Today, environmentalists, climate change activists and Americans who want legislation to control carbon pollution were cheered to see climate action take another step forward.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Clean Energy Jobs for American Power Act, meaning the full Senate will now get to debate the bill which aims to put America on a clean energy path. (Other Senate committees will add components before a complete bill is assembled.)

This isn’t quite like being a gladiator pushed into the Coliseum to meet the lions. But the hotly fought bill is expected to get full scrutiny, and climate change deniers were gathering stones within minutes of the bill’s committee unusual passage.

Typically bills in committee are voted upon by all members. In this case, though, Republicans had boycotted the hearings this week, saying they wanted another analysis of the bill’s effects by the Environmental Protection Agency. Democrats felt the bill had been vetted enough, and one EPA official testified that the requested additional analysis would have delayed the process by another five weeks, effectively killing action on the bill for 2009.

Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) appealed to Republicans to participate in the process, reaching out to ranking minority member Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). Inhofe, who has famously denied that globally warming exists, rebuffed the invites, saying that the bill is too costly.

Other Democrats also called on Republicans to get involved and debate the merits of  the legislation in committee.

“The party of no has now devolved into the party of no show and I hope they will reconsider their strategy,” noted Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) on Wednesday.

Finally, Boxer broke the boycott, calling for a vote on Thursday, and passing what’s known as the Kerry-Boxer climate action bill on a vote of 10-1 with all those in favor being Democrats. The seven Republican committee members declined to register a yea or a nay.

Afterward, Inhofe accused Boxer of violating rules that require two minority party members to be part of the vote; but Boxer told Politico that the rules also allow for passage with a simple majority. (See Inhofe’s complaints on this YouTube video of an interview with Fox News.)

The bill calls for a reduction in greenhouse gases of 83 percent by 2050, a level that scientists around the world agree should help steer the planet clear of disaster.

Now if the climate bill can just steer its way through the U.S. Senate.

• (While environmentalists are happy with this progress, some experts consider it faint effort in the face of a large foe, with the bills in both the US House and Senate containing far too many concessions to entrenched industries and polluters. For this  analysis from the peanut gallery see the Institute for Policy Studies.)

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Fact: America has an abundance of food.
Question: So why does anyone go hungry in this country?

A potato gleaning in Virginia (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

Armed with this simple thought, the Society of St. Andrew (SOSA) took up the cause of feeding the hungry in 1979 with the idea of gleaning fields for salvageable produce.

“We do this in two says,” says Carol Breitinger, communications director. “We use volunteers in the field for hands-on gleaning, or we send out trucks to pick up surplus crops that farmers can’t use and would just end up in the landfill.”

Once SOSA obtains the produce, they distribute to food pantries around the country. Breitinger says they salvage 20 to 25 million pounds of food a year with the help of 30,000 to 35,000 volunteers. The volunteers come from church groups, schools, scout troops, and even from the people who need the food.

Becky and Dave Aduddell of Wake Forest, N.C., are two of SOSA’s veteran volunteers. “We’ve been doing this for five or six years now,” says Dave, who is a web programmer for a local community college by day and a bass player by night. The couple was hooked after a friend who was gleaning introduced them to the concept. “It sounded like such an eminently logical idea that we joined him very shortly after he started.”

Gleaning a field in North Carolina (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

“Our interest in gleaning stems from that great desire within each of us to ‘do some good.’ We like it because it is very concrete and tangible. Writing a check to a charity gives one a good feeling and a sense of satisfaction, but going out and working to glean, then delivering the produce directly to the recipients is a very concrete act.”

The Aduddells bring their gleaned crops to a public housing complex in the small town where they live.

The couple acknowledges that the gleaning process wasn’t a big stretch – both of them come from farming families. “While we didn’t grow up on a farm, we spent time doing farm work as kids, so this is a nice déjà vu for us,” says Dave.

In mid-October the Aduddells joined several hundred volunteers for the 19th annual Yam-Jam, sponsored by SOSA. The group salvaged unharvested sweet potatoes from a 50-acre field in rural Johnston County, North Carolina. The area had already been harvested by professionals. In addition to sweet potatoes, Becky says the group has collected corn, green beans, collards, tomatoes, watermelon, squash and blueberries.

