THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS
Wednesday, 02 March, 2016
UNEP and the Executive Director in the News
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AFP:Chinese actress wins UN environment award
Standard (China):Endorser role means world to actress
Korea Times (Korea):PUMA Aims to Be Carbon Neutral
Fibre 2 Fashion (Blog):IYB shirts to help fund biodiversity programs in Africa
Goal (Blog):Unity Is The African Message For World Cup 2010
Reuters:Global climate deal best option, but road rough: U.N.
Climate-L (Blog):UNEP and Partner Release 2010 Climate Competitiveness Index
Arirang (Korea):4th Annual B4E Summit Kicks-off
Actualites News (Blog):Les Champions de la Terre 2010 récompensés par le PNUE
Prensa Latina (Cuba):PNUMA premia labor ambientalista de artista china
Presseportal (Germany):PUMA wird 2010 zu einem CO2-neutralen Unternehmen warden
Eco Diario (Spain):Cambio climático. uno de cada tres países avanzan hacia un desarrollo
bajo en carbono
Other Environment News
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Huffington Post (US):Make a Bid to Save the Earth
AP:From rebellious roots, Earth Day now mainstream
Telegraph (UK):David Cameron defends his green credentials in leaders' debate
Deutsche Welle (Germany): Activists meet at Alternative Climate Summit in Bolivia
AFP:People's climate summit seeks to halve emissions by 2020
Guardian (UK):Bolivia's fight for survival can help save democracy too
Reuters:Commercial whaling may continue for 10 years: IWC
Environmental News from the UNEP Regions
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RONA
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UNEP and the Executive Director in the News
AFP:Chinese actress wins UN environment award
22 April 2010
A popular Chinese actress was named one of the United Nations' "Champions of the
Earth" on Thursday for her efforts to encourage people to live a more environmentallyfriendly lifestyle.
Zhou Xun was one of six "champions" honoured by the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) at an event in Seoul marking Earth Day.
"I am honoured ... I am receiving this award on behalf of all in China who care about our
planet," she told journalists after the announcement of the awards.
"I hope that by serving as an example, I can encourage others to follow suit and to live a
lifestyle that does not take our planet for granted," she said.
Zhou takes her own chopsticks, mugs and shopping bags wherever she goes, UNEP said,
and encourages others to use reusable products.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said Zhou's "well publicised statements, advice
and lifestyle choices are influencing millions of fans to become more environmentallyconscious citizens and consumers."
UNEP names six Champions of the Earth every year to recognise leadership on
environmental issues.
The other winners this year included President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, who is
an active campaigner on climate change, and President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana.
Also among the winners were Japanese earth scientist Taro Takahashi, a pioneer of
research into how the oceans cycle carbon; Prince Mostapha Zaher, who is director
general of Afghanistan's National Environmental Protection Agency, and American venture
capitalist and green energy entrepreneur Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems.
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Standard (China):Endorser role means world to actress
23 April 2010
Mainland celebrity Zhou Xun takes her role as an endorser seriously.
As much as possible she only uses one kind of chopsticks, mugs and even shopping bags
- the kind that she has used before.
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And she encourages others to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle as well, which is why she's
been named one of the United Nations' six Champions of the Earth this year.
"I hope that by serving as an example, I can encourage others to follow suit and to live a
lifestyle that does not take our planet for granted," she said at an Earth Day ceremony in
Seoul.
Zhou's individual efforts to reuse products may not seem grand, but they're multiplied by
her reach.
As UN Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner said: "Her well-publicized
statements, advice and lifestyle choices are influencing millions of fans to become more
environmentally conscious citizens and consumers."
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Korea Times (Korea):PUMA Aims to Be Carbon Neutral
22 April 2010
The public enemy No. 1 at PUMA, one of the world's foremost producers of athletic shoes
and other sportswear, seems to be carbon footprints as inferred by the remarks of its chief
executive officer.
In an hour-long press meeting held on the sidelines of the Business for the Environment
Summit in Seoul, Thursday, PUMA Chairman Jochen Zeitz had the importance of
reducing carbon footprints on his lips many times.
His solution? The German-based multinational giant will become a carbon neutral firm this
year. In other words, PUMA will offset its carbon emissions through reducing that amount
in other fields.
``We can reduce our carbon by 25 percent. Still, the remaining parts need to be dealt with.
… We will eliminate as much carbon as we generate (via offsetting programs),'' Zeitz said.
PUMA plans to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2015 under its longterm sustainability scheme, which is geared toward not only carbon but other resources
such as water and energy.
The remaining carbon emissions, of which the proportion would decrease to 75 percent by
2015, will be compensated by the company's efforts to diminish as much of carbon
footprints in Africa. The portfolio of the project is being verified by an internationally
recognized auditing company.
``To be the first carbon neutral sport life-style company is the next logical step in our
mission to become the most desirable and sustainable sport life-style company in the
world,'' Zeitz said.
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``We also took United Nations Environment Program's (UNEP) challenge to offset our
football teams' international travels to South Africa very seriously.
Our commitment to the environment partnered with our long-standing collaboration with
African football made it a foregone conclusion to support their initiative, and we hope in
doing so that we inspire other stakeholders in the World Cup 2010 to follow suit.''
The UNEP asked that all football federations participating in the forthcoming World Cup,
which will be hosted by South Africa, make up for carbon footprints generated by their
teams' international travels.
A total of 336 players and officials will make it to South Africa under the sponsorship of
PUMA, and leave carbon footprints behind. PUMA looks to offset them in the similar way
to its carbon neutral company initiative.
In addition, PUMA opened its new company headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany
midway through last year, which is the first carbon neutrally operated company head office
in the sneakers and sportswear business.
PUMA also eyes to support the offsetting of its employees' carbon footprints by subsidizing
the emissions generated on the way to and from work by 50 percent, a similar structure to
matching funds.
Meanwhile, Zietz promised that he will compensate for his personal carbon footprints,
including direct and indirect emissions, from his own account without regard to whether or
not they are related to his work at PUMA.
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Fibre 2 Fashion (Blog):IYB shirts to help fund biodiversity programs in Africa
22 April 2010
PUMA unveiled a series of advertisements featuring Cameroon footballer Samuel Eto'o.
The campaign is part of the 'Play for Life' partnership, which PUMA and the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) formed in January of this year to support the 2010
International Year of Biodiversity.
The purpose of the partnership is to raise awareness about habitat and species
conservation among football fans and the general public during worldwide football events,
including the FIFA World Cup 2010.
The campaign will be seen globally in print, out of home, in-store and on-line and will run
through the end of 2010. With 12 African football team sponsorships to its name and a
history of innovation with Africa, PUMA is uniquely positioned to help drive this effort with
UNEP.
"In 2010, Africa will be at the centre of the footballing world and all eyes will be on the
continent," said Jochen Zeitz, Chairman and CEO, PUMA AG.
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"This is a unique opportunity for the 'Play for Life' campaign and the public service
announcements to create a powerful statement to help support biodiversity initiatives in
Africa and around the world.
Biodiversity and valuing and protecting all life on our planet is a huge issue in Africa. We
are proud to partner with UNEP to raise both awareness and funds to help these causes."
Satinder Bindra, UNEP's Director of Communications, said: "2010 is the International Year
of Biodiversity. Through this powerful partnership with PUMA, we are reaching out to
millions of football fans around the globe to spread the message: we can all do our part to
protect our planet's animals, plants, insects and ecosystems."
In keeping with the PUMA brand DNA, the campaign takes on a tongue-and-cheek tone,
offering a fresh alternative to the conventional, serious public service announcement
format.
Samuel Eto'o is pictured in a colorful field filled with flowers, wild animals and rainbows
with pithy sayings such as, 'If crocodiles could speak, they'd say "support biodiversity and
come swimming. Ignore the swimming part.'; 'I shall stop climate change so season tickets
never become ordinary tickets.'; 'For every fallen tree, I will build a new one out of wood.' ;
and 'Murphy's law says earth is doomed. Eto'o's law says don't listen to Murphy'. The ad
campaign was created by PUMA's lead advertising agency Droga5.
David Droga, Droga5's Creative Chairman added: ""The 'Play for Life' campaign
demonstrates you can convey a very important message and be playful at the same time."
To complement the public service announcements, PUMA's key fundraising lever for the
'Play for Life' campaign is the revolutionary new Africa Unity Kit - the world's first
'continental football kit' designed to be worn by all the 12 African football national teams
that PUMA sponsors throughout 2010, leading up to the World Cup.
By supporting the Africa Unity Kit, African teams are not only uniting as a powerful force in
world football, but also raising awareness of the importance of environmental issues.
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Goal (Blog):Unity Is The African Message For World Cup 2010
23 April 2010
Football is often accused of taking and not giving but a radical initiative from PUMA is
changing that perception in Africa.
The sportswear giant were given the nod by FIFA to introduce their Africa Unity Kit as the
official third strip of the twelve African nations they supply. World Cup qualifiers Ghana,
Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Algeria will all be sporting their new colours in the run up the
World Cup on June 11th.
FIFA granted the sanction, which features an Africa Unity badge depicting two hands
locked in a solitary handshake, making the new shirt the world's first continental football
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kit. PUMA's creative team generated the brown colour on the shirt by mixing soil samples
from Mozambique, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.
PUMA has a long association with African football and is ploughing a portion of the profits
from sales of the new kit to support crucial environmental programmes.
The sportswear brand has teamed up with the United Nations Environment Programme's
(UNEP) International Year of Biodiversity to highlight the threatened reservoirs of plant
and animal life on the continent.
Cameroon star Samuel Eto'o said, "The new Africa Unity kit has inspired me and my teammates. We are very proud to wear a shirt that helps bring the continent of Africa together.
This is another unique idea from a unique brand for a continent as unique as Africa."
The kit has already proved a hit with the players but behind the brand new colours is an
important campaign to combine the world's passion for football with a powerful green
message. Nine of the planet's 35 biodiversity hotspots - the richest and most threatened
reservoirs of plant and animal life - are in Africa.
"As the whole planet comes together for the World Cup, 2010 marks the year when people
around the world will unite to conserve the planet's almost priceless natural resource - it's
biodiversity," said Angela Cropper, UNEP's Deputy Executive Director.
Eto'o added, "Football already helps us unite, overlooking differences and politics. It sends
out a positive message for Africa - we are uniting as a continent to help life and the
planet."
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Reuters:Global climate deal best option, but road rough: U.N.
22 April 2010
The head of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) maintained a global climate treaty
was better than a range of small-scale agreements, but said it was unlikely a deal to
combat global warming would be reached this year.
The prospect of a global climate treaty is fading as the world's top two carbon emitters,
China and the United States, avoid legally binding action. Experts say a shift to a less
ambitious goal might help.
"The argument or suggestion that the world would be better off if we somehow found lots
of little packages and agreed to them and found out how they fit together is not to me a
viable scenario," Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director, said on Thursday in an
interview with Reuters.
Annual U.N. climate meetings have failed to achieve any major breakthrough since signing
the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The present round of that pact expires in 2012.
The next annual meeting of environment ministers will be in Cancun, Mexico in November
and December.
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"We might not be able to conclude the one big deal in the next conference but what we
must produce is some concrete results that clearly take us toward a global framework for
action," Steiner said on the sidelines of the Business for the Environment meeting in
Seoul.
Experts note a less formal deal, outside a legal framework, may now emerge, building on
the actions of individual nations.
More than 100 countries have backed a non-binding Copenhagen Accord to mobilize $30
billion in climate aid from 2010-2012 to help poor nations face the impacts of climate
change, underscoring what could be agreed outside a legal framework.
"What will be critical for Cancun is that the financial pledges that are part of the accord
begin to be realized and that people see real money going to real projects," Steiner said.
"Do not write Cancun off."
Steiner also threw his support behind the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, which has been attacked by skeptics after it published a report with errors in
global warming forecasts.
The U.N. launched a review of the panel last month after the IPCC acknowledged in
January its report had exaggerated the pace of Himalayan glacier melting and overstated
how much of the Netherlands is below sea level.
"The premise that the integrity of the IPCC has been compromised is something that I
reject," he said.
The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore,
and produces the main scientific document driving global efforts to agree to a more
ambitious climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
"It will remain the world's best resource on trying to appreciate the complex and
continuously evolving state of our knowledge of global warming," he said.
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Climate-L (Blog):UNEP and Partner Release 2010 Climate Competitiveness Index
21 April 2010
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in partnership with the non-profit institute
AccountAbility, has released "The 2010 Climate Competitiveness Index - National
progress in the low carbon economy."
The Index reviews national progress in the creation of green jobs and economic growth
through low-carbon products and services.
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It shows that in spite of uncertainty surrounding international climate negotiations,
countries implemented low-carbon growth strategies in the first quarter of 2010.
The Index combines two datasets. The first is "Climate Accountability" to validate if a
country's climate strategy is clear, ambitious and supported by stakeholders.
The second is "Climate Performance," which considers individual countries' capabilities
and track record on delivering its strategy.
The 2010 Index analyzed 95 countries responsible for 97% of global economic activity and
96% of global carbon emissions.
The report concludes that 46% of countries analyzed have demonstrated some
improvement in climate accountability since the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference
of December 2009.
It also notes that 32 countries have made significant improvements, with Germany, China
and the Republic of Korea being the outstanding examples.
According to the Index, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines and Rwanda
have also enhanced their climate accountability.
In addition, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Japan and France show the most consistent
progress on combining accountability and performance.
Switzerland and Austria are strong on performance, while the UK and the US are strong
on accountability.
The Index also concludes that countries that performed well have a critical mass of firms
managing, reporting on, and reducing their emissions, and are aggressively growing
portfolios of low-carbon products and services.
According to UNEP, the Index also demonstrates that the best national performers have a
coherent institutional framework of low-carbon support for business, including chambers of
commerce, stock exchanges, investment agencies, government departments and nongovernmental organizations dedicated to green growth
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Arirang (Korea):4th Annual B4E Summit Kicks-off
22 April 2010
The 4th annual B4E or Business for the Environment Global Summit kicked-off in Seoul on
Thursday.
Government and business leaders from around the world gathered to discuss
environmental issues such as resource and energy efficiency and green growth strategies.
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In his keynote address, President Lee Myung-bak labeled the four river s restoration
project a 'Green New Deal' and emphasized that the project will bring both environmental
protection and economic growth.
[Interview : President Lee Myung-bak ] "The four rivers project is a representative Green
New Deal Project to simultaneously pursue environmental protection and economic
growth."
President Lee pointed to research that shows water shortages expected in 2030 can be
completely resolved simply by expanding water supply and the more efficient use of water.
He explained that the four rivers project will increase the nation's water supply by some
1.3 billion tons upon completion.
Meanwhile, Achim Steiner who heads up the United Nation's Environment Program says
Korea's transition towards a green economy has become an important part of the
development directions of the Korean economy which could lead to the issue being
brought up in the upcoming Group of 20 summits.
[Interview : Achim Steiner, Executive DirectorUNEP] "The transition towards a green
economy as UNEP is calling for in the context of global development discussions is one
that has begun to shape Korean policy thinking.
And that is something that is very encouraging and very important also, I think, for
discussion in the context of the G20 summits."
So how in the context of the beginning economic recovery can businesses maintain the
vision that they must transform their strategies to produce more efficiently and to pollute
less[Interview : Chris Deri, Executive Vice President
Edelman] "Consumers are letting the brands that they trust be a source of inspiration and
information about the consumers' own social activism and participation in their
community."
He says it's a big challenge, but it's necessary for brands to act more like advocacy
organizations that influence the behavior of consumers because at the end of the day
that's what will have a real multiplier effect in terms of environmental impact on the planet.
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Actualites News (Blog):Les Champions de la Terre 2010 récompensés par le PNUE
22 April 2010
Le nom des Champions de la Terre 2010, la récompense la plus élevée des Nations
Unies dans le domaine de l’environnement, a été dévoilé cette semaine par l’Organisation
des Nations Unies, d'après un communiqué du Programme des Nations Unies pour
l'Environnement (PNUE).
Les six vainqueurs, issus des mondes de la science, de l’entreprise, du divertissement et
du gouvernement, illustrent chacun comment l’action, l’inspiration, l’engagement
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personnel et la créativité peuvent catalyser une transition vers une Economie Verte du
21ème siècle efficiente en ressource et pauvre en émissions de dioxyde de carbone.
Achim Steiner, sous-secrétaire general des Nations Unies et directeur executive du
PNUE, a annoncé aujourd’hui que les vainqueurs des récompenses « Champions de la
Terre 2010 » étaient :
- le Président de Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, fervent défenseur des écosystèmes et des
forêts,
- le Président des Maldives, son Excellence Mohamed Nasheed, militant pour la lutte
contre le changement climatique au niveau international,
- le Directeur Général de l’Agence Nationale de Protection de l’Environnement de
l’Afghanistan, le Prince Mostapha Zaher, défenseur de la durabilité,
- le scientifique japonais, le Dr. Taro Takahashi, pionnier de la recherche sur la façon dont
les océans gèrent le dioxyde de carbone,
- l’actrice chinoise Zhou Xun, pour son style de vie écologique et populaire,
- l’entrepreneur Vinod Khosla, spécialisé dans les énergies vertes et co-fondateur
américain de Sun Microsystems.
Les trophées ont été présentés lors d’un gala qui a eu lieu à Séoul en République de
Corée, lors de la Journée de la Terre et à l’occasion du Sommet Mondial Business for the
Environment (B4E), auquel assistaient plus de 1000 représentants d’entreprises, de
gouvernements et de la société civile.
Achim Steiner a déclaré : « Les six vainqueurs représentent certains des piliers clés sur
lesquels la société peut construire un chemin de développement et de croissance verte
pour unir plutôt que diviser les six milliards de terriens.
L’entrepreneur Vinod Khosla en a fait une mission personnelle et souhaite réaliser un
chemin vers une société à faible teneur en carbone en établissant des investissements
dans les start-up d’énergie propre et renouvelable ».
« Le Président Nasheed n’est pas seulement une voix articulée pour les vulnérables et les
pauvres confrontés aux défis du réchauffement climatique, mais c’est un homme politique
qui démontre au reste du monde comment la transition vers la neutralité climatique peut
être réalisée et comment toutes les nations, peu importe leur taille, peuvent y contribuer ».
« Le Dr Takahasi a été un pionnier dans la science du changement climatique liée aux
mers et aux océans. En faisant cela, son travail souligne non seulement les menaces
mais également les choix politiques que les gouvernements et les investisseurs doivent
faire pour garantir que le royaume marin reste en bonne santé, productif et un allié contre
le changement climatique ».
« Le Prince Zaher a transformé la politique environnementale et a posé les bases de la
durabilité dans l’un des pays les plus compliqués de la planète à ce moment de l’histoire. Il
a équilibré les réalités quotidiennes de l’Afghanistan avec la détermination que son pays a
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un air propre et une eau saine –soutenus par des lois- sur laquelle une société durable et
paisible peut être construite ».
« Zhou Xun est une actrice et est l’une des célébrités les plus populaires et les plus
réputées en Chine. Ses déclarations publiques, ses conseils et ses choix de vie
influencent des millions de fans à devenir des citoyens et des consommateurs plus
conscients de leur environnement ».
« Enfin, le Président Jagdeo est un partisan puissant du besoin de conserver et de gérer
plus intelligemment les atouts naturels de la planète.
Il a reconnu plus que d’autres les multiples bénéfices des forêts en termes de lutte contre
le changement climatique mais également en termes de développement, d’emploi,
d’amélioration des ressources en eau, et de conservation de la biodiversité » a déclaré
Achim Steiner.
