YEP Comments

The Youth Earth Plan, version 0.5, is now available at http://www.ourtask.org/yep.pdf, and we welcome comments on it. Note that each line of the draft YEP has a number in the left margin. If you have a general comment on the YEP, you need not specify line numbers. If you have a comment on a specific part of the text, please begin your comments with specific line numbers so that we can understand clearly which part of the text you are referring to.

For example, a comment might be: "Lines 245-265: You need revise the text to make clear that _______." Please post comments below. All comments will be available for everyone to see. We will collect comments until sometime in October and then begin preparing a new version of the Youth Earth Plan. Thank you for your assistance.

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Go Rockefellers! Rockefellers Stand Up Against Exxon!

So it looks like the Rockefellers made the news! 73 of the 78 living adult descendants of the Rockefeller family are standing up against Exxon!

You will love to read this article yourself, so make sure to click on the link in the title, but here are some key points I loved!

"The proposal, which was approved by 39.5 percent of shareholders, was one of four resolutions that garnered substantial shareholder support from the extended Rockefeller family, state pension funds, institutional holders and individuals, though all of the measures fell short of the majority needed. The other resolutions would have forced the company to give shareholders some say over executive pay, prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, draw up a plan to cut its own greenhouse gas emissions and turn its attention toward clean energy resources. "

"This year, the Rockefellers decided to take to the floor of the annual shareholders meeting, strongly supporting the resolution separating the chief executive and chairman positions and sponsoring the resolution urging Exxon to come up with targets for greenhouse gas emissions and a strategy for developing clean energy resources. (It was the seventh consecutive year that a resolution to separate the chairman and chief executive jobs -- a division common in U.S. corporations -- was on the agenda.) "

An exciting quote from Neva Rockefeller Goodwin:
"Goodwin said that the company's forecasts of strong oil-demand growth from developing nations were inconsistent with the consequences of climate change from growing greenhouse gas emissions. 'Those nations will be the ones most adversely affected by climate change,' she said. "

My mom sent me this article, so I thank her for sending it to me! I told her that I like getting news like this and that it makes me smile! She completely agreed!

If you haven't seen it, the Washington Post has a new Green section!

Another exciting article was in the Post on Sunday: Food or Fuel? Maybe We Can Have Both. Now even if you aren't big on biofuels and the use of ethanol, this is a start! "All 33 cars on the track will be running on 100 percent ethanol derived from corn. "

How to deal with Polar Bears

It's an interesting situation now that the US has named polar bears as a "Threatened" Species. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said that "the loss of Arctic sea ice in a warming climate could drive them to the brink of extinction in less than four decades". Kempthorne goes on to say that in saving the polar bears, it is not a time to look at policy. Really?

Per the Washington Post, "Under the law, the federal government is now required to draft a recovery plan for the species, which entails assessing the population and its habitat. The ruling also compels federal agencies to consult with the Interior Department when considering decisions that could further imperil the polar bears."

I see no way that we can "save" the polar bears without looking at our current policy, or lack thereof. As has been proven before, greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for the sea ice melting. Therefore, how can you stop or at least lessen the ice melt without addressing greenhouse gas emissions?

Is there anything else we can do to save the polar bears in the immediate or long-term future? Are we going to have to wait until January 2009? I think this YouTube video speaks for itself...

Happy? Earth Day!

It's Earth Day! Do anything exciting?

There's a ton of press leading up to today, all really interesting. The Washington Post looks at the death of Earth Day today and also had a good look at Mountain Top Removal on Sunday. They also launched a new "Green Section" online.

MSN has a special section and there was a ton of press coverage of Bush's climate change "initiative", if you can call it that. There's talk of fuel economy guidelines being released to meet the 35mpg standards in the next decade, and more and more.

So, suddenly everyone cares - or it looks like they care. My question is does it matter? Is it too late? There seem to be lots of magic solutions to climate change, but nobody mentions that the use of ethanol could lead to higher food prices (which, by the way, have been increasing and are now called a "Silent Tsunami").

Also, how do you or did you celebrate Earth Day? I suggest planting a tree - maybe Apple.

Race to Be Green: 2008

Today, Newsweek landed in my mailbox. I was excited, but not just because I got mail. The cover story of this week is - Environment and Leadership: Who's the Greenest of Them All?

