Current Information on the Environment

FROM THE SPRING 2008 ISSUE OF NONVIOLENT CHANGE

www.nonviolentchangejournal.org, Coordinating Editor: Stephen Sachs: ssachs@earthlink.net
ONGOING ACTIVITIES
Steve Sachs
Environmental Activities


Numerous U.S. peace organizations have been mobilizing for policies that counter global warming, and protect the environment, in addition to opposing the Bush administrations occupation of Iraq and threatening to attack Iran. This includes “Global Exchange (http://www.globalexchange.org) and Codepink (www.codepinkalert.org). Global exchange has been calling for an immediate moratorium on U.S. incentives for agrofuels, U.S. agroenergy monocultures and global trade in agrofuels, because “the increasing use of corn for fuel puts less on your plate, takes more out of your wallet, and doesn't necessarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions (http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ZAmm26MDmoNNt862r4jY2FvrOscYHdeq). The organization’s freedom from Oil campaign “promotes a clean green energy economy for all Greening the blue-collar economy.” In January, Global Exchange held a youth rally outside the International Auto Show for green cars and green jobs, holding “The auto industry, as one of the top employers of blue-collar jobs, has a responsibility to streamline green from producer to product to purchaser. As Van Jones, a leading member in the green jobs movement said, ‘The new green economy being developed needs to lift all boats, not just the ones that already have spanking new oars, benches and no holes.’" Also, in Januaty, Global Exchange participated in a national teach-in, called Focus the Nation, that engaged U.S. students and communities with political leaders and decision makers to address global warming solutions. “The event served as a catalyzing force to help shift the national conversation about global warming towards a determination to face this global challenge.” The event involved over 1,800 higher and secondary education institutions, faith groups, civic organizations and businesses.

The same is true around the world. For example, The Nepalese Human Rights and Peace Society (HURPES) expressed serious concern, in January, over the effect of climate change and global warming, submitting a 10-point suggestion to the government of Nepal for taking necessary steps for the conservation of the environment. It suggested that the government formulate a national plan of action and implement it to control the effect of climate change and global warming and for continued reforestation to minimize the green house effect. The proposal also called on the government to include peace education, environmental education along with human rights in the syllabus and it is necessary to publicize to the population. For more visit: http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=34094.

A leading Japanese newspaper reported, in late January, that petitions from 90,000 Avaaz members to the Bali Climate Change Summit helped change Japan's policy on climate change. The paper stated that at a critical, high-level meeting on global warming, the Environment Minister held up Avaaz's "Titanic" newspaper ad from the Bali summit--showing Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda, with Bush, steering towards climate disaster... along with a call for tough 2020 emissions targets, signed by 90,000 Avaaz members. "The world sees Japan as a force resisting change! Are we okay with this?" the minister asked. The Chief Cabinet Minister suggested setting a target. Days later, Prime Minister Fukuda announced his decision: at last, Japan would set a 2020 emissions target! In mid-March, Avaaz, concerned about the fact that production of Biofuels is rapidly inflating food prices, especially in underdeveloped localities, while many biofuels require more energy to produce than they provide, while increasing CO2 and other pollution, engaged in an international e-mail campaign to the nations with the 20 largest economies, producing 75% of carbon emissions, about to take part in climate change discussions, in Chiba, Japan, leading up to the G8 summit this summer, urging the adoption of green global standards for biofuels. For more go to: https://secure.avaaz.org/.

Community solutions finds that oil production is now peaking, and “that While Plans A and B seek to maintain unsustainable levels of resource consumption through energy alternatives, Plan C advocates for cultural change. Plan A – More and dirtier fuels like tar sands, oil shale, coal-to-liquids, and “clean” coal (bury CO2) to keep up with growing energy consumption. Plan B – The "clean and green" approach proposes using large-scale renewables like wind, solar, biofuels and hydrogen to maintain our high energy way of life and keep us complacent and consuming. Plan C – Our strategy of culture change, conservation and curtailment. Through reductions in resource consumption, dramatic conservation and curtailment of energy use coupled with an increase in local community living we can survive peak oil and create a sustainable world in its wake. Plan C addresses many of today’s issues head on and reduces the impetus for war. “Our solutions look at how each individual can make a difference, reduce CO2 emissions, and help bring peace to the world”. For more go to: http://www.communitysolution.org.

In the United States, The Wilderness Society, paralleling the efforts of many organizations, holding that “Global warming is the greatest environmental crisis that we face, and we need solutions now!” is petitioning Congress, “As Congress prepares to set the policy agenda for 2008, I strongly urge you to make taking action to reduce global warming pollution a top priority. The National Academy of Sciences and thousands of scientists worldwide agree that the planet is warming and that human dependence on dirty fossil fuels - such as coal and oil - is the primary cause. The problem is so urgent that the next 10 years will likely decide the outcome. To reverse the dangerous effects of global warming, it is critical that we: - Gradually reduce global warming pollution 20% by 2020; - Allow for a "cap and trade" program to help businesses meet pollution reduction goals without suffering economic losses; and - Promote a greater reliance on clean, renewable energy sources. Solving global warming will place the U.S. at the forefront of developing and deploying the clean energy technologies that will dominate the 21st century. When we solve global warming, we will have established a more secure, prosperous, and vibrant America.” For more information go to: http://action.lcv.org.

