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Boycotting, sitting in, sleeping out – the quickening politics of climate change
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
One thing you can say about the politics of climate change — people are getting hotter about it.
As we approach the Copenhagen world conference (Dec. 6 – 18), those close to the negotiating progress are becoming more frustrated with the plodding pace of official change.
This week in Barcelona, where negotiators met for pre-talks, activists and leaders of African nations demonstrated to try to win more concessions from industrial nations.
Student activists staged a sit-in at the doors to the conference to press for greater reductions in greenhouse gas targets, beyond even the 30 percent reduction by 2020 proposed by the European Union. What this portends for the US, which hasn’t yet put numbers on the table, is anyone’s guess.
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Tags: · Activists/Authors, African nations, BarbaraKesslerBlog, boycotts, Climate Change, Copenhagen, protests, Republican senators, United Nations Climate Change Conference
Climate expert James Hansen to join sleep outs in Boston
Green Right Now Reports
Dr. James Hansen, the NASA scientist known for sounding an early alarm about climate change, will join student protesters at a “sleep out” in Boston this weekend.
The students, from Boston-area and other Massachusetts colleges, have been sleeping out on Boston Common and at various campuses to push the state to pass a law committing to clean energy. Their target goal: Have Massachusetts pledge to be using 100 percent clean energy by 2020.
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Tags: · Boston, clean energy, Climate Change, Dr. James Hansen, Massachusetts, sleep outs to protest
Sea level rises would flood Philly…and NYC and DC and Miami
[caption id="attachment_5930" align="alignright" width="157" caption="Greenland Ice Flow (Photo: NASA)"]  [/caption]
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
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?
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.
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Tags: · Antarctica, Arctic ice, Asa Rennermalm, Clean Air Cool Planet, Climate Change, Gordon Hamilton, Greenland ice sheets melting, Hip Boot Tour, ice bergs, ice floes, rising ocean levels, sea levels
Youth receive Brower Awards for environmental work
By Harriet Blake
As the Nobel Prize Committee noted in awarding President Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize last week, the world is in a better place than it was a year ago.
The world also is in a better place thanks to six young people who are being honored on Tuesday for their heroic environmental efforts. [...]
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Tags: · Adarsha Shivakumar, Alec Loorz, Brower Youth Awards, Climate Change, Diana Lopez, Earth Island Institute, Hai Vo, Nobel Peace Prize, Robin Bryan, Sierra Crain-Murdoch, teen climate activitists, The Climate Project, youth activism, youth environmentalists, youth movement
Gloom sets in over Copenhagen
September 25th, 2009 · No Comments
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
As if the dire predictions about the sad state of the planet aren’t enough, we’re now being treated to gloomy forecasts about whether our leaders have the will to do anything about it.
At the Climate Summit at the United Nations in NYC observers had hoped for a breakthrough pledge or statement from either US President Barack Obama or China’s President Hu Jintao. But the event was long on rhetoric, short on serious commitment and left many advocates muttering their disappointment, mainly because the leaders of the two most polluting nations are still playing chess.
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Tags: · Barak Obama, BarbaraKesslerBlog, Climate Change, Climate Summit, Copenhagen Climate Conference, global warming, Hu Jintao, United Nations
Think healthcare’s costly? Check out the co-pay for climate change
September 10th, 2009 · No Comments
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
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.
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Tags: · clean energy, Climate Change, costs of global warming, floods, global warming, hurricanes, sea level rises, Union of Concerned Scientists
Report says electricity providers feeling stress of climate change
From Green Right Now Reports
Nearly all the world’s electric utilities now believe that climate change is threatening power outages, higher costs and changes in usage as demand grows to power the world’s expanding cities, according to a new report from Acclimatise.
Over ninety percent of the global electric utilities that report climate change activity to the Carbon Disclosure Project say they are at risk from changes in climate and water availability, which are already adding stress to the sector. However, fewer than a third say they are undertaking any financial or quantified evaluation to the impact of climate change on their business.
