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It's OUR government, Only With Sincerity TAKE. IT. BACK!
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Armed With Naïvete
Time to Stop Being Cynical About Corporate Money in Politics and Start Being Angry
By Bill McKibben
My resolution for 2012 is to be naïve -- dangerously naïve.
I’m aware that the usual recipe for political effectiveness is just the opposite: to be cynical, calculating, an insider. But if you think, as I do, that we need deep change in this country, then cynicism is a sucker’s bet. Try as hard as you can, you’re never going to be as cynical as the corporations and the harem of politicians they pay for. It’s like trying to outchant a Buddhist monastery.
Here’s my case in point, one of a thousand stories people working for social change could tell: All last fall, most of the environmental movement, including 350.org, the group I helped found, waged a fight against the planned Keystone XL pipeline that would bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Canada through the U.S. to the Gulf Coast. We waged our struggle against building it out in the open, presenting scientific argument, holding demonstrations, and attending hearings. We sent 1,253 people to jail in the largest civil disobedience action in a generation. Meanwhile, more than half a million Americans offered public comments against the pipeline, the most on any energy project in the nation’s history.
And what do you know? We won a small victory in November, when President Obama agreed that, before he could give the project a thumbs-up or -down, it needed another year of careful review. (The previous version of that review, as overseen by the State Department, had been little short of a crony capitalist farce.) Given that James Hansen, the government’s premier climate scientist, had said that tapping Canada’s tar sands for that pipeline would, in the end, essentially mean “game over for the climate,” that seemed an eminently reasonable course to follow, even if it was also eminently political.
A few weeks later, however, Congress decided it wanted to take up the question. In the process, the issue went from out in the open to behind closed doors in money-filled rooms. Within days, and after only a couple of hours of hearings that barely mentioned the key scientific questions or the dangers involved, the House of Representatives voted 234-194 to force a quicker review of the pipeline. Later, the House attached its demand to the must-pass payroll tax cut.
That was an obvious pre-election year attempt to put the president on the spot. Environmentalists are at least hopeful that the White House will now reject the permit. After all, its communications director said that the rider, by hurrying the decision, “virtually guarantees that the pipeline will not be approved.”
As important as the vote total in the House, however, was another number: within minutes of the vote, Oil Change International had calculated that the 234 Congressional representatives who voted aye had received $42 million in campaign contributions from the fossil-fuel industry; the 193 nays, $8 million.
Buying Congress
I know that cynics -- call them realists, if you prefer -- will be completely unsurprised by that. Which is precisely the problem.
We’ve reached the point where we’re unfazed by things that should shake us to the core. So, just for a moment, be naïve and consider what really happened in that vote: the people’s representatives who happen to have taken the bulk of the money from those energy companies promptly voted on behalf of their interests.
They weren’t weighing science or the national interest; they weren’t balancing present benefits against future costs. Instead of doing the work of legislators, that is, they were acting like employees. Forget the idea that they’re public servants; the truth is that, in every way that matters, they work for Exxon and its kin. They should, by rights, wear logos on their lapels like NASCAR drivers.
Go to www.tomdispatch.com for the remainder of this article.www.tomdispatch.com Armed With Naïvete Time to Stop Being Cynical About... more-
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Bill McKibben Talking Keystone XL Pipeline On Colbert Report
The glass is half full -- of carbon!-
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Over 160 Arrested in Ongoing Civil Disobedience Against Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline
Fifty-two environmental activists were arrested Monday in front of the White House as part of an ongoing protest calling on the Obama administration to reject a permit for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline project, which would deliver Canada tar sands oil to refineries in Texas, and rather focus on developing clean energy. An estimated 2,000 people have signed up to hold sit-ins and commit other acts of civil disobedience outside the White House every day for the next two weeks — 162 have already been arrested since Saturday. Also joining the protest are indigenous First Nations communities in Canada and landowners along the Keystone XL pipeline’s planned route. An editorial in Sunday’s New York Times joined in calling on the State Department to reject the pipeline, noting that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production. Meanwhile, oil industry backers of the project emphasize what they say are the economic benefits of the $7 billion proposal. As the Obama administration remains undecided whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, we speak with Bill McKibben, who joins us from Washington, D.C., where he was released Monday after spending two nights in jail. He is part of Tar Sands Action, a group of environmentalists, indigenous communities, labor unions and scientific experts calling for action to stop the project. "This is the first real civil disobedience of this scale in the environmental movement in ages," McKibben says. [includes rush transcript]
Watch the interview at the link.......... http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/23/over_160_arrested_in_ongoing_civilFifty-two environmental activists were arrested Monday in front of the White House as... more-
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Weekly Mulch: Chevron Must Pay; GOP Tries to Gut the EPA
By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
An Ecuadorian judge ordered Chevron this week to pay $8.6 billion in damages for polluting the Amazon rainforest from 1964 until 1990. The payout is the second largest ever in an environmental case, with only the damages BP agreed to pay in the wake of last summer’s Deepwater Horizon spill being higher.
