Thank you for that.
I would like to draw your attention to an event (The Global Sustainability
Gathering) which may interest you.
http://thegsg.livejournal.com
please feel free to leave a comment there, the more inputs the better for others
to read.
Â
in light
Â
michael
--- On Thu, 12/2/09, Peter Bright <hobart_elf@...> wrote:
From: Peter Bright <hobart_elf@...>
Subject: [ClimateChangeAction] Tasmanian Times
To: ClimateChangeAction@...
Received: Thursday, 12 February, 2009, 9:57 AM
I draw members attention to the many high quality articles appearing in
the online publication Tasmanian Times <http://tasmaniantim es.com/>
By accessing this publication regularly (I've made it a Favourite) you
may gain a deeper understanding of the ongoing war between the Tasmanian
government and foresters on the one side, and forest protection
activists on the other.
One seeks to destroy Tasmania's old growth forests (massive carbon sinks
benefiting all lifeforms and the planet in general) for selfish reckless
gain, and the other seeks to protect and enhance them for the benefit of
humanity.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Make Yahoo!7 your homepage and win a trip to the Quiksilver Pro. Find out
more
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I draw members attention to the many high quality articles appearing in
the online publication Tasmanian Times <http://tasmaniantimes.com/>
By accessing this publication regularly (I've made it a Favourite) you
may gain a deeper understanding of the ongoing war between the Tasmanian
government and foresters on the one side, and forest protection
activists on the other.
One seeks to destroy Tasmania's old growth forests (massive carbon sinks
benefiting all lifeforms and the planet in general) for selfish reckless
gain, and the other seeks to protect and enhance them for the benefit of
humanity.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Australia's Climate Action Summit, held in Canberra over four days from
January 31 to February 3, brought together many people from across
Australia, inspired to make a difference.
More than 500 participants, representing well over 100 different Climate
Action groups, peak groups and political parties, adopted of set of
campaign objectives for 2009. The goals decided upon are, they
concluded, ``in line with what science, and global justice, demands'‘.
The Climate Summit took place in a political context of the
environmental movement having received an enormous slap in the face from
the Australian government's Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in December.
Australia's emissions reduction target is a paltry 5% by 2020. Rudd's
proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), meanwhile, is
engineered to provide the biggest corporate polluters with free credits
and even allows the most energy-intensive industries to expand future
production.
Participants came together with a shared understanding that the movement
needed to take a fresh, people-centred approach in light of the new
government's policies. The growth of Climate Action groups around the
country has shown the willingness of people to get involved. Now a
national network of climate change activists and groups was needed to
coordinate and unite the various efforts.
Full article at http://links.org.au/node/891
Subscribe free to /Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373
This seems to have a surprisingly large output. Pedalling at a steady
state I can keep up until boredom sets in, I can generate 5 A at ~12
V on my exercise bike. Their claim is about double that.
:)
Bob
--------------------------------------------------
Dr Bob Rich
http://bobswriting.comhttp://anxietyanddepression-help.comhttp://mudsmith.net
Commit random acts of kindness
---------------------------------------------------
Spot on, Peter. I've been predicting this since 1972, but nobody
listens till it's too late.
:)
Bob
--------------------------------------------------
Dr Bob Rich
http://bobswriting.comhttp://anxietyanddepression-help.comhttp://mudsmith.net
Commit random acts of kindness
---------------------------------------------------
2500 people with a clear understanding of climate change resorting to
personal action due to government inaction.
http://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/energy/
What next - encircle the White House, Congress?
Gidday all,
Climate Change seems to finally be coming to the fore. It will be
interesting to see who and how many come to this event in New Farm.
I hope to see you there!
Cheers,
Brooke
====
http://www.brisbanepowerhouse.org/events/view/low-carbon-guide-to-living/
CSIRO’s Dr Peter Osman discusses practical tips to help reduce your
carbon footprint in your daily lives.
Dr Peter Osman is a co-author with Dr John Wright and Peta Ashworth, on
the soon to be released book CSIRO’s Energy Saving Handbook which
presents practical everyday steps to living a low-carbon life.
Peter’s presentation will deliver clear and concise facts about
household resource consumption and examples of how to become a more
environmentally conscientious consumer.
Following the presentation, audience members will have an opportunity to
ask questions and calculate their own carbon footprint. Please bring
along copies of your latest electricity and gas bills if you can.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and President Barack Obama have pledged closer
cooperation on climate change in their first talks since the US leader's
inauguration a week ago.
Rudd/Obama united
<http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/5285971/rudd-obama-pledge-team-climate/\
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Environment
Must-read Obama Speech Warns of "Irreversible Catastrophe" from Climate
Change
By Joseph Romm, Climate Progress. Posted January 26, 2009.
In a rousing speech Obama makes it clear that "no single issue is as
fundamental to our future as energy."
Obama speech <http://www.alternet.org/environment/122788/>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I invite anyone interested in Renewable Energy to consider subscribing
to the Energy Matters Newsletter.
Here is the web address: Energy Matters <www.energymatters.com.au>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-past-year-has-given-a-warning-that-we-can-n
o-longer-ignore-20090118-7jyf.html?page=-1
The past year has given a warning that we can no longer ignore
Dominic Waughray
The Age
January 19, 2009
COULD the crises of food, fuel and finance that we experienced in 2008
simply be three canaries in the coalmine? What if these are just the
early-warning signals that our current economic system is not
sustainable at a much deeper level?
