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“Keystone-ization” is the fossil fuel industry’s new nightmare

by EdisonWJOkpkr Posted on April 26, 2016

“Keystone-ization” is the fossil fuel industry’s new nightmare

By on Apr 25, 2016commentsShare

“Another Pipeline Rejected” is now the go-to headline for updates on new fossil fuel infrastructure in the United States. Does the growing file of scrapped pipeline plans forecast the “Keystone-ization” of our energy future? Yes — proposals for pipelines to transport oil and natural gas are being brought down by public protest so frequently, we now have a term for it.

A quick review: On Friday, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation announced that it would not grant a necessary permit for the 124-mile Constitution Pipeline proposed to run through the northeastern United States. The Earth Day announcement came after backlash regarding potential safety issues from residents, as well as from Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who said that the plan would be “catastrophic to our air and our climate.” The DEC ultimately refused to grant the permit after concluding that the pipeline would interfere with water resources in its path.

This latest decision follows the rejection, just days prior, of a $3.1 billion natural gas plan proposed by Kinder Morgan. Before that, the 550-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would have run through Virginia and West Virginia, was delayed earlier this year. Georgia’s 360-mile Palmetto Pipeline and Oregon’s 232-mile Pacific Connector Pipeline were both thwarted in March. All that went down in 2016 alone.

The mother of all these killed projects is, of course, the Keystone XL pipeline, a $7 billion undertaking that would have ferried 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Canada to the Gulf Coast — had President Barack Obama not vetoed it last November. Since that decision, the phrase “Keystone-ization” has come to connote the death of a proposed oil and gas pipeline — often due to public backlash.

“Fifty years ago, people in the U.S. were much more accepting of new pipelines and new infrastructure,” Rob Jackson, a professor at the Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment who studies energy use and climate change, told Grist. “Today, people don’t want new pipelines and nuclear power plants near their homes and schools. The failure of Keystone emboldened people to fight the next project.”

“Keystone-ization” has become a rallying cry for writer and climate activist Bill McKibben, who uses it to encourage activists to protest new fossil fuel infrastructure. (Editor’s note: Bill McKibben is a member of Grist’s board). McKibben, however, repurposed it — how green of him — from Marty Durbin, President and CEO of America’s Natural Gas Alliance. Durbin said last year that the pipeline had become a model for climate activists, noting that it has changed the way fossil fuel companies operate:

“These aren’t new issues. These are things that pipeline developers have had to deal with for a long time. But we’ve seen a change in the debate. I hesitate to put it this way, but call it the Keystone-ization of every pipeline project that’s out there, that if you can stop one permit, you can stop the development of fossil fuels. That’s changing the way we have to manage these projects.”

Killing a pipeline plan, Jackson explained, could prevent fossil fuel extraction on the condition that there is no other way for the resources to reach the market. But in the case of oil, it also could backfire. If no pipeline is available, oil may travel by train. According to Jackson, pipelines look like a safer option when considering the terrible track record of oil train derailments — and therefore, the “Keystone-ization” of proposed pipelines may not be such a good thing after all.

At the same time, if oil prices remain low (as they are now), the cost of rail transport can be prohibitive — and when a pipeline is rejected, extracting the oil it was meant to transport may no longer be a profitable decision. If this is the case, Jackson explains, nixing a pipeline may help keep fossil fuels in the ground.

“Some people fight pipelines because they oppose any fossil fuel use. Viewed through that lens, blocking oil and gas pipelines makes sense,” said Jackson. “You will see a fight for every new pipeline from now on, I guarantee it.”

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“Keystone-ization” is the fossil fuel industry’s new nightmare

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Trump and Cruz might drive even a Koch brother to vote for Clinton

by AlejandroFoss5 Posted on April 25, 2016

Trump and Cruz might drive even a Koch brother to vote for Clinton

By on Apr 25, 2016 3:14 pmcommentsShare

Talk about strange bedfellows.

Charles Koch — one-half of the petrochemical billionaire duo that orchestrates a vast network of conservative causes — told ABC News in an interview Sunday that the top Republican presidential frontrunners are so bad Hillary Clinton might make a better option. 

Critical of the divisive rhetoric embraced by Republican candidates, Koch compared Donald Trump’s “monstrous” views on surveilling American Muslims to Nazi Germany, and called Ted Cruz’s promise to carpet-bomb ISIS “frightening.”

