Pat Mooney on the Dangers of Geoengineering and Manipulating the Planet to Combat Climate Change

DemocracyNow!
April 20, 2010

Supporters of geoengineering have proposed radical ways to alter the planet to decrease the level of greenhouse gas emissions. Proposals include creating artificial volcanoes to pollute the atmosphere with sulphur particles, fertilizing the oceans and placing sun-deflecting aluminum foil in the sky. But opposition is growing to geoengineering. Here at the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change in Bolivia, the ETC Group is launching an international campaign against geoengineering experiments. We speak with the group’s founder, Pat Mooney, a Right Livelihood Award winner...

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Five Innovation Initiatives for 2008

Five Innovation Initiatives for 2008
Getting the economics right can win lasting environmental solutions
Environmental Defense

How can we best implement environmental protections that last? One way is by getting the economics right.

Over the last two decades, we've worked with companies, policy makers, ranchers, fishermen and others to leverage market and business incentives to develop and promote lasting environmental goals, from species protections to cleaner air to healthier food choices and more.

Here are Five Innovation Initiatives for 2008 that adopt this powerful, innovative approach to environmental stewardship.


Initiative #1: Fighting Global Warming
Global warming is the most serious environmental threat of our time. But after years of debate, Congress still hasn't passed national climate legislation.

Luckily, 2007 was a year of incredible progress in the fight against global warming and set the perfect stage for a national climate bill to be passed in 2008.

Fighting global warming is our number one priority this year. We support a cap-and-trade approach, which sets a hard cap on America's global warming pollution and harnesses the forces of markets to achieve cost-effective emission reductions.

This approach provides economic incentives to inventors, businesses and entrepreneurs to invent and deploy new and existing technologies to reduce America's global warming pollution. The cap gives us the emission reductions we need, while the ability to trade pollution credits rewards innovation.

With staff on the ground across the country and a team of legislative experts on Capitol Hill, we will do everything we can to bring both House and Senate together in agreement on a national, economy-wide cap on global warming pollution.

Waiting a mere two years to pass legislation will double the annual rate at which the US must cut emissions in order to bring them down to where they need to be by 2020.

2008 is the year for the global warming action. We have no time to lose.


Initiative #2: Clean Cities
Traffic congestion is getting worse in nearly every major American city, and many of the smaller ones, too. People are spending more time on clogged roads, wasting fuel, polluting our air and contributing to global warming.

But there are innovative new tools that can help. For example, New Yorkers and the environment celebrated a big win in 2007 when Mayor Bloomberg announced his visionary 'greenprint' for New York City.

A centerpiece of PlaNYC is congestion pricing - using traffic fees to reduce congestion and invest in public transportation throughout the city. And, congestion pricing would help reach Mayor Bloomberg's goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2030 in NYC.

This spring, the state legislature and city council will be making do-or-die decisions about congestion pricing. Green building incenitves and ways to encourage redevelopment of vacant induatrial lands --"brownfields" -- are on tap for policy changes in the next 18 months.

We are already working to promote changes like these in other major cities across the country. And we have been invited to advise on transportation reform in Jakarta, Indonesia and in Mexico City.

Economics-based tools like congestion pricing are critical to our efforts to make transportation more efficient and less polluting. As the planet becomes more and more urbanized, getting the price signals right is key to a healthy future.


Initiative #3: Sustainable Farming
The Farm Bill is the largest source of conservation funding in America. Passing a Farm Bill in 2008 that takes better care of farmers and the environment remains one of our top priorities.

The current House and Senate versions of the bill allow millionaire farmers to continue collecting unlimited subsidies and leave conservation, nutrition and rural development programs critically underfunded.

As the bill goes to conference, we will keep the pressure on, highlighting the weaknesses in both versions and the importance of equitable, common-sense reforms. We will also work to protect the nearly $5 billion in new conservation funding in these two versions of the bill -- not enough to meet farmer demand, but a critical step in the right direction.

Our Farm Bill legislative work goes hand-in-hand with our other Land, Water & Wildlife work using win-win incentives to encourage ranchers, farmers and other private landowners to restore and conserve endangered species habitat, wetlands and watersheds and reduce harmful runoff.

In 2008, we will continue to encourage and reward voluntary conservation practices with financial, technical and legal assurance incentives. Our team will maintain ongoing partnerships with landowners and private land interests across the country, while developing new incentive-based projects and working for increased use of voluntary incentive programs.


Initiative #4: Sustainable Seafood
Higher profits, less waste and safer fishing practices are desirable for any commercial fisherman. Environmental Defense found success in all three areas this year with the implementation of a precedent-setting catch share program for the red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico.