“A good 20 percent of produce is lost in the fields,” says SOSA’s Breitinger. She says the USDA calculates that 96 billion pounds of food is wasted in this country before it gets to market.

Why do farmers leave good food behind? “Sometimes commercial growers must leave one field to move on to the next crop,” says Breitinger. Other times, the produce isn’t “perfect” enough for market – not quite the right size or color, but perfectly edible. Also, sometimes the farmer can’t afford to pay another crew to come through his fields again.

Gleaning a perfect cabbage in Virginia (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

Farmer Leo Stallings says he has leftovers because there isn’t a big market for produce in Franklin County, the area of North Carolina where his farm is located. Stallings, who has been in the farm business for 40 years, grows a number of crops including sweet corn, beans, cantaloupe, collards, peas, squash and string beans. “This area is not very commercial. There are few markets. Growing is not a problem, but selling is. We don’t have a co-op to handle acres of crops.

“I try to plant about as much as I think will sell. But because the market varies, I often have leftovers.”

Stallings says SOSA volunteers come out in the summer and late fall to salvage his fields. He says he doesn’t mind giving it away. “I don’t want it to go to waste and they give us a tax credit for it.”

When large growers donate a tractor trailer load of food, SOSA might contact a group of volunteers, often a church group, to sponsor a “potato drop.”

“Imagine 45,000 pounds of loose potatoes dumped into a church parking lot,” says Breitinger. “Volunteers then put 10 to 15 pounds of potatoes into mesh bags. We contact the local food pantries to come to pick it up.”

If anyone doubted that there’s a global grassroots movement to fight climate change, they may reconsider after viewing the photos that streamed in this weekend from the International Day of Climate Action.

Demonstrators in Sydney at the Opera House

From Sydney to Barcelona; the Himalayas to Hollywood, people in more than 180 nations gathered to display the number 350 — the benchmark that many scientists consider to be the safe upper limit for carbon in the air. Above 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide (Earth’s atmosphere is already at 390), greenhouse gases play havoc with arctic ice and the oceans, sending Earth toward a tipping point that climatologists around the world would bring disastrous floods, coastal losses, droughts and vast alterations in farmland.

The organizing group behind the demonstrations, 350.org, asked concerned citizens and like-minded groups to coalesce around this single number to make a point that the people across the globe want solutions.  Specifically, they want their national leaders to take serious steps to curb global warming at the upcoming United Nations’ climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

350 in Bangladesh

The wave of actions that rippled across the planet this past weekend began in the Pacific, where many islands could be inundated by the rising seas created by greenhouse gases. It moved with the time zones around the planet, to the mountains where glaciers are thinning to Africa where the ability to grow food is threatened.

In Bonn, activists make their desires clear (Photo: Robert von Waarden, Spectral Q)

In Europe activists used the day to express their hopes that political leaders will act decisively. Environmentalists are concerned that politicians may move too slowly, and that without a firm move toward clean energy and away from polluting fossil fuel industries, the planet’s atmosphere will continue to fill with greenhouse gases.

At 11 a.m. on Saturday, Columbia University’s two largest student environmental groups gathered in the middle of campus to bang on drums, strum guitars, blow through horns and yell at the top of their lungs. For one ear-throbbing minute the campus erupted– all in the name of the environment.

The literal wake-up call to the Upper West Side of New York City kicked-off the day-long festivities, organized by Green Umbrella and Eco-Reps, for the International Day of Climate Action, a world-wide day of events organized to deliver a unified call to action for bold leadership on the climate crisis.

Demonstrators at the Brooklyn Bridge

“This movement may be small today, but we’re not alone at all,” said Greg Tulchin, the head organizer of Columbia’s 350 Event. “We’re connected to all these millions of people around the world.”

Despite the relentless downpour in the city, scheduled events carried on in NYC, with the grand finale in Times Square including supporters chanting and carrying signs as jumbo screens streamed climate day slogans. At Columbia, a small group of students and neighbors huddled under tents while creating their own 12-foot banner for Times Square. They made newspaper pots for planting and watched eco-related performances.

Students at Columbia College (Photo: Sommer Saadi)

“There is a lot of information out there [about climate change] and it can be really overwhelming,” said Elizabeth Kipp-Giusti, publicity director of EcoReps, one of the organizing groups. “If we can do a little bit to facilitate that process of going through it all, then that’s a step toward having people be more environmentally aware and that’s all we can ask for.”

