The Momentum Is Building For Climate Justice

by Mike Gaworecki

Published November 15, 2009 @ 11:04AM PT

When 350.org’s international day of climate action went down on October 24th, it was billed as the biggest mass action on global warming in history. More importantly, it was part of “a drumbeat of worldwide and local climate events that have been building towards an enormous outpouring of climate action and activism at the Copenhagen climate talks,” in the words of Tcktcktck.org’s Richard Graves. So what’s next and how can you get involved?

You can participate in the “Mobilization for Climate Justice” that will be happening around the country on Nov. 30th. Check here to see if there’s an action near you. If there isn’t, then you can plan an action in your area.

Here’s some advice from the organizers: “If you’re organizing an action from scratch, we’d suggest you go after one of the following companies: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Chevron, BP, or American Electric Power. We picked these six companies because they’re all, through their investments, lobbying, and day to day business, going out of their way to obstruct real solutions to the climate crisis. For more info about them, see our Corporate Criminals page.”

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Green Tech, Public Good

by Katherine Gustafson

categories: Clean Energy, energyefficiency, Policy & Legislation, Solutions

Published November 14, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT

In a recent opinion piece, writer David Dickson, director and editor of the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) website and former news editor at Nature, writes the following:

A widely-held myth among climate change activists is that discussing the need for improved technology to mitigate or adapt to climate change detracts from political debates on who is to blame for unsustainable lifestyles — and who should pay for their consequences.

First of all, let me just say: ouch! Is it really fair to say that all climate activists care about is blaming people for spewing out too much carbon and rapping the appropriate knuckles? Come on, Mr. Dickson, there's a reading rainbow of people who care about climate out here talking about all different kinds of things, including, yes, who should change their lifestyles and how. But we also talk about technology. We talk a lot about technology.

Where Dickson's article may be right, however, is that we don't tend to talk enough about how these technologies are going to impact the lives of the world's poor. High-tech developments, after all, occur mostly in rich countries and usually aim to mitigate rich countries' carbon sins.

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Do the UK Government's Climate Change Commericals Go Too Far?

by Mike Smith

Published November 13, 2009 @ 10:29AM PT

The UK government has taken some serious steps to mitigate climate change, but have they now gone one step too far? Alongside setting legally binding emission reduction targets in recent years, they've also started to air PSAs which have come under attack for being too scary. Apparently, explaining the seriousness of the huge-threat to mankind, and presenting the reality of the situation, isn't cool if it's scary.

Reporting on the adverts, the Christian Science Monitor asks: "Is frightening the public into changing their behavior really the world’s last hope?" The UK government has paid $10 million to air the minute long "bedtime stories" in which a father reveals the "horrible consequences" of climate change, with a monster representing climate change flooding and destroying homes.

Some fear that making people feel guilty for their actions makes them shut down and not take in the message, but the message is a clear one: This isn't just a little problem that we need to clear up, this is a problem that the next generation are going to feel the full force off. Indeed, 75 per cent of people explained that they would "make lifestyle changes now if they knew climate change was going to affect their children." In motivating the public to take action, presenting the true reality is required, no matter how frightening. Perhaps we need to remember to return the scare to our government, and remind them that their jobs are at risk unless they use their time in power to set serious and binding targets, encourage other countries to do the same, and ensure developing countries are well funded to make changes themselves.

Since it's Friday the 13th, go and give you self a little scare and watch the advert.

Photo credit: Alan Vernon

Brazil Rocks: Deforestation Down 45.7 Percent

by Katherine Gustafson

categories: Forests, International Action, News, Solutions, Wilderness

Published November 13, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT

As Mike Smith wrote the other day, Brazil is having a good year. And now it's gotten even better.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced yesterday in a meeting with state governors and mayors that the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon plummeted 45.7 percent between August 2008 to July 2009, according to a government press release. That is the lowest rate in 20 years, since the government started collecting data 1988.

“The new deforestation data represents an extraordinary and significant reduction for Brazil. Climate change is the most challenging issue that we face today,” said President Lula after the meeting.

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Melting Antarctic Ice Helps Offset Warming

by Katherine Gustafson

categories: Arctic & Antarctic, Greenhouse Gas, Oceans, Water

Published November 12, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT

A new study by scientists from the British Antarctic Survey reveals that phytoplankton growing on the surface of sea water newly exposed by melting glacial ice is absorbing carbon, reports AFP. After photosynthesizing the carbon, these microscopic plants get eaten or sink to the sea floor, thereby taking the carbon out of the atmosphere.

Regions of phytoplankton have appeared in open water areas created by the recent disappearance of several ice shelves along the shore of Antarctica. In the last half century, about 9,200 square miles of sea have opened up in this manner and by now much of that area is blooming with phytoplankton. According to the study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, this vegetation now annually gobbles up some 3.5 million tons of carbon (equivalent to 12.8 million tons of carbon dioxide).

While that's a drop in the bucket of the some 8.7 billion tons of carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels and deforestation (to quote a 2007 figure), it is, says the study's lead scientist Lloyd Peck "nevertheless an important discovery. It shows nature's ability to thrive in the face of adversity."

Photo courtesy of cloudzilla via flickr

Brazil Pledges Dramatic Cuts to Emissions, Sets Example

by Mike Smith

Published November 11, 2009 @ 10:44AM PT

Brazil is having a good year. In fact, it has been having a few good years with poverty decreasing, literacy increasing, and the 2016 Olympics in Rio potentially crowning another nine years of achievement. But when it comes to setting carbon emission reduction targets the country isn't playing catch up, but leading the way. Brazil's government pledges to reduce emissions by around 40 per cent of the projected emissions levels in 2020 emissions were no action were taken.

But even cutting emissions by 40 per cent of 2020 levels may not be enough, "Scientists say rich nations with long polluting histories, like the US, need to cut emissions by 25-40% by 2020 on 1990 levels," report the Guardian. So cutting emissions based on 2020 levels may miss the target to help reduce atmospheric levels of Co2.

But Brazil are doing much more than other nations, and is expected to soon announce plans to cut deforestation by 80 per cent. The country's Chief of Staff was honest and upfront about their announcement which comes less than a month before Copenhagen; he said "What Brazil is doing is a political gesture ... We still believe that the responsibility belongs to the developed countries." Fearing impasse, they are hoping to lead the U.S. into making significant cuts. The director of public policies for Greenpeace Brasil explained that the progress was good, but that concrete targets would be needed to guarantee the commitment.

Photo credit: Leszekwasilewski

Activists at Barcelona climate talks send loud message to delegates

by Mike Gaworecki

categories: Activism, International Action, News, Policy & Legislation, Politics

Published November 11, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT

Last week’s UN climate talks in Barcelona, Spain were the last chance for world leaders to meet before the conference in Copenhagen at the end of the year at which they are supposed to negotiate a successor climate treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. Many, many activists were there on the ground in Barcelona to remind the delegates that the world is watching — and, through creative non-violent direct communications and actions, to remind them that the world is in desperate need of a fair, ambitious, and binding climate deal if we’re to stop runaway global warming.

One of the more interesting bits of activism that went down was the “Adopt a Negotiator” project, run by the folks at the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA), who also brought us Tcktcktck.org (which I wrote about once before here). The program sent a crew of youth activists from 13 different countries to shadow delegates at the talks not just to let negotiators know that the world is watching but also in an attempt to fundamentally change the way citizens engage in the climate treaty-making process:

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