dramatic occupation by Greenpeace campaigners of an oil rig in the freezing seas off the coast of Greenland last week marks the first skirmish in a critical environmental battle. On the one side, a multinational oil industry desperate for new drilling fields to meet the world's insatiable demand for fuel. On the other, a global environmental movement anxious to find a new front on which to fight its stalled campaign against climate change.
The desire of the oil industry to find new reserves in the Arctic is not hard to understand. Increasingly locked out of developing countries whose governments now prefer to control their own oil sectors, and plagued by political instability from Nigeria to Iraq, global oil companies view the prospect of finding oil in the Arctic - governed by the stable democracies of the US, Canada and Scandinavia - with enthusiasm. They are already investing heavily in the high-carbon tar sands of Canada; the US Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic's technically recoverable offshore reserves could amount to around 90 billion barrels, or around 7-10% of currently estimated 'proven' reserves.
But the environmental case against exploration is even more powerful. Home to millions of migratory birds and many species of marine mammal including whales, bears, walruses and narwhals, the Arctic has a fragile ecology already under pressure from the warming seas and fracturing ice masses caused by now-occurring climate change. With low temperatures, lack of sunlight and thick ice inhibiting the breakdown and dispersal of spilled oil, the environmental impact of an oil leak here could dwarf the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It is now more than 20 years since the Exxon Valdez ran aground in the Gulf of Alaska; despite the huge clean-up operation, local populations of marine mammals have yet to recover and some are nearing extinction.
And the Arctic Sea is a spectacularly inhospitable place for drilling. Following the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico President Obama imposed a moratorium on drilling at a depth of 152 metres or more. But the well being drilled by Cairn Energy from the occupied rig off Greenland is at a depth of more than 300 metres. Cairn's ships are literally having to tow icebergs out of the way to avoid them colliding with it. Drilling in this area is only possible for a few months between July and early October; for the rest of the year the sea-ice becomes too thick to allow vessels to operate. That means that should a leak occur it may be impossible to drill a relief well until at least the following year, allowing oil to flood into the Arctic waters for months. Industry experts warn that there are no methods yet developed to recover spilled oil trapped underneath ice. According to the US Minerals Management Service, the chances of a major spill over the lifetime of a block of exploration leases in Alaska is as high as one in five.
And what will be the reward for such an environmental risk? Even if all the estimated Arctic reserves can be exploited, they would provide less than three years of global oil consumption at present rates. For here lies the central problem. The oil industry is right to point to the continuously rising global demand for oil; but the answer cannot be an ever-expanding supply produced in ever more hazardous ways. And the reason is climate change.
Figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA) make this clear. If the growth of energy demand continues on current trends, oil consumption will expand by a quarter from current levels by 2030, a level inevitably requiring new discoveries. But these same trends, and their resulting greenhouse gas emissions, will lead to global warming of a catastrophic five or six degrees Centigrade, well beyond the capacity of human society to adapt. By contrast, if the global temperature rise is to be held to a just-tolerable 2 degrees, global oil consumption would have to be only just above current levels by 2030, and already falling. Such levels of consumption can be met from within existing reserves. But more importantly, as the IEA shows, they will require a significant development of alternatives to oil.
Such alternatives are beginning to become viable, notably in the development of electric vehicles and second and third generation biofuels. Electric and hybrid vehicles in particular are now under commercial production by all the big car manufacturers. But the incentive for their development is the prospect of increasingly scarce and expensive oil, and this will only be retarded by the continued focus on developing new supply.
So Greenpeace's demand for the banning of Arctic drilling is justified on both climate change and ecological grounds. It will not easy to achieve. Yet prohibiting resource use has been done before - indeed, many of environmentalism's greatest advances have taken this form. The bans on whaling, prohibitions on cutting down ancient forests, the creation of National Parks, the protection (just) of Antarctica, all provide precedents. They have required protracted public campaigns to pressurise governments and the companies involved, but in the end have succeeded.
So a global campaign to prohibit exploitation of Arctic oil looks set to become a new focus for environmental concern. The deep anxiety and backlash against the oil industry caused by the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico provides a huge opportunity for the environmental movement. Yet in putting pressure on the US, Canadian, Danish, Norwegian and Russian governments it will meet fierce resistance from an oil industry with deep pockets and even deeper contacts in the upper ranks of governments and legislatures. For a movement which has struggled to mobilise public opinion on the scale required to combat climate change, this will be a huge challenge. But in every generation one issue comes to symbolise the wider battle over humankind's exploitation of the natural world. The confrontation just witnessed in the cold winds of Baffin Bay marks the next frontier.
(Originally published in Inside Story) (http://inside.org.au/)
The desire of the oil industry to find new reserves in the Arctic is not hard to understand. Increasingly locked out of developing countries whose governments now prefer to control their own oil sectors, and plagued by political instability from Nigeria to Iraq, global oil companies view the prospect of finding oil in the Arctic - governed by the stable democracies of the US, Canada and Scandinavia - with enthusiasm. They are already investing heavily in the high-carbon tar sands of Canada; the US Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic's technically recoverable offshore reserves could amount to around 90 billion barrels, or around 7-10% of currently estimated 'proven' reserves.
But the environmental case against exploration is even more powerful. Home to millions of migratory birds and many species of marine mammal including whales, bears, walruses and narwhals, the Arctic has a fragile ecology already under pressure from the warming seas and fracturing ice masses caused by now-occurring climate change. With low temperatures, lack of sunlight and thick ice inhibiting the breakdown and dispersal of spilled oil, the environmental impact of an oil leak here could dwarf the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It is now more than 20 years since the Exxon Valdez ran aground in the Gulf of Alaska; despite the huge clean-up operation, local populations of marine mammals have yet to recover and some are nearing extinction.
And the Arctic Sea is a spectacularly inhospitable place for drilling. Following the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico President Obama imposed a moratorium on drilling at a depth of 152 metres or more. But the well being drilled by Cairn Energy from the occupied rig off Greenland is at a depth of more than 300 metres. Cairn's ships are literally having to tow icebergs out of the way to avoid them colliding with it. Drilling in this area is only possible for a few months between July and early October; for the rest of the year the sea-ice becomes too thick to allow vessels to operate. That means that should a leak occur it may be impossible to drill a relief well until at least the following year, allowing oil to flood into the Arctic waters for months. Industry experts warn that there are no methods yet developed to recover spilled oil trapped underneath ice. According to the US Minerals Management Service, the chances of a major spill over the lifetime of a block of exploration leases in Alaska is as high as one in five.
And what will be the reward for such an environmental risk? Even if all the estimated Arctic reserves can be exploited, they would provide less than three years of global oil consumption at present rates. For here lies the central problem. The oil industry is right to point to the continuously rising global demand for oil; but the answer cannot be an ever-expanding supply produced in ever more hazardous ways. And the reason is climate change.
Figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA) make this clear. If the growth of energy demand continues on current trends, oil consumption will expand by a quarter from current levels by 2030, a level inevitably requiring new discoveries. But these same trends, and their resulting greenhouse gas emissions, will lead to global warming of a catastrophic five or six degrees Centigrade, well beyond the capacity of human society to adapt. By contrast, if the global temperature rise is to be held to a just-tolerable 2 degrees, global oil consumption would have to be only just above current levels by 2030, and already falling. Such levels of consumption can be met from within existing reserves. But more importantly, as the IEA shows, they will require a significant development of alternatives to oil.
Such alternatives are beginning to become viable, notably in the development of electric vehicles and second and third generation biofuels. Electric and hybrid vehicles in particular are now under commercial production by all the big car manufacturers. But the incentive for their development is the prospect of increasingly scarce and expensive oil, and this will only be retarded by the continued focus on developing new supply.
So Greenpeace's demand for the banning of Arctic drilling is justified on both climate change and ecological grounds. It will not easy to achieve. Yet prohibiting resource use has been done before - indeed, many of environmentalism's greatest advances have taken this form. The bans on whaling, prohibitions on cutting down ancient forests, the creation of National Parks, the protection (just) of Antarctica, all provide precedents. They have required protracted public campaigns to pressurise governments and the companies involved, but in the end have succeeded.
So a global campaign to prohibit exploitation of Arctic oil looks set to become a new focus for environmental concern. The deep anxiety and backlash against the oil industry caused by the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico provides a huge opportunity for the environmental movement. Yet in putting pressure on the US, Canadian, Danish, Norwegian and Russian governments it will meet fierce resistance from an oil industry with deep pockets and even deeper contacts in the upper ranks of governments and legislatures. For a movement which has struggled to mobilise public opinion on the scale required to combat climate change, this will be a huge challenge. But in every generation one issue comes to symbolise the wider battle over humankind's exploitation of the natural world. The confrontation just witnessed in the cold winds of Baffin Bay marks the next frontier.
(Originally published in Inside Story) (http://inside.org.au/)
Read more: Greenpeace, Oil Drilling, Arctic Drilling, Climate Change, Oil Companies, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Scott Shrake: Do YOU Agree with These Bumper Stickers?
Having been so inspired by the message T-shirts from last weekend's Restoring Honor rally in Washington, I spent the week traveling America's 50 states, photographing bumper stickers. They are a great way to have a voice in the public debate! See if you agree with these ones... or not!