With the goal of the day being to raise awareness about 350 and the December UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen, being in the middle of the campus, in the middle of the city, making lots of noise translated to success—no matter the weather.

Theater Troupe in Trujillo, Peru (Photo: Valkiria)

While rained soaked events from Boston to Washington D.C., demos in the rest of the US fared better, with people turning out in tiny towns like Orono, Minn., and major cities, including larger gatherings in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Everywhere people made a point about the effects on climate change on their corner of the world, declaring “We love our snow” in Alaska, with that changing to “Save Our Coasts” on Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles.

The sun shone also on events in South America, which has been losing natural habitat to over-development, and in Africa, is already hitting hard. Many island nations and countries in low-lying areas, which stand to lose coastal lands to rising seas as well as worsening storms, participated in the demonstrations, from the Maldives and Micronesia to the Caribbean.

School children in the Dominican Republic

Bill McKibben, environmental activist and founder of 350.org, declared the day a huge success to supporters and urged anyone who’s curious to visit the website and see the photos.

“It was so sweet to watch the day move around the globe, with thousands upon thousands of pictures appearing, sometimes a dozen a minute! There were photos of climbers high on the glaciers of Switzerland holding 350 banners, of bicycle parades from Copenhagen to San Francisco, of organizers in Papua New Guinea beating their church gong 350 times while churches in Barcelona rang their bells 350 times.”

“…Together, we’ve shown the world that a global climate movement is possible and set a bold new agenda for the upcoming United Nations Climate Meetings in Copenhagen this December,” he said. “The 350 target is the new bottom line for climate action and world leaders must now meet that target.”

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

One could count a thousand ways humans have soiled the planet, from shearing off mountaintops to mine coal to dredging the bottom of the ocean with heavy, coral-destroying equipment.

Congress zeroed in on one needless wave of destruction this past week, introducing legislation in both houses to stop cruise ships from releasing untreated sewage into the ocean.

The Senate’s Clean Cruise Ship Act, proposed by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), would extend the Clean Water Act to regulate the millions of gallons of waste water from cruise ships. The net effect would be a ban on the release of raw, untreated sewage.

In the House, Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) introduced nearly identical legislation.

In the US, nearly 10 million people vacation aboard cruise liners that dump sewage into the ocean.

According to a news release from Durbin’s office, a single cruise ship can release more than 200,000 gallons of human sewage, one million gallons of gray water from kitchens and bathrooms and 10,000 gallons of sewage sludge each week.

Not to mention the small, but significant disgorging of hazardous waste and oily bilge. (Can we pause here for a collective “ick”?!)

Currently, this waste is regulated in some coastal regions, but unevenly so. Durbin’s Clean Cruise Ship Act would amend the Clean Water Act to:

• Place cruise ships under the EPA guidelines for pollution discharges (much as industries are).

• Prohibit the discharge of sewage, graywater and bilge water within 12 miles of shore

• Require state-of-the-art treatment of waste water that is to be released outside the 12 mile perimeter – Prohibit any dumping of sewage sludge, incinerator ash and hazardous waste in US waters

• Set up inspection and onboard observation to monitor the program.Durbin’s bill also would strengthen discharge requirements for cruise ships operating in the Great Lakes, holding them to the same 12 mile prohibition zone and requiring them to update their technology to treat sewage and gray water before it is discharged into the lakes.

Durbin’s office reports that several environmental groups support his bill, including: Friends of the Earth; Earthjustice; Oceana; Surfrider; Campaign to Safeguard America’s Waters; and Northwest Environmental Advocates.

This video is the one of the first depicting actions around the world as the International Day of Climate Action gets underway. From the shores of New Zealand, residents of Pacific Islands that stand to be destroyed by the rising seas of climate change, have constructed a clothesline with each garment representing a threatened island.

The symbolism is fairly obvious. The event is one of many occurring around the world on Oct. 24, 2009.

Watch the video. It’s self-explanatory.

By now you’ve heard the dire predictions for how sea level rise would affect Miami. Basically this city, already imperiled by worsening hurricanes, is in the bulls-eye for rising oceans too.