Les récompenses, établies pour la première fois en 2004, prennent en compte les
réalisations dans les domaines de : la Vision entrepreneuriale, la Politique et le
Leadership, la Science et l’Innovation, l’Inspiration et l’Action, et une catégorie spéciale
pour 2010, la Biodiversité et la Gestion des Ecosystèmes.
Les Champions de la Terre sont une récompense internationale attribuée chaque année
par le PNUE.
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Prensa Latina (Cuba):PNUMA premia labor ambientalista de artista china
22 April 2010
El Día Internacional de la Tierra transcurrió hoy en China con la grata noticia de la entrega
de un reconocimiento de la ONU a la actriz y cantante Zhou Xun, por su promoción de
una vida sostenible.
Se trata del premio anual Campeones de la Tierra del Programa de las Naciones Unidas
para el Medio Ambiente (PNUMA), anunciado durante una reunión mundial vinculada al
tema que se realiza en Seúl y destacado ampliamente por la prensa del gigante asiático.
Zhou es una actriz muy popular en China. Sus declaraciones y consejos, así como su
estilo de vida verde, influyen en millones de sus seguidores para que se conviertan en
ciudadanos con actitudes amigables hacia el entorno, señaló el subsecretario general y
director ejecutivo del PNUMA, Achim Steiner.
Además de Zhou, entre los galardonados figuran el presidente de Guyana, Bharrat
Jagdeo, apasionado a la silvicultura y autor de la infraestructura de los ecosistemas, y
Mohamed Nasheed, mandatario de las Maldivas y activista internacional en la lucha
contra el cambio climático.
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Establecido en 2004, el premio reconoce los logros en las áreas de Visión Empresarial,
Política y Liderazgo, Ciencia e Innovación, Inspiración y acción -ésta otorgada a Zhou-, y
una categoría especial para el 2010, Biodiversidad y Gestión de Ecosistemas.
Los ganadores son considerados por el PNUMA como pilares de la transición a una
economía verde en el siglo XXI y representantes del compromiso y la visión hacia el
liderazgo ambiental a través de su acción e influencia.
Hasta la fecha, el premio ha reconocido a 34 líderes ambientales.
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Presseportal (Germany):PUMA wird 2010 zu einem CO2-neutralen Unternehmen
warden
22 April 2010
PUMA gab am Donnerstag beim Treffen "The Business for the Environment Summit"
(B4E) in Seoul bekannt, dass das Sport- und Lifestyle-Unternehmen PUMA seine eigenen
CO2-Emissionen vollständig kompensieren und damit zum ersten CO2-neutralen
Unternehmen der Sport- und Lifestyle-Branche werden wird.
Zusätzlich dazu wird PUMA die durch die internationale An- und Abreise entstehenden
Emissionen der von PUMA gesponserten Mannschaften, die diesen Sommer an der
Fussballweltmeisterschaft in Südafrika teilnehmen, kompensieren.
"Das erste CO2-neutrale Sport- und Lifestyle-Unternehmen zu sein, ist der nächste
logische Schritt bei unserem Ziel, zum beliebtesten und nachhaltigsten Sport- und
Lifestyle-Unternehmen der Welt zu werden", erklärte Jochen Zeitz, Vorsitzender und CEO
von PUMA.
"Wir haben die Herausforderung des UNEP-Programms, die durch die An- und Abreisen
unserer Fussballmannschaften nach Südafrika entstehenden Emissionen zu
kompensieren, sehr ernst genommen.
Durch unser Engagement für die Umwelt und unsere langjährige Unterstützung des
afrikanischen Fussballs ist uns die Entscheidung, diese Initiative zu unterstützen, leicht
gefallen. Wir hoffen, dass auch andere Beteiligte am FIFA World Cup 2010 unserem
Beispiel folgen werden", so Zeitz weiter.
PUMA wird die direkten und indirekten CO2-Emissionen des Unternehmens durch
Ausgleich-Projekte in Afrika kompensieren, bei denen ausserdem Rücksicht genommen
wird auf die Bedürfnisse der Gemeinden vor Ort, die Erhaltung der Artenvielfalt und auf
CSR-Programme.
Das Portfolio an Ausgleichs-Projekten in Afrika wird durch ein international anerkanntes
Prüfungsunternehmen gemäss international akzeptierter Standards wie dem Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM), dem Gold Standard und den Voluntary Emission
Reduction Standards verifiziert.
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Der Gesamt-CO2-Fussabdruck von PUMA wird extern unter Anwendung einer Methodik
verifiziert, die ähnlich ist zu der, die bei der CO2-neutralen Hauptniederlassung des
Unternehmens angewendet wurde.
Aufgrund der Zielsetzung von PUMAs auf lange Sicht ausgelegtem
Nachhaltigkeitsprogramm, den Energie- und Wasserverbrauch sowie die Müllerzeugung
und die CO2-Emissionen des Unternehmens bis zum Jahr 2015 um 25 % zu reduzieren,
wird sich die Höhe der zu kompensierenden CO2-Emissionen von Jahr zu Jahr verringern.
Zusätzlich zur Energieeinsparung wird PUMA seine Niederlassungen, Verkaufsstellen und
Warenhäuser - wo immer dies machbar ist - auf Strom aus erneuerbaren Energiequellen
umstellen.
Dies entspricht der Praxis der PUMAVision Headquarters in Deutschland und wird dazu
beitragen, den CO2-Fussabdruck der jeweiligen Gebäude erheblich zu reduzieren.
Um die verbleibenden CO2-Emissionen der Hauptniederlassung zu kompensieren,
unterstützt PUMA im Rahmen eines Ausgleichsprojekts aktiv einen Windpark in der
Türkei.
Dadurch wurde PUMAVision Headquarters zum ersten CO2-neutralen Hauptsitz in der
Branche für Sportartikel und Sport- und Lifestyle-Produkte.
PUMA hat begonnen, die auf Langzeit angelegten Nachhaltigkeitsprogramme zum
integralen Bestandteil seiner Betriebs- und Produktzyklen - und damit zu einem wichtigen
Unternehmensziel von PUMA - zu machen.
Da der Fussball einen Kerngeschäftsbereich des Sport- und Lifestyle-Unternehmens
darstellt, ist es nicht verwunderlich, dass PUMA auf die Petition des Umweltprogramms
der Vereinten Nationen (UNEP) reagiert hat, die alle am FIFA World Cup 2010 in
Südafrika teilnehmenden Fussballverbände dazu aufrief, die durch die internationale Anund Abreise ihrer Mannschaften entstehenden CO2-Emissionen auszugleichen.
PUMA wird daher den CO2-Fussabdruck seiner Fussballmannschaften, bei denen es sich
im insgesamt 336 Spieler und offiziell Beteiligte handelt, kompensieren.
Zu den PUMA-Mannschaften, die sich für die Weltmeisterschaft qualifiziert haben,
gehören: Algerien, Kamerun, die Elfenbeinküste, Ghana, Italien, die Schweiz und
Uruguay.
Um zu betonen, wie wichtig der "Aufruf zum Handeln" des UNEP-Programms ist, hat sich
PUMA entschieden, einen Schritt weiter zu gehen und sämtliche durch die An- und
Abreisen und die Unterbringung vor Ort entstehende CO2-Emissionen ebenfalls
auszugleichen.
PUMA hat während der letzten fünf Jahre E-KPIs (Environmental Key Performance
Indicators; wichtige ökologische Leistungsindikatoren) aus allen seinen Niederlassungen,
Warenhäusern und Verkaufsstellen weltweit zusammengetragen, um so den jährlichen
CO2-Gesamtfussabdruck des Unternehmens feststellen zu können.
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Die weltweiten Emissionen von PUMA werden entsprechend des Greenhouse Gas
Protocol klassifiziert, einschliesslich direkter entstehender Emissionen durch Gas,
Kraftstoff und Fahrzeugflotten, indirekt entstehender Emissionen durch Elektrizität und
Ausdünstungen aus Büros, Verkaufsstellen und Warenhäusern, sowie weiterer, durch
Geschäftsreisen entstehender indirekter Emissionen.
Der CO2-Ausgleich von PUMA schliesst nicht die CO2-Emissionen ein, die durch den
Transport von PUMA-Produkten entstehen. Allerdings hat PUMA seine Geschäftspartner
gebeten, Massnahmen zur Reduzierung ihres CO2-Fussabrucks einzuleiten.
PUMA wird ausserdem den Ausgleich des CO2-Fussabdrucks seiner Angestellten
unterstützen, indem es die durch die An- und Abfahrt zum Arbeitsplatz entstehenden
Emissionen zu 50 % subventioniert.
Ausserdem wird Jochen Zeitz, der CEO von PUMA, seinen CO2-Fussabdruck,
einschliesslich direkter und indirekter CO2-Emissionen, auf eigene Kosten ausgleichen.
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Eco Diario (Spain):Cambio climático. uno de cada tres países avanzan hacia un
desarrollo bajo en carbono
21 April 2010
Un tercio de los países del mundo lograron avanzar hacia un crecimiento económico bajo
en carbono durante el primer cuatrimestre del año, según datos del Índice de
Competitividad Climática del Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente
(PNUMA).
Este estudio toma datos de 95 países responsables de prácticamente la totalidad de la
actividad económica mundial y de las emisiones de gases contaminantes.
Según los datos del Pnuma, "desde la última Conferencia sobre Cambio Climático", que
tuvo lugar en diciembre en Copenhague, "el 46% de esas economías han mejorado su
eficiencia en la protección del medioambiente".
Los casos "más sobresalientes" son Alemania, China y Corea del Sur, aunque destaca
también la evolución de India, Brasil, Bolivia y México.
Para esta agencia de la ONU, no existe "un borrador único" que sirva de guía para la
puesta en marcha de "economías verdes". "Los países y las regiones han de aplicar sus
propias estrategias según las necesidades y prioridades locales", concluye el informe.
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Other Environment News
Huffington Post (US):Make a Bid to Save the Earth
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22 April 2010
Today we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day so it's fitting that President Obama
is addressing Wall Street today on the challenge of the economy; nothing could be more
appropriate on Earth Day.
Think about it - illegal logging in tropical forests around the world, mostly driven by
Chinese demand is causing lost jobs in Montana and across the American West.
At the same time, a leading technology company like Applied Materials in Silicon Valley
investing in new energy technologies is opening new factories and hiring thousands of
engineers in China instead of here in the United States.
The environment and the economy are fundamentally the same issue.
This idea of the environment equating to jobs and opportunity applies to the US, but it's
also central to developing nations. I have just returned from Rwanda.
Rwanda's enlightened President Paul Kagame understands that green economies are the
future His country, about the size of Maryland, with a population of 10 million and
predicted to grow to roughly 22 million in the next ten years, was once a synonym for
catastrophe.
But he has managed to take his country's natural assets, its extraordinary forests, and its
majestic wildlife such as the mountain gorilla and make these the bedrock of his country's
economic rebirth.
Always committed to the important role that the private sector can play in driving
sustainable practices, Conservation International is proud to be working with our
longstanding corporate partners such as Starbucks and SC Johnson who are also
committed to helping President Kagame move his country forward in a way that protects
nature for the good of people, and we're excited about the possibilities for renewal and
regeneration that green and blue economies have for the world.
The economy and the environment are two sides to the same coin: fundamentally both are
about human wellbeing.
Everyone on this planet needs the economic opportunity to live well. Living well, or even
merely living, is impossible without fertile soils and pollination for agriculture, adequate
supplies of fresh water, clean air, and a stable climate.
The goals of prosperity and sustainability can only be met together. Our society urgently
needs to come to the realization that people can only thrive when nature does.
So on the 40th Anniversary of Earth we are proud to be part of the Green Auction - a
groundbreaking cross sector collaboration that is hosted by Christie's whose proceeds will
go to supporting four great non-profits that are committed to smart science, pragmatic
policy action and real results - Central Park Conservancy, Conservation International,
NRDC, and Oceana.
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We are deeply grateful to Harrison Ford, vice chair of Conservation International's Board,
for lending his earnest voice to help us highlight the urgency of the environmental crises
facing our world today and to drive support for the Green Auction.
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AP:From rebellious roots, Earth Day now mainstream
22 April 2010
There was no green movement yet and little talk of global warming. Instead, the original
Earth Day 40 years ago emphasized "ecology" and goals like cleaning up pollution and
litter — along with a more anti-establishment vibe than today.
"Welcome, sulfur dioxide, hello, carbon monoxide," a woman sang from the 1968
countercultural Broadway hit, "Hair," at a rally in Philadelphia that day. Across the country,
activists donned gas masks or spread out in grassy parks to hear speeches about
overpopulation, smog and dirty rivers.
"It was brand new on the scene. We were basically using a new vocabulary," recalled
Denis Hayes, who was the 25-year-old national coordinator for that first Earth Day. "So it
was all fresh.
"In 1969, most Americans couldn't even define the word environment," Hayes said. "By the
end of 1970, a huge fraction of them thought of themselves as environmentalists."
The movement capitalized on the experience and passion of activists who had organized
anti-war, civil rights and feminist rallies in the 1960s.
Today, the environmental cause is far more sophisticated, with thousands of
environmental lawyers and advocates with advanced degrees and corporations rushing to
advertise "green" products.
"But some of that passion that we had in 1970 has faded," Hayes said.
The original Earth Day was the brainchild of the late Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wis., who
called for a nationwide teach-in on the environment in a speech in Seattle in September
1969.
His daughter, Tia Nelson, said he decided to launch it after a major oil spill in California,
and wrote the speech on airplane napkins.
Forty years ago Thursday, the youth-driven movement sparked participation of about
2,000 college campuses and 10,000 elementary and high schools.
Congress adjourned so members could give speeches, tens of thousands of people filled
Fifth Avenue in New York City — which was closed to traffic — and millions took part
across the country in activities like trash removal and bicycle rides.
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Many people used the word "ecology" to describe the cause — "a shorthand way to say
we need to think more holistically," said Adam Rome, an environmental historian at Penn
State who is writing a book on the first Earth Day.
"A lot of people were beginning to question our affluence, the huge environmental costs of
the way we lived, and technological progress," he said.
"Ecology" went out of fashion later because it had a "a hippie-ish, countercultural" feel,
Rome said, as the movement worked to cultivate an image of professionalism and legal
expertise.
Although politicians took part in the first Earth Day, organizers stiff-armed the Nixon
administration. Hayes declined a White House invitation for a meeting a few weeks before
the event, and President Richard Nixon himself did not participate in any Earth Day
activities.
By contrast, the Obama administration is doing five days of events to mark the 40th
anniversary.
Obama marked the occasion with an event in the Rose Garden Thursday afternoon that
Hayes attended. Obama hailed the history of the day and cited a renewed commitment "to
passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill that will safeguard our planet and spur
innovation and help us to compete in the 21st century."
Russell Train, who was the first chairman of the newly created White House Council on
Environmental Quality in 1970, told a TV interviewer at the time that Earth Day organizers
were anxious to "make it their own thing" and not have the government take it over.
"And we've been anxious to not give the impression that we're trying to take anything
away from them either — it is their thing, and that's all to the good," said Train, who later
went on to serve as Environmental Protection Agency administrator.
Train, now chairman emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund, said in an interview this week
that Nixon considered Earth Day "a bit of an irrelevance."
"I don't think the environment came very naturally to Richard Nixon as a high priority,"
Train recalled. "But he very quickly latched on to it as an important thing for the
administration to work on," in part because of political considerations.
In fact, Nixon had devoted a good chunk of his State of the Union address in January 1970
to the environment, saying, "Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to
nature, and now that debt is being called." The EPA was created later that year.
There was also a chasm between organizers and corporate America.
"In that first Earth Day, companies were not supportive of the cause," Tia Nelson
remembers. Now corporations including Wells Fargo, UPS and Procter & Gamble sponsor
Earth Day events.
Despite the differences, there are some striking similarities to today's debate — such as
dire predictions about the planet's future.
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New York Mayor John Lindsey told a crowd on the first Earth Day that behind words like
ecology, environment and pollution is a simple question: "Do we want to live or die?"
And Hayes, with a flop of hair dangling over his forehead and a deadly serious look on his
face, told an audience, "Tens of thousands of people will soon die in Los Angeles in a
thermal inversion that's probably now inevitable."
Hayes says today that he regrets using the word inevitable, adding that the environmental
movement sometimes encounters a "self-undoing hypothesis" — warnings that cause
corrective actions that keep the warnings from coming true.
Some discredited the Earth Day cause, as some do today. The Daughters of the American
Revolution passed a resolution calling the issue "distorted and exaggerated by emotional
declarations and by intensive propaganda." One delegate called the environmental
movement "one of the subversive element's last steps."
In Georgia, Comptroller General James L. Bentley warned that Earth Day might be a
communist plot — because it fell on Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin's 100th birthday.
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Telegraph (UK):David Cameron defends his green credentials in leaders' debate
22 April 2010
All the leaders claimed to be changing their own lives by taking less domestic lives and
greening their homes. They also agreed on working for an international deal on climate
change and helping people to insulate their homes.
The biggest difference was over how to keep the lights on.
Like the debate over the Trident weapons system, nuclear is the one issue where the Lib
Dems stand out.
Nick Clegg said his opposition to nuclear is not "theological" but rather based on
pragmatism. His party has the most ambitious policies on green energy and he called for
more investment in insulation and renewables instead.
"I do not have a theological opposition to nuclear I just think it is extraordinarily expensive
and it is takes a long, long time to build these nuclear power stations - well into the next
decade - which is too late," he said.
Gordon Brown responded that the UK simply cannot keep the lights on without nuclear.
"You cannot have a balanced energy policy in the developed world without nuclear," he
said.
David Cameron also supports nuclear. He gave a stong performance on energy policy,
claiming that the lights could go out by 2017 without Tory policy of more renewables,
increased storage for gas and nuclear.
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"Nuclear wil need to come on stream by then or you have a greater emergency," he
added.
In a barely disguised attack on Mr Cameron's much publicised effort to put a wind turbine
on his Notting Hill home, Mr Brown spoke of putting up solar panels on his Fife home
because the wind turbines were not so efficient.
He also made a point of taking the train during campaigning and his support for high
speed rail.
But the Conservative leader came back by pointing out he has fitted insulation on his
home, which is the most effective way to save energy, and pointing out his opposition to
the third runway at Heathrow.
The Lib Dems are also against the third runway. Mr Clegg also highlighted his party's
policy to crack down on aviation by taxing planes rather than people and therefore
ensuring planes are always full.
But the argument over who is "greener than thou" was far more difficult to judge.
Despite Mr Clegg repeatedly referring to the Conservatives allegiance with climate deniers
in Europe, Mr Cameron made it clear the Tories are now "blue/green" and all the leaders
called for an international deal to stop global warming.
That leaves the choice down to opposition to nuclear, the third runway or who you trust.
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Deutsche Welle (Germany): Activists meet at Alternative Climate Summit in Bolivia
22 April 2010
Since the Copenhagen summit in December didn't produce results, grassroots activists
held an alternative climate summit in Bolivia. More than 10,000 delegates came to the
"People's Summit for Climate Change."
Grassroots activists, NGOs, climate experts and scientists from more than 100 countries
gathered on the outskirts of Cochabamba, in the Bolivian highlands, for the three daysummit that was scheduled until April 22nd.
Among the aims of the People's Summit for Climate Change were a declaration on the
"rights of Mother Earth," a move to establish an international environmental tribunal, and a
call for a global public referendum on climate change.
"We now have two paths," Bolivian President Evo Morales told the crowd in his opening
speech. "Cochabamba or death ... It’s the death of capitalism or the death of Mother
Earth."
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Morales again decried the climate accord reached amid fraught negotiations in
Copenhagen late last year, which he called "a complete failure." He refused to sign that
accord.