Read more: Taxes, Abortion, Troops, America, Liberals, Obama, Big Government, Guns, Politics, Conservatives, Tax, Bumper Stickers, Illegal Immigrants, Homeless, Slidepollajax, Muslims, Death Penalty, Gay Marriage, Global Warming, Comedy News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Billionaire Koch Brothers Back Suspension Of California Climate Law
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Oil billionaires David and Charles Koch have jumped on board an effort to suspend California's global warming law by making a million-dollar contribution this week.
A subsidiary of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the nation's second-largest private company with oil refineries and pipelines, made a $1 million contribution Thursday to the campaign for Proposition 23. They join two Texas-based companies, Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp.
A subsidiary of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the nation's second-largest private company with oil refineries and pipelines, made a $1 million contribution Thursday to the campaign for Proposition 23. They join two Texas-based companies, Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp.
Read more: Proposition 23, Koch Brothers, CA Climate Law, Koch Contribution, Climate Change, Koch Prop 23, Global Warming, Los Angeles News
Categories: Greener Pastures
John Odum: Looking Towards the "Fault Tolerant Society"
It wasn't the collective gasp, followed by the sigh of relief I expected. Instead, the response among those I spoke with to the news of another oil rig disaster in the gulf, along with the follow-up report that its impact appeared to be minimal, was something more akin to a collective deer-in-the-headlights episode. Casual observers -- as well as the media -- seemed not to know what to do with the news.
Call it "disaster saturation," perhaps, but the response was strangely dulled -- almost slack-jawed. Not in an apathetic or disinterested way, but in a way that suggested a profound sense of powerlessness and confusion, and maybe just a hint of fatalistic resignation. "Now what?" seemed to be the message in the eyes of my neighbor.
"Now what," indeed.
As any historian or philosopher will tell you, human society has progressed in lurches, rather than in a steady, manageable growth pattern. Working against a pronounced (and understandable) tendency towards personal and cultural inertia, the human world tends to change when crises are thrust upon it. As much as intellectuals would love to see us develop ourselves along a considered path of collective self-actualization, it's large scale changes in the status quo that get us moving. Perhaps an aggressive neighboring warlord amasses an army and invades our land. A large scale viral epidemic impacts the population. An economic collapse reveals the weaknesses of the financial system and displaces the established social structure.
This is when things really change. Some might see this as mere collective short-sightedness, but I've always seen us as more of a "when the chips are down" kind of species. We are nothing if not adaptable, and when you combine that adaptability with our inherent social nature and the associated evolutionary imperative of altruism, it seems clear that we are at our proudest moments in these times of crises.
And that is what makes this moment in history so uniquely frightening.
Consider: the only way we know how to make dramatic, systemic changes for the better is when disaster is upon us. It's what we do. Sure, we fritter around the edges in the meantime, but it only amounts to so much. Like children, we learn from experience first, not so much through foresight.
But consider also the economic, industrial and environmental scale of modern human society -- when one oil rig disaster can threaten to turn a vast swath of ocean into a dead zone and potentially collapse an entire region's economy.
The fact is that technology and population have raised the stakes of our mistakes to such an unprecedented level that our species and our very planet cannot necessarily sustain our old way of evolving as communities. Learning-by-disaster is not a sustainable pedagogy when the disasters now take place at such a scale, they may be catastrophic for entire ecosystems and the human cultures that depend on them.
But how do you change a pattern so fundamental to human history?
The climate change debate is a crystalline example of this dilemma. Any intellectual analysis of the changes already underway due to planet-warming pollutants -- even a passing analysis -- should elicit enough concern to generate meaningful action, and yet what have we been seeing? On the one side, adamant denial despite incontrovertible evidence. On the other, an increase in conspicuous, emblematic "green" commodities, but very little decrease in the conspicuous consumption that feeds the crisis (and in the context of an economic downturn that is having relatively little impact on the wealth of the upper middle and upper classes in this country). And all the while, both sides spend most of their energy being frustrated with the other, rather than fully engaging (either intellectually or materially) with the actual crisis.
But the problem isn't stupidity on one side or greed on the other, so much as it is the fundamental way we learn and evolve as a species. Human history can be seen as a process of fault response, and fault response is inadequate. This is why those that advocate stepping away from social and technological progress and returning to "simpler" times are misguided. To survive into the next century, we need to fundamentally shift from a fault response society to a fault tolerant one.
Ironically, this means looking to the model offered by the most "cutting edge," even radical, sector of society - technology; the very sector that many might be simplistically inclined to blame for the inevitable situation we find ourselves in.
IT systems are defined by their fault tolerance. Since fault can be catastrophic, it has become simply unacceptable in complex, enterprise-level operations. A hospital, public infrastructure or large corporate operation can be irreparably harmed by a systems failure -- and systems failures can come in unanticipated ways. What makes an IT infrastructure sound, then, is it's ability to continue operating in the face of the unanticipated. Back-ups, secure servers, and drives operating in parallel in such a way that allow for the catastrophic collapse of any one discrete system without the accompanying collapse of the entire infrastructure.
In this way, the Information Technology field has countered this human paradigm by working around it in an uncharacteristically forward-looking way. Critical errors still inevitably occur, but the greater system is structured to accommodate them so that these problems can be addressed as inconveniences -- or even as urgencies -- but not as catastrophes. Generally speaking, the stakes are simply too high to allow for any other approach.
How to translate this concept to the world at large and build the Fault Tolerant Society? Obviously, as with any high-sounding theoretically notion, it's the application that's the hard part. We are so used to looking at social change in a polarized way; driven from the top down or the bottom up. Building the Fault Tolerant Society will take a little of both. In a democracy, fuel for change obviously emanates from the electorate, but it's just as clear that there's a need for visionary leadership in making any abstraction into a reality. The currency of political debate can't continue to slide backwards towards warring views of religion and cosmology, it needs to be about building a world that will allow us to continue disagreeing about religion or oil or whatever without suddenly having it all collapse out from under us as the result of our next big mistake.
As clear that this is all easier said than done, it's just as clear that the current administration in Washington has neither the interest nor the vision to approach such a challenge. It's simply not in the portfolio of a president who, for whatever reason, seems incapable of appreciating the full implications and urgency of the very campaign rhetoric that swept him into office.
But the first step is clear; it's well past time for the citizenry to start asking our would-be-leaders what systems they intend to put in place, not simply to prevent disaster, but to deal with disaster -- and their answers to those questions should be the among the first criteria used to judge those would-be leaders worthiness of our support.
The author is currently working on a book examining the concept of fault tolerance in political, economic and environmental institutions
Call it "disaster saturation," perhaps, but the response was strangely dulled -- almost slack-jawed. Not in an apathetic or disinterested way, but in a way that suggested a profound sense of powerlessness and confusion, and maybe just a hint of fatalistic resignation. "Now what?" seemed to be the message in the eyes of my neighbor.
"Now what," indeed.
As any historian or philosopher will tell you, human society has progressed in lurches, rather than in a steady, manageable growth pattern. Working against a pronounced (and understandable) tendency towards personal and cultural inertia, the human world tends to change when crises are thrust upon it. As much as intellectuals would love to see us develop ourselves along a considered path of collective self-actualization, it's large scale changes in the status quo that get us moving. Perhaps an aggressive neighboring warlord amasses an army and invades our land. A large scale viral epidemic impacts the population. An economic collapse reveals the weaknesses of the financial system and displaces the established social structure.
This is when things really change. Some might see this as mere collective short-sightedness, but I've always seen us as more of a "when the chips are down" kind of species. We are nothing if not adaptable, and when you combine that adaptability with our inherent social nature and the associated evolutionary imperative of altruism, it seems clear that we are at our proudest moments in these times of crises.
And that is what makes this moment in history so uniquely frightening.
Consider: the only way we know how to make dramatic, systemic changes for the better is when disaster is upon us. It's what we do. Sure, we fritter around the edges in the meantime, but it only amounts to so much. Like children, we learn from experience first, not so much through foresight.
But consider also the economic, industrial and environmental scale of modern human society -- when one oil rig disaster can threaten to turn a vast swath of ocean into a dead zone and potentially collapse an entire region's economy.
The fact is that technology and population have raised the stakes of our mistakes to such an unprecedented level that our species and our very planet cannot necessarily sustain our old way of evolving as communities. Learning-by-disaster is not a sustainable pedagogy when the disasters now take place at such a scale, they may be catastrophic for entire ecosystems and the human cultures that depend on them.
But how do you change a pattern so fundamental to human history?
The climate change debate is a crystalline example of this dilemma. Any intellectual analysis of the changes already underway due to planet-warming pollutants -- even a passing analysis -- should elicit enough concern to generate meaningful action, and yet what have we been seeing? On the one side, adamant denial despite incontrovertible evidence. On the other, an increase in conspicuous, emblematic "green" commodities, but very little decrease in the conspicuous consumption that feeds the crisis (and in the context of an economic downturn that is having relatively little impact on the wealth of the upper middle and upper classes in this country). And all the while, both sides spend most of their energy being frustrated with the other, rather than fully engaging (either intellectually or materially) with the actual crisis.
But the problem isn't stupidity on one side or greed on the other, so much as it is the fundamental way we learn and evolve as a species. Human history can be seen as a process of fault response, and fault response is inadequate. This is why those that advocate stepping away from social and technological progress and returning to "simpler" times are misguided. To survive into the next century, we need to fundamentally shift from a fault response society to a fault tolerant one.
Ironically, this means looking to the model offered by the most "cutting edge," even radical, sector of society - technology; the very sector that many might be simplistically inclined to blame for the inevitable situation we find ourselves in.