But did you realize that a one meter sea level increase — now believed by many scientists to be a likely outcome of global warming by 2100 — would put Philadelphia underwater?

Greenland Ice Flow (Photo: NASA)

Yes, the city of Brotherly Love would be among the large family of coastal cities potentially devastated by coastline changes. And not in the too-distance future either.

According to glacier and ice shelf expert Dr. Gordon Hamilton, Philadelphia could experience troubles decades before that 2100 benchmark if storm surges pushed rising oceans inland.

In other words, there is no magic threshold when the seas, warmed by the atmosphere and swelled by melting ice sheets, will spill over their old boundaries. There is a steady creep occurring now. But flooding, hastened by storms, could happen well before the ocean’s reach the 1 meter increase (absent any serious human action to slow the current progression).

Hamilton, a research professor at the University of Maine who studies melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica , and Dr. Asa Rennermalm, a Rutgers University professor who studies Arctic and Greenland ice sheets,  are kicking off a lecture tour today to spread this news about how the oceans are rising even faster than projected just a couple years ago.

The first talk was this morning at the Wagner Free Institute in Philadelphia followed by a demonstration at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, N.J. Subsequent engagements will take the pair to Miami; Washington, New York City and several other cities. The tour, dubbed the “hip boot tour” to emphasize the reality of the coming floods, is sponsored by Clean Air-Cool Planet, a non-profit dedicated to fighting global warming.

None of these cities where the scientists will be speaking will be spared by rising sea levels. Just as most mega-cities around the globe will be affected, because so many population centers sit on the coast or on rivers that lead directly to the coast. Cities like Paris. And Philadelphia.

Talking to Hamilton is a bit like previewing one of those apocalyptic movies where the world suffers from monster storms, vast floods, temperature changes and incredible destruction of infrastructure.

At a one-meter rise, for instance, the subway entrances in Manhattan would be at the water level, which means the subways would be inundated, permanently, said Dr. Hamilton, whose degree is in geophysics.

One doesn’t need a degree in geophysics to understand the consequences of the nation’s financial capital being underwater. Having St. Louis and Chicago on dry ground would not ameliorate the devastation to humans and world trade.

In Philadelphia, a 1 meter increase would flood the downtown district and areas along the river. Harbor trade would be shut down and on the east side, Camden, N.J., would be inundated. Across New Jersey, aquifers would likely be contaminated with sea water.

Neighborhoods at higher elevations, north and west of Philadelphia would remain dry.

Parts of Florida at 33 feet above sea level and below are shown flooded (Image: NASA.)

In Miami, nothing would be unaffected. A 1 meter sea level rise would put most of the city underwater, and it wouldn’t be alone. “Most of Florida’s big cities would be severely affected,” Hamilton said. Models overlaid on satellite images show Miami, the Keys, St. Petersburg and Tampa under water. The everglades would become a saltwater marsh and aquifers in the state would become brackish or completely salinated.

Hamilton says he shows people how their city’s coastline would change, but also tries to get local audiences to see the global nature of the problem.  “Not only are you flooding downtown DC, but hundreds of millions of people in Southeast Asia like Bangladesh, ” he said.

The key point of the tour is not just to demonstrate impending devastation, but to explain that the threat is more imminent than was predicted by the Interplanetary Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just two years ago.

In 2007, the IPCC warned that the sea levels would rise a little more than half a meter and possibly more. Even at that less drastic increase, the “the impacts are virtually certain to be overwhelmingly negative,” scientists wrote.

That prediction was based on the best available science.

What didn’t make the report, Dr. Hamilton said, was that in 2005, geophysicists studying the freshwater ice sheets in Greenland and changes in Antarctica had witnessed an alarming quickening in the speed of some glaciers as they carried ice toward the ocean.

In Greenland, some of these rivers of ice “were doing these crazy things,” he said. Some were moving 45 meters in a day — about the distance of one half a football field. In glacial terms, they were moving very fast. You could hear the ice cracking, he said.

“Almost over night, in the course of 9 to 10 months, they started moving about three times faster than they had been,” Dr. Hamilton said.

Scientists know the changes were prompted by global warming, and that the ice melts can grow exponentially, with water in crevasses contributing to the problem. But they still don’t understand what it all means. Some glaciers later slowed, but others sped up, Hamilton said. The net effect is likely to be a faster melt, with more water raising the ocean levels worldwide.

“Our talks right now are to emphasize that the picture has changed dramatically. If you were to take a consensus among my colleagues who work in Greenland and Antarctica, everybody is likely to say that it (sea rise) is more likely to be a meter.”

If not more.

“Politicians,” he said, “regardless of their political leanings on climate change need to be aware that they’re ethically bound to consider the upper bounds of sea level change…It’s delinquent for people to say they’re going to plan for the minimum (possible change) and then in 50 years time find that huge amounts of their infrastructure is flooded because they didn’t pay attention.”

• The lecture tour dates and cities are:

• Oct. 20 – Philadelphia

• Oct. 21 -  Portland, Maine

• Oct. 22 – Tampa, Fla.

• Oct. 23 -  Tampa, Fla.

• Oct. 24 – Miami, Fla.

• Oct. 27 -  Wilmington, N.C.

• Oct. 28 – Norfolk, Va.

• Oct. 29 – Hampton, N.H.

For details on those talks see the Clean Air-Cool Planet website. For more information on melting ice and rising ocean levels, as well as other predicted outcomes of global warming, see the US Global Change Research Program 2009 report (East Coasters can see the section on the Northeast) or the  IPCC reports at the United Nation’s website.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Friday will be a milestone day for the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement with the planned announcement that the group has reached 1,000 signatures. Mayors representing 85 million Americans will have signed the pledge to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. cities in line with Kyoto Protocol standards.

U.S. Conference of Mayors President Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will make announcement  during the Conference’s Leadership Meeting from Oct. 1 to Oct. 3 at the Westin Seattle Hotel, where 60-plus U.S. mayors will discuss the continuing recession and “green” economic recovery with White House and Obama Cabinet Officials.

Officials who will address the mayors include U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims, National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske, U.S. Census Bureau Director Dr. Robert Grover, Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller, White House Urban Affairs Office Director Aldofo Carrion and White House Chair on Environmental Quality Nancy Sutley.  Other federal officials will cover topics such as stimulus implementation, climate protection, green jobs, and other federal policies that impact urban and metropolitan areas – many of which have unemployment rates above 10 percent.

The Conference also plans to release a Climate Protection City Profile report that outlines specific actions mayors are taking to make their cities more energy efficient and meet the goals of the Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. Mayor Nickels, who will lead a delegation of mayors supporting Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, initially introduced the agreement in February of 2005 in response to federal inaction on the Kyoto Protocol. The Conference has since held summits on alternative vehicles (2006), green buildings (2006) and climate change (2007).

From Green Right Now Reports

To mark the premiere of Ken Burns’ new PBS documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation will hold a  nationwide day of service and celebration in the parks on Saturday, Sept. 26th, National Public Lands Day. Entrance fees will be waived for the day as America’s national parks will host volunteer activities, and a special sneak preview screenings of the Burns Film.

The National Park Foundation’s First Bloom program has also announced that it will launch its new year of programming with events happening nationwide as part of the celebration. First Bloom works to connect urban youth with the parks. Youth from each program are leading the kick-off event in each location, where they will begin a year-long connection with a local park, facilitated by a local ranger, which will culminate with the youth planting a native garden at that national park.

A few park events include:

• Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial, Austin, TX area – As part of NPF’s First Bloom events, the Austin Boys and Girls Club will arrive at 10 a.m. at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Johnson City. The major activity for the day will be scattering grass seed at the Johnson Settlement. The scattering of the seed will be part of the long term prairie restoration.
• Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island National Monuments (NY/NJ) – In an early kick-off event for the Sept. 26th celebrations, the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island will for the first time, open to the public for special evening tours and program events on Sept. 24 and 25. As part of the festivities, attendees will experience a sneak preview of Ken Burns’ documentary. Ellis Island will be open on the evening of Thursday, Sept. 24 , followed by Liberty Island on Friday, Sept. 25. For tickets, visit http://www.statuecruises.com/night-tour.html.
• National Capital Area Parks (DC/MD/VA/WV) – The 14 national parks of the National Capital Area will each host their own volunteer and special interpretive activities for the community throughout the day. Service projects will vary by site and include trail projects, river clean-ups and exotic plant removal. The service day will conclude with a celebration on the Ellipse from 5-8:30pm featuring fun activities, music, giveaways and a special preview screening of the documentary. The program will include remarks by Ken Burns and other special guests.
• Chattahoochee River NRA (GA) – First Bloom will have an event planting scheduled at lunchtime with Boys and Girls Club and local school. There will also be trail repair projects and debris removal for volunteers.
• Minute Man National Historical Park (MA) – Minute Man will be celebrating its 50th anniversary as a national park on Sept. 26. Volunteers will staff the day-long celebration from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., and will host demonstrations of 18th-century activities including leatherworking, music, and agricultural. Recently rehabbed structures along Battle Road open to the public for the first time.
• Rocky Mountain National Park (CO) – Volunteers will build a new trail along the Continental Divide in the western side of the park. Throughout the day and across the park, a special sneak peak of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea will be viewed. Beginning at 6 p.m., Rocky Mountain PBS and Etown.org will celebrate Ken Burns and his new documentary at Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder.
• Indiana Dunes (IN) – Michigan City Boys & Girls Club members and their families will tour Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, and learn about the different native landscapes of the park. They will be introduced to the First Bloom program & native landscape garden site.
• Valley Forge National Historical Park (PA) – More than 200 volunteers will spend the day building trails, painting cannon, removing crayfish – an invasive species – from the river. The park will also host an environmental expo engaging people in green community activities and businesses.

You can view a full list of park events — updated daily — online.

“Amazon deforestation dropped 46 percent for the period August 2008 – July 2009 when compared to the same period a year before,” according to a report published  in Em Questao, the digital newsletter of the Secretariat of Communications of the Presidency of Brazil. The data was collected by Deforestation Detection in Real Time (DETER) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The results marked the lowest accumulated index since the survey began in May 2004.

The improvement, or slowing of deforestation, appeared mainly due to stricter law enforcement. In the last year, the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) seized approximately 125 thousand cubic meters of timber or about one thousand truck loads per month.

Law enforcement is responsible for approximately 90 percent of the reduction in deforestation indexes, according to Brazil’s Minister of the Environment Carlos Minc. Over the last year, IBAMA seized 62 boats, 237 trucks and 44 tractors, and the federal police initiated 650 probes and arrested 298 people in connection with illegal logging.

Further reductions in the deforestation rate are expected this year, according to Minc. The government plans to achieve this through Macro Ecological-Economic Zoning in the Amazon Region and Arco Verde Legal Land Operation, the Amazon fund to finance preservation activities, and sustainable land use.

Preserving the tropical rainforests in Brazil is a key goal of environmental groups around the world because the undisturbed forests are highly effective at absorbing and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Acre for acre tropical forests can generally hold more carbon than forests in more temperate climates.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Not convinced that climate change matters? The Union of Concerned Scientists has concluded that if Americans adopt that stance, they’ll be gambling not just with their lungs, but with their pocketbooks.

The UCS surveyed 60 studies to better examine the anticipated financial toll of global warming if we fail to “dramatically curb emissions.” The nonprofit released the findings today in a report called “Climate Change in the United States: The Prohibitive Costs of Inaction”.

It found that rising sea levels, intense hurricanes, flooding, impaired public health and strained energy and water resources would all add up to one monumental price tag.

“By late this century, the Midwest could be inundated with more torrential rainstorms costs tens of billions of dollars [in crop and property damage]. California, Washington and Oregon could be hit with an additional billion dollars in property damage from wildfires every year. The Northeast and Northwest, meanwhile, could lost most of their snowpack, which would kill the ski industry,” said Lexi Shultz, deputy director of the Climate Program at UCS.

But wait, there’s good news: The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration says that developing clean energy and taking steps to slow global warming emissions would be affordable. The EIA says that the cost of fighting global warming would only cost each American household about $10 a month in increases in their energy bills by 2020.

The UCS wants us to stack that price tag of about $120 a year against the staggering costs of inaction. If climate change continues unchecked, with temperatures climbing by 7 to 11 degrees by 2100, the UCS report projects that:

• The federal government could end up spending billions fighting wildfires (which would increase by as much as 53 percent in 2100) considering the feds spent $200 million fighting just three wildfires last year in California.

• California would also suffer from heat-related public health issues and associated costs of billions to mitigate the human effects of ground-level ozone, which would worsen under climate change.

• The loss of snowpack would make many recreation areas in the Northeast and the Northwest unsuitable for skiing and snowmobiling, costing, conservatively, a loss of $405 million in annual skiing revenues.

• Reduced snow melt in all of the nation’s mountainous regions could affect water flow in streams and ultimately cost farmers, such as those in New Mexico where the loss of water from reduced snowmelt could cost $21 million a year by 2080.

• Shrinking snowpack would have huge impact in Oregon and Washington on many industries. Losses to the coldwater fishing (angling) industry could ultimately cost about $1 billion annually.

• In the Northeast, sugar maples would lose habitat, meaning annual loss of $5 to $12 million just to that industry.

• Sea level rise all along the East Coast would require seawalls. Possible cost in the Northeast: Up to $1.2 billion, and more in the Southeast

• In the Southeast, where a projected rise of 18 inches is anticipated in sea levels, the beach recreation industry could incur $11 billion in cumulative damages by 2080.

• Georgia alone could lose 5,000 tourism jobs.

• Florida could be especially hard hit, experiencing residential real estate losses of as much as $60 billion a year by 2100, due to sea level rises. The tourism industry could be slapped with more than $175 billion in annual losses due to beach erosion. Property damage from hurricanes could top $100 billion annually by 2100.

• In the Midwest, flooding and heavy downpours predicted by a collaboration of 13 federal agencies, could cause billions of dollars of crop damage and exacerbate erosion, raising the price of food production. Looking at just one state, Illinois, the annual costs to agriculture could reach $9.3 billion.

• Alaska, where warming is occurring disproportionately faster than in other states, would suffer continued damage to infrastructure as the permafrost melts, costing up to $6 billion just by 2030.

As for those who might ask whether these projections are alarmist, a spokesman for the UCS notes that the report was based on “mainstream” studies and that scientists, if anything, tend to err on the of conservatism.

“Most climate scientists acknowledge that current methods of predicting the consequences of climate change may underestimate the real impact and costs of climate change. More carbon dioxide is staying in the atmosphere as the ocean absorbs less and less over time. At the same time, ice sheets appear to be melting more rapidly than scientist have expected,” said Aaron Huertas, press secretary for the UCS, which is based in Massachusetts.

“…If these costs seem large it’s only because our dependence on the relatively stable climate of the past century or so is immense,” Huertas said. “Every home, every crop, every road — our entire civilization — has been built for today’s climate. A rapid shift in our climate will mean major disruptions for our way of life.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

What is so significant about the number 350? It is the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

According to 350.org, carbon dioxide levels are at 387.81 parts per million at this time. The organization is striving to whittle that number down and will be advocating for a stronger global climate treaty at the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December.

“Getting to 350 means developing a thousand different solutions – all of which will become much easier if we have a global treaty grounded in the latest science and built around the principles of equity and justice,” according to the organization’s website.

350.org is organizing a International Day of Climate Action on October 24. So far, 1,378 actions have been registered in 99 countries. You can search for actions in your area or register an action.

Philadelphia is one of the cities signed up to participate. 350philly will be held at 1p.m. on Independence Mall at 5^th and Market Streets. Ray Anderson, radical industrialist and environmental heavyweight, will be the keynote speaker. Participants will gather to form the number 350 that will be photographed from the air.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

The Cash for Clunkers program, which ended this week, may have been more environmentally friendly than originally thought. The concern among environmentalists was that by tossing away old cars and buying news ones, the program encouraged a throw-away society mentality — something Americans are often accused of.

The Sierra Club, says the organization’s policy analyst Jesse Prentice-Dunn, initially had concerns that the bill was weak.

“Now, looking at the final stats,” he says, “consumers did buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. One thing that was very encouraging, was that more than 84 percent traded in trucks and other gas guzzlers; and 59 percent purchased cars.”

They may not have purchased hybrids, says Prentice-Dunn — the Prius was No. 7 on the list of cars purchased. However, the fact that they bought more fuel-efficient cars was important. The Sierra Club, he says, was encouraged by consumers’ choices.

The Cash for Clunkers program made a point, says Prentice-Dunn. “It’s time for national discussion on fuel economy. [The program] helped move us forward on curbing global warming.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation said that under the CARS program — in which consumers traded in outdated vehicles for cash rebates on new car purchases — dealers submitted 690,114 sales totaling $2.88 billion, just shy of the plan’s $3 billion budget.

The biggest industry beneficiaries were Japanese automakers Toyota, Honda and Nissan, which accounted for 41 percent of the new vehicle sales, according to the Associated Press.

That outpaced Detroit automakers General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, which had a share of nearly 39 percent. Toyota Motor Corp. led the industry with 19.4 percent of new sales, followed by General Motors Co. with 17.6 percent and Ford Motor Co. with 14.4 percent, the AP reported.

The Toyota Corolla was the most popular new vehicle purchased under the program. The Honda Civic, Toyota Camry and Ford Focus held the next three top spots. All four are built in the United States.

“This program has been a lifeline to the automobile industry, jump-starting a major sector of the economy and putting people back to work,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “At the same time, we’ve been able to take old, polluting cars off the road and help consumers purchase fuel efficient vehicles.”

The Cash for Clunkers program, as the Sierra Club’s website points out, put the consumer in the driver’s seat to make the best choice. To help with this decision, the site provided readers with advice on making a selection as well as charts to help buyers calculate their savings.

President Barack Obama signed the Clunkers bill, officially named the Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save (CARS) Program, in June. The progam was wildly embraced by consumers when it began in July, and ran out of money in just one week. A second infusion of cash put it back in business in August.

Under the program owners of gas-guzzling cars could trade them in for a $3,500 to $4,500 voucher toward a new and more energy-efficient car. The gas guzzlers had to meet certain age requirements and get 18 miles or less to the gallon.

NPR reported on the program’s merits in a broadcast earlier this week, stating that questions still remain about the program’s effect on the environment. The broadcast quoted Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia Law School’s Center for Climate Change Law, as saying the program was wonderful for the economy, but had only a “middling success for greenhouse gas emissions.” In order to make a large impact, says Gerrard, the government should have demanded a greater mileage differential between the required difference in mileage for old and new vehicles.

Prentice Dunn says he agrees that there should have been more stringent fuel economy considerations in the original CARS legislation. “The Sierra Club endorsed competing proposals in both the House and Senate,” he says. “However, over the duration of the Cash for Clunkers program, we’ve seen that consumers have valued fuel economy and indeed traded in clunkers in favor of more efficient vehicles. Would this be the first policy to turn to in an effort to solve climate change? No. However, because of consumer’s decisions, this program has stimulated auto sales, taken gas-guzzling SUVs off the road and replaced them with more efficient cars and importantly, put the benefits of efficient vehicles and reducing oil dependence and global warmings in water cooler and kitchen table conversations across the country.”

Rae Tyson with the US DOT believes the program was a win-win situation. “You get vehicles off the road that use more fuel and at the same time you send the old ones to salvage yards that can recycle the car parts.”

“The engine is destroyed,” says Tyson, “but then we give salvage yards time to recycle as much of the vehicle as possible. Aluminum, for instance, may end up as the metal of a soft drink can. The only parts that can’t be recycled are shredded and crushed. “The vehicle’s end products do not end up in the landfill, says Tyson.

The Sierra Club’s Prentice-Dunn notes that the law is clear. “The car dealers have to show proof that they have disabled the engines — [the part of the vehicle] which has us addicted to oil. Then car dealers have 180 days to recycle the parts, remove mercury and sell the rest as scrap.”

Prentice-Dunn says he’s impressed with  the Department of Transportation, which “has had to do the bulk of the heaving lifting in a short time frame” to put Cash for Clunkers into effect.

Irwin Dawid, a member of the Sierra Club’s California Air Quality Committee, acknowledges that while some environmentalists dismissed the program because of its lack of improvements on vehicle efficiency, the program did succeed on two levels.

“Not only did the motorist purchase a more efficient vehicle, but guzzlers were literally being scrapped. While many parts can be pulled for resale, the engine and the drive train go to the shredder, along with the rest of the clunker that is recycled. More importantly, from an air quality perspective, the gains are more substantial than the energy savings as new vehicles, including SUVs and trucks, are far cleaner than older models because of the advanced emission technology.”

Perhaps Cash for Clunkers was not green enough for everyone. Yet it did bring fuel economy to the forefront of a needed national conversation.

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