The Wilderness Society is opposing A proposed land exchange between the Bush Administration's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Doyon Ltd., the largest private landholder in Alaska, because it could bring sprawling pipelines, drill pads, oil spills, roads and industrial traffic to the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The proposal threatens the culture and subsistence livelihoods of people living in eight native villages located on and around the refuge and the wildlife that depend on the refuge for habitat. Doyon is a native-owned corporation and many of its own shareholders oppose the land exchange because of the threat it poses to the land, water, and wildlife of Yukon Flats-the place they call home. For more information go to: http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/yukon00/876i6kg9lwmkmi6? or http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/yukon00/forward/.

Earth Hour took place on March 29 2008, at 8:00 pm, local time, with numerous cities round the world turning off their lights for an hour as a statement for action on reducing global warming and climate change. Among the participating metropolises were Sydney, Australia, Chicago, Tel Aviv, Manila, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Brisbane and Toronto. For more information go to: http://www.earthhour.org/about. The Seven Generations Conference, named in honor of the American Indian traditions--that decisions are made with an eye towards their impact on the next seven generations – March 19 - 21, at the Boulder, CO, UCAR Center Green Campus, approached climate change from two perspectives; one rooted in indigenous experiences and one born of present-day science. The overarching goal is to look for opportunities for the two perspectives to point to shared strategies for understanding, adapting to, and mitigating climate change, with a particular focus on American Indian Lands. The Planning for Seven Generations Conference was sponsored by The American Indian & Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The goal of the conference was, “Developing a collaborative way forward – one that honors indigenous and western ways of knowing about the Earth; Framing research questions to allow collaborative, multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural, community-based investigation and offer opportunities for student participation, and Exploring effective strategies for information and idea communication and dissemination, including leveraging cyber-infrastructure tools”. For more information Contact: Lena Gomez-Miller, UCAR/SOARS (303)497-8622, millerl@ucar.edu, http://www.cbp.ucar.edu/tribalconfhome.html.

Carbon Fund Blog carries climate change news, links to green blogs, and a green resource list, at: http://carbonfund.blogspot.com/2008/03/sky-is-falling.html. Carbon Fund is certifying carbon free products at: http://www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/businesses/category/CarbonFree. The fund also has an e-mail list serve.

In the state of São Paulo, Brazil, March 7, several hundred members and supporters of the international farmers organizations La Vía Campesina occupied a research site of the U.S.-based agricultural biotechnology firm Monsanto, destroying the greenhouse and experimental plots of genetically-modified (GM) corn. Participants stated that the act was to protest the Brazilian government's decision in February to legalize Monsanto's GM Guardian® corn, which was recently banned in France, Austria, and Hungary due to risks to the environment and human health. For more information go to: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5109.

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WORLD DEVELOPMENTS

Steve Sachs
Environmental Developments


Spring arrived with increasing concern about the environment. Community Solutions finds that Oil production is now peaking, and that by 2010 we will start not having enough oil and other fossil fuels to meet our transportation, heating and manufacturing "needs". This will bring inflation and major food shortages. Community Solutions says that, “We will be forced to localize, rely on resources nearby. There are good aspects of that,” once the shift is made, including healthier diets and less pollution, particularly less greenhouse gas production. However, unless we begin immediately to prepare appropriately for the energy shortages, we will fall into exceedingly difficult times.

2007 was the second warmest year on record, exceeded only by 2005. Around the world, the combination of rising energy (and hence transportation and food production) costs, agricultural land taken out of food production to produce biofuel, and population growth (particularly in developing nations) with increased urbanization spreading over agricultural land, has already brought a dangerous inflation in food prices, which can only increase massively over time. Julian Borger, “Feed The World? We Are Fighting a Losing Battle, UN Admits” The Guardian, February 26 (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/26/7304/) reported that the rise in food prices of up to 40% has brought the United Nations to warn, in February, that it no longer has enough money “to keep global malnutrition at bay this year,” and will need an additional half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs. “The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2.5 million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition. Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) stated, “This is the new face of hunger. There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before.” “The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Haiti, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal, Cameroon, Ivory cost Burkina Faso, Italy and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades and put shipments of rice under guard. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months, while China has put price controls on many of the same products. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.” In the Philippines, on March 26, the President ordered a crackdown on rice hoarders, as rice shortages have been creating unrest. At the end of February, world wheat stores had dropped to their lowest level in 35 years. In the United States, mirroring the world market, in April, wheat prices had increased 130% since March of 2007, while soy process rose 87%., Corn, barley, sunflower seeds, and canola also steadily rising in cost. In developing countries, food has risen to consuming 60%-80% of people’s spending. Also, with agricultural product prices high, an increasing number of U.S. farmers are forgoing subsidies to rotate land to conserve it, and putting that land into production, which environmentalists fear will destroy wild life habitat, and cause other problems. The growing world food crisis is likely to lead to increasing violence, including international conflict. A UNESCO report, “International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development,” issued April 15 (Preliminary information is available at: http://farastaff.blogspot.com/2008/04/international-assessment-of.html, and a report in The New York Times is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/world/europe/16food.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin), found that, “Modern agriculture will have to change radically if the international community wants to cope with growing populations and climate change, while avoiding social fragmentation and irreversible deterioration of the environment,” according to Salvatore Arico, a UNESCO biodiversity specialist, summarizing the report by some 400 experts. The report states that modern agriculture has brought significant increases in food production, but that the benefits have been spread unevenly and at “an increasingly intolerable price, paid by small-scale farmers, workers, rural communities and the environment.”