IT systems are defined by their fault tolerance. Since fault can be catastrophic, it has become simply unacceptable in complex, enterprise-level operations. A hospital, public infrastructure or large corporate operation can be irreparably harmed by a systems failure -- and systems failures can come in unanticipated ways. What makes an IT infrastructure sound, then, is it's ability to continue operating in the face of the unanticipated. Back-ups, secure servers, and drives operating in parallel in such a way that allow for the catastrophic collapse of any one discrete system without the accompanying collapse of the entire infrastructure.
In this way, the Information Technology field has countered this human paradigm by working around it in an uncharacteristically forward-looking way. Critical errors still inevitably occur, but the greater system is structured to accommodate them so that these problems can be addressed as inconveniences -- or even as urgencies -- but not as catastrophes. Generally speaking, the stakes are simply too high to allow for any other approach.
How to translate this concept to the world at large and build the Fault Tolerant Society? Obviously, as with any high-sounding theoretically notion, it's the application that's the hard part. We are so used to looking at social change in a polarized way; driven from the top down or the bottom up. Building the Fault Tolerant Society will take a little of both. In a democracy, fuel for change obviously emanates from the electorate, but it's just as clear that there's a need for visionary leadership in making any abstraction into a reality. The currency of political debate can't continue to slide backwards towards warring views of religion and cosmology, it needs to be about building a world that will allow us to continue disagreeing about religion or oil or whatever without suddenly having it all collapse out from under us as the result of our next big mistake.
As clear that this is all easier said than done, it's just as clear that the current administration in Washington has neither the interest nor the vision to approach such a challenge. It's simply not in the portfolio of a president who, for whatever reason, seems incapable of appreciating the full implications and urgency of the very campaign rhetoric that swept him into office.
But the first step is clear; it's well past time for the citizenry to start asking our would-be-leaders what systems they intend to put in place, not simply to prevent disaster, but to deal with disaster -- and their answers to those questions should be the among the first criteria used to judge those would-be leaders worthiness of our support.
The author is currently working on a book examining the concept of fault tolerance in political, economic and environmental institutions
Read more: Politics, Philosophy, Climate Change, Social Change, Gulf Oil Spill, Political Change, Politics News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Subhankar Banerjee: Senator Barbara Boxer -- Her Reelection -- Our New Climate Movement
Wednesday evening was the first (and perhaps the only) debate between Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) and her Republican challenger Carly Fiorina.
I'm not a guru of politics. I'm not a pundit of policy debates. I'm not a Beltway lobbyist. My knowledge of politics does not go beyond 101, those classes we take during our freshman college year. I live in New Mexico -- not California.
Yet, I care passionately about Senator Barbara Boxer's reelection. Why? Because I care deeply about life on Earth and I'm very concerned about climate crimes that are killing animals, birds, trees, and also humans in the U.S. as well as all over the world.
Soon I'll tell you about why we must help Senator Boxer's reelection campaign, no matter where in the U.S. we live, but first I'll share a story of how I came to know Senator Boxer.
March 19, 2003: I was living in Seattle. It must have been midday, when I got a call from Cindy Shogan, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League, a Washington-DC based non-profit organization. "Turn on your TV", said Cindy, "Senator Boxer is showing your polar bear photo on the Senate floor". She hung up, and I was nowhere near a TV. Later someone emailed me a screenshot from CSPAN -- Senator Boxer showing a poster-size image of one of my polar bear photos from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
That day Senator Boxer passionately argued to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge. President George W. Bush was pushing very hard to sell the Arctic Refuge to the oil companies. Cindy had brought some of my photos and a copy of my just published book, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land to Senator Boxer's attention. Cindy's hope was that it could help counter the arguments made by then Republican Senators Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski, who had portrayed the Arctic Refuge as a "white nothingness" or "barren, frozen wasteland". Vice President Dick Cheney sat at his Senate office most of the day, expecting that the Senate would split the votes 50-50, he will break the tie, win the vote, and let the oilers move forward. To their dismay, Senator Boxer's passionate plea resulted in a 51-49 votes that day. Her use of my book and photos during the Senate debate, however, resulted in my soon to open exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution to turn into a political football. But that's another story. I slowly began to learn about American politics.
Later that year, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco opened my Arctic Refuge exhibition. Senator Boxer attended the opening reception. She told us a story. On March 19, when she returned home later that evening, her granddaughter said, "I'm very proud of you grandma for protecting the polar bear." That day she indeed did. And she continues to be a champion of the Arctic Refuge, which is a crown jewel of America, and it is also the most biologically diverse conservation area in the entire Arctic. Later this year, on December 6, we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We must never sell the Arctic Refuge to the oil companies.
In 2007, Senator Barbara Boxer became the first woman ever to chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Fast forward to 2010. We had BP's unforgiveable oil-and-methane spill in the gulf, a disaster Jerry Cope and Charles Hambleton have called the crime of the century. Then on June 10, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski launched an attack to block Environmental Protection Agency's effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act. Senator Barbara Boxer made a passionate counter-attack. She showed poster-sized images of blackened birds killed by BP's spill. While showing the dead-bird photos, Senator Boxer said, "They're almost too painful. But for someone (Senator Lisa Murkowski) to come to this floor to say too much carbon is not dangerous, then I'm sorry, we'll have to look." Her passion prevailed and the Republican attempt was defeated by 53-47 votes.
Wednesday evening during the debate at Saint Mary's College, Senator Boxer talked about protecting the California coast from offshore oil-and-gas development (Carly Fiorina favors offshore development in California). On May 13, Senator Boxer and five senators from California, Oregon, and Washington introduced legislation to ban all future drilling along the Pacific shoreline.
Offshore oil development is a dirty and dangerous business. When something goes wrong it kills a helluva lot of marine life and also destroys people's way of life. Some Californians may remember very well the 1969 oil spill off of Santa Barbara coast that spewed 200,000 gallons of crude, and killed seals, dolphins, fish, birds, and other marine life.
I've been extremely concerned about offshore drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of arctic Alaska. To prevent a BP like catastrophe in the Arctic Ocean that Shell was just about to embark on this summer, I wrote a piece BPing the Arctic? on May 25. Two days later President Obama reversed his earlier decision and suspended Shell's drilling for 2010. We must put a permanent ban on offshore drilling in America's Arctic Ocean, the way Senator Boxer and her colleagues have proposed for the Pacific coast.
Resource expert Michael Klare has pointed out that most of the easy oil in North America has already been extracted. We're now going after what he calls extreme-energy with potentially devastating consequences -- offshore drilling in deepwater, offshore drilling in extremely harsh environment like the Arctic Ocean, or the Tar Sands of Alberta in Canada.
Senator Boxer is doing the right thing by protecting the coast of her home state from offshore drilling. It's time that we move away from the death grip of oil-and-coal and start a clean energy revolution in the U.S. During Wednesday evening's debate Senator Boxer also pointed out that her aim is to make California "a hub of clean energy industry". This is what all Americans need to hear. Clean energy is no longer an idea that has the promise to create new jobs. Elizabeth Lynch wrote recently in The Huffington Post that China has already beat the U.S. to become the new green tech giant. We need the same direction for U.S. -- it'll create new jobs, actually lot of new jobs, and help control global warming at the same time. For that we need Senator Barbara Barbara Boxer and not Carly Fiorina (whose sympathy is with the oil-and-coal companies).
After the U.S. Senate killed the climate bill in late July, many of us were disappointed (but not surprised). We pointed our fingers to what went wrong and why our climate movement failed, but then we got to work to figure out how to move forward. Just a few days ago I founded ClimateStoryTellers.org that you can check out. And for action you can check out great activist movements -- 350.org and the Climate Justice Network. Last year with a puny budget and a lot of passion, Bill McKibben and his compatriots at 350.org organized 5200 climate rallies in 181 countries. And this coming October they're planning Global Work Party -- 1400 events already planned in more than 135 countries. Our climate movement is moving forward with many new ideas, renewed energy, and enthusiasm.
And we need Senator Boxer with us on our new climate movement train. She is a champion of our environment and clean energy economy, and we must do everything to help her win reelection.
I'm with her.
Are you?
Subhankar Banerjee is a photographer, writer, activist, and founder of ClimateStoryTellers.org
[Edits/Corrections: replaced "Last night" with "Wednesday evening"; added url link to "California Academy of Science"; added one line, "In 2007, Senator Barbara Boxer became the first woman ever to chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee."]
I'm not a guru of politics. I'm not a pundit of policy debates. I'm not a Beltway lobbyist. My knowledge of politics does not go beyond 101, those classes we take during our freshman college year. I live in New Mexico -- not California.
Yet, I care passionately about Senator Barbara Boxer's reelection. Why? Because I care deeply about life on Earth and I'm very concerned about climate crimes that are killing animals, birds, trees, and also humans in the U.S. as well as all over the world.
Soon I'll tell you about why we must help Senator Boxer's reelection campaign, no matter where in the U.S. we live, but first I'll share a story of how I came to know Senator Boxer.
