December 2nd, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
In less than a week, world leaders—including President Obama—will convene in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, set for Dec. 7–18.
The goal, as we’ve reported before, is to achieve international consensus on climate-change goals for the whole planet.
Many grassroots groups have asked for the public’s support, and we’ve chronicled efforts like the music industry’s Beds Are Burning campaign.
Politics, however, is a beastly affair, and some experts believe the Copenhagen summit is already doomed.
“We can only hope that the looming failure of Copenhagen can be overcome by future talks and a serious change in resolve by the United States and China,” says Scott Ollinger, PhD, an associate professor at the University of New Hampshire’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space.
“The gravity of the challenge is underscored by the fact that even the best of outcomes at Copenhagen would still be insufficient for dealing with the problems of rising CO2 and climate change,” he adds.
It’s now up to us to put pressure on our representatives and demand decisive action. You can voice your concerns by signing numerous petitions. Please visit:
For Your Organic Bookshelf
Read More: A Pivotal Moment in Environmental Politics
Tags: climate change, Copenhagen, environment, global warming
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November 10th, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
As a number, 350 may not mean much to you, but it’s extremely important to those following the climate-change crisis.
According to the Citizens Climate Lobby, 350 parts per million (ppm) is the carbon-dioxide limit each nation must achieve to keep global temperatures from rising to catastrophic levels. The current atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration is 389 ppm—a number that’s climbing 2 parts a year.
Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) has asked President Obama to reach agreement on this goal with other world leaders at next month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. He and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) are circulating a letter in the House that calls upon Obama to take action. Click here to read the full text.
“Global leaders can negotiate with one another, but humanity cannot negotiate with the earth’s climate,” says Citizens Climate Lobby Founder and President Marshall Saunders. “It will not compromise. We must yield or face the wrath of nature.”
For Your Organic Bookshelf: Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis
Read More: Climate Change: The Point of No Return
Tags: climate change, Copenhagen, environment, global warming
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October 21st, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) are holding public hearings this week on the country’s first greenhouse gas emissions limits for passenger vehicles.
Hearings began today in Detroit and will continue in New York City on Friday and Los Angeles on Tuesday. You can thank President Obama for pushing this environmental agenda, in concert with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, automakers, the United Auto Workers Union and eco-conscious organizations.
According to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), passenger cars and light trucks emit “nearly 20% of the nation’s greenhouse gases, in the form of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons. In April, EPA provisionally found that these four contaminants and two other greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare.”
The proposed standards would apply to new cars produced from 2012 to 2016. The EDF cites the following benefits:
- Breaking Our Oil Addiction and Strengthening National Security. The vehicles subject to the proposed standards are responsible for about 40% of all U.S. oil consumption. The standards would reduce our oil consumption by 1.8 billion barrels, while achieving a 5% annual improvement in fuel efficiency for U.S. passenger cars.
- Reducing Global-Warming Pollution. Vehicles covered by the proposed standards account for 60% of heat-trapping emissions from the transportation sector and about 20% of all U.S. heat-trapping gases. These emissions have increased by more than 1% annually. The proposal would cut carbon dioxide pollution from passenger vehicles approximately 21% by 2030, reducing emissions by 950 million tons.
- Saving Money at the Pump. Families can save more than $3,000 over a vehicle’s lifetime.
Photo:
Read More: Feds Hold Public Hearings on Auto Emissions Limits
Tags: cars, emissions, environment, EPA, global warming, greenhouse gases, Health, Obama, oil, pollution, Schwarzenegger
Posted in The Environment | 2 Comments »
October 15th, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
Former Vice President Al Gore’s follow-up to An Inconvenient Truth will be released on Nov. 3.
Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis is available for preorder at Amazon, which is offering a 34% discount (retail price: $26.99; Amazon price: $17.81). An abridged audiobook (CDs) is also available (retail price: $29.99; Amazon price: $19.79).
The book is printed on locally produced and sourced 100% recycled paper, with low-VOC inks.
“An Inconvenient Truth reached millions of people with the message that the climate crisis is threatening the future of human civilization and that it must and can be solved,” says Gore, co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental work. “Now that the need for urgent action is even clearer with the alarming new findings of the last three years, it is time for a comprehensive global plan that actually solves the climate crisis.”