As a result, the People’s Summit was convened. Its stated aim is to create an alternative
climate agenda that gives a voice to those most affected by climate change - namely, the
world’s poorest people.
INDIGENOUS GROUPS AT THE FOREFRONT
Morales, a former coca farmer, is the first president from his country’s indigenous majority.
A number of indigenous groups from both Bolivia and around the world were given
particular prominence in the proceedings.
Many said their communities were at risk of being hard hit by the effects of climate
change. They said they could be among an estimated 200 million so-called climate
migrants by the year 2050 unless drastic measures are taken.
"This [conference] is the start," Filipe Calixto Quilla, a traditional Aymaran Amawta, or
shaman, told Deutsche Welle. "It's the start of changing the habitual victimization of
indigenous people by those from Europe."
He said that the Andean glaciers that are the lifeblood of his people, supplying water used
in agriculture, are already slowing in their production.
Last year scientists reported that Chacaltaya, one of the country’s iconic glaciers, had
completely disappeared.
Javier Ranieri of the action group International Association of Supreme Masters, said that
urgent and drastic measures have to be taken now.
"There is disequilibrium," he said. "The water is not coming, and this greatly affects
agricultural production. The glaciers are also big mirrors. To not have glaciers means there
is nothing to reflect the heat. Then there is also the problems of floods. It's an entire chain
of events."
TO BLAME: WEALTHY NATIONS
The blame for similar near-apocalyptic scenarios depicted at the meeting was laid
squarely at the door of developed countries.
These countries, referred to as "northern," represent 20 percent of the world’s population,
but are estimated to cause 70 percent of harmful emissions.
"My country, Canada, is the world’s biggest climate criminal" the writer Naomi Klein said.
"We signed up to the Kyoto protocol and pledged to reduce emissions, yet they have gone
up by 35 per cent in the last year alone."
"If we make a mockery of the Kyoto protocol there are absolutely no consequences … that
is why ideas like a climate tribunal are so urgent."
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However, discussions on how to establish such a tribunal demonstrate the difficulties the
Cochabamba agenda may encounter moving forward. Some environmental lawyers were
advocating a court based within an international UN framework.
Pano Kroko, an activist with the group Environmental Parliament, told Deutsche Welle that
he has established a peaceful "non penal" environment court set-up using retired supreme
court judges in London who are ready to hear cases from organizations, beginning with a
case concerning the damming of the Mekong River by China.
However, it remains to be seen whether a body with no formal sanctions can be effective.
AIR TRAFFIC PROBLEMS CUT ATTENDANCE
Kroko is one of the few European delegates who made it to the event. The airport closures
due to the Icelandic volcanic ash meant many from Europe and Africa were left frustrated
in their attempts to attend.
Josie Riffaud from La Via Campesina, an organization campaigning for the return to
organic, sustainable farming as a way of combating climate change, took four days to
arrive from France.
Riffaud says it is difficult to guess the general public's awareness of alternative events like
the Bolivian summit.
"Often when you meet people, they are aware of us… [In France] there are people trying
to live life differently... They are saying 'I refuse the system, I want to build another, and I
want to contribute.'"
HOPES FOR UN SUMMIT IN MEXICO
Events in Cochabamba have no direct effect on negotiations to reach a binding accord to
succeed the Kyoto protocol.
But any deal requires general consensus from all UN members, so Bolivia, Ecuador,
Tuvalu and a handful of other nations who claim they are fighting for their very survival are
bound to hold out until at least some of their conditions are met.
Given the nature of some of those conditions, some of the strident claims made by Evo
Morales, and the already complex battles over emission-reduction levels being waged
between China, the US and others, it is evident it will be a long and difficult road to
anything near a consensus.
Battle lines have long been drawn. Ecuador used the conference to claim that the US is
withholding $2.4 million worth of environmental aid - an accusation also leveled by Bolivia.
The next point of conflict is likely to be UN talks in Cancun in Mexico in December.
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AFP:People's climate summit seeks to halve emissions by 2020
22 April 2010
A "people's conference" on climate change agreed in Bolivia Thursday to call for the
halving of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 at the next UN climate meeting in Mexico in
December.
Some 20,000 environmental activists, indigenous leaders and unionists called for
"collective, then individual, obligations for the reduction of greenhouse gases," instead of
the non-binding accord adopted at the end of last year in Copenhagen, which the group
dubbed a "failure."
The UN Ambassador to Bolivia, Pablo Solon, said that a 50 percent reduction could limit
the warming of the planet to 1.5 degrees Celcius, instead of the two degrees agreed to in
Copenhagen but which would not be met under current individual country pledges.
The three-day Cochabamba forum, organized by leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales,
also recommended the creation of an international climate tribunal to judge countries on
global warming.
It promised to take steps to create a declaration of Earth rights and to organize an
international referendum on the environment to coincide with the next Earth Day, on April
22, 2011.
The conference followed a preparatory meeting between representatives from the world's
leading economies in Washington ahead of the December UN summit in Cancun, Mexico.
The United States on Monday downplayed hopes of clinching a new climate treaty this
year, warning against unrealistic expectations despite what it said was growing agreement
among major nations.
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Guardian (UK):Bolivia's fight for survival can help save democracy too
22 April 2010
It was 11am and Evo Morales had turned a football stadium into a giant classroom,
marshalling an array of props: paper plates, plastic cups, disposable raincoats,
handcrafted gourds, wooden plates and multicoloured ponchos.
All came into play to make his main point: to fight climate change "we need to recover the
values of the indigenous people".
Yet wealthy countries have little interest in learning these lessons and are instead pushing
through a plan that, at its best, would raise average global temperatures 2C.
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"That would mean the melting of the Andean and Himalayan glaciers," Morales told the
thousands gathered in the stadium, part of the World People's Conference on Climate
Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.
What he didn't have to say is that the Bolivian people, no matter how sustainably they
choose to live, have no power to save their glaciers.
Bolivia's climate summit has had moments of joy, levity and absurdity. Yet underneath it all
you can feel the emotion that provoked this gathering: rage against helplessness. It's little
wonder.
Bolivia is in the midst of a dramatic political transformation, one that has nationalised key
industries and elevated the voices of indigenous peoples as never before.
But when it comes to Bolivia's most pressing, existential crisis – the fact that its glaciers
are melting at an alarming rate, threatening the water supply in two major cities – Bolivians
are powerless to do anything to change their fate on their own.
That's because the actions causing the melting are taking place not in Bolivia but on the
highways and in the industrial zones of heavily industrialised countries.
In Copenhagen, leaders of endangered nations like Bolivia and Tuvalu argued
passionately for the kind of deep emissions cuts that could avert catastrophe. They were
politely told that the political will in the north just wasn't there.
More than that, the United States made clear that it didn't need small countries like Bolivia
to be part of a climate solution.
It would negotiate a deal with other heavy emitters behind closed doors, and the rest of the
world would be informed of the results and invited to sign on, which is precisely what
happened with the Copenhagen accord.
When Bolivia and Ecuador refused to rubberstamp the accord, the US government cut
their climate aid by $3m and $2.5m respectively.
"It's not a freerider process," explained US climate negotiator Jonathan Pershing. (Anyone
wondering why activists from the global south reject the idea of "climate aid" and are
instead demanding repayment of "climate debts" has their answer here.)
Pershing's message was chilling: if you are poor, you don't have the right to prioritise your
own survival.
When Morales invited "social movements and Mother Earth's defenders … scientists,
academics, lawyers and governments" to Cochabamba for a new kind of climate summit, it
was a revolt against this experience of helplessness, an attempt to build a base of power
behind the right to survive.
The Bolivian government got the ball rolling by proposing four big ideas: that nature should
be granted rights that protect ecosystems from annihilation (a "universal declaration of
Mother Earth rights"); that those who violate those rights and other international
environmental agreements should face legal consequences (a "climate justice tribunal");
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that poor countries should receive various forms of compensation for a crisis they are
facing but had little role in creating ("climate debt"); and that there should be a mechanism
for people around the world to express their views on these topics ("world people's
referendum on climate change").
The next stage was to invite global civil society to hash out the details. Seventeen working
groups were struck and, after weeks of online discussion, they met for a week in
Cochabamba with the goal of presenting their final recommendations at the summit's end.
The process is fascinating but far from perfect (for instance, as Jim Shultz of the
Democracy Center pointed out, the working group on the referendum apparently spent
more time arguing about adding a question on abolishing capitalism than on discussing
how in the world you run a global referendum).
Yet Bolivia's enthusiastic commitment to participatory democracy may well prove the
summit's most important contribution.
That's because, after the Copenhagen debacle, an exceedingly dangerous talking point
went viral: the real culprit of the breakdown was democracy itself. The UN process, giving
equal votes to 192 countries, was simply too unwieldy – better to find the solutions in small
groups.
Even trusted environmental voices like James Lovelock fell prey: "I have a feeling that
climate change may be an issue as severe as a war," he told the Guardian recently. "It
may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."
But in reality, it is such small groupings – like the invitation-only club that rammed through
the Copenhagen accord – that have caused us to lose ground, weakening already
inadequate existing agreements.
By contrast, the climate change policy brought to Copenhagen by Bolivia was drafted by
social movements through a participatory process, and the end result was the most
transformative and radical vision so far.
With the Cochabamba summit, Bolivia is trying to take what it has accomplished at the
national level and globalise it, inviting the world to participate in drafting a joint climate
agenda ahead of the next UN climate gathering in Cancun.
In the words of Bolivia's ambassador to the United Nations, Pablo Solón: "The only thing
that can save mankind from a tragedy is the exercise of global democracy."
If he is right, the Bolivian process might save not just our warming planet, but our failing
democracies as well. Not a bad deal at all.
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Reuters:Commercial whaling may continue for 10 years: IWC
22 April 2010
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Japan, Norway and Iceland could continue commercial whaling for another decade,
despite a global ban, under a proposal released Thursday by the International Whaling
Commission.
Between 4,000 and 18,000 whales could be saved over the next 10 years under the
compromise proposal, which sets lower catch limits for all three whaling nations than the
self-imposed quotas they have now.
"For the first time since the adoption of the commercial whaling moratorium, we will have
strict, enforceable limits on all whaling operations," Cristian Maquieira, the Chilean
chairman of the commission, said in a statement.
There would be rigorous monitoring of whaling, and no other countries in the 88-nation
commission would be allowed to start whaling operations during the 10-year plan.
The environmentally delicate Southern Ocean would be designated as a sanctuary, but
whalers from Japan would still be allowed to take a number of the marine mammals from
the seas around Antarctica.
The United States said it would consider the plan but said it would oppose any proposal
that lifted the international commercial whaling ban, which has been routinely evaded by
Japan, Norway and Iceland.
'LOOPHOLES' BLAMED
"When the moratorium on commercial whaling began in 1986, it had an immediate
beneficial impact," Monica Medina, a Commerce Department official who represents
Washington at the whaling commission, said in a statement.
Medina said that, over time, "loopholes in the rules" allowed more whaling, with 35,000
whales hunted and killed since the ban started.
The proposal is a compromise crafted by Maquieira and the commission's vice chairman,
Anthony Liverpool, after two years of acrimony and meetings in Washington last week that
ended with no agreement. The 88 member-countries will have 60 days to consider it
before discussing it at the commission's annual meeting in Morocco in June.
Environmental groups and many countries, including Australia and New Zealand, favor a
total ban on commercial whaling.
"It's quite disappointing," said Susan Lieberman of the Pew Environment Group. "The key
issue is, it allows for continued commercial whaling. It allows Japan to whale off the coast
of Antarctica, and that's not acceptable."
The impact of climate change is more severe at the poles, and the waters around
Antarctica are already under pressure, Lieberman said. She questioned the proposed idea
of setting up a sanctuary for whales there, and then letting whaling continue in the area.
Lieberman praised the proposal's provisions for detailed monitoring and DNA tracking of
whales.
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RONA MEDIA UPDATE
THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE NEWS
Thursday, April 22, 2010
UNEP or UN in the News
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: International officials gather in Pittsburgh as city kicks off series
of environmental events
Pittsburgh Magazine: The New Emerald City
Channel 4 Action News This Morning/WTAE-PIT (ABC) - Pittsburgh, PA: Today Marks
Start of Events for World Environment Day
International officials gather in Pittsburgh as city kicks off series of environmental
events
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 22, 2010, By Joyce Gannon
Since 1972, the United Nations' World Environment Day has been marked in
communities around the world but there was little notice paid to the event in North
America.
That's probably because the global event was largely overshadowed by the much better
known Earth Day - a grass-roots effort started in 1970 in the United States to raise
awareness of environmental problems.
So in recent years, the U.N. has tried to integrate the two environmental celebrations by
organizing a six-week series of events that launches in April before Earth Day and
culminates on World Environment Day, which this year will be held June 5.
"[World Environment Day] has a huge following around the world but we have to admit
that in North America, it's been challenging," said Elisabeth Guilbaud-Cox, deputy
director of the U.N. Environment Programme's regional office in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Guilbaud-Cox is in Pittsburgh this week to help kickoff the events as the city plays
North American host for World Environment Day 2010.
"Earth Day is really well known, but we don't want to challenge it," she said. "So we
came up with the 'bridging the gap' concept." More than 100 events are scheduled in
and around Pittsburgh during the World Environment Day time frame, ranging from
scientific symposiums to interactive arts displays at the Three Rivers Arts Festival.
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Pittsburgh follows Omaha, Neb., and Chicago as North American host cities. "We were
trying to do outreach to the heartland of the United States and share with them the
accomplishments of the U.N. Environment Programme and the work that we do," said
Ms. Guilbaud-Cox.
The U.N. Environment Programme was created in 1972, the same year as World
Environment Day, to coordinate scientific information and act as the U.N.'s "leading
authority on the environment" and to help countries "set their environmental agenda,"
she said.
Among its accomplishments, she said, has been establishing the Montreal Protocol,
which banned the manufacture of harmful compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons
used in refrigeration units; and working to save some endangered species including
elephants.
Bayer Corp., the German-based chemicals and drug company with U.S. headquarters in
Robinson, was instrumental in making connections for Pittsburgh to host this year's
World Environment Day, Ms. Guilbaud-Cox said.
While all the activities scheduled locally should expose the community to environmental
issues, she believes the most significant event is the Water Matters conference,
scheduled for June 3 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
Water as a resource is the theme of the Pittsburgh events and the June 3 conference,
expected to attract participants from outside the region, will feature business owners,
community leaders and others providing expertise on how best to use and conserve
water.
Another important event, she said, is a May 27 symposium at the Carnegie Museum of
Natural History that is being organized by the Rachel Carson Homestead and will feature
E.O. Wilson, a scientist and professor emeritus at Harvard University who provided Ms.
Carson, a Springdale native, with research for her book, "Silent Spring."
A number of events converged in the city this week to mark the launch of World
Environment Day activities.
As part of the kickoff, Global Pittsburgh is hosting representatives from 11 countries who
are being encouraged to consider the city for potential business partnerships and
economic development opportunities.
Among the delegation were officials from Vietnam, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, Czech
Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Oman, South Africa, Switzerland and the United
Kingdom.
The group dined Wednesday night at the International Bridge Awards at Heinz Field and
had lunch earlier in the day at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.
Tours and symposiums on the group's agenda focused on local initiatives in energy, life
sciences and education, and were designed to showcase why the city was selected for
last year's G-20 Summit and as a host city for World Environment Day.
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On Wednesday the delegates visited the energy center at the University of Pittsburgh in
Oakland, and today the group was scheduled to attend panel discussions featuring
experts in carbon capture, Marcellus Shale, nuclear, wind and solar energy sources
before touring UPMC Children's Hospital in Lawrenceville.
Also Wednesday, the city hosted the Women's Health and the Environment Conference,
a free event at the convention center where a capacity audience heard Teresa Heinz
and other speakers discuss links between the environment and health.
And tonight, winners will be announced at the CAUSE (Creating Awareness and
Understanding of Our Surrounding Environment) Challenge High School Film Festival at
the Carnegie Science Center. Students from throughout the region were invited to
produce and submit films of five minutes maximum length featuring this year's theme,
"Mutual Impact: The Environment and You."
Joyce Gannon: jgannon@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1580.
The New Emerald City
Pittsburgh has been earning oohs and aahs for our wizardry in the green revolution. This
year, we roll out the green carpet as the North American host for World Environment
Day.
Pittsburgh Magazine, By Lissa Rosenthal, April 2010
Why Pittsburgh as the North American host for World Environment Day (WED)?
Perhaps it’s our transformation from smokestack industry to green economy or for our
leadership and commitment to sustainability. Not to mention that we have bragging
rights as the birthplace of Rachel Carson, founder of the contemporary environmental
movement.
If Carson were still with us (other than in memory and as the namesake of a bridge
downtown), she might find it surprising but probably would be ecstatic that we’ll be rolling
out the green carpet starting on Earth Day, April 22, for a six-week, regionwide eco
celebration. The event will culminate on June 5 when Pittsburgh will be the North
American host for this year’s World Environment Day, a global event established in 1972
to raise environmental awareness and action.
Pittsburgh is one of six regional sites worldwide selected by the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) to host this year’s activities, which will focus on the
theme “Biodiversity: Ecosystems Management and the Green Economy.”
But World Environment Day 2010 Pittsburgh is envisioned to be more than just a
celebration; it’s also intended to be transformative and catalytic. “It is a very real
opportunity for our region to create an economic strategy that will embrace the business
of water,” says Court Gould, executive director of Sustainable Pittsburgh, a public-policy
advocacy group that helps integrate economic prosperity, social equity and
environmental quality for regional businesses and communities through sustainable
solutions.
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In the long run, the six-week span of events is designed to foster the development of
water projects of lasting significance for the people of our planet.
Water Matters
Pittsburgh has the unusual distinction of being a city with three rivers—or more. The socalled “Fourth River,” one of the most reliable aquifers on the planet, runs beneath the
Golden Triangle. These water sources are part of the reason WED organizers deemed
“Water Matters!” as the specific focus of Pittsburgh’s WED activities, which include
numerous activities on or near the rivers and the first global water conference at the
David L. Lawrence Convention Center on June 3.
Pittsburgh WED supporting partners are Bayer Corp., the Bayer USA Foundation, the
Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the Hillman Foundation and the Richard King
Mellon Foundation. A leadership group comprised of UNEP, Allegheny County, the City
of Pittsburgh and Sustainable Pittsburgh oversees the event’s organizational efforts. But
the entire partnership envisions WED as a way to catapult the region to the forefront of
the world’s water stage and forge innovative solutions to water management, not only in
our rivers, but also around the globe.
Unlike many parts of the United States and across the world, our region does not have a
problem with water scarcity, but water quality is an issue.
“In terms of sustainability, Pittsburgh has come so far, whether it’s in innovation and
research, environmental education, sustainable business practices or our efforts to
improve the viability of our water supply,” says Greg Babe, president and CEO of Bayer
Corp., which has its U.S. headquarters here. “As the North American host city for World
Environment Day, the Pittsburgh region and the companies that call it home have a
unique opportunity to focus on the water and its sources that surround our city. That is
why we have chosen ‘Water Matters!’ as a focal point for the six-week period from Earth
Day to World Environment Day.”
Green County
There are numerous new, exiting and ongoing green efforts in the private and public
sectors of our region. And Allegheny County, aka “Green County,” is leading the way.
Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato says he is eager to show the world that the
county is not only a leader in green technology but that it is leading by example.
“Through our Allegheny Green initiative, the county is working to reduce our ecological
footprint and is creating countywide policies and programs to further promote
sustainable practices. We’re building green roofs and gardens, installing solar arrays
and geo-thermal systems and expanding our parks and trails. We're also reclaiming and
redeveloping brownfields, which sets future green development guidelines through our
County Comprehensive Plan. In addition, we’re giving our residents the skills they need
to compete for 21st-century jobs.”