March 19, 2003: I was living in Seattle. It must have been midday, when I got a call from Cindy Shogan, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League, a Washington-DC based non-profit organization. "Turn on your TV", said Cindy, "Senator Boxer is showing your polar bear photo on the Senate floor". She hung up, and I was nowhere near a TV. Later someone emailed me a screenshot from CSPAN -- Senator Boxer showing a poster-size image of one of my polar bear photos from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
That day Senator Boxer passionately argued to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic Refuge. President George W. Bush was pushing very hard to sell the Arctic Refuge to the oil companies. Cindy had brought some of my photos and a copy of my just published book, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land to Senator Boxer's attention. Cindy's hope was that it could help counter the arguments made by then Republican Senators Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski, who had portrayed the Arctic Refuge as a "white nothingness" or "barren, frozen wasteland". Vice President Dick Cheney sat at his Senate office most of the day, expecting that the Senate would split the votes 50-50, he will break the tie, win the vote, and let the oilers move forward. To their dismay, Senator Boxer's passionate plea resulted in a 51-49 votes that day. Her use of my book and photos during the Senate debate, however, resulted in my soon to open exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution to turn into a political football. But that's another story. I slowly began to learn about American politics.
Later that year, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco opened my Arctic Refuge exhibition. Senator Boxer attended the opening reception. She told us a story. On March 19, when she returned home later that evening, her granddaughter said, "I'm very proud of you grandma for protecting the polar bear." That day she indeed did. And she continues to be a champion of the Arctic Refuge, which is a crown jewel of America, and it is also the most biologically diverse conservation area in the entire Arctic. Later this year, on December 6, we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We must never sell the Arctic Refuge to the oil companies.
In 2007, Senator Barbara Boxer became the first woman ever to chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Fast forward to 2010. We had BP's unforgiveable oil-and-methane spill in the gulf, a disaster Jerry Cope and Charles Hambleton have called the crime of the century. Then on June 10, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski launched an attack to block Environmental Protection Agency's effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act. Senator Barbara Boxer made a passionate counter-attack. She showed poster-sized images of blackened birds killed by BP's spill. While showing the dead-bird photos, Senator Boxer said, "They're almost too painful. But for someone (Senator Lisa Murkowski) to come to this floor to say too much carbon is not dangerous, then I'm sorry, we'll have to look." Her passion prevailed and the Republican attempt was defeated by 53-47 votes.
Wednesday evening during the debate at Saint Mary's College, Senator Boxer talked about protecting the California coast from offshore oil-and-gas development (Carly Fiorina favors offshore development in California). On May 13, Senator Boxer and five senators from California, Oregon, and Washington introduced legislation to ban all future drilling along the Pacific shoreline.
Offshore oil development is a dirty and dangerous business. When something goes wrong it kills a helluva lot of marine life and also destroys people's way of life. Some Californians may remember very well the 1969 oil spill off of Santa Barbara coast that spewed 200,000 gallons of crude, and killed seals, dolphins, fish, birds, and other marine life.
I've been extremely concerned about offshore drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of arctic Alaska. To prevent a BP like catastrophe in the Arctic Ocean that Shell was just about to embark on this summer, I wrote a piece BPing the Arctic? on May 25. Two days later President Obama reversed his earlier decision and suspended Shell's drilling for 2010. We must put a permanent ban on offshore drilling in America's Arctic Ocean, the way Senator Boxer and her colleagues have proposed for the Pacific coast.
Resource expert Michael Klare has pointed out that most of the easy oil in North America has already been extracted. We're now going after what he calls extreme-energy with potentially devastating consequences -- offshore drilling in deepwater, offshore drilling in extremely harsh environment like the Arctic Ocean, or the Tar Sands of Alberta in Canada.
Senator Boxer is doing the right thing by protecting the coast of her home state from offshore drilling. It's time that we move away from the death grip of oil-and-coal and start a clean energy revolution in the U.S. During Wednesday evening's debate Senator Boxer also pointed out that her aim is to make California "a hub of clean energy industry". This is what all Americans need to hear. Clean energy is no longer an idea that has the promise to create new jobs. Elizabeth Lynch wrote recently in The Huffington Post that China has already beat the U.S. to become the new green tech giant. We need the same direction for U.S. -- it'll create new jobs, actually lot of new jobs, and help control global warming at the same time. For that we need Senator Barbara Barbara Boxer and not Carly Fiorina (whose sympathy is with the oil-and-coal companies).
After the U.S. Senate killed the climate bill in late July, many of us were disappointed (but not surprised). We pointed our fingers to what went wrong and why our climate movement failed, but then we got to work to figure out how to move forward. Just a few days ago I founded ClimateStoryTellers.org that you can check out. And for action you can check out great activist movements -- 350.org and the Climate Justice Network. Last year with a puny budget and a lot of passion, Bill McKibben and his compatriots at 350.org organized 5200 climate rallies in 181 countries. And this coming October they're planning Global Work Party -- 1400 events already planned in more than 135 countries. Our climate movement is moving forward with many new ideas, renewed energy, and enthusiasm.
And we need Senator Boxer with us on our new climate movement train. She is a champion of our environment and clean energy economy, and we must do everything to help her win reelection.
I'm with her.
Are you?
Subhankar Banerjee is a photographer, writer, activist, and founder of ClimateStoryTellers.org
[Edits/Corrections: replaced "Last night" with "Wednesday evening"; added url link to "California Academy of Science"; added one line, "In 2007, Senator Barbara Boxer became the first woman ever to chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee."]
Read more: Green News, California Senate Race, Global Warming, Carly Fiorina, Climate Change, Senator Barbara Boxer, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Miles Grant: Inhofe Inception : Your Mind Is the Scene of the Climate (VIDEO)
The National Wildlife Federation Climate Capsule team's favorite summer movie was Inception. It got us to thinking, what if you could enter the dreams of Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Big Oil's MVP?
(Don't worry if you haven't seen Inception yet, no spoilers. In fact, if you watch the Capsule, you'll probably be even more confused about what Inception is all about.)
Also this week -- updates on tar sands, heat waves & a climate denier's flip-flop. Watch this week's NWF Climate Capsule!
If you like the Capsule, please help us spread the word using the "share" & "retweet" buttons at the top of this post. You can also subscribe:
- Go to the NWF Climate Capsule archive on YouTube & click the yellow "subscribe" button in the upper right corner
- Subscribe to the Capsule as a podcast via iTunes
Got climate questions? Any global warming denier arguments you'd like to hear Dirty sock puppet? Email us!
Read more: Tar Sands, Inception, Jim Inhofe, Oil Sands, James Inhofe, Environment, National Wildlife Federation, Climate Change, Leonardo Dicaprio, Green Politics, Global Warming, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
EPA Climate Change Regulations Increasing, Not As Strong As Action By Congress Would Be
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will roll out more regulations on greenhouse gases and other pollution to help fight climate change, but they will not be as strong as action by Congress, a senior administration official said.
The agency "has a huge role to play in continuing the work to move from where we are now to lower carbon emissions", said the official, who did not want to be identified as the EPA policies are still being formed.
The agency "has a huge role to play in continuing the work to move from where we are now to lower carbon emissions", said the official, who did not want to be identified as the EPA policies are still being formed.
Read more: Epa Carbon Emissions, Carbon Emissions Epa, Epa Greenhouse Gas, Climate Change, Epa Climate Change, Greenhouse Gas Epa, Climate Change Epa, Regulations Epa, Epa Regulations, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Donnie Fowler: Game On. Overturning California's Climate & Energy Laws the Second Front for Billionaire Koch Brothers & Texas Oil (Prop23)
OPPONENTS OF PROP23 IN CALIFORNIA FACE A DAUNTING NEW OPPONENT
San Francisco, September 2
Late Thursday night, those who support progress on climate & energy policy received bad news that we expected, but did not want to believe would actually happen.
The billionaire Koch brothers, one of clean energy's most effective national opponents and funders of the increasingly influential Tea Party, contributed their first $1 million in the fight to overturn California's climate and energy laws in this year's election. No doubt there is more to come. Reports on September 2nd also showed that Tesoro Oil Corp. contributed $1 million to bring the total that they, Valero Energy, and other out of state oil companies have given to win Proposition 23 to more than $8 million. That's more than most races for senate and governor in other states.
An impressive coalition of public health, environmental, and clean tech leaders has spent the last few months fighting against Proposition 23 in California, the statewide ballot initiative that will overturn a slew of climate and energy policies -- from the state's cap on carbon pollution to its 33% renewable energy requirement to building efficiency and low carbon fuel standards. The Clean Economy Network published a report in July, "Going Backwards", that combines with other studies to lay out the real threat to investments we have made and companies we have started.
Unfortunately, we have now reached the point where everyone must get into this fight in a real way or the other side's tens of millions of dollars will convince Californians to vote for Prop23. This is not theory. The oil and coal companies have won in Washington and now have opened a second front in California. Polling makes it absolutely clear that Californians are evenly divided on turning back progress for clean tech because of their anxieties about a continuing weak state economy.
And the Koch's, as a New Yorker article two weeks ago made clear, are avowed and aggressive opponents of anything that threatens their oil refining empire. Brothers Charles and David Koch own virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate whose annual revenues exceed a hundred billion dollars. They operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries also owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country.
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace has issued a report defining the company as a "kingpin of climate science denial." The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups.
So now, with 31 days until early voting starts on Prop23 in California and only 60 days until the election, talking needs to turn into action. That means if you live in the state, tell your friends and vote early. It also means raising the money to deliver our story to California's voters.
After losing in the U.S. Senate this summer, climate & energy supporters can't afford to have the clock turned back in California.
Those who think one state does not matter -- and who hold out hope that wavering Senators will find courage in a post-election "lame duck" session on energy -- do not understand that a loss in California will create momentum and political risk that none of these politicians will resist.
So here's the proposition: Take a stand. Here. Now.