Environmental lawyers and advocates hailed the case as a landmark victory, but as Rebecca Tarbotton reports at AlterNet, Chevron is still planning to fight the case.
“In fact, the oil giant has repeatedly refused to pay for a clean up even if ordered to by the court,” she writes. “In one chilling statement, Charles A. James, Chevron’s vice president and general counsel, told law students at UC Berkeley that Chevron would fight ‘until hell freezes over, and then skate on the ice.’”
The Cost of Doing Business
Chevron can continue to fight the case because it’s cheaper for them to fund their lawyers than to cough up billions. Like so many environmental issues, this one comes down to money, which environmentally destructive corporations always seem to have and activists, regulators, and victims simply don’t.
In Washington, the newly empowered Republican Party is doing its darndest to make sure that remains the case. It’s budget season, and the Environmental Protection Agency is one of the prime targets for cutting in Republicans’ budget proposals. Kate Sheppard reports at Mother Jones that House Republicans are not only trying to take away $3 billion from the agency, but also are pushing to bar the EPA from regulating carbon or other greenhouse gasses. Putting this in context, Sheppard writes:
The National Wildlife Federation says the cuts amount to a “sneak attack” on existing environmental laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, because they would make it basically impossible for the EPA to do its job. The huge cut—the biggest in 30 years—”would jeopardize the water we drink and air we breathe, endangering the health and well-being of all Americans,” Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters, said Monday.
The need for green
But environmentalists have their backers, too. At Grist, Bill McKibben, the author and climate activist who co-founded the climate group 350.org, has an interesting look at how the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign, led by Bruce Nilles, banded together with other environmental activists to successfully shut down proposals for coal-fired power plants across the country. One of the keys, of course, was money:
A consortium of foundations led by the Rockefeller Family Fund helped provide not only resources for the fight but crucial coordination. By the summer of 2005, RFF’s Larry Shapiro, David Wooley from The Energy Foundation, Nilles, and others formed a loosely organized “coal cadre.”
The coordination was crucial not only for the advocacy groups involved, which each have different strengths and geographical bases, but for the money men as well:
“I first went to Florida in 2005 to meet with several groups fighting coal plants,” said Shapiro. “I thought I would figure out who we could give $50,000 to. After my trip, I realized it wasn’t a $50,000 project — it was a million-dollar project. Over time, the Energy Foundation and others got into the game, so we ended up with some real money.”
In the end, McKibben reports, RFF gathered together, from its own pockets and from other foundations, $2.8 million.
Windfall
On top of the type of advocacy work that McKibben details, there’s another reason why more communities and companies are moving away from coal-fired power plants: they have a choice. Plants fueled with natural gas are a popular alternative, but as Gina Marie Cheeseman writes at Care2, in some areas, onshore wind power can compete with coal on costs.
“In some areas of the U.S., Brazil, Mexico and Sweden, the cost of wind power ($68 per megawatt hour) generated electricity is competitive with coal-fired power ($67 a megawatt hour),” Cheeseman writes. Wind power is also, she notes, competitive with natural gas, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
Close to home
These sort of adjustments make it easier for consumers to make sustainable choices. And in the end, personal choices do impact the amount of carbon humanity is spewing into the atmosphere. As two recent European studies showed, men make choices that generally produce more carbon emissions than women, Julio Godoy reported for Inter Press Service.
One study focused on France, the other on Germany, Greece, Norway, and Sweden. The second study, conducted by researchers at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, found that men ate more meat, drank more processed beverages, and drove more frequently and for longer distances. Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, one of the study’s authors, has argued that their results apply more broadly, too.
“These differences are not specific to the four countries studied, but are generalised across the European Union and have little to do with the different professional activities of men and women,” she told Godoy.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger An Ecuadorian judge ordered Chevron... more-
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Weekly Mulch: For Cancun Climate Summit, Activists Consider the Long View
by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
A year ago, it seemed possible—likely, even—that President Barack Obama would sweep into the international negotiations on climate change at Copenhagen and make serious progress on the tangle of issues at stake. The reality was quite different. This year, the expectations for the United Nations Climate Conference in Cancun are less exuberant.
The conference will be held from Nov 29 to Dec 10 and the same issues from 2009 are up for debate. Countries like the United States, Britain, and Germany are still contributing an outsize share of carbon to the atmosphere. Countries like India and China are still rapidly increasing their own carbon output. And countries like Bangladesh, Tuvalu, and Bolivia are still bearing an unfair share of the environmental impacts brought on by climate change.
A very different set of expectations are building in the climate movement this year. If last year was about moving forward as fast as possible, this year, climate activists seem resigned to the idea that politicians just aren’t getting it. Change, when it comes, will have to be be built on a popular movement, not a political negotiation.
Climate change from the bottom up
Last year, climate activists put their faith in international leaders to make progress. This year, they believe that it’s up to them, as outside actors, to marshal a grassroots movement and pressure their leaders towards decreased carbon emissions.
