Environmental Justice
Fatalistic Friday: Warmer Winters Shrinking Scottish Sheep
Published July 03, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Are We Not Sheep? We Are Devo(lving) Scientists solve mystery of Scotland's shrinking sheep: Shorter, milder winters caused by global warming to blame for steady decrease in size of St Kilda sheep. (The Guardian)
Rainy Days and Thursdays Always Get Me Down: Millions of euro worth of damage was caused yesterday after Dublin was swamped by a record two weeks' worth of rain in one hour. "This is the second time within the space of 12 months that Dublin experienced this type of flooding and it is clear that this is as a direct consequence of climate change," Lord Mayor Councillor Emer Costello said. (The Irish Independent)
Never Can Say Goodbye: ExxonMobil continues to sink hundreds of thousands of dollars into climate change sceptic groups National Center for Policy Analysis, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. This is despite promising more than once to stop its efforts to cultivate fear, uncertainty and doubt about global warming; Between 1998 to 2005, ExxonMobil gave almost $16 million to 43 lobby groups that worked to confuse Americans about the reality of global warming. (Wonk Room)
I Want You Back: New research reconstructing the extent of ice in the sea between Greenland and Svalbard from the 13th century to the present indicates that there has never been so little sea ice as there is now. Even though the 13th century was a notably warm time, there has never been so little sea ice as in the 20th century. (ScienceCentric)
Sludge, Drain O'er Me: EPA has posted a list of 44 “High Hazard Potential” coal ash waste dumps. They're near 26 communities in 10 different states, and similar to the impoundment that buried over 300 acres in Tennessee in toxic mud late last year. (Associated Press)
And highlights of the rest of the week's bad news about global warming:
Global warming may halve Bangladesh rice yields (SciDev.net)
NZ scientist warns of Antarctic ice melt, sea rise (China Central Television)
Permafrost melting a growing climate threat (Reuters)
Ocean acidification may push many fish to the brink (Christian Science Monitor)
Oyster Die-off in Pacific May Be Due to Ocean Acidification (e360 - Yale)
Global Sunscreen Won’t Save Corals (Carnegie Institution for Science)
India Will Reject Curbs On Its CO2 Emissions (CleanTechies)
Consumer culture keeps carbon emissions high(American Chemical Society)
World failing to halt biodiversity decline (Associated Press)
Amazon squatter law fuels deforestation worries (ScienceCentric)
Mangrove-dependent animals globally threatened (ScienceCentric)
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Image: Soay sheep on St. Kilda, Scotland. Via CommonorGarden/flickr
Indonesia Trades Debt for Rainforest Protection
Published July 02, 2009 @ 08:52AM PT
The Obama administration has forgiven Indonesia $30 million in debt payments. In return, the government of the Southeast Asian archipelago nation has agreed to spend the money on protecting the rainforests of Sumatra, the sixth largest island in the world.
The deal was done with the financial and negotiating assistance of the non-governmental organization Conservation International, which announced it yesterday. CI said in a statement that, "The swap means that the Government of Indonesia will pay the nearly $30 million to a trust over eight years which will issue grants for critical forest conservation and restoration work in Sumatra."
Preservation of the world's remaining forests is crucial to blunting the worst impacts of human-propelled climate change. Forests sequester massive amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, and help preserve soils and other plants that also store carbon. Keeping this climate-disrupting carbon out of the atmosphere may help to keep temperature increases lower over the coming decades.
Deforestation usually results in burning of biomass that releases all that carbon back into the atmosphere, and needless to say destroys any future potential for sequestration.
Much as with the vicious cycle of human-propelled heating in the Arctic (as temperatures warm, more ice cover vanishes, leaving open expanses of water to soak up more solar heat, which in turn warms both ocean and surface temperatures and melts more sea ice...), climate change poses a circular risk to forests. "New findings, announced at last month’s Copenhagen “Congress” to discuss climate issues, estimate that a 3C temperature rise will result in a 75% loss of forests," wrote Sustainablog recently. "The report’s sponsoring organization, the UK Meteorological Office’s climate change research division, has said that a 4C temperature rise - consistent with current human activities - will cause 85% of trees to disappear."
