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These Stunning Photos Show China’s Daily Onslaught of Toxic Smog

by NCSEmelybnkz Posted on November 19, 2014

Mother Jones

During the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing, something remarkable happened, as it does every time the world’s news cameras train their sites on the Chinese capital: The toxic gray air turned blue. The state-run press even gave it a name: “APEC blue”.

Magic! Not exactly. In a push to impress (pretend?), the magic wand that Beijing authorities waved to banish the smog was in fact a massive bureaucratic effort that could only be pulled off in one-party-rule China. Ten thousand industrial plants were temporarily shuttered, and nearly 40,000 others limited operating hours. An army of 434,000 staff and officials from provinces surrounding Beijing were called up to inspect the plants and enforce the order, according to the South China Morning Post.

In China, extreme tactics like this are not uncommon. The skies for 2008’s Beijing Olympics were cleared in part using cloud-seeding, a process that involves lacing clouds with chemicals to increase precipitation. The country boasts “the world’s largest rainmaking force, with 6,902 cloud-seeding artillery guns, 7,034 launchers for chemical-bearing rockets, more than 50 planes and 47,700 employees,” according to the Washington Post.

But now that APEC is over, so is APEC blue. The smog is returning with a vengeance as cars clog the streets and production gets back online:

To get a real sense of just how bad the air is in Beijing most of the time, check out this extraordinary series of photos taken by one Beijing man, who has been waging something of a social media war against the city’s toxic air since the beginning of 2013. Zou Yi has been taking photos of the Beijing sky every day and uploading them to his personal Weibo account (the rough equivalent of Twitter). The result—which we first saw in Petapixel and which was also reported in That’s, a Beijing expat magazine—is frightening:

A toxic view. Zou Yi/Sina Weibo via Petapixel/That’s

The daily photos of the Beijing Television Station building are taken from Zou’s apartment. They include the date and Beijing’s Air Quality Index readings. Independent US readings of the smog taken from atop its Beijing embassy were reportedly censored during APEC.

The photo series has even been picked up by Chinese state-run press, in a further sign that the constraints around reporting the pollution problem in the media have been gradually loosening over the last few years. China Radio International’s website quoted Zou Yi as saying, “I hope the activity will cause more people to realize the significance of protecting the environment.”

According to environmental policy experts, China’s air crisis was a major driver behind the landmark US-China climate deal announced last week. Under the agreement, China’s greenhouse gas emissions would peak around 2030. China’s pollution—which is now a political headache for its leaders, not simply an environmental concern—has been central to its pursuit of alternative energy sources, including natural gas, that could wean China’s economy from dirty coal.

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These Stunning Photos Show China’s Daily Onslaught of Toxic Smog

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Obama’s Deal With China Is a Big Win for Solar, Nuclear, and Clean Coal

by johnsmith2345as Posted on November 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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The plan announced last night for the United States and China to join forces in the fight against climate change is a big deal. It sets a new, more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target for the US (although the target will only bring emissions slightly below 1990 levels, which isn’t as aggressive as climate scientists have advocated). It establishes a goal for China to get one-fifth of its power from low-carbon sources by 2030. And it lays out what both countries will bring to the table at next year’s international climate negotiations in Paris. That should help other countries set their own goals, and it increases the likelihood that the talks will be productive.

More coverage of the historic US-China climate deal.


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Obama’s Deal With China Is a Big Win for Solar, Nuclear, and Clean Coal


Awkward: Watch a Supercut of Republicans Using China As an Excuse to Do Nothing About Climate Change


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The deal could also be a big win for the clean energy sector. It calls for more funding for research and development projects focused on renewable energy, energy efficiency, and clean vehicles. It also includes a major new pilot project in China to study carbon capture and sequestration, the controversial technology that—at least in theory—could help China curb its emissions while continuing to burn coal for electricity.

Perhaps most significantly, the plan says that for China to meet its clean energy production target, it will have to roll out an additional 800 to 1,000 gigawatts of low-carbon energy sources by 2030. That’s roughly equivalent to the size of the US’s current electric grid, but made up entirely of non-fossil energy. So the renewable energy market in China, already the world’s biggest, is poised to grow by a lot over the next decade or so. That’s not necessarily a new development, but now we know that the growth expectation is nailed down to some specific numbers—and that it will happen with the support of the US government and American companies.

In other words, China’s climate goals represent a big economic opportunity for both countries.

“I think the technology stuff is the most important part of this agreement,” said Alex Trembath, an energy analyst with the Breakthrough Institute. “This is what energy innovation looks like: Not only partnerships in deploying new technologies, but innovation that takes advantage of demand in growing markets” like China.