ABC News Chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl asked the billionaire, “So is it possible another Clinton could be better than another Republican?”

“It’s possible,” Koch responded.

“You couldn’t see yourself supporting Hillary Clinton, could you?,” asked Karl.

“We would have to believe her actions would be quite different than her rhetoric, let me put it that way,” Koch said.

In the 2012 election, the Kochs’ army of groups spent over $400 million. While the Koch network had planned on spending $889 million this cycle, they may prefer to sit out the presidential race entirely if it’s a Trump-Clinton race. “I could see the network not participating in the presidential election at all,” one senior Koch official said.

For her part, Clinton has little interest in sharing headlines with the Kochs.

In January, while campaigning in Iowa, Clinton alleged that Republican politicians don’t believe in climate change because they “just have to do what the Koch brothers tell them.” Between 2002 and 2010, the duo spent nearly $120 million funding groups promoting climate change denial.

But in case her opinion of Charles Koch was unclear, Clinton responded to the interview on Twitter.

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Trump and Cruz might drive even a Koch brother to vote for Clinton

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Coral bleaching has swept 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef

by MinnieBCHogplu Posted on April 23, 2016

in hot water

Coral bleaching has swept 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef

By on Apr 23, 2016comments

Cross-posted from

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We knew coral bleaching was a serious issue in the Great Barrier Reef, but the scope of just how widespread it was has been unclear — until now.

Extensive aerial surveys and dives have revealed that 93 percent of the world’s largest reef has been devastated by coral bleaching. The culprit has been record-warm water driven by El Niño and climate change that has cooked the life out of corals.

The unprecedented destruction brought leading reef scientist Terry Hughes, who runs the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, to tears.

“We’ve never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before. In the northern Great Barrier Reef, it’s like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once,” Hughes said in a press release.

The Center conducted aerial surveys and dives at 911 sites spanning the full 1,430-mile length of the reef. They show the hardest hit areas are in the northern part of the reefs, which have also endured some of the hottest water temperatures for prolonged periods.

More than 80 percent of reefs surveyed there showed signs of severe bleaching. The southern end of the reef fared better, but overall the bleaching represents a massive blow to biodiversity at the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Great Barrier Reef also faces pressure from ocean acidification and fishing impacts, ramping up concerns over how to protect one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet.

Beyond its beauty, the Great Barrier Reef also has a huge economic benefit on the Australian economy. It generates $4.45 billion in tourism revenue annually and supports nearly 70,000 jobs, according to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

The damage caused by this round of bleaching will be felt for decades, but it’s not the only reef around the globe to feel the heat of climate change. 2015 marked the third global coral bleaching event ever recorded. This one been the longest of the three as hot ocean temperatures fueled by El Niño and climate change have caused reefs to suffer across every ocean basin.

While every basin has been hit, some reefs and coral species have survived through the event. That has scientists trying to quickly understand why the survivors made it through. That knowledge could be crucial to ensure reefs continue to survive as oceans temperatures continue their inexorable rise and water becomes more acidic due to climate change.

“We can’t afford to sit by and watch climate change drive all the world’s coral reefs to extinctions by the end of the century,” Julia Baum, a reef researcher at the University of Victoria, said.

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Coral bleaching has swept 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef

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Seattle’s new environmental justice agenda was built by the people it affects the most

by BenPmnuptfhek Posted on April 22, 2016

Seattle’s new environmental justice agenda was built by the people it affects the most

By on Apr 22, 2016commentsShare

So you want to find a way for your city to acknowledge and begin to repair the damage that pollution, food insecurity, and unequal access to transportation inflict on communities of color and other marginalized groups. Great — now what?

If you’re Seattle, you hold a Vietnamese karaoke night.

Other cities have begun to tackle issues of environmental justice, too, but now Seattle appears to be leading the way, both in its direct approach and in its efforts to involve voices that often go unheard. Today Mayor Ed Murray released the first results of that work, in the form of a 40-page document known as the Equity and Environment Agenda. (Notice which word comes first there.)

“Seattle’s environmental progress and benefits must be shared by all residents no matter their race, immigration status, or income level,” said Murray, speaking to press on Friday.

