Ban-Ki Moon Wants Religious Leaders to Join Fight Against Climate Change

by Mike Smith

Published November 06, 2009 @ 07:41AM PT

Visiting Windsor Castle in England, UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon explained to the gathered crowd of religious leaders from a wide variety of faiths that "you are the leaders who can have the largest, widest and deepest reach." Running half of the world's schools, and being among the world's biggest investors and opinion makers, he explained that religious leaders have the opportunity to make a huge difference in combating climate change, around the world, and in every culture.

The Church of England is already promising to cut carbon emissions by 42 percent by 2020, whilst there are Muslim initiatives to make the Hajj pilgrimage more environmentally sound. But perhaps we're not looking sufficiently far into the nature of belief. A man was recently sacked from his job in England due to his beliefs about climate change. He appealed and will now be allowed to contest the sacking on grounds of discrimination due to “religion, religious belief or philosophical belief.” Religion leaders can help fight climate change and would be a huge ally to have onside, but many already have the feel strongly enough in their beliefs to fight it themselves, even when it puts their job and livelihood at risk.

Photo Credit: Ingsoc

Global Warming? The Writing's on the Seawall

by Katherine Gustafson

categories: Fossil Energy, Oceans, Water, Wildlife & Biodiversity

Published November 06, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT

It's getting harder and harder to ignore climate change. Now our favorite ocean creatures are confirming what we already know. As the water gets warmer, the fish are moving away, faaar away, to find cooler habitats.

Researchers at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have published a new study that reveals that half of 36 fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean have shifted their ranges to the north over the last forty years, reports Science Daily. Some of the stocks, many of which are commerically fished, have all but vanished from U.S. waters.

Their research, which appears in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, illustrates how changing coastal and ocean temperatures are altering the behavior of fish species that range from North Carolina to the Canadian border. The species in question include Atlantic cod, haddock, yellowtail, winter flounder, spiny dogfish, Atlantic herring and more obscure species like blackbelly rosefish.

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Kerry-Boxer Climate Bill Passes Committee Over Republican Boycott

by Katherine Gustafson

Published November 05, 2009 @ 11:11AM PT

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) teamed up to author a climate bill that today passed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee 11-1 over a boycott by Republicans, reports the Washington Post. The bill would impose a mandatory reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. Companies would buy pollution credits, the number of which will reduce over time, or trade permits with other polluters.

Committee Republicans didn't show up to vote, objecting on the grounds that the Environmental Protection Agency hasn't done a thorough enough economic analysis of the bill. Such an analysis, however, would have run up a price tag of $350,000 for taxpayers to shoulder.

That cost is a little steep for a piece of legislation that Kerry and Boxer have always held would just serve as an opening salvo in a long struggle to find agreement on workable legislation. "I have no pretensions, and neither does Barbara, that this will be the final product," Kerry told the New York Times in September. "It is a starting point."

To try getting further than just a step or two off the starting blocks, though, Kerry is working with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) to come up with a compromise legislation that might satisfy members on both sides of the aisles, according to The New Republic.

Photo courtesy of cliff1066™ via flickr

Why is Newsweek Lobbying for the Oil Industry?

by Mike Smith

Published November 05, 2009 @ 10:46AM PT

I guess the oil industry really can buy whatever it wants.

Newsweek, a magazine that presents itself as unbiased and independent, got caught this week accepting money from oil industry lobbyists and in exchange co-sponsoring a thinly veiled lobbying event on Capitol Hill.

Yesterday TPM Muckraker reported that Newsweek is partnering with the American Petroleum Institute (API) -- the lobbying arm of the oil industry -- to host a panel discussion entitled “Climate and Energy Policy: Moving?” featuring lawmakers, the American Petroleum Institute’s CEO, and Newsweek’s Senior Washington Correspondent.

In case you don’t know much about API they are a giant in the lobbying world and have spent millions of dollars just this year to try to prevent the US from enacting energy policy reform or addressing climate change.

Now API wants to host “policy forums” with their CEO and members of Congress in Washington, D.C. – and that’s fine; it’s exactly what lobbyists do.

The problem is that API is paying Newsweek to co-host the event in order to make it look like an unbiased “discussion” and not an industry-backed lobbying effort. What sort of “discussion” about climate change happens at an event sponsored by the oil industry where the only confirmed panelist is the CEO of the biggest oil lobby?

Newsweek should know better. Offering their sponsors the chance to slap the Newsweek name on any event in exchange for money just reeks of bias and casts suspicion on the independence of Newsweek’s journalism.

We’ve started a petition here on Change.org asking Newsweek to cancel the event entirely, and it’s already gaining momentum. Take action and send a letter to the magazine right now.

Taking money from oil lobbyists and co-hosting lobbying events masquerading as “policy discussions” is clearly an abuse of public trust and an unacceptable business practice.

Photo credit: Spentrails

Another Way to Cut Emissions: Hang Dry

by Katherine Gustafson

categories: energyefficiency, Greenhouse Gas

Published November 05, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT

We talk a lot about changing our lightbulbs and going easy on the meat in our personal quests to help our struggling planet. But we've been overlooking one big source of domestic energy expenditure: the laundry.

New Scientist reports that a team from Michigan State University has calculated that if Americans would only hang dry their clothes instead of using the dryer, as well as make 16 other simple changes such as washing clothes in cooler water and installing low-flow showerheads, they would reduce their collective carbon dioxide emissions by 7.4 percent by 2019.

I imagine many people don't have room for a backyard drying rack and don't like the idea of washing soiled garments in cool water. There are, however, all manner of drying racks -- ceiling-suspended, wall-mounted, pulley-operated, collapsible, retractable -- that can make drying clothes fit in even the smallest apartments. Washing less-dirty clothes in cool water and saving the hot for the heavy-stain-lifting is one way to conserve on the washing end, as long as you already have enough laundry for two loads and aren't using double the water.

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No Climate Bill Until 2010 at the Earliest

by Mike Smith

Published November 04, 2009 @ 01:16PM PT

Is Climate Change being put on the back burner? After Blog Action Day, 350.org's events recently, and all the conferences and gatherings in the run up to Copenhagen, the momentum may lead to domestic legislation passing anytime soon.

With Republicans boycotting the markup of a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee bill (can we call this the billibuster?) before it can even hit the floor, the hopes of a deal being done before Copenhagen now seems unrealistic. The committee could forge ahead despite the boycott but, but other committees still need to weigh in — and they aren't making any plans to do so yet.

Commerce Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said on Tuesday that “Some people are talking about not doing it until after the 2010 election.” That would be a long time to wait, and would hardly show how serious America is about fighting climate change if it takes it that long to get legislation passed. Rockefeller is one of a handful of Democrats who may block legislation, fearing it would harm their coal-dependent economies. As a climate change representative for Algeria said this week, industrialized countries are too concerned with economic and political problems, and not sufficiently concerned about the damage that climate change is already causing to developing countries.

Photo credit: Rob Crawley

Nepal Goes to New Heights to Highlight Glacial Melting

by Katherine Gustafson

Published November 04, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT

Like the government of the Maldives, which held a cabinet meeting underwater to point out the threat the country faces from rising sea levels, the government of Nepal is going to extremes to alert the world about alarming glacial melt in the Himalayas.

The Associated Press reports that Nepal's Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and other members of the country's cabinet will convene on Mount Everest to highlight the dangers of lakes created by melting glaciers, which threaten to drown villages below.

The meeting will take place at the 17,400-foot (5,300-meter) high Everest base camp, which the officials will reach by plane. They have scheduled the gathering just prior to the Copenhagen climate summit in December, when world leaders will discuss coordinated action on global warming.

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