The World Economic Forum convened more than 700 international experts
in Dubai in November to discuss the world agenda for 2009. Among them
were more than 120 leading experts in environment, sustainability and
human security. Their conclusions were startling: we face an
environmental security problem that is deeper, more fundamental, more
complex and much more systemic than the financial crisis; 2008 could
merely be the precursor to a perfect economic storm, the like of which
we have never seen before.
Over the past 50 years we have amassed unprecedented wealth, but we
have also chronically underpriced risk in terms of our natural
resource base. We have financed our extraordinary growth in aggregate
living standards by systematically underpricing the goods and services
we derive from our planet's natural resources, the negative
externalities we create by polluting them, and the future risks we
face from our cumulative depletion and degradation of them. Those of
us in middle age today in richer countries are the third successive
generation to benefit from the natural resource bubble that our first
world economy has exploited since the middle of the20 th century. It
is highly unlikely — unless we make deep, structural changes to how we
manage our economy — that our children and their children will
experience the same sense of progress and wealth.
Here are just a few chilling observations from the experts who met in
Dubai:
■ If present trends continue, nearly 4 billion people will live in
areas of high water stress by 2030. Simply augmenting water supply is
no longer possible in most places — historical approaches to water use
will not work in the future.
■ The International Energy Agency predicts an expansion in world
energy demand of 45% by 2030, with coal accounting for more than a
third of this overall rise. The agency say these energy trends are
"patently unsustainable, economically, environmentally and socially".
A new energy paradigm for both developed and developing countries is
urgently required.
■ The world will need to double food production in the next 40 years
to meet projected demand. Our ability to meet current and future
production needs is seriously challenged by increasing water scarcity,
climate change, and volatile energy costs and supplies.
■ Humanitarian assistance will increase to unprecedented scale if, as
commentators foresee, large-scale migration results from climate
change and water scarcity. The International Red Cross estimates that
there are 25 million to 50 million climate change refugees already,
compared with the official refugee population of 28 million. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that 150 million
environmental refugees could exist by 2020. Currently in international
law there is no such thing as an environmental refugee.
It seems the world can ill afford to "return to normal". The financial
crisis gives a stark warning of what can happen if known economic
risks are left to fester. These fundamental environmental risks need
to be tackled if we are to survive and thrive.
We should not see this as the same old environmental story of
conservation or protection. We want economic growth. But we need a new
and progressive risk management agenda to help improve the lives of
everyone who participates in tomorrow's global economy.
Managed smartly, private sector innovation and entrepreneurialism in
the global interest will turn these risks into opportunities for new
wealth and value creation.
In this context, arguably the most serious World Economic Forum annual
meeting in years will be held in Davos, Switzerland, in late January.
More political, business and civil society leaders than ever before
are due to take part.
The discussions must address how the world system should be reshaped,
not only for recovery in the short term, but also to mitigate
fundamental sustainability risks and promote new sustainable growth
opportunities in the longer run.
This is a very pertinent discussion for 2009. In December, a follow-on
treaty to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change is scheduled for
negotiation. Can the plans for world economic recovery be linked to
the jobs, skills, investment and technology opportunities that a
global low carbon economy requires, if climate change is to be managed
successfully?
In these unprecedented times, can government and business leaders
forge a new coalition to develop practical global actions that can
stimulate economic growth in the short run and create the foundations
of a more sustainable, low carbon economy for the longer run?
Last year gave us the stern warning that current trends cannot be
continued. We must read these warnings.
Can 2009 be the year when we find innovative new collaborations to
help shape the post-crisis world? We must, as returning to "normal" is
not an option.
Dominic Waughray is head of environmental initiatives at the World
Economic Forum.
A good analysis from the US point of view - but, as we have come to
expect.. he barely mentions population growth as an overarching driver of
the whole mess, and whether Obama is likely to deal with it. However:
Obama to Lift Ban on Funding for Groups Providing Abortions Overseas
President Obama will continue the back-and-forth of presidents before him
by using the Roe v. Wade anniversary to allow non-governmental
organizations working abroad to use U.S. funding to give counseling on or
provide abortions.
By Major Garrett
FOXNews.com
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
bodes well...
Hugh
http://www.theage.com.au/world/cometh-the-man-of-hope-20090123-7ood.html?page=-1
Cometh the man of hope
Jonathan Schell
The Age (reprinted from The Nation)
January 24, 2009
Millions are looking to Barack Obama for hope in a world beset by crises,
but should he choose to play it safe, the consequences could be profound,
writes Jonathan Schell.
"I see the work of gods who pile tower-high the pride of those who were
nothing, and dash present grandeur down."Euripides, in The Trojan Women,
referring to the fall of Troy
---
THE inauguration of Barack Obama is both a culmination and a beginning.
The culmination is the milestone represented by the arrival of a black man
in the office of president of the United States. That achievement reaches
back to the founding ideals of the republic "all men are created equal"
and resonates around the world. The event fully justifies the jubilation it
has set off. This much is truly accomplished, signed and sealed.
It is now the beginning, the beginning of post-George Bush America, and
fact-tempered hope rather than joy must be the keynote. In this context,
the event is like a candle that has been lit in a dark and gusty room. How
high its light will blaze is anything but clear. For the election of this
unreasonably talented and appealing man occurred together with a remarkable
array of crises, of which the economic one is only the newest.
A man and an hour: a familiar match-up. A lot has been said about the
man. Analysing the make-up of the new Administration has become the new
Kremlinology, and a good deal of ink has been spilled pondering whether
the avatar of "vision" has opted instead for the status quo, whether the
fresh breeze from the hustings has already stagnated in the swamps of the
capital, whether a bold campaign platform is being traded in for mainstream
governance.
