Change.org's Stop Global Warming Blog

Developed nations reveal emissions targets

Mike Gaworecki — 2009-11-20T17:19:00-08:00

Ahead of next month’s UN climate talks in Copenhagen, most of the world’s industralized countries have announced emissions targets that they will bring to the negotiating table. I say most, not all. Guess who’s lagging?

If you guessed the good ol’ US of A is the laggard, you were right.

Now, it’s true that not all of the emissions targets being proposed are terribly ambitious. South Korea, for instance, has proposed a 30% reduction from “business as usual” by 2020, which sounds great. But that actually works out to be only about 4% below 2005 levels, whereas scientists tell us that we need to reduce global emissions to about 25% below 1990 levels to be on track to avert the worst impacts of global warming.

Russia, on the other hand, has signaled that it’s prepared to cut emissions 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, and even willing to go up to 25% given a favorable outcome in Copenhagen.

This issue of which so-called “baseline year” to use – 1990 or 2005 – is extremely important. The climate bill passed by the House, for instance, uses the 2005 baseline, as does the bill currently before the Senate.

The year 1990 is the preferred baseline because that was when the IPCC issued its First Assessment Report and the world began to get serious about dealing with global warming. I don’t honestly know why 2005 is the alternative baseline year, but I do know that it happens to be the year that US emissions were the highest they’ve ever been.

So when you hear that the Kerry-Boxer bill before the Senate shoots for 20% reductions relative to 2005, that’s not the same as a 20% reduction pledge relative to 1990 made by the EU. The Kerry-Boxer bill’s target works out to about 7% below 1990 levels – which is a bit better than what the House bill calls for (17% below 2005 levels, which is about 4% below 1990 levels).

So while the US hasn’t put its own emissions targets on the table yet, that might actually be a good thing, given the low-ball numbers both Houses of Congress are working with. The US needs to lead the world in Copenhagen, not cover for other low-ballers like South Korea and drag down the efforts of developed countries like Russia and those in the EU who are discussing ambitious emissions reductions targets.

Image by [JP] Corrêa Carvalho via Flickr.

The Seeds of a New Kind of Energy

Erik Vance — 2009-11-20T11:52:00-08:00

First, a confession.

Last week, in my introductory blog entry I lied to you, the reader. What’s worse, I did it knowing full well that I was lying through my dirty little teeth.

In that entry I said that the highest wind densities in the country are above North Dakota. That was a lie. Well, okay, lie is a strong word. North Dakota does have the strongest wind you can feel when you lick your finger and stick it in the air.

But it’s not the strongest in the country.

That is a place where winds howl unrelentingly near 50 miles per hour and occasionally leap well over 200. Where half of the time the wind could generate 8 kilowatts per square meter (that’s roughly four homes powered by a space the size of my crappy TV).

Where is this amazing place? Some long lost corner of Alaska? Florida during a hurricane? Try New York City. Thirty thousand feet above New York City, to be precise.

Here is a little secret that scientists have known since the early eighties: there is enough power in the upper troposphere to power the entire planet 50, maybe 100 times over. Forget what you have heard about floating solar panels and offshore wind turbines, jet stream winds are the most power-rich regions on the planet (the sun, at its hottest at the equator on a cloudless day, drops only about one kilowatt per square meter).

This led a tiny community of inventors to organize the first-ever international conference on “high altitude wind,” or flying wind turbines two weeks ago. Although it sounds like, well, chasing windmills, Google has recently invested somewhere around $25 million in high altitude wind. However, outside of Google, most investors and government scientists still consider it to be kind of space-age and prefer to bet on solar or biofuels.