As with An Inconvenient Truth, Gore will donate 100% of the new book’s proceeds to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to spreading awareness of the climate crisis.
From Our Organic Blog
Read More: Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis
Tags: al gore, climate change, environment, global warming
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October 3rd, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
What unites former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and international artists like Fergie, Lily Allen, Duran Duran, Mark Ronson, Jamie Cullum, Marion Cotillard and Milla Jovovich?
A global musical petition that demands climate justice.
A new cover of Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning is designed to send a message to world leaders who will participate in the UN’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December.
Each free download will count as a signature on a “digital petition” for an ambitious, fair and international answer to the global-warming crisis. More than 1.3 million people have signed on thus far.
“Climate change is the greatest humanitarian challenge facing mankind today,” Annan says. “And it is a challenge that has a grave injustice at its heart. It is the major developed economies of the world which contribute the overwhelming majority of global greenhouse emissions. But it is the poorer and least developed nations that are hit hardest by its impact.
“By downloading ‘Beds Are Burning’ for free from major music download platforms on the Internet, people from around the world will be adding their names to this growing global petition—joining the campaign for climate justice and becoming a climate ally. This will be the first time ever that a musical petition has been created to demand decisive action from our world leaders.”
“Music is the universal language, capable of transcending cultures, generations, religions and races,” adds song producer Alexandre Sap. “A song or an artist truly has the power to translate a message or a movement more than any politician or world leader can on a global scale. This will create a voice for all of us who deserve to have a say leading up to Copenhagen in December. The goal is to draw enough attention to an event that will affect everyone’s lives on the planet.”
You may download the song from the Time for Climate Justice website, Amazon or iTunes.
For Your Organic Bookshelf: Climate Change: What It Means for Us, Our Children and Our Grandchildren
Read More: Fergie, Lily Allen, Kofi Annan Demand Climate Justice
Tags: activism, climate change, environment, global warming, music
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September 26th, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, director of documentaries like The Civil War and Baseball, trains his lens on The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, a six-episode series that premieres Sunday on PBS. (Click here to view a preview. You may also purchase the DVD boxed set or companion book on Oct. 6.)
Sadly, well-known parks like Yellowstone, Joshua Tree, the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Acadia (right) are beginning to show their age, and they’re now threatened by funding shortfalls, pollution, climate change and encroaching developers.
This hasn’t stopped committed individuals from fighting for the parks’ survival:
- Maxine Johnston, dubbed the “Godmother” of Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas, worked tirelessly for 50 years to help protect some 100,000 acres of highly diverse wildlife habitat.
- Former Miami Herald reporter Juanita Green, featured in Burns’s film, wrote stories that were instrumental in creating and protecting Biscayne National Park. In the 1960s, the park was threatened by a proposal to dredge a channel through the bay and turn the area into a city.
So, what can you do to help?
- Visit and explore one of our 391 national parks. Share your experiences with others to build support.
- Join the movement without leaving home. Sign up for news and action alerts. Write to President Obama, and contact your congressional representatives and other decision makers. Voice your concerns about park conservation.
- Reduce your carbon footprint. Global warming’s effects are already visible at national parks. At Glacier National Park, glaciers are disappearing faster than scientists predicted. In parks across the country, native trees and animals are losing ground because changing temperature and weather patterns affect the availability of food, water and shelter. Visit the Do Your Part! For Climate Friendly Parks website, which helps you calculate your carbon footprint. Set goals for buying local foods, reducing automobile use and saving energy at home.
Photo courtesy of ARA
Read More: Nature’s National Treasures at Risk
Tags: climate change, DVDs, environment, events, global warming, Ken Burns, national parks, pollution
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September 8th, 2009 - Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
Check that photo out. It was snapped in Norway and many are saying it looks like a forlorn Mother Nature crying a river of tears, but is it really a desperate plea by Mother Earth or just an eerie coincidence. What do you think?
Personally, I don’t believe in bleeding statues or saints popping up in burnt toast. So to me, this is coincidental and not anything supernatural, which leads me to another question. Should eco-groups embrace this for ad campaign?
Via the Daily Mail.
Image credit: SpecialistStock / Barcoft Media
Read More: Glaciers are Melting in Norway – Mother Nature is Crying
Tags: global warming
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September 7th, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
A former Miss Denmark, Helena Christensen is perhaps best known as a magazine cover model and Revlon spokesmodel.