So, I'll spare you most of the story, because although it's interesting, you can read it here, and in all honesty you'll probably not be surprised if you've been staying up-to-date with the race. It does a good job of summarizing the three Presidential candidates' positions on the environment. My favorite part: no matter what happens, next year the policy in the White House will be different.

The worst about this article though was the ad in the middle and the statistics. First the ad - for a hybrid Chevy Tahoe, "America's first full-size hybrid SUV." Oh yay! It gets 14mpg in the city and a whopping 20 on the highway. Are we seriously celebrating this? This is why the United States has this problem in the first place. You don't see SUVs, hybrid or not, in Europe. It's time for smaller cars.

The second thing that got to me was the stats. Newsweek cited that "The environment has emerged as a leading concern. Last year, three in 10 voters said they cared about the issue, up from 11 percent in 2005." As much as I'm excited that the number grew from the measly 11%, 30 isn't really amazing. Do we not realize that without the environment we couldn't live?

How can we seriously expect a change in the public's perception of the environment when we're selling hybrid SUVs that get worse gas mileage than most sedans? How much harm do you think the next 9 months will have on the environment until we get a new set of ideas in DC? And, realistically, how fast do you expect any action to happen?

Just some thoughts, feel free to weigh in and ask questions of your own!

Discounting and Intergenerational Equity

We're starting a series of Guest Blogs! This is one of (hopefully) many more to appear over the next couple months, intensifying over the summer. Please comment, enjoy, and especially comment!!

This post is from Dennis Meadows, "a professor of Systems Management and director of the Institute for Policy and Social Science Research at the University of New Hampshire. He lives in Durham, New Hampshire" (From Chelsea Green Publishing). He also is the author of Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update. Find more about him at Wikipedia.

Discounting and Intergenerational Equity

Young people should be aware of the importance of discounting of costs and benefits in all matters relating to intergenerational considerations.

Discounting is used in many studies of costs and benefits of proposed actions and policies. It is essentially a way of taking into account that money is more useful now than in the future because it can be put on deposit and interest collected. The higher the discount rate, the more severely future costs and benefits are "disregarded".

Sir Nicholas Stern, a senior economic advisor the UK Government, recently completed his report on the economic implications of climate change. It was submitted to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He used discounting to compare costs of taking action now with the value of reduced damage from climate change in the future. His report stimulated much discussion of discounting. Economists' criticisms of the Stern report are almost totally focused on his use of the discount rate. He uses a low one, and they think it should be higher. I will not get into that issue, because I believe the concept of a discount rate (high or low - it makes no difference) is completely invalid in this case.

The idea that future costs and benefits should be discounted from their present values is based absolutely on one implicit assumption that the economists never mention. Probably they are even mainly unaware of it. Discounting only makes sense if you can buy back in the future whatever benefits you forego now. Or putting it in another way, it only makes sense if the costs of correcting current actions do not become infinite in the future.

A related assumption is that all the costs and benefits of an action can and will be expressed in financial terms. Economists are content to do a discounted cost analysis of species extinction, for example. I think that is total lunacy and arrogance. What qualifies a couple of economists living today to judge if losing a species forever will only impose on us the costs and benefits that we can foresee accurately now? And how could we imagine that future generations -- who will be deprived forever of the species -- will evaluate the costs and the benefits exactly as we do?

With climate change we are facing a social problem where delay now will give us a future that cannot be reversed, no matter how much money we spend. If we permit the climate to change, there will simply be no way we can buy back the situation we have now (to which we have adapted technically, politically, and economically over the past several centuries.) So there is no discount rate that can legitimately be used to decide whether it is "optimal" to act now or later.

I would caution all young people that if they get into the argument about the appropriate discount rate to use in developing climate policy, they have already lost the argument.

For decisions related to global climate change, modern economists' theory of discount rates is simply irrelevant.

-Dennis L. Meadows

Is there something we can learn from the Mayan Empire?

Good morning everyone,

I just opened my email, and I got the latest National Geographic newsletter that I subscribe to, and found a very interesting article titled "Maya May Have Caused Civilization-Ending Climate Change."