But this may be a gross oversight. At the conference, presentations showed a dazzling number of kites and wings that fly while tethered to the ground. The audience was mostly early stage inventors and out-of-the-box entrepreneurs. I was the only member of the press covering the event. Even so, the presentations were surprisingly feasible. Several demonstrated that within less than three years we could be generating industrial scale electricity that would be cheaper and more reliable than any turbines fixed to the ground and maybe even coal. Moreover, there’s no need for any fancy new nano-fibers or synthetic organisms needed by other green energy schemes. It's just a matter of combining what we already have. I spoke with an observer from aeronautical giant Honeywell (the only such company in attendance) on the last day of the conference. I expected him to scoff at the flying boomerangs and spinning blimps on display. However, he said that the various devices were all very possible with current engineering knowledge. In fact, there really aren’t any technical challenges to putting a wind farm a few thousand feet off the ground (we already do it with cameras to catch drug smugglers). The only real hurdles are getting investment and convincing the public to believe in it.

Which brings me to the newest round of ARPA-E funding. ARPA-E, for those who don’t know it, is a Department of Energy program offering grants for game-changing new energy solutions. It’s like DARPA, but with ten times less cash and without the invisible tanks and nuclear bunker-busters. The idea was to create a pool of money for truly new energy technologies that could revolutionize the energy sector. In short, the kind of technologies on display in this little-noticed conference. However, in its first round of disbursement, ARPA-E’s selections were less than game-changing. Its biggest pot of cash went to biofuels that, while cleaner than coal or gas, would still burn carbon. The other big winner was in energy storage, which is useful, but doesn't really address the basic problem. About $8 million went to automotive technologies that car companies should be paying for themselves. Only 4 of the 37 grants went to what I would call renewable power and those were small improvements to existing technologies, like slightly more efficient turbines.

I don’t mean to look a gift grant in the mouth, but I think we can do better. To be honest, I don’t know if a flying wind farm will work or not. But I do know that if it did it’s the kind of solution that could actually replace coal and that the people doing it are serious scientists. Isn’t that worth a more serious look? Stay tuned, the next round of grants is coming out soon.

Failing On Tar Sands and Climate Leadership, Canada Has Lost All Credibility

Mike Smith — 2009-11-20T07:54:00-08:00

Why is Canada going to Copenhagen with no real plan to combat climate change, no money on the table, and severely lagging behind the rest of the world? Being responsible for producing some of the world's dirtiest oil may have something to do with it. Agit Pop have created an awesome video (below) that explains how Canada's tar sands project is the largest and most destructive project on earth with a "toxic sacrifice zone" the size of England. A video explains how destructive the project is to wildlife, to the environment, to native people, and to Canada's reputation around the world.

Exploiting the world's dirtiest oil, and causing so much environmental damage, must not stand whilst countries around the globe are trying to unite to fight climate change. As if that wasn't enough to damage Canada's reputation, it's "You First" stance is further eroding its credibility. As an op-ed in the Winnipeg Free Press notes, "On climate change we have no moral authority at all." Not only has Canada reneged on its Kyoto promises but its lack of leadership sees Canada burying it's head deep in the tar sands, not prepared to take action on climate change.

Photo: itzafineday

Pope: Global Warming Will Not Starve the World

Katherine Gustafson — 2009-11-20T06:00:00-08:00

Monday, on the opening day of the World Summit on Food Security, Pope Benedict XVI tried to put the panic about global-warming-induced food crises to rest.

According to the UK's Times Online, the Pope said that the Earth can produce enough for everyone despite the ravages climate change might inflict. It is greed, he said, that has driven up prices and increased hunger in the world.

His remarks emphasized that food should not be treated like any other commodity, especially because "there is no cause and effect relationship between population growth and hunger." Nobel Prize-winning economic Amartya Sen has long commented that hunger is not a problem of production but one of access.

As such, the world needs a broader perspective on both environmental issues and food security, one that accounts for all the costs of producing food — environmental as well as financial — and adamantly refuses to see hunger as a built-in, though regrettable, part of a certain socio-economic system.

"Food production methods impose upon us the need to carefully analyse the relationship between development and environmental protection," the Pope said. "The desire to possess and to use in an excessive and disorderly manner the resources of the planet is the number one cause of environmental damage."

The Pope has a lot of faith (exactly!) that the world will be able to shoulder the burden of millions more humans despite the looming environmental crisis. Do you agree with this optimistic assessment?