“There’s a recognition that the insider strategy to push from inside the Beltway to impact what will happen in DC, or what will happen in Cancun has really not succeeded,” Rose Braz, climate campaign director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Making Contact’s Andrew Stelzer. “What we’re doing in conjunction with a number of groups across the country and across the world is really build the type of movement that will change what happens in Cancun, what changes what happens in DC from the bottom up.” (This entire episode of Making Contact is dedicated to new approaches to climate change, at Cancun and beyond, and is worth a listen.)
Fighting the indolence of capitalists
Here’s one example of this new strategy: as Zachary Shahan writes at Change.org, La Via Campesina, an international peasant movement, is coordinating a march that will begin in San Luis Potosi, Guadalajara, Acapulco, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, then converge on Cancun. The march will include “thousands of farmers, indigenous people, rural villagers, urbanites, and more,” Shahan reports.
After they arrive in Cancun, the organizers are planning an “Alternative Global Forum for Life and Environmental and Social Justice” for the final days of the negotiations, which they say will be a mass mobilisation of peasants, indigenous and social movements. The action extends far beyond Cancun, though. Actually, they are organizing thousands of Cancuns around the world on this day to denounce what they see as false climate solutions.
These actions echo the strategy that environmentalist and author Bill McKibben and other climate leaders are promoting to push for climate change policies in the U.S. All this talk about building momentum from the bottom up, from populations, means that anyone looking for change is now looking years into the future.
The U.S. is not leading the way
Of course, ultimately, politicians will need to agree on a couple of standards. In particular, how much carbon each country should be emitting and how fast each country should power down its current emission levels. The U.S. is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to agreement on these questions, especially due to the recent mid-term elections. As Claudia Salerno, Venezuela’s lead climate change negotiator wrote at AlterNet:
Unlike what many suggest, China is not the problem. China, along with India and others, have made considerable commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are already working to realize them. Other developing countries have done the same, although we only generate a virtual drop in the bucket of global carbon emissions. The key player missing here is the U.S.
China, the U.S. and Clean Coal
The most interesting collaborations on clean energy, however, aren’t happening around the negotiating table. This week, The Atlantic’s James Fallows wrote a long piece about the work that the U.S. and China are doing together on clean coal technology, the magic cure-all to the world’s energy ills.
In the piece, Fallows recognizes what environmentalists have long argued: coal is bad for the environment and for coal-mining communities. But, unlike clean energy advocates who want to phase coal out of the energy equation, Fallows argues that coal must play a part in the world’s energy future. Therefore, we must find a way to burn it without releasing clouds of carbon into the atmosphere. That’s where clean coal technology comes in. So far, however, researchers have had little luck minimizing coal’s carbon output.
A few progressive writers weighed in on Fallows’ piece: Grist’s David Roberts thought Fallows was too hard on the anti-coal camp, while Campus Progress’ Sara Rubin argued that the piece did a good job of grappling with the reality of clean energy economics. And Mother Jones‘ Kevin Drum had one very clear criticism—that the piece skated over the question of progress on carbon capture, the one real way to dramatically reduce carbon pollution from coal. He wrote:
All the collaboration sounds wonderful, and even a 20% or 30% improvement in coal technology would be welcome. But that said, sequestration is the holy grail and I still don’t know if the Chinese are doing anything more on that front than the rest of us.
On every front, then, the view on climate change is now a long one.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger A year ago, it seemed... more-
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Weekly Mulch: Would You Eat Bugs to Fight Climate Change?
By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
Maybe it’s time for environmentalists prioritize do-it-yourself climate fixes instead of looking to politicians. There are all sorts of options, including, for those dedicated enough, switching to an insect-based diet, as Change.org reports.
But in the private sector, inventors, corporations, and small businesses — farmers in particular — are finding more palatable ways to scale down their environmental impact. In short, politicians aren’t the only ones with the power to make high-profile statements and strong choices on climate change.
No solar on the White House
Environmental crusader Bill McKibben had already given up on Congress; now the White House has disappointed, too. McKibben and other leaders in the climate change movement are eschewing lobbying on legislation in favor of pushing for more visible, direct action on climate issues. To that end, McKibben, along with three students, asked the White House last week to reinstall one of Jimmy Carter’s solar panels on the roof. The answer was no.
McKibben describes the Obama administration’s response to his request as “uncool…Asked to do something easy and symbolic to rekindle a little of the joy that had turned out so many of us as volunteers for Obama in 2008, they point blank said no,” according to Truthout.
The administration officials that they met with, though, wanted to make sure that the climate activists knew something was being done to improve the country’s environment. They touted the president’s initiative to green the federal government—federal buildings in particular. One official, McKibben says, spoke more than once about a Portland, Ore., building that would soon have a “green curtain,” likely a hanging garden.
It’s not that McKibben disapproved. “Actually, it’s kind of great,” he wrote. “Still, I doubt many people are going to build their own vegetated fins.”
The talking cure
That’s the ultimate question: What will people build on their own? Solar panels could be one answer, although they haven’t quite caught on yet. There are all sorts of technologies, though, that could help us minimize our carbon footprint. Grist’s Ashley Braun checks out one new idea: drawing energy from sound waves:
Using that standby found in sunscreen, zinc oxide, to turn sound waves into electricity, these scientists have heard the bells of success starting to ring in their ears. Similar to other technologies aimed at harvesting energy from walking or dancing, this concept could also turn the roar of traffic into the hum of low-carbon electrons. How sweet the sound of renewable energy.