We can say that our competitive spirit and innovation apply to public policy and politics in a way that moves things forward. We can tell the oil and coal companies that enough is finally enough.
Because we have to. It's in the economy's interest. It's in our country's interest. And, yes, it's in our planet's interest.
---
No on 23!
Stop the Dirty Energy Proposition
www.stopdirtyenergyprop.com
The Success of California's AB32, the Bipartisan 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act
www.cabrightspot.com
San Francisco, September 2
Late Thursday night, those who support progress on climate & energy policy received bad news that we expected, but did not want to believe would actually happen.
The billionaire Koch brothers, one of clean energy's most effective national opponents and funders of the increasingly influential Tea Party, contributed their first $1 million in the fight to overturn California's climate and energy laws in this year's election. No doubt there is more to come. Reports on September 2nd also showed that Tesoro Oil Corp. contributed $1 million to bring the total that they, Valero Energy, and other out of state oil companies have given to win Proposition 23 to more than $8 million. That's more than most races for senate and governor in other states.
An impressive coalition of public health, environmental, and clean tech leaders has spent the last few months fighting against Proposition 23 in California, the statewide ballot initiative that will overturn a slew of climate and energy policies -- from the state's cap on carbon pollution to its 33% renewable energy requirement to building efficiency and low carbon fuel standards. The Clean Economy Network published a report in July, "Going Backwards", that combines with other studies to lay out the real threat to investments we have made and companies we have started.
Unfortunately, we have now reached the point where everyone must get into this fight in a real way or the other side's tens of millions of dollars will convince Californians to vote for Prop23. This is not theory. The oil and coal companies have won in Washington and now have opened a second front in California. Polling makes it absolutely clear that Californians are evenly divided on turning back progress for clean tech because of their anxieties about a continuing weak state economy.
And the Koch's, as a New Yorker article two weeks ago made clear, are avowed and aggressive opponents of anything that threatens their oil refining empire. Brothers Charles and David Koch own virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate whose annual revenues exceed a hundred billion dollars. They operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries also owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes ranks it as the second-largest private company in the country.
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace has issued a report defining the company as a "kingpin of climate science denial." The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups.
So now, with 31 days until early voting starts on Prop23 in California and only 60 days until the election, talking needs to turn into action. That means if you live in the state, tell your friends and vote early. It also means raising the money to deliver our story to California's voters.
After losing in the U.S. Senate this summer, climate & energy supporters can't afford to have the clock turned back in California.
Those who think one state does not matter -- and who hold out hope that wavering Senators will find courage in a post-election "lame duck" session on energy -- do not understand that a loss in California will create momentum and political risk that none of these politicians will resist.
So here's the proposition: Take a stand. Here. Now.
We can say that our competitive spirit and innovation apply to public policy and politics in a way that moves things forward. We can tell the oil and coal companies that enough is finally enough.
Because we have to. It's in the economy's interest. It's in our country's interest. And, yes, it's in our planet's interest.
---
No on 23!
Stop the Dirty Energy Proposition
www.stopdirtyenergyprop.com
The Success of California's AB32, the Bipartisan 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act
www.cabrightspot.com
Read more: David Koch, California, Proposition 23, ab32, Koch, Climate Change, Charles Koch, Clean Technology, Clean Energy, prop23, Politics News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Donnie Fowler: Prop23: Who Needs BP When You've Got the Koch Brothers to Overturn California's Climate & Energy Laws?
OPPONENTS OF PROP23 IN CALIFORNIA FACE A DAUNTING NEW OPPONENT
San Francisco, September 2
Late Thursday night, those who support progress on climate & energy policy received bad news that we expected, but did not want to believe would actually happen.
The billionaire Koch brothers, one of clean energy's most effective national opponents and funders of the increasingly influential Tea Party, contributed their first $1 million in the fight to overturn California's climate and energy laws in this year's election. No doubt there is more to come. Reports on September 2nd also showed that Tesoro Oil Corp. contributed $1 million to bring the total that they, Valero Energy, and other out of state oil companies have given to win Proposition 23 to more than $8 million. That's more than most races for senate and governor in other states.
An impressive coalition of public health, environmental, and clean tech leaders has spent the last few months fighting against Proposition 23 in California, the statewide ballot initiative that will overturn a slew of climate and energy policies -- from the state's cap on carbon pollution to its 33% renewable energy standard to building efficiency and low carbon fuel standards. The Clean Economy Network published a report in July, "Going Backwards", that combines with other studies to lay out the real threat to investments we have made and companies we have started.
Unfortunately, we have now reached the point where everyone must get into this fight in a real way or the other side's tens of millions of dollars will convince Californians to vote for Prop23. This is not theory. Polling makes it absolutely clear that Californians are evenly divided on turning back progress for clean tech because of their anxieties about a continuing weak state economy.
And the Koch's, as a New Yorker article two weeks ago made clear, are avowed and aggressive opponents of anything that threatens their oil refining empire. Brothers Charles and David Koch own virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate whose annual revenues exceed a hundred billion dollars. They operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries also owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes lists it as the second-largest private company in the country.
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace has issued a report labeling the company as a "kingpin of climate science denial." From 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups.
So now, with 31 days until early voting starts on Prop23 in California and only 60 days until the election, talking needs to turn into action. That means if you live in the state, tell your friends and vote early. It also means raising the money to deliver our story to California's voters.
After losing in the U.S. Senate this summer, climate & energy supporters can't afford to have the clock turned back in California.
Those who think one state does not matter -- and who hold out hope that wavering Senators will find courage in a post-election "lame duck" session on energy -- do not understand that a loss in California will create momentum and political risk that none of these politicians will resist.
So here's the proposition: Take a stand. Here. Now.
We can say that our competitive spirit and innovation apply to public policy and politics in a way that moves things forward. We can tell the oil and coal companies that enough is finally enough.
Because we have to. It's in the economy's interest. It's in our country's interest. And, yes, it's in our planet's interest.
---
No on 23!
Stop the Dirty Energy Proposition
www.stopdirtyenergyprop.com
The Success of California's AB32, the Bipartisan 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act
www.cabrightspot.com
San Francisco, September 2
Late Thursday night, those who support progress on climate & energy policy received bad news that we expected, but did not want to believe would actually happen.
The billionaire Koch brothers, one of clean energy's most effective national opponents and funders of the increasingly influential Tea Party, contributed their first $1 million in the fight to overturn California's climate and energy laws in this year's election. No doubt there is more to come. Reports on September 2nd also showed that Tesoro Oil Corp. contributed $1 million to bring the total that they, Valero Energy, and other out of state oil companies have given to win Proposition 23 to more than $8 million. That's more than most races for senate and governor in other states.
An impressive coalition of public health, environmental, and clean tech leaders has spent the last few months fighting against Proposition 23 in California, the statewide ballot initiative that will overturn a slew of climate and energy policies -- from the state's cap on carbon pollution to its 33% renewable energy standard to building efficiency and low carbon fuel standards. The Clean Economy Network published a report in July, "Going Backwards", that combines with other studies to lay out the real threat to investments we have made and companies we have started.
Unfortunately, we have now reached the point where everyone must get into this fight in a real way or the other side's tens of millions of dollars will convince Californians to vote for Prop23. This is not theory. Polling makes it absolutely clear that Californians are evenly divided on turning back progress for clean tech because of their anxieties about a continuing weak state economy.
And the Koch's, as a New Yorker article two weeks ago made clear, are avowed and aggressive opponents of anything that threatens their oil refining empire. Brothers Charles and David Koch own virtually all of Koch Industries, a conglomerate whose annual revenues exceed a hundred billion dollars. They operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas, and Minnesota, and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch Industries also owns Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra, among other products. Forbes lists it as the second-largest private company in the country.
The University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace has issued a report labeling the company as a "kingpin of climate science denial." From 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups.
So now, with 31 days until early voting starts on Prop23 in California and only 60 days until the election, talking needs to turn into action. That means if you live in the state, tell your friends and vote early. It also means raising the money to deliver our story to California's voters.
After losing in the U.S. Senate this summer, climate & energy supporters can't afford to have the clock turned back in California.
Those who think one state does not matter -- and who hold out hope that wavering Senators will find courage in a post-election "lame duck" session on energy -- do not understand that a loss in California will create momentum and political risk that none of these politicians will resist.
So here's the proposition: Take a stand. Here. Now.
We can say that our competitive spirit and innovation apply to public policy and politics in a way that moves things forward. We can tell the oil and coal companies that enough is finally enough.
Because we have to. It's in the economy's interest. It's in our country's interest. And, yes, it's in our planet's interest.
---
No on 23!
Stop the Dirty Energy Proposition
www.stopdirtyenergyprop.com
The Success of California's AB32, the Bipartisan 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act
www.cabrightspot.com
Read more: ab32, Climate Change, California, Proposition 23, prop23, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Carl Pope: We Need to Remember Our Multiplication Tables
San Francisco -- Five years ago, not one but two calamitous floods struck major cities, each taking more than a thousand lives. One, of course, was Katrina, but only a month earlier, 37 inches struck the city of Mumbai, India, wiping out entire neighborhoods. Both of these catastrophes followed truly extreme weather events. Katrina wasn't the biggest hurricane ever to hit the Gulf of Mexico, but it was up there, and 37 inches of rain was unprecedented in Mumbai.
This month a much greater flood catastrophe has engulfed Pakistan, engulfing a quarter of the country, flooding an area the size of England, killing about 2000 people, and swelling the Indus River to 40 times its normal size. Tens of millions of people have been displaced. It's not clear how much of this disaster can be attributed to extreme weather.