Photo courtesy of roblisameehan via flickr

Angry Mermaid Award Nominates Worst Climate Lobbyists

Mike Smith — 2009-11-19T16:11:00-08:00

The Angry Mermaid Awards is highlighting and promoting the worst company or business lobby who have done the most to prevent real change taking place by promoting false solutions to climate change. So who exactly is sabotaging effective action on climate change?

There's everyone from American Petroleum Institute's (API) astroturfing campaign, faking a grassroots campaign against the US Climate Bills to Monsanto and the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) who claim soy to be climate-friendly when in fact it has severe social and environmental impacts. And let's not forget Royal Dutch Shell who the Angry Mermaid Awards explain are "actively investing in the energy-intensive tar sands, at the same time as pushing unproven Carbon, Capture and Storage." Having spent $2.4 million lobbying politicians, they're working to weaken climate legislation and are worthy nominees for the Angry Mermaid. They are exactly the people it's worth getting angry about at Copenhagen.

We'll have two bloggers from Change.org covering COP15, the UN Climate Change Conference, keeping you up to date on the policy decision being made (or not being made) and all the activism happening on the ground, as it happens. There are a lot of people trying to derail a global deal, but we'll continue to fight for a comprehensive and effective Copenhagen Protocol.

Photo: Jazonz

What Will Global Warming Look Like on the Ground?

Katherine Gustafson — 2009-11-19T06:00:00-08:00

It's easy to talk about global warming on grandiose terms (the word "global" is in the title, after all). But it's sometimes harder to imagine what the concept really means for our daily lives. Some of us want to know what will happen when all the analysts and number-crunchers have gone home and the climatic disturbances start appearing one by one.

The UK's Telegraph recently published an article detailing some of the changes those of us not exposed to the extremes of a drowning island or a melting Himalaya might experience as the climate warms. What can we expect? Here's a run-down of some of the possibilities in Europe.

Food shortages

Italy’s durum crops will disappear by the end of the century.

Polish potato and wheat crops will decline, cutting these off from much of Europe.

France will be forced to stop producing much of its wine, including champagne.

Spain will see much of its now-productive land become desert.

Wild weather

Rivers across Europe will flood regularly due to extreme weather.

Sea levels around the UK will rise by 7 inches by the 2040s.

Storm surges will be 3.3 feet higher by the end of the century.

Insurance costs will rise with the risk of floods and storms.

Forest damage

IKEA furniture will be no more as Scandinavian forests suffer irreversible damage.

Forest fires triggered by summer heatwaves will start scouring the land around 2025.

The spruce beetle, a new pest that can breed quickly in warmer temperatures, will render wood useless even if it doesn't burn in the fires.

Certain types of trees like beech will die out entirely in the south of England.

And that's only a list brief enough to be contained in a newspaper article. Who know what other pleasures lie in store for us all, especially on this side of the pond. If you own beachfront property or in a house in a forest-fire zone, this might be a good time to sell it to a climate-change-denier.

Photo courtesy of teren in Virginia via flickr

There's Still Hope for a Climate Deal at Copenhagen

Mike Smith — 2009-11-18T10:42:00-08:00

It may seem like anything less than a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol will make the Copenhagen climate conference an absolute failure. With years of negotiation behind us, and Kyoto needing updating, it's the perfect time to make an agreement. But some fear that Obama was last week signaling that there would be no binding agreement made, instead some vague political agreement. Most took that to mean: no progress, and more delays.

However, President Obama stated a political agreement wouldn't be so weak, but be "an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations, and one that has immediate operational effect." Putting something into 'operational effect' is important, indicating that Copenhagen won't be all talk, and some action will result. Obama further explained: "We must rally the world." The climate campaign manager for Greenpeace China isn't so convinced, explaining that this pre-conference talk of making an agreement about making a future agreement provides "a lot of room for different interpretations, ranging from a real ambitious climate rescue deal to another meaningless declaration." He think there is still a chance: "The real test is still at Copenhagen."

