It’s Getting Hot In Here

As the estimated death toll in Burma rises to 100,000, it’s hard not to reflect on the incredible injustice of the situation. Cyclone Nargis, considered a once-in-500-year storm, struck the Irrawaddy Delta this past Saturday, pushing a wall of water through a largely deforested mangrove swamp and inundating some of the most densely populated parts of the low-lying country.

Initially, experts estimated the death toll to be in the tens of thousands, but revised the number as it became clear that despite international aid efforts, families were starving and that many had perished in the surging waters. In addition, recent reports show the ruling military Junta, which a few months ago brutally cracked down on peaceful opposition demonstrations led by Buddhist monks, seized recent UN and international aid shipments intended for those affected by the storm and subsequent floods. In response, the UN has temporarily suspended direct aid to Burma, citing corruption and theft of donated food and supplies. Continue reading ‘Climate Justice = A Human Right’

[Update - May 1st, 2008: "Burning the Future: Coal in America" will be airing again soon on the Sundance Channel, May 13th, 16th, and 18th. In addition, the DVD's will go on sale next week on the film's website: www.burningthefuture.com.]

Can coal ever be clean?

These guys are spending tens of millions trying to convince you, the American voter, that the future of America’s energy lies with “clean coal.”

A new documentary film, “Burning the Future: Coal in America” aims to clue Americans in on why “slightly less deadly coal” is probably a more accurate term for what the spooked coal industry is trying to push these days. Or maybe “laundered coal.” But “clean?” Well check out the trailer and see what you think:

Continue reading ‘Can Coal Ever Be Clean? Check Out “Burning the Future: Coal In America” to Find Out’

Statement Initiated by Participants in the Climate Change|Social Change conference, Sydney, Australia, April 11-13, 2008

The following statement was started by the participants in the Climate Change|Social Change conference. Anyone who agrees with it is welcome to add their signature, and an updated list of signatories will be issued on a regular basis (contact: <climateconf@greenleft.org.au>.).

It is being distributed to environmental, trade union, Indigenous, migrant, religious and community organizations to help build the movement against global warming

Continue reading ‘Climate Crisis — Urgent Action Needed Now!’

Millions of people are celebrating and rallying for climate action this Earth Day, but we’re also seeing how dedicated young people are to spending more than just one day working to pass legislation and find community solutions to global warming. Today, Focus the Nation and Clif MOJO are proud to announce three projects that will be examples of that determination to make positive and sustainable change through Project Slingshot

After weeks of deliberation, the Project Slingshot judges have zeroed in on three projects to propel from ideas into action this summer with grants of $10,000 each. With 45 great applications full of ideas on how to spark more youth action on climate change, the judges didn’t have an easy job, but the winners stood out for their commitment to innovation and to broadening this movement in tangible ways. The lucky three are:

Maya Donelson, Graze the Roof, San Francisco, CA, will integrate local organic food production and the efficiency gains of a green roof with an edible green roof at Glide, a diverse San Francisco church and nonprofit located in the Tenderloin District serving low income and marginalized people. Students from Glide’s Training and Employment Services Youth Build Program will construct and maintain the garden.

Richard Graves, Fired Up Youth Action TV, Washington, D.C., will produce five minute news segments covering youth issues ranging from education, to politics, to jobs and the economy, to entertainment and culture - all through the lens of the most important challenges facing young people: the impact of global warming and the construction of a cleaner, more just economy and society. [Full Disclosure: Richard is a contributing editor for It's Getting Hot in Here]

Jesse Hough, Sunnyside Neighborhood Energy Project, Portland, OR, will run a summer “think-and-do tank” institute that will engage students to help advance an innovative, community-owned, thermal district energy system utilizing low carbon energy supplies to provide space heating and cooling and domestic hot water to a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood of Portland, Oregon

These projects will serve as replicable models for all of us to become more involved and Maya, Richard and Jesse will be sure to keep getting the word out about how their projects are going.

The youth organization of the most powerful political party in West Virginia passed a multi-pronged resolution on coal & green jobs that included a call for No New Mountaintop Removal Permits. Our generation knows that Mountaintop Removal takes mining coal too far and we have safer ways to mine it as we transition to renewable energies & energy efficiency. This resolution passed in the midst of an above-the-fold article in the Washington Post, the Presidential Campaigns closing in on the May 13th WV Democratic Primary, and a record showing of grassroots involvement in the WV Democratic County Conventions. The political machine in West Virginia is getting scared of what true grassroots organizers are building here in West Virginia and we are in the year of a lifetime to build our movement for justice here!