And it is true that a centrist drift has been unmistakable. Joe Biden as
Vice-President, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Robert Gates as
Defence Secretary and Larry Summers as chief economic adviser these are
hardly fresh faces. Yet other appointments, especially those to
environmental posts, have suggested a more venturesome presidency. And
public expectations are high: almost 80 per cent of the people are hopeful
about the Obama presidency.
But what of the hour the broad shape of the new world that Obama and all
of us will face? If only the economic crisis were involved, the path ahead
would have something of the known and familiar. Economic cycles come and
go, and even the Great Depression eased up in a little more than a decade.
But this year's crisis is attended by, or embedded in, at least four
others of even larger scope.
The second is the shortage of natural resources, beginning with fossil
fuels. Oil prices have fallen sharply from their peak, but does anyone
doubt that when the economy bounces back those prices will rise with it?
A third crisis less on the public mind, perhaps, because it is so old it
is taken for granted is the spread of nuclear arms and other weapons of
mass destruction. The problem is not so much an arms race as arms seepage,
arms osmosis, owing to the deadly know-how that is spreading from brain to
brain in a kind of virtual pollution.
A fourth crisis is the ecological one, comprising global warming, the
human-caused annihilation of species, population growth, water and land
shortages, and much else. Like nuclear danger, the ecological crisis
threatens something that has never been at stake before our era: the
foundations of life on which humans and all species depend for survival.
Economic and military ups and downs are for a season only. Extinction is
forever.
Cutting across all these crises is a fifth that will be of immediate
concern to the new president: failure of the American bid for global
empire and the consequent decline of US influence abroad. The roots of the
American will to empire go deep into history but reached full flower in
the Bush administration. The bid has run aground in the sands of Iraq and
in the mountains of Afghanistan, among other places. Even in the unlikely
event that Obama escapes those quagmires without precipitating new
fiascoes, the appetite for military takeovers of other countries (an idea
thoroughly discredited more than a generation ago in Vietnam) is going to
be dead for a long time. The world is not going to be run by the Pentagon,
and everyone knows it. The downfall of overambitious, overreaching empires
is an old tale.
Yet if the other crises on the agenda are to be addressed, the world must
be run somehow or other. The reason is not that anyone loves world
government but that the problems present themselves on a global basis and
will not yield to provincial solutions. The American decline thus creates
or perhaps merely accentuates a global political vacuum. It will not be
enough to mouth the words "co-operation" and "multilateralism". Something
more muscular, something more definite, will be required. (In this effort,
the US must of course play a significant role.)
The contemporary crises are interwoven, forming a kind of Gordian knot.
The world does not have the luxury of dealing with them one by one.
Consider the relationship of the collapsing economy to the collapsing
environment. Economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has noted that
economists are wondering if the graph of the financial crisis will
eventually prove to be V-shaped or U-shaped; but he argues it will be
L-shaped.
Indeed, there can be neither a V, a U or any other upward-turning graph
if the remedy does not include a green revolution and a sustainable-energy
program. A dirty recovery, even if possible, would be worse than no
recovery. It would be the quickest path to a bigger bust. The just-crashed
"successful" economy, excellent as it was in producing cheap goods, was
also producing environmental catastrophe.
Environmentalists have long observed that if China tries to reach Western
standards of living along the carbon-gushing Western path, the planet will
be cooked to a cinder in short order. Now we are all in a sense in the
Chinese boat. China can't have the economy we so recently had, and we
can't have it again either. We'll all have to have something quite
different.
The same is true of US military power, discredited by the Iraq and
Afghanistan quagmires. Additional follies of this sort have also become
unaffordable. To the extent that America is to be powerful in the21st
century, it will have to be so by cultivating a quite different sort of
power.
At a glance, this tangle of crises might seem merely the result of a
colossal accident a world-historic pile-up on the global freeway. Yet in
addition to being interconnected, the crises have striking features in
common, suggesting shared roots. To begin with, all are self-created. They
arise from pathologies of our own activity, or perhaps hyperactivity.
The Greek tragedians understood well those disasters whose seeds lie
above all in one's own actions. No storm or asteroid or external enemy is
the cause. Today, the economic crash is the result of investment run amok
the "masters of the universe" are the authors of their own (and
everyone's) downfall. The nuclear weapons that threaten to return in wrath
to American cities were born in New Mexico. The oil is running short
because we are driving too many cars to too many shopping malls. The
global ecosphere is heading towards collapse because of the success, not
the failure (until recently), of the modern economy. The invasion of Iraq
was the US empire's self-inflicted wound a disaster of choice, so to
speak. The work of our own hands rises up to strike us.
All the crises are also the result of excess, not scarcity. Too much
credit was packaged in too many ways by people who were too smart, too
busy, too greedy. Our energy use was too great for the available reserves.
The nuclear weapon overfulfilled the plans for great-power war, making it
and potentially ourselves obsolete through oversuccess. The economic
activity of humanity was too voluminous to be sustained by fragile natural
systems.
Taken together, the crises add up to a new era of limits, which are now
pressing in on all sides to correct overreaching. All the crises
(especially those endangering the ecosphere) involve theft by the living
from posterity. It's often said that revolutions, like the god Saturn,
devour their children. We are committing a slow-motion, cross-generational
equivalent of this offence.