So the conference hasn't failed yet, and significant progress may still be made. David Turnbull, writing at Grist notes that "there is nowhere near consensus on such a delay approach; in fact, dozens of countries oppose it and are still wishing—and fighting—for more." There is hope that a range of positive and serious measures will arise from talks at Copenhagen, don't write it off just yet.

Photo: rwhgould

Rays of hope amidst the frustration

Mike Gaworecki — 2009-11-18T09:56:00-08:00

It has not been an entirely encouraging week of climate news, but there are still reasons to be hopeful.

As Katherine wrote the other day, President Obama is certainly in a tight spot when it comes to global warming policy. In his inaugural address he vowed to “restore science to its rightful place,” but he has many other major policy initiatives on his plate. And given the extremely well-funded opposition, passing strong climate change legislation will require heaps of political capital.

Many folks in the environmental community became understandably frustrated with his lack of follow-through on his commitment to restore science to prominence in the climate debate when he seemed to sit back and watch a House bill get rewritten by the coal industry and their friends in Congress.

Making matters worse, it’s now official: the Senate won’t even be considering their own version of climate legislation until 2010. Of course there was also the announcement, made while Obama was meeting with (some) other world leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting this past weekend, that they would punt on establishing a legally binding climate treaty in Copenhagen this December. Some time next year, perhaps, is the new timeline for dealing with the most urgent environmental crisis of our times. The lack of a domestic policy was apparently being used to set Obama’s foreign policy, or at least used as a scapegoat for why his administration is actively stalling a global climate deal.

This is obviously unacceptable given that we are already experiencing the effects of global warming, and they’re only going to continue to get worse. The news that global emissions actually rose by 2% last year, mostly led by China, makes the need for ambitious and binding emissions targets and other measures to combat global warming painfully clear.

So it’s a tiny ray of hope that while meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao this week, President Obama apparently established a “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine” deal on emissions:

Buried in the text of Tuesday's joint declaration between President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao was a hopeful clause about climate talks: The Obama administration is likely to offer emission-reduction targets at next month's climate summit, as long as the Chinese offer a proposal of their own.

U.S. reluctance to set a short-term emissions goal has been a sticking point in the U.N.-sponsored talks for nearly a year. Almost all industrialized nations, and many developing countries, have announced plans to curb their greenhouse-gas output by 2020. Neither the United States nor China -- which is not obligated to do so under the U.N. framework, even though it ranks as the world's biggest emitter -- has done so, thereby hampering the prospects of an agreement.

So perhaps Obama has heard the criticism of him not restoring science to its proper place. Perhaps he is sensitive to the criticisms that he is letting Congress set foreign policy, and is attempting to address the issue. One thing is certainly clear: At this point, the only thing that will get results is massive popular demand for climate solutions.

That’s why I was so heartened by a recent episode in Indonesia, where Greenpeace has set up a Climate Defenders Camp in the heart of the threatened rainforest to highlight deforestation’s role in global warming. When the Indonesian authorities came to close down the camp, over 300 local Indonesians showed up to protest and the police relented. Seriously, this was just an amazing display of non-violent resistance and civic activism. It shows how desperately the people of the world want solutions to the climate crisis we’re facing.

If we keep pushing them, our leaders will have to listen.

Photo courtesy of Elsie esq. via Flickr.

Charged with a Felony? Blame Global Warming

Katherine Gustafson — 2009-11-18T06:00:00-08:00

When college student Tim DeChristopher bid his way to committing $1.7 million for 13 oil and gas drilling leases last December at a Bureau of Land Management auction, he had the greater good in mind; he apparently planned to mitigate climate change by blocking the pillaging of the Earth, reports the Associated Press.

Who knows how he thought this would work, considering that he bid with the knowledge that he had no ability whatsoever to pay for the parcels near Utah's national parks that he won. Indeed, instead of being honored as a hero he was indicted in April on felony charges. Apparently, Tim, it's rather illegal to interfere with government auctions and make false representations.

His opinion? The auction itself was illegal, so his interference of it couldn't possibly run afowl of any law. He came before the judge trying to use a "necessity defense," stating that he was forced to choose between two evils, namely the evil of lying in the auction and the evil of allowing climate change to continue unabated.