The article briefly goes through many different theories and factors about the collapse of the Mayan Empire, but says "'Our recent research shows that another factor may have been climate change,' [Tom Server] said during a meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science in Boston, Massachusetts, earlier this month." The researchers are using satellite imagery and are from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The article suggests that the Mayan Empire collapse is, directly and indirectly, because of the lack of sustainability in their everyday practices. They practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, which "Sever and his colleagues say such methods couldn't have sustained a population that reached 60,000 at its peak." Researchers think that they also exploited seasonal wetlands. "The data suggest that the combination of slash-and-burn agriculture and conversion of the wetlands induced local drought and turned up the thermostat."

Impressively, and on a good note, the researchers are also taking their data to the people, and have had a few regional successes including: "In one instance the Guatemalan congress was inspired to create the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Central America's largest protected area, after viewing satellite imagery and seeing striking differences between their forests and those that had been clear-cut to the north."

The article also discusses how even though there are some success stories from the use of their program, that it isn't enough. "Despite these local efforts in environmental stewardship, however, Latin American countries are facing a heavy burden from worldwide climate change." Local residents are reporting lower harvesting rates, and the growing lack of rain.

We should all take a minute and read this article...we could learn something from the collapse of the Mayan Empire. If the lack of sustainability has caused climate change in the past, even if minor and regional, and lead to the downfall of one of the most famous/infamous cultures in the world...it makes me wonder about ours...

What are your thoughts OT blog?

The Coal Dilemma

Of all the fossil fuels we burn, coal produces the greatest amount of carbon dioxide per energy output, meaning it contributes the most to climate destabilization. Unfortunately, the majority of our electricity comes from coal because it is the cheapest power source under our current economic structure. If we accounted for its real costs, including economic externalities (such as respiratory problems, mercury pollution, and environmental destruction caused by some coal mining), it would no longer be considered the cheapest source of energy. Unfortunately, our current economic system does not account for these costs, so we continue to harm people's health and exacerbate climate change, while enjoying falsely cheap energy.



The dilemma is that people want cheap energy so they have more money to support their families. If we pay less for our utility bill, we can spend more on food, gas, clothes, cars, houses, cell phones, entertainment.... But is it worth it? Are people really willing to sacrifice their children's health and clean environment for cheaper electricity today? Would you be willing to sacrifice some of the "extra" things you purchase so that you could use cleaner energy? What monthly purchase would you be willing to forgo so you could purchase clean energy?

Climate Emergency?

We have a climate emergency, according to a new book that was published online this week called "Climate Code Red: The case for a sustainability emergency." It can be found at http://www.climatecodered.net/

It's about 100 pages, and the summary and key points are great. There are two things that stick with me.

- "There is already enough carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere to initiate ice sheet disintegration in West Antarctica and Greenland and to ensure that sea levels will rise metres in coming decades."

Why do people still not believe this? For some reason, there are some people that believe that this either isn't happening, or that it's "not that big a deal." I think this may now be cited in just about every climate change report. If you still don't think reducing carbon emissions is an important issue, check out this video.

- "Our conventional mode of politics is short-term, adversarial and incremental, fearful of deep, quick change and simply incapable of managing the transition at the necessary speed. The climate crisis will not respond to incremental modification of the business-as-usual model."

Basically, we have to do something NOW - we really can't afford to wait any longer, hence the "emergency." I agree, but can we really accomplish anything in the immediate future? It seems that in the US we're stuck with the status quo until January 20, 2009. However, even after that who knows what the new President's energy and environmental policies will be and whether Congress will go along with it.

Are we really stuck until next January? I hope not, but I have a bad feeling...

The solution to climate change: culture change

The past week has been incredibly exciting and full of emotion. Beginning last Wednesday, the National Council on Science and the Environment (NCSE) brought together scientists, government officials, politicians, and the general public to discuss Climate Change: Science and Solutions. Many of us at the conference experienced strong emotions of anxiety, and even despair as we saw that the negative impacts of our carbon emissions and deforestation clearly overshadow the solutions to climate change (or "climate disruption", as John Holdren accurately described it).

It's not that we don't have solutions, it's that they require societal and cultural change on a massive scale. Sure, many changes such as improving energy efficiency are win-win actions, or "low hanging fruit". But to minimize the negative effects of climate disruption, we really need to create drastic changes to the way we produce food, manage forests, travel, and use energy.