My generation, the baby boomers, has been cannibalising the future to
provision the present. Intergenerational justice has been a subject more
fit for academic seminars than for newspaper headlines. The question has
been, "What harm are we doing to generations yet unborn?" But the time
frame has been shortened and the malign transactions are now occurring
between generations still alive. The dollars we have spent are coming
directly out of our children's salaries. The oil we burn is being drawn
down from their reserves. The atmosphere we are heating up will scorch
their fields and drown their shorelines.
A "new era of responsibility" must above all mean responsibility to them.
If it is true all the crises are part of this larger crisis, then the
economic crisis may simply be the means by which the larger adjustment is
set in motion, in effect dictating a forced march into the sustainable
world.
Finally, all the crises display one more common feature: all have been
based on the wholesale manufacture of delusions. The operative word here
is "bubble". A bubble, in the stock market or anywhere, is a real-world
construct based on fantasies.
When the fantasy collapses, the construct collapses, and people are hurt.
Disillusion and tangible harm go together: as imaginary wealth and power
evaporate, so does real wealth and power. The equity exposed as worthless
was always phony, but real people really lose their jobs. The weapons of
mass destruction in the invaded country were fictitious, but the war and
the dying are actual. The "safety" provided by nuclear arms is waning, if
it ever existed, but the holocaust, when it comes, though fantastical,
will be no fantasy. The "limits on growth" were denied, but the oil
reserves didn't get the message. The "uncertainty" about global warming
cooked up by political hacks and backed by self-interested energy
companies is fake, but the Arctic ice is melting anyway.
One day someone will undertake a full study of how all these bubbles grew
and why they were inflated at the same time. It will be a story of a
crisis of integrity of the institutions at the apex of US life. It will
recount how the largest government, business, military and media
organisations began to tell lies to themselves and others in pursuit of, or
subservience to, wealth and power. Banks, hedge funds, ratings agencies,
regulatory agencies, intelligence services, the White House, the Pentagon
and mainstream news organisations can grind inconvenient truths to dust,
layer by bureaucratic layer, until the convenient lies that had been
wanted all along are presented to decision-makers at the top.
The study of these operations will be a story of groupthink; of basic
facts relegated to footnotes; of wishes tweaked into facts; of deepening
secrecy; of complex models, mathematical or ideological, used to supplant,
not illuminate, reality; of new offices created to draw false new
conclusions from old facts; of threat inflation; of the sinking careers of
truth-tellers and the rising careers of truth-twisters.
It would be interesting, for instance, to compare the creation of the
illusions of the real estate bubble with the creation of the claim that
Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. In both cases
contrary facts were readily available at the base of the system but were
filtered out as the reports went up the chain.
For a somewhat contrasting, top-down model, the White House method for
suppressing the truth about global warming within government agencies is
instructive. In that case, the science was duly gathered but often
squelched at the last minute by political appointees editing the reports.
A concluding chapter of the study will note that the rudiments of a new
stance towards reality began to be articulated. Its motto can be the
famous comment a senior Bush adviser made to writer Ronald Suskind, whom
he belittled as belonging to the "reality-based community", which, the
adviser said, believed that "solutions emerge from your judicious study of
discernible reality". But that was no longer true, for "we're an empire
now, and when we act, we create our own reality".
Over at the American International Group, the recipient of $US152.5
billion ($A232 billion) in federal bail-out funds, then chief Maurice
Greenberg was saying much the same thing in happier days: "This is never
going to get any better than it is today. We're so big, we're never going
to swim against the tide. We are the tide."
In short, the relationship between observation and action had been
reversed. Reality was not the field of operation in which you acted, and
whose limits you must respect; it was, like a play or movie, a scenario to
be penned by human authors. Fact had to adjust to ideology, not the other
way around.
Obama, of course, cannot wait for such a study to appear. He must batter
his way out of the various bubbles and lay his hands on what is real
immediately. It will not be easy. His election has done part of the job,
but the mists of illusion still hover over the land. Fantasies of wealth
and power die hard. Happy hour is more pleasant than the morning after.
For bubble thinking was projected beyond the deluded institutions to
national politics as a whole. The credit and debt booms were national,
corporate and personal, symptoms of a nation living beyond its means at
all levels. The facts of global warming were increasingly accepted by the
public but not by the president it put in office, and there was little
appetite for measures such as a petrol tax to cut back carbon emissions.
As global warming intensified, the iconic American vehicle of the era was
the gas-devouring, pseudo-military Hummer. The grandiose conceptions of
American power found a ready audience, as reflected in election results.
In short, the mainstream, like a river that jumps its bed and ravages the
countryside, has overflowed the levees of reality and carried the country
to disaster after disaster in every area of national life: military,
economic and ecological. These depredations have paradoxically led a
groggy public to yearn for the stability that Obama's centrist cabinet
choices seem to promise. But they know that these appointees had a hand in
creating the ills they are now charged with addressing.
"Reality" has bifurcated in a manner confusing to politicians and
citizens alike. On the one side is political reality, which by definition
means centrist, mainstream opinion. On the other is the reality of events,
heading in quite a different direction. If Obama makes mainstream choices,
he is called "pragmatic". And it may well be so in political terms, as poll
results attest.
But political pragmatism in current circumstances may be real folly, as
it was on the eve of the Iraq War and in the years of the finance bubble
preceding the crash. Smooth sailing down the middle of the Niagara River
carries you over Niagara Falls. The danger is not that Obama's move into
the mainstream will offend a tribe called "the left" or his "base" but that
by adjusting to a centre that is out of touch, he will fail to address the
crises adequately and will lose his effectiveness as president.