Sudha Nandagopal, the program manager for the city’s equity and environment initiative (and recently featured on the Grist 50 list of green leaders to watch!) led the development of the agenda by convening a group called the Community Partners’ Steering Committee. The coalition of 16 community leaders was charged with engaging communities of color and other groups disproportionately affected by environmental concerns.

“We had everything from karaoke nights to first graders drawing pictures of their favorite things to see on their way to school,” Nandagopal says. The result is “a call to action for government, non-profits, philanthropy, business, and community to work together in recognition that no single organization can reverse environmental injustice.” Nandagopal and the other authors lay out a series of policy-planning goals and strategies for integrating equity into the city’s environmental programs. For Nandagopal, that means making sure communities of color, immigrants and refugees, low-income communities, youth, and low-proficiency English speakers have their voices heard.

Portland has recently integrated equity considerations into its climate action planning. San Diego reconsidered its work in this area after environmental justice advocates criticized the city’s climate plan for its failure to prioritize neighborhoods most affected by climate change.

Seattle’s new agenda sought to avoid those kinds of shortcomings right from the start. “Historically, environmental justice has been held by community, not by government,” says Nandagopal. Getting the government approach right meant acknowledging this community ownership. “It was a question of trying to broaden how we think about environmental issues in our city and how we connect with people on a one-to-one level.”

The steering committee also held workshops with representatives from mainstream environmental organizations like the Sierra Club — not for the purpose of mainstream input per se, but rather for the sake of “alignment of analysis,” as Nandagopal phrased it.

“There’s a disconnect between how communities of color, lower-income communities, immigrants and refugees are experiencing their environmental issues and how mainstream environmentalists tend to think and talk about environmental issues,” she says. By getting the mainstream groups on board early, they would be less surprised by the type of language and strategies that appear in the final agenda.

Dionne Foster, a policy and research analyst with the advocacy group Puget Sound Sage and co-chair of the Community Partners’ Steering Committee, told Grist that the consultation process succeeded because it lent itself to a more holistic understanding of the problems at hand.

“I love data. Data’s really important,” Foster says. “But you can never get the whole story if you’re only using the numbers and not looking at peoples’ experience.”

Jamie Stroble, a steering committee member and program manager at the Wilderness Inner-City Leadership Development (WILD) program, said her approach to consultation was to engage communities where they are — not in a governmental building. That meant talking to parents at the Lunar New Year festival and holding conversations about the environment on intergenerational field trips up the Skagit River.

“We know best how to reach our communities,” says Stroble. “For the city to trust us with that and to put forward this novel idea of getting together a group of community members to inform city environmental policy — and actually feel like we had a say — I was really appreciative of the process.”

The agenda itself advocates for a four-pronged approach to environmental justice:

  1. Design environmental policies and programs that acknowledge the cumulative impacts of environmental, racial, and socioeconomic burdens, such that Seattle ensures “clean, healthy, resilient, and safe environments” for communities of color, immigrants, refugees, people with low incomes, youth, and those with limited English. This goal advocates for the development of a high-resolution environmental equity assessment.
  2. Create opportunities for “pathways out of poverty through green careers.” One strategy, for example, advocates for “support structures for people of color to lead in environmental policy/program work through positions in government and partnerships with community organizations, businesses and other environmental entities.”
  3. When crafting environmental policies and programs, ensure that affected communities have “equitable access, accountability, and decision-making power.”
  4. Center community stories and narratives and “lift up existing culturally appropriate environmental practices” during the decision-making process.

So what does action look like?

The team is still figuring that out. Going forward, the focus will shift to defining metrics and goal-posts that will measure the success of the agenda. It also offers steps that non-governmental players can take, including demographic data collection and the creation of a community-based environmental justice committee.

“At a higher level, it’s also about changing the national dynamic around this,” says Nandagopal. “There’s similar work happening in pockets around the country in different ways, but I’ve learned from a number of cities that they’re looking to Seattle to lead by example. You can be a great, sustainable city and still be equitable.”

Want to learn more about environmental justice? Check out Grist’s video below.

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John Kerry tugs at heartstrings at the Paris signing

by AlexLeGrand Posted on April 22, 2016

John Kerry tugs at heartstrings at the Paris signing

By on Apr 22, 2016commentsShare

Secretary of State John Kerry, ever the diplomat, sure knows how to melt our cold hearts on Earth Day. Representatives from 175 countries marked the occasion with a formal signing ceremony of the Paris climate agreement at the United Nations. In an event featuring a sea of green ties, Kerry made a different kind of symbolic statement, holding his 2-year-old granddaughter Isabelle as he signed the agreement.