Scientists are considering using this technology in cell phones, creating, ideally, a device that would never have be plugged in, assuming, of course, that its owner used it frequently enough, and used it as a phone, rather than an e-mail/web-surfing/GPS device.
Go private?
Another option for climate reformers could be focusing on the private sector. Corporations have gotten the message that consumers buy green products, and more are churning out sustainable, climate-friendly offerings.
Care2’s Emily Logan points to Nestle, eBay, and Sunny D as three companies that have heard the green gospel. Nestle is investing in sustainable coffee; eBay is pushing out reusable shipping boxes; and Sunny D, the beverage company, met its zero-waste goal three years ahead of schedule.
“Of course, like most large corporations who are making efforts toward sustainability, some of these companies have a long way to go,” Logan writes. “But giving credit where credit is due is increasingly important when it comes to the environment.”
You are what you eat
The farm sector is one private industry that deserves more scrutiny and pressure. Recall that agriculture interests ran one of the most successful campaigns to be exempted from the cap-and-trade bill, when it was working its way through the House. Even among liberals, the industry has its defenders: local, sustainable agriculture just won’t work to feed the masses, the argument goes.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that we still haven’t seen how large sustainable farms can grow. Take Joel Salatin, the crusading farmer made famous by Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Salatin has been running a successful operation, Polyface Farm, for years while relying on organic and sustainable methods. As David E. Gumport reports at Chelsea Green, Salatin’s farm has only grown:
Standing in front of a group of about 50 romping pigs, [Salatin] proudly revealed that Polyface has hit the the $2 million annual sales level, while sticking to Salatin’s policy of not shipping food outside a 100-mile radius. The effect, he says, has been to strengthen local businesses–everything from a local breakfast diner serving visitors to his farm to local feed and supply companies.
Salatin is convinced his methods can be used to feed the entire population. What’s certain is that there is room for more of this sort of growth in the agricultural system.
Here, too, would-be reformers run back into politicians: Salatin’s food safety practices are not exactly FDA-approved, and to reseed his methods elsewhere, the government would need to relax safety standards for smaller, alternatives operations.
But for now, this sort of effort, and others outside of Washington seem to be making the largest impact.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger Maybe it’s time for... more-
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Weekly Mulch: Want to Combat Climate Change? Ignore Congress.
by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Congress comes back into session next week, but environmentalists and climate change activists have given up on the legislature. Instead, activists are planning to spur popular concern about these issues, until calls for change are so loud that Congress must listen.
Today, climate change reformer Bill McKibben will ask President Obama to reinstall a solar panel that first graced the White House roof during the Carter presidency. In the months to come, advocates hope to lead more radical direct actions that force more Americans to confront the issues at hand—and hopefully pressure change from the bottom up.
For the past two years, Congress has flirted with action on climate change, only to shy away time and time again. Environmental groups have spent record sums on courting lawmakers to no avail. McKibben and other environmental advocates are now convinced that they must bypass elected representatives and instead work to convince constituents that the country must do something to address global warming.
Direct action
McKibben, the environmental author who now leads an international climate campaign called 350.0rg, along with Phil Radford and Becky Tarbotton, both heads of environmental groups, wrote to potential allies against the energy industry in Yes! Magazine.
“We’re not going to beat them by asking nicely,” the three wrote. “We’re going to have to build a movement, a movement much bigger than anything we’ve built before, a movement that can push back against the financial power of Big Oil and Big Coal. That movement is our only real hope, and we need your help to plot its future.”
These three leaders see a greater role for direct action in pushing America to scale down its energy use, move towards renewable energy, and abandon its dirty energy habits. As civil rights and suffrage advocates suggest, to move the populace, ”to effectively communicate both to the general public and to our leaders the urgency of the crisis,” climate activists must “put our bodies on the line.”
Those for who have suggestions on how to move forward can contact these leaders at climate.ideas@gmail.com. They hope to draw on submitted ideas for actions in the spring.
Clean Energy Victory Bonds
Those less inclined to take to the streets still have options for supporting clean energy. The Nation’s Peter Rothberg suggests supporting the idea of Clean Energy Victory Bonds (CEVB), as conceived by the group Green America. This idea requires Congress to pass legislation, but “it seems like a no-brainer,” Rothberg writes.
“According to Green America, CEVBs would benefit the economy, the environment, and investors, by uniting individuals, communities, and companies to help finance the rapid deployment of renewable energy projects and energy efficiency upgrades,” he says. Other benefits: it’s a safe and potentially flexible investment, and the bonds could help create 1.7 million jobs.
Easy to ignore climate change
At this point, the push for direct action almost seems like a more sensible investment of political energy, at least. Climate change has dropped in importance for most Americans, so it’s easy for Congress to ignore the problem. As Kevin Drum explains for Mother Jones, “The high-water mark for public opinion on climate change was in 2005 or so, and we’ve been losing ground ever since. Until we get it back, Congress is going to continue to do nothing.”