The difference between merely political pragmatism and the real thing is
illustrated by Bush's just ended career. From 2001 until 2006, he and his
party dominated politics. Karl Rove's dreams of a permanent Republican
majority looked feasible. The values voters, the "soccer moms", the Reagan
Democrats and so forth were all lining up. But another key "constituency"
one that never appears in any poll result was quietly turning against him.
It was the constituency of the real. The adjustable-rate mortgages were
heading south, energy markets were nonplussed, the Afghan warlords were
restive and the skidding Greenland ice shelf was voting with its feet.
These were the votes that undid him. To paraphrase the old saying, Bush
won power but lost the world. In the short run, delusion and deception can
keep politics and reality apart, but in the long run the two must meet.
And then it is politics, not reality, that must adjust. Euripides
understood that, too.
Hence Barack Obama's victory on November 4.
In this era, political safety can spell danger, for himself and for the
country and world. As he faces the Himalayan problems of the21st century,
the path of ruling through illusion is not open to him.
He should figure out what's wrong with America and the world, honestly
and directly communicate his findings to the public, do his best to fix
things and then let the results speak for themselves.
It's a simple prescription but lightyears away from anything that has
been tried in the US for a very long time.
THE NATION
Jonathan Schell is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation
Institute and teaches a course on the nuclear dilemma at Yale. He is the
author of The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger.
This is a long posting - but please take the time to read it all.. Perhaps
it really underlines how much the Environmental movement has to shape up.
H
Ken Ward: Letter to Hansen, Obama
[Note: Ken Ward is a former Executive Director of NJPIRG and RIPIRG, Deputy
Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, cofounder of organizations including
Green Corps (Senior Trainer), National Environmental Law Center
(President), Public Interest GRFX, Environmental Endowment for New Jersey,
Fund for Public Interest Research and AmeriCorps Water Watch, and author of
Response to The Death of Environmentalism, published by Grist in March
2005].
-----------
Letter to Jim Hansen
Tuesday
January 20, 2009
Dear Jim,
I've enclosed a post (should go up on Grist today) that was prompted in
part by your recent letter to the President, and I write to offer you some
additional thoughts.
I do not write because I disagree with your arguments for researching 4th
generation nukes and carbon capture & storage (though I do), nor to answer
your complaints about environmentalists.
In my view, US environmentalists have failed in our three most important
responsibilities - our civic obligation to sound the alarm, our moral
responsibility to bear witness, and our pragmatic charge to build a durable
political base for fundamental change. As a result, we just flunked the
acid test of the '08 election.
Several factors account for the decline in confrontational campaigning,
effective direct action and organizing the environmentalist core that has
left us with wide yet shallow support, but the chief inducement was the
allure of policy and the misbegotten idea that US environmental foundations
and organizations could craft and advance a climate solution acceptable to
sections in the private sector, thereby skipping the difficult challenge of
forcing the nation to a point of sharp conflict and avoiding the
uncertainty of a public debate.
The fiction that there is an easy way out collapsed last year, battered by
the data and your own remorseless logic, though our major organizations and
foundations continue to spout the line. The limits on corporate "climate
action" were laid bare and we have had nothing to fall back on. We traded
our cow for beans that weren't magic after all.
Both parties headed into the primaries with serious candidates running on
climate action; none fared particularly well and the tricky problem of
handling global catastrophe within the necessarily upbeat framework of a
presidential campaign became even more inconvenient when gas prices surged.
Obama temporized and McCain was forced to repudiate a former position of
remarkable integrity.
As I write this, I've been checking posts on Grist and Facebook coming in
from friends at the inauguration and I'm blown away by how giddy everyone
is, considering the brisk slap in the face Obama just delivered on climate.
Any number of small gestures could have been made to signal that President
Obama is seriously concerned about climate - the President might have
devoted a serious aside in his address, climate might have been identified
as a specific danger for which the nation must needs pull together in the
Proclamation of Reconciliation issued yesterday, the President might have
appeared in person at LCV's event installing solar panels on a DC
elementary school (instead of sending Secretary Chu), you might have been
honored or showcased in some manner, and so on.
Groping for a way to put the day in context, I thought, what if the
anti-abortion movement picked a candidate early in the primaries, who had
less then 100% rating on the issue but good prospects; who ran and won on a
moderate anti-abortion platform with the acquiescence of movement
leadership? You can be sure that the inauguration would be orchestrated to
showcase the leaders and comfort the worried rank and file. Nothing of the
sort pertains with climate and environmentalists because we have built no
base of climate partisans, properly skeptical of a new President who
endorses off-shore oil drilling and irate that the world's approach to
climate tipping points rates no more than a passing mention in the
inaugural address.
Part of the Faustian bargain we made long ago was to downplay climate
change risk. In any other area and any other issue, scientists provide data
and conservative assessments. Environmentalists apply precautionary
reasoning, duke it out with whichever sector has a big stake and (in recent
years) either lose outright or accept a compromised bargain. On climate,
however, we ignored the precautionary position because it didn't work well
in fundraising, was incompatible with moderate policies, and discomfited
prospective corporate partners and foundation boards.
You, with a handful of other scientists and a couple of ex-journalists,
were our climate Paul Revere, and in consequence, are now leaders of US
environmentalism. Your role in this terrible debate is larger than this, of
course, but it would be a mistake not to appreciate your standing as an
environmental leader. It does not go unnoticed that your journal articles
more eloquently and clearly express environmental values than anything
produced by our own organizations.
With that in mind, I found the your Obama material to be troubling for what
it implies about your thinking on strategy, how to shape the national
climate narrative, and how you conceive and use your power base. None of
these matters are any of my business, and I have no formal standing or
position, but I expect you agree that the times and circumstances press us
all to step outside ordinary bounds.
