It’s Getting Hot In Here

In Grand County, Utah, people are thirsty. Utah is a desert state; it’s a thirsty place. What we love about Utah is its unique, gorgeous, otherworldly geography, which keeps us coming back or sticking around. So explain this logic to me: a horrifying and unprecedented project could put Utah’s Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon Recreation Area at serious risk, while at the same time thrusting a new source of water-depleting, CO2-billowing, filthy, and geographically destructive (but pseudoprofitable!) business into the equation.

I’m talking about the first ever bona fide tar sands extraction project in the United States of America–right here, in my own backyard!

You might have heard about the tar sands extraction happening in Canada. This nightmarish debacle has transformed countless acres of priceless Canadian biodiversity into a sticky black cesspool, for primarily America consumption. Don’t take my word for it; do a simple Google image search for “Canadian Tar Sands.” After you’ve done that, imagine the effect these proposed tar pits would have on the land immediately adjacent to the sites. Now picture that land as Canyonlands National Park. I’m not making this up. Continue reading ‘First US Tar Sands to Break Ground in Utah’

It’s Oscar time and people are all counting the days until we can sit down, play the Oscar polls, critique the Oscar De La Renta dresses, and cringe at the hot mess that is Mariah Carey. Oddly enough I’m now eagerly waiting with them this year; not to compare my impeccable eye for style, or guess the winner of the Best Song (Weary Heart, from Crazyheart duh), but to see if James Cameron, director of that little movie that could, will put some action where his mouth is.

In recent weeks James Cameron himself has been calling Avatar a catalyst for environmental action saying he now wants to “use the spotlight that’s been put on him by Avatar’s success to bring attention to environmental causes“. This caught the eye of Rainforest Action Network’s Becky Tarbotton. On yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle website Tarbotton started a call to Mr. Cameron to help expose the “real-life Avatar” that Chevron continues to enable in Ecuador.

In the article Tarbotton asks:

“What if in his acceptance speech James Cameron mentioned the real-life Indigenous Ecuadorean heroes who are battling the real-life evil oil corporation Chevron?

She then continues:

If Director James Cameron accepts an Academy Award next month, he should let his faithful fans know that while Pandora is fictional, what is happening to communities in Ecuador because of Chevron’s actions is as real as it gets.”

Continue reading ‘James Cameron, the Oscar’s, and the Real-Life ‘Avatar’.’

[The following was co-written by Naomi Klein, author of #1 international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, Terry Tempest Williams, world renowned wildlife author, Bill Mckibben, founder of 350.org and author of The End Of Nature, and Dr. James Hansen, author of Storms of my Grandchildren, and who is regarded as the world's leading climatologist. All recognize the trial of Tim DeChristopher to be a turning point in the climate movement. Please visit our resource page for more information]

Dear Friends,

The epic fight to ward off global warming and transform the energy system that is at the core of our planet’s economy takes many forms: huge global days of action, giant international conferences like the one that just failed in Copenhagen, small gestures in the homes of countless people.

But there are a few signal moments, and one comes next month, when the federal government puts Tim DeChristopher on trial in Salt Lake City. Tim—“Bidder 70”– pulled off one of the most creative protests against our runaway energy policy in years: he bid for the oil and gas leases on several parcels of federal land even though he had no money to pay for them, thus upending the auction. The government calls that “violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act” and thinks he should spend ten years in jail for the crime; we call it a noble act, a profound gesture made on behalf of all of us and of the future. Continue reading ‘Call to action by Naomi Klein, Terry Tempest Williams, Bill McKibben, Dr. James Hansen and Peaceful Uprising’

Today the Yale Project on Climate Change is releasing the second wave of results from their recent national survey. This report finds that, despite the recent drops in public beliefs and concern about global warming, a large majority of Americans—regardless of political affiliation—support the passage of federal climate and energy policies. These include support for:

• Funding more research on renewable energy, such as solar and wind power (85 percent)
• Tax rebates for people buying fuel-efficient vehicles or solar panels (82 percent)
• Establishing programs to teach Americans how to save energy (72 percent)
• Regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant (71 percent)
• School curricula to teach children about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to global warming (70 percent)
• Signing an international treaty that requires the U.S. to cut emissions of carbon dioxide 90% by the year 2050 (61 percent)
• Establishing programs to teach Americans about global warming (60 percent).

Surprisingly, majorities of Republicans and Democrats support many of these policies, including renewable energy research, tax rebates, regulating carbon dioxide, and expanding offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Further, majorities in both parties support returning revenues from a cap-and-trade system to American households to offset higher energy costs, perhaps opening a pathway for Congressional action.

Sixty percent of Americans, however, said that they have heard “nothing at all” about the cap and trade legislation currently being considered by Congress. Only twelve percent had heard “a lot.” Continue reading ‘Americans Support Strong Climate & Energy Policies’

Amtrak's Acela High Speed Train photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. youth climate movement has rightfully been dissecting Obama’s State of the Union speech and its aftermath – the good, the bad, the really? – and taking action of our own.

But this week, Obama did more than just talk, he acted, putting a big down payment on a high speed rail network that will cut pollution, save energy, and provide good jobs in the clean energy economy.

On Thursday, President Obama and U.S. Transportation Secretary (and former Illinois Republican congressman) Ray LaHood announced $8 billion in economic recovery money dedicated to building high speed rail and otherwise improving rail transportation across much of the country.