Yes, the monsoon was heavy this year. In certain areas, like Peshawar, it was extraordinarily heavy, so the localized flooding that devastated Swat and other areas in the Northwest can be viewed as an extreme weather event. And heavy monsoons in the region feeding into the Indus from the Punjab in the east, including catchments across the border in India, meant that the Chenab, Sutlet, and Jhelum were already very high when late-month cloudbursts hit the Northwest part of the Indus basin in Pakistan.
But why were localized cloudbursts over areas like Swat and Peshawar able to generate not only localized tragedy but a national catastrophe? Why was there no equivalent damage across the border in India, where weather charts show the monsoon was even higher?
Some commentators are arguing that the catastrophic floods in Pakistan have as much to do with deforestation as they do with weather. Pakistan's "timber mafia" have, in the past several years, achieved unprecedented freedom to log at will.
"But this month the mud and water deluge cascaded off the tree-bare mountains and hills with exceptional force and barrelled down towards the plains in mammoth fury. In a trade-off, the timber mafia had allowed the mountain poor to raid the logs stacked in the nullahs to make doors, window frames and furniture for their homes. But, propelled by the force of the run-off, the logs turned into instruments of destruction, smashing all in their wake. Rivers and dams turned black with timber. Relief workers said bridges, homes, and people were destroyed and swept away by the hurtling and swirling logs before the waters spread on to the plains below, engulfing an area of more than 60,000 square miles, more than twice the land area of Scotland."
The logging in the mountains has simply been the final act in the gradual deforestation of Pakistan -- the entire river corridor was once girded by, and protected by, dense forest cover which could absorb water, break the force of floods, and capture the silt that comes down from the geologically unstable Karakorum range as fertile soil.
Now all of the natural safeguards and systems that created Pakistan's productive and densely populated plains have been removed. Rainfall even slightly above average can overtax the Indus system which, in effect, has been turned from a meandering stream into a drainpipe -- a drainpipe too small for heavy rains.
We see similar patterns here in the US. The most damaging floods in American history were the Mississippi River floods of 1993. Again, there was very heavy precipitation, but the river had handled larger volumes of water before, with far less destruction, because natural systems -- flood plains, wetlands, riverine forests -- were still intact and able to absorb much of the impact of the heavy flow.
There is more than one lesson from the Indus floods. We should worry, tremendously, about the impact of a disrupted climate and more extreme rainfall events. Pakistan cannot handle them. But we should worry just as much about the need to restore the natural biological dampers to the system -- the barriers which historically protected Pakistanis from heavy monsoons (and stored their water for drier years.) After all, when causes multiply, the results get larger very fast. 2+2 and 2 x 2 both equal 4. But make that 2 a 3 and the impact soards from 6 to 9. Make it 5, and 10 becomes 25. Preventing further climate chaos OR rebuilding the natural systems that protect us from weather -- we can't focus on just one. We must do both.
I wonder if this realization has finally sunk in for Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg announced this week that he was abandoning the "climate change is no big deal" camp where he made his reservation, and was instead publishing a new book stating that global warming is one of the world's "chief concerns" and calling for a global carbon tax and the expenditure of $100 billion.
When I debated Lomborg at Harvard back in 2002, Lomborg conceded the reality that more carbon pollution meant higher sea levels and more flooding in countries like Bangladesh. His response: "Build dikes." Perhaps as he's watched natural catastrophes like the one in Pakistan unfold, Lomborg has come to his senses and realized that the human capacity to manage extreme weather is simply much smaller than the climate cynics would like us to believe.
Read more: Flooding, Timber Mafia, Extreme Weather, Indus, Climate Change, Flood, Pakistan, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Bill Chameides: Pulse of the Planet: Is It a Good Microbe or a Bad Microbe?
In the news last week: Two microbes helping us out.
You may think that the world is all about humanity, our place on the evolutionary scale, our position at the top of the food web, and, for better or worse, our domination of the planet. Or, you may view such ideas as being oh-so-terribly retro and anthropomorphic. (For more on that subject, I commend Daniel Quinn's Ishmael to your reading pleasure.)
Whatever you may think, I know of one class of organisms who, if I may assign anthropomorphic characteristics to them, would whole-heartedly disagree and with good reason. The organisms of which I speak are microbes -- those microscopic creatures that include bacteria, fungi, protists, archaea, and plankton.
From the point of view of mass and metabolism, microbes rule the world.
It's estimated that microbes make up 50 to 90 percent of all ocean biomass and more than 50 percent of the planet's total biomass. They thrive in lots of environments where other things don't do all that well, like, for instance, in our guts. Indeed, from many microbes' points of view, the only reason we exist is to provide cozy nooks in our bellies for them to thrive. They feast off the food we ingest and, as a kind of microbial version of an afterthought, leave enough nutrition behind for us to survive on and continue to provide them their cozy, intestinal digs.
But let's get back to our anthropomorphic view of the world and more specifically to a discussion of microbe-good and microbe-evil, for clearly, from our point of view, there are good microbes and bad microbes. Many of us humans worry about, even obsess over bad microbes, such as, for example, bacteria that make us sick. Prima facie evidence of that obsession: adding pesticides to our toothpaste.
But all that concern gives microbes a bad rap when in fact lots, perhaps even most microbes help us out. Take those bacteria in our guts for instance that help us digest our food, thereby sustaining us. And from the environment's point of view, microbes play critical roles processing lots of stuff like the carbon in dead organic matter and cycling it back into the system for further use by green plants.
Two papers published last week highlight microbes that fall in the "good microbe" category.
Oil-Eating Microbes Cleaning Up the Gulf of Mexico
In a paper published in the journal Science, Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and colleagues found that a previously unknown species of cold-water, hydrocarbon-eating bacteria have been feasting on the underwater oil plume from the Deepwater Horizon blowout, degrading it at rates faster than anticipated.
What's more, the tiny feeders have done so without creating low-oxygen or so-called dead zones that could harm marine life at depth. Hazen et al, who collected their data in late May and early June, found that oxygen saturation within the plume areas they measured averaged 59 percent while levels outside the plume were 67 percent.
Their study led the authors to suggest "the potential exists for intrinsic bioremediation of the oil plume in the deep-water column without substantial oxygen drawdown." A definite plus.
Methane-Eating Microbes Battling Global Warming
If you've been paying any attention to the topic of climate change, you know that methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (there just happens to be a lot more of the latter in the atmosphere). You might even have read (here or here, for instance) that scientists are concerned about methane releases from thawing permafrost in northern wetlands leading to a climate tipping point.
A new paper appearing in the journal Nature Geoscience by Nardy Kip of the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and colleagues finds that a special group of bacteria known as methanotrophs are working to limit methane emissions in peat bogs across the globe and may work even harder at warmer temperatures. Given that peatlands are thought to contain up to 30 percent of all land-based carbon, any process that slows the release of methane and does so at higher temperatures is an all-around good thing in a warming world.
Way to go, microbes. Could it be that we've been looking in the wrong places to solve our problems? Could it be that all our worries would be over if we only had some more microbes? Well, let's limit that to the good ones. Tune in next week for a story on some microbes that have been up to some mischief.
Crossposted with www.thegreengrok.com.
Read more: Carbon, Pesticides, Methanotrophs, Microbes, Biomass, Climate Change, Carbon Dioxide, Greenhouse Gases, Permafrost, Bacteria, Pulse of the Planet, Peatlands, Global Warming, Methane, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Sarah van Gelder: 5 Ways You Can Help Pakistan (and the Rest of Us)
As the world comes to terms with the mind-boggling scale of the tragedy in Pakistan, many Americans are asking what we can do to aid the flood victims.
Some may hesitate to contribute to flood relief because we associate Pakistan with qualities we don't admire -- nuclear proliferation, religious fundamentalism, the oppression of women, and a corrupt and powerful military. But the people of Pakistan are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of these problems, and above all else, they are fellow human beings in dire need.
So how can we distance ourselves from the qualities we don't like while offering solidarity to the people of Pakistan?
1. Support Independent Pakistan-based Relief Efforts
Independent, Pakistan-based charities are struggling to get the resources to help their fellow citizens. These groups offer a much-needed alternative to the fundamentalist groups seeking to increase their influence, to the military, and to international groups without a base in Pakistan. One of the most effective of these independent groups, according to Grassroots International, is the Abdul Sattar Edhi Foundation. This foundation has networks across Pakistan, a long history in the country, and a top-notch reputation for effectiveness. You can contribute by sending a check to their U.S. office, noting that your donation is for "flood relief":
The Edhi Foundation
42-07 National Street
Corona, New York 11368
2. Support Women
Women are the most vulnerable part of the population, and the progress of women is key to the progress of the country. Aid to women helps with the immediate crisis, helps alleviate poverty for the whole family, empowers women -- just 3 percent of whom are literate -- and lays the foundation for greater freedom and autonomy.
The U.S. based Global Fund for Women is working with women's groups on the ground in Pakistan. The fund can be counted on to support groups that are part of Pakistani culture and that have a long-standing reputation for effectiveness. You can make a tax-deductible donation to Global Fund for Women on their secure server here.
Contributing money is a critical and immediate way to help. But there are also key policies that will help Pakistan both with immediate needs and with the long period of recovery ahead.