It appears that, without broad popular pressure for some sort of action, Congress feels comfortable leaving aside even policy proposals that the majority of Americans support. One of the sticking points of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) energy bill has been a renewable energy standard (RES), a requirement that the country will increase the percentage of its power generated from clean energy sources within a certain time frame.
R-e-s-p-e-c-t
The idea is popular, as David Roberts writes at Grist, citing a Pew/National Journal poll showing that 78 percent of all respondents and 70% of Republicans favored an RES.
“Not many policies get this kind of bipartisan support these days,” Roberts writes. “People are fond of saying energy should be a bipartisan issue and surely reasonable people can agree, etc. Well, here it is, happening.”
What’s more, an RES would go a long way towards spurring private sector investment in clean energy. Lew Hay, the CEO of NextEra, a major clean energy company, has said that an RES would spur his company to invest billions of additional dollars in wind and solar development.
East vs. Midwest
Passing an RES would also mean pushing the renewable energy industry to hash out a viable infrastructure for a clean energy future.
“As the nation looks to move to a renewable energy standard, a lot of that really comes down to how to meet the energy needs of the East coast,” Jamie Karnik, the communications manager at a wind advocacy group, told The Washington Independent’s Andrew Restuccia. “Certainly people who are building wind in the Midwest, have their eye on the eastern market.”
The problem is, Restuccia reports, that entrepreneurs on the East Coast want a chance to develop off-shore wind farms. Ultimately, the country will need new electric lines to transport energy created from clean sources, but right now, competition among clean energy manufacturers could delay the construction of those lines.
Maybe climate change activists can come up with some ideas to push the clean energy industry along faster, too.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger Congress comes back into session next... more-
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Weekly Mulch: Cochacamba Summit to Combat Climate Change Innovatively
By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user swperman under Creative Commons LicenseOn Monday, climate activists, nonprofit leaders, and governmental officials will gather in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to look for new ideas to address climate change. The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, organized by leading social organizations like 350.0rg, “will advocate the right to “live well,” as opposed to the economic principle of uninterrupted growth,” as Inter Press Service explains. In the absence of real leadership from the world’s governments, the conferees at Cochabamba are looking for solutions “committed to the rights of people and environment.”
The United States certainly isn’t stepping up. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), along with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), were supposed to release their climate legislation next week, just in time for Earth Day. But yesterday the word came down that the release was being pushed back by another week, to April 26.
No matter when it finally arrives, like other recent environmental initiatives, this round of climate legislation falls short. Even if Congress manages to pass a bill—and there’s no guarantee—it will likely leave plenty of room for the coal, oil, and gas industries to continue pouring carbon into the atmosphere. And a wimpy effort from Congress will hinder international work to limit carbon emissions: As a prime polluter, the United States needs to put forward a real plan for change.
Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman
Although the text of the bill is not public yet, it is likely that this attempt at Senate climate legislation will limit carbon emissions only among utilities and gradually phase in other sectors of the economy. On Democracy Now!, environmentalist Bill McKibben called the bill “an incredible accumulation of gifts to all the energy industries, in the hopes that they won’t provide too much opposition to what’s a very weak greenhouse gas pact.”
Climate reform began with a leaner idea, a cap-and-trade system that limited carbon emissions while encouraging innovation. The Nation’s editors document the transformation of climate reform from the Obama administration’s original cap-and-trade proposal to the behemoth tangle it has become. Both the House and the Senate fattened their versions of climate legislation with treats for the energy industry. The Senate’s new idea to gradually expand emissions reduction through a bundle of energy bills only opens up more opportunities for influence.
“Some of these pieces of legislation may pass; others may fail; all are ripe for gaming by corporate lobbies,” the editors write. “Kerry-Lieberman-Graham would also skew subsidies in the wrong direction, throwing billions at “clean coal” technologies, nuclear power plants and offshore drilling, a questionable gambit favored by the Obama administration to garner support from Republicans and representatives from oil-, gas- and coal-producing states.”
Even with these goodies, the climate bill may not pass. The Washington Independent rounds up the D.C. players to watch as the next fight unfolds, including the Chamber of Commerce’s William Kovacs and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Lisa Jackson.
Green leftovers
In theory, the climate bill should not be America’s only ride to a greener future. But the other vehicles for green change choked during start-up. The EPA was going to regulate carbon emissions, but Congress has reared against that effort. The climate bill could snatch away that power from the executive branch.
If companies won’t limit their carbon emissions, individuals still have the option for action. But as Heather Rogers explains in The Nation, carbon offsets, one of the most popular mechanisms for minimizing carbon use “are a dubious enterprise.”
“To begin with, they don’t cut greenhouse gases immediately but only over the life of a project, and that can take years–some tree-planting efforts need a century to do the work. And a project is effective only if it’s successfully followed through; trees can die or get cut down, unforeseen ecological destruction might be triggered or the projects may simply go unbuilt.”