Jeaneen Zappa, Allegheny County’s sustainability manager, is pursuing Onorato’s eco
charge with her green gusto. One example is the installation of a green roof on the
Allegheny County Office Building, located downtown. Half of the building’s roof, an area
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of 8,400 square feet, will be covered with a waterproof partition that contains native
plants. These plants will provide an urban habitat for birds and butterflies, save energy,
reduce storm-water runoff and cut down on the amount of pollution reaching our rivers.
The roof also will serve as a model for residents and businesses to prove that green
infrastructure works.
Many organizations are already actively participating in ecosystem management through
the Pittsburgh Climate Initiative (PCI), a collaborative effort sponsored by the Roy A.
Hunt Foundation, The Heinz Endowments and the Surdna Foundation. PCI’s goal is to
lead residents, businesses, government and institutions of higher learning to increase
awareness of actions that reduce pollution from global warming and its impact on health
and the economy. PCI will adapt a water-conservation theme in recognition of WED by
offering practical steps that Pittsburghers can make in support of water and ecosystem
sustainability. (Info: pittsburghclimate.org)
Eco-Friendly Events for the New Emerald City
Pittsburgh-area government officials, businesses, organizations and individuals are
planning an array of events and activities to complement World Environment Day
(WED). Water and eco-related programming starts in the region in early April with the
concentration of activities and events that “bridge the gap” during the six-week period
from Earth Day on April 22 to WED on June 5. Most events are open to the public. Some
“bridging the gap” events include the following:
April 22: EARTH DAY
C.A.U.S.E. Challenge High School Film Festival, hosted by partners Bayer Corp.,
Carnegie Science Center's Sci Tech Initiative and Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Pittsburgharea high school students will present videos they created on the theme “Mutual Impact:
The Environment and You” at the Carnegie Science Center’s Works Theatre.
Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium will present special interactive and learning
stations at the zoo to celebrate Wild Earth Day, hosted by the Conservation Education
Department. This year’s Wild Earth Day will be filled with exciting, fun activities for
students.
Pittsburgh Glass Center, one of only two green glass-art facilities in the United States,
unveils its local juried exhibit, “From the Earth to the Fire and Back,” which continues
through June 13. The exhibit showcases glass artwork addressing environmental
concerns.
April 23-24:
Spring Earth Day Redd Up, hosted by Citizens Against Litter.
April 24:
Globalization Film Festival at Carnegie Mellon University.
Earth Day Cleanup in Panther Hollow, hosted by Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy,
Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest and Pennsylvania Resources Council.
Nine Mile Run Stream Sweep, hosted by Nine Mile Run Watershed Association.
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Party for the Planet and GreenMarket Place, hosted by PPG Industries, Pennsylvania
Resources Council and Conservation Consultants.
April 30: ARBOR DAY
Tree Planting, hosted by Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest.
May 3-4:
Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale Policy Conference, hosted by Pennsylvania
Environmental Council and Duquesne University.
May 7-8:
Eco Home & Garden Festival, a sustainability-focused garden festival merging
gardeners and the eco-conscious, hosted by Phipps Conservatory and Botanical
Gardens.
May 21:
National Bike to Work Day.
Tireless Friday, hosted by Tireless Project and Allegheny CleanWays.
May 27:
Annual Rachel Carson Legacy Event, which honors the environmentalist at her
Springdale homestead.
June 3:
First Global Water Conference at David L. Lawrence Convention Center, organized by
the Pittsburgh World Environment Day Partnership. Conference organizers expect
outcomes that will foster greater opportunities for the region’s burgeoning water-focused
businesses to join forces with local universities and researchers in solving global water
problems.
June 4:
Kick-off of the Three Rivers Arts Festival, which has embraced the green movement
throughout the past few years.
June 5: WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY
River Opus “Choreographed” Gathering
Opening of Earth House, Pittsburgh’s first zero-energy dwelling.
Millvale CleanSweep II, hosted by Millvale Borough, Millvale Development Corp. and
Millvale Focus Group.
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For a complete list of activities and events, visit the official World Environment Day 2010
Pittsburgh Web site at pittsburghwed.com.
Women Help Mother Earth
The 13th annual Women’s Health & The Environment Conference will take place in
Pittsburgh on April 21. The theme is “Healthy Places—Healthy Lives.” As a salute to the
role women have played and continue to fulfill in protecting Mother Earth, here are
profiles of three of the many remarkable eco-conscious women in this region, past and
present.
Teresa Heinz: A philanthropic innovator and an environmental visionary, Teresa Heinz
continues to sponsor the annual Women’s Health & The Environment Conference, which
she founded in 1995. This conference, which is open to the public, brings women
together with health, policy and environmental experts.
Heinz believes that the conventional concept of the environment—involving only the
traditional green issues such as air and water quality—is no longer adequate to the lives
that people (and especially women) live today. “The more questions we ask, the more
we can make informed choices and live healthier lives,” says Heinz, who is the wife of
Sen. John Kerry, of Massachusetts, and the widow of the late Sen. John Heinz, formerly
of Pittsburgh. “Here’s why,” she continues: “Ignorance kills, and knowledge saves lives
and helps us live healthier ones. What I have taken away from conference after
conference is that there is no one single way through which to look at health care, and
that is the position we start from at the Women's Health & Environment events.”
Attendance is free and lunch is provided, but registration for previous years’ events has
closed quickly. (Info: womenshealthpittsburgh.org)
Rachel Carson: With the 1962 publication of Silent Spring, writer, scientist and ecologist
Rachel Carson gave rise to the modern environmental movement. She developed her
love of nature growing up along the banks of the Allegheny River just upstream from
Pittsburgh in Springdale, where her homestead is preserved as homage to one of the
most important environmental voices of the 20th century.
Trained as a marine biologist at what is now Chatham University, Carson obtained a
master’s degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins University and worked for many years
for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In addition to Silent Spring, she penned three
volumes on marine life, all of which became bestsellers. (Info:
rachelcarsonhomestead.org)
Cordelia S. May: Through the years, Pittsburgh native and philanthropist Cordelia S.
May was known for her sensitivity to humanity’s ecological footprint. This found
expression in her charitable donations to land conservation, watershed protection,
environmental education and population causes.
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In 1996, May established the Colcom Foundation, whose mission continues since her
death in 2005. The foundation fosters a sustainable environment by addressing causes
and consequences of overpopulation and its adverse effects on natural resources.
Regionally, the foundation supports conservation, environmental projects and cultural
assets. (Info: colcomfdn.org)
Check Out Some Cool, New Green Things:
1. Try an All-Organic Cupcake from Dozen bake shop: It’s a vanilla cupcake infused
with local, organic basil and topped with organic lemon buttercream. This treat uses
organic flour and sugar and hormone-free milk from Turner Dairy Farms. It is the first allorganic, all-local cupcake on Dozen’s seasonal menu. Dozen sources its ingredients
locally through Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance, Mildred’s Daughter’s Farm, Grow
Pittsburgh and Turner Dairy Farms. What’s more is that Dozen will embark on some cool
green initiatives this year, including composting all of its organic kitchen waste, planting
a small vegetable garden at a farm in Butler County and acquiring nearly a dozen
chickens to supply eggs exclusively for its shops. (Info: dozenbakeshop.com)
2. Consider a Green Treat for Your Hands and Feet: When you get “The Pittsburgh
Organicure,” Tina-Lisa Agresta, of Jeffrey Smith Salon, will pamper you with her allorganic hand and nail treatments. She has been whipping up her all-natural products for
decades, using ingredients that are as local as possible. From mint sugar scrubs to
custom-blended essential oil lotions, your hands and feet will thank you—and so will the
environment. (Info: 412/683-8153)
3. Save Money by Spending Your Dollars Locally: It’s easier for us to choose ecofriendly alternatives to products and services that we use every day. EcoCents: Your
Local Guide to Green Living is a brand-new guide that offers hundreds of dollars in
coupons. Developed by Megan Cook and other like-minded entrepreneurs, it’s a onestop guide to cafés serving locally farmed, organic grub as well as alternative-health
clinics, yoga studios and socially responsible nonprofits and businesses. (Info:
ecocentspgh.com)
4. What do Diana Krall, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and the Allegheny County
Courthouse Have in Common? The old song “Just a Garden in the Rain.” Visitors will
find a teaching rain garden in the Allegheny County Courthouse courtyard on Grant
Street. The Three Rivers Rain Garden Alliance, 3 Rivers Wet Weather and Penn State
Center-Pittsburgh are working with the county to educate residents and businesses on
how to develop rain gardens.
These gardens can be planted in yards and other green spaces to help offset storm
water rushing into our region’s poorly combined sewer systems. Developing a rain
garden is an affordable way to provide increased value to homes and businesses. Now
that’s something to really sing about.
5. Who Knew Retro Mod Furniture Is So Green: Retro Mod Décor surely knows. Not
only is retro furniture a current craze in décor in today’s interior-design market, it also is
a great way to green your home. Owners Roger Levine and Jeff Gordon are hip, mod,
green advocates who encourage folks to consider vintage pieces when furnishing their
residences.
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When you choose retro, you eliminate the need to cut down more trees and reduce
pollution associated with manufacturing new products. Retro furnishings are economical.
Often, the cost is less than buying newer items, and the quality can be much better.
(Info: who-new.com)
6. Here’s a Real “Green” Giant Idea: Bryan Ward, founder of Giant Ideas, a full-service
creative agency, approached his new downtown office building from a sustainable,
renewable and energy-efficient standpoint.
The company took full advantage of natural daylight, low-flow water management and
other technologies to work together with eco-friendly materials, including recycled
aluminum kitchen tiles and wall panels made from sunflower seeds. A cool green
environment is a very cool giant idea. (Info: giantideas.com)
7. Local Water With a Kick: Kick back, relax and raise a glass to Earth Day and
Pittsburgh’s global green excellence with local favorites, such as The Blushing Blair
Martini or the Black & Gold Martini. Boyd & Blair vodka is a local, sustainable and foodiefriendly libation made from Pennsylvania potatoes. In just two years, this hometown
vodka is well on its way to world domination. It is already available statewide and in New
York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C., and Illinois. (Info: boydandblair.com)
8. Trusts in the Land—Save Our Environment: In land conservation, timing is critical.
Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s new Colcom Revolving Fund for Local Land
Trusts offers access to funds for purchasing projects that involve the conservation of
land.
This $1 million initiative is the latest program from WPC, which has been enriching our
relationship with the natural world since 1932 by conserving water, protecting the
region’s natural places and founding six state parks. The fund has even helped to
preserve Fallingwater, the Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece. (Info: paconserve.org)
9. Exclusive Green Plate Special: Not many people know that one of the largest highend chinaware companies is not only green but also local. Steelite International, based
in New Castle, takes fine dining and the environment very seriously. It is the only
chinaware company in the world to be ISO-certified green since the certificate’s
introduction in 1996.
As a result, clay is recycled, and fewer chemicals are required to separate
manufacturing waste, resulting in cleaner water discharge. So, the next time you dine at
Lidia’s Pittsburgh or El Bulli in Catalonia, Spain, know that your gastronomic delights are
being served with eco-friendly tableware. (Info: steelite.com)
10. Enjoy a Massage That’s Healthy for You and the Environment: We all know
massage therapy is about health and healing. Now you can relax and enjoy ecoconscious massage therapy without leaving the comfort of your home.
Environmentally conscious American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) practitioner
Erica Wessell provides Swedish, deep-tissue and sports-massage therapy sessions to
her dedicated followers. By going to clients’ homes, her services save energy that would
have been used to keep an office in operation. Wessell uses certified organic oils,
creams and botanical extracts, and she will blend organic aromatherapy oils of your
choice into your treatment. She brings her own luxurious organic-cotton linens, which
are pure eco-bliss; they’re laundered with biodegradable, vegetable-based detergent.
(Info: 412/448-7688)
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11. Hang out on the Porch of OUR First Urban Eco-Village: The Hamnett Homestead
Sustainable Living Center is a turn-of-the-century Victorian house that will resurrect
“front porch culture” in Wilkinsburg. When complete, it will serve as a community
gathering and education place. The project is an important example of eco-villages, a
sustainable-living practice already found in the Pacific Northwest, and it also
demonstrates the viability of reusing the region’s valuable housing stock.
John Folan, Carnegie Mellon University’s T. David Fitz-Gibbon visiting professor of
architecture, linked two fifth-year CMU urban-design courses to create this soon-to-be
completed sustainable and forward-thinking community. (Info: cmu.edu/architecture)
12. Flower Power Made from Recycled Art: Pittsburgh-based design company Art
Energy Design uses sustainable-energy technology in its artistic designs. Power
Flower’s sculptures are just one example of its integration of socially responsible
technologies into designs. The sculptures integrate wind, solar and recycling
technologies into the urban landscape by creating installations for the public to enjoy and
showcasing them around the region. (Info: artenergydesign.com)
Meet Some Cool Green People:
John Fetterman: How could we ignore the Mayor of Cool, His Honor John Fetterman,
the mayor of Braddock? Sure, he’s been on the cover of the Atlantic, but never mind
that: He’s the greenest tattooed dude this side of the Mississippi. Fetterman helped to
start an organic urban farm on vacant lots adjacent to a local steel mill and saved tens of
thousands of feral honeybees infesting a vacant building from the exterminator and sent
them to form apiary colonies all around the region.
Thinking beyond his borough, Fetterman has supported a project to make inexpensive
water filters from clay and sawdust to provide safe drinking water for people in
developing countries and victims of natural disasters. He has played a national role in
the quest to curb climate change by advocating the Cap and Trade Bill as spokesman
for several environmental organizations and by testifying in Washington, D.C. Thanks to
funding from the Heinz Endowments, Braddock begins constructing the first and only
“green roof” building in the Mon Valley this spring. (Info: 15104.cc)
Greg Boulos: Eco-Renaissance man Greg Boulos is actively involved in a number of
sustainable local economic-development initiatives—from food and fuel to energy
efficiency. He is the Mid-Atlantic regional governor for Slow Food USA, CEO of
Homesteaders Consulting LLC, co-owner of Blackberry Meadows Farm and an organic
farmer.
With a master’s degree in sustainable systems from Slippery Rock University, he’s
bringing together like-minded leaders to find sustainable solutions to correct our region’s
water- and sewage-system problems. Boulos is developing a more holistic approach that
reduces investment in new pipes by making a major investment in cisterns and rain
barrels. When he’s not bringing together water-management experts and engineers to
develop the idea, he’s the on-the-farm handyman. (Info: blackberrymeadows.com)
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Janice Donatelli: Born and raised on a farm in Kentucky, Janice Donatelli has always
been interested in nature. Combining that with her passion for design, she co-founded
Artemis Environmental Building Materials in Lawrenceville five years ago.
As the first business in the tri-state area catering to sustainable design and building,
Donatelli provides services that are in high demand. “At our first national convention [of
green building suppliers], there were 11 of us around the table. Now there are 111,” she
says of the bourgeoning interest in the field. She adds that the people most affected in
the building arts are chemically sensitive people, self-described “canaries in the coal
mine” because they experience various health problems related to untested chemicals
found in many common building products.
Green products are the solution, she says. Young people and people with families are
quickly learning about the health benefits of green building and design techniques as
developers and contractors learn about the cost benefits. (Info:
artemisenvironmental.com)
Court Gould: One of the region’s go-to leaders in sustainable development is Court
Gould. He is executive director of Sustainable Pittsburgh and serves on local, state and
national advisory committees dealing with sustainability and public policy.
Gould was a German Marshall Fund delegate in the study of regional economies in
Europe and a featured speaker at an international conference on sustainable
development in Hiroshima, Japan. He is active in community organizations, including the
Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership and the Local Government Academy. (Info:
sustainablepittsburgh.org)
Bill Peduto: Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto has sponsored a number of bills
and initiatives aimed at saving the environment and also saving taxpayers’ money. Most
recently, Peduto is leading an effort to begin the transition from old-style street lighting to
new LED technology, which will save millions of dollars by reducing electricity use and
cutting carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere.
Other recent green legislation introduced by Peduto includes the following: replacing
gas-guzzlers with hybrids in the city’s motor pool; encouraging residences and
businesses to build living green roofs of plants; tightening the rules on recycling (no, it’s
not optional—you can be fined if you don’t put out those blue plastic bags or bins biweekly); and mandating green policies and procedures in the mayor’s office. (Info:
city.pittsburgh.pa.us/district8)
Jamie Moore: It’s no surprise that Jamie Moore is director of sourcing and sustainability
for Eat’n Park Hospitality Group. Through his passionate commitment to eco-conscious
eating, he has helped the group establish one of the most aggressive greening programs
of any restaurant company in the country. Moore promotes EcoSteps, an education plan
that communicates Eat’n Park’s actions on protecting the environment, supporting local
communities and expanding its role as a socially responsible organization.
In 2010, Eat’n Park restaurants will increase their recycling and composting programs,
and the group will open an LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design) restaurant in May at the Waterworks Mall in Fox Chapel. When he’s not
implementing sustainability initiatives that he develops for Eat’n Park, Moore volunteers
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his time developing funding strategies for the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable
Agriculture and can be found where he is most comfortable—cooking in his home
kitchen. (Follow the Eat’n Park blog for Moore’s sustainability and “EcoSteps” updates.
(Info: blog.eatnpark.com)
Lissa Rosenthal returns to Pittsburgh Magazine this month to share her interest in all
things green. Last April, she tackled the “Best of Green” feature for the magazine. Her
home, featured in the January issue of the magazine, is one of the first and largest green
renovations in the Pittsburgh region.(Info: greystonedrive.info) Lissa is the fundraising
and PR muscle behind many of the area’s cultural, food and beverage campaigns.
Today Marks Start of Events for World Environment Day
Channel 4 Action News This Morning: WTAE-PIT (ABC) - Pittsburgh, PA
See:
http://mms.tveyes.com/Transcript.asp?StationID=1815&DateTime=4%2F22%2F2010+5
%3A17%3A03+AM&Term=%22United+Nations%22+%2BEnvironment&PlayClip=TRUE
General Environment News
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The Washington Post: Born in 1970, event has cause for celebration -- and a midlife
crisis
BUSINESS WIRE: Wells Fargo Promotes Five Simple Actions to Protect the
Environment Through Banking: Invests $250,000 in Earth Day Network
Wall Street Journal: OPINION: Climate Science In Denial
CBS News: Earth Day Poll: Many Think Environment Will Get Worse
The Washington Post: Today's environmental leaders: Where they were on Earth Day
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Yale Environment 360: Interview: A New Approach in the Senate To Putting a Price on
Carbon
Reuters: White House Reviews EPA Rule On Industrial Carbon
Reuters: Big Business Support For Climate Bill Elusive
Reuters: States Fear Devil In Details Of U.S. Climate Bill
Reuters: Military Leads Fight Against Climate Change: Pew
Reuters: U.S. Farm Supports May Need Change: Key Lawmaker
Reuters: Betting On Climate Change
The New York Times: At 40, Earth Day Is Now Big Business
The New York Times: Earth Day, the Sequel
San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Earth Day celebrations
The Washington Times: EDITORIAL: A gasoline-fueled Earth Day
The Washington Times: EDITORIAL: Obama's climate of fear
The Ottawa Citizen: Earth Day Canada Milestones
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Born in 1970, event has cause for celebration -- and a midlife crisis
The Washington Post, April 22, 2010, By David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin
Before Earth Day became what it is -- a national ritual halfway between a street party
and a guilt trip -- it was a bunch of 20-somethings working in an office over a diner in
Dupont Circle.