Up until now, we have not had to pay for the pollution we emit and the natural resources we destroy - so we have been paying artificially low prices for all the wood, paper, water, and gas we use. But since we haven't been paying the REAL costs, we have been building up debt, and now we are in the hole (much like the U.S.'s national debt.)

But the depressing story of our ecological debt is not the full story. Monday was Martin Luther King Day - a day to honor and recognize the power and success of the social justice movement and all those who dedicate their lives to create positive change. MLK and the civil rights movement have made incredible progress by inspiring America to stand up for justice. The movement gave power to a beautiful component to American culture: that of tolerance, appreciation of diversity, and love of justice. It is on these same principles, and with a similar momentum, that we can transform our culture away from blind consumerism and toward socially and environmentally responsible lifestyles.

Start now by transforming your personal, political, and business life. Adopt a new habit every month, take a day to meet with your local, state, and or US representative to tell them what they need to be doing for you (ie. improving mass transit, taxing/regulating coal to subsidize clean energy, protecting forests, the environment, and American jobs through fair trade regulations.) And finally, take a lead at work by making sure your office and/or business has good practices - from recycling and being energy efficient to collaborating with other businesses on how to be environmentally and socially responsible in your field.
Let's create a happy ending to this story.

What are the most impactful actions you can take this year?

Reflections on Hope

Cross-posted from the blog Climate Teacher - a blog post by Elizabeth Swain

Thursday, December 20, 2007
We are not helpless...

Events this week left me remembering the column my mentor Dana Meadows wrote about the depressing signs from the Arctic. (This from 2001, when the forecasts were that it might take fifty years before the Arctic was free of sea ice in the summer, a prediction that some reports are now saying was too optimistic.) The way Dana ended the column then rings true for me today.

"Is there any way to end this column other than in gloom? Can I give my friend, you, myself any honest hope that our world will not fall apart? Does our only possible future consist of watching the disappearance of the polar bear, the whale, the tiger, the elephant, the redwood tree, the coral reef, while fearing for the three-year-old?

Heck, I don't know. There's only one thing I do know. If we believe that it's effectively over, that we are fatally flawed, that the most greedy and short-sighted among us will always be permitted to rule, that we can never constrain our consumption and destruction, that each of us is too small and helpless to do anything, that we should just give up and enjoy our SUVs while they last, well, then yes, it's over. That's the one way of believing and behaving that gives us a guaranteed outcome.

Personally I don't believe that stuff at all. I don't see myself or the people around me as fatally flawed. Everyone I know wants polar bears and three-year-olds in our world. We are not helpless and there is nothing wrong with us except the strange belief that we are helpless and there's something wrong with us. All we need to do, for the bear and ourselves, is to stop letting that belief paralyze our minds, hearts, and souls."

Re-reading this, I have decided, again, six years later, to believe that these words are true. There is nothing wrong with me. I have decided (again) to believe that the way I feel is the way any sane person would on a rapidly sickening planet. I have decided (again) to believe that millions of people feel the same way, even if they don't wear those feelings on their public faces.

And I see the possibility -available to us as soon as we stop assuming there is something wrong with us – that we could decide together that we are not helpless, either. That, too, would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Sixth Extinction

A every interesting article by Michael Novacek, senior vice president and provost of the American Museum of Natural History, appeared in the Washington Post this Sunday titled The Sixth Extinction: It Happened To Him. Its Happening To You.. The article begins discussing the five other mass extinctions and the last of which occurred about 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs and 70% of all other species. According to Novacek, we are now experiencing what scientists predicted over a decade ago...the sixth extinction event.

In the article, Novacek notes that in 2007 of 41,415 species that were assessed by the IUCN (http://www.iucn.org/) 39% or 16,309 species were threatened with extinction. That is an alarming number considering that the UNEP estimates that 1,750,000 species are known and 14,000,000 are actually out there (http://www.unep.org/GEO/geo3/english/220.htm) and of that less than 2% and 0.3% (respectively) are actually assessed.

In simpler terms, Novacek says that the IUCN numbers show that one in three amphibians, one quarter of the world's pines (and coniferous trees), one in eight birds, and one in four mammals are threatened with extinction.