The February 10th “Young Dems on Kayford” event that brought more than 35 Young Dems onto Kayford Mountain to see the effects of Mountaintop Removal was a crucial event in the organization learning about the issue and taking a stand.

This resolution on Mountaintop Removal was passed as a result of years of building awareness and involvement on the issue. This resolution passed with the solid margin of 32 votes in favor and only 10 votes against (with 2 abstaining votes). The WV Young Democrats have been a focus of education throughout the past year as we organized events to show both the leadership and the membership what Mountaintop Removal is doing to the people and land of Southern (and increasingly Central) WV. The resolution was formed and revised to its final content by a room of high schoolers, college students, deep miners, organizers, and concerned citizens to its final form. This resolution is causing reverberations through the WV Democratic Party and WV politicians (who have long been kinder to the coal industry than citizens) are taking notice.

Continue reading ‘WV Young Democrats Say “No New Mountaintop Removal Permits!”’

[photo is Walden Bello]

It’s all too easy for us living in the insular United States to ignore or make a lot of assumptions on where our climate change allies from the less developed nations (aka the “Global South”) are at. There’s also a lot of claiming of ideas as “new” that have actually been simmering for a long time outside of the narrow confines of our experience.

I’ve seen more than a few posts here speaking of the “needs” or “demands” of the developing world as if there is an established consensus. Meanwhile, outside of a few elites from the South, voices of people actually living in the developing world remain largely unheard here. Is this not a sort of “new colonialism“, where ideas are alternately robbed or impressed upon marginalized people’s in much the same way resources and customs have been in the past?

And of course colonialism, new and old, continues today. Case in point, many of us living from North America may not be aware that The World Bank, an organization controlled by the Global North that is charged with spearheading many of the energy industry developments in the Global South — “sustainable” or otherwise — held it’s critical spring meetings this week in Washington, DC.

It’s noteworthy that the United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer was in attendance, a fact that speaks to the growing role of the World Bank in climate policy and politics.

But enough chatter from YAWGB (Yet Another White Guy Blogger) from the world’s only superpower! Read on for some links to recent analysis from Focus on the Global South, an organization with staff in Thailand, the Philippines and India that focuses on issues of global inequality, and increasingly the relationship between inequality, climate change, and energy policy. Continue reading ‘Some views from the Global South’

Last weekend, I watched a new movement developing right in front of my eyes. As I scanned the faces around me in the plenary room at the Memphis Cook Convention Center, it was impossible to not feel a sense of excitement. We were emerging as a powerful new force for progressive change, one committed to the principle of “Green for All.”

Over 1,000 people, myself included, gathered in Memphis for the Dream Reborn conference last weekend to stand upon the shoulders of giants and create a vision for a just and sustainable future. We gathered in the city where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, on the 40th anniversary of his assassination, to pick up the torch of his legacy of economic justice and carry it in a new direction for a new generation. As we face the social crisis of poverty and the environmental crisis of global warming, are there solutions in sight? The Dream Reborn sought to explore this question — and the answer was an unequivocal “YES!” Continue reading ‘The Dream Reborn: Green for All’

For the past year, thousands of activists across the country and organizations including Rainforest Action Network, Rising Tide North America, Coal River Mountain Watch, Appalachian Voices, Mountain Justice Summer, SEAC , Energy Justice Network, Blue Ridge Earth First!, and many more have joined together to pressure Bank of America to stop funding coal. From financing mountain-top removal minining, to investing in new coal-fired power plants, Bank of America is financing the destruction of our climate and communities - and no amount of green PR and marketing will change this fact.

From hundreds of rallies and protests at bank branches; guerilla theater closing ATM’s; shareholder resolutions, confronting bank executives, and direct action at their offices, Bank of America is feeling the pressure to rethink their investment policies! Come join us at Bank of America’s annual shareholder meeting this month - and make sure every one of their executives, board members, and shareholders hear our demands for a just, sustainable future!

Please help promote this call to action, and organize your community to join us in Charlotte April 23rd!

Fore more info, visit www.dirtymoney.org or contact mleonard@ran.org Continue reading ‘CALL TO ACTION – Protest Bank of America’s Shareholders meeting!’

The time has come to worship the black rocks beneath our soil. India needs approximately 160,000 megawatts of electricity in the coming decade to be able to sustain its phenomenal growth rate. Conveniently enough, we have one of the largest coal reserves in the world. Unfortunately Indian coal is not of good quality as it has a high ash content. Much of our coal fields are also under developed (perhaps we should be thankful for this as these resources lie beneath our dwindling forests and tiger habitats) which makes us import from places like South Africa and Australia. That aside we know that coal will continue to play a major role in India’s economic growth and development for the coming decades. And as the government tries to rapidly electrify the entire nation by 2012 (as currently 500 million people are without access to electricity in rural areas) the need for power supply expansion is obvious. Add to that the fact that every urban center experiences power outages affecting business and agriculture both it is not surprising that we are seeing the approval of finances for Tata’s 4,000 Megawatt “Ultra Mega” Power Project at Mundra port in Gujarat.