Logically, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson denied DeChristopher's lawyers' motion to use the defense. According to the AP, his nine-page ruling included this amusing statement: "Unlike a person demolishing a home to create a firebreak, DeChristopher's actions were more akin to placing a small pile of dirt in the fire's path."

Photo courtesy of walknboston via flickr

Glacier in a Freezer Helps Scientists Study Melting

Katherine Gustafson — 2009-11-17T06:00:00-08:00

Iowa State University professor Neal Iverson has a freezer like no other.

This is much more than your average walk-in ice box. This is a massive beast, over nine feet tall, on which he has been working for three long years. Science Daily introduces us to the "glacier sliding simulator."

Inside is a miniature glacier undergoing the same pressures from a warming atmosphere that a real glacier contends with. The freezer is equipped with a hydraulic press that can apply up to 170 tons of force on the mini-glacier, simulating the impacts on a 1,300-foot-thick glacier.

The purpose of this contraption is to allow scientists to study how glaciers move across their beds, an understanding of which will help them make key predictions about glaciers' reactions to climate change.

Glaciers, you might think, react to climate change by melting. And you'd be right, but apparently, as with most things in science, there's a lot more to it than that.

Glaciers slide faster as the climate warms up, and the faster they slide the more ice they dump into the sea when they slam into the coasts. All those floating, melting icebergs make sea levels rise. The problem is that scientists have no way of predicting how fast glaciers slide or will slide under specific conditions.

So Iverson invented this puppy to isolate variables like stress, temperature and melt-water for glacier-sliding-speed. And before we know it his team might be thawing out some important answers.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

EU Shows Cap and Trade Works, Exceeding Emission Reduction Targets

Mike Smith — 2009-11-16T15:22:00-08:00

Cap and trade works. An up-and-running EU scheme is proving how effective it can be, reports TNR. After Kyoto Protocol promises, the EU stepped up and agreed to cut emissions by at least 8% of 1990 levels, promising to do so by 2012. Part of this scheme involved the Emissions Trading Scheme which after some initial missteps is succeeded in pricing carbon and encouraging cuts. The effect of this? Way above the 8% target, EU nations are expected to cut emissions by 13% of 1990 levels, exceeding Kyoto demands. It's still not enough, but it's encouraging progress.

There has been some creative accounting — financing clean-energy projects in the developing world, and purchasing carbon credits from countries that are below their targets for emissions — but overall the policies enacted have been successful. However, as TNR report, Chinese imports haven't helped things, as they've created higher emissions that the EU is responsible for. This only emphasizes how important it is to secure a binding global deal.

Photo credit: openDemocracy

Where are the Conservative Solutions to Climate Change?

Erik Vance — 2009-11-16T12:40:00-08:00

For my introductory post for Change.org, I would like to begin by issuing a challenge wrapped in a question. It is a challenge to all those voters out there who call themselves “conservative.” If you are reading this please help me to understand something: Why aren't conservatives more into fighting global warming?

It seems to me like a perfect conservative issue. For one thing, it's all about efficiency and true conservatives hate waste. For another, it's about not conducting dramatic experiments with earth's atmosphere - and old fashioned conservatives believe in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Lastly, all the likely solutions are going to come from innovation, something conservatives go nuts for. Yet after years of scientific consensus, I still haven't seen a conservative climate platform. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not a polemic for any political side. Truth is, I would vote for anyone who had some ideas that seemed like they would work. I’m what you might call a died-in-the-wool member of the Nerd Party (Geekacrat maybe? Nerdocan?) And as a member of that august party I am less interested in election results than I am lab results, peer pressure than I am peer review, and abstractions than I am abstracts.

So as Nerdocan, I am following the run up to Copenhagen very carefully. And as I hear all the various potential solutions, I keep wondering: Where are the conservative solutions here? Please don’t tell me that the conservative platform is that climate change isn't happening, because the conservatives I know are smarter than that. Those conservatives (usually other Nerdocrats) have advanced degrees and are generally very clever. They can look at solid scientific evidence just as easily as I can.

