Christine

Breaking news – Obama to Travel to Copenhagen

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12 days until the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen, and momentum seems to be growing.

The breaking news on the Huffington Post this morning is that the White House will be announcing that President Obama is going to attend.  At least 65 other heads of state will also be at the Copenhagen table, although two big players, China and India, have not yet responded to the formal invitation sent out last week by the Danish government. Back in September, the first leader to commit to attending was Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown.  He asserted that it was heads of governments who would be able to negotiate and strike a deal.  With more and more heads of state following his lead, the chance that a fair, ambitious, and binding deal may be reached increases, although it is by no means guaranteed. To read more analysis of the gaining momentum, check out “Copenhagen talks ready for take off: 5, 4, 3…” on Grist.org.

The activist organization Avaaz.org is raising funds to send more negotiators from small, low-lying island states that are most affected by climate change.  The bigger, wealthier, more polluting nations can afford to send large numbers of  negotiators to Copenhagen.  However, for people living in small, low-lying island states, a fair, ambitious and binding global climate treaty is necessary for their countries’ very survival, but they often have trouble sending even one or two negotiators to UN climate summits. As a result, Avaaz.org is spearheading a campaign to help negotiators from smaller, climate-vulnerable nations attend.  Their website states:

At the Copenhagen talks in December, we can’t afford for voices of moral authority to go unheard.

If each of us chips in, we can help with airfare, food, and housing to help negotiators press for bold action — and for advocates to amplify their voices:

Click here to donate to “Their Voices Must be Heard” campaign now!

Grist in Copenhagen: How føcked are we?

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Tck Tck Tck – 13 days to go until the Copenhagen climate talks.

One of my favourite environmental news and commentary websites, Grist.org, is following developments leading up to Copenhagen, and will be sending several people to cover the conference.  Grist calls itself “A Beacon in the Smog” and offers environmental reporting with a humourous – albeit often dark – twist.  Check out the “Gristy guide to the COP 15 climate talks” here. Below is a video of comedian Eugene Mirman, who will be covering Copenhagen for Grist.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yC2fbInlug]

But of course the UN climate talks in Copenhagen are very serious business.  The folks at 350.org and TckTckTck are calling on people around the world to hold a “Vigil for Survival” in their community on December 11. Go to this link to find out more.

Tck Tck Tck – 14 days To Go…

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On December 7th in Copenhagen, 192 world leaders will meet to decide our future when they attend the UN Climate Change Talks.  Go to the tck tck tck website and click on “human impact stories” to read about how climate change is already affecting people around the world.

There are lots of websites that discuss the science of climate change, some more reputable than others.  Here’s one that I learned about over the weekend, Climate Sight.  It’s a thorough look at what is credible and what is not in the science of climate change, in contrast to the “craziness” of what is reported in newspapers and TV.  The purpose of Climate Sight is to:

to find, investigate, and eliminate the discrepancies between scientific knowledge and public knowledge on climate change.

It’s an impressive website which is even more impressive when you learn that it is written by a Winnipeg high schooler!

Through Climate Sight, I also found One Blue Marble, a website whose mission is to slow climate change and save the world. Their home page describes the situation we’re in this way:

If this was a Hollywood blockbuster, the clock would be ticking off the last 10 seconds as the sweat-spattered heroine makes the ultimate decision… Cut the red wire, or the green one… as the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.

It really is that serious.

If you are interested in learning more about Canada’s environmental record, check out  One Blue Marble‘s posts on the Alberta Tar Sands, and Canada’s Sorry Environmental Record, and their Red Letter Campaign.

We don’t inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children.                              ~Ancient Proverb



“Our Choice” Presents a Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis

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I’m on a weekend trip to Vancouver, British Columbia this weekend (I’ll address carbon credits when traveling by air in an upcoming blog), so will keep my postings short and sweet. I’ve just picked up Al Gore’s new book “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis” and will share a paragraph from it with you.

In any case, despair serves no purpose when reality still offers hope.  Despair is simply another form of denial, and it invites inaction.  We don’t have time for despair.  The solutions are available to us!  We need to make our choice to act now.

