February 29th, 2012

San Francisco’s Green Film Festival kicks off this week, with 40 films from around the world and dozens of directors and speakers slated to appear at showings from March 1-7. The second annual festival also will feature US premieres of foreign films, such as Waking the Green Tiger, a chronicle of China’s rising eco-awareness, and Just Do It: A Tale of Modern Day Outlaws, which follows activists in Great Britain on a whirlwind of zany actions to stop polluters. See snapshots of these two films, and two other fascinating works, Urban Roots and Blood in the Mobile, below.

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August 31st, 2010

A review ordered by the United Nations has determined that the global panel on climate change needs to “fundamentally reform” how it functions in the wake of errors in a key report that damaged the group’s credibility. The review was conducted by the InterAcademy Council, which groups 15 leading science academies. It came about after the “Climategate” scandal erupted in the face of errors and lack of documentation found in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 study, which suggested that carbon emissions from burning coal, gas and oil were already hurting the planet.

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April 12th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Image: denmark.dk

About 175 nations will continue climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, later this year, but the United Nations’ top climate official predicts a full treaty won’t be completed in 2010.

Delegates at the April 9-11 talks in Bonn agreed to meet November 29-December 10 in Cancun as debate between rich and poor nations on the subject of global warming continued to produce little in the way of substantive agreement. The recent discussions came in the wake of last December’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which produced the Copenhagen Accord that stated objectives but largely left open the question of how they might be accomplished.

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February 2nd, 2010

By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

When President Barack Obama was sworn into office just one year ago, he promised hope to a country in the midst of economic, environmental, and political turmoil. Environmentally, however, the Obama administration that promised “change” has fallen a few cents short, according to one key environmental group, The Center for Biological Diversity.

The administration’s actions (and inaction) are speaking louder than its words, in the view of the center’s Obama Administration First-Year Report Card. Obama’s overall grade: a “C” in protecting (and failing to protect) the environment.

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December 29th, 2009

Thursday, Dec. 17

Hillary breaks through the chatter

Amid the cacophony in Copenhagen, a bright spot.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to a packed press conference, pledging that the U.S. would help raise $100 billion a year by 2020 in aid to developing nations to mitigate climate change effects.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Her words, despite the surrounding maelstrom of discontented protesters, developing nations worried about being marginalized and others who’ve declared the talks either stalled or in chaos, could help bring clarity as the historic summit lurches toward a close on Friday.

The pledge, which Clinton said would come from a mix of public and private money, including funds raised on the carbon market, speaks to both those negotiating on behalf of the other leading nations who want to see the U.S. put real money on the table , and to those in developing nations, many of whom doubt that the rich nations have the political will to put up a strong and well-funded fight against climate change.

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December 19th, 2009

Green Right Now Reports

The two week summit on climate change in Copenhagen wound to a close Saturday with the United Nations issuing a news release that many nations had agreed upon the issues that need to be addressed.

The agreement, seen either as a foothold or a failure in the fight against climate change, fell far short of the hoped-for signed treaty that would have included firm commitments on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the countries around the world.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it “an essential beginning.”

“The importance will only be recognized when it’s codified into international law … We must transform this into a legally binding treaty next year,” he told the BBC.

The accord provides for industrialized nations to commit to specific emissions reductions targets by stating them within the agreement by the end of January, 2010. The top GHG-polluting nations include China, the United States, Russia, India and Japan, followed by Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Iran.

Here is the news release from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the arm of the UN that oversaw talks:

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December 17th, 2009

Green Right Now Reports

Greenpeace doesn’t want American citizens to forget who’s stalling progress on climate action, namely, entrenched industrial polluters.

Greenpeace at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Building (Photo: Robert Meyers)

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December 15th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler Green Right Now Aiming to help put the Copenhagen climate talks on a track toward success, 1 Sky has called for President Obama to tap fossil fuel subsidies to fund developing nations. “Outrageously, the U.S. spends more than $10 billion of taxpayer money per year on subsidies to fossil fuel companies. Meanwhile, [...]

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December 11th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Candlelight vigils have been held for a lot of causes. The cause for a series of vigils this weekend trumps almost anything in scope. Millions of climate activists are expected to light candles to advocate for the safety and preservation of the planet.

The candlelight vigils on Friday and Saturday evenings, will happen around the globe, as climate advocates send a somber signal to negotiators in Copenhagen to make a “real deal” by signing a fair and ambitious treaty to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that are triggering a climate disaster.

Organizers report that these events, some large and some small, many at iconic locations, and one in Copenhagen featuring Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, are beginning now. Check out the pictures and details at TckTckTck.org, the alliance through which many groups are organizing events. Find a local vigil to join at 350.org.

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December 9th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

One of the most disheartening aspects of the Copenhagen climate talks, beyond the sheer weight of the topic, has been how politicians and handicappers have lowered expectations for the U.S..

Take, for example, the notion that President Obama cannot even sign a binding agreement in the absence of a Congressional mandate or climate bill to back him up, and that he must have a supportive Senate because they’ll be needed to ratify any climate treaty. (And clearly they’re not supportive, having failed so far to pass a strong climate bill, let alone a weak one.)

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December 8th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

This past year is expected to rank among the top 10 warmest on record, since record-keeping began in 1850.

The combined global sea and land surface air temperature readings for 2009 (January to October) suggest it will be about the fifth warmest year on record, making the last decade definitively warmer than the 1990s, which was warmer on average than the 1980s, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

The tentative ranking for 2009, was affected by above-normal temperatures recorded in “most parts of the continents,” the WMO reported in a release on its findings, which also detailed droughts and weather fluctuations around the globe.

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December 8th, 2009

One of the many pieces of the massive Climate Change Quilt, this one from Australia.

By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

The little things, we know, can make a difference. Take for example a little square of fabric clipped from something old – a T-shirt, a pillowcase, any old thing that has seen better days.

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