My only answer to this is that political storms have so clouded the atmosphere of atmospheric chemistry that no one can see beyond the vestibule of their own little political tent. Yet hidden behind the bluster of the cable news nutcases, I am willing to bet that conservative America could come up with some bang-up solutions for battling climate change.

Tell you what. I am willing to concede that it is possible that a rise of four degrees in global temperatures may not, as Paul Krugman wrote recently, give New Hampshire the climate of North Carolina. Liberals, after all, have been known to exaggerate for the sake of headlines just like anybody else. But conservative conservation has to meet me halfway. Where are the fiscally responsible climate change options? There is, after all a lot of cold hard cash to be made by saving the planet. Why is the business sector trying to pretend that coal, a technology pioneered in the Bronze Age, is the energy of the future?

Let me help you get started. Do you know the state with the largest wind energy above it? North Dakota. Runners up? Texas, Kansas, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Wyoming, Oklahoma (in that order.) These states couldn’t be more red if you cut them open and applied leeches. Yet these are the very states opposing climate change legislation. Senator James Inhofe (warming denier and patron saint of the scientifically clueless) is from number eight on the list.

As conservatives, I would think that conservation would be your stock and trade. After all, maintaining the status quo means maintaining the level of tree cover and atmospheric CO2, right? Since when do conservatives want to take a huge gamble with the climate of the planet? You don’t like Kyoto? Fine, neither do I – what do you suggest? You say the Environmental Protection Agency is a bunch of pinkos? Okay maybe they are – how else can we incentivize our culture to protect us from pollution? How about a right-wing version of offsets or cap and trade? This is the debate that I long to hear, not some ill-informed bickering about statistics that every decent scientist knows are true.

So there it is. The Geekocrat vote is officially up in the air. But don’t think that you can paste some business-should-police-itself nonsense to the platform and expect us to buy it. And don’t expect us to take it from science neophytes like Christopher Horner (favorite climate “expert” with no formal education in science.) Geekocrats love numbers and hard data. We like gray areas and give you credit when you fail as long as you follow a logical path to get there. Step up to the plate. Time is running out and the ice is running thin.

Obama Walks Tightrope on Climate Negotiations

Katherine Gustafson — 2009-11-16T06:00:00-08:00

Obama's in a tough spot. Well, many tough spots, but let's just talk about the one that concerns us here: the Copenhagen climate negotiations. Now that Congress won't vote on a climate bill until next year, Obama has to somehow punt settlement of a long-term international agreement a ways down the road while still portraying an impression of progress and US commitment on the issue to the global audience.

According to the Washington Post, former vice president Al Gore said in an interview that Obama has the difficult task of satisfying both US and global audiences. "The disappointment in the world community that would accompany a failure of Copenhagen, if it were laid at the doorstep of the United States, would be significant," Gore told the Post. "I'm optimistic that they will handle Copenhagen well. What's important is that what emerges from Copenhagen is perceived as an important step forward."

This "important step forward" will come in the form of an interim agreement that will set up a basis on which to build a final, long-term settlement at a later date. In doing so, Obama must walk a very fine line, taking bold enough action to forestall the outrage of the global community and the US climate activist community, on the one hand, and avoiding the dreaded "over-promise" that Senators warn him against, on the other. The mark he needs to hit, US Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern told the Post, is an arrangement that can be widely "seen as substantive building blocks to a full, legal agreement."

Mr. Obama, have you seen "Man on Wire," the film that illustrates Philippe Petit's 1974 walk between the twin towers on a tightrope? You might want to give it a screening before December so you can see what you're in for.

Photo courtesy of _gee_ via flickr

Did Rural Farmers Kill The Chance Of a Copenhagen Protocol?

Mike Smith — 2009-11-15T12:00:00-08:00

Farmers in rural America depend on oil, with their costs linked to its price. A cap and trade deal, and subsequent higher energy prices, would endanger farm jobs, and as the Economist reports, farmers cannot see how they would be able to work without cheap fossil fuels. In order to have any climate deal pass the Senate (like the House Cap and Trade deal) benefits and allowances must for those representing farmers. That was tougher enough in the House, but in the Senate, with sparsely populated states over-represented, more allowances will have to be made.