Mr. Gore goes on to quote an African proverb:

If you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.

Enjoy your weekend, and don’t despair – make a choice to act!  Remember, when people lead, leaders follow.

Canada Unable to Formulate Its Own Climate Policy

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Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice appeared on CBC Radio’s “The Current” with guest host Susan Ormiston this morning.  He kept repeating the now standard Conservative mantra that Canada can’t do anything until the U.S. takes definitive action on capping its emissions and adopting green technology.  This brings into question our nation’s sovereignty.  Although Canada has always had the U.S. elephant as our neighbour, it hasn’t deterred us from taking independent stances in the past.  Mr. Prentice and Mr Harper just need to look into the Progressive Conservative Party’s history – whether it is former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s leadership role in curbing acid rain emissions or former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s refusal of nuclear arms for Canada.  If either of these Conservative leaders had taken the present Conservative Prime Minister’s stance of letting the Americans take the lead, our country would be a very different place.

To hear the whole interview, click here and go to Part 1 of today’s program.

In other coverage leading up to Copenhagen, Robert J. Kennedy Jr. wrote an interesting commentary in the Huffington Post yesterday on “The New Arms Race”.  In the article, Mr. Kennedy asserts that the Chinese are now spending as much on green energy technologies as on the military.  38 % of the recent Chinese stimulus package went to renewable energy, in comparison with just 12% of the U.S. stimulus package.  (Here in Canada, the Conservative government designated a whopping 8 % of the stimulus package to renewables in last January’s budget).

Also in yesterday’s Huffington Post, James Hoggan asserts that the climate denial industry should foot the bill for delayed action on addressing climate change (see my post yesterday on the CBC coverage of this issue). The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently announced that every year of delayed action to address climate change will add $500 Billion to the price tag of saving the planet.  

Climate Change Cover-up on CBC Radio Today

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The last half hour of today’s CBC Radio current affairs show The Current discussed “climate coverup” .  Their first guest was James Hoggan, author of Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. Mr. Hoggan is president of the PR firm James Hoggan and Associates as well as being the chair of the David Suzuki Foundation.  He was followed by University of Toronto computer network manager Jim Prall who keeps tabs on climate skeptics and climate scientists.  The final guest was Lawrence Solomon, a climate change skeptic and author of  The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud – and those who are too fearful to do so.

Click here to go to the CBC.ca website, and scroll to the bottom of the page to click on “Part 3” to listen to this interesting exchange.  One of the interesting “facts’ that Mr. Solomon asserts is that oil companies are funding environmental groups that push the whole “false” climate change theory.  Now that’s an new one!

Tonight on CBC Radio’s evening news show, As It Happens, c0host Carol Off will be looking into a national radio ad campaign mocking the whole idea of climate change. If you miss it, check back because I’m hoping to post the link to it.

When People Lead, Leaders Follow

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“When people lead, leaders follow” the Hopenhagen website reminds us.  With the UN Climate Change conference in  Copenhagen 18 days away, I thought I would remind myself that there is some good news on the environmental front.  It’s hard to keep slogging away when you feel like nothing ever changes.  Here’s some hopeful headlines – feel free to check out the links, if you have the time:

European countries on track to exceed Kyoto targets.

U.S hits the brakes on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

U.S. to soon declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.

Brazil announces “historic” drop in deforestation.

U.S. Evangelicals Join Forces With Scientists to Lobby in Support of Climate Change Bill

If you feel like you’d like to hear more good news on climate change, check out Canadian author and journalist Chris Turner’s book “The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need”.  Mr. Turner spent a year traveling around the world finding people and places where change was already happening.  As he says in his introduction:

The world we need:  it all exists.  It took only a year to find.  And anything that exists is possible.

To be part of the generation that beat climate change: this is possible.

Take a moment (or more!) today to appreciate the beauty around you – whether it’s in the people you care about, or in nature.

“Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.”  Mahatma Ghandi

Canada Continues to Procrastinate on Climate Change Legislation

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Canada’s Conservative government is waiting for others to act on climate change, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said less than 3 weeks before world leaders meet in Copenhagen to negotiate an agreement on climate change.  Prentice said the further delay is necessary because Canada has to wait until a global treaty is reached, and a Canada-U.S. agreement on climate change is reached. *heavy sigh*

In contrast, American President Barrack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao announced yesterday that there is the need in Copenhagen to “rally the world” toward a solution to climate change. And it flies in the face of Denmark’s Prime Minister’s call to all developed nations to bring specific pledges to the table at Copenhagen next month.

It used to be that Harper et. al. had company in obstructing and procrastinating on climate change agreements, when John Howard of Australia and American President George Bush were on the international stage doing the same thing. In 2009, however,  Bush and Howard are gone, but Harper remains, trying to sound a little more green while at the same time doing nothing about this crucial issue.

Dr. Tim Flannery, scientist and author of  “‘The Weathermakers” and “Now or Never”  has expressed his disappointment in Canada’s lack of leadership and disengagement in what former World Bank chief economist Lord Stern has called the most important global meeting of this century. He points out that Canada, one of the top 10 global polluters,  is falling behind in achieving the targets scientists tell us we need to avoid runaway climate change.

The United States already has the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill passed by Congress and making its way through the Senate.  Australia has passed its own climate change legislation. Flannery points out that enacting legislation on reducing emissions requires a substantial amount of legwork, and that it would behove the Canadian government to already be at work on it. Flannery says:

Time is exceedingly short for Canada with its very different economy and very different approach to this problem to be able to follow the lead of the U.S. in any meaningful way.

Click here to see Tim Flannery talking about Canada’s inaction on this issue.

Contact Minister Prentice and let him know that Canada needs to become a leader, not a laggard, on climate change.  If you are a mom with a child or children 17 or under, go to Moms Against Climate Change to upload your child’s picture to remind Prime Minister Harper who he is representing in Copenhagen.

“Saving the planet isn’t about everyone doing everything.  It’s about everyone doing something.” Laurie David, producer of An Inconvenient Truth

Time is of the Essence, Inuit Leaders Say

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Canadian Inuit leaders are calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other world leaders meeting in Copenhagen in December to ratify an agreement that will stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at 350 parts per million.  This is what is needed, Inuit leaders say, to avoid catastrophic change in the Arctic ecosystem.  Their call to action states “The Arctic has warmed at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the world over the last century, and scientists predict that warming trends in the Arctic will continue to outpace other regions.”

The Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), which represents Inuit from Canada, Russia, Greenland and the U.S., has six clear commitments it wants from global leaders meeting in Copenhagen.  As well as stabilizing greenhouse gases at 350 ppm,  they call for deeper cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, an international fund dedicated to climate change adaptation, inclusion of Inuit traditional knowledge when forming policy, and support for green energy technology.  The ICC also want avoidance of climate change impacts on the Arctic as one of the benchmarks for the effectiveness of a new climate change treaty.

The Inuit are already feeling the effects of climate change.  They are forced to find new safe routes through sea ice and weather that are less predictable than they used to be; they are noticing birds, plants, and fish from the south appearing in the north;  and permafrost is melting under their feet.  As Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier says, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and slowing climate change is a human rights issue and countries need to stop making excuses.  The Inuit take issue with Prime Minister Harper’s excuses for not taking action in Copenhagen and say its time to get serious about stopping climate change.

Click here to here Sheila Watt-Cloutier speak on climate change and human rights.

There is still a window of opportunity to save the Arctic – we need to join together in a people powered movement to demand world leaders take climate change seriously.

To send a message to the world leaders meeting in Copenhagen, go to  350.org and sign the “I am ready” petition.  Or visit Hopenhagen.org and sign their UN climate petition.  Get informed.  Write your local leaders.   Join the “Meatless Monday” movement to combat climate change.  Spread the word.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”      ~ Margaret Mead, American anthropologist, 1901 – 1978