Laura Carlsen, “Latin American Food Fights,” Americas Program Column, April 4, 2007 (http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5124), states, “For the first time since widespread famines devastated whole populations, serious doubts about global food supply have gripped societies throughout the world. The problem this time is not so much the quantity of food produced (if it ever was), but what productive land will be used for, who will feed us, and who will eat. In Argentina, soybean producers blocked roads to protest a tax hike on exports levied by the government of President Cristina Fernandez. Soybean producers have reaped a financial bonanza over the past years, harvesting high prices with the full support of the government and driving basic food producers off the land. As politicians and exporters hurled insults back and forth, urban consumers experienced food shortages due to interruption of food transport between the cities and the countryside. In Bolivia, cooking oil producers demonstrated against the government's temporary prohibition on exports. The Bolivian government of President Evo Morales has frozen exports until domestic demand can be met at affordable prices. Producers in the province of Santa Cruz used the occasion to reiterate demands for regional autonomy and intensify opposition to government social welfare policies. In Mexico, the biotech lobby moved one step closer to legalizing genetically modified (GM) corn in the country with new rules on a biosafety law made-to-order to their interests. Farmers' organizations warned that the measure threatens native corn varieties, livelihoods and the nation's food sovereignty. GM corn cross-pollinates naturally with native varieties, creating genetic contamination of varieties that indigenous farmers have developed over centuries. Their use also makes farmers dependent on transnational seed companies, instead of relying on millennia-old practices of seed-saving. Each of these conflicts is inserted in its own complex national political scenario. But they share something in common: they are part of a battle over the future of food and agriculture. As prices for basic commodities soar, small farmers, instead of reaping the benefits, find themselves facing a new set of threats to their livelihoods”.

A recent report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) cautions that global food prices will stay high. The report blames, in part, the biofuels boom for rising food costs. “With grains and oil seeds the key feedstocks for bio-fuels, the oil price rise exerted a strong push on agriculture commodity prices in 2007, which enjoyed their best performance for almost 30 years. As oil hit $100 per barrel in January 2008, soybean prices jumped to a 34-year high, corn prices approached their recent 11-year high, wheat prices were just below their recent all-time high, rapeseed prices rose to record highs and palm oil futures hit a historic high." The report concludes "Governments need to carefully consider the impact of bio-fuels on the poor.’ Other factors that have joined to create the crisis in the food supply include climate change, concentration in production and marketing, spreading urbanization, erosion and pollution of natural resources, higher demand for livestock and government policies that have made smallholder farming—still the source of most of the world's food supply—a ‘non-competitive’ (and therefore non-viable) economic activity.” Carlson recommends that as world food prices rise, “governments need to rethink their dependence on the international market for food and revisit policies that foment the use of land to produce cash crops for export.” “It's also way past time that institutions of global governance take a hard look at the human cost of allowing a handful of transnational companies to control so much of our global food supply. Mexico's tortilla crisis turned out to be more a problem of speculative control of supply than a real supply-and-demand problem.”

Rising fuel prices are driving inflation effecting everything, and especially transportation. Independent truckers in the U.S. – even more than large companies – have been feeling the pinch, and talked of a strike. U.S. airlines have been impacted, not only raising fares with fuel surcharges, but larger airlines have been cutting flights, in spite of level demand, while several small airlines have been forced out of business. In March, inflation increased in the 15 Europe nations using the Euro to a 3.5% annual rate.

The UN Environmental Program reported, in February, that as oceans heat up from global warming, world fish stocks will drop drastically, from that fact alone (mot counting already serious over fishing and pollution), potentially impacting 2.6 billion people directly, who derive their protein from the oceans. In the face of rapidly diminishing plant species, and the quickly falling number of varieties of each agricultural plant, on the planet, the Global Seed Vault has been built on a Norwegian island in the Arctic to store samples of the worlds food seeds and sprouts very securely in case of agricultural disaster, even in the far future.

