The Climate Project (TCP), founded by Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore, will hold its North American Summit from Thursday to Saturday, entering Phase 2 of its environmental mission.

The new phase signals TCP’s transition from an organization that increases public awareness of global warming to one that fosters advocacy and activism. TCP wants to continue its educational efforts, while teaching people how to become politically active and help persuade elected officials and community leaders to confront urgent climate-change concerns.

The shift in priorities was partly inspired by December’s Copenhagen Treaty negotiations, where hundreds of international representatives will discuss the replacement of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The Protocol set limits on greenhouse gas emissions for all participating countries, and those gathered in Copenhagen will work to establish options that further treaty goals.

TCP’s Summit, expected to draw 500 participants, will be held at the Hutton Hotel in Nashville, Gore’s hometown. The 248-room hotel was chosen because it has made a commitment to sustainability and conservation, with energy-conscious lighting, bamboo furniture and flooring, low-energy elevators, card readers that automatically turn off lights when rooms are unoccupied, use of biodegradable cleaning products and a hybrid courtesy vehicle.

For Your Organic Bookshelf: An Inconvenient Truth

In May 2008, polar bears joined the list of threatened animals covered under the Endangered Species Act. Six months later, the Bush administration issued a rule that prevented lawmakers from barring activities that contribute to global warming—a move that protected greenhouse-gas polluters and put the bears and their habitat at risk.

Sadly, Ken Salazar, our new Secretary of the Interior, has decided to let Bush’s ruling stand, even though wildlife groups and congressional Democrats have been pushing him to rescind it. Congress, in fact, had passed a bill that gave Salazar full authority to overturn the rule and implement protections, but he failed to do so. He instead plans to “closely monitor the implementation of the rule to determine if additional measures are necessary to conserve and recover the polar bear and its habitat,” according to a departmental statement.

“To see the polar bear’s habitat melting and an iconic species threatened is an environmental tragedy of the modern age,” Salazar said. “This administration is fully committed to the protection and recovery of the polar bear. I have reviewed the current rule, received the recommendations of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and concluded that the best course of action for protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act is to wisely implement the current rule, monitor its effectiveness and evaluate our options for improving the recovery of the species.”

He added: “We must do all we can to help the polar bear recover, recognizing that the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change. However, the Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation’s carbon emissions. Instead, we need a comprehensive energy and climate strategy that curbs climate change and its impacts—including the loss of sea ice. Both President Obama and I are committed to achieving that goal.”

Salazar also claimed polar bears are already protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and several international treaties, but wildlife groups were quick to criticize his decision.

“We’re very disappointed that Secretary Salazar decided not to cut through the red tape and restore protections for polar bears immediately,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife and a former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The polar bear’s Arctic sea ice habitat is melting away, the Arctic seals which polar bears hunt for food are becoming increasingly scarce, and the cause is clearly global warming. In spite of this, Secretary Salazar is leaving in place a rule that says activities that cause global warming and therefore harm polar bears will never be considered violations of the Endangered Species Act under any circumstances. That made no sense under the Bush administration and it certainly makes no sense for the Obama administration.”

The group will pursue litigation that challenges the rule.

“It is categorically not true to say that the Marine Mammal Protection Act provides sufficient protections for the polar bear, and the Interior Department should know that,” Clark said. “We will do everything we can to ensure that the Obama administration gives the polar bear the vital protections it needs to survive. The polar bear is running out of time.”

Editor’s Note: OrganicAuthority publishes environmental news so organic consumers have access to the latest information on climate change and other threats. You can view similar posts by visiting the Environment Section of our blog.

Experts have been weighing in on the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding regarding the public-health threats posed by greenhouse gases.

“I think it is a welcome, legally well-founded and appropriate move as a matter of policy on EPA’s part,” says A. James Barnes, a former EPA deputy administrator (1985–1988) and general counsel (1983–1985) who now serves as an adjunct professor of public and environmental affairs and law at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. In the early 1970s, he participated in the EPA’s formation and was chief of staff for its first administrator, William D. Ruckelshaus.

“While Congress did not focus on greenhouse-gas pollutants when it crafted the Clean Air Act in 1970, it is clear, nonetheless, that the greenhouse gases meet the definition of air pollutant in the Act,” he says.

The Clinton administration concluded the EPA had the authority to address greenhouse pollutants, but the Bush administration reversed this position and declined to take action to regulate them, Barnes explains. In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA does have this authority and should reconsider regulating greenhouse-gas emissions from motor vehicles.

According to Barnes, it would take several years for such controls to be placed on automobiles, but the EPA decision could help push Congress to approve cap-and-trade legislation to limit carbon dioxide emissions from stationary sources, such as coal-burning power plants. Not surprisingly, industry has expressed opposition to piecemeal regulation.

“The fact that EPA is now on a track to go forward with some regulation under the current law, I think, really ups the ante for Congress to address the issue in a comprehensive fashion,” Barnes says.

For Your Organic Bookshelf: Greenhouse Gases