Stated in brief, I think it is a mistake to spend any of your personal
capital on the particulars of US Government climate policy (at this time)
and it is disadvantageous strategy to encourage President Obama to do so as
well. This is the route US environmentalists went down and it's still a bad
bargain. Trying to cobble together a backdoor technical solution because
the leadership we require has not arrived, the conflict from which such
leaders might emerge has not yet been joined, and the forces which might
bring conflict to a head remain quiescent, won't work because there is an
irreducable political force required to win any functional solution. We'll
either get it, in which case the particulars can then be dictated, or we
won't.
Your primary power and - excuse me for putting it so bluntly - your value
is your moral authority. You are a symbol; part Galilean reasoning, part
Franklinian common sense and concern for civic safety, and part rational
ecologist. Your personality, as it projects, has a good mix of keenness,
aestheticism and incorruptibility, and your principled stand against the
Bush gag effort showed that you aren't just for show. Your achievement is
to see the terrible risk before anyone else, to adjust your assessment as
things got worse, and to state in simple terms what needs to be done. Your
skill is to tell a story well.
Most of these attributes are diminished if you head off in the direction of
your recent letter, I would argue, and your moral authority, power and
value (to put it bluntly again) are reduced.
I don't know that I need to lay out the arguments in any great detail here,
because it is clear from your writing and actions that you already wrestle
with the tension between simplifying what's at stake, driving conflict and
aiming for wholesale change versus incremental steps on the margins via
second tier governmental action.
I think your moral weight is far more valuable than your practical advice,
though I can imagine the drive toward hands-on action must feel intense. To
have a shot, we require a simple, uncluttered story where the bad guys are
coal companies and utilities and environmentalists are good (if we are to
be vilified, let us be vilified for not being environmentalist enough).
I urge you to stay the course, keep with the big picture, act as a Mandela
and not a Lech Walesa.
With highest regard,
Sincerely,
Ken
Ken Ward
<mailto:kenward@...>kenward@...
617.435.4919
* * * * * * * *
An open letter to President Obama on how to make the climate challenge real
and urgent to Americans
<http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/1/19/135710/112>http://gristmill.grist.or
g/story/2009/1/19/135710/112Ken Ward
January 21, 2009
Dear President Obama,
James and Anniek Hansen urge you to pay attention to the particulars of
your administration's climate policy as a first order of business. The
devil's in the details, the Hansen's argue, and the broad language with
which you address the crisis does not seem to acknowledge the "profound
disconnect" between climate policy and climate science.
Your approach to global warming was deftly crafted to appear strong and be
vague, of course, a smart reading of what the electorate, even in
Democratic primary states, would tolerate and one reason why you triumphed
in a field of candidates, including several who tried to run on climate.
It is one thing to sidestep a campaign issue voters are unwilling to face,
but pragmatic campaign decisions are not binding on the President of the
United States of America when the world is coming to an end.
You are faced with an insoluble crisis and are weaker for the subtle
campaign strategy that helped elected you. There is no functional solution
to the climate catastrophe in policies now on the table and you take office
with no mandate to advance one.
The US cannot muster the resources and resolve necessary to lead the world
to safety if your administration does no more than plump domestic "green
jobs" and "equitable stimulus" programs ñ progressive rhetoric for the
stump and nothing more ñ and endorse decades-old cap & trade policy ginned
up by environmentalists looking for policy acceptable to corporate "climate
action" partners.
As our first organizer President, you know that the right course of action
is not to tinker with the details of policy, as Hansen does, but to rewrite
the terms of the debate. The problem is that there is no conflict and it is
therefore difficult to bring the resources of the "bully pulpit" to bear.
The bold move is to do nothing.
It will require immense determination to forestall the political forces
coiled in anticipation of quick administration action on climate, but you
must stiff-arm your advisers, step outside the Congressional climate
quagmire, leave environmentalists hanging, and delay international
engagement.
It is crucial that the nation does not move directly from the old conflict,
"is global warming real?" directly into action, without first facing the
terrible questions "how bad is it?" and "what do we need to do?"
There are two aspects to our national character, and the flip side of our
refusal thus far to deal with the gathering crisis will be another great
awakening of American optimism, energy and willingness to sacrifice. That
national spirit is only called forth by terrible risk and resolve in
leadership.
By breaking free from awkward compromises and dismal trade-offs and
flexing unilateral powers of the Presidency, a dynamic, realistic, yet
optimistic agenda can be set in motion that will draw our reluctant eyes to
the danger, put dramatic examples of rapid change on display, and
demonstrate bold and vigorous leadership. Then the time will be propitious
to propose a new domestic and international agenda.
Consider how different the political climate if you were to take the
following actions as your first order of business.
Gore's Challenge.
Although there is some question about whether or you actually endorsed Al
Gore's call to shift US electricity generation to renewables, no matter;
make Gore's challenge US policy, Mr. President, by issuing an Executive
Order setting a national goal of zero carbon emissions electricity
generation by 2020.
275 ppm. As Jim Hansen suggests, the National Academy of Sciences should
review and comment on recent climate science findings. You should use the
opportunity, Mr. President, to explain the precautionary principle to the
American people and demonstrate both intellectual integrity and political
courage by asking the NAS to consider whether a rapid return to
pre-industrial concentrations of atmospheric carbon (265-275 ppm) is
warranted.
Climate Civil Defense.