The huge movement of weight on the earths surface as ice caps and glaciers melt, and the oceans rise, is causing movements in the earth (such as rising land beneath melting Antarctic glaciers). This in turn is causing increases in seismic activity, including earthquakes. In some areas, such as in Iceland, but not in others, as, for instance, in the Mediterranean Sea region, this has brought about additional volcanic activity. In March, a 160 square mile section of the Wilkins Ice shelf in Antarctica broke off, as a result of global warming – an indicator of the pattern of melting. The World Glacier Monitoring Service, at the University of Zurich and supported by the United Nations Environment Program, published a report, March 12, (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/earth/18melt.html?ex=1363492800&en=e19b4b86c09cae9f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) finding that glaciers are melting at a faster rate than previously estimated. Most of the world’s mountain glaciers, many of which feed major rivers and water supplies, are shrinking at an accelerating pace as the climate warms. The report warned that the loss of glaciers would take away a summertime source of river water, drinking water and hydroelectric power in populous, relatively poor places like South Asia and the cities along the western slope of the Andes. “Millions of people depend on the runoff from mountain snow and ice in the warm seasons,” said Peter Gleick, who has studied water and climate for two decades and is the president of the Pacific Institute, a private research group in Oakland, CA (http://carbonfund.blogspot.com/2008/03/sky-is-falling.html).

Juliet Eilperin, “Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say,” The Washington Post, March 10, 2008 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/09/AR2008030901867) sites several recent scientific studies, including a paper coauthored by Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, find that to prevent dangerous rises in global temperature now, it will not be enough to reduce production of green house gases, and particularly carbon dioxide, to the levels of a few years ago. These studies find that human carbon dioxide emissions need to be reduced almost to zero by 2050 to stop global warming. This is far more than politicians around the world have so far been willing to consider. Similarly, Scientists argued in Nature, April 3 (http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001-pPULjeCv9VU2ZxH4mtlsI6WT2w2j6FOwAJYVhUtMnTBlwYSl56lOsoWGMaYJBOommWlqwY8JFExo8QPFrqGimmYj7DEtFU81B6Fknj_GCvAnwYm3wJRRVfpSRH3g4sSyqkXpHbOBE7-cQRBF-4HslChitOIpgzyHI6Z-KGYaxjy4EmAC1fmKA==), that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has seriously underestimated the breakthroughs needed to thwart climate change, calling the panel’s assumptions about future technological development.

The 5 day UN conference of 160 nations, a the beginning of April, taking a first step in moving to follow up on the Bali meeting in preparing a follow up to the Kyoto Treaty, which expires in 2012, for the first time considered regulating emissions from airplanes and ships.

In the U.S., the Senate is prepared to vote, in June, on legislation that would reduce U.S. emissions by 70% by 2050; the two Democratic senators running for president, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, back an 80% cut. The Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, supports a 60% percent reduction by mid-century. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who is the Senate leader for moving climate legislation through the Senate, as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the new findings "make it clear we must act now to address global warming." "It won't be easy, given the makeup of the Senate, but the science is compelling. It is hard for me to see how my colleagues can duck this issue and live with themselves." Norway’s experience (Elizabeth Rosenthal, Lofty Pledge to Cut Emissions Come With Caveat in Norway,” The New York Times, March 27, 2008) indicates that it is not easy to make major cutback’s to become truly carbon neutral. Norway, already a relatively low direct greenhouse gas producing nation – leaving only a small space for easy reductions at home – pledged first, in 2007, to become carbon neutral by 2050, and then, in January, that it would produce no more greenhouse gasses than it absorbed, by 2030. The problem is that to do this Norway plans to rely predominantly on purchasing carbon credits from developing countries. But there are not projected to be nearly enough forests to replant or preserve, and inefficient existing power plants and factories to replace or upgrade, to balance anywhere close to the carbon emissions of the developed world. Some more expensive and more difficult actions need to be taken, to this writer, what is needed – along with careful analysis of what the best courses of action really are – is to see the necessary actions as investments, and not costs or losses. The BBC reported, April 2 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7326834.stm), that greenhouse-gas emissions from key heavy industries in the European Union rose 1.1% last year. Greenpeace said the figures showed that Europe‚s Emissions Trading Scheme, implemented to satisfy Kyoto Protocol requirements, is failing at its task of protecting the climate, while others said that, over the long term, it will succeed in cutting emissions by 8% from 1990 levels by 2012.

Once again, a new report, by the World Glacier Monitering Service, in March, finds that glaciers around the earth are melting at a faster, and increasing, rate, than previously projected, as global warming accelerates. An expert panel of the U.S. National Research Council announced in March, in agreement with a similar recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency, that rising sea levels and other effects of global warming threaten roads, airports, rail lines and other important infrastructure, and that mitigating action needs to be commenced. The report is available at nationalacadamies.org The EPA report also noted that natural features near coastlines, such as wetlands, and water supplies are in danger of becoming contaminated by salt water, as oceans rise, and that costal erosion will increase (as has increasingly been occurring in Brittan and Alaska). The Miami Dade Climate Change Taskforce found that a two-foot ocean rise, which the UN Intergovernmental Task Force predicted by 2100 (and which recent findings of increased glacier melting indicated is likely to be exceeded well before then) “would make life in South Florida very difficult for everyone.” The multiagency draft report of the National Geological Survey, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of transportation (on line at: climatesciences.gov/library/sap/sap/4-1/public-review-draft), focusing on the area from Montauk Point, Long Island, NY to Cape lookout, NC, considered three estimates of ocean rise by next century, 16” (a rate which has already been exceeded), two feet (which is considered optimistic) and three feet. The daft report projects that a rise of close to two feet, would impact 70% of the property in area ports, such as Wilmington, DE, and would put at risk of inundation almost 2,200 miles of major roads, and 900 miles of railroad, in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and North Carolina. The report stated that a three-foot ocean rise would be catastrophic for wetlands and other costal features, but that a number of recent reports have projected higher increases in ocean level by the next century.

