Despite Pleas In Doha, Our Governments Have Failed Us & Our Children

The lead negotiator for the Philippines at the Climate Conference in Doha, Naderev Saño, could not keep back the tears as he made a passionate appeal for real action on climate change.

“I appeal to all, please, no more delays, no more excuses. Please, let Doha be remembered as the place where we found the political will to turn things around…

The outcome of our work is not about what our political masters want. It is about what is demanded of us by 7 billion people…

I ask of all of us here, if not us, then who? If not now, then when? If not here, then where?”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OpI-PD6weG8]

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Here is more coverage from the last day in Doha, when 19-year-old Syrian-American student Munira Sibai addressed the delegates at the U.N. climate summit.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vKMexhHhy5s]

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“So let me now speak beyond the negotiators in this room to the people who I represent. Your governments are failing you. They are afraid that offering visionary pathways to low-carbon economies will make them look foolish, that taking responsibility will make them look weak, that standing up to the money and power of polluters will cost them political support. Unchecked, this cowardice will cost lives. Here in the halls of the United Nations, the voices of global citizens are limited, regulated and relegated to these short, symbolic statements. Outside these walls, these walls, there is a global movement, growing up from the grassroots, calling for climate justice. Join us.”

Dirty Energy Produces Dirty Weather & Dirty Politics

Casy answered him. “It’s ever’body,” he said. “Here’s me that used to give all my fight against the devil ’cause I figgered the devil was the enemy. But they’s somepin worse’n the devil got a hold a the country, an’ it ain’t gonna let go till it’s chopped loose. Ever see one a them Gila monsters take hold, mister? Grabs hold, an’ you chop him in two an’ his head hangs on. Chop him at the neck an’ his head hangs on. Got to take a screw-driver an’ pry his head apart to git him loose. An’ while he’s layin’ there, poison is drippin’ an’ drippin’ into the hole he’s made with his teeth.”

John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath

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McKibben On Maher: Climate Denial Smack-Down

Two of my favourite Bills talk climate change, along with the Republicans at the table. It is, as 350.org posted, a seriously awesome “smack-down” – climate science and reality versus climate nonsense. With infinite patience, Bill McKibben responds yet again to the same tired old Republican/conservative talking points:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJN0S5V6p-M]

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If this link stops working, go to this Huffington Post link to view the video.

*Thanks Jen P for sending this my way*

Seeds of Life, Not Genetically Modified Organisms

It’s TED talk Tuesday on 350orbust. Here’s Winona LaDuke, whom I had the good fortune to meet recently, speaking about our broken food system from a First Nations perspective:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHNlel72eQc]

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Winona is an internationally renowned activist working on issues of sustainable development, renewable energy and food systems. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota. As Program Director of Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on the issues of climate change, renewable energy, and environmental justice with Indigenous communities. In her own community, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, where she works to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, LaDuke has written extensively on Native American and environmental issues. She is the author of five books, including Recovering the Sacred, All our Relations and a novel, Last Standing Woman.

Happy Planet, Happy People: A Radical Idea Whose Time Has Come

How much happiness do we get for our planet plundering?  Is it possible to rethink the status quo at this point in human history, especially considering the alternative?

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The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is the leading global measure of sustainable well-being.

The HPI measures what matters: the extent to which countries deliver long, happy, sustainable lives for the people that live in them. The Index uses global data on life expectancy, experienced well-being and Ecological Footprint to calculate this.

The index is an efficiency measure, it ranks countries on how many long and happy lives they produce per unit of environmental input.

The 2012 HPI report ranks 151 countries and is the third time the index has been published.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sZPYI8BfnBs]

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Happy Planet Index.org

Canadian Democracy in Disarray

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There is mounting alarm and opposition across Canada, even among many conservatives, about the Harper government’s omnibus budget bill, Bill C-38. Yesterday Parlliamentary Speaker Andrew Scheer (a Conservative MP from Saskatchewan) denied Elizabeth May’s well argued Point of Order re: allowing Omnibus Budget Bill C-38 as a legitimate omnibus budget bill will bring our institutions into greater disrepute. I’m sure Mr. Scheer wasn’t at all swayed in his decision by his party’s leader, who is well known for not allowing any dissent within his ranks.