The debt-for-nature swap between the US and Indonesia, the first in Indonesia as well as largest ever under the U.S. Tropical Forest Conservation Act, will hit eco-justice and biodiversity preservation notes:
The debt reduction will help to provide livelihoods for the people of the island and ensure the survival of some of the world’s most endangered species – including the Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinos sumatrensis), Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), orangutan (Pongo abelii) and four endemic primates from the Mentawai Islands.
...It will lead to increased protection of 13 important areas of Sumatran rainforest which are home to hundreds of species of important and threatened plants and animals.
CI lists the areas to be preserved and protected as:
- The Northern Sumatra Region:
- Seulawah Heritage Forest
Leuser Ecosystem and Leuser National Park
Western Toba Watershed
Batang Toru Forest Range
Angkola Lowland Wilderness Tropical Forest Area
Batang Gadis National Park - Central Sumatra Region
Siak Kampar Peninsula
Tesso Nilo Ecosystem
Bukit Tigapuluh National Park
Kerinci Seblat Ecosystem
Siberut National Park and the rest of Mentawai Archipelago - Southern Sumatra Region
Way Kambas National Park
Bukit Barisan Selatan Forest Range
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Image: "The Sumatran Tiger, (Panthera tigris sumatrae) is threatened with extinction through poaching and loss of its forest habitat. These tigers are set to receive a boost after the US Government agreed to write off $30 million in debt from the government of Indonesia in return for increased protection of the forests of Sumatra."
Copyright: © CI/photo by Sterling Zumbrunn
Across the Change-i-verse
Published June 28, 2009 @ 05:21PM PT
A select assortment of the past week's posts from my fellow Change.org bloggers:
Above: "Chocolate Dipped Strawberries" Pie, from Animal Rights editor Stephanie Ernst's Friday Food roundup of vegan (hence low-carbon) recipes.
Act.ly: A New Tool for Public Pressure: Nathaniel Whittemore, our Social Entrepreneurship editor, explains why he's excited about this new Twitter petitioning tool. "I can already think of dozens of uses for this and I'm thrilled to see it live."
Nathaniel also covers a shift in the priorities at the powerful Clinton Global Initiative, from philanthropy toward social entrepreneurship model.
But, You Ask, What's It Like to Live in Afghanistan? "In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Solferino, the Red Cross has just released a survey on the impact of armed conflict and violence on civilians," writes Humanitarian Relief editor Michael Kleinman, "polling people in Afghanistan, Colombia, Congo, Georgia, Haiti, Lebanon, Liberia and the Philippines." Worth understanding from the global warming perspective, too: conflict over resources made scarce by changing climate, as in the civil war in Darfur, will only increase in coming decades.
Read Stories: Meet Bruce and Donna: At End Homelessness, guest blogger Mark Horvath posts a video that renders the invisible visible -- homeless people who are often invisible in our society, that is. "Today, Bruce and Donna are residents of Nickelsville, a tent city outside of Seattle. Since settling there, life has started to improve for the couple...Rather than write anything about Nickelsville, I urge you to learn about this tent city from a resident's perspective. Bruce's comments about Nickelsville and re-integration into permanent housing will open your eyes."
Leigh Graham, US Poverty editor, covers Policies that Actually Promote Self-Sufficiency.
How to Talk about Global Health Without Boring People: "...how, exactly, do you get other people to care" about improving global health, writes Global Health editor Alanna Shaikh. "It's not easy. Here's what I have learned ..."
Across the Change-i-verse
Published June 22, 2009 @ 12:25PM PT
Highlights from the past week's blogging by my fellow Change.org editors and their guest bloggers:
Youth Taking Action: Toilets for a Cleaner Environment and Improved Health: "The toilet is a modern convenience that most of us take for granted, not making the connection between its function, the environment and our health," writes James Bach on the Social Entrepreneurship blog. He speaks with Moses OdhiamboWe about the Eco-San Toilet, and how it can improve the lives of people living in poverty in Kenya. Global warming impacts, water scarcity, environmental justice, etc.