FEMA should undertake a nationwide inventory of civil defense preparedness
for storm surges on rising sea levels and conduct preliminary engineering
studies on the feasibility and costs of erecting dikes, constructing
hurricane barriers, reconstituting coastal wetlands, and other necessary
measures to protect coastal homelands.
Driving Hybrids.
Of 60,000 vehicles added to the US government fleet in 2008, 239 were
hybrids and 2 were all electric. You should combine vehicle needs for the
next four years, roughly 250,000 vehicles and put them up for bid, Mr.
President, specifying standards for a hyper-efficient, highly crash
resistant, durable fleet of hybrid vehicles averaging 65 mpg.
Climate Early Warning.
There are three ice shelves large enough to end the world, yet none are
being monitored on a constant basis. Congress should be asked for
immediate, emergency funding to place permanent research camps on the
Eastern and Western Antarctic Ice Shelves and in Greenland, military
satellite capacity should be reassigned to monitor ice shelves for early
signs of breakup, other key factors (i.e. ocean temperature/current) should
all be monitored and an international command center established to
coordinate information (e.g. an NSA for climate intelligence).
Hawaii Poster Child. Go home, hang with your friends, focus the nation on
our own island-in-rising-seas story and invest hugely in making Hawaii a
demonstration renewables state. Already on the forefront, with a federal
partnership and funding, Hawaii could aim for a realistic zero carbon (net)
goal.
US Military & Renewables.
Iraq has taught some in the U.S. military that renewables strengthen
war-fighting capabilities. The military has set the relatively ambitious
goal of generating 25% of its energy from renewables by 2025 and is making
good headway, but more in response to ad hoc initiatives than determined
Pentagon leadership. Acting as Commander in Chief, Mr President, you should
double the goal. This will strengthen centers of leadership aiming to put
the US military onto a new footing of efficiency and renewables (the same
folks thinking in terms of climate challenges), and use the institution to
fuller advantage as an important agent of US social change.
Solar Iraq.
Electricity demand in Iraq is 4000MW greater than utility supply, the
difference made up by neighborhood entrepreneurs with diesel generators.
The US should insist that half of the $12 billion (World Bank) to $35
billion (Iraq Ministry of Electricity) of US, Japanese and European funds
estimated necessary to rebuild Iraq's shattered electric utilities be
budgeted for solar and wind generation (GE, which just signed a $3 billion
contract with the Ministry of Electricity won't be ruffled a bit).
Measures such as these will go a long way to transform a vague and distant
worry into an urgent, local, political problem and your stalwart refusal to
take action until the nation is ready and the moment is ripe will be
compared with the genius of another tall, thin Illinois politician.
Sincerely,
Ken Ward
Hi Hugh,
On these Yahoo groups the truncation of long URLs is comnmon - and it
can render them almost useless.
There is a website that will shorten a URL for you. It's called Tiny URL
<http://tinyurl.com/> - BUT there can be problems with it as exposed
here by Wiki <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TinyURL>
Peter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
what seems to happen is that the URL gets divided in the text process - and
becomes meaningless
So
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/01/20/hydro-offici
als-aim-to-quell-community-concerns-over-wind-farm.aspx
becomes
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/01/20/hydro-offici
als-aim-to-quell-community-concerns-over-wind-farm.aspx
which won't work, and one part is in blue the other in black, that should
serve as a warning that something is amiss.
so - what I do - is create a new e-mail page, paste in the above, and
delete the (invisible) line-feed character between offici and als -
and you should get the whole URL back again (in blue and underlined) -
paste THIS in to your browser address line - and all should be well.
H
From Energy Resources
I think this is a pretty clear and concise description of the warming
mechanism.
which you can use to argue the case. It is in response to numerous
postings by Francisco (from Boston) who argues that the impact of CO2 (and
other greenhouse gasses) cannot be verified in the lab...!)
Hugh
Hello Joe,
While I agree with you that neither Peden nor Kalmanovitch understand the
greenhouse effect or the role of CO2 in that effect, I'm afraid that your
attempt to clarify doesn't help. You state that the greenhouse effect is
"the reduction in the earth's heat transferred to space due to greenhouse
gases". That's incorrect. There's no reduction in heat transfer. The same
amount of energy will get radiated into space regardless of atmospheric
composition or greenhouse gases. That amount is determined by the amount of
incoming solar radiance absorbed by the earth (including its atmosphere).
There has to be a long term balance: energy out = energy in.
If there *is* a temporary imbalance -- say not enough energy being radiated
back to space to match what is absorbed (which is, in fact, the present
situation) -- then the difference goes into heating. The heating will
continue, increasing outgoing thermal radiation, until the balance is
restored. That's true with or without any greenhouse effect. It would be
true even if the earth had no atmosphere, and were as bare as the moon.
You also state that incoming solar radiation from the sun at a
characteristic temperature of 5800 deg. C has "nothing to do with the
greenhouse effect." I'm not sure what you were thinking, but that statement
is certainly wrong. The characteristic temperature of incoming solar
radiation has *everything* to do with the greenhouse effect. It means that
most of the energy of that radiation is carried in the visible wavelengths,
which pass through the atmosphere largely unhindered. The greenhouse effect
is about how the heat energy deposited at the surface subsequently wends its
way back into space.
According to a radiation budget diagram that I recall, only about 4% of the
thermal radiation emitted from the surface of the earth makes it straight
through the atmosphere without being absorbed. The rest is absorbed,
reemitted, reabsorbed, reemitted, etc, until it eventually wins free and
heads out into space. That's not a great way to put it, because it suggests
that individual photons of thermal energy have persistent lifetimes -- like
gas molecules diffusing through a porous barrier. They don't. Their
lifetimes are the inverval between emission and absorbtion. But each photon
transports a small bit of energy from where it was emitted to where it was
absorbed. For there to be a net flow of radiative energy through the
atmosphere, there has to be a temperature gradient driving it. It's like
heat flow by conduction through a solid, but faster.