The pull of carbon offsets should diminish as energy use in buildings, cars, food, and flights gains in efficiency and uses less carbon. But if the green jobs sector is any indication, that revolution has been slow in coming. ColorLines reports that “there are no firm numbers on how many newly trained green workers are still jobless. But stories abound of programs that turn out workers with new, promising skills—in solar panel installation and weatherization, in places like Seattle and Chicago—and who nonetheless can’t find jobs.”
Cochabamba’s unique approach
These failures and setbacks don’t just affect Americans; they keep our leaders from negotiating with their international peers. The United Nations led a conference last winter in Copenhagen that promised to hash out carbon limits, yet produced no binding agreement. This coming winter, the UN will try again in Mexico, but if the United States shows up with the scant plan put forward by Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman, those negotiations have little promise.
In Cochabamba, leaders from inside and outside the government will attend a summit to discuss the future of climate change action. In The Progressive, Teo Ballve writes that,
“One of the bolder ideas is the creation of a global climate justice tribunal that could serve as an enforcement mechanism. And conference participants are already working on a “Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights” meant to parallel the U.N.’s landmark Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.”
With U.S. government action paling, it might take outside ideas like these to revitalize the push towards a green future. By the end of next week, we’ll see if the Cochabamba group made any more progress than the bigwigs at Copenhagen.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger Image courtesy of Flickr user swperman... more-
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Why I'm not an activist: and finding the "YES!" in 350.org
Honestly, I wanted to to nothing more than put in my winter garden this weekend, but atlas, the largest climate event in history was taking place, so I hopped on my bike and coerced a friend to take the biodiesel ferry with me across the bay so we could take part in the 350 event in San Francisco.
OK, so here's the dealio: It was an amazing event that ignited the imaginations of people around the world to get involved with climate change. When ever you are feeling lo, head on over to the 350.org flickr site and bask in the inspiration.
The strength of 350 is a clear, focused, informed message that spoke to people who might not self identify as activists.
The message: There is a problem: we have too much CO2 in the air to live in a healthy way on the planet.
A solution: Send a message to our negotiators at Copenhagen to take decisive action.
The variety of people who showed up at the SF event was a testament to their ability to bring together people across platforms who are interested in protecting the environment. Code pink was there, Green Peace was there, dogs who eat vegan were there, polar bears where there.
Umbra of Grist caught up with founder of Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org at the NYC event in Times Square.
What I found at the event in San Francisco was the mixing of old world of activism that points and yells at the problem and says, "broken!" and the new world activism that only has time to say, "here is a solution." The speakers were there to keep us entertained and informed while we formed a big 350 (I was in the 3). But honestly, I couldn't hear most of them. It's not that they weren't speaking loud enough. They were, after all, yelling. They were yelling at me. I don't like being yelled at. There is a reason why activists yell, for many years they had to because no one was listening. They had to do radical things to capture the attention of the media and the public.
Now I should confess that I don't like the word activist. Its a bit like "feminist" somewhere in the mix of life, the media, and society the term took on a "dirty" and negative association.
And while some of my dearest friends and people I deeply respect self identify as activists, and while many of my dearest friends even associate me as an activist (I show all the tell tale signs: I have gone to marches, I've contacted my political leaders, I over share on facebook about environmental news) when I try on the identity, it feels more like rusty stifling armor than a well fit glove.
Here is when I dropped the identity forever: When living in Virginia a few years back I drove up to New York City to attend what was at that point the largest protest on the planet against the Iraq war. It was an an amazing event. There were so many of us marching that the police took down the barricades. It was...peaceful, and there were people of every race and age present.
The next day I looked in the newspapers and nothing was there. A two line report in the back page of the New York Times reporting that some hoodlums had jumped on cars. All of a sudden I felt sick to my stomach. Something was wrong. Very wrong. And I couldn't put my finger on it.
That's when I found the following quote by Mother Teresa:
I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there.
What she said resonated. I haven't attended anti-rally as a participant since. (I have attended in the role of the media, because I believe they are important stories to tell.) But I wanted my personal participation, my voice, and energy to go toward events and organizations that are focused on finding the solutions.
With that said, I attended the 350 rally as a participant because I heard a "yes" in their message. Yes to a clear goal. Yes to our political leaders making decisions that will create policy that will think seven generation ahead..and yes to that it will take creativity and fun to engage the world in this issue.
The interview with 350 I posted on Current provoked an interesting discussion and criticism about 350 not gathering people to take more concrete action, and Janforgore questioned why didn't they surround 350 power plants. I think you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. 350 had a mission: raise public awareness, show political leaders that people around the world are engaged with the issue and will support them. Mission accomplished. What you choose to do at that pool of information is up to you.
Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from a sample speech that the 350 organizers gave to their organizers around the world to read:
We rally around the number 350 because it is the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and so 350 defines what is necessary for the earth to continue as we have known it. We have relied upon the patterns of rainfall and ice and sea level that have marked this world for the ten thousand years of human civilization. If these patterns shift dramatically, the first victims will be the people living closest to the edge--people who have already begun to suffer from drought, from flood, from the spread of disease. We will not stand by and let that happen.