Barack Obama Is the Anti-Frank Luntz: Republican messaging consultant Frank Luntz wrote a now-(in)famous memo in the 1990s on how the GOP could confuse the public on the urgency of climate change action. Apparently he did the same on health care reform. Universal Health Care editor Tim Foley picks up on how President Obama, speaking last week to the American Medical Association, busted some Luntzian myths using memes health care reform advocates might want to adopt.
The Symbolic Vacancy of Katrina Cottages: Internal environmental refugees in America? Read on: "The storm may be long gone, but the afternmath of Hurricane Katrina still affects thousands of people," writes Homlessness editor Shannon Moriarty. "Today, thousands of households remain precariously housed in emergency housing or through government vouchers that will soon expire (3,038 families are housed in emergency trailers and 14,901 households receive rental subsidies)." And yet, there are apparently 700 mobile cottages, owned by FEMA, sitting unused in Mississippi, designed and built post-Katrina for hurricane-prone regions. Is this a sign of things to come as the impacts of global warming displace thousands more?
Related: Katrina Cottage? Not in My Backyard! on the Poverty in America blog.
Pres. Clinton: Carbon Offsets Should be Monitored by EPA, not USDA: Finding some money for agriculture in [the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate bill], I don't necessarily mind. But stripping the EPA of regulatory authority to determine the effectiveness of carbon offsets? Please, no," writes the inimitable Sustainable Food editor Natasha Chart. "Not when a technical abstract submitted to the USDA's Agricultural Research Service in 2007 describes USDA's soil carbon measurement methods (mandated by Congress, btw) as, 'invasive, costly, and ... time and labor intensive,' and when the research the USDA relies on may often be significantly corrupted by corporate sponsorship. I don't support all aspects of the current climate change bill, but I definitely don't support making its oversight provisions even suckier."
Health and Human Rights - Four Things to Consider: Global Health guest blogger Michael Keizer argue for establishing health as a fundamental human right in national and international law. Human health, global warming impacts, social justice, etc.
Cameron Diaz & Kerry Washington on Environmental Racism: "For those of you who are environmental activists," asks our Poverty in America editor Leigh Graham, "how do you address the disproportionate exposure to environmental toxins that low-income and communities of color face?"
Journalists in Prison: "The recent incarceration of American reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling in North Korea has drawn the world's attention to their unjust 12-year sentences for illegal entry into the country," writes Criminal Justice editor Matt Kelly. "The pair joins a group of more than 125 reporters in prisons and jails around the world for simply reporting news." Complete with disturbing, well-populated map of where journalists have been incarcerated around the world.
Costs of Carbon Reduction by 2020: $40-$340 a year per household
Published June 20, 2009 @ 04:31PM PT
It's going to cost us to de-carbonize the economy, but apparently not near as much as ideological opponents of climate action would have the public believe.
The Congressional Budget Office's newly-released analysis of the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), states that in 2020, the bill's carbon cap-and-trade provisions will cost around $22 billion a year, or $175 on average per household
This is far below the thousands per household some opponents of the bill have claimed.
As ACES is currently written, in 2020 the cap-and-trade market will have been operation for about eight years, with 17 percent of all carbon allowances, or credits, being sold by the government, and the remaining 83 percent given away.
The give-aways will help to cut the costs being passed back to consumers, and money raised by selling emissions credits will be distributed to the public as tax breaks. CBO estimates that in 2020, the poorest Americans will actually be getting a little money back:
- The bottom fifth of households by income would see a net benefit of $40 a year
- The richest fifth would pay a net cost of $245 annually
- Of the remaining American households, those in the second lowest fifth would pay around $40 a year; those in the middle, around $235; and households in the second highest fifth, about $340.
$340 a year. That's less than $1 a day per family to create a safer future.
I pay more than $300 a month right now just to keep myself health-insured. So a couple hundred more a year to restore the health of the entire planet's climate sounds positively cheap. [[This assumes there will still be an American middle class 11 years from now, and that I'll still be a gainfully employed part of it...here's hoping.]]
Even these relatively minimal costs may end up being lower, because the CBO "does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the associated slowing of climate change."