3. Call for Debt Relief
Pakistan will need to devote its resources to relief and recovery for months and years to come. The Jubilee Network is calling for aid for flood relief to be made in the form of grants rather than loans. The Network--which is comprised of religious, human rights, and development groups--is also calling for a moratorium on debt repayments and for eventual debt cancellation. The U.S. government has a key role to play in this, so your voice on this issue matters.
4. Convert Military Aid to Humanitarian Aid
Pakistan is among the top recipients of U.S. military aid, receiving nearly twice as much for the military as it receives in economic aid. Now is the time to reverse the priority. A major U.S. relief effort would be a powerful statement of solidarity with the Pakistani people, demonstrating to them that the American people care about more than counteracting terrorism ... and real solidarity would be a more effective strike against terrorism than missiles and drone attacks. American religious groups, peace organizations, human rights groups, and ordinary citizens can call for the conversion of military aid to aid that can alleviate human suffering and support rebuilding.
5. Confront the Climate Change Disaster
The Pakistan flood is just one of a growing number of humanitarian and ecological crises related to a heating planet. The disruption in rainfall patterns caused by climate change leads to food disasters and hunger. Megastorms, fed by rising ocean temperatures, mean larger and more destructive storms and flooding. Disappearing glaciers and exhausted rivers and aquifers mean water shortages. We should be prepared to respond to humanitarian crises around the world, and when possible, help people return home so they don't become climate refugees.
But even more important is prevention. Around the world we must restore the natural systemsthat buffer storms and preserve water--like wetlands that release water slowly and reduce flooding, coastal marshes that offer protection from storm surges, and healthy forests that avert landslides and flooding. We should support efforts at local resilience--growing food for local consumption and buildings that can protect from storms and heat waves.
At the same time, we must get serious about reducing the emissions that are disrupting the climate stability our civilizations depend on. We can't allow oil company-financed climate deniers to continue driving the climate debate. Any further dithering is irresponsible and potentially catastrophic. Along with responding to the disasters caused by a heating planet, we simply must do everything we can to address the causes of the climate crisis.
Sarah van Gelder, wrote this article for YES! Magazine, an independent media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions for a just and sustainable world.
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Read more: Women's Rights, Natural Disasters, Muslim Women, Religious Fundamentalism, Pakistan, Global Climate Mitigation, Pakistan Floods, Climate Change, Pakistan Military Aid, Global Fund for Women, Edhi Foundation, Deforestation, Debt Forgiveness, World News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Daphne Wysham: Averting the Next Mortgage Meltdown While Cooling the Planet
The economy is in the tank, and, unless we do something about it, it's about to get worse. It turns out the mortgage meltdown we've been suffering through is only the first wave. Wave No. 2 may be more like a tsunami: Between now and 2014, $1.4 trillion in commercial real estate loans are coming due. Most of these loans are for small and medium-sized commercial buildings and businesses that are either "underwater" -- worth less than their mortgages -- or close to it. Without swift intervention, the commercial real estate (CRE) crisis will cripple the still sputtering economy, throwing more people out of work, and precipitating more business bankruptcies and community bank failures.
Yet crisis breeds opportunity. And in this case there could be a double opportunity. It turns out that buildings are responsible for about half of America's emissions of greenhouse gases that are heating our planet. And we're heating, lighting and air-conditioning these buildings like there's no tomorrow. And by "no tomorrow," I mean: no polar icecaps, more droughts, more pestilence, more crop failure, and more climate refugees. We're also throwing good money down the drain.
Here's the crazy truth: With a national effort to boost energy efficiency, we could actually meet the the building sector's greenhouse gas emissions targets set by the Obama Administration for the next few years, put 1.3 million workers -- 600,000 of them construction workers, 20 percent of whom are unemployed -- back to work, and dodge the next wave of mortgage meltdowns. Instead of monkeying around with complicated bills like the cap-and-trade nonsense that didn't make it through Congress, we could make a painless down payment on our emissions reductions goals, while giving some of our beleaguered businesses a tax break and saving money we're now squandering on wasted energy.
Here's how: Architects and researchers from Architecture 2030 have developed something called the "CRE Solution," which would let small business and building owners about to default on their mortgages get a multi-year tax deduction if they retrofit their buildings to make them more energy efficient. The more energy efficient the building becomes, the greater the tax break. Commercial building owners could trade or sell these tax deductions to investors, who would provide the infusion of capital over a three-year time span. The capital would be invested in putting our highly skilled construction workers back on the job, retrofitting these properties. Property values would rise while energy bills decline. With good-paying jobs, construction workers would once again pay taxes, providing a much-needed revenue stream to state and local governments. For the $6 billion in tax breaks the federal government would provide for this purpose, Uncle Sam would receive $10 billion back in net federal tax revenue, while state and local governments netted $5.25 billion.
It's a solution that should warm the hearts of both Democrats and Republicans while cooling our sweltering planet. Saving our small businesses and our local banks from going under while avoiding deficit spending ought to be hard to resist. Restoring the tax base in our shuttered downtowns, putting money back in the coffers of our local schools, and jumpstarting the economy across this country ain't so bad either.
Do we still need fees on carbon emissions? Of course. And once we've achieved these and other similar common sense energy efficiency goals and stopped hemorrhaging energy, money and jobs, we should take up solutions like fee-and-dividend, in which polluters pay a carbon fee and the public gets a green check. But for starters, the CRE solution is where our focus should be.
This op-ed was originally published by "Other Words."
Yet crisis breeds opportunity. And in this case there could be a double opportunity. It turns out that buildings are responsible for about half of America's emissions of greenhouse gases that are heating our planet. And we're heating, lighting and air-conditioning these buildings like there's no tomorrow. And by "no tomorrow," I mean: no polar icecaps, more droughts, more pestilence, more crop failure, and more climate refugees. We're also throwing good money down the drain.
Here's the crazy truth: With a national effort to boost energy efficiency, we could actually meet the the building sector's greenhouse gas emissions targets set by the Obama Administration for the next few years, put 1.3 million workers -- 600,000 of them construction workers, 20 percent of whom are unemployed -- back to work, and dodge the next wave of mortgage meltdowns. Instead of monkeying around with complicated bills like the cap-and-trade nonsense that didn't make it through Congress, we could make a painless down payment on our emissions reductions goals, while giving some of our beleaguered businesses a tax break and saving money we're now squandering on wasted energy.
Here's how: Architects and researchers from Architecture 2030 have developed something called the "CRE Solution," which would let small business and building owners about to default on their mortgages get a multi-year tax deduction if they retrofit their buildings to make them more energy efficient. The more energy efficient the building becomes, the greater the tax break. Commercial building owners could trade or sell these tax deductions to investors, who would provide the infusion of capital over a three-year time span. The capital would be invested in putting our highly skilled construction workers back on the job, retrofitting these properties. Property values would rise while energy bills decline. With good-paying jobs, construction workers would once again pay taxes, providing a much-needed revenue stream to state and local governments. For the $6 billion in tax breaks the federal government would provide for this purpose, Uncle Sam would receive $10 billion back in net federal tax revenue, while state and local governments netted $5.25 billion.
It's a solution that should warm the hearts of both Democrats and Republicans while cooling our sweltering planet. Saving our small businesses and our local banks from going under while avoiding deficit spending ought to be hard to resist. Restoring the tax base in our shuttered downtowns, putting money back in the coffers of our local schools, and jumpstarting the economy across this country ain't so bad either.
Do we still need fees on carbon emissions? Of course. And once we've achieved these and other similar common sense energy efficiency goals and stopped hemorrhaging energy, money and jobs, we should take up solutions like fee-and-dividend, in which polluters pay a carbon fee and the public gets a green check. But for starters, the CRE solution is where our focus should be.
This op-ed was originally published by "Other Words."
Read more: Energy, Climate Change, Green Jobs, Green Living, Green Energy, Public Schools, U.S. Economy, Small Business, Subprime Mortgages, Tax Relief, Mortgage Crisis, Jobs, Business, Construction Jobs, Underwater Mortgages, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Bill McKibben On David Letterman: 'I Damn Well Expect My Political Leaders To Do Something' (VIDEO)
Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben sat down with David Letterman on the Late Show to discuss climate change and the actions desperately needed to confront it.
McKibben says that the dire environmental problems we face aren't entirely unmanageable, and we have the capabilities to provide some solutions, but there are certain groups -- like the oil and gas industry -- that don't want that kind of progress to be made. "Until we build a movement big enough to challenge them, we won't solve it," McKibben tells Letterman.
McKibben describes the environmental grassroots organization he started last year with 7 colleges kids, 350.org, and how it exploded into a worldwide movement when their "International Day Of Climate Action" succeeded with 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries.
This year, they expect to make an even larger impact on 10/10/10 for what McKibben describes as a "global work party." The organization is putting pressure on President Obama to restore solar panels to the roof of the White House, and is calling on people across the world do their part in addressing climate change in their local communities.
"If I can go to work and do something, then I damn well expect my political leaders to do something," McKibben says.
Watch the clip below, and view the full video on 350.org's YouTube page.
McKibben says that the dire environmental problems we face aren't entirely unmanageable, and we have the capabilities to provide some solutions, but there are certain groups -- like the oil and gas industry -- that don't want that kind of progress to be made. "Until we build a movement big enough to challenge them, we won't solve it," McKibben tells Letterman.
McKibben describes the environmental grassroots organization he started last year with 7 colleges kids, 350.org, and how it exploded into a worldwide movement when their "International Day Of Climate Action" succeeded with 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries.