What greenhouse gases do is to increase the effective insulation value of
the atmosphere to radiative heat loss. They do that by reducing the mean
free path of thermal IR photons. That means that a larger thermal gradient
is needed in order to support the same net thermal energy flow. It's as if
you had a house, with a heater inside that was alway on at a constant level
of heat output. That's the incoming solar radiation. Your house happens to
be located somewhere where the outside temperature is cold and constant.
That's space. The heater supplies just enough heat to balance the heat loss
through the walls, ceiling, and windows, keeping the house at a comfortable
temperature. Now you start spraying insulation around and increasing the
R-values of those walls, ceiling, and windows. What's going to happen? The
temperature inside is going to climb until the greater temperature
difference between inside and outside of the house is able to raise the heat
loss to match what the heater is pouring out. THAT's the greenhouse effect.
The effect of greenhouse gases on radiative transport is not subtle or
controversial or difficult to understand. It's easy to measure in a lab, if
one cares to do so. It doesn't require elaborate computer models to
calculate how varying concentrations of gases will affect things. All it
takes is a knowledge of calculus, and a willingness to work through the
equations. All the fuss that AGW skeptics make about climate modeling is
something of a red herring. The climate models are attempting to quantify
the overall system response to the easily calculated "radiative forcing"
from increased CO2 levels. That's difficult to do, for a great many reasons
that a few of the more knowledgable "skeptics" -- not to mention the
modelers themselves -- have enumerated. The biggest difficulty is in
modeling the feedbacks in the form of cloud cover, precipitation, and
humidity levels in response to radiative forcing from CO2. But there's no
question whatsoever on the immediate effects of CO2 levels on radiative
transport. And contrary to Francisco's loud and frequent assertions, that
effect is *not* small and insignificant.
Roger Arnold
Sunnyvale, CA
Over a kilowatt of domestic solar energy for under $4000 ...
Braemar Energy
<http://www.braemacenergy.com.au/product_view_full.php?my_selection=78>
PHOTOVOLTAIC PANEL POWER SYSTEM (1080watts). Single-phase grid connect.
Quoted price includes:
• The installation of six (6) Sharp 180 watt solar power panels
located on Northern roof.
• The installation of one (1) Latronics PVE1200 power inverter.
• The supply and installation of AC and DC circuit breakers,
cabling, conduits and power isolators.
• The issuing of one (1) Certificate of Electrical Safety (CES).
• Electrical inspection fees for this project only.
•*Buy back of Renewable Energy Credits (REC's – subject to
daily marketpricing), Photovoltaic Rebate Program (PVRP) and the power
distributiongrid agreement paperwork.
• Travel expenses to and from the location within metro area.
Materials & Labour $11,400.00
G.S.T. $ 1,140.00
Sub Total $12,540.00
Less PVRP Rebate $ 8,000.00
*Less REC buy back $ 630.00
TOTAL COST (GST Included): $ 3,910.00
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Hi all,
Following on from receiving a large number of responses, across a full
spectrum, (From 'I totally agree' to 'I totally disagree') to the (some
would say overly enthusiastic) email I sent on January 1st, I feel a need to
explain publicly why I believe that we will succeed in 2009, and why I
stated that we 'have already won'. I didn't want to jam up the lists, so if
you're interested in reading it (it's quite lengthy), please see attached or
click *here. <http://tinyurl.com/beyondyeswecan>*
It contains an expression of belief that we not only *can *but *will *win on
climate change, an exploration of the foundations and usefulness of that
belief, and then an assessment of where the climate movement is and where it
needs to go in 2009.
I hope that it provides food for thought, and would welcome engaging in
further discussions with those who are interested. I'm think that my
statement from the previous email 'I'll convince you that you're wrong' may
be overly ambitious, but I'll certainly do my best.
*A quick note -* By saying that 'we've won', I certainly (obviously?) *do
not *wish to imply that we can stop working. We have won only in the sense
that we now have the strength in the movement that I believe *will *take us
to a climate solution. This I feel totally sure of, which I had not felt up
to this point. But while we have the strength, we do not *yet *have the
strategy, the campaigns, or the public 'noise' that will deliver us climate
success. I am, however, sure, heart and head, that these things will
come, *this
year *– because of the strength in the movement, because we are
self-critical and self-reflective, and because we all understand the need
for strategy like never before. We need to be, and we are, getting to work,
knuckling down, and creating the strategies that will deliver us success.
The Grassroots Climate Action Summit in the coming weeks is one great
example of the movement solidifying in Australia. If you don't know about
the Summit, see www.climatesummit.org.au.
Sincerely,
Anna K
--
Anna Keenan
Youth Climate Advocate
anna.c.keenan@...anna.keenan@...
+61 (0) 419 792 263
Skype ID: anna.c.keenan
UNYK ID: 124 AGR
The Australian Youth Climate Coalition unites over 20 diverse youth
organisations to build a generation-wide movement to solve climate change.
Our alliance combines our forces, leveraging our collective power to create
change for a clean, efficient, just and renewable energy future. We inspire,
educate, empower and mobilise young Australians to take action on climate
change. We coordinate, communicate and network with each other, and run
shared projects and campaigns. www.aycc.org.au
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Offline 
Send Email