Just 12 months after the program began, preliminary data show that the fishing season has lengthened, the price of red snapper has increased and bycatch - the unintentional killing of fish - has declined by at least half.

Catch share programs allocate a share of the yearly catch to individual fishermen. This rewards conservation practices and allows fishermen to maximize their profit by buying and selling shares with others.

In 2008, while continuing to monitor and ensure the success of the red snapper program, Environmental Defense will work to increase active catch share programs across the country by at least 50 percent. Our Oceans team is working to secure approval for programs on the West Coast, in the South Atlantic and New England.

We will also work to create higher market demand for environmentally sustainable seafood in the coming year.


Initiative #5: Corporate Partnerships
We have a unique, market-based approach of working directly with companies to improve business practices and reduce their environmental footprints. We work to influence the buying power of large corporations to affect the way goods and services are produced. Changes along the supply chain will reach customers world-wide, resulting, over time, in significant environmental progress.

We are working with Wal-Mart to develop packaging reduction and greenhouse gas emissions goals for its major suppliers and to create market demand for renewable energy. With nearly 200 million customers each week, 61,000 suppliers and 5300 stores world-wide, the largest company in the world has an unprecedented capacity to affect major environmental change.

We are working with Wegmans Food Stores to bring healthier seafood choices to consumers. Together we've developed new purchasing standards for farmed salmon and farmed shrimp that will prevent fish farming from destroying eco-systems, using needless chemicals and antibiotics, and threatening wild fish populations. Wegmans stores are the first to stock eco-friendly farmed salmon and shrimp that meet these more stringent health and environmental standards. The next step is for major food suppliers to adopt these same standards.

Even in this increasingly online world, paper use continues to rise. Our Corporate Partnerships team recognized a need to help companies reduce paper use and costs. The result was an online Paper Calculator tool that allows companies large and small to calculate the environmental benefits of better paper choices. Each month, companies such as Random House, Staples, PepsiCo, and Starbucks use our Paper Calculator to assess their paper purchases.

In 2008, we will forge ahead with our existing partnerships and move towards cultivating partnerships with new corporations. In keeping with our market-based approach, company interests and environmental progress will remain our foremost priorities.

http://environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?contentID=7504

Face It: There is a Solution to Global Warming

SANTA FE, NM — According to Architecture 2030, there is a 'silver bullet' solution to global warming and it's time the nation faced up to it. To get its message out, the non-profit research organization will be hosting a nationwide webcast, called Face It, focusing on the solution. In addition, during the webcast, they will unveil two competitions about the solution with $20,000 in prize money.

To help kick off and input Focus the Nation, the Face It webcast will be broadcast from Architecture 2030's website, www.architecture2030.org, beginning at 9 am on January 30, 2008. Focus the Nation, a national effort to engage students, faculty, administrators, citizens and government officials in discussions to address global warming, takes place January 31, 2008.

The Face It webcast will build on the information provided during Architecture 2030's highly successful webcast, The 2010 Imperative Global Emergency Teach-in. The Teach-in, which broadcast live in February 2007 and focused on the role of design education in global warming, reached a quarter of a million students, design professionals and government officials worldwide.



The solution to global warming, according to the founder of Architecture 2030, Edward Mazria, is two-fold. "Energy use is at the heart of global warming. There are two sides to energy use, supply and demand, so any viable solution must address both sides of this coin." On the supply side, Mazria advocates first for a US and then a global moratorium on the construction of any new conventional coal plants, and the gradual phasing out of existing coal plants by 2050. On the demand side, he advocates for adoption and implementation of The 2030 Challenge, a global initiative calling for all new buildings and renovations to reduce their fossil-fuel greenhouse-gas-emitting consumption by 50% by 2010, and that all new buildings be 'carbon neutral' by 2030. To Architecture 2030's credit, the organization's 2030 Challenge has been adopted and supported by numerous groups, including the US Conference of Mayors, American Institute of Architects, National Association of Counties, US Green Building Council, California Public Utilities Commission, California Energy Commission and EPA's Target Finder, as well as many individual cities, counties and states. Beginning in 2008, the federal government will require the Challenge energy reduction targets for all new and renovated federal buildings.



The Face It webcast is part of Architecture 2030's larger Reverberate Campaign, which will involve several events throughout 2008. The first of these are the two Reverberate Competitions to be unveiled during the webcast. Students will be asked to create something (you'll have to tune in to the webcast to learn what) that will reverberate throughout their campus and society at large. There will be two categories, graphic design and video. In addition to the $20,000 in prize money that will be distributed amongst the winners, the winning graphic design entry will appear in a full-page ad in Metropolis magazine and the winning video entry will be highlighted in a Metropolis article and featured on the Metropolis and Architecture 2030 websites.