The numbers are alarming for the mass extinction event that is already shown to be taking place, but as Novacek points out "We are our own asteroids. Still, the primary concern here is the future welfare of us and our children. Assuming that we survive the current mass extinction event, won't we do okay? The disappearance of more than a few species is regrettable, but we can't compromise an ever-expanding population and a global economy whose collapse would leave billions to starve. This dismissal, however, ignores an essential fact about all those species: They live together in tightly networked ecosystems responsible for providing the habitats in which even we humans thrive. Pollination of flowers by diverse species of wild bees, wasps, butterflies and other insects, not just managed honeybees, accounts for more than 30 percent of all food production that humans depend upon."

I couldn't put it into better words. "The primary concern here is the future welfare of us and our children..."

Novacek echos what Our Task is all about. We need to find a way to carry out our goal--a mutually sustaining relationship between humans and the Earth.

The article continues to say what the world will be like after the mass extinction event takes place. Novacek says that the 21st century will mark the end for many species that are threatened with extinction now and that the devastated ecosystems will allow more invasive pests and weeds to take over and destroy them further. He says this is particularly dangerous because we haven't built up a biological resistance to all of these different pests and weeds.

He also says that people do care about what is happening and that recent surveys correlate with that fact. One downfall he says is that all the hype with climate change is taking attention away from other issues including deforestation and water pollution. To quote Novacek, "Global warming is of course a hugely important issue. But it is the double whammy of climate change combined with fragmented, degraded natural habitats -- not climate change alone -- that is the real threat to many populations, species and ecosystems, including human populations marginalized and displaced by those combined forces."

This is also what OT is all about. We want a mutually sustaining relationship between humans and the Earth. We want to draw attention to many different environmental important issues including global warming, climate change, deforestation, water pollution...etc.

The article ends by listing things that people are doing including protecting certain species through conservation, controlling emissions, and green building.

One of the last things Novacek says is "The first step in dealing with the problem is recognizing it for what it is."

That is my challenge to you, OT blog, let us, together, find out a way to help in this first step...helping people recognize it for what it is...and I believe we are well on our way to doing so!

Protecting the Use of Oil Commodities or Polar Bears?

A recent article from the Associate Press titled "Decision on Listing Polar Bear Postponed" got to me this morning.

The article opens by saying that the federal government needs a few more weeks to decide whether not to list polar bears for protection under the Endangered Species Act because of the destruction of their habitat due to global warming/climate change.

The article doesn't state that the USFWS is against listing polar bears, but it admits that even listing polar bears as threatened would "trigger limits on development, particularly oil and gas exploration and production, that could harm the animals." What are your thoughts OT blog?

I believe that protecting animal and plant species under the Endangered Species Act should not be based upon whether or not the result of protection limits our oil commodities or any other type of commodity, development, etc.

We will have to wait and see what their decision is, but because the ESA exists to protect plant and animal species that are under the threat of extinction (endangered or threatened) due to habitat destruction. The protection of endangered and threatened species is important because it preserves biodiversity.

Biodiversity is basically the variability found throughout life on Earth. It allows for adapation to change through genetic diversity. Many ecosystem services are a direct result of biodiversity including medicines. Two examples of medicines from forests are Taxol, a cancer drug from the Pacific Yew, and Quinine, a malaria drug from the cinchona tree. Biodiversity is essential to maintaining life on this planet and getting us safely through the 21st century and beyond. Creating a mutually enhancing relationship between humans and the Earth--and thus protecting biodiversity (and species like polar bears who are important to their ecosystems)--is what Our Task is all about.

Is It Possible for Social Justice to Promote Social Inequality?

The United Nations today released its annual Human Development Report, warning that climate change will affect poorer countries far more adversely than it will affect affluent countries. The report also pushes those latter countries to aid the former countries in their eco-friendly development, citing the fact that it is primarily the affluent countries who are responsible for the enhanced global warming enigma.

The HDR devotes significant space to the issue of social justice. Featured in the report's summary is Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, who argues that climate change is just as much a moral issue as it is a scientific one. He warns of "adaptation apartheid", a loaded term designed to goad people into an emotional response, presumably against those countries who, by virtue of their massive greenhouse emissions, are responsible for this de facto segregation of prosperity.