Some of the changes to the over 60 existing federal statutes included in this “budget” bill (a better name for it would be “Harper remaking Canada into his neocon image bill”) are:

  • The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act is repealed, and a weaker version is introduced, without a single day of hearings before the parliamentary environment committee.
  • The Species  At Risk Act is amended, as well as the Navigable Waters Protection Act. This removes protection of endangered species and their habitat when approving pipeline projects. (Hmmm – I wonder why the Harper government would be interested in this change?!)
  • The Fisheries Act is gutted by removing provisions for habitat protection.
  • Parks Canada Agency Act is trimmed and staff are cut. Reporting requirements will be reduced, including the annual report. 638 of the nearly 3,000 Parks Canada workers will be cut. Environmental monitoring and ecological restoration in the Gulf Islands National Park are being cut.
  • Canadian Oil and Gas Operations Act is made more industry-friendly. It will be changed to promote seismic testing, allowing increased off-shore drilling.
  • Nuclear Safety Control Act undermined. Environmental assessments will be moved to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is a licensing body not an assessing body, so there is built-in conflict.
  • Canada Seeds Act inspections are privatized. This is being revamped so the job of inspecting seed crops is transferred from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspectors to “authorized service providers” (the private sector). Monsanto, here we come!
  • Agriculture is affected. Under the Prairie Farm Rehabiliation Act, publicly-owned grasslands have acted as community pastures under federal management, leasing grazing rights to farmers so they could devote their good land to crops, not livestock. This will end. Also, the Centre for Plant Health in Sidney, B.C., an important site for quarantine and virus-testing on plants strategically located on Vancouver Island to protect B.C.’s primary agricultural regions, will be moved to the heart of B.C.’s fruit and wine country.
  • National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy is killed. NRTEE brought industry leaders, environmentalists, First Nations, labour, and policy makers together to provide nonpartisan research and advice on federal policies. Its demise will leave a policy vacuum in relation to Canada’s economic development (despite Minister Kent’s assertions in the House of Commons that such information is widely available on the internet!).
  • More attacks on environmental groups are funded. The charities section now precludes gifts which may result in political activity, and $8 million in new money is given to the Canadian Revenue Agency to harass charities. Yep, our tax dollars hard at work!
  • Water programs are cut. Environment Canada is cutting several water-related programs and other will be cut severely, including some aimed at promoting or monitoring water-use efficiency. The Municipal Water and Wastewater Survey, the only national study of water consumption habits, is being cut after being in place since 1983. Also cut is monitoring effluent: Environment Canada’s Environmental Effects Monitoring Program, a systematic method for measuring the quality of effluent discharge, including from mines and pulp mills, will be cut by 20 percent.
  • The Fair Wages Act is repealed.

Bill c-38 hits home in my region in a particular way by ending the funding of the Environmental Lakes Area. Since being established in 1968, the ELA (located near Dryden Ontario) has been a world-class research facility where the secrets of algae blooms, acid rain, mercury pollution, and the impacts of aquaculture have been unlocked. The Harper government is planning to shut the ELA down in Bill C-38.

It’s clear that Stephen Harper has a disdain for science in general, and environmental science, which tells us about the world we live in and human (particularly industry) impacts on it, in particular. Here a child weighs in on Bill C-38. See the links below the video to take action.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlK040UKUtQ]

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Take Action:

SaveTheELA.org

Lead Now.ca: Stop The Sellout

Hey Mister Prime Minister, Why Are You So Afraid Of Canadians?

Courageous and talented Canadian artist Franke James, whose 2011 European art tour was cancelled after interference from the Harper government, has recently published an illustrated essay on the current overlap of oil and state (with a large dose of anti-science, anti-democratic polemic) in Canadian politics. You can find Franke’s essay, What is Harper Afraid Of?, at FrankeJames.com, Here’s the animated version:

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/43432620]

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More links:

FrankeJames.com

Dear Prime Minister Harper: Please Stop Blacklisting Environmental Artists And Scientists

In The Forecast: More Extreme – and Expensive – Weather Events

Montreal Quebec was hit by a short but fierce rainstorm on Tuesday, doing millions of dollars worth of damage to homes and businesses.  The Montreal Gazette reported:

Montreal firefighters answered more than 900 calls during Tuesday afternoon’s cloudburst that dumped as much as 70 mms. of rain on this city in the space of 30 minutes, Mayor Gérald Tremblay said on Wednesday.