About Architecture 2030:



Architecture 2030 is a non-profit organization working to achieve a dramatic reduction in the global-warming-causing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of buildings by changing the way they are designed and constructed.



Contact Info:



Kristina Kershner
Director
Architecture 2030
Tel : 505-930-7799
E-mail : Kershner@architecture2030.org



Website : Architecture 2030

Step It Up 2007 Turn off a lightbulb today...

Florida Today Newspaper Saturday, November 3, 2007 Local News - Environment

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007711030329

Event asks politicians to step it up

Melbourne, Cocoa Beach join U.S. climate movement
BY MARIA SONNENBERG



Warning. Mark Bush, professor of biological sciences at Florida Tech, says climate change will be swift and drastic. "It's just about making smart decisions," Bush said. Today's National Day for Climate Action will include two events in Brevard. In Melbourne, shops will advertise what they're doing to save energy. In Cocoa Beach, Audubon of Florida will host a rally for conservation from 11:30 to noon. for FLORIDA TODAY

Change your lightbulb, and save a polar bear. Adjust your thermostat, and help a parrot.

Just little changes can make a big difference in the global environment, according to Step It Up, the New Hampshire-based group that organized the National Day of Climate Action, a series of grassroots events today.

The National Day for Climate Action builds on Step It Up's April rally that featured almost 1,500 events nationwide.

Today's activities are aimed at catching politicians' eyes.

"Enormous participation across the country should be a wake-up call to politicians," Step It Up co-coordinator May Boeve said.

The group is pushing for cuts in carbon emissions, known as greenhouse gases, with a pledge of an 80 percent reduction by 2050.

To symbolize the need for political leadership, some of the events are planned at historic sites, such as the Lincoln Memorial and along Paul Revere's route.

The day dovetails with PowerShift 2007, a major youth conference on global warming this weekend in Washington.

Joining the national movement are two events in Brevard.

In Melbourne, Bobbie Richardson encouraged local shops to reduce energy use and to advertise their action with a sign.

In Cocoa Beach, Audubon of Florida hosts a rally for conservation from 11:30 to noon today at 1550 N. Atlantic Ave.

Time is of the essence, scientists say. NASA's James Hansen said the world has less than a decade to transform its attitude, or it will face a wilting planet.

It may be too late to prevent global warming, but Step It Up's suggestions may be enough to stop the worst.

"Climate change is the biggest issue we face," said Mark Bush, professor of biological sciences at Florida Tech.

When change does arrive, it will be swift and drastic, he said.

"We've been in this period of a very stable climate, but you trip the trigger, and things can change in three to 10 years," Bush said.

While Florida can rely on the ocean as a buffer, other states, such as drought-stricken Georgia, may not be so lucky.

"We're going into unknown territory," Bush said.

Green technology, such as hybrid automobiles, is attracting consumer interest, but more support is needed if individuals really want to bring about change, he said.

"It's just about making smart decisions," Bush said. "People don't like to make tough choices, but if oil goes over $100 a gallon, they will be demanding cars that average 50 miles to the gallon. When people put their minds to it, they can influence history."

New Zealand Commits to 90% Renewable Electricity by 2025

New Zealand Commits to 90% Renewable Electricity by 2025
Wellington, New Zealand [RenewableEnergyAccess.com]

In a speech this week, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke announced New Zealand's intention to commit to 90% renewable electricity by 2025, according to a press release issued by the New Zealand government.

The country already uses 70% renewable electricity, primarily hydro- and geothermal power and will continue to increase its use of renewables over the next 20 years.

Eventually, the Prime Minister would like to see the country carbon-neutral. “I have set out the challenge to our nation to become the first truly sustainable nation on earth…to dare to aspire to be carbon neutral," Prime Minister Clarke said.

The Prime Minister also gave a brief outline of further goals, which included a 2040 target of reducing by half per capita emissions from transport and widely introducing electric vehicles. She also stated the goal of achieving a net increase in forest area of 250,000 hectares (617,000 acres) by 2020.

“The long-term benefits of becoming a sustainable nation will spread beyond our national reputation and success in business to benefit all New Zealanders,” Prime Minister Clarke added.

Further announcements will be made in the coming weeks as the government releases the New Zealand Energy Strategy, the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy and the Transport Strategy Implementation Plan. Stay tuned.