The World Bank, with support of developed nations, is launching a series of funds, totaling $7-$12 billion, for 'climate change mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries. The funds - the Clean Technology Fund, the Forest Investment Fund, the Adaptation/Climate Resilience Pilot Fund, and the Strategic Climate Fund – have been strongly criticized by developing countries and environment and development organizations. The world bank continues to fund new coal and other carbon fuel burning power plants, slightly more carbon efficient than existing facilities, and using carbon trading as a basis for saying the projects are green. “They are concerned that the funds will, once again, give wealthy Northern governments, and, in particular, their bank of choice, the World Bank, more control over funds intended to ‘help’ developing countries. (Daphne Wysham and Shakuntala Makhijani “World Bank Climate Profiteering,” Foreign Policy In Focus, March 31, 2008, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5110).” See also, Janet Redman, “The World Bank's Carbon Deals,” Foreign Policy In Focus, April 10, 2008, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5143, “The Bank is supporting some of the most polluting industries in Southern countries, while advancing little toward its goal of “reach[ing] and benefit[ing] the poorest communities of the developing world,” in its carbon market work. And, it’s doing even less to promote clean, renewable alternatives in the energy industry.”

A study published in Nature Geoscience, in February, found that the subsidence of land along the gulf coast, which combines with rising seas and increased numbers of severe storms to cause coastal lands to be swallowed by the gulf, is caused by compaction of peat in bogs. This finding will necessity a larger diversion of water than previously planned, if proposals to divert Mississippi River water to bring sediment – which used to be carried annually into the delta, before the river was dyked – are to be carried out so as to successfully stop the rapid erosion of the Delta. In Alaska, Kivalina, one of a large number of villages suffering flooding from global warming, filed suit in federal court, in February, against 5 oil companies, 14 electric utilities, and the largest U.S. coal company, have a responsibility for contributing significantly to global warming, and hence the village’s flooding problems.

Increased extreme, and previously rare, weather, consistent with global warming, has been continuing. This spring the Midwestern U.S. is again being hit by unusually severe storms bringing especially strong flooding. This winter much of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific North West received record snow falls, easing drought, but causing traffic problems. The long-term drought is serious for the U.S. west. For example, a study by the Scrips Institute of Oceanography, made public in February, found that there is a 50% probability that vast Lake Mead, on the Nevada Arizona boarder, will effectively run dry by 3030, much sooner than previously projected.

A large area of China was shut down by an unprecedented snow storm, this winter, while Afghanistan, experienced the most severe winter of cold and snow in 30 years, bringing 462 known deaths, destroying 833 houses, and killing 316,000 cattle. A rare, and heavy, snowstorm, in January, brought life in Jerusalem and other Middle Eastern cities to a halt.

Some recent impacts of climate change include warming bringing the first outbreak of a tropical disease in Europe, with the village of Castigkione, near Ravenna on the northeast coast of Italy, suffering, in August, from chikungunya – a relative of dengue fever – carried by tiger mosquitoes now able to migrate from the Indian Ocean. Of as yet unknown cause, hundreds of bats, that eat insects, depressing their number, in caves and mines in New York, Masachusetts and Vermont, have been dying, of what has been named ‘white nose syndrome’, that biologists fear may lead to extinction of several bat species in the region.

Two new studies find that the approach scientists and policymakers have generally been using to described the problem of global warming in terms of halting the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere is not the best method. The new research says it more appropriate to focus on a temperature threshold as a better marker of when the planet will experience severe climate disruptions. The Earth has already warmed by 0.76 degrees Celsius (nearly 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Most scientists warn that a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could have serious consequences. Schmittner, lead author of a February 14 article in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, stated that his computer modeling shows that if global emissions continue on a "business as usual" path for the rest of the century, the Earth will warm by 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. He calculated that if emissions did not drop to zero until 2300, the temperature would rise by more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit, by that time.