This year, they expect to make an even larger impact on 10/10/10 for what McKibben describes as a "global work party." The organization is putting pressure on President Obama to restore solar panels to the roof of the White House, and is calling on people across the world do their part in addressing climate change in their local communities.
"If I can go to work and do something, then I damn well expect my political leaders to do something," McKibben says.
Watch the clip below, and view the full video on 350.org's YouTube page.
Read more: David Letterman Bill Mckibben, Video, Mckibben Letterman, 350.Org Late Show, Letterman Mckibben, Bill Mckibben Late Show, 350.Org Letterman, Climate Change, Late Show Bill Mckibben, Late Show 350.Org, Bill Mckibben David Letterman, Letterman 350.Org, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Hector E. Sanchez: The Latino Community's Stake in a Clean Energy Economy
The risks of climate change due to excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere are significant for everyone, and are an even greater concern for working Latino families. The majority of Latinos are concentrated in urban areas in 15 states that account for 86.5% of the total Latino population. Over 80 percent of Latinos within the United States live in counties that violated at least one federal air-pollution and our children are 2.5 times more likely to develop asthma than non-Latino children. The reduction and regulation of harmful air pollutants and heat-trapping gases is a public health imperative directly tied to the fight against climate change. The creation of a clean and renewable energy economy that protects workers and our environment must be a priority.
The impetus behind a clean and renewable energy economy is in the fact that to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, promote public health, improve environmental quality, and save energy we have to do something about where we get our energy from, how we generate it and distribute it. Fossil power plants account for nearly seventy-percent of air emissions of sulfur dioxide (the primary cause of acid rain); one-quarter of nitrogen oxide (which causes smog); forty-percent of carbon dioxide (the primary contributor to global warming); and one-third of mercury (damages nervous system development in young children).
Our community stands to gain the most by changing how energy is produced and distributed and how by-products are discarded. It's widely accepted that clean energy is beneficial to the economy, our environment, and our community. It is for all of these reasons that the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) is a co-founder and vice chair of the National Latino Coalition on Climate Change (NLCCC) and at LCLAA we officially took a next step and made the push for a clean energy economy one of our primary goals over the next years. At LCLAA's 18th National Convention in August, our membership approved a resolution which outlines clear objectives to promote healthy communities and a clean energy economy.
As communities nationwide struggle with unemployment and try to resurface from an economic recession, new clean energy and renewable power plants will provide employment for thousands of workers during their construction phase, as well as tens of thousands of permanent operations jobs on completion that cannot be outsourced.
A clean-energy economy is not only an opportunity to protect the health of our families, but also a chance to secure economic opportunities for workers across the nation. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 helped create more than 800,000 renewable energy jobs, and the renewable energy industries are developing and expanding domestic supply chains to the benefit of local communities struggling with high unemployment rates.
The clean energy industry is working with community colleges around the country to develop and implement education and training programs to enable more students to enter the clean energy workforce and benefit from good jobs, excellent benefits and community enhancement. What's more, the United States clean energy industry's safety record is steadily improving and has an indispensable role as a component of the country's energy security.
Poll after poll indicates that Americans want our leaders to take immediate action on comprehensive climate change and energy legislation. The data is clear: investing in clean-energy is not only the right thing to do but also the wisest. The $1 billion dollars we spend every day to buy oil could be invested at home, to create American jobs and to declare independence from foreign oil.
The time for clean energy is now. LCLAA is proud to be on the forefront of our nation's clean energy opportunities for economic, social, and environmental justice.
The impetus behind a clean and renewable energy economy is in the fact that to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, promote public health, improve environmental quality, and save energy we have to do something about where we get our energy from, how we generate it and distribute it. Fossil power plants account for nearly seventy-percent of air emissions of sulfur dioxide (the primary cause of acid rain); one-quarter of nitrogen oxide (which causes smog); forty-percent of carbon dioxide (the primary contributor to global warming); and one-third of mercury (damages nervous system development in young children).
Our community stands to gain the most by changing how energy is produced and distributed and how by-products are discarded. It's widely accepted that clean energy is beneficial to the economy, our environment, and our community. It is for all of these reasons that the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) is a co-founder and vice chair of the National Latino Coalition on Climate Change (NLCCC) and at LCLAA we officially took a next step and made the push for a clean energy economy one of our primary goals over the next years. At LCLAA's 18th National Convention in August, our membership approved a resolution which outlines clear objectives to promote healthy communities and a clean energy economy.
As communities nationwide struggle with unemployment and try to resurface from an economic recession, new clean energy and renewable power plants will provide employment for thousands of workers during their construction phase, as well as tens of thousands of permanent operations jobs on completion that cannot be outsourced.
A clean-energy economy is not only an opportunity to protect the health of our families, but also a chance to secure economic opportunities for workers across the nation. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 helped create more than 800,000 renewable energy jobs, and the renewable energy industries are developing and expanding domestic supply chains to the benefit of local communities struggling with high unemployment rates.
The clean energy industry is working with community colleges around the country to develop and implement education and training programs to enable more students to enter the clean energy workforce and benefit from good jobs, excellent benefits and community enhancement. What's more, the United States clean energy industry's safety record is steadily improving and has an indispensable role as a component of the country's energy security.
Poll after poll indicates that Americans want our leaders to take immediate action on comprehensive climate change and energy legislation. The data is clear: investing in clean-energy is not only the right thing to do but also the wisest. The $1 billion dollars we spend every day to buy oil could be invested at home, to create American jobs and to declare independence from foreign oil.
The time for clean energy is now. LCLAA is proud to be on the forefront of our nation's clean energy opportunities for economic, social, and environmental justice.
Read more: Latinos, Renewable Energy, Air Quality, Climate Change, Climate Legislation, Clean Energy, Lclaa, Nlccc, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
Passing Prop. 23 In California Would Send 'Terrible And False' Message To Rest Of Nation, Says EPA Official
As right-wing think tanks continue to claim that California's clean energy legislation is hampering the state's economy, EPA official Jared Blumenfeld has come forward to dispel that myth and to protect the environmental regulatory programs the state currently his in place.
At a meeting of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association on Monday, Blumenfeld urged attendees to vote against Proposition 23, a measure that would roll back climate change legislation in California until the state's unemployment rate stays at or below 5.5 percent for a year. Blumenfeld said the measure would send a "terrible and false" message to the rest of the country by linking climate change legislation with a poor economy.
"The most damaging thing that could be done nationally would be to somehow co-join these two things, that climate change in California was shown to have a negative impact on the economy," he said. "What we need to show, and many people have, is that taking action early on climate change is a good thing for the economy."
Fueling the message wars over Proposition 23, Thomas Tanton, a research fellow at the Texas oil-funded Pacific Research Institute, authored a report earlier this week claiming that AB 32 would cost California an entire year's worth of economic growth.
"Local governments, already struggling to make ends meet and provide critical services, will see these new costs as another reason to restrict vital services like police and fire protection, schools and water supply," the report says.
Tanton, who previously worked for ExxonMobil's lobbying arm in Houston, Texas, also argued on the "Redneck USA" website in 2009 that offshore drilling is environmentally friendly in that it curbs oil pollution from "natural seepage."
"New technology has greatly reduced the risk of oil spills," he wrote. "Reducing oil reservoir pressure through extraction of petroleum will decrease the amount of oil pollution from natural seepage."
Steve Maviglio of the No on Prop 23 campaign pointed out in a memo to the California press that Tanton's "independent" report on Proposition 23 entirely fails to mention the energy efficiency gains from implementing AB 32 and directly contradicts a number of other independent studies on the same issue.
"Junk economics," Maviglio wrote. "Flawed assumptions. Miscalculations. It's just another round of deception from the Texas oil companies behind Prop 23."
At a meeting of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association on Monday, Blumenfeld urged attendees to vote against Proposition 23, a measure that would roll back climate change legislation in California until the state's unemployment rate stays at or below 5.5 percent for a year. Blumenfeld said the measure would send a "terrible and false" message to the rest of the country by linking climate change legislation with a poor economy.
"The most damaging thing that could be done nationally would be to somehow co-join these two things, that climate change in California was shown to have a negative impact on the economy," he said. "What we need to show, and many people have, is that taking action early on climate change is a good thing for the economy."
Fueling the message wars over Proposition 23, Thomas Tanton, a research fellow at the Texas oil-funded Pacific Research Institute, authored a report earlier this week claiming that AB 32 would cost California an entire year's worth of economic growth.
"Local governments, already struggling to make ends meet and provide critical services, will see these new costs as another reason to restrict vital services like police and fire protection, schools and water supply," the report says.
Tanton, who previously worked for ExxonMobil's lobbying arm in Houston, Texas, also argued on the "Redneck USA" website in 2009 that offshore drilling is environmentally friendly in that it curbs oil pollution from "natural seepage."
"New technology has greatly reduced the risk of oil spills," he wrote. "Reducing oil reservoir pressure through extraction of petroleum will decrease the amount of oil pollution from natural seepage."
Steve Maviglio of the No on Prop 23 campaign pointed out in a memo to the California press that Tanton's "independent" report on Proposition 23 entirely fails to mention the energy efficiency gains from implementing AB 32 and directly contradicts a number of other independent studies on the same issue.
"Junk economics," Maviglio wrote. "Flawed assumptions. Miscalculations. It's just another round of deception from the Texas oil companies behind Prop 23."
Read more: Epa, California, Proposition 23, Climate Change, California Prop 23, Prop 23, Global Warming, Climate Change Legislation, Green News
Categories: Greener Pastures
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