Having witnessed Tutu speak in person, I can vouch for his words' power, and his prominent positioning in the HDR proves his international recognition and appeal. But by aligning itself with Tutu in this way, the UN is (intentionally or not) endorsing his views as congruent with its own. This takes the UN out of its non-partisan box and thrusts it into the more ambiguous realm of social politics. This is not to say that the UN shouldn't tackle social issues. Clearly, that's part of its mission. But Tutu's ambitions are a bit presumptive and potentially dangerous.

To bastardize the HDR's and Tutu's assertions for the sake of space and argument, it boils down to this: rich, developed countries have, by virtue of their enormous growth, contributed the vast majority of greenhouse emissions to our atmosphere, and thus must take the equal amount of responsibility to deal with those emissions' consequences. Is it fair to ask a poor Egyptian to learn to tread water while letting a wealthy Dutchman build a floating house instead? Both are means of coping with a flood, but the inequity is painfully clear.

There are two conclusions that the HDR spins off from this situation. The first is to maintain that the responsible countries must decrease their emissions not just for their own sake, but for the poor Egyptian's as well. After all, they have the wealth to do so. I agree. Large change of any kind, especially climate change, can only occur if it has the support of large institutions. Yes, an avalanche can be started by tiny pellets of snow, but to have a full-on mountain-slide you need some big blocks to break off and come along for the ride as well. What I'm wont to dispute, however, is the second conclusion: that it's those same countries' responsibility to pay for not only the Egyptian's swimming lessons, but to pay for his lifestyle change as well; that is, to help so that he can possibly afford his own floating house. Tutu would call this social justice.

Let me be clear, I am no scrooge. Some type of redistribution of wealth is vital in any society and situation. Without charity, the world would be a sad, sad place. But charity and moral obligation are two different philosophical and pragmatical ideas. If I pass a homeless man on the street, must I give him change? If I can afford it, sure, I would. But there is no law, no civic dictum that says I must. To put this more in perspective, say I passed a group of twenty homeless men with but a spare dollar bill in my pocket. Should I give it to one of the men, possibly securing his next meal? What then of the other nineteen? They have as much need as the man I helped. And also, what situation and danger in which I am placing this man? Now he has food, and the others don't. Desperation leads to violence - could I have potentially caused this man harm?

The above situation is much too simple to apply to our world problems of monetary inequity, but it still holds some good questions that we should be asking. And it also brings up an important but depressing truism of our world: for some to survive, some must perish. Put another way, our world depends on having a spread of wealth, and that means that some will draw the short lot. No climate scientist or social scholar would argue that every man and woman should be as wealthy as an American, certainly not at current world population levels above 6 billion. Lord knows we have plenty of those running around as it is. More would just completely destroy our planet through intense resource usage. But what some scientists and scholars argue is that we should all perhaps learn to live as 3/4 of an American -- not on a racial level, but an economic one. This would free up some extra money for those who need it most, reducing the chasm between rich and poor but still maintaining the vital division of labor and resources.

This is a view I respect, and at least in theory, support. After all, as someone in my twenties, I'm the one who's going to have to deal with the climate problems of the future. But I must play Devil's Advocate with Tutu again. I believe that I, having worked hard for my wealth, I own a certain right to use it as I choose. I have always planned on giving a portion of my excess wealth to charitable causes. But be in not for anyone else to dictate this to me. Yes, the poor Egyptian didn't ask to be born to a poor family in a floodplain, but I didn't ask him to be born there either.

My goal would be to give him enough to sustain a comfort level relative to his own, not to mine. It would do him no good to buy him a floating house when the rest of his village lives in squalor. But to teach his village to irrigate more efficiently, thus increasing his farm's output and increasing the village's wealth, this would have a greater moral affect.

Developed nations are no doubt responsible for the current climate conundrum. But we must first fix our own house, and that is a challenge in and of itself. Are not the survival of some better than the survival of none? It's a reality that we don't often like to confront, because it isn't often socially and politically acceptable. One can very easily spin moral yarns about social justice, but they'll never amount to anything without an underlying thread of pragmatism.

If we can all live with a little less, we can all have a little more. If only the HDR's advocation were so subtle.

Good News, Bad News on Climate Change Policy in the U.S.