So many things in our lives have been made so inexpensive, for so long, by use of fossil energy. Slashing our carbon pollution will be expensive in ways we're not yet used to accounting for. But the costs of global warming -- in mitigation, insurance, medical care, damaged infrastructure, food prices, humanitarian relief, lost biodiversity, and more -- would really break the bank.
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Image: "The effects of global warming are already being felt worldwide. The Larsen-B Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula collapsed over 35 days in early 2002, prompted by 3°C of warming since the 1940s." Source: NASA Earth Observatory
Across the Change-i-verse
Published June 14, 2009 @ 04:33PM PT
Here's just some of the great blogging by my fellow Change.org editors in the past week:
Notes from a Dangerous Place: Broken in Iraq -- "After close to two years in Iraq and over five years of experience in development work," writes a friend of our Humanitarian Relief editor, Micheal Kleinman, "I am coming to the conclusion that besides me being possibly personally broken; the development profession and all that it stands for is severely broken."
How industrial powers will help developing nations in adaptation and mitigation of global warming, as well as carbon-neutral economic development (such as paying nations to leave forests standing, instead of converting them to plantations) are hot topics on the international climate treaty scene. So it's worth asking now well the current development model actually works.
The Easterly Criteria for Human Rights -- Under international law, indigenous peoples have the human right to live according their traditional ways of life. Global warming is a threat to many of these ways of living, particularly for natives of the Arctic; some are using this legal point to try and get action to curb climate change.
So I was interested to read this post by Michael Keizer on the Global Health blog, about one scholar's criteria for deciding what is or is not a human right: "Prof. Easterly states: 'The only useful definition of human rights is one where a human rights crusader could identify WHOSE rights are being violated and WHO is the violator. ... human rights are a clear dichotomy - someone violates your rights or they do not.'"
Agriculture Killing Climate (Bill) -- At the Sustainable Food blog, Natasha Chart does a great job rounding up the latest haggling over the American Clean Energy and Security Act.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) currently holds a lot of power over the bill's fate: "...Peterson is allergic to the idea of independent EPA review of the carbon sequestration benefits of any approved practices, but science isn't the point. The Republican members of the committee don't even believe in that, Philpott says they used their time at the recent committee hearing mostly to deny anthropogenic global warming."
Natasha also covers how researchers in Kenya are finding that strategically placed beehives deter elephants from stomping farm fields. Now that's creative resiliency.
Hippie Loaf, Fruity Bread, Minty Drink, Cheezy Casserole -- At the Animal Rights blog, editor Stephanie Ernst makes some mouthwatering finds in the world of vegan cooking. All very low-carbon-footprint eats, since they use no animal-based foods.
Over 1 Million Slack Freelancers -- "As the economy collapses, it's maiming the legions of service employees - so many of us freelancers - that provided landscaping, tutoring, fitness, fashion, design, childcare, cleaning and chauffering services to the finance, insurance and real estate wealthy," writes our Povery in America editor Leigh Graham. "Yes, the economic security of yoga instructors and nannies have never been that divergent. It's just that the former, as illustrated in the [this] NYT link...worries via iPhone about paying her rent."
Okay, there really is no direct connection to global warming here. I'm a freelancer, though, and have been for most of the past 15 years; maybe you are too. You almost definitely are a friend or loved one of a freelancer -- and that person may not be able to afford health insurce, and has no social safety net to fall back on if she gets sick or injured, or he suddenly loses a job.
Obama Admin Mountaintop Mining Moves Disappoint Activists
Published June 11, 2009 @ 11:28PM PT
The Obama administration has announced that it's taking some steps to rein in mountaintop removal mining of coal. Fast-tracked permit reviews will end; environmental reviews of proposed permits will be tougher; the federal government will renew watchdogging of state regulators that grant permits.
And the Obama White House is undoing another one of the Bush administration's last-minute rule changes, restoring a mandated 100-foot buffer zone that prevented companies from dumping coal mining waste close to streams.
All to the good, but enviro-advocates hoped for more: an outright end to the extremely destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining (MTR).