Now a successful photographer and environmental activist, she recently traveled to Peru—her mother’s native country—to document the serious effects of global warming.
“The impacts of climate change are extremely severe in the areas we visited,” says Christensen, who traveled with Oxfam. “The farmers we met and talked to are already living very hard lives and are now being forced to adapt to the effects of the rapidly changing climate.
“One of the women I spoke to, Elizabeth Ayma, told me that because rainfall is less frequent now and impossible to predict due to the climate changes, this is having a huge effect on crop production,” she adds. “As a result, her family has less food to eat and less produce to sell, resulting in her not being able to afford her children’s school fees. The lack of nutritional vegetables also affects her family’s health.”
Christensen documented her trip through photographs, which will be exhibited in New York, Washington, London and at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, to be held in Copenhagen in December.
“Peru is on the frontline of climate change, along with other developing countries, which have played little part in causing the problem,” says Frank Boeren, Oxfam’s coordinator in Peru. “It is crucial that rich leaders do the right thing at Copenhagen so that we can begin to stop runaway climate change and protect vulnerable people around the world.”
“We are at a critical tipping point,” Christensen adds. “We need to put pressure on our governments in order for them to take the necessary, radical steps that are needed. There’s no time left; it is absolutely imperative to act now.”
For Your Organic Bookshelf: With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change
Photo courtesy of Oxfam America
Read More: Model Behavior
Tags: climate change, environment, farms, global warming
Posted in The Environment | 2 Comments »
September 3rd, 2009 - Gerald "Gerry" Pugliese
 No. Ronald McDonald isn’t making biodiesel in his cellar, but some fast food restaurants are seeking ways to go greener.
One fast food proprietor, with restaurants in Texas and Louisiana, gets texts messages every time a freezer door is left open.
The dude owns 34 places, so it must get annoying, but it’s worth it. Lighting and temperature control account for 25% to 40% of electricity spending.
And many pizza parlors are getting special sensors too. Usually, pizza ovens are left constantly hot. Who knows when you’ll get that massive rush of hungry construction workers? So they burn up a lot of gas.
That’s why some systems keep a single pizza oven running hot at all times but regulates other ovens to stay warm until the restaurant starts to fill up. One pizza guy claims its saving him 50% on gas bills.
Sounds great, but the only green my old school Italian pizza parlor owning uncles know, are the peppers on a pizza with the works.
Via Green Idea.
Read More: Fast Food Joints Getting More Energy Efficient
Tags: energy, global warming
Posted in The Environment | 32 Comments »
August 26th, 2009 - Barbara Feiner
U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and California State Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) Friday cohosted a forum on climate change, which drew more than 400 attendees.
The legislators focused on California’s role as a national leader on climate policies, with emphasis on the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32, which Pavley authored as chair of the Select Committee on Climate Change) and The American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454, which Waxman authored as chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce).
The event was presented by the UCLA Institute of the Environment’s Center for Climate Change Solutions, the UCLA School of Law’s Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment, the UCLA Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, and the UCLA Office of Government and Community Relations.
“The fact is that climate policy creates jobs and saves consumers money,” Pavley said. “The fear tactics of carbon industry-backed lobbyists just flies in the face of what is in our best interests.
“The whole world is depending on what the U.S. does,” she added. “The dependence on foreign oil—the ability for some countries to hold our country hostage, economically speaking—is going in the wrong direction.”
“We had a president who censored the research that his scientists were doing on global warming,” Waxman said. “He and his political people denied there was global warming. We had eight years of inactivity rather than leadership.”
Ret. Navy Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn discussed the national-security dangers climate change poses, emphasizing the need for alternatives to all fossil fuels so the United States is less dependent on oil-producing countries. He said Americans use 25% of oil consumed worldwide each year, but we can produce no more than 3% of it.
”We cannot drill our way to sustained economic security,” he concluded.
Editor’s note: Click here to watch Pavley’s recent PBS interview.
For Your Organic Bookshelf: State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World
Read More: UCLA Hosts Climate Change Forum
Tags: California, climate change, environment, global warming, green jobs, The American Clean Energy and Security Act
Posted in The Environment | 1 Comment »
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