It\’s Getting Hot In Here

This blog post was written by Chesapeake Climate Action Network Intern, Peebles Squire. It is cross-posted on the CCAN Blog and Powershift09 Blog.

Surry, Virginia, is about as picturesque as they come. A portrait of the rural south, Surry and its neighbor, Dendron, offer testament to the unique charm and unavoidable beauty that accompanies the idea of small-town America. Wary of outsiders and exceptionally warm toward neighbors and friends, the residents of Surry County understand the inherent splendor of a life that is unhindered by external influence. Naturally, it comes as no surprise that Old Dominion Electric Cooperative’s proposed dirty, unhealthy, coal-fired power plant has been received with very few open arms in the community.

Continue reading ‘Hope for Surry shines through the smog’

Denver, CO– Two Earth First! activists were arrested at a Home Depot last week in Glendale, CO. The arrests followed a banner being hung off the roof of a Home Depot store reading “Dam Home Depot, NOT Patagonia!” Supporters of the arrested activists demand that Home Depot cut all ties to companies involved in the HidroAysen megadam project in Patagonia.

The banner-drop action was intended to remind both the public and the company: “We’ve fought The Home Depot before and won.” Almost ten years ago, Earth First! groups around the country joined with Rainforest Action Network and others forced Home Depot to adopt wood product policies that removed old growth from their shelves. But their ongoing economic involvement with the Chilean interests that are proposing to dam wild rivers with the HidroAysen project in Patagonia shows their commitments to ‘green business’ practices to be merely empty Public Relations maneuvering. Continue reading ’2 Earth First! activists arrested protesting Home Depot’s involvement in dirty energy.’

There is light at the end of the tunnel, if Canada chooses to walk towards it.

Canadian negotiators are stuck between a rock and a hard place. These people, government bureaucrats, are sent in good faith by the Canadian government to discuss and deliver on agreements under global climate change agreements. The team may very well be sent with specific mandates of flexibility (or lack thereof), and there may be little room to actually negotiate. But there is room. Plenty of it, and full of potential.

We must remember that we are working with a government that 1) cut climate change funding by 80% in the first month of being elected, and 2) is the only country in the world that has said it will *not* meet its Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets.

We’re also working with a country with an economy currently depends largely on 1) our 2nd largest oil reserve in the world, after Saudi Arabia, and 2) trade relationships with the United States of America.

This means that there is reason to back down on climate commitments, but certainly not reason enough to outweigh the reason why we should live up to our word – and to our world.

…Continue reading “Let’s be honest here.”

Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) is very excited to announce that this spring, we’ve been able to award 5 junior and 11 senior high school students with ACE Action Scholarships! The quantity and quality of the applications we received was incredible and first and foremost we must say a sincere THANK YOU to everyone who applied, for their ongoing efforts to lower their carbon emissions and raise their voices.

The Winners
From designing eco-conscious fashion, to researching fuel originating from microscopic bugs, to banning plastic bags in cities, the winning students’ projects really encapsulate the diversity of thought and solutions needed to overcome the climate crisis. There is no silver bullet when it comes to solving the climate crisis. We need all of you, all of your ideas, your creative energy. And while climate news seems to get worse each day, student projects happening around the Bay Area (and no doubt our country) are reasons to be optimistic.

The Full Scoop
Want to read more? Find out who these Action Scholars are?? We won’t keep you in the dark any longer! Click here to read all about this year’s ACE Action Scholars.

And in case you missed us this time around, check back in the fall as we’ll be opening our scholarship and grant program back up to more applicants.

Rock on, and thank you for all of your hard work!

In yesterday’s interaction Mr Pradipto Ghosh’s, an Indian negotiator, the major message was that these negotiations need to ensure that India can continue its growth.

I agree with Mr Ghosh’s comment. India does need to “grow”. With the largest population of people living below the world’s poverty line, with 400 million people who can’t access commercial energy, with major issues social justice, we cannot afford to agree to a deal that will impede on our development. Before we tackle problems of tomorrow we need to tackle the problems of today.

However in my opinion the detail is in the definition of growth and development. Will it be through lots of big dirty coal power plants? Or clean renewables? Will it be through excessive consumption by the upper class? Or through increasing the living standards amongst those poorest in India? The devil is in the detail. Our growth needs to ensure energy security, food security, water security and equity within our own country. We can’t continue growth in our business as usual style. Continue reading ‘My first date with the Indian negotiators in Bonn’

There is ample reason for disappointment over the current climate bill’s public investment priorities which in Rep. Markey’s own words has “huge subsidies for clean coal—huge—much more than we have in for renewables.” However, the amount of investment and the sectors of the economy into which it goes are only part of the bigger problems regarding popular democratic control over investment  decisions and their outcomes. When the goal of technology development is economic monopoly power and profit maximization rather than maximum social benefit, certain results tend to follow be it in the field of medicine or energy.

In a recent article Mark Weisbrot spotlights some of the increasingly obvious contradictions of accumulation and imperialism surrounding investment in the private sector for the development  technologies aimed at mediating climate change:

“According to Inside U.S. Trade, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is gearing up for a fight to limit the access of developing countries to Environmentally Sound Technologies (ESTs).  They fear that international climate change negotiations, taking place under the auspices of the United Nations, will erode the position of corporations holding patents on existing and future technologies.  Developing countries such as Brazil, India, and China have indicated that if — as expected in the next few years — they are going to have to make sacrifices to reduce carbon emissions, they should be able to license some of the most efficient available technologies for doing so.

Continue reading ‘US Capitalists Organize Energy Tech Patents for Extortion of World’s Most Vulnerable’

We’ve got your back.

To be exact, Reed Schuler (US), Anna Collins (UK), Leela Raina (India), Cara Bevington (Australia), myself (Canada), Eri Aoki (Japan),  Ole Seidenberg (Germany), Andrea Cinquina (Italy), Benoît Kubiak and Florent Baarsh (France), and Jonathan Sundqvist (Sweden) will be watching the delegations of their countries as they negotiate at the United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany over the next two weeks, June 2-12.

Why these countries? Because their actions, positions and decision at the United Nations (UN) over the coming weeks have the ability to influence and shift the way in which the world continues to address climate change.

Adopt a Negotiator is a cross-alliance campaign project designed to open international climate negotiations to people around the world. For the first time, individual concerned citizens will be closely following the progress of UN talks and reporting them directly to people around the world who are demanding climate justice.

The project launches at the UN intersessional Bonn 2 with Negotiator Trackers adopting a lead negotiator and negotiating team from key countries in the talks. The Trackers will be watching and monitoring the actions of negotiating teams from Bonn to Copenhagen, aiming to make the world of complex climate negotiations accessible to a global audience.

You can follow the regular updates from these countries on http://www.adoptanegotiator.org/  or sign up for regular email updates at http://avaaz.org/en/adopt_a_negotiator/

Inspirational banners, music, drums and polar bears welcomed delegates to the thirtieth sessions of the UNFCCC Convention subsidiary bodies – SBSTA and SBI, sixth session of the AWG-LCA and the eighth session of the AWG-KP this morning at the Maritim Hotel in Bonn. Delegates in Bonn will be hammering out the draft text for the Conference of Parties (COP 15) in Copenhagen in December, 2009.

This important meeting will see an unprecedented level of youth engagement for an intercessional. Following on the successful participation at Bonn I, the international youth have descended on Bonn. Action factories, negotiator trackers, 350.org, a day of action and regular actions throughout the conference will remind the delegates that we are watching.

See more images from the first day in Bonn here. (©Robert van Waarden)