Farmers will be given handouts, and clean coal subsidized. Many question the logic and the phenomenal cost of clean coal (at the expense of cheaper, cleaner technology) but many Senators representing the interests of these farmers like it, and if any climate deal is going to be passed, it's essential to have them on side.

Senators skeptical of the need for immediate action will be glad to hear that the liklihood of a binding climate deal happening at Copenhagen is even less likely now, with President Obama acknowledging that time has run out, and that a deal is more likely to happen next year. The outcome of the Copenhagen conference is now likely to only be a political agreement, rather than an action plan. The U.S. Senate is being blamed for the lack of progress in domestic legislation, which is having a knock-on effect worldwide.

Photo credit: Let Ideas Compete

The Momentum Is Building For Climate Justice

Mike Gaworecki — 2009-11-15T11:04:00-08:00

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.”

The Mobilization for Climate Justice is being organized by David Solnit, one of the chief architects of the protests that shut down the WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999. He recently told Naomi Klein of the Nov. 30th day of action: “This is definitely a Seattle-type moment. People are ready to throw down."

Another international day of action is being planned for Dec. 12, during the UN climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen. Called “The World Wants a Real Deal,” the day of action is timed to happen at the mid-point of the Copenhagen talks: “At this crucial moment, amidst the culmination of years of preparation, organizing, and negotiation around the globe, the World Wants a Real Deal will send a resounding message to the world leaders and negotiators in Copenhagen that the public is ready to sign a Fair, Ambitious and Binding treaty.”

Go here to sign up to host an event in your community.

The momentum is building. We can stop global warming, but we all have to stand up and demand our leaders actually lead.

Photo credit: Takver

Green Tech, Public Good

Katherine Gustafson — 2009-11-14T06:00:00-08:00

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.

Dickson writes that "Climate negotiators have long realised that developing clean technology and transferring it to developing nations are fundamentals of any global strategy to combat climate change."

But how do we ensure equal distribution of all those great new creations? How do we get everybody on the same low-carbon page?

Various plans are afoot to try addressing this imbalance between the technology available in developed and developing nations. China, for example, is plotting about how to enact a UN-operated multilateral climate technology fund. And the topic is creating quite the brouhaha in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate summit.

What we need most, though, Dickson believes, is a conception of green technology as a "public good." These technologies are not just the next market commodities designed to make investors rich; they are tools that are aimed at helping save everyone on the planet. Encouraging widespread access to these technologies would help not only the poor countries that will be hit hardest by the changing climate but all of us.

To quote Sha Zukang, under-secretary general at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (according to another SciDev.Net article) "The global climate policy will succeed — or fail — depending on whether it brings low-emissions technologies, and technologies for adaptation, within the reach of poor countries and communities without further delay."

And let's not forget that the success or failure of "global climate policy" way well mean the difference between salvation and disaster.

Photo courtesy of Wayne National Forest via flickr

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

Mike Smith — 2009-11-13T10:29:00-08:00

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

Katherine Gustafson — 2009-11-13T06:00:00-08:00

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.

The figure is based on new data gleaned from satellite imagery obtained by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The news will bolster Brazil's confidence in its ambitious plans to cut deforestation by around 40 percent by 2020, a proposal the country's government anticipates making at the Copenhagen climate meetings next month.

Brazil's Ministry of Environment claims that deforestation has slowed so rapidly due to the Action Plan for Deforestation Control and Prevention in the Amazon launched in 2004, which strengthened anti-deforestation monitoring and enforcement, demarcated conservation areas and encouraged sustainable livelihood options in the Amazon.

Could some of the world's other countries borrow your plan, Brazil? Either way, let's give this achievement a round of applause.

Photo courtesy of Nao Iizuka via flickr

Melting Antarctic Ice Helps Offset Warming

Katherine Gustafson — 2009-11-12T06:00:00-08:00

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

Mike Smith — 2009-11-11T10:44:00-08:00

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