The ceremony is only a first step to seeing the Paris agreement enter into force. Fifty-five countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions still need to ratify the agreement, which the U.S. and China (the two biggest emitters) plan on doing this year. Even once it’s ratified, there’s a lot of work left to be done. Top U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern told Grist in an interview, “the most important thing is what countries do nationally” to make their needed emissions cuts. 

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John Kerry tugs at heartstrings at the Paris signing

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For Once, Something Genuinely Good for the Earth Is Happening on Earth Day

by WilliamsLockyer Posted on April 22, 2016

green4us

World leaders are in New York City to sign the first global agreement on climate change. This image from the 1968 Apollo 8 mission helped inspire the first Earth Day. NASA A lot of champagne was popped on the night of Saturday, December 12, when diplomats from almost every country on Earth finalized the text of the historic global agreement to combat climate change. In the Paris Agreement, countries committed to hold global temperature increases to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, an ambitious target considering that the world is already more than halfway to that limit. The deal also laid out a system for wealthier nations to help poorer ones pay for adapting to unavoidable climate impacts. But finalizing the agreement was only one step on the long road to actually achieving its aims. The next step is happening today, on Earth Day, as heads of state and other top officials from more than 150 countries will gather at the United Nations headquarters in New York City to put their signatures on the deal. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was a driving force in Paris, will sign the document on behalf of the United States. Signing the document is mostly a symbolic step, indicating a country’s intent to formally “join” the agreement at some later stage. In order to “join” the agreement, national governments have to show the UN the piece of domestic paperwork—a law, executive order, or some other legal document—in which the government consents to be bound by the terms of the agreement. Some small countries, including some island states that are among the most vulnerable to climate impacts, are expected to offer up those documents at the same time they sign. Other countries will take longer. The agreement doesn’t take legal effect until it is formally joined by both 55 individual countries and by enough countries to cover 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (a threshold that essentially mandates the participation of the US and China). The World Resources Institute made a pretty cool widget for experimenting with various ways to reach those thresholds. You can play around with different options to see what it would take. Once countries start signing the agreement, the widget will automatically update accordingly: President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping have promised to join the agreement this year. Obama is expected to join using an executive agreement, which will allow him to avoid sending the deal to Congress. (Executive agreements account for the vast majority of US foreign commitments.) He’s able to do this because the US says it can fulfill its Paris promises without any changes to domestic laws; instead, the Obama administration is holding up its end of the bargain by imposing new EPA regulations on emissions from power plants. Unlike a treaty, an executive agreement does not require ratification by the Senate. It’s not bulletproof; a future president could unilaterally abandon from the deal. But for Obama, there’s a clear incentive for pushing to reach those 55 countries/55 percent thresholds as quickly as possible: Once the agreement goes into force, it requires a four-year waiting period before a country can withdraw. In other words, in the event that either Ted Cruz or Donald Trump—both vociferous climate change deniers—succeeds Obama in the White House, they wouldn’t be able to back out of the agreement until their (*shudder*) second term. The odds are against the agreement taking force before Obama leaves office, because adoption by the European Union—which in the Paris Agreement acts as a singular unit—requires domestic actions by all of its 28 member states, which could take some extra time. Still, if the next president bails, he or she will have to pay a heavy diplomatic price for it, cautioned Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “Walking away from the agreement would instantly turn the US from a leader to a defector,” he said, “and would almost certainly trigger a diplomatic backlash that would hamper our other priorities.” The upshot is that the US will likely join soon after today’s signing ceremony. A slew of other nations will follow, and the Paris Agreement will become binding international law sometime before 2018, when it calls for a global check-in on emission reductions. Of course, none of this puts the world any closer to averting devastating climate change than we were back in December. As they stand today, the country-level plans (nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, in UN jargon) enshrined in the agreement fall woefully short of the “well below” 2 degrees C target. The chart below, from a recent analysis by MIT and Climate Interactive, shows a variety of possible future scenarios. The blue line is what would happen without the Paris Agreement—a world where the impacts of climate change would be truly horrific and many major cities would become uninhabitable. The red line shows what will happen if countries stick to their current commitments. The green line is what a successful outcome of the Paris Agreement would look like (and, to be clear, even that level of warming will come with severe consequences): Climate Interactive/MIT Sloan As you can see, by 2025 or so countries need to be doing far more than they have committed to thus far. The Paris Agreement states that in 2020, at the next major international climate conference, countries must roll out new plans that go well beyond their current ones. So we’re very much not out of the woods yet. But we’re moving in the right direction, at least. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, the holiday has generally declined into little more than a “news” hook for corporate communications people to harass reporters about eco-friendly guns and cheeseburgers and other dumb stuff. So it’s kind of nice to see the day being used for something of actual historical significance.