“The calls concerned electrical problems, 98 cases of flooding, checking alarm systems,” Tremblay told reporters during briefing at city hall. “There 1000 calls to the 3-1-1 (information line) concerning the sewage system and, at the moment, 31 claims (for damages) have been filed against the city.”

While Mayor Tremblay cited a similarly damaging flash flood 25 years ago, Montreal city councillor Marc-André Gadoury disagreed, saying that the city has not been taking into account the climate change that’s been going on for the past 10 years.

When the mayor says it’s a once a 100-year event I’m surprised. We went through this in 2009, in 2008 … I don’t have to go back to the flood of ‘87 for examples.

When will the realization of the enormous financial burden climate change will be to our urban and rural infrastructures hit home? It certainly is going to hit every single taxpayer in the pocket book, and that’s not counting the horrible cost in human lives, particularly for those in the global village already living on the edge.

The International Energy Agency is on record saying that globally, we have five years to change our fossil-fuel dependent economy to one that is based on renewables before our burning of fossil fuels tips us into climate catastrophe.  Ontario’s Environment Commissioner said recently, “We have an infrastructure built for a climate we no longer have.”  In a March 12 report, Climate Policy in Ontario: Getting Locked-Out By Being Locked-In, the Commissioner wrote:

The IEA calculated the amount of GHG emissions that could be emitted over the next several decades while still having a likely chance of meeting the internationally agreed target of limiting global temperature rise to less than 2°C. This is the carbon budget that needs to be managed in order to avoid the most dire predictions, such as extreme sea level rise and mass extinctions. Shockingly, the IEA found that existing and planned capital stock (power generation, buildings, transportation and industry) will emit 80 per cent of that budget and that, without a clear economic signal to direct development towards a low-carbon path the entire carbon budget will be eaten up in just five years.  As we wait to embark on a low-carbon pathway for reasons of economic expediency, fossil-fuel infrastructure continues to be built and planned. Within Ontario, the Long-term Energy Plancalls for several new natural gas power plants over the next 20 years. It is precisely this type of fossil-fuel infrastructure that will need to be mothballed early (or undergo costly retrofits to capture the GHGs emitted) if we hope to keep the planet within its budget. Given the capital expense that goes into such infrastructure, it is unlikely that governments would be willing to make such politically unpalatable moves.

The IEA information illustrates the critical link between climate adaptation and mitigation.  As Ontario moves forward, we need to plan so that our children can live within the atmospheric budget using infrastructure networks that can cope with an uncertain future climate.  If we fail to accept this challenge we risk condemning our children to live in a less prosperous world.  Policy options exist to avoid this fate, including: aggressive energy efficiency; investment in renewable energy; a focus on climate resilience in the building code; and a move towards comprehensive carbon pricing to direct investment towards the low-carbon path. There is no time to wait.

Thunder Bay last weekend, Montreal on Tuesday – where next? Your neighbourhood or mine?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qHC3ZzJFps]

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More links:

Environment Commissioner: Ontario Not Ready For Heavy Costs Of Climate Change

Climate Change Will Cost Canada Billions: Report

Montreal Mops Up After Rainstorm Lashes Region

IEA: World Energy Report

TED Talk Thursday: The Wisdom Of Cradle To Cradle Design

I’m still up to my ears in hugelkulturing, and hope to share my photos and experience soon. In the meantime, here’s architect William McDonough, co-author of Cradle To Cradle: Remaking The Way We Make Things, discusses what our buildings and products would look like if designers took into account “all children, all species, for all time”, from a 2005 TED Talk. I’m posting this TED talk even I’m perturbed by the news that TED officials have made the decision not to post wealthy entrepreneur Nick Hanauer’s recent TED talk on inequality, because they felt it was too politically controversial. Hanauer discusses the fallacy that it’s the top 1% (of which he is a member)who creates the wealth in America (and elsewhere). In fact, he states, it’s the middle class which does – and its decline threatens everyone in America, from the innovators on down. You can read the transcript of Hanauer’s talk here.   But here’s William McDonough, who also has “ideas worth spreading”:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRjz8iTVoo]

More links:

William McDonough: Cradle to Cradle

The Product Life Institute: Cradle to Cradle