The second thing I'd like to say today is that you're part of something that matters. The climate crisis is such a huge issue that it's always hard to see what difference any of us can make--especially when our foes include some of the most powerful entities on earth. We can't match them in money, but they can't match us in numbers, in spirit, in dedication. And we have a secret weapon, which is the power that comes from scientific observation. Today we are taking that number 350 and making it the centerpiece of the debate over climate. We are reminding the world's leaders that they can give all the speeches they want, but that won't change the way that physics and chemistry operate. We are standing up for scientific reality, and in so doing reframing this debate in a way that will echo through the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen and beyond.
And the last thing I would like to say today is more personal: it's a great privilege to be able to get out of bed in the morning and think to yourself, "There's nothing more important than this that I could be doing today." Take a moment to think about the amazing fact that across the globe today, people are doing just what you're doing, hoping just what you're hoping, believing just what you're believing--and together we are making these deeds, hopes, and beliefs add up to something truly transformational.
Related content:
350: Will THIS event event save the world?
The fresh face of the modern day farmer (video)
The no bulls**t report from Bangkok about the climate talks (video)
Hilarity continues in the name of climate change: hello survivaball
Honestly, I wanted to to nothing more than put in my winter garden this weekend, but... more-
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Green News Alert: Inspiration, Information, and Hilarity
I received an email this morning from my dear friend Julie that ended with, "I want to know who has the hope, the plan, the way out. If there is one. What is it?"
It's the question on the tip of many of our tongues these days. So in honor of Julie, a little round up of news that promises to inform, inspire, and make you laugh out loud at least once.
A video interview with the founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben, and the organizers behind what is going to be the largest (and by far the most colorful) climate event in history this weekend: (awesome pictures from around the world)
If you want to skip my commentary and just cut to the video:
If you are needing a sobering dose of wisdom from an elder: you may want to see Alaska Elder Sarah James' talk from this past weekend at Bioneers.
If you haven't seen the Yes Men's latest storm on Washington, you are missing out. Mostly because there is a man dressed in a huge white survavball who rolls down the capitol steps howling as he goes (Iaugh out loud funny).
If you are looking for another way into understanding Copenhagen, then allow me to introduce you to the guys who are affectionately called "climate stawkers"
Now if you are needing to rekindle the fire in your belly, enjoy meeting these 15-22 year old youth who were awarded the Brower Youth Award for climate activism last night
Enjoy, and by all means, tell us what inspires you~I received an email this morning from my dear friend Julie that ended with, "I... more-
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So...Will THIS event save the world? 350.org makes change 1 degree at a time
It's the question of the hour, right? Can we save the world from the destruction that the scientists are predicting?
350.org has coordinated the largest climate event in history to demonstrate that people around the world want to live in a safe and clean environment. But it's not your grandma's brand of protest. Actually...there will be no protest. No picketing. No parades. No police barricades. Just millions of people from around the world making images of 350.
When 350.org founder Bill McKibben says he is, "...tired of losing and it's fun to take the bad guys down a peg or two..." he wasn't kidding. McKibben skyped in to speak with Current Green from his home in Vermont while 350.org staffer May Boeve and climate activist/bike rider Adam Taylor of Ride 350 came in to our online studio to discuss what went into organizing what is predicted to be the largest climate event in history.
If 350.org has anything to do it with it, yes we can save the world from the predicted effects of climate change. The organization was made for the sole purpose of insuring that everyone knows the following fact:
350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide—measured in "Parts Per Million" in our atmosphere. 350 PPM—it's the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.
The bad news: we have already surpassed 350.
The good news: People around the world are organizing to put pressure on their climate negotiators who are preparing their stance for Copenhagen.
The current stats on the event (which get larger by the minute): 162 countries are signed up to participate (including Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, Honduras...) and more than 3,700 actions/events.
Are you participating? Show us your pictures! Tell us your story!
Related links:
Save the planet with pranks, tutus, and acts of civil disobedience (video)
The no bull shit youth report from Bangkok (video)
The 350 group on Current
How to green your campus (video)It's the question of the hour, right? Can we save the world from the destruction... more-
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Questions for 350.org? Pictures you want to share??
Just wanted to let you know that co-founder, and Director, of 350.org, Bill McKibben, is going to Skype in to our online studio for an interview tomorrow. Along with Bill, we will also have May and Adam from 350.org’s Berkeley office in our studio to talk about the upcoming International Day of Climate Action happening on October 24, 2009, an event that may very well be one of the largest world wide events to take place in the name of climate change yet!
Check out the blog post for more details~ but of course: we want to know if you are participating, and if so..where are your photos?? Clip them below (and to 350.org of course) and we will consider them for our online video interview with the 350 team. And of course: if you have questions about the day, about 350, or about climate activism: ask away!!
My question: Which photos will be shown at times square on October 24th?Just wanted to let you know that co-founder, and Director, of 350.org, Bill McKibben,... more-
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Let's Get Our Carbon Down! Sing along with Marvin Gaye - Mercy, Mercy Me!
From Common Dreams/The Nation
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/11-6
Double Click on the YouTube Image above, it will take you directly to the youtube video..