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For Once, Something Genuinely Good for the Earth Is Happening on Earth Day

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For Once, Something Genuinely Good for the Earth Is Happening on Earth Day

Posted in Citadel, Cyber, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, Monterey, ONA, organic, organic gardening, OXO, Ringer, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on For Once, Something Genuinely Good for the Earth Is Happening on Earth Day

These Audubon photo winners show birds in all their strangeness and splendor

by BreannaCottrell Posted on April 22, 2016

These Audubon photo winners show birds in all their strangeness and splendor

By on Apr 21, 2016commentsShare

At Grist, our favorite bird is the climate hawk, but we concede that other birds have merit, too, at least from an aesthetic standpoint. Case in point: the avian creatures featured in Audubon Society’s 2016 Photography Awards.

From interspecies interactions (such as the grand-prize shot of a bald eagle harassing a blue heron) to proof that birds of a feather really do flock together (the clan of eared grebe, below), these winning photos show our avian friends in all their strangeness and splendor.

But a few of them, it has to be said, seem like jerks (talking about you, Venezuelan Troupial). Check out the full gallery of 100 award-winning shots.

Eared Grebe; Amateur WInner Steve TornaAudubon Photography Award

Venezuelan Troupial; Amateur Winner Ben KnootAudubon Photography Award

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A top climate negotiator isn’t stressing out over the future of the Paris agreement

by GregoryLavater8 Posted on April 21, 2016

U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern. REUTERS/Mandel Ngan/Pool

A top climate negotiator isn’t stressing out over the future of the Paris agreement

By on Apr 21, 2016commentsShare

Before the Paris climate agreement enters its next stage – getting signed by 155 countries at the United Nations headquarters on Friday – I caught up with the United States’ outgoing special envoy for climate change on the phone. Todd Stern, who has stepped down to pursue teaching and other projects, was digging himself out of seven years of paperwork in his State Department office.

Stern’s departure comes after he helped the Obama administration accomplish its goals at the Paris conference (COP 21) in December, laying the groundwork for the first global climate agreement to cover the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions.

The future of the Paris agreement is far from secure; 55 countries representing 55 percent of world emissions need to ratify it and its effectiveness relies on countries delivering on (and exceeding) their national pledges. And of course, the U.S. government’s position remains tenuous until the next president takes office.

Stern’s career in international climate politics dates back to the ill-fated Kyoto conference of 1997. His experience putting together deals at Kyoto and Copenhagen, and watching them unravel, could explain why Stern insists the Paris agreement will succeed despite all the challenges. In our recent interview, Stern said he doesn’t wring his hands and wonder, “Oh, my God, what if” the whole thing unravels, because he doesn’t see it happening. “Call me crazy, but I don’t think so.” After all these years of working in painstakingly incremental climate negotiations, Stern remains an optimist.

This interview is edited for clarity and length.

Q. How does it feel to be packing up?

A. I ended up staying, probably a lot longer than I originally intended when I started in 2009. At some level, we were officially working on this particular negotiation for four years [since the end of 2011] but were really working on the whole thing for seven. I wanted to stay and see it through to the end, and it worked better than anybody had hoped. So this is a good time for me to go.

Q. Do you have any regrets from how you approached the Paris talks and any regrets about the outcome?

A. With respect to Paris, I don’t think that I would say we had real regrets. Obviously, there’s a lot more to do. We made a start, and there’s a tremendous amount of follow-up to do, so it’s not like I’m saying Paris is the be-all and end-all, because that’s certainly not true, but in terms of what’s achievable in Paris, I think we did pretty well.

Q. Paris still left a lot of issues unclear. What needs to happen at the next United Nations climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco?

