It’s Getting Hot In Here

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’

The bustling halls of the United Nations climate negotiations still ringing in my ears, it’s been an incredible few months since I and other youth delegates from SustainUS returned from Bali. So many friends and neighbors emailed or stopped by to say “Thanks for sending your email updates from Bali!” and “Welcome home!” I still feel the excitement of working with the best & brightest of the youth climate movement around the world.

Upon returning from Bali as a US youth delegate, I was filled with hope that humanity will create a global consciousness by rising to meet the climate emergency. In the last few months, worsening scientific predictions have only strengthened my belief that we are the leaders we seek. It’s up to us. We have the power to make the climate emergency, and the immense economic opportunities we will realize from solving it, our top priority. A bold, broad movement is needed on a scale larger than the mobilization for World War II. This mobilization will only be accomplished by unleashing a renewed civic engagement.

Continue reading ‘Post-Bali Dispatch: “Lighting Up” a movement in Upstate New York!’

#3. “The Amazon Rainforest is not being used for sugar cane for ethanol. This is absolutely wrong! The Amazon region is far from the consumer centers and ports to ship. It needs water in the soil. It is a stupidity to grow cane in the Amazon rainforest. It is stupidity. We will never destroy the Amazon rainforest for sugar cane biofuels.”

- Roberto Rodrigues, former Brazilian Minister of Agriculture, Co-Chairman of the Interamerican Ethanol Commission (IEC)

Note: When a student came up to ask him if he would go on record saying that, he dodged the question by not answering it. As far as I am concerned, he went on record saying that when he got up to talk. - SRO

#2. “It’s cheap as dirt to dig up coal.”
- Klaus S. Lackner, Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics at Columbia

Note: It’s as cheap as coal to dig up coal…unless you ask those that are being affected by mountaintop removal. - SRO

#1. “Clean coal” as part of a solution in memo to the upcoming President.

- Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute of Columbia

Note: He also directly quoted his book review in The Economist in the Presidential memo, which said, “If everyone were as sensible as Jeffrey Sachs…” - SRO

To listen to the talks at State of the Planet, click here; (You may have to register).

With the science of climate change pretty solidly unimpeachable at this point, the rag tag camp of climate change deniers, detractors, doomsayers and other flat-earthers have a new tactic these days: talk up the supposedly disastrous economic consequences of regulating carbon.

The Flat Earth camp pulled out all the stops at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference held last week in California.

Hosted by “climate change experts” from the WSJ’s notoriously ideological, knuckle-dragging, anti-climate editorial board, the WSJ assembled the full cast-of-characters of the Flat Earth Society of America: Fred Smith and Myron Ebell of CEI (makers of the hilariously funny “CO2: some call it pollution, we call it life” ad), Steve Milloy of JunkScience, and the WSJ’s own ideologues came into the conference to put America’s leading “green-minded” CEO’s to the test, show them they were simply tools for liberal, socialist hippies, and expose carbon regulation as the sure-fire end of the treasured American way of life.

“Instead, they ended up looking small, shrill, and utterly marginalized,” David Roberts, who covered the Eco:nomics conference for Grist.org writes. “Despite their claims to be pro-business, the business community disdains them.”
Continue reading ‘The Last Gasp of the Climate Deniers, Detractors and Doomsayers?’

Al Gore, the erstwhile trumpeter of inconvenient truths and dire warnings of climate catastrophe has fallen under attack by the climate deniers and flat earth-ers of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

CEI is taking Gore, perhaps the most visible figurehead of the climate movement, to task for living in “a posh Nashville mansion” that allegedly uses 20 times the energy of a normal American home while making money as he calls for action to halt the climate crisis.

Adhering to the age old maxim, “If you can’t kill the message, kill the messenger,” they cry “Hypocrite!” trying to besmirch Al Gore’s cause as they besmirch his reputation.

Some of my friends and fellow bloggers have been bustling to rise to Al Gore’s defense. I on the other hand, have not.

So what if Al Gore isn’t a perfect model of a modern major climate hero? That’s only a problem so long as we insist on making him our figurehead. His alleged hypocracy is only a problem if we insist on making climate solutions all about personal sacrifice. Heck, the bulletproof veracity of the dire predictions of climate science is only critical if we insist on making our movement solely about avoiding the nightmarish future Gore describes in “An Inconvenient Truth.”

So defend Al Gore if you want, but I’m going to waste little time on it. Al Gore is not the leader of my movement. He’s not my inspiration, or my hero. His message is not the message that inspires me to act.

Do we think he’s going to be our MLK with a message of inconvenient truths and dire warnings? Is that what will inspire America and the world to act?

The leaders of my movement are the dozens and dozens of citizens and activists, many (most) of them young, working day in and day out to make a difference, trusting implicitly that others out there are doing the same. These climate champions aren’t former “next presidents of the United States,” or millionaire politicians. They are everyday people rising to do great things, motivated not by fear (by a sense of urgency, yes) but rather by a vision of the better world we’re striving to create, a sustainable, just, and prosperous future.