In a story in the Washington Post, President Bush's top science advisor, John Marburger III, admits that human activity is producing too much carbon dioxide and that it could induce disasters even before the Earth is warmed by two more degrees C.

From the article:
The IPCC outlined a range of environmental impacts that could transpire if temperatures rise 1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above 1980 levels. These include placing between 20 and 30 percent of all species "at increasing risk of extinction" damaging most coral reefs; and
"increased morbidity and mortality from heat waves, floods and droughts."

Yet Margburger and the Bush administration refuse to join other leaders of the world community in their commitment to limit warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. What is his excuse? It "is going to be a very difficult one to achieve and is not actually linked to regional events that affect people's lives."

He's right about the first part of his statement - it will be very difficult to achieve, but the second part of his statement is completely illogical. Global climate is simply the sum of all the regional climates, so global climate change is inherently defined by the collection of changes to regional climates.

Maybe what he was trying to say is that he isn't concerned about climate change because wealthier people (and wealthier countries like the U.S.) are expected to be less devastated by climate change. Many people agree that the poorest people of the world are going to suffer the most from climate change (though the wealthiest people of the world are largely responsible for climate change.)

So maybe the real reason the Bush administration is dodging commitment to prevent or even mitigate climate change is: "It is going to be very difficult to achieve, and we don't care about the global effects of climate change - only the effects it will have on the U.S; and we'll just deal with those when they come." Well, even if you agree with this globally irresponsible, tyrannically isolationist view, do you really trust the Bush administration to be able to deal with it's own domestic climate disasters (think: hurricane Katrina)?


Finally, the title of this blog promised some good news:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/AR2007101802452.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Unlike the Bush administration, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has acknowledged the importance of addressing climate change. On the grounds that coal-fired power plants emit carbon dioxide, they refused to offer a permit for the construction of a new power plant. In contrast to the Bush administration, the Kansas state government made a bold statement to the energy industry that the people want clean energy, not just cheap energy.

What we're up against

The US and Austrailian governments refuse to demand an actual cut in emissions levels despite warnings from the IPCC reports that say we must not only stop our current emissions levels - we should actually cut them back to avoid serious disaster within the next century. Major studies warn of mass extinctions, climate changes that will disrupt resource availability and natural habitats, and sea-level rises that will disrupt major communities. If we don't REDUCE our emissions, these disasters will affect us within the next 50 years, and they will only get worse after that. Yet these leaders refuse to make sacrifices now to minimize the disasters that our children and grandchildren will have to face. Did the leaders not read the scientific reports, or do they just not believe them? Or do they just not care about their grandchildren? Maybe they think that the "economic growth" built on energy from fossil fuels will be enough to protect their progeny. Why don't they have faith in the economic potential of investing in alternative energies? Plenty of historical examples show that banning one product leads to innovation in alternatives. The only logical explanation (that I can think of) for the behavior of these leaders is that they have some good buds in the fossil fuel industry who haven't yet invested seriously in renewable, clean energy.

UN Secretary-General calls on You(th)!!

On March 1, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the world's younger generation to take better care the Earth. Addressing young people at a UN conference, Ki-moon pointed out the differences growing up during his era and the current one. "For my generation, coming of age at the height of the cold war, fear of a nuclear winter seemed the leading existential threat on the horizon. Today, war continues to threaten countless men, women and children across the globe. It is the source of untold suffering and loss. And the majority of the UN's work still focuses on preventing and ending conflict. But the danger posed by war to all of humanity – and to our planet – is at least matched by the climate crisis and global warming. " (bold mine)

The reality of global warming is starting to sink in, Ki-moon said. "The success of “An Inconvenient Truth” suggests that, even amongst the broader public, climate change is no longer an “inconvenient” issue, it is an inescapable reality." He pledged that as incoming Secretary-General "action on climate change will be one of my top priorities."

Ki-moon also was somewhat regretful, yet hopeful - "Unfortunately, my generation has been somewhat careless in looking after our one and only planet. But I am hopeful that is finally changing. And I am also hopeful that your generation will prove far better stewards of our environment; in fact, looking around this hall today, I have a strong sense that you already are."

Ban Ki-moon believes that the youth he talked to can be (and already are in some cases) better stewards of the environment. The real question, however, is - can you?

(To read the whole article, click on the title)