High energy prices, from the growing planet wide petroleum shortage, are increasing pressures to undertake seriously ecologically damaging energy development. For example, British Petroleum (BP) – an oil company noted for its real green policies, particularly emissions reductions – has broken its long standing policy against extracting oil in tar sands, to initiate strip mining (tar sands are too thick to pump, they have to be mined) of 50,000 square miles of forest in the Canadian province of Alberta (for more see, Michael Moreci, “Beyond Propoganda: Oil Giant BP Greenwashes Alberta Sands,” In These Times, April 2008). The oil shortage is also driving increased global use of extremely polluting – especially of green house gasses – coal. Despite some reduction of plans to build new coal fired power plants in the U.S. – largely out of environmental concerns, and some U.S. generating plants switching from coal to natural gas (which may increase gas prices) – U.S. coal mining is on the increase, mostly for rising exports as the world price of coal has been rising. U.S. coal prices, which fell from 2000 – 2002, before rising for three years, and leveling off, jumped sharply last year, beyond their 2000 level, and continue to increase. The expanding production of biofuels is also a growing problem. Two studies published in Science, in February, find that almost all biofuels (e.g. methanol and palm oil) cause more greenhouse gas pollution than conventional fuels, when all emissions cost of production are taken into account. Moreover, the ecological damage from clearing land – whether rain forest (as is happening in the Amazon region and in several places in the Pacific) or scrub lands, for biofuel production is extremely destructive of natural ecosystems, while switching farm production from food to biofuel is a serious element in the expanding world food crisis. U.S. ethanol production is expected to rise to 11.4 billion gallons, this year, and if current trends continue, as much as 35 billion gallons by next year. It takes almost 20 pounds of corn (that otherwise would be used as food for animals or people) to produce one gallon of ethanol, which produces less energy than was required to produce that gallon of ethanol. Serious pollution from a number of U.S. Biodiesel plants has also been reported (see Brenda Goodman, “Pollution Called Byproduct of ‘Clean’ Fuel,” The New York Times, March 11, 2008). In South Africa, economic growth that has brought the nation to achieve one of the world’s top 25 GNPs, has outstripped increases in electric power production, to the point where continued economic development is imperiled, which would hurt the economies of the rest of Southern Africa and set back efforts to overcome poverty in the region. South Africa expects that it will take it five years to catch up in electricity production.

New technologies are being researched, and (hopefully) developed that will not only reduce carbon emissions, but remove existing CO2 from the process. One possibility being explored is taking CO2 out of the air (other than by plants, that do that naturally), but the problem is that currently conceivable ways of doing that require a great deal of energy. One way to do that, blowing air through CO2 absorbing liquid potassium carbonate, is being researched at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. A group at the University of Southern California is working on a reverse fuel cell that mixes gas and water, and jolts it with electricity – that could be generated by wind turbines, or other carbon neutral methods - to produce ethanol, thus storing carbon. If the ethanol were then used as fuel, the whole process would be carbon neutral. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating developing “agrichar” crops that break down large amounts of carbon dioxide into carbon and water. The Solena group in Spain is experimenting with growing algae, which absorbs large quantities of CO2, and has a high energy value, in order to produce a carbon neutral biofuel. Solena had proposed building a 40 megawatt power plant in Kansas, using a variation on this technology, as an alternative to two proposed coal burning power plants that were recently killed by the governor’s veto. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy, because of rising costs, has canceled the FutureGen program, aimed at demonstrating how to use coal without increasing global warming, and to develop a hydrogen fuel cell. The department hopes to develop a new, less costly, clean coal and hydrogen fuel cell program. As businesses expand into green energy, and jobs expand in the field, a growing number of colleges and universities across the U.S. are initiating renewable energy degree programs.

Innovation has dropped the cost of solar photo voltaic cells for producing solar power, and one new cell is flexible so that it can mold directly to a roof. The biggest increaser in people using solar power on businesses and homes is innovative financing, in which the installing companies separate the tax breaks from the capital expense, to bring the initial cost down. In 2007 148 megawatts of solar capacity came on line in the U.S., 46.5 more than the 101 megawatts added in 2006. After a decade without any development, thermal solar power – using sunlight to create steam to produce electricity – is expanding in the U.S. South West, thanks to subsidies and falling costs (while other energy costs rise). Two prototype plants opened near Las Vegas, NV, this year, with capacity to power several large hotels. Ten additional thermal solar generating facilities are being planned for California, Nevada and Arizona, while eight such facilities are under construction in Spain, Algeria and Moroco, with nine more in various planning stages in these nations, as well as Israel, Egypt, South Africa and Mexico. Thermal solar power has the advantage that the heat it creates to generate electricity can be stored for hours or days, to generate power when the sun is not shining. An experimental boat, Suntory Mermaid II, powered by wave action (and photo voltaic cells for onboard electricity), is about to attempt a journey of 3780 miles from Hawaii to Japan without using its backup sails or conventional motor. The Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell has been following the quarter of a century green chemistry movement by environmentalists to find and develop alternative chemicals for processing and use that are less polluting or toxic, and often less expensive. Groundbreaking took place, in February, for the 2.3 square mile planned green city of Masdar, in Abu Dhabi, to be home for 50,000 people, that will be automobile free, built with energy conserving architecture, receive water from a solar powered desalination plant, grow produce in near by greenhouses, and recycle or compost waste.

In the United States, reflecting growing public concern on the environment, 44 prominent Southern Baptist Convention leaders, including the current President of the denomination, in March, announced a declaration calling on all Christians to return to a biblical mandate to guard the world God created, saying the convention’s official stance on climate change is to timid. In March the Environmental Protection Agency issued new clean air rules drawing both praise and blame from environmentalists. A tightening of rules on suit emissions from boat and train diesel engines was praised, as a step in the right direction, by environmentalists, who criticized new rules governing smog, concerning the amount of allowable ozone in the air, as two permissive. Meanwhile, in the absence of clear national policy, a debate has been going on in many states over what the regulations should be for, and what should be done to accomplish, the production of clean energy. Currently 18 states are seeking caps on carbon emissions, and 25 support mandates for renewable energy. For more see Felicity Barringer, “State’s Battles Over Energy Grow Fiercer With U.S. Policy Gridlock,” The New York Times, March 20, 2008, p. A19.

The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service announced, in April, that because of the largest collapse of west coast salmon in 40 years, the salmon fishery from Oregon to Mexico would be closed for two years. A paper in Science, in February, by Scripps Institute of Oceanography researcher Tim Barnett, projects that the 1.7% increase of temperatures in the Western U.S., compared to 1% elsewhere, is expected to accelerate – with increased accompanying drying. Among the anticipated effects – including more intense fire seasons – are a drying up of small streams and an overheating of pools that will drastically reduce trout and other fresh water fish, and salmon will be further disseminated (For more see Jim Bobbins, “As Fight for Water Heats up, Prized Fish Suffer, The New York Times, April 1, 2008, p. D4). As an agency dispute continues between the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Reclamation over water levels in the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, a release of water was made at Glen Canyon, in early March, to preserve endangered fish. The park superintendent said that such releases were needed several times in the next five years to maintain the fish environment. The Island nation of Kiribati in the Gilbert Islands declared the worlds largest marine protected area, a 164,300 square mile ocean wilderness with coral reefs and atolls with huge quantities of fish and birds, in one of the worlds last intact ocean coral archipelago eco systems. In Jamaica, a campaign is in progress to stop people from fishing for huge shrimp on the Rio Grande River by dumping poison in the water – which makes for a quick catch when the dead shrimp float to the surface, with dead fish, and buyers do not know the shrimp are toxic.

Sarah Stuteville, “A warming world, overuse drain giant lake in a single generation,” Seattlepi.com (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/356178_water24.html), reports that global warming induced drought, and other factors are causing Lake Haramaya and other Ethiopian lakes, such as those in the Rift Valley including lakes Awasa, Abiyata and Ziway, to shrink rapidly. Other forces converging against these lakes include “erosion, population increases, irresponsible local farming practices and industrial overuse of the lake." These lakes are the major source of water in several areas of Ethiopia. Sarah Stuteville, "Northern Peru: Jungle Rivers Where the Sweet Water No Longer Flows," Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting (http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=828) reports that “sloppy oil drilling operations,” by Occidental Petroleum, that “an international team of lawyers says the company’s waste disposal infrastructure violated industry standards when it was built, and that it left a quiet but killing stain,” has seriously polluted several rivers in Peru. A report last year, paid for by EarthRights International, finding that many rivers and streams in Occidental’s former area of operation where the Achuar Indigenous people live, are highly contaminated, and a majority of Achuar have toxins in their blood.

Increasing cutting of forests has reached the point where the carbon release accounts for 20% of the worlds carbon dioxide emissions. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which had slowed for a time, surged at the end of last year, increasing from 94 square miles in August to 366 square miles in December. In Mexico, illegal logging has cut deep into mountain forests in central Mexico, which is the breeding place for millions of Monarch Butterflies, now declining in North America. In Riau province, on Sumatra, 60% of the rainforests have now been felled, not only adding significantly to global warming, but very seriously injuring the area environment by destroying habitat and poisoning waterways, decreasing human food supplies in the course of disseminating plants and animals. Greatly increased logging in the Congo Rive Basin has been imperiling Sea Turtles well down the coast from the mouth the Congo River, in Gabon, where many logs have been drifting and piling up in huge mazes blocking migrating turtles access to beaches. It was reported, in February, that recent studies had counted 11,000 logs lodged on the coast.

China, which will almost certainly shut down industry around Beijing, temporarily, in order to have reasonable air quality during the Olympics this summer, has had it shown that Beijing officials have attempted to make it appear the city has less smog by shutting down air quality monitoring in two heavily air polluted areas, and adding three monitoring stations in less polluted districts. The Chinese government announced a detailed plan, in January, to limit pollution in its lakes by 2010 and return them to their natural condition by 2030, including limiting fish farms, strictly regulating release of waste water, improving sewage treatment and closing some heavily polluting factories. In February, the Chinese Environmental Protection Administration said that pollution was barely lessening behind the Three Gorges Dam (which by slowing down the Yangtze River, lessens its ability to rid itself of pollution, which becomes concentrated behind the dam), while pollution is worsening in some of the river’s tributaries.

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REVIEW OF RECENT CLIMATE CHANGE MEDIA

Albert Bates, albert@ecovillage.org

I found the paper. "Climate Code Red" at http://www.carbonequity.info/climatecodered/summary.html to be useful reading. The author was also interviewed by Global Public Media, and that made for a more nuanced and approachable overview of his analysis: http://media.globalpublicmedia.com/RM/2008/02/SuttonBradford.20080218.mp3, with transcript at http://www.energybulletin.net/40619.html. Like many, he has been picking up on the impatient foot-tapping of Jim Hansen and other scientists and watching the climate change acceleration phenomenon with growing alarm. Hansen's recent webcast is available in PDF at https://admin.emea.acrobat.com/_a45839050/p89418435/. With the soundtrack it takes about 7 minutes.

If Hansen can be faulted, it is for not doing enough "what if" analysis. Science is about asking questions. One can go away from his lectures feeling like, no worries, there is still time, but in fact the observed indicators seem to disprove predictions for rates of change made just 10 years ago. IPCC-4 (FAR) is saying that positive forcing is much stronger than expected by IPCC-3 (TAR). Climate Code Red makes a strong case for FAR still understating the trend, which is an upwardly arching curve, not a straight linear progression. The more we warm, the faster we warm.

The Six Degrees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8qmaAMK4cM cable-TV documentary provides another underscore for the importance of the discussions of tipping points. Among the useful extracts from Six Degrees was the Cheeseburger Footprint interview with Jamais Cascio, http://www.openthefuture.com/2008/02/cheeseburger_footprint_the_vid.html, a non-intimidating way of explaining the role of lifestyle and diet in climate forcing.

In late February there was also a marvelous study released by the Oil Independent Oakland Task Force: http://www.energyhttp://www.energybulletin.net/40650.html. The Oil Independent Oakland (OIO) By 2020 Task Force, composed of local, regional, and national experts including Richard Heinberg, developed a robust oil independence plan, consolidating measures from around the world that can be used locally to reduce oil consumption citywide. The action plan recommended bold initiatives to not only reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, but to also establish Oakland as a national leader in the green economy and green jobs creation, while seeking to reduce Oakland's energy dependence.

Top Recommendations:

1. Adopt the Oil Depletion Protocol, thereby committing the City of Oakland to reduce oil consumption in the entire city of Oakland by 3% per annum;

2. Reconfigure the city into multiple Urban Villages that co-locate residential, commercial, retail, and possibly light industrial. This involves a number of major steps including updating the General Plan, design review guidelines, and broad-scale re-zoning; and

3. Develop and implement a Public Transit Master Plan, including re-installing the municipal streetcar system.

The Oakland report brings home the element of hope: we can make small changes -- just 3% per year -- and tip back. 7% per year would be a doubling (or halfing) every 10 years, so 3% suggests half emissions by c. 2030. Caveat: this may not be fast enough, but if taken with sink-enhancement efforts could turn us around to the right direction (net sequestration) sooner. If we plant one tree per person per day that is 6.5 billion trees daily, 2 trillion per year. Depending on how you calculate carbon stored by trees, roots and leaves, harvest or decomposition, and where you place these forests (I favor in the deserts) such an effort could re-balance our atmospheric overload well before mid-century, and possibly in less than a decade.

Albert Bates is director of the Ecovillage Training Center in Summertown, Tennessee and United Nations Representative for the Global Ecovillage Network. His website is found at http://www.thegreatchange.com. His latest book is The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing TImes (New Society Publishers).
MEDIA NOTES


Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are undermining civilization, for single copies (bulk discounts available) is $17 paper, $30 cloth, from Earth Policy Institute, 1350 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 403, Washington, DC 20036 (202)496-9290, epi@earthpolicy.org, www.earthpolicy.org.

M.R. Islam, Nature Science and Sustainable Technology Compendium, Volume 1 focuses on technological solutions that promise sustainability in the long term including thermodynamic reversibility, negative entropy, direct applications of solar and wind energy, direct-use fuel cell, and other approaches whose essence is profoundly innovative: economically attractive, environmentally appealing and socially responsible ($95 Cloth) from Nova Publishers at: https://www.novapublishers.com/.

Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn, Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming is $24.95 cloth.

National Geographic's Green Guide magazine is available quarterly, in print for $15 a year, and as an e-mail: $12 annually from (800)-647-5463, https://secure.customersvc.com/servlet/Show?WESPAGE=ng/gg/gg110108/joindom.html&MSRSMAG=GG&MSCCMPLX=srbsub5.

A 25 minute documentary film on innovative solar technology that Tamara Peace Reseach is developing with the German physicist Jurgen Kleinwachter. Solar Power Village is available online at: www.solarpowervillage.info or in DVD format from the Tamera peace research centre in Portugal www.tamera.org.
USEFULL WEB SITES


UN NGO Climate Change Caucus, with numerous task forces, is at: http://climatecaucus.net.

Earth Policy Institute, dedicated to building a sustainable future as well as providing a plan of how to get from here to there: www.earthpolicy.org.

Carbon Fund Blog carries climate change news, links to green blogs, and a green resource list, at: http://carbonfund.blogspot.com/2008/03/sky-is-falling.html. Carbon Fund is certifying carbon free products at: http://www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/businesses/category/CarbonFree.

Grist carries environmental news and commentary: http://www.grist.org/news/,

The center for defense information now carries regular reports on Global Warming & International Security at: http://www.cdi.org.