A. There are a set of different follow-up actions that are called for by the Paris agreement or the accompanying decision itself. You need guidelines for transparency; there are issues on accounting and finance.

All of those follow-up measures that are called for need to be negotiated and worked out over the course of the next few years. There are a small handful of things called for in Marrakech itself, but mostly, we’re talking about beyond Marrakech.

Q. What do future conferences need to accomplish to resolve outstanding issues?

A. In 2018, there’s going to be the first five-year global stock take of how countries are doing on the global emissions goals. Then, two years after each global stock take, there will be a review, with the first one happening in 2020.

Some countries have five-year targets, some countries have 10-year targets. Countries with five-year targets will be putting in a new target. Countries with 10-year targets might be putting in a new target in 2020; their target might still be running for an additional number of years, but they are required to take another look at it in light of science and technology development and make a determination as to whether they should increase it. They have to submit something in writing about whether they’re going to stay where they are or increase it. That’s the kind of ratcheting processes that are going to happen every five years.

Apart from the specifics of what happens in the COP [United Nations climate conference] process, the most important thing is what countries do nationally to drive the emission reductions, drive the transformation from high to low carbon that is required to solve the problem. A lot of it is going to happen at the national levels, even sub-national levels.

Q. What did you learn from your experience at other climate conferences that helped the U.S. position in Paris?

A. Going all the way back to the Kyoto and Buenos Aires conferences in ’97 and ’98 — my first exposure to this issue — one thing I took away was that it was going to be very important, diplomatically, to create a forum where the major players, both developed and developing, get together on a regular basis at a high level and have a civilized, calm, reflective, candid conversation about whatever the hard issues were at the moment.

Coming to the Obama administration, we took President Bush’s Major Economies Forum and we gave it a mission to advance the negotiations with high-level administrators coming together three or four times a year.

I think my sense of needing to do that came out of experiencing the kind of circus and cacophony of my first two U.N. climate conferences.

I always have tried to think both forward and backward. Whatever year you’re in, think about where you want to land, and then try to walk backward to how you’re going to get there. That’s an evolving process. What you think in March is not going to be the same thing that you think in May.

Somebody famous said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” This is a slightly more diplomatic version of that. I’ve always tried to be very direct and candid with people, and I think that’s not a diplomatic lesson I’ve learned, I think that’s just my nature that I brought to the job.

When negotiating, I always wanted to have in mind, “We could go this far and we couldn’t go further.” You’re trying to find where the common ground is, where the landing zone is.

Q. How much does it affect negotiations when you have candidates for president who are actively undermining your message?

A. As the noise from the campaign gets louder and louder in this election year, obviously people are paying attention to what the candidates are saying, and I’ve been asked plenty of times about that. I mean, I’m still at the State Department, so I’m not gonna get political here. But I don’t believe any president is going to pull us out of Paris, because I think quite apart from climate change, the diplomatic fallout would be so serious.

Q. I saw you said that President George W. Bush took “lots and lots of diplomatic flak,” for rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, but despite the fallout, we still didn’t see any progress on global climate action. While there would be fallout for pulling the U.S. from the Paris agreement, how does that ensure the next president might not do it anyway?

A.That’s a fair question, but I think it’s a different situation, really. You know, Kyoto was a good try, but Kyoto covered really a fairly [limited] number of nations around the world. It was a good effort, but it was also flawed.

I think what you have now is, first of all, a much broader understanding and realization of what this issue is about and what the risks are by countries all over the world. And you have a structure here which is designed to be long-lasting, designed to be inclusive. It would just be seen as a huge step backward for the United States to do this.

Even with respect to Kyoto, the United States took a really big diplomatic hit for doing that, and I think the diplomatic hit here would be just an order of magnitude larger than was true for Kyoto.

Q. Have you ever thought about what it would feel like to watch this unravel after years of effort?

A. No, I don’t think it’s going to. I honestly don’t think it’s going to. I think it’s enormously important that we charge faster forward, because if you look at what’s happening in the natural world, we don’t actually have that much time. But I don’t think about what’s going to happen if it unravels because I don’t think it’s going to unravel.

Q. OK, well, I don’t want to end on such a pessimistic note on my part.

A. I mean, honestly, I don’t, though, Rebecca. You asked me a straight-up question. I don’t go around wringing my hands about, “Oh, my God, what if” because I actually don’t think that that’s going to happen. Call me crazy, but I don’t think so.