It was 1970. They worked 15-hour days. They stuffed a lot of envelopes.
And, at first, they didn't like the name.
"Who in the hell do they think we are, the Grange?" Stephen Cotton recalled about
reading the name an advertising agency had proposed for their national protest. Earth
Day sounded like an event for farmers. "But it grew on us."
Earth Day turns 40 on Thursday, making its founders 60-somethings. To this group of
about 20, both the day and the country look very different now.
In those four decades, the angrier, more ambitious environmental movement that sprang
out of Earth Day made vast changes in Washington. New federal laws took on dirty air
and poisoned water -- and won.
But today, American environmentalism is struggling in a new kind of fight.
The problems are more slippery: pollutants like greenhouse-gas emissions, which don't
stink or sting the eyes. And current activists, by their own admission, rarely muster the
kind of collar-grabbing immediacy that the first Earth Day gave to environmental causes.
"I don't think we've come up with a good way in the conservation movement of making it
real for people," said Arturo Sandoval, who was 22 when he organized activities across
the West on the first Earth Day.
In 1970, "you could say, 'Have you been down to the river lately?' And people would say,
'Oh my God, I don't even let my kids go there,' "said Sandoval, now 62 and still working
on environmental causes in Albuquerque. "Global warming, to most people, is an
abstract issue."
A 'human jam'
Earth Day's 40th anniversary will be celebrated across the globe Thursday: There will be
children studying pollution in Baltimore Harbor, volunteers cutting down invasive ivy in
the District, a coral-reef cleanup in the Virgin Islands, a concert in Rome.
On Sunday, a climate-focused rally on the Mall will include performances by Sting, John
Legend and the Roots.
The day's beginnings were much humbler, but not that far away. The first Earth Day was
organized from an office at 2000 P St. NW that smelled like hamburger grease and
teemed with flies.
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"Every so often, someone would go berserk and dash from room to room" swinging a fly
swatter at the swarms drawn by the oily fumes rising from the diner downstairs, said
Cotton, then 23, who was the press director for the group. "Since we were budding
ecologists, we had an unspoken rule against using bug spray."
He and the other young people were working on an idea from then-Sen. Gaylord Nelson
(D-Wis.), who died in 2005. In August 1969, Nelson had visited a huge oil spill off Santa
Barbara, Calif. He wondered: Why not hold a "teach-in" -- like the campus discussions
that focused on the Vietnam War -- on the environment?
Nelson hired Denis Hayes, 25, a graduate student at Harvard and a former student-body
president at Stanford. The rest came from a variety of other liberal causes: a veteran of
Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign, an organizer of antiwar protests in
Mississippi, an anti-hunger activist.
At the time, the Potomac River was choked with pollution-fueled algae blooms.
Cleveland's Cuyahoga River had recently caught fire. Smog was so bad that, in 1966, a
vast cloud of it was blamed for killing more than 150 people in New York City. And even
the bald eagle's population had fallen below 1,000 nesting pairs in the continental United
States, ravaged by the pesticide DDT.
On P Street, the group mailed out suggested Earth Day activities, called college
campuses to set up events, talked to dozens of newspaper and TV reporters.
It worked: On Earth Day itself, there was a "human jam" that filled New York City's Fifth
Avenue, a rally near the Washington Monument, a march against a foul-smelling sewage
plant in Albuquerque. There were events at college campuses and in classrooms around
the country: By one estimate, one in 10 Americans participated.
"A disease has infected our country," one ad for Earth Day said. "It has brought smog to
Yosemite, dumped garbage in the Hudson, sprayed DDT in our food, and left our cities
in decay. Its carrier is man."
The days after
In the four years afterward, the Environmental Protection Agency was founded and
Congress passed a series of landmark laws. The Clean Air Act amendments of 1970 set
new limits on pollutants. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provided new protections
for vulnerable animals. And the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 set new restrictions on
what could come out of taps.
Today, EPA estimates that the Clean Air Act -- amended in 1990 to crack down on acid
rain -- has prevented more than 220,000 premature deaths from air pollution. Other
legislation led to pollution cuts that have made both the Cuyahoga and the Potomac run
cleaner.
And, with DDT banned, there are now more than 9,700 nesting pairs of bald eagles in
the Lower 48.
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"We won the argument that the environment needs to be protected," said Michael Brune,
the modern-day executive director of the Sierra Club. "The conversation is now about at
what pace do we need to reform, what are the most effective policy solutions we need to
put in place, what the costs are going to be."
Environmental issues gained a foothold on campus: Williams College established one of
the first environmental studies programs in 1967. Now, according to the National Council
for Science and the Environment, the number of interdisciplinary environmental
programs has reached about 1,235.
Another sign of the group's impact will come Thursday, with Earth Day itself.
The organizers wanted it to be one-time event, but it has become an annual, global
celebration. The first one cost about $122,000 to put on; today, the Earth Day Network,
which oversees Earth Day worldwide, boasts an $8.5 million budget and a long roster of
corporate sponsors, including Underwriters Laboratories, Siemens, 20th Century Fox
Home Entertainment, AT&T Mobile and Procter & Gamble.
In 1970, students at San Jose State buried a car as a protest against consumerism. In
2010, there will be Earth Day events in Washington put on by Chevrolet and Ford.
Facing the future
The group of organizers disbanded after that first Earth Day and went on to careers in
law firms, foundations, environmental groups, state government.
They look back now with pride, in both the environmental and psychological changes the
day set off. "A lot of people got out of prison that day, and saw a different world ahead of
them," said Fred Kent, a New York City organizer in 1970, who now runs a nonprofit.
But since then, they and other observers have seen the American environmental
movement struggle to rebuild its momentum. With rare exceptions, like in the 2006
defeat of then-House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), the
environment rarely serves as the defining issue in national campaigns.
Public opinion polls show that, while Americans care about the environment, they
generally rank it behind other priorities like jobs, terrorism and health care. And, on
climate change -- the environmental movement's defining issue now -- polls show
Americans seeming less concerned, not more, than in previous years.
"I don't think the environmental movement is deep enough, broad enough, to have the
impact we want," said Bill Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, who, like many
of today's most prominent environmental leaders, took part in Earth Day events in 1970.
"We're a strong interest group, but we have yet to have the kind of political clout you
really need in today's political world."
In fact, many also seem to have absorbed the lesson that the best thing for the
environment is to buy things.
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This year, a poll conducted by professors at George Mason, Yale and American
universities showed that respondents who were most alarmed about climate change
were more than eight times more likely to express their concern through shopping for
"green" products than by contacting an elected official multiple times about it.
From the anti-consumer bent of the first Earth Day, "we've gone to the opposite extreme.
We're too respectful of business," said Adam Rome, a professor at Pennsylvania State
University who studies environmental history. He said that Americans have continued to
buy more goods and use more energy in the past four decades -- and that, in many
ways, American pollution was outsourced, as manufacturing moved overseas.
"Is our environmental footprint smaller than it was in 1970? The answer is no," Rome
said.
The best example, and the modern environmental movement's biggest challenge today,
is climate change.
When the Earth Day Network began planning this year's events nearly two years ago,
organizers thought they would be celebrating the signing of a global climate agreement
last December in Copenhagen. That didn't happen. And in this country, efforts to pass a
climate-change bill have been mired in the Senate. The group will hold a rally on
Sunday, which League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski said "will be
the catalyst to pass the climate bill. That's our goal, and that's the challenge we face."
Hayes, who now runs a foundation in Seattle that works on environmental causes, says
he remembers the time when the environment was an issue on which "people were
winning and losing elections."
Nate Byer, the Earth Day 2010 campaign director, said that's the kind of potency
activists want to reclaim. "We want to invigorate the movement this year. We're trying to
guide the destiny of this movement, and make it what it was in 1970."
Wells Fargo Promotes Five Simple Actions to Protect the Environment Through
Banking
Invests $250,000 in Earth Day Network
BUSINESS WIRE, April 22, 2010
SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 22, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Wells Fargo & Company is
encouraging banking customers -- at Wells Fargo and elsewhere -- to change their
banking practices with five simple actions to help protect the environment. In addition, it
has invested in raising awareness of everyday environmental actions people can take many of which will lead to cost savings -- by contributing $250,000 to the Earth Day
Network (EDN). Both actions are in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day,
today.
The core of Earth Day's 40th anniversary program is the Billion Acts of Green(TM),
designed by EDN to aggregate the millions of environmental service commitments that
individuals and organizations around the world make each year. "Individually actions
may seem small, when aggregated they're powerful," said Mary Wenzel, Wells Fargo's
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director of Environmental Affairs. "For our contribution to the Billion Acts of Green(TM),
we're encouraging everyone to reduce or eliminate paper use in banking transactions."
Five simple actions:
-- Reduce paper in your mailbox by choosing to receive financial statements only online.
Wells Fargo customers have already saved more than 100,000 trees according to
calculations made using the Environmental Defense Fund paper calculator(1).
-- Keep paper savings real by not printing at home and by storing documents in a single,
secure, internet-accessible location.
-- Make deposits via ATMs that do not require envelopes. Since 2007, Wells Fargo
customers avoided using 97 million paper envelopes by using our Envelope-Free(SM)
ATMs to make cash and check deposits.
-- Avoid printing ATM receipts; email them to yourself where feasible. Each day for a
year, if just 20 people selected to not print an ATM receipt at each of the ATMs
nationwide, enough paper could be saved to circle the world at the equator nearly six
times.
-- Choose to handle daily finances online or via mobile banking, including transferring
money or paying bills. According to the PayItGreen Alliance, of which Wells Fargo is a
member, if only 20 percent of American households switched from paper to electronic
bills, statements and payments each year, it would save 150 million pounds of paper and
help avoid nearly two million tons of greenhouse gases.
"Earth Day Network's website, www.earthday.org, is a site visited by millions each year
who are looking for ways to help protect the environment on Earth Day and every day,"
added Wenzel. "We're proud to support EDN's effort to communicate information simply
and effectively so that taking action is easy."
Wells Fargo's investment supported the development of EDN's parent site,
http://www.earthday.org/education/parents, which provides parents with ideas and
activities to teach their children about the environment and their role in protecting it.
Funds also supported the development of EDN's energy efficiency site,
http://www.earthday.org/efficiency, which helps people save money and energy at home.
Tips cover topics such as tax rebates, smart grid, energy efficient appliances and more.
Join us at Wells Fargo Environmental Forum at blog.wellsfargo.com/environment.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.2 trillion in
assets, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and
commercial finance through more than 10,000 stores and 12,000 ATMs and the internet
(wellsfargo.com) across North America and internationally.
(1) http://www.edf.org/papercalculator/
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SOURCE: Wells Fargo & Company
Wells Fargo
Stephanie Rico, 415-396-5804
stephanie.rico@wellsfargo.com
OPINION
Climate Science In Denial
Global warming alarmists have been discredited, but you wouldn't know it from the
rhetoric this Earth Day.
Wall Street Journal, APRIL 22, 2010, BY RICHARD S. LINDZEN
In mid-November of 2009 there appeared a file on the Internet containing thousands of
emails and other documents from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East
Anglia in Great Britain. How this file got into the public domain is still uncertain, but the
emails, whose authenticity is no longer in question, provided a view into the world of
climate research that was revealing and even startling.
In what has come to be known as "climategate," one could see unambiguous evidence
of the unethical suppression of information and opposing viewpoints, and even data
manipulation. The Climatic Research Unit is ... Tto see full article, go to
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704448304575196802317362416.html?
KEYWORDS=Climate+Science+in+Denial ]
Earth Day Poll: Many Think Environment Will Get Worse
CBS News, April 22, 2010 7:00 AM , Posted by Brian Montopoli
Roughly one in two Americans expects the environment to be in worse shape for the
next generation, a new CBS News poll finds. Just 16 percent expect it to improve.
The poll comes on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and reflects Americans' pessimism
about the direction of the environment as Congress debates comprehensive energy
legislation designed in part to reduce carbon emissions.
The findings actually reflect an improvement in perceptions from three years ago, when
57 percent of those surveyed expected the environment to get worse for the next
generation. At that time, just 11 percent predicted it would improve.
The most pessimistic Americans are those under 45: Only 15 percent in this group
expect improvement, while 54 percent predict the environment will get worse.
Seventeen percent of Americans over 45 say that the environment will get better, while
44 percent say it will get worse.
Men are slightly more optimistic than women, as are wealthier Americans.
This poll was conducted among a random sample of 858 adults nationwide, interviewed
by telephone March 29-April 1, 2010. Phone numbers were dialed from random digit dial
samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results
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based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for
subgroups is higher. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the
National Council on Public Polls.
Today's environmental leaders: Where they were on Earth Day One
The Washington Post, By Juliet Eilperin, April 22, 2010
For the leaders of many of the nation's most influential green groups, the first Earth Day
marked their political coming-of-age.
American Rivers President Rebecca Wodder: A high school senior in Omaha, she was
asked by her chemistry teacher to organize a community-wide event. "The day was an
epiphany for me, as I was at the point of making some key decisions about my life's
course. Because of the first Earth Day, I studied environmental science and biology as
an undergrad at University of Kansas, and have spent my entire career working in the
environmental field, including for the last 15 years, as president of American Rivers."
Conservation International Chief Executive Officer Peter Seligmann: A sophomore at
Rutgers University studying wildlife ecology, Seligmann sat "on the lawn with hundreds
of other celebrants listening to speeches about the Earth . . . her fragility . . . and the
need to reduce waste, prevent the greenhouse effect and protect rain forests.
Unfortunately, the lawn was littered with bottles and cups when the events ended."
Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp: "I helped run Earth Day 1970 at
Verona High School in Verona, N.J. It was a school-wide half-day program of seminars
and outside speakers."
National Wildlife Federation President Larry Schweiger: In Pittsburgh, studying biology at
Allegheny Community College, "I remember organizing a college biology-club field trip to
Pymatuning on the first Earth Day to see what were, at the time, the last pair of nesting
bald eagles in Pennsylvania. We planned to charter a bus to visit this grand nest site.
The response to the field trip was so large that I needed to rent a second bus to get all
the students to the nest site."
Natural Resources Defense Council founder John Adams: He celebrated the first Earth
Day in Greenwich Village with "a small group of very committed individuals, including
Richard Ottinger, a New York congressman, who had spoken at our founding
conference a month before."
Nature Conservancy President Mark Tercek: "I was a seventh-grade Boy Scout living in
the very urban and not-so-pristine environment of Cleveland. Our Boy Scout troop did
cleanup work for Earth Day 1970 in the city's metropolitan park network."
Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope: "I was on the Mall handing out leaflets about
population growth," adding that, in contrast to Vietnam, "there was a sense that this was
an issue that could bring everyone together."
Wilderness Society President Bill Meadows: A Vanderbilt alumnus and employee,
Meadows attended an event on the Nashville campus that "produced a catalyst for
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engagement. I can date my environmental awareness and engagement to the first Earth
Day."
Interview
A New Approach in the Senate To Putting a Price on Carbon
As climate and energy legislation continues to founder in Washington, Senator Maria
Cantwell says it’s time for a new strategy. In an interview with Yale Environment 360,
Cantwell explains why her bill can avoid the pitfalls of cap-and-trade and win the support
of the public.
Yale Environment 360, April 22, 2010, BY ELIZABETH KOLBERT
Is carbon cap-and-trade legislation alive or dead in the U.S. Congress? Does the energy
bill being proposed by senators John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham —
or for that matter any climate and energy legislation — stand a chance of passing the
U.S. Senate before this November’s midterm elections?
No one seems to be able to answer these questions at this point. In the meantime, the
Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act, or CLEAR — sponsored by
Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, and Susan Collins, Republican of
Maine — has been getting a surprising amount of attention. Instead of a cap-and-trade
system, the bill would institute what its sponsors call “cap-and-refund.” Under the bill, the
president would, beginning in 2012, set an overall cap on fossil-fuel emissions. That cap
would remain in place until 2015, after which it would start declining by a quarter of a
percent a year. So-called “upstream” emitters — mainly sellers or importers of coal, oil,
and natural gas — would then have to buy permits from the federal government at a
monthly auction. Three-quarters of the proceeds would be returned to U.S. citizens in
the form of a monthly check. (Cantwell’s office has estimated that, for a family of four,
the “refund” would be about $1,000 a year.) The other quarter would go into a Clean
Energy Reinvestment Trust Fund to research and develop renewable sources of energy.
Many people have praised the CLEAR Act for its straightforwardness. “Ms. Cantwell’s
bill is refreshingly simple,” the Economist opined. Writing in The New Republic, Bill
McKibben called it “the kind of legislation you could actually campaign around.” But
others have criticized the bill for being too sketchy and for not setting sufficiently
ambitious targets. “It's simple and short because it fails to flesh out crucial details and
simply neglects a great many important issues,” Grist’s David Roberts commented. An
analysis by the World Resources Institute found that the bill would reduce emissions
only 1 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. (Although the bill ostensibly sets the goal of
reducing emissions by 20 percent by 2020, most of that reduction would require
additional Congressional action.)
In an interview with Yale Environment 360, conducted by New Yorker staff writer
Elizabeth Kolbert, Senator Cantwell recently spoke about her proposal.
Yale Environment 360: Could you just briefly run through what you consider to be the
major elements of the legislation?
Maria Cantwell: Well, you want something, first of all, that the American people can
understand. They know intuitively that we need to get off of carbon and onto clean
energy. That’s what you see in all sorts of surveys of the American people. And they
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intuitively know that it will create green jobs. What they want to know is, what does the
transition look like? And how do you minimize the economic impact?
e360: Could you just a talk a little about what exactly the bill will do?
Cantwell: We try to achieve that transition period with the least impact to the economy
as possible and keep consumers whole. So it’s simple, in the sense that it says, let’s
start with a gradual reduction of carbon at 0.25 percent a year, and have a gradual
increase in that level of reduction every year — but a very predictable level. But do so by
having something that doesn’t rely on trading platforms and allowances and giveaways
that have been the downturn or the implosion of the U.S. economy of late. But instead
have those who are responsible for putting carbon into the atmosphere actually have to
come and purchase a permit to continue to do so, knowing that they are going to have to
meet these reductions. So it sets a process of getting off of carbon by meeting these
goals and [protects] consumers with a rebate check from the auction.
e360: So we auction at the first moment where you have a carbon emitter?
Cantwell: About 2,000 or 3,000 [sources that] are putting fossil fuels into the economy.
It’s very upstream. A lot of the proposals have been downstream, impacting lots of
different industries, impacting lots of different people. And I think that’s what we have
seen Europe do, and we can learn from Europe. We don’t have to replicate the mistakes
they’ve already made.
e360: So, I take a shipment of coal or a shipment of oil, and I’m the entity that needs to
get a permit?
Cantwell: Yes.
e360: And then we have an auction monthly, right?
Cantwell: Generally, yes.
e360: So that’s the cap?
Cantwell: The legislation gives the president the authority to set the initial target. And
then a formula is laid out in how you would make the reduction. The 0.25 percent
reduction that is gradually increased is the formula.
e360: So annually that cap ratchets down?
Cantwell: It basically says, let’s have a 0.25 percent reduction in the first year, and in
the second year a 0.5 [reduction]. The best way to say it is that it gradually reduces the
amount of carbon that can be put into the atmosphere every year.
e360: Let’s talk about the second part, which is the refund part. We take the proceeds
from the auction and we…
Cantwell: Give them a consumer energy rebate. Consumers know energy costs are too
high now. And they know that they could be impacted by the price in the future. But, by
giving a rebate directly to them during this period of transition, we know that they can be
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made whole. That is, that they won’t be paying any more in energy costs. That’s a very
attractive aspect of the proposal and one of the reasons AARP [the American
Association of Retired Persons] and other people have endorsed it. Because keeping
consumers whole during the process is important to buying faith that we can make this
transition in a reasonable way. And if you compare that to the volatility that consumers
are going to face in oil markets if we do nothing, it’s an attractive proposition for people.
e360: And this would be on a per capita basis?
Cantwell: Yes.
e360: You alluded to this a little bit before, but what are the advantages of cap-andrefund over cap-and-trade?
Cantwell: Predictability. Predictability. Predictability. I’m a big proponent of doing this
because I, like a majority of American people, want to make this transition to a healthier
economy that is going to be based on these new technologies. And you’ll ultimately get
there, maybe in 30 or 40 years, but there will be a lot of pain in doing so in this
fluctuation of high energy costs in the meantime. Even the Saudi Arabian government
last month said that they wanted to diversify off of what they were calling peak or nearpeak oil. If they are diversifying their economy, I guarantee we can diversify our
economy.
How would we do that? Well, we could wait until we run out of oil. You can live through
30 years of tight oil markets, or you can say, “let’s start moving now for that clear market
signal that will move investment to green technology.” And it’s a superior idea to saying,
“Well, let’s try to get there by instituting some sort of signal, but let’s have that signal be
influenced by trading and allowances and various ways in which that true market signal
can be distorted.” If you look at what’s happened in Europe, they’ve certainly found
things like carbon futures cut up into tranches, just like credit default swaps. And you’ve
had allowances go to things where people have questioned whether we have actually
made the [CO2] reductions succeed.
So as opposed to doing nothing, and as opposed to doing a trading platform, we think
that the CLEAR Act — a limited auction on those who are putting carbon in the
marketplace — is the way to easily have that reduction in carbon and help our economy
with the most predictable signal we could possibly do.
e360: What about your colleagues who actually have to vote on it? How are they
responding? And how about the administration? Have you gotten any response from
them?
Cantwell: Well, this is originally I think what President Obama was articulating during
the campaign. So I think he thinks of it as more of an elegant solution.
e360: Has he said that to you?
Cantwell: He said it was “elegant.” That was in a conversation many, many months ago.
I am not saying he is choosing anything over anything, I am just reporting what his quote
was. But I think my colleagues have been so wrapped up in the cap-and-trade debate for
many, many years now.
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It takes some time to turn the ship toward an idea that is different. But I can’t think of any
better time, when the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] is deciding that it
needs to go after Wall Street for credit default swaps, to make the point that you don’t
want to make the same kind of mistake here.
And while that has been clearer to me and some of my colleagues, it’s not been clear to
everybody. By that I just mean, in the West we had a lot of stuff with Enron that got me
paying attention to how manipulative markets can wreak havoc with energy costs. That
got me paying attention to this many years ago. The testimony that we got before the
[Senate] Finance Committee this past year from observers of the European [carbon]
markets was reporting these kinds of issues. But I think it takes awhile for all of that
information to be absorbed and for people to understand.
e360: What about the argument that I’ve read or heard that, look, simple bills don’t pass
the Senate? There’s got to be a special break for various special interests, that’s the
whole log-rolling process.
Cantwell: I don’t buy into that argument. Because I think there are two outside factors
that are going to drive my colleagues to pay attention to this. One is the fact that oil is
going to go back over a hundred dollars a barrel. And I guarantee you when it gets back
to $150 a barrel, all my colleagues are going to be looking for solutions. Secondly, I think
the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] at some point in time will act on a broader
basis.
And I also think my colleagues would prefer — and their constituencies would prefer —
to have something more clearly outlined in statute than just having the EPA make
decisions. I think a legislative approach that can advocate that much predictability is
better than a federal agency that may act on any given day on policy. So I think it will be
the devil they know. Then I think you will have the investor community who will be
saying, “This is what we need to flip the switch...”
It is far more predictable to say that you are going to have a process every year with the
revenue from the auction and make decisions in a transparent process about what is the
best mitigation, transformation, R&D, job training that we should be doing. And when you
talk to some of those [legislators], they understand that. But they now have to get their
constituencies, they have to get people in their state, to understand.
e360: That brings me to the next question. We all live on one planet, we all are subject
to the same geophysical forces, and yet climate change seems to have become almost
a completely partisan issue. You have a GOP co-sponsor. But I’m wondering if you can
talk about how this has become such a partisan issue and how we can overcome that?
Cantwell: Well, I don’t underestimate what it took to get GOP sponsorship. It’s very hard
to get anybody in advance signed up on a bill. So I really appreciate Senator [Susan]
Collins’ focus and foresight on this.
I come from a state where we care very much about the environment. And I’ve been
involved in a lot of environmental policy. But I am not doing this for that purpose. This is
about the ability to make this economic transition and ignite what is a huge technology
revolution for the U.S. economy. This is a $6 trillion market opportunity. It’s as big as
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going from mainframe computers to a computer on every desk. It is going from big
[sources] of supply to having power generated from lots of different sources and being
able to [plug] into the grid in lots of different places and using it smartly and getting huge
savings. And it’s an opportunity for the United States to be the world leader in energy
technology. A lot of the R&D we do, but we don’t end up on the manufacturing side.
I don’t want to be left behind. Now, do I think it has huge benefits for the planet? Yes. Do
I think it’s good in general to get off of CO2 because it’s costing our economy in hidden
ways that we don’t even realize? Yes. But, you know, to me, this is about whether we
want to ride the volatility of oil prices for the next 30 years and then end up in the same
place, seeing that we have to get off of CO2. Or whether we want to do something that
enables us to catch the economic opportunity of clean energy.
e360: We have been talking about this practically since I was born, how we need to get
off fossil fuels. We’ve recognized this is a finite resource since the [1970s] oil crisis. And
every president has subsequently talked about some kind of energy plan that’s going to
wean us from these limited sources of fuel. And yet we seem incapable of actually taking
that step. I guess the ultimate question is, how do we break that logjam and take the
steps we need to take?
Cantwell: I think that we’re at a little bit of an inflection point. If you go back to the
1970s, you remember that the oil embargo drove a huge switch off of home heating oil to
natural gas. Why? Because the economics of that. I think it was definitely a double digit,
like 30 to 40 percent shift. That kind of transition happened because of the fear and
anxiety of being held hostage.
And so what we have now, I think, that fear and anxiety is looming out there and the
American people understand it. What I think is going for us now, [and] what wasn’t going
for us, say, 10 years ago, is that there is enough demonstration of the technology that’s
out there. People have a taste of it. So when you ask in a survey whether the American
people think that we can do this or should do this, it is like 80 of people [say] “Yes.”
So the unanswered question has been, how do you make the transition without greatly
impacting the economy in a negative way? And I think the CLEAR Act answers how you
can do that by a predictable, slow but steady decrease in CO2, [and] keeping consumers
whole.
e360: Is there anything else you want to add?
Cantwell: One of the challenges that is facing us is how do you make that transition from
the technology side? You’re talking about capacity building or scaling. And if you don’t
have a clear market signal, you won’t get that level of investment. So, again, we can wait
30 years when we’re really, really, really impacted, live through lots of ups and downs [in
oil prices] , and then find that Europe or Asia controls the market on these products. Or
we can say, “No, no, no. We want to stimulate that investment now.”
e360: We’re going into an election season now, [and] this is the kind of issue that gets
put off until after elections. Do you see hope for some kind of an energy bill this session?
Cantwell: I’m a big supporter of moving ahead. And I think as summer fuel prices hit,
people will be back to the same questions we ask every summer: “What were we
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doing?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth Kolbert, who conducted this interview for Yale Environment 360, has been a
staff writer for the New Yorker since 1999. Her 2005 New Yorker series on global
warming, “The Climate of Man,” won a National Magazine Award and was extended into
a book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe, which was published in 2006. Prior to joining
the staff of the New Yorker, she was a political reporter for the New York Times. In her
most recent article for Yale Environment 360, she reported on a new study that found
the pace of global warming is outstripping the most recent projections of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
White House Reviews EPA Rule On Industrial Carbon
Reuters, 22-Apr-10, By Timothy Gardner
The White House is reviewing an Environmental Protection Agency rule on which
factories and power plants will be subject to greenhouse gas regulations, according to
the Office of Management and Budget website.
The measure, known as the "tailoring rule," would set emissions thresholds for big
emitters of gases blamed for warming the planet. Regulated polluters could include coalfired power plants and heavy energy users such as cement, glass and steel makers.
The fact that the White House is reviewing the rule means it could be sent back to the
EPA and finalized soon. In an interview with Reuters last week, EPA Administrator Lisa
Jackson said the agency may not issue the rules until May.
Jackson has said only plants that emit 75,000 tonnes per year or more of carbon dioxide
are likely to be regulated under the rule in the next two years.
The EPA wants to limit U.S. Clean Air Act regulations, or "tailor" them, so they apply only
to larger polluters to avoid overwhelming federal and state agencies with paperwork.
Regulated plants would be required to hold permits demonstrating that they are using
the latest technology to pare back emissions. They could also face other future EPA
greenhouse gas regulations if Congress fails to pass a climate bill.
The Obama administration has long said it prefers that Congress pass legislation to limit
greenhouse gases. But with climate legislation stalled in Congress, the EPA has begun
to issue rules that are expected to help cut emissions -- which has angered some U.S.
lawmakers and industry.
The 75,000 tonne threshold could lead to a rash of lawsuits against the EPA as it pits big
power plants against small ones, said Kevin Book, an analyst at ClearView Energy
Partners.
Big Business Support For Climate Bill Elusive
Reuters, 22-Apr-10, By Timothy Gardner
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U.S. senators crafting a compromise climate change bill have held months of meetings
with oil, coal and manufacturing interests, but so far have failed to gain the ironclad
words of support many think will be necessary for passing legislation.
Senators John Kerry, a Democrat, Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Joseph
Lieberman, an independent, are set to release the bill on Monday after collaborating with
industry groups, companies, and environmentalists to find a workable compromise.
Industry associations such as the American Petroleum Institute and the National Mining
Association will not say whether they support the bill because they say they have not
seen it.
But many of the details likely to be included in the bill have been revealed by sources
and industries said they vehemently oppose parts of it, or will not support the bill unless
it takes further steps to protect their businesses.
President Barack Obama, who has made climate and energy one of his top priorities,
has said the business community should voice its support for climate legislation to
lawmakers.
And the senators say they are making progress in winning votes. "I'm cautiously
optimistic," Graham told reporters on Tuesday.
But analysts say the trouble is that getting the many facets of climate legislation in the
right places is comparable to the skill needed to solve a Rubik's Cube puzzle -- move
one set of items the wrong way and the lawmakers you thought you had lined up are out
of place -- and good luck getting them back.
"The senators are cobbling together a compromise framework, but concessions to one
group of senators could mean the lost votes of others, making it unlikely they will secure
the 60 votes required for passage," said Divya Reddy, an analyst at the Eurasia Group in
Washington.
OFFSHORE DRILLING
The most contentious issue is offshore oil drilling. The bill will likely include drilling
incentives to help win support from the oil industry and votes from Republican
lawmakers. But the idea, even if limited to states in the South, is opposed by many
Democrats including Senators Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg, both from New
Jersey.
If offshore drilling is included, another battle would ensue between lawmakers from
coastal states who want their districts to reap revenues from energy production, while
lawmakers from interior states would cry foul.
Lou Hayden, of the API, said his group wants the bill to block state and Environmental
Protection Agency climate regulations, which will likely be included in the legislation. But
Big Oil also wants to be shielded from lawsuits protecting endangered species or socalled nuisance suits like one claiming that industry emissions are helping to cause
erosion in a coastal Alaskan town.
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But such a move could potentially cause lawmakers with close ties to trial lawyers drop
their support.
For certain, the entrenched positions of some lawmakers may loosen up if the trio of
senators strikes the right set of solutions.
But the harder they try to fix things the more bones of contention may be revealed.
Some oil companies are open to a transportation fee on fuels that would pre-empt capand-trade on refineries. But many lawmakers would balk at the idea, which would likely
see costs passed onto consumers.
"Gasoline taxes have never been an easy sell in Congress and there's no reason to
believe that even moderate Democrats would be willing to back one, particularly in an
election year," Reddy said.
Similar disagreements revolve around coal. Luke Popovich, a spokesman at the mining
association, said one item likely to be in the bill -- an upper limit for the price of carbon in
a system that would cap emissions from power plants -- would hurt power plants and
manufacturing across 12 to 15 states.
But lowering that price ceiling could upset lawmakers from other states that produce or
depend on natural gas, which emits half the carbon dioxide as coal does. Liberal
lawmakers who want a high carbon price to jump-start new low-carbon energy like wind,
solar, and nuclear, may also oppose capping the carbon price.
Another difficult example is a border tax supported by the industries such as steel and
cement who want a fee applied to imports should exporter countries not agree to take
tough actions against climate change.
But such a measure would be opposed by lawmakers afraid of stoking trade wars with
China or India.
States Fear Devil In Details Of U.S. Climate Bill
Reuters, 22-Apr-10, By Peter Henderson
California and other states with aggressive environmental agendas said on Wednesday
they fear a federal climate bill may unacceptably weaken their power, in a new sign of
uncertainty over compromise legislation being crafted by U.S. Senator John Kerry and
his allies.
Democrat Kerry, independent Senator Joseph Lieberman and Republican Senator
Lindsey Graham are expected to unveil a bill next week to cut greenhouse gas
emissions that navigates among competing interests groups, after a previous effort
failed.
"There is a gray area there where there could be mischief or litigation," California's top
climate change regulator, Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols, told reporters on a
conference call, outlining concerns.
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"We want the statute to be clear that unless there is very explicit reason to the contrary,
that states are encouraged to move forward."
States fear the bill could include a ban on state and regional carbon trading markets, the
loss of California's ability to set clean car standards, and vague language that could lead
courts broadly to curtail state action, said Emily Figdor, global warming program director
of Environment America, a non-governmental group.
Fuel composition standards and performance standards for big polluters were examples
of areas at risk, she said.
Analysts including researcher Point Carbon see the federal legislation as a longshot for
passage this year, and states that favor strong federal action are in a delicate position.
They do not want to lose the ability to try new regulations or take action if the federal
efforts don't meet their goals.
At a meeting of the Western Climate Initiative last week, state representatives discussed
fears that any criticism of the federal bill could be used by opponents to block it.
The federal bill is expected to include a key provision for a cap-and-trade program,
which limits total greenhouse gas emissions and lets big polluters trade permits to emit.
Similar state plans are expected to be forbidden. That would be more drastic than a
moratorium on state cap-and-trade considered in a bill passed by the House of
Representatives.
The U.S. northeast has such a system working and California and the Western Climate
Initiative plan their own market to begin trading on January 1, 2012.
"To just have one program that would preempt states and have a one-size-fits all federal
approach really not only ignores the whole history of success in the environmental area
but also would not be the wisest way to go in terms of either maximizing greenhouse gas
reductions or to maximize the amount of job creation," said Illinois Environmental
Protection Agency Director Doug Scott.
Military Leads Fight Against Climate Change: Pew
Reuters, 22-Apr-10, By Timothy Gardner
The U.S. military, the government's largest fuel buyer, is leading the fight against climate
change by investing in the "Great Green Fleet" and other ways of cutting dependence on
oil and coal, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts report released on Tuesday.
"They're not having long and protracted debates about whether or not we can afford it ...
they are marching" into investments in everything from electric vehicles to forming strike
groups that run on alternative fuels, said Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew Environment
Group's Global Warming Campaign.
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The report, "Re-energizing America's Defense," says the military has found that climate
change may lead to domestic and international instability by threatening water and food
supplies. In addition, stronger storms caused by emissions could increase the need for
humanitarian missions by the military both at home and abroad, which could stretch
resources.
The U.S. military's Quadrennial Defense Review, an assessment of the international
security environment released in February, said climate change may hasten instability
and conflicts placing burdens on militaries around the world.
In addition, for every $10 that the price of oil rises, Department of Defense costs
increase an additional $1.3 billion a year on average, the Pew report said.
The military spent about $20 billion on fossil fuel energy in 2008, and the report said
internal Department of Defense research documents much larger costs for fuel brought
to combat zones such as Iraq. Protecting fuel supply lines in war zones also increases
the risk of attacks on soldiers.
To respond, every branch of the U.S. military has launched programs to lessen the
carbon bootprint and to cut dependence on fossil fuels.
The Army, for example, is building a fleet of 4,000 electric vehicles during the next three
years, which is expected to cut demand for liquid motor fuels by 11 million gallons and
cut emissions.
The Navy hopes to complete its Great Green Fleet by 2016, a strike group of nuclearpowered ships, surface units fired by hyrid-electric systems, and aircraft powered by
biofuels.
The Air Force, the military's largest energy user, is leading all federal entities win clean
power purchasing, with 37 bases meeting a portion of their power demand with
electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind.
"If the military is doing it, maybe the American people will think it's not so scary," said
Cuttino. She hoped the more the public learns about the initiatives the more people
might support the long-delayed climate bill.
Senator John Kerry, the lead backer of a compromise climate bill and the chairman of
the Senate's Foreign Relation's Committee, has long said global warming threatens U.S.
security.
He is writing the climate bill with Senators Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Joe
Lieberman, an independent. It is expected to be unveiled on April 26, but faces tough
opposition from lawmakers in states with economies that are heavily dependent on fossil
fuels.
Not everyone agrees that policies that aim to combat climate change will lead to greater
security. Marlo Lewis, a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank, said
climate policies could hurt the U.S. economy with higher energy prices.
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That could result in budget cuts that could reduce military readiness, he said, adding that
climate supporters "never mention the potential for harmful side effects."
Point Carbon, a consulting group, estimated last week that if the climate bill passes, it
would boost U.S. gasoline prices an average of 27 cents a gallon from 2013 to 2020 on
average.
But the costs of the military's fossil fuel dependency go beyond prices and include risks
to troops protecting the so-called "long tails" of fuel and supply convoys in Iraq and
Afghanistan. "Part of the military's job is to decrease risk, and that is their strategy
behind investing in green energy," said Cuttino.
U.S. Farm Supports May Need Change: Key Lawmaker
Reuters, 22-Apr-10, By Charles Abbott
U.S. farm groups and lawmakers must consider whether fundamental change is needed
in farm subsidies that date from the Depression, said the head of the House Agriculture
Committee on Wednesday after the opening work on the new farm bill, due in two years.
Chairman Collin Peterson told reporters the Average Crop Revenue Election, an option
created in 2008, has "elements we need to look at for the future." ACRE is the first
program to shield farmer revenue from poor yields as well as low prices.
Price support payments now are triggered by low prices. Critics say they provide little
support when growers lose a crop to bad weather.
There also are complaints that support rates are too low, compared to rising production
costs.
"I think it will be very difficult to pass a status-quo farm bill in 2012," said Peterson, a
Minnesota Democrat. "I think it's inadequate."
For one thing, he said, there will not be enough money to increase crop subsidy rates as
high as some backers want.
The committee has scheduled four field hearings through May 4, with more possible.
"I'm trying to get people to look ahead here," said Peterson.
Besides mentioning ACRE as a possible model, Peterson said attention also was being
given to a "whole-farm revenue" concept. It could allow more cropping flexibility than
ACRE, which is tied to growing a specific crop. In the long run, he said, the United
States could move to an insurance-like support system.
As part of farm bill work, Peterson said he has compiled data on support given to major
crops through subsidies and crop insurance. On average, subsidies equal 5.8 percent of
the value of those crops, he said, but the value of federal supports varies widely by crop.
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Peterson has asked farm groups to consider if a better system can be arranged than the
hybrid now in use. Three types of support are available to grain, cotton and soybean
growers -- a guaranteed annual payment based on past production, a "loan deficiency"
payment made when prices are below a minimum set by law, and counter-cyclical
payments made when returns from sales and subsidies are below a target set by law.
By comparison, ACRE has a higher price guarantee. Farmers get a payment when
revenue from a crop falls at the state level and on their farms. ACRE went into operation
last year, attracting 13 percent of eligible land. Participation is highest among corn,
wheat and soybean growers. Traditional supports are more valuable to rice and cotton
growers.
In discussing potential paths for farm policy, Peterson mentioned revenue-protection
programs, which might be combined with disaster funds or crop insurance coverage, or
a crafting of farm supports so benefits go to producers rather than landowners.
Price supports, estimated for $2.3 billion this year, and crop insurance are regarded as a
benefit to producers while direct payments, worth $5 billion this year, are easily captured
by landowners.
Nearly $12 billion is forecast in cash payments to farmers this fiscal year, the bulk of it in
crop subsidy and land stewardship programs.
Betting On Climate Change
Reuters, 22-Apr-10, By Clive Thompson
Last year, Beluga Shipping discovered that there's money in global warming.
Beluga is a German firm that specializes in "super heavy lift" transport. Its vessels are
equipped with massive cranes, allowing it to load and unload massive objects, like multiton propeller blades for wind turbines. It is an enormously expensive business, but last
summer, Beluga executives hit upon an interesting way to save money: Shipping freight
over a melting Arctic.
Beluga had received contracts to send materials on a sprawling trip that would begin in
Ulsan, South Korea, head north and west to the Russian port city of Archangelsk-located
near the border with Finland-and wind up in Nigeria.
Normally, this route requires Beluga's ships to navigate an 11,000-mile route through the
Suez Canal. But in 2008, its executives decided that global warming had eroded the
Arctic's summer sea ice significantly enough that their ships could travel the Northeast
Passage along the north coast of Russia.
Previously, a cargo ship could only safely navigate that route if an icebreaker went
ahead, smashing a route through thick ice.
Now, a warming climate had-for six to eight weeks beginning in July-transformed much
of the route into mostly open water, studded with ice floes that the Beluga ships could
navigate.
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So the executives got permission from the Russian government to travel along the coast,
paid a transit fee of "a comparably moderate five-digit figure," and sent the ships on their
way. Four moniths later, they'd finished the trip. Compared to the old Suez Canal
journey, this shorter route saved an enormous pile of money: It cost $300,000 less per
ship in lower fuel and bunker costs. Global warming had boosted the company's
revenues by more than half a million dollars in one year alone.
When I interviewed Beluga CEO Niels Stolberg via email this spring, he said he
envisions using the Northeast Passage regularly.Indeed, he's planning on another trip
this summer.
He said that since the shorter passage requires generating far less C02, it's "greener";
it's also more ironic, since it was high concentrations of C02 that helped melt the route in
the first place.
"I am convinced," Stolberg added, "that the Arctic will become an area of quite regular
sea traffic at least during summer."
If you looked merely at the realm of politics, it would be easy to believe that the question
"Is climate change really happening?" is still unresolved. In recent months, skeptics have
attacked climate science with renewed vigor. Doubters seized on "Climategate "-leaked
emails from bickering atmospheric scientists-to argue that the evidence in favor of
warming is being cooked.
Other skeptics unearthed shoddy parts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change's main report, such as the fact that it cited non-peer-reviewed work by an activist
group when it predicted that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035.
And all along, conservative politicians have hissingly denounced global warming as a
shady liberal scheme: Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma famously called it "the
greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
These attacks appear to be working. A spring Gallup study found that Americans'
concern over global warming peaked two years ago, and has steadily declined since.
But there's one area where doubt hasn't grown-and where, indeed, people are more and
more certain that climate change is not only real, but imminent: The world of industry
and commerce.
Companies, of course, exist to make money. That's often what makes them seem so
rapacious. But their primal greed also plants them inevitably in the "reality-based
community."
If a firm's bottom line is going to be affected by a changing climate-say, when its supply
chains dry up because of drought, or its real estate gets swamped by sea-level rise-then
it doesn't particularly matter whether or not the executives want to believe in climate
change.
Railing at scientists for massaging tree-ring statistics won't stop the globe from warming
if the globe is actually, you know, warming.
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The same applies in reverse, as the folks at Beluga Shipping adroitly realized: If there
are serious bucks to be made from the changing climate, then the free market is almost
certainly going to jump at it.
This makes capitalism a curiously bracing mechanism for cutting through ideological
haze and manufactured doubt.
Politicians or pundits can distort or cherry-pick climate science any way they want to try
and gain temporary influence with the public.
But any serious industrialist who's facing "climate exposure"-as it's now called by money
managers-cannot afford to engage in that sort of self-delusion. Spend a couple of hours
wandering through the websites of various industrial associations-aluminum
manufacturers, real-estate agents, wineries, agribusinesses, take your pick-and you'll
find straightforward statements about the grim reality of climate change that wouldn't
seem out of place coming from Greenpeace.
Last year Wall Street analysts issued 214 reports assessing the potential risks and
opportunities that will come out of a warming world. One by McKinsey & Company
argued that climate change will shake up industries with the same force that mobile
phones reshaped communications.
Consider, as one colorful example, the skiing industry. Beginning 10 years ago, the
Aspen Skiing Company began noticing that European ski lodges were being slowly
destroyed by warmer weather.
Europe's ski resorts tend to be located on lower mountains-about 6,000-8,000 feet high,
compared to American peaks up around 11,000 feet-so they're vulnerable to even
extremely tiny increases in global temperature.
The 2 percent temperature rise in the 20th century was enough "to put a lot of them out
of business," says Auden Schendler, executive director of sustainability for Aspen
Skiing, which operates two resorts spread across four mountains.
But now Aspen's own season is getting shorter: "More balmy Novembers, more rainy
Marches," Schendler says. "That's what we're seeing, and that's what the science
suggests would happen. If you graph frost-free days, there are more and more in the last
30 years."
Climate-change models also predict warmer nights. Aspen Skiing has noticed that
happening too, and the problem here is that nighttime is when ski lodges use their waterspraying technology to make snow-"and if you make it when it's warmer it's exponentially
more expensive."
The increasing volatility of weather overall-another prediction of climate change-poses a
particular danger for ski resorts, because they operate in the red most of the year,
making up their deficit during the busy spring break in March. So if the weather is terrific
for the entire winter but suddenly balmy during March break, that can ruin the whole
fiscal year.
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Schendler has also learned firsthand a point that climate scientists have been making for
some time: With climate change, "warming" isn't the only-or even the most seriouschallenge.
The sheer interdependence of complex ecosystems systems can grease you. For
example, recent droughts in Utah have kicked up red dust clouds that settle on Aspen's
snow. This makes the snow melt more quickly (because the red absorbs more heat from
the sun) while also making it too gritty to ski on.
Are all of Aspen Skiing's recent weather problems caused by global warming? It's
impossible to tell. But as Schendler notes, the last few years certainly mimic the precise
effects that climate models predict, so it is at least a taste of what's to come.
During a recent dust storm on Aspen's slopes, Schendler's boss wandered into his office
looking morose. "He said, 'Auden, if climate change is the scary thing for the future, this
is the apocalypse now. What if you get this in March?"' Schendler recalls.
Now, all this tricky weather hasn't exactly destroyed Aspen Skiing; the firm could
probably survive even worse stuff. The top of the mountain is so high "we can ski it in 50
years and it'll be great," Schendler notes. But it could certainly erode Aspen's profits, and
Colorado would suffer: The ski industry overall is a $2 billion business for the state,
employing fully 8 percent of the workforce.
So to try and preserve its profit margins, the Aspen Skiing Company has recently
become a loud voice in favor of congressional action on the climate. In 2007, Schendler
testified before the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, calling for a
cap on carbon emissions-among other things.
"Our attitude when we go to Congress is, look, we're a business!" he adds. "We didn't
ask for this. We just started looking at the data and the science dispassionately and said,
'Look, we've got a problem.'"
Another industry that can't pretend climate change is a myth is insurance. Insurance
firms have always carefully studied real-world data to figure out what, precisely,
constitutes a risky activity. As a result, they were among the first to notice that weather
was getting more violent, and more unpredictably so.
"It's just a logical consequence," says Peter Hoppe, head of the "Geo Risks Research"
division of Munich Re, the multinational reinsurance firm. "Global warming affects our
core business. We have seen changes already in some readings."
Worldwide, Munich Re has found that "great catastrophes"-act-of-god weather events
that cause more than a billion dollars of damage-have tripled since 1950.
In 2008, even though there weren't any Katrina-level disasters, weather-related events
were so severe that "catastrophic losses" to the world's economy were the third-highest
in recorded history, topping $200 billion globally-including $40 billion in the United
States.
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Hoppe doesn't think global warming is all to blame; some of these events are likely due
to natural cycles like the 30-year "North Atlantic Oscillation" that is currently warming the
Atlantic. But Munich Re's policy is that anthropogenic global warming is already making
things worse, and that governments ought to act quickly while they still can.
Granted, a warming globe isn't all downside for insurance firms. There are also profitable
new business opportunities, as Hoppe points out.
Munich Re is now offering coverage for renewable energy products, because wind farms
and solar parks need insurance against the possibility that low wind and weak sunlight
will reduce their output.
"It's very important for investors to dampen and level out the volatility from season to
season," Hoppe says. Munich Re has also developed a product covering solar cells that
wear out before their expected 30-year lifetime.
Buying insurance against bad weather isn't entirely new. Farmers have done it for years.
But back in the late '90s, before Enron imploded, it created a huge new market of selling
"weather futures" to electric utilities-hedges that would pay out if, say, a mild summer
hurt their sales (because people would use less air conditioning).
After Enron pancaked, weather futures stayed around-still mostly for utilities and farmsbut buying them wasn't easy: You had to personally contact one of the few weatherfutures traders who'd set up their own trading desks in the wake of Enron's dissolution.
But with climate-change models predicting increasingly erratic weather, a new
generations of startups is heading into the field, figuring that almost any firm might want
to hedge against the bad economic effects of weather-such as clothing manufacturers
(who could suffer massive losses in coat sales if an unexpectedly mild winter emerges),
airlines (since weather is the top cause of delays), and sporting-event promoters (when
it's rainy, everyone stays away).
Weatherbill is one such startup. Founded three and a half years ago by Google
expatriates, it lets anyone use its website to quickly create weather insurance for almost
anything.
Type in the thing you're trying to insure-say, an Iowa county fair in the third week of Julyand the Weatherbill system calculates the probability of what local weather will be like up
to two years out, and down to a 100-mile-wide area. It then uses that guess to instantly
price a weather future or insurance contract.
CEO Dave Friedberg told me Weatherbill had already sold contracts to the likes of the
U.S. Open, and that he envisions worldwide opportunities: Global agriculture suffers
billions in weather-related losses each year, for example, yet many countries don't have
any institutions offering easy weather insurance. That's especially true for countries likely
to be the first to experience the dire consequences of climate change, such as coastal
regions of Asia or Latin America.
"If you think about Brazil, their two biggest industries are mining and agriculture,"
Friedberg says.
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"That's billions of dollars, and there's a massive market for developing crop insurance. If
we can figure out agriculture, and do it right, the opportunity is huge to go country by
country." Does he believe that global warming is already noticeable? "Oh yeah," he
says. In just the three years that Weatherbill has been collecting data, extreme weather
events have risen 8 percent.
One of the big political questions of climate change is how far we've gone: Have we
passed a tipping point of no return? Has the atmosphere already accumulated such high
levels of greenhouse gases that even if we manage to cut back on emissions, we'll still
wind up with a globe so much hotter that everyday life will change significantly? One
emerging sector built on the assumption that we have is the "adaptation marketplace"firms offering new products and services to help companies and cities cope with
changes.
A 2009 study by Oxfam identified seven potentially lucrative adaptation areas, such as
water management and disaster preparation; one firm in this field-the Minneapolis-based
Pentair Inc., which makes pumps and filtration systems-has soared to $3.35 billion in
annual revenues, partly due to contracts from the Army Corps of Engineers to provide
massive pumps that will protect New Orleans against another Katrina.
Another firm, North Carolina's WeatherPredict, has developed a technique to retrofit
roofs with aerodynamic edges, reducing the damage they sustain in hurricane winds.
Firms that produce genetically engineered crops are also predicting they'll reap profits
from climate change: Monsanto, Bayer, BASF, and their sister firms have registered 55
worldwide patents for "climate ready" seeds designed to thrive in conditions of drought
or other stress, according to a 2008 report by ETC Group, an environmental advocacy
organization.
Will all this climate-propelled economic activity be good for the planet? Sure, it can be
satisfying to see some major CEOs agree that climate change is a real and present
danger. But many environmentalists predict that the flurry of new economic activity will
create its own new problems.
The melting Arctic, in particular, gives many observers the willies. It's likely to see an
explosion in seabed oil-and-gas exploration and tourism. (Cargo shipping, interestingly,
is likely to increase at a slower rate, partly because cargo ships ferrying "just in time"
products can't abide the delays that even small ice floes would cause-and nobody thinks
the Arctic will be entirely ice-free for 100 years or more.)
Arctic experts-and the Navy-predict a catastrophe the first time a tourist vessel or oil
tanker hits an iceberg and cracks up. "Tourist vessels aren't ice-hardened, and in the
polar regions "there's no search and rescue or salvage" standing by, says Lawson
Brigham, a University of Alaska professor who chaired the Arctic Marine Shipping
Assessment, a four-year study of how commercial activity will progress in the warming
North. "The water's near freezing. All you need is one good Titanic."
Other realms of climate-change commerce aren't much prettier when you look at them
closely. In agriculture, the advent of climate-ready crops is clearly useful, maybe even
crucial, for adaption. But it also concentrates ever more power in the hands of a small
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coterie of firms that own the patents to drought-resistant seeds, and the cost could
cause serious hardship in the desperately poor countries of Asia or Africa where the
seeds might be most needed.
It's also true that the number of climate visionaries in industry is still quite small.
Certainly, companies with skin in the game are preparing for a warmer world.
But as the McKinsey report found, they're in the minority. The grand majority are deeply
myopic, focused narrowly on goosing profits in the next quarter-who cares what'll
happen ten years from now? (Read Felix Salmon on what makes most businesses so
shortsighted here.)
In a sense, that makes them a mildly agnostic force. When climate change finally does
impinge on their business, they'll probably take action to adapt to it. But it also means
that if they can see a short-term profit from fighting against climate science and sowing
doubt, they'll do that, too.
This is precisely what's still happening in the energy industry, where many firms that pay
lip service to the reality of climate change also quietly funnel millions to lobbyists who
fight ferociously to prevent Congress from passing laws that curtail C02 emissions.
"We all know big companies who are doing all this green stuff, and their lobbyists are
trying to kill the carbon bill as quickly as they can," says Mindy Lubber, president of
Boston-based CERES, an association of environment-minded investors whose members
have $10 trillion under management.
It may be that the corrective force comes not from inside corporations, but from
investors. Many large investors, including the California State Teachers' Retirement
System-the nation's second largest public-pension fund-have begun demanding that
firms examine and disclose any potential risks from global warming.
Shareholder resolutions demanding action on climate change have nearly doubled in the
last two years, rising from about 55 in 2007 to 99 in 2009, Lubber notes.
In February, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines requiring that
publicly traded firms better disclose their climate-change risk, including potential
"physical" risks. (Join a live Grist forum on the new SEC regulations.)
"Anyone that's building out new manufacturing facilities without working out water
shortages related to climate change is getting itself into trouble," Lubber adds. "Or
anyone that's building on waterfront property."
Another common request from shareholder resolutions is for companies to calculate the
cost of their carbon footprint. Even if electric utilities and the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce are fighting against carbon-limiting legislation, investors seem to believe it is
inevitable-indeed, they evidently think the government might cap carbon even in the next
few years, which could dramatically increase the cost of electricity.
To make corporations true partners in tackling climate change, Lubber thinks investors
need to push for basic changes in the way their companies function.
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CEOs whose bonuses are based on bumping next-quarter results will make short-term
decisions. Those who are paid based on reducing carbon usage will make long-term
ones-investing in technology and processes that reduce greenhouse gases.
"If they're compensated for producing 86 percent more widgets, they'll do that. But if they
use less fuel, they ought to be compensated for meeting their carbon-reduction goals."
In the short run, though, there's probably only one force that will get today's blithe firms
to snap to attention-and that's legislation.
If Congress actually puts a price on carbon, it'll hit the world of industry with tsunamic
force.
At minimum, it would probably goose the price of electricity and make emissions-heavy
industries instantly less profitable. (Indeed, this is one of the things the SEC and many
investor groups are urging firms to do: calculate how badly they'll be shellacked if new
regulations make spewing carbon expensive.)
Not everyone will be a loser. The McKinsey study calculated that alternative-energy
firms will do quite well (for obvious reasons), but so will less-predictable sectors like the
construction industry, as people rush to retrofit buildings with extra insulation and
energy-saving rebuilds. The farsighted firms-and the ones who work on the colder
fringes of the world-can see the future clearly, because they're living it. But with the
stroke of a pen, Obama can bring it a lot closer.
Whether it's a melting Arctic or a bold new law, the biggest forces shaping industry are,
as it were, man-made.
At 40, Earth Day Is Now Big Business
The New York Times, April 21, 2010, By LESLIE KAUFMAN
So strong was the antibusiness sentiment for the first Earth Day in 1970 that organizers
took no money from corporations and held teach-ins “to challenge corporate and
government leaders.”
Forty years later, the day has turned into a premier marketing platform for selling a
variety of goods and services, like office products, Greek yogurt and eco-dentistry.
For this year’s celebration, Bahama Umbrella is advertising a specially designed
umbrella, with a drain so that water “can be stored, reused and recycled.” Gray Line, a
New York City sightseeing company, will keep running its buses on fossil fuels, but it is
promoting an “Earth Week” package of day trips to green spots like the botanical
gardens and flower shopping at Chelsea Market.
F. A. O. Schwarz is taking advantage of Earth Day to showcase Peat the Penguin, an
emerald-tinted plush toy that, as part of the Greenzys line, is made of soy fibers and
teaches green lessons to children. The penguin, Greenzys promotional material notes,
“is an ardent supporter of recycling, reusing and reducing waste.”
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To many pioneers of the environmental movement, eco-consumerism, creeping for
decades, is intensely frustrating and detracts from Earth Day’s original purpose.
“This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green,”
said Denis Hayes, who was national coordinator of the first Earth Day and is returning to
organize this year’s activities in Washington. “It is tragic.”
Yet the eagerness of corporations to sign up for Earth Day also reflects the
environmental movement’s increased tolerance toward corporate America: Many “big
greens,” as leading environmental advocacy organizations are known, now accept that
they must take money from corporations or at the least become partners with them if
they are to make real inroads in changing social behavior.
This year, in an updated version of a teach-in, Greenpeace will team up with technology
giants like Cisco and Google to hold a Web seminar focused on how the use of new
technologies like videoconferencing and “cloud” computing can reduce the nation’s
carbon footprint. Daniel Kessler, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said it was necessary to
“promote a counterweight to the fossil fuel industry.”
In 1970, Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York addressed a crowd of tens of thousands in
Union Square on Earth Day, in an atmosphere The New York Times likened to a
“secular revival meeting.”
This year, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will be in Times Square to announce measures
to reduce New York’s impact on the environment. Using the same stage, Keep America
Beautiful, an antilittering nonprofit organization, will introduce “dream machines,”
recycling kiosks it is introducing with PepsiCo. The machines are meant to increase the
recycling rates for beverage containers, which is estimated at about 36 percent
nationwide.