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Tags: · Carbon Disclosure Project, Climate Change, Electric utilities, IBM
Human nature, moral imperatives and vegan shoes
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Could all of our efforts to become green — our rehabbing of buildings, spurning of plastic bags and buying of new hybrids — turn out to be mere tinkerings in the tool shed as the whole grand project collapses around us?
That seems to be the point up for consideration these days. That this whole Save-the-Earth thing might be bigger than a green fashion trend or an overhaul of the auto industry. It might require more drastic action than turning down our newly installed programmable thermostats.
Recently, the New York Times ran a blog item about a study showing that having babies is one of the non-greenest things you can do, especially if you’re a Westerner and your baby is destined to be a giant among world consumers. This is sort of a “duh”. But the University of Oregon scientists quantified the impact, concluding that an American child would have seven times the impact of a Chinese-born kiddo.
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Tags: · Carbon footprint, Climate Change, consumerism, culture of stuff, Population, rainforest, shoes, stay-cations, University of Oregon, World Watch Institute
California teen starts Kids vs. Global Warming group
By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now
At a time when most 15-year-olds are thinking about sports, learning to drive and dating, Alec Loorz is trying to stop global warming.
The Ventura, California teen is the creator of Kids vs. Global Warming, a non-profit group dedicated to getting youth involved in the fight against global warming. “As young [...]
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Tags: · Al Gore, Alec Loorz, Alliance for Climate Education, Climate Change, Copenhagen, global warming, Inconvenient Truth, Kids vs. Global Warming, United Nations Climate Change Conference
McKinsey & Company: Quick, get out the duct tape!
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Wherever you turn, someone, somewhere is talking about climate change. And that’s a good thing. But it’s not a happy conversation. Often, the discussion pivots on how much time we have left to reel in our carbon emissions — and among those who consider climate change a real threat (let’s say the majority of us), the realistic answer to that is, less than a decade.
Give or take a month. (I’m kidding.)
So we’ve got to make some real progress, fast.
Here’s some good news, being highlighted by the WorldWatch Institute today. McKinsey & Company says the U.S. could reduce it’s “non-transportation” energy consumption by 23 percent by 2020.
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Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, Climate Change, energy efficiency, energy savings, McKinsey and Company, Worldwatch Institute
Poll finds that a majority of Americans support climate change regulation
From Green Right Now Reports:
A majority of Americans – about 75 percent – support regulating greenhouse gases from power plants, cars and manufacturing that would reduce global warming, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
But only a bare majority – 52 percent – support a cap-and-trade approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and 42 percent oppose such a program, which is the type of approach taken in the Waxman-Markey climate legislation expected to be voted on in the US House of Representations, possibly Friday.
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Tags: · ABC News, Air Pollution, American Clean Energy and Security Act, cap-and-trade, Climate Change, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, poll, Washington Post, Waxman-Markey
A Colorado vacation shows why environmentalism matters
By John DeFore
Green Right Now
The old-fashioned American road trip — packing the kids up and driving from one motor lodge to the next — may seem less than 100% wholesome these days, what with eco-conscious drivers becoming as sensitive to the amount of CO2 they’re generating as they are to cries of “are we there yet?” from the back seat.
But getting out into the natural world remains one of the best ways to introduce children — and city-dwelling adults, for that matter — to the environment we all want to preserve. And a well planned road trip can provide vacationers with an array of views and experiences that’s stunning enough to make a phrase like “ecosystem diversity” suddenly sound like a tangible good worth fighting for instead of a dry academic concern.
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Tags: · Black Canyon of Gunnison, Climate Change, Climate Change in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, Colorado State Parks, eco-travel, Estes Park, Garden of the Gods, Glenwood Canyon, Glenwood Springs, Gunnison, Mesa Verde, mild winters, pine beetle, Rocky Mountain National Park, Rocky Mountains, Trail Ridge Road
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