Science
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Global Movement Demands Action on Climate Change
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Developing World Stands Up To Developed Nations
Published October 16, 2009 @ 11:00AM PT
I'm currently on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza in the South Pacific. We're on the Defending Our Pacific tour, which is a campaign to establish a global network of marine reserves, stop overfishing of Pacific fisheries, and support Pacific island nations efforts to stop Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing in their waters.
Crewman aboard the Japanese vessel Koyu Maru 3, fishing in Cook Islands waters illegally, haul a tuna onboard. Like climate change, overfishing of the world's fisheries is threatening the livelihood of developing countries who are not contributing significantly to the source of the problem. Image © Paul Hilton/Greenpeace
Last week, we caught the Japanese ship Koyu Maru 3 fishing in Cook Islands waters without a license, which is obviously illegal. When I blogged a bout it on the Greenpeace website, I made the point that this was not just illegal but also immoral. So why is it immoral?
Last week, a new study was released by The Commonwealth that underscores the drastic need for government action on overfishing and climate change in order to stave off a collapse of global fisheries. The report warns that the oceans could soon become “deserts” and goes on to say:
The study reveals that those least responsible for the state of the oceans are most likely to suffer the consequences of poor management and climate change. Small island states in particular are vulnerable to illegal and unfair fishing by foreign fleets and to migration of fish away from warming seas.
The Esperanza has been in the Pacific region since May to support Pacific Island countries on issues ranging from climate change to fisheries collapse and marine conservation. But of course Greenpeace’s history in the Pacific Ocean goes back much further than that — all the way back to the early 1970s when we were protesting the French nuclear blasts at Moruroa. The fallout from these blasts also disproportionately affected those Pacific islanders living downwind from the blast sites — another instance of those not responsible for a problem suffering the most. While there was nothing technically illegal about these blasts, the total disregard for human health and welfare is egregious.
The industrialized commercial fishing vessels that are literally stealing fish from Pacific island nations' waters is just another example of the developed world doing as they please and disregarding the well-being of the people affected by their actions. That's why it’s very encouraging that eight Pacific island nations have come together and are standing up for their rights against these invading international commercial fishing fleets.
Pacific island states are not the only developing nations that are banding together to force the developed world to live up to their other moral obligations: “Africa will demand billions of dollars in compensation from rich polluting nations at a UN climate summit for the harm caused by global warming on the continent, African officials said Sunday.”
Lest we doubt that there is any need for this stand by African nations, even the World Bank, generally no friend to the developing world, is warning of the threats those nations are facing as the climate crisis looms: “The World Bank estimates that the developing world will suffer about 80 percent of the damage of climate change despite accounting for only around one third of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
So the real question we must be asking ourselves is: Will the developed world stand up and do the right thing in regard to these moral obligations?
Obama Establishes Enviro, Energy Targets for Federal Government
Published October 05, 2009 @ 05:48PM PT
The Obama administration today ordered federal agencies to aim for aggressive targets to reduce energy use, and incorporate environmental sustainability in federal government operations.
The executive order "Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance," signed today by President Obama, builds off an executive order signed by President Bush in 2007, as well as momentum created by clean energy and energy-efficiency measures funded by the stimulus act.
Under this new mandate, federal agencies must set 10-year energy reduction and environmental sustainability goals within the next 90 days. Clearly identified targets in the order include:
- 30% reduction in vehicle fleet petroleum use by 2020;
- 26% improvement in water efficiency by 2020;
- 50% recycling and waste diversion by 2015;
- 95% of all applicable contracts will meet sustainability requirements;
- Implementation of the 2030 net-zero-energy building requirement;
- Implementation of the stormwater provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, section 438; and
- Development of guidance for sustainable Federal building locations in alignment with the Livability Principles put forward by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Apple Quits Business Lobby Over Climate Opposition
Published October 05, 2009 @ 01:36PM PT
Today we iPod Touch addicts and MacBook users can claim one less guilt trip: Apple Computer has become the latest high-profile defection from the US Chamber of Commerce, over the group's opposition to curbing greenhouse gas pollution.
In a letter dated today, communicating the company's immediate resignation, Catherine A. Novelli, the vice-president of worldwide government affairs at Apple wrote, "We strongly object to the chamber's recent comments opposing the E.P.A.'s effort to limit greenhouse gases." Kate Galbraith at The New York Times' "Green Inc." blog snagged the letter and put it online:
As a company, we are working hard to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions by relying on renewable energy at our facilities and designing more energy-efficient products for our customers. We have undertaken this unilaterally and without government mandate, because we believe it is the right thing to do. For those companies who cannot or will not do the same, Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us on this effort.
McCain's Gripe: Climate change bills don't include nuclear power
Published October 01, 2009 @ 04:25PM PT
Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) used a morning yak with NBC's David Gregory to slam the Boxer-Kerry climate and energy bill, as well as the Waxman-Markey House bill that squeaked to passage in June, for not including nuclear energy in their mandates on "renewable," "clean" power.