Of course, a fair portion of the more than 200 billion beverage containers produced in
the United States each year are filled with PepsiCo products like Mountain Dew and
Aquafina; such bottle trash contributes to serious pollution on beaches, oceans and
inland waterways.
Still, Matthew M. McKenna, president and chief executive of Keep America Beautiful,
and a former PepsiCo senior vice president, said he jumped at the opportunity to have
his former employer introduce its new kiosk at the event.
“We are not being asked to encourage the purchase of Pepsi or the consumption of their
products,” he said. “We are asked to deal in the field with what happens when they get
thrown out.”
While the momentum for the first Earth Day came from the grass roots, many
corporations say that it is often the business community that now leads the way in
environmental innovation — and they want to get their customers interested. In an era
when the population is more divided on the importance of environmental issues than it
was four decades ago, the April event offers a rare window, they say, when customers
are game to learn about the environmentally friendly changes the companies have
made.
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Frank Sherman, United States green officer for TD Bank, said the company hurried to
get its prototype of a highly energy-efficient bank branch building in Queens ready for
Earth Day because that’s when “people are paying attention.”
The original Earth Day events were attended by 20 million Americans — to this day
among the largest participation in a political action in the nation’s history.
This year, while the day will be widely marked with events, including a climate rally on
the Mall in Washington, the movement does not have the same support it had four
decades ago.
In part, said Robert Stone, an independent documentary filmmaker whose history of the
American environmental movement is being broadcast on public television this week, the
movement has been a victim of its own success in clearing up tangible problems with air
and water. But that is just part of the problem, he noted.
“Every Earth Day is a reflection of where we are as a culture,” he said. “If it has become
commoditized, about green consumerism instead of systemic change, then it is a
reflection of our society.”
Earth Day, the Sequel
New York Times, April 21, 2010, 8:51 pm, By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The genesis of the modern environmental movement was the subject of “Earth Days,”
the most recent film by Robert Stone, an Oscar-nominated documentarian who has
explored subjects ranging from the space race to the legacy of Lee Harvey Oswald’s life
and death. So I thought it worth having a Skype chat with Stone about the meaning of
that era, and the crossroads confronting the environmental community now — which
relates to the subject of his next film.
Q.
Because you dove in deep charting the history of the first Earth Day, I thought you could
help convey a sense of how the triumphs and failures since then might shape
environmentalism over the next 40 years.
A.
The environmental movement in the late ’60s and early ’70s was driven by a strong
sense of urgency that I think you see conveyed in the footage of those times. The
movement now is sort of a victim of its own success in that our environment as a whole
seems pretty good. Air is for the most part O.K. and our lakes and rivers are thriving —
or at least they’re not catching on fire anymore. What we’re confronting today is more
intangible. So going forward I think people need to be offered something that renews
that sense of urgency and not simply bombard them with dire warnings or paltry efforts
that are not commensurate with the scale of the problems we face.
Q.
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To some extent there was also a distinct toolkit for those times — litigation, legislation,
regulation — that seems tougher to apply to global-scale problems like accumulating
greenhouse gases. Many of your interview subjects came of age wielding those kinds of
weapons.
A.
I think people are more motivated by competition and nationalism than by do-goodism
and altruism. The extraordinary technological innovations we’ve witnessed in our lifetime
sprung forth in part out of a competition with the Soviet Union, particularly in the wake of
Sputnik. We were summoned to do great things, to think big. People were inspired and
we did great things. I think we need to summon that spirit again, perhaps in a
competition with China. There’s nothing wrong with competition. It can bring out the best
in us. But people are not going to be inspired by compact fluorescent bulbs and driving a
Prius.
Thinking more about this, it seems the environmental movement has been asking people
to think small — remember “Small is beautiful?” — when I think it would have more
success asking people to think big.
Q.
One of my favorite writers and thinkers from my time in college was René Dubos, who
popularized the phrase “think globally; act locally,” which somewhat echoes your “think
small” notion. With an issue like human-caused climate change, or the devastation of
ocean-roaming species like bluefin tuna, it seems again that the old kind of framing
doesn’t work any more. In essence, global IS the new local. Local meaning we really
have reached the point — when considering shared assets like the atmosphere — that
we’re all in the same neighborhood on a very small planet?
A.
Beautifully said. Yes! I think what those wonderful pictures from space should have
taught us is that global is local, like you say. But if the environmental movement places
all its bets on reframing human consciousness around the “one world” principle then I
think the planet is going to go to hell in a handbasket. We’re simply not going to one day
all wake up and sing Kumbaya and tackle these problems. There’s this strong Utopian
streak in the environmental movement that truly believes that this can happen.
But I think history teaches us a different lesson. Yes we can evolve — slowly — but our
best successes come from harnessing what is innate in human nature. And that is what
needs to be harnessed now if we are to deal seriously with the greatest challenge ever
to confront us as a species since the last ice age. All our problems in the end come
down to how we use and produce energy because that’s one thing we can actually
control. Fortunately it also taps into what human beings do best, which is innovate. So
there is hope there. But let’s get away from challenging us all to think like planetary
citizens. Some of us will but most of us won’t, particularly when push comes to shove, as
it will as the seas start to rise and the fields start to dry up.
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As Americans, let’s start at home by making the United States the most fuel efficient
country with the cleanest air, the cleanest water, the most advanced electrical grid, the
best educated work force, etc., and let others follow our lead.
Q.
So along with our gift for innovation comes another human tendency — to use stuff more
when it’s cheaper, including energy — basically shorthand for Jevons Paradox. Do we
still need some of that old 20th-century toolkit to require efficiency even as we innovate
more non-polluting energy choices? Did any of your interviewees speak to that need to
rein us in, in the end?
A.
Yes. I love Jevons Paradox. It’s so very telling about human nature and it basically cuts
against almost everything that the environmental movement has been banking on for
decades: that increased efficiency would create extraordinary energy savings.
Theoretically yes. But not in reality.
But to your point about the old toolkit… I think there’s a recognition among the old-line
environmentalists that it’s served its purpose but that it also generated a political
backlash. If I require you to do something there is a likelihood that you’ll just tell me to [ ]
off, even if what I’m requiring you to do is for your own good. And that’s sort of what the
Reagan Revolution was all about: “getting government off our backs.”
I get back to my original point. “Cap and trade” is just not inspiring to anyone other than
possibly inspiring opposition. The issue then becomes what does “cheap” really mean in
the marketplace. You can say oil is cheap until you account for the trillion or more dollars
we’ve spent already in military incursions into the Middle East in the last decade to
secure that oil. You can say coal is cheap until you account for the destruction of the
ocean fisheries that come in part from mercury poisoning from coal, etc… So the change
that was certainly articulated by Hunter Lovins in my film is to find ways to have a true
market. Republicans like markets so perhaps you’d get some support. But old-style
regulation becomes politically problematic and tends to have all sorts of unintended
consequences.
Q.
Sounds like you’re talking about a more educated populace (able to discern the broader
costs and benefits of actions) and more transparency — kind of the energy/environment
equivalent of those nutrition labels on food?
A.
Yes that’s part of it. But you can’t ram this stuff down people’s throat. They need to be
drawn to it on their own accord because it interests them. How many Americans know
that we send about [12:22 p.m. | Updated: $96 billion to OPEC countries a year*] $800
billion to the Middle East every year for oil? Why isn’t Glenn Beck outraged about that?
How many American’s know that we consume 30 percent of the world’s oil but have only
2 percent of the world’s oil reserves — so much for “drill, baby, drill.”
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These are not difficult things to articulate and they’re not politically polarizing. So I think
the cost of inaction needs to be made real and visceral (like it was 40 years ago), not
because of two intersecting lines on a graph at some distant point in the future, but
because of the here and now, because if we don’t act the Chinese will and we’ll still be
sucking up a dwindling 19th-century fuel source while they just pass us by.
I think the environment, at least as far as America is concerned, needs its Sputnik
moment and its Nixon goes to China moment all rolled into one. A dramatic shakeup that
pulls left and right together for a common purpose. Shopping at Wal-Mart should not be
our national aspiration.
Q.
I understand that you’re on a quest to build your next film around this pursuit of a new
energy menu. One super interviewee would have been the chemistry Nobel laureate
Richard Smalley, who spent the last few years of his life fighting leukemia and speaking
on what he called “Our Energy Challenge.” Have you found your cast of characters yet?
A.
It’s coming together. The trick is to start to limit it so that it doesn’t get too sprawling. I
want protagonists, not just characters… people who’ve lived through the experiences
that led us to this point and who’ve transformed they’re thinking along the way. I’m
always drawn to people who’ve had the intellectual honesty to challenge their own
deeply held views and question conventional wisdom. And I think if people can go and
see a film with such people in it they might be taken on a journey to question their own
assumptions about the world. Because that is what is needed, particularly among those
most engaged in these weighty issues.
We need to shake off the shackles of the environmental movement as we’ve come to
know it and think anew. Maybe the whole idea of an environmental movement is an
anachronism because, as you say, it’s everything. It’s not just about saving the polar
bears — though I’m all in favor of that. It’s about seeing the interconnectedness of things
so a guy who lost his job at G.M. can see how that relates to our failed energy policies
which relates to our bloated federal budget which relates to health care, and on and
on….
We can’t separate things into these compartments anymore. So my aim is to tackle this
one hot-button subject, nuclear power, and to use that as a vehicle to plow through this
ideological rigidity that has enveloped the environmental movement and separated it
from the lives of ordinary people.
Q.
In that arena, you’ll find friends and foes here on Dot Earth. I’ll let readers propose some
protagonists! Congratulations on Earth Days, and good luck with your next steps.
[*Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute alerted me and Robert Stone to a big oil math error in
Stone's (conversational) answer. Stone sent the update above. Thanks, Jerry.]
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S.F. Earth Day celebrations
San Francisco Chronicle, April 22, 2010, Carolyn Jones
From organic wine tasting to a fair-trade Carnaval costume show, Bay Area residents
will put their own twist on Earth Day celebrations today to mark the occasion's 40th
anniversary.
At San Francisco State, cowgirls will promote composting. At the Academy of Sciences,
they'll be dancing to a hip-hop DJ. And in the Mission, they'll be belly dancing and eating
organic empanadas.
"It's San Francisco - people like things more theatrical here. They want to have fun, they
don't want to think 'Earth Day, oh my God, the sky is falling,' " said Sunshine Swinford,
outreach coordinator for the San Francisco Department of the Environment. "They want
to know there's things they can do that will actually make a difference."
Swinford's agency will staff six Earth Day events across San Francisco today in hopes of
encouraging people to recycle, compost, use fluorescent lights, turn off the tap while
brushing their teeth, and take other small steps toward saving the planet.
But to make the message more fun, and less dogmatic, the staff will sponsor a recycling
game in which visitors have to sort chicken bones, plastic bags, TVs and other items into
recycling bins. Winners get a canvas bag made of scrap fabric.
At the Blue Macaw nightclub on Mission Street, Carnaval organizers are hosting a
fundraiser to bring more recycling, biodiesel floats and fair-trade tacos to make the
annual bacchanalian parade more green through the Mission District.
"Carnaval is a celebration of indigenous people, and no one on the planet is more green
than indigenous people," said organizer Douglas Kolberg. "We're not preaching to the
choir here, focusing on, say, people from Mill Valley. We're trying to reach people who
might not already know about Earth Day."
A more high-brow Earth Day celebration will be held at the Mandarin Hotel near Union
Square, where visitors can sample organic wines and appetizers, with proceeds going to
Friends of the Urban Forest.
But some of the most important Earth Day activities won't be at parties or festivals. At
parks throughout the Bay Area, thousands of volunteers will be pulling weeds and
picking up trash, thankless jobs that are crucial to maintaining the region's multitude of
open spaces.
"We couldn't do what we do without volunteers," said David Shaw, spokesman for the
Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. "They're critical in helping in the care and
maintenance of our parks."
Volunteers can drop in at Crissy Field anytime today to help out. Those who stop by
Battery East in the Presidio can see Moo Moo Evans of the Harlem Globetrotters, who
will be giving out basketball tickets and talking to youth about habitat restoration.
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"Earth Day is our biggest holiday of the year," Shaw said. "And the fact we get so many
people out, not just on Earth Day but every day, really speaks to the commitment of
people in the Bay Area."
EDITORIAL: A gasoline-fueled Earth Day
The Washington Times, April 22, 2010
The green movement would be a lot funnier if it didn't have access to our pocketbooks.
Unfortunately, devotees of "alternative energy" have harnessed the greatest of all
sources of renewable power - government taxation - to fulfill their fantasies. The results
are as tragic as they are comic.
Last month, the Government Accountability Office released a report on a $300 million
Department of Energy program designed to promote commercial products that boast
fashionable "green" credentials. A team of GAO investigators with an uncharacteristically
fine sense of humor submitted 20 bogus products to the department and walked away
with Energy Star certification for 15 of them, including a gasoline-powered alarm clock.
GAO deserves credit for illuminating the careless attitude that sets in when the greens
start spending other people's money. After all, when it's being done in the name of the
environment, liberal thinking is that there's no need to measure a policy's costs against
the alleged benefits.
It appears that gasoline generators are at work pumping energy into Spain's heavily
subsidized solar panels. Of the 6 billion euros in government aid to the electricity market,
2.3 billion is lavished on electricity that is supposed to be produced by the sun's rays,
generating a mere 2 percent of the nation's power needs. Under the profligate plan,
anyone installing a solar panel can collect a check for 436 euros for each megawatt of
power returned to the electrical grid. Several solar farms have sprung up as a result. As
the newspaper El Mundo reported last week, at least 6,000 megawatts of purported
solar electricity were generated during the dark evening and early-morning hours over
three months. The decidedly nongreen use of generators helped the enterprising
fraudsters walk away with at least 2.6 million euros.
The so-called environmentalists who peddle subsidies of this magnitude rarely stop to
consider whether government intervention will inspire conduct that ends up causing
more harm to the environment in the long run. The folly of tax credits, rebates, grants,
loans and other subsidies for solar electricity is not limited to Europe. Washington state,
for example, pays up to 54 cents per kilowatt-hour generated by a consumer solar panel
and $1.08 per kilowatt-hour for electricity generated by a "community" project. That
makes for expensive energy, given that a consumer plugging an appliance into a wall
outlet pays an average of 8 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to the latest data from the
U.S. Energy Information Administration.
With our country facing $12.8 trillion in public debt, Americans can't afford to throw away
money on a technology that is more efficient at generating laughs than light.
EDITORIAL: Obama's climate of fear
The Washington Times, April 22, 2010
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The purported science behind the global-warming fad is in full retreat these days, but
word has yet to reach the White House. President Obama is determined to promote the
alleged climate crisis as a lever for pushing through his big-government agenda. The O
Force doesn't believe in wasting a crisis, even if it's a mirage.
In mid-March, the White House Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force did
its bit for climate terror. "Climate-change impacts are pervasive, wide-ranging and affect
the core systems of our society: transportation, ecosystems, agriculture, business,
infrastructure, water and energy, among others," its report stated. The panel also
expressed concern that "Climate change already is affecting the ability of federal
agencies to fulfill their missions," which - if true - many Americans would view as a
positive development.
This month, the State Department released the draft of the 2010 Climate Action Report,
as required by the United Nations. The report makes the blanket statement that global
warming "is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases," despite
growing skepticism about this claim in the scientific community. This new document is
based on the "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" report from June
2009, which uncritically used the increasingly discredited 2007 U.N. Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change study as a base line and then extrapolated a series of
improbable disaster scenarios.
The government claims that climate change is leading to, among other things, drought,
heavy downpours, disease, poor air quality and extreme weather events. But reality
stubbornly refuses to cooperate with the alarmists. There has been no noteworthy
increase in tornadoes, sea levels, drought, climate-related disease or air pollution over
the past two decades. The polar ice cap has grown back to around its 1999 dimensions.
Cyclonic activity has declined 60 percent in the past five years despite frantic claims by
post-Katrina alarmists that, by now, increasingly deadly storms would be stalking our
coastal cities.
The State Department study contains a few inconvenient truths for the climate-change
alarmists. U.S. energy consumption per person peaked sometime in the 1970s and
since has declined and flattened. Greenhouse gases emitted by industry peaked in the
mid-1990s and have since declined. Since 1990, total greenhouse gas emissions per
unit of gross domestic product have declined almost 30 percent. Emissions per capita
have basically flatlined since 1990. Strip away the alarmism, and where is the crisis?
The truth is, the government needs scary stories to push its agenda, so science must be
subverted to politics. Chapter 5 of the State Department report is an explicit sales pitch
for cap-and-trade legislation. The discussion of carbon-dioxide emissions supports the
logic behind the Environmental Protection Agency's December 2009 endangerment
finding that carbon dioxide is a threat to "the public health and welfare of current and
future generations." This is a naked government power grab that will have extensive
negative economic and lifestyle consequences because the state has declared the very
act of breathing a threat.
At times, the report reads like a White House press release, gushing, for example:
"President Obama has outlined a comprehensive plan to address global climate change
through investments that will save or create many jobs." The document uses the word
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"Obama" 47 times, triple the references to President George W. Bush in the previous
edition. This tends to detract from the focus on science but is consistent with the virtually
North Korean level of fawning in Obama-era official documents. Talk about a lot of hot
air.
Earth Day Canada Milestones
Canwest News Service, April 22, 2010
1990: Inaugural Earth Day Canada events draw close to two million participants,
prompting organizers to found a national charity.
- 1991-1992: Media around the world report on the creation of an Earth Day flag several
storeys high.
- 1994: 'EcoKids' launches in schools: eventually, 40 per cent of Canadian
schoolchildren will take part in comprehensive environmental education.
- 1995: A record six million Canadians -- and nearly all schoolchildren -- celebrate Earth
Day Canada.
- 1999: Over a million citizens take part in a National Reuse Pledge Campaign.
- 2000: Target Zero Canada introduces Canadians to the concept of 'zero waste.'
- 2001: Peer-to-peer 'eco mentoring' and 'eco action teams' are created. Participants can
track their personal greenhouse gas emissions, and energy, water and waste savings.
- 2002: A new, Toyota-sponsored Earth Day scholarship launches and becomes
Canada's preeminent award of its kind.
- 2004: Landscape architect Glynis Logue, of Guelph, Ont., claims the first 'hometown
heroes' award, sponsored by Quebec paper company Cascades and RBC Foundation,
for achievements including building a therapeutic garden, restoring frog habitats and
wetlands, and designing a waterfront trail; EcoKids is recognized for excellence by the
North American Association of Environment Education.
- 2005: B.C. teenager Alysia Garmulewicz's Canadian Youth Climate Change
Conference in Victoria attracts nationwide participation, and garners Garmulewicz a
hometown hero award.
- 2006: As head of the Burns Bog Conservation Society in Delta, B.C., retired
schoolteacher Eliza Olson becomes a hometown hero for helping save one of the
Americas' most significant and pristine urban ecosystems.
- 2007: EcoKids becomes the first educational program to launch an English-as-asecond-language component targeting new immigrants. Eco action teams expand
nationwide.
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- 2008: Veteran environmental campaigner and lawyer David Donnelly is a hometown
hero for, among other things, challenging would-be developers of a 2,000-unit lakeside
resort and marina north of Toronto.
- 2009: Liz Benneian, volunteer for the Oakvillegreen Conservation Association, pushes
governments to designate a 650-acre conservation area near her Toronto-area home,
winning a hometown hero award.
- 2009: A Sobeys-sponsored community environment fund begins awarding $20,000
grants for local projects.
- 2010: Earth Day Canada sponsors an 'everyday heroes' film competition spotlighting
community environmental stewardship.
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