The estimated cost of this project is $4.2 billion and the International Finance Corporation, part of the financing wing of the World bank is footing $450 million of that (Rs. 1,800 crore). This in conjunction with the Asian Development Bank ($450 million), Korean ECA ($800 million), “local banks” ($1.5 billion), and “an equity component” of $1 billion. The beneficiaries are expected to be the industrial and agricultural users along with 1.6 crore domestic households. The juice will be zapped through power lines into five states in western and northern India. Just imagine the gap between demand and supply this will fill! Or will it? Perhaps demand will never meet up with supply as the Indian middle class grows along with their ambitions to own more ACs, refrigerators, and electronic gadgets. Never mind that people in villages are still struggling to have electricity to read. The truth is that there is a very serious climate injustice at play here. Can India continue to just justify the need for more power in the name of the 500 million without access when an “electrified village” equates to just 10% of the households in the village having access to the grid? Meanwhile the demand in the urban areas continues to soar…

Will the electricity really reach the rural poor? Will the poor even be able to afford electricity at time when we are seeing a restructuring of the power system to reduce transmission and distribution costs (which have been as high as 50% in many places and only now begun to come down in states like Rajasthan and a few others)?

It is said that super critical technology is being implemented in the construction of this power plant (the first of which will be operational by 2011 and the other units plugging into the grid in installments of every 4 months). This will make the coal power plants 40% more energy efficient at turning the black mineral into energy than the average power plant in India is currently able to manage. Also, it has already been estimated that the plant will emit 23 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. The IEA stated at a side event in Bali last December highlighting the importance of China and India in the emerging energy scenario that for serious cut backs on global green house gas emissions, by 2012 we could no longer build any more thermal power plants that emit any CO2. Everything from that point on would need to be zero-emission and from there on a gradual reduction in emission from overall power generation as the global economy transitioned into renewables. But does this leave enough time and space for rapidly emerging economies (not to mention the least developed countries LDCs) to get cheap energy to grow and bring millions out of poverty? Who will finance zero emission coal plants or the transition into a completely zero-carbon growth path?

Original post at “What’s with the Climate?“  Voice of the Indian Youth Climate Network.

The World Health Organization estimates that 150,000 people die annually due to climate change related causes including in floods, droughts, and heat waves. It’s for this reason that the WHO chose to name World Health Day 2008 “Protecting our Health from Climate Change,” thus recognizing the fact that climate change will dramatically affect global health. World Health Day, celebrated on 7 April, involved some pretty splendid celebrations worldwide, including a straight-from-IGHIH rap for the Southeast Asian Regional Office of the WHO (see below for lyrics). Two days later - yesterday - the US celebrated with a presentation to Congress by Howard Frumkin, one of the directors for the Center for Disease Control, on the public health impacts of climate change. “CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern,” he said — but he still kept a lot under wraps.

Mr. Frumkin presented the fact that climate change will directly impact health in the United States, particularly the health of children and the elderly. He described the increase in droughts, heat waves, flooding, increased extreme weather events, and the spread of vectorborne diseases. Yet, in a move more worthy of Fossil Fool’s Day than World Health Day, he then did not comment on whether carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, was thus a public health threat. Instead, his cautious phrasing was: “To the science, there is strong evidence that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas… and there is strong evidence that climate change affects public health.” Thanks, Frumkin!

The issue is, if Frumkin, the CDC, or the WHO do declare that because of the “strong evidence” connecting the simple dots, they would force the EPA to recognize that carbon dioxide IS a danger to public health, which would thus mean that the US EPA would be required to regulate it, according to a Supreme Court decision last year. But the EPA is stalling, saying that such a regulation would have major implications across sectors. Yeah! Exactly! This week, a coalition of states, led by Massachusetts, have brought this issue back to the US Court of Appeals, demanding that the EPA publish its findings related to emissions, after their 2003 claim that there remained “substantial scientific uncertainty” regarding the impacts of greenhouse gases. There wasn’t uncertainty then; there isn’t now. And as James Milkey, head of the environmental protection division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office, said to NY Times reporters, “One year ago today, the court rejected E.P.A.’s claim that it lacks authority under existing law to regulate greenhouse gases. It has the duty to regulate, not just the authority.”

Continue reading ‘World Health Day: Raps & Under Wraps’