Neither bill allows nuclear energy to count toward fulfilling mandated renewable energy generation goals, which arguably could dampen enthusiasm for nukes by states trying to meet these "renewable energy standards," or RES.
"It’s the left-wing environmental organizations that are not allowing us to move forward with nuclear power," groused the senator, at the "First Draft of History" forum sponsored by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute.
Super Typhoon Choi-wan Hits 160 mph
Published September 16, 2009 @ 07:53PM PT
Above: Super Typhoon Choi-wan on Sept. 15, 2009. Credit: NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.
Terrible beauty: Super Typhoon Choi-wan is currently the strongest storm on the planet. The monster storm is sweeping westward across the Pacific with sustained winds of 160 miles per hour (with gusts up to 315 mph) toward Japanese islands to Tokyo's south.
It's not aiming for any major population centers, but is still remarkable for being over 1,000 miles wide, and the strongest of this year's Pacific typhoon season.
A team from Japan's Nagoya University and the country's Meteorological Research Institute say that even fiercer superstorms become more and more likely after 2050, if we don't curb global warming.
If the Earth's ocean surfaces warm by about 3 deg. C from pre-industrial levels over the next century (a scenario explored by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), a super typhoon stronger than Hurricane Katrina could hit Japan some time after 2050, these researchers announced last week. Such extreme superstorms could blow at sustained ground winds of 180 mph.
The world's major industrial nations have jointly agreed to keep the Earth's warming below 2 deg. C. by the end of the century...but have yet to make clear exactly what steps they'll take to make sure of that. And in any case, most climate experts have said they have no faith that the political efforts being made at the moment can possibly hold warming back from less than a disastrous 4-5 deg. C by century's end.
(August's sea surface temperatures were the warmest in at least 160 years.)
What's it going to take to change this probable future into a disaster averted?
Mental Health Break: Spectacular new images from space
Published September 12, 2009 @ 07:25PM PT
The space-based Hubble Telescope got a $1 billion-plus revamp thanks to a complex repair mission by shuttle astronauts, back in May.
It is already returning the investment with spectacular new images and data that will fuel years of scientific research and discovery. The images are of far-off galaxies, a star cluster, and, above, this dramatic "butterfly" nebula, officially named "NGC 6302."
The "wings" are in fact "roiling cauldrons of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit... tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour," according to the Hubble team, "fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in 24 minutes!"
At the center of this violent storm is a dying star, which was once about five times the mass of our Sun.
Hubble's new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph also detected the building blocks of life -- oxygen, nitrogen and carbon -- amid the matter being spewed into space by this nebula and other cosmic features, including a galaxy (Markarian 817) being pulled into a supermassive black hole. It's the first time we have had an instrument in space sensitive enough to pick up signs of this matter.
"We believe that most of the matter in space is actually wispy filaments between the galaxies," James Green of the University of Colorado told journalists at a news conference. "The elements of life are being produced in stars ... but they are also being distributed through the cosmos."
Check out more of the Hubble's latest images at Hubblesite.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Fatalistic Friday: 'We're waiting for our climate speech, Mr. President', major Arctic melt, more
Published September 11, 2009 @ 02:37PM PT
Above: Pacific walrus swimming to shore at an Alaskan beach. The Obama administration may give the species special protections under the Endangered Species Act, because it is losing critical habitat to global warming. Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Presented for your amusement: our semi-regular horse pill of bad news about climate change. Look out -- there's a signpost up ahead that reads...Fatalistic Friday.
Climate Activists Wait for an Obama Speech to Call Their Own: As President Obama delivered his health care speech this week, climate change activists said they were waiting patiently for a similar rhetorical moment. While there is broad acceptance about the president's decision to push global warming to the back burner for now, Obama needs to grant climate change equal attention on prime-time television in coming months, they say.
With less than 100 days until the Copenhagen talks begin, time is running out. "I don't have a problem with him keeping the climate powder dry for now," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, which is pushing to strengthen global warming legislation that passed the House in June. "But, ultimately, it may take a big goosing from the White House to achieve some resolution in the Congress." (ClimateWire)
Arctic ice meltdown greater than average again in 2009: The Arctic sea ice has retreated to the third-lowest level in recorded history -- the fourth time in the past five years that the annual summer meltdown has been far greater than average. The ice has already diminished this year to less than 5.3 million square kilometres, with a week or two of melting left to go. The all-time biggest retreat was recorded in 2007 at 4.13 million square kilometres, and the 2008 retreat fell just short of that record. (CanWest News Service)
Effects of Arctic warming seen as widespread: The Arctic Circle has been warming faster than other latitudes. And the impacts are showing on the region's plants, birds, animals and insects. "The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past," Eric Post, an associate professor of biology at Penn State University, said in a statement. (Associated Press)