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A top climate negotiator isn’t stressing out over the future of the Paris agreement

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Rapper Common releases new song to make a case for Flint aid

by SommerLathrop Posted on April 21, 2016

Rapper Common releases new song to make a case for Flint aid

By on Apr 21, 2016commentsShare

Common’s new song, “Trouble in the Water,” connects the ongoing lead crisis in Flint, Mich., with global issues like climate change and ocean pollution. The song was released in conjunction with the civil rights group Hip Hop Caucus and features Malik Yusef.

The video asks viewers to sign a petition calling for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to compensate victims of the crisis in Flint. “The crisis in Flint has put politics and profit over the lives of people,” Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, said in a statement. “Now it is time to reverse that horrific process and create a compensation fund for victims of the Flint water crisis.”

Three officials were charged in connection with the scandal Wednesday, nearly two years after Flint’s water source was contaminated.

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Hotel Chain to Grow Its Own Produce at 1,000 Locations

by ArlieMSZaecq Posted on April 21, 2016

As food prices soar, a growing number of foods become genetically modified or sprayed with pesticides and nutrient content in our fruits and vegetables drop, its no surprise that food gardening is experiencing a renaissance. So it should come as no surprise that one of the world’s largest hotel chains plans to grow its own vegetables at 1,000 hotel locations to cut food waste and increase food sustainability.

The Paris-based AccorHotel chain includes: Novotel, Ibis, Pullman, Sofitel and Mercure. The company estimates that growing its own fruit and vegetables will cut its food waste by 30 percent with a goal of cutting food waste entirely.

What the company cannot grow at its 1,000 urban hotel gardens, it intends to source locally, as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility commitment. Called Planet 21, the companys attempt to cut food waste by growing its own produce is just one of the areas it intends to become greener, increasingly sustainable and more community-focused.

Additionally, it intends to renovate or build new buildings as low-carbon buildings, increase innovations to boost sustainability and improve its engagement at the community level, among other goals.

According to a news story, AccorHotel has already cut water consumption by nearly 9 percent, energy consumption by 5.3 percentand carbon emissions by 6.2 percent over the last 5 years.

Obviously food waste and food security are major issues that both corporations and individuals need to address. As someone who already maintains a large fruit and vegetable garden and is in the midst of removing my front lawn to grow more produce, I know from experience that the current state of our food supply has been a big motivator for me. Im increasingly disturbed by the amount of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) in a large volume of produce available at grocery stores. And Im equally concerned about the pesticides that have been linked to brain diseases like Parkinsons, Alzheimers and Lou Gehrigs Disease (known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS).

Now, lets hope that many other hotels, restaurants, cafes, other businesses and individuals chime in to do their part to improve food security and to reduce food waste. While there are countless things we can all do to green up the planet and transform the quality and scarcity of our food and resources, here are a few suggestions to get started:

* Replace some or all of the lawn in your yard with fruit trees, vegetables, culinary or medicinal herbs. Of course, be sure to check bylaws in your area to ensure there are no legal issues, particularly if you dig up your front yard. Most food plants look lovelier than the monoculture we call grass and contribute far more to our health and the health of the planet.

* If you dont have a lawn or garden area you can still grow more of your own food in pots on a balcony or as part of a rooftop garden. These gardens not only boost our food supply and reduce transportation costs and carbon emissions from food transportation, they also help to create beautiful sanctuaries where we can get some relaxation in our hectic lives.

* Choose organic food as much as possible. Organic is less polluting to the environment and our bodies and doesnt contain GMOs. Plus, its how things grew for thousands of years. Pesticides and GMOs are recent phenomena that, contrary to what the companies manufacturing them may tell you, have not proven themselves to be worthy additions to agriculture or gardens.

Id love to hear your suggestions as to how we can boost our food independence, security, and reduce waste. How are you taking steps toward food independence?

Dr. Michelle Schoffro Cook, PhD, DNM is a certified herbalist and international best-selling and 19-time published book author whose works include: Be Your Own Herbalist: Essential Herbs for Health, Beauty, and Cooking (New World Library, 2016).

Related:
The Top U.S. Cities for Urban Farming
The Secret Intelligence of Plants
Permaculture: Landscaping That Works With Nature

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Hotel Chain to Grow Its Own Produce at 1,000 Locations

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