That’s good for cutting climate change and improving air quality, since rail transportation is more energy efficient and overall less polluting than cars or planes. That’s assuming people actually use it, though, and long travel times compared to flying have hurt Amtrak’s public acceptance, even as it’s fastest routes grew their ridership (page 6). Continue reading ‘High Speed Rail – Actions Speak Louder than State of the Union Words’

Great posts so far in the Climate Generation Series and it sounds like more to come in the next week.   I was very involved in the youth climate movement from 2001 to 2009, and now kind of like Meg, I’m trying to figure out what to do now.  I’ll talk a little about how I got involved, some of my observations about the movement and some of my thoughts on the future.

Some of my history

I worked with many others at the University of North Carolina to create a student-funded renewable energy account, which has since funded solar hot water panels and geothermal projects on campus.  It was one of the first Southern student initiatives for clean energy.  Then some of us from UNC joined with others from Duke and NC State University to put on a Southeast regional conference to help spread similar initiatives for renewable energy and energy efficiency to campuses around the region.  The South as a region uses some of the highest energy per capita and the dirtiest energy in the nation.

Continue reading ‘Climate Generation: More history, thoughts & reflections’

Chevron has a new boss man, and in an ironic kick in the pants Chevron’s new CEO John Watson is the very man that orchestrated Chevron’s takeover of Texaco, and with it the 18 billion gallons of toxic waste water and 17 million gallons of crude oil deliberately dumped in Ecuadorian rainforest communities. Given Watson’s intimate understanding of Chevron’s toxic legacy there is no question he knows what is necessary to clean up their mess and compensate the communities that have been living with the effects of Chevron’s contamination for decades.

The Clean Up Ecuador Campaign has launched a global petition to Mr. Watson, with an accompanying video-message (below) from the affected communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Watson is stepping into a mess that former CEO Dave O’Reilly left behind when he skipped out on the reeling company on 12/31. Unfortunately, judging the reaction by Chevron today in Houston where marathon runners had their free speech silenced, and comments attacking Amazon Watch’s global petition in yesterday’s Sphere article it seems that Watson is committed to enabling the same negligence towards human rights as his predecessor. Watson may choose to define his tenure by continuing down the O’Reilly path that just last year had Chevron publicly aligning themselves with known felons, losing precedent setting refinery battles, being wholly rejected by the US Trade Representative, and being a lightning rod for a thriving climate justice movement at their front door.

However, dealt such a rotten hand Mr. Watson stands at the most opportune time for an oil giant’s CEO to actually step it up…or just step in it. RAN’s newest campaign Change Chevron see that Watson holds an unmatched opportunity to right past wrongs and transform an industry from criminal to catalyst. Yet, there is a long way to go. Prior to this moment Chevron has not only ignored the communities they impact, they blatantly insult them. Chevron relies on lobbying and a brutal PR campaign to evade responsibility of, what experts call, the “Amazon Chernobyl”. As a recent Independent article points out Chevron seems to be standing firm in it’s refusal to pay any damages, even if ordered in a court.  In fact a Chevron spokesman has promised a “lifetime of litigation.”

Will Watson build a tenure on human rights or legal fights?

Continue reading ‘Chevron CEO John Watson: Is the New Boss Same as the Old Boss?’

It is 6:13 am and in the Bella Conference Center I am listening to the chair of the AOSIS (Association of Small Island States) trying to fight off uncontrollable tears. I am almost certain that the Group of 77 (a behemoth of 130 plus developing country states) is coming to an end. Countries are divided and I am witnessing accusations fly across the plenary. Why has it taken us so long to arrive at this point? We sit here with the “Copenhangen Accord” staring at our faces. It is a document full of hot air and is not what billions of people across the planet had been promised to deliver atmospheric restitution. Once again the developed nations have managed to gain somewhat of an upper hand in the wake of greater sacrifices of the larger developing countries.

That aside, negotiators had feared from day one of the talks that the documents and the process of negotiating would not mature to the point required in order to allow negotiations to move into the high level segment where over 100 Heads of States would come to sign a just climate deal. Their fears were realized. The process has been deeply flawed and the voices of nations regarding lack of transparency, conspiracy to kill off the Kyoto protocol has been true. I often found myself being witness to the injustice within the UNFCCC process (where had I not gone to certain meetings, I would have missed out on joint drafting sessions which I assumed were only scheduled G-77 coordination meetings). Text messages were sent, rooms were changed, information was not available to all.

Continue reading ‘Battle Until Dawn for Humanity’s Survival’

This post is provided on behalf of Project Survival Media – a grassroots, student-run media project designed to highlight the true costs of fossil fuels in the lead up to Copenhagen. 

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate talks, communities and individuals around the planet are thinking about survival.  In a world of rapidly destabilizing climates, this word means different things to different people.  To the citizens of the Maldive Islands survival may mean a keeping global temperatures low enough to prevent the permanent flooding of their homeland, while to the inhabitants of African nations that repeatedly have expressed frustration with the unwillingness of industrialized countries to listen to what our own climate scientists are telling us, the main threat to survival may be catastrophic drought threatening to engulf huge regions. 

One key to survival for human beings everywhere, though, is food.  A couple of weeks ago for Project Survival Media, I wrote about the struggles of farmers to build communities based on sustainable food in my own home state of Oregon.  In the Northwestern United States we’re lucky that most people have relatively easy access to healthy, locally grown food; meanwhile, in West Oakland, Project Survival Media team members have been documenting the difficulties of maintaining a healthy diet in the “food deserts” of the inner city.  In the end, our reliance on processed, packaged and fast food produced through industrial agriculture is hurting human health as much as an input-heavy oil-based agricultural system is hurting the Earth and the climate. Continue reading ‘This is About Survival’