Continue reading ‘Beyond Al Gore and Inconvenient Truths: A New Generation, A New Vision, a New Dream’

Greetings from Lebanon,

I guess it has been a while since my last post to the wonderful itsgettinghotinhere, but thats not for good reason.  I moved my life to the roots that have built who I am today, my homeland, Lebanon.   I’ve finally committed myself to a semester of school and instead of taking off time to organize, I’ve taken time off organizing to study and be with family.  Although, media-wise I am still an avid participant.  For instance, YES! Magazine, which focuses on social-change through justice, sustainability, and compassion, has just released their Spring Edition. 

That’s right, it’s all about climate and the solutions that are needed.  You’re probably wondering who the features are, and you’ll be pleased to know that it’s all of you!  The youth climate movement, rocks it out in YES! Magazine, so check it out and subscribe for a trial issue.

Saaaay, remember when Greenpeace and two other conservation groups sued the Bush administration?

It was December of 2005, and the administration had missed its first legal deadline to respond to the petition for an endangered species listing. Well, on December 27, 2006, the Service announced its proposal to list the species as “threatened” and had one year to make a final listing decision.

The legal deadline for doing so was January 9, 2008…but I’m sure they’re getting around to it.

Remember, by protecting the polar bears under the United States Endangered Species Act they would be granted a broad range of protection. This would include a requirement that United States federal agencies ensure that any action carried out, authorized, or funded by the United States government will not “jeopardize the continued existence” of polar bears, or adversely modify their critical habitat.

Essentially, listing the polar bear would set important precedent by forcing the administration to concede the severity of the global warming crisis, acknowledging the that a rapid, dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to prevent the extinction of the species.

Click Here for more information and to see how you can help make this happen.

Over the years, many island nations have fought hard to be heard in the international arena about the effects that global warming is already having on them. Some islands have already been lost in the Pacific, and the forecast is that many more will go in the coming decades, especially if nothing is done to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions globally. Now, in the Caribbean, the picture is looking bleak as well. Today, the top newspaper in the Dominican Republic reported that global warming will eliminate tourism by 2050 under business-as-usual.

The Caribbean islands, for the exception of Cuba and Haiti, are largely dependent on tourism. Coastal development for the purpose of tourism is growing in the region at a high rate despite a recent regional decline in tourism. In the Caribbean, tourism accounts for 15% of the gross domestic product, with higher rates in many islands, and over 2.4 million jobs (about 16%). It has also pushed populations towards the coasts. For example, in the Dominican Republic, over 50% of the population lives near coasts where a 6-m sea-level rise would plunge them into the sea.

Continue reading ‘Global Warming To Eliminate Tourism in the Caribbean’

Apparently the United States delegation to the Bali International Climate Negotiations - well the fake delegation, not the real delegation - has finally been dragged, kicking and screaming, into some kind of agreement on a road map to proceed on post-Kyoto Protocol international climate change negotiations.

Details on what that deal is are emerging, and I hope to hear more soon from the youth delegation ably representing us “on the ground” in Bali. However, for now, this is from Reuters:

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - The United States on Saturday dropped opposition to a compromise plan to launch talks on a new U.N. climate treaty after pleas from other nations.

“We will go forward and join consensus,” Paula Dobriansky, heading the U.S. delegation, told the 190-nation meeting to cheers from many in the audience, minutes after triggering boos by saying Washington was opposed.

The proposed compromise, breaking a deadlock between rich and poor nations, had been supported by all other previous speakers, including the European Union.

The Bali Negotiations these past two weeks have revealed as the farce it is the US arguments that point the finger at China and other developing nations rising emissions as an excuse for the world’s largest emitter* to sit on it’s hands while our chances to build a sustainable, just, and prosperous future slip away.
Continue reading ‘BaliBuzz: U.S. Finally Dragged Kicking And Screaming into UN Climate Deal’

Yesterday, the International Youth delegations read a powerful statement to the high-level plenary in at the climate conference in Bali. Giving the UN climate conference’s closing statement, it was a defining moment. The incredble speakers were Anna Keenan from Australia, Karmila Parakkasi from Indonesia, Whit Jones from SustainUS in the United States, and Bambou Chieppa (a 13-year old girl). At 4 minutes, the statement was powerful and concise — and called for bold action.

I helped coordinate the drafting of the statement, and it was an amazing experience. Written together by the Indonesian, Japanese, American, Australian, Canadian, Belgian, and French youth delegations, it was a true international collaboration. I am so proud of the inclusive and consensus process we used — it’s inspiring how our international youth delegation puts aside differences and worked together.

On Friday, when Amanda, Whit, Karmila, and Bambou stood on stage — the room fell silent. This is what they said:

WHO WE ARE

I am Anna Keenan from Australia, Karmila Parakkasi from Indonesia, and Whit Jones from the United States of America. We speak today as part of the global youth climate movement. Half the world’s population is under 30, and will live with the decisions you make today.

Continue reading ‘BaliBuzz: Youth Statement to High-Level Plenary in Bali: “This is our last chance”’