"Where did all the blue sky go?
Poison is the wind that blows
From the north, east, south and sea..."
Marvin Gaye - Mercy, Mercy Me (track also previously posted by Janforgore:http://current.com/items/88838094_mercy-mercy-me.htm)
Published on Friday, September 11, 2009 by The Nation
People, Let's Get Our Carbon Down
by Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. & Bill McKibben
Here's a question whose answer might surprise you: what American songwriter penned the most-listened-to piece of environmental protest music of all time? Somebody with an acoustic guitar? John Denver?
The answer, almost certainly, is Marvin Gaye. "Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)" appeared on What's Going On, the album he released in May 1971, which went straight to the top of the charts, even though Motown boss Berry Gordy thought it was too political to sell. "I realized that I had to put my own fantasies behind me if I wanted to write songs that would reach the souls of people. I wanted them to take a look at what was happening in the world," Gaye said later. The Vietnam War, protested in the album's title song, was part of that story, and so was drug abuse--and so was "oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas," and "radiation in the ground and in the sky," and "fish full of mercury."
Where did all the blue sky go?
Poison is the wind that blows
From the north, east, south and sea
For a brief moment after the first Earth Day, it made perfect sense for the civil rights and environmental movements to be singing the same tune. Tragically, those movements soon diverged--diverged so far that some people still find it odd that activists like ourselves are working side by side again on issues like global warming and poverty. But it makes perfect sense--there is no threat to social justice greater than the breakdown of our earth's physical systems, and no way to ease that threat without rearranging power, both in America and around the world.
Think for a minute about Hurricane Katrina: those high winds blew in a lot of truths. For one, we've amped up nature in a dangerous way: scientists now expect ever stronger storms to rake our shores. For another, poverty puts some people at far more risk than others. No one will ever forget those pictures of the Lower Ninth Ward when the levee broke, but in almost every city on earth the poorest people live in the equivalent of the Lower Ninth. It's not that everyone won't eventually be affected by climate change--plenty of middle-class white people lost their homes when the storm rampaged across Louisiana and Mississippi. But almost everywhere, rich people occupy higher ground, and the places that flood belong to those who can't afford better. As the oceans rise throughout this century, those are the places that will turn wet and swampy first--substandard housing in the twenty-first century still means lead paint and asthma, but now it means you better cut a hole in the attic so you can get on the roof and wait for the helicopter.
And of course there are whole nations built on low ground--places like Bangladesh, which may see a fifth of its land under water. In this decade we've watched diseases like dengue fever spread through the poorest parts of the poor world, driven by the mosquitoes that like the warm, wet world we're building. We've watched blocs of nations--low-lying islands, for instance--turn to the UN to demand action to ensure their very survival. Almost without exception, these endangered places are filled with people of color, and with poor people."
continuing....From Common Dreams/The Nation http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/11-6 Double... more-
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Colbert declares, "It's time for end of the world sex!"
"Phew! Last night 350.org director Bill McKibben went head-to-head with Stephen Colbert--the conservative (and totally fictional) anchorman who hosts the nightly show The Colbert Report.
Everyone was a bit nervous and excited to see Bill get raked over the coals--many environmentalists have withered under Colbert's steely gaze and acerbic wit. We're happy to say that Bill held his own, and emerged from the interview with his dignity intact. If you missed it last night (or if you just want to re-live the glory) check out the video...""Phew! Last night 350.org director Bill McKibben went head-to-head with Stephen... more -
Michael Roston - Newsbroke – Didn’t the Secret Service used to arrest people that got near the Presi
"Phew! Last night 350.org director Bill McKibben went head-to-head with Stephen Colbert--the conservative (and totally fictional) anchorman who hosts the nightly show The Colbert Report.
Everyone was a bit nervous and excited to see Bill get raked over the coals--many environmentalists have withered under Colbert's steely gaze and acerbic wit. We're happy to say that Bill held his own, and emerged from the interview with his dignity intact. If you missed it last night (or if you just want to re-live the glory) check out the video...""Phew! Last night 350.org director Bill McKibben went head-to-head with Stephen... more-
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Bill McKibben: Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million
Without an immediate ban on all coal fired plants unless they capture carbon, the closing of all old plants that pollute, and a tax on carbon large enough to push economies off coal, oil, and gas, 350PPM, the number discussed in this article by James Hanson is a number we will all remember with great regret. What are we doing? Where is the global urgency even after Bali that didn't even give us caps on carbon or a roadmap? Just a shallow promise to a road map? How many tears will we weep for our children living in a world of our making that could have been so much better and so different if we only saw past our own selfish needs? Without an immediate ban on all coal fired plants unless they capture carbon, the... more-
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Global Warming Guy
Produced and presented by the Coastal Conservation League, Global Warming Guy is a lighthearted look at the serious issue of global climate change. We hope that online viewership of this video will lead people to explore the information and links on the website, and, in turn, better-inform the debate on this issue, both here in South Carolina and beyond.Produced and presented by the Coastal Conservation League, Global Warming Guy is a... more-
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