Up to this point, trade relations on clean energy have been a little icy between China and the US, especially on solar power. Over the last couple years, the explosion of the solar power market has led to some bitter trade wars between Chinese and American solar panel manufacturers, with US regulators complaining that Chinese companies were dumping super-cheap panels on the American market. The Commerce Department already raised tariffs on Chinese solar technology this summer, and it’s poised to do so again in December.

But Nick Culver, a solar market analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, says yesterday’s announcement effectively signals a pivot in the Obama administration’s attitude that will ultimately benefit the US solar industry.

“Folks in the solar world are worried about a discrete number of things that can really throw the brakes in US, and one of those things is a trade war with escalating tariffs,” Culver said. “This seems like it really relieves that fear,” because the plan makes it US policy to promote, not inhibit, China’s clean energy sector.

Culver cautioned that it could be several years before China’s new commitments translate to a noticeable uptick in manufacturing, so don’t expect solar stock prices to necessarily skyrocket right away. The bilateral plan is light on details, so it’s hard to say exactly when and how China envisions ramping up its solar deployment. But now the tone is set for a relationship between the countries that is less combative and more collaborative.

That attitude applies beyond solar power. China is the world’s biggest coal consumer; it gets more than 70 percent of its power from coal. Thanks to China’s skyrocketing growth, its coal addiction is expected to rise until 2030, when the International Energy Agency predicts China will, at its peak, consume more than half the world’s coal. To reconcile China’s need for more cheap energy with its climate goals, the plan calls for a major pilot project to study carbon capture and sequestration, a technology intended to capture carbon dioxide from coal plants and either bury it underground or repackage it for use as an industrial chemical.

The project will be a fresh opportunity to prove that CCS can be made economically viable—the closest equivalent project in the US, a coal plant in Mississippi, is a $5 billion boondoggle.

“Having CCS called out specifically is a good sign that the technology is necessary” for China to meet its climate goals, said Elizabeth Burton, director of the Global CCS Institute, a Melbourne-based think tank.

Nuclear power could also be a winner. China already has 26 nuclear reactors in the works, with an additional 60 planned, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. These will likely become a key component of China’s push for low-carbon energy.

Trembath said the agreement is a model for international collaboration on climate action that reduces our collective carbon footprint without the geopolitical hassle of a legally binding global treaty.

“If you really want to gather momentum for clean energy,” Trembath said, “you have to take advantage of China.”

Original source – 

Obama’s Deal With China Is a Big Win for Solar, Nuclear, and Clean Coal

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In Just 15 Years, Wind Could Provide A Fifth Of The World’s Electricity

by DorethaRoden Posted on October 22, 2014

Mother Jones

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Up to one fifth of the world’s electricity supply could come from wind turbines by 2030, according to a new report released this week by Greenpeace and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). That would be an increase of 530 percent compared to the end of last year.

The report says the coming global boom in wind power will be driven largely by China’s rebounding wind energy market—and a continued trend of high levels of Chinese green energy investment—as well as by steady growth in the United States and new large-scale projects in Mexico, Brazil, and South Africa.

The report, called the “Global Wind Energy Outlook,” explains how wind energy could provide 2,000 gigawatts of electricity by 2030, which would account for 17 to 19 percent of global electricity. And by 2050, wind’s share of the electricity market could reach 30 percent. That’s a huge jump from the end of 2013, when wind provided around 3 percent of electricity worldwide.

The report is an annually produced industry digest co-authored by the GWEC, which represents 1,500 wind power producers. It examines three “energy scenarios” based on projections used by the International Energy Agency. The “New Policies” scenario attempts to capture the direction and intentions of international climate policy, even if some of these policies have yet to be fully implemented. From there, GWEC has fashioned two other scenarios—”moderate” and “advanced”—which reflect two different ways nations might cut carbon and keep their commitments to global climate change policies. In the most ambitious scenario, “advanced,” wind could help slash more than 3 billion tons of climate-warning carbon dioxide emissions each year. The following chart has been adapted and simplified from the report:

In the best case scenario, China leads the way in 2020 and in 2030:

But as the report’s authors note, there is still substantial uncertainty in the market. “There is much that we don’t know about the future,” they write, “and there will no doubt be unforeseen shifts and shocks in the global economy as well as political ups and downs.” The more optimistic results contained in the report are dependent on whether the global community is going to respond “proactively to the threat of climate change, or try to do damage control after the fact,” the report says.

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In Just 15 Years, Wind Could Provide A Fifth Of The World’s Electricity

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Will Cambodia Flood a Sacred and Biodiverse Valley for a Dubious Dam?

by AshleigFHIY Posted on October 19, 2014

Mother Jones

On September 15, Cambodian police detained 11 environmental activists for blocking a convoy of government vehicles headed for Areng Valley, the site of the controversial Stung Cheay Areng hydro dam project. The activists were released, but twelve Royal Cambodian Armed Forces officers are now stationed at the makeshift roadblock where villagers have been protesting the dam since March. Nothing now stands in the way of Sinohydro Resources, the Chinese company that the Cambodian government has contracted to construct the dam.

Earlier this year, my film crew and I traveled to Areng Valley to document the story of the Chong people and their fight to stop this proposed dam, which they fear will destroy their forests, livelihood, and heritage. The Chong, who are considered Khmer Daeum (or original Khmers), have lived, farmed, fished, and hunted in this valley for more than 600 years. At a protest, one woman expressed her purpose clearly: “We’ve come to protect our land for our future grandchildren. And we’re afraid all our spirit forests will be lost.”

If built, the Stung Cheay Areng dam would flood at least 26,000 acres or 40 square miles (some estimates say 77 square miles) — displacing more than 1,500 people who have no desire to leave their ancestral homes. The government plans to forcibly resettle them within the Central Cardamom Protected Forest, a vital elephant corridor, causing further encroachment on an area internationally recognized as a biodiversity hotspot. The dam would thereby threaten the habitats of 31 endangered animals, including the world’s largest habitat for the threatened Siamese crocodiles.

Conservation experts also question the project’s economic viability, citing high production costs and a very low rate of economic return. During the rainy season, the dam is hypothetically capable of producing enough electricity to power some 87,000 US-style homes. But, according to Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia Program Director for International Rivers, “the dam will only operate at 46 percent capacity during the dry season, precisely when Cambodia most needs the electricity.”

The proposed Stung Cheay Areng dam is one of 17 the Cambodian government intends to build over the next 20 years to tackle the country’s energy crisis. The dam building spree is prompted by some of the highest electricity prices in Asia. But Cambodia will sell most of the power to neighboring countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. And, as a US State Department cable obtained by Wikileaks indicates, “the proposed dams’ construction and maintenance contracts will funnel near and mid-term profits to foreign construction companies.”

As with all large hydro dams being built in the country, Sinohydro will transfer ownership of the Areng dam to the Cambodian government in 40 years, just as maintenance costs spike and substantial sediment build-up is predicted to render the dam nearly inoperative. Many of the dams so far built are poorly constructed; the Stung Atay dam, located not too far from Areng, collapsed mid-construction in December 2012, killing four workers.

“Cambodia’s hydropower ambitions are not new, but China’s substantial foreign aid in the form of grants and soft loans has driven much of the recent progress,” the Wikileaks cable notes. Indeed, Sinohydro is the third company the Cambodian government approached to build this dam. Two Chinese companies that conducted feasibility studies pulled out of the project. The first company discontinued its involvement on moral grounds, citing issues of corporate social responsibility; the environmental and social impacts are irreversible and cannot be mitigated. The last company to bail concluded the dam was “economically unviable.”

So then why is the Government of Cambodia so eager to pursue this project? According to a Phnom Penh Post investigation, one of the country’s wealthiest and most politically powerful couples—Cambodian People’s Party senator Lao Meng Khin and his wife, Choeung Sopheap—are believed to have brokered the deal between Sinohydro and the Cambodian government. This would not be their first foray into environmental devastation for profit. The couple are the owners of Shukaku Inc, the company behind the controversial Beoung Kak Lake development in Phnom Penh, which has forcibly evicted and displaced over 1,500 families. They also own Pheapimex Group, a controversial development firm responsible for the land seizure of hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and farmland in Cambodia.

Furthermore, the couple is connected to powerful logging syndicates that stand to benefit from the dam project. The construction will provide unhindered access to the Central Cardamom Protected Forest, building roads where none currently exist, and sending loggers deeper into the forests in search of rosewood, a highly prized luxury hardwood. Logging is technically not permitted in protected areas, but activists fear that timber will find its way onto trucks in the concession area. At that point, as one conservation activist noted, it is as if “the timber has already reached Vietnam.” When the Stung Atay dam was built, conservation experts estimated 1,300 cubic yards of rosewood would be harvested. However, in actuality, at least 20,000 cubic yards were harvested, netting approximately $220 million in profit for timber companies. Experts expect the total area deforested in this project would almost equal that of the combined surface area cleared in four existing dam projects in the Cardamoms.

The loggers are often poor migrants who have themselves been displaced by the destruction of their forests and farmland. Continuing this cycle of devastation they receive temporary permits to enter the forests and clear land, supplying luxury timber to logging tycoons. Once the land is cleared, it will never be reforested. Businessmen will snap it up for development. Meanwhile, local, indigenous communities are pushed deeper and deeper into protected areas, where they will, of necessity, place demands on previously pristine forest and wildlife habitats. According to a Global Witness report, since 2003 400,000 Cambodians have been harmed by economic land concessions granted to companies for industrial agriculture or dam construction. More than 70 percent of the concessions in 2012 were situated inside national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and protected forests.

A panel of Sinohydro experts recently approved the technical feasibility of the project. The Cambodian government is expected to waive through the dam’s environmental impact assessment, allowing Sinohydro to begin construction.

Meanwhile, local NGOs like Mother Nature and Khmer Youth Empire continue to wage an empowering social media campaign against the dam and rallying protests in Phnom Penh. International environmental organizations like International Rivers, Conservation International, and Wildlife Alliance are also exerting pressure on the Cambodian government and Chinese companies to pull out.

Villagers in Areng, dedicated to stopping the dam, vow to continue blocking the sole access road into the valley. One woman vehemently expressed it thus: “Even if they piled money one meter above my head, I don’t want their Chinese money. I want to stay in my village. Even with all this money, I could only spend it in this life. I wouldn’t be able to pass it on to my grandchildren. I just want my village and my land for the future of my grandchildren.”

And they just might be successful. On October 1, the leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, Sam Rainsy, said he’d been assured by Prime Minister Hun Sen that the activists call for a moratorium had been heeded. The dam would be put on the backburner for the foreseeable future, it’s fate left to “future generations” to decide. However, the Minister of Mines and Energy has continued to insist that the dam will be completed by 2020 while the Minister of Environment assured that the dam had not been cancelled and nor had construction been postponed. It remains to be seen which party in this complicated fight over land and money and tradition will win out.

This project was made possible by a grant from The Kendeda Fund, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the Sundance Institute Artist Services Program. The film was originally produced for The New York Times Op-Docs.

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Will Cambodia Flood a Sacred and Biodiverse Valley for a Dubious Dam?

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The Chinese people care more about the environment than Americans do

by KurtisBoag Posted on October 17, 2014

The Chinese people care more about the environment than Americans do

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17 Oct 2014 2:21 PM

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Those who oppose action on climate change in America are fond of complaining about how futile our own efforts to cut greenhouse gases are when China doesn’t give a hoot about its own emissions. But a new poll finds that the Chinese people do want action to cut pollution — even more than we do in America.

The Pew Research Center asked people around the world to rank five global threats. A full third of respondents in China think that issues related to “pollution and the environment” present the greatest danger to the world. Compare that to 15 percent of Americans. (We Americans, according to Pew, are most concerned about inequality — which, incidentally, is a related issue because inequality both makes climate change harder to tackle, and will be made greatly worse as poor communities and nations face the brunt of a climate run amok.)

And increasingly, the Chinese people are making their voices heard. This summer, Stephen Vines reported for Al Jazeera on the growing number of environmental protests in China:

The latest official State of the Environment report recorded 712 cases of “abrupt environmental incidents” in 2013, up 31 percent from the previous year. Many of these “incidents” are in fact protests, and the level of protest in the current year is, if anything, on the up. Yang Chaofei, the vice-chairman of the Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences, told members of the powerful Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress that environmental protests have been growing 29 percent annually from 1966 to 2011.

Maybe the folks running the country with the world’s highest greenhouse gas emissions and some of the filthiest air are starting to listen to their people. This June, just a day after the U.S. announced its own plans to cut power plant emissions, a Chinese government advisor stated that, for the first time, his country would limit its emissions. And China’s Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli outlined the country’s plans at the U.N. summit in New York last month. Mashable’s Andrew Freedman writes:

China has a goal to reduce its carbon intensity, which is a way of measuring the carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product, by up to 45% by 2020. Zhang said that China will reveal its goals for reducing emissions post-2020 during the first quarter of 2015, as the United States also intends to do.

Zhang said that in 2013, carbon intensity dropped by nearly 29% from the 2005 level, and that installed renewable energy capacity increased significantly as well.

“Responding to climate change is what China needs to do to attain sustainable development at home,” Zhang told the throngs of dignitaries, corporate titans and representatives of civil society groups at the U.N.

So not only have the Chinese beaten us in emitting, they’ve beaten us in being concerned about what those emissions do. Will they now beat us in doing something about it?

Source:
Global Attitudes Project

, Pew Research Center.

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The Chinese people care more about the environment than Americans do

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Half of All Summers Will Soon Be Boiling Hot for Hundreds of Millions of People

by JeanK77hdeizk Posted on October 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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Last year was an absolute scorcher in China. In the eastern part of the country, more than a half-billion people sweltered through 31 days with daily maximum temperatures of 95 degrees Fahrenheit or more, a historical record. The heat wave killed dozens of people. Nightmare-inducing crowds swamped public pools and beaches. NASA reported that Shanghai broke its all-time temperature record three times in as many weeks. The blistering heat was accompanied by a drought that afflicted the country’s food bowl, the Yangtze River basin, that cost China around $9.6 billion. The Associated Press reported at the time that “folks are grilling shrimp on manhole covers, eggs are hatching without incubators and a highway billboard has mysteriously caught fire by itself.”

Now the verdict is in: China better get used to it. New research released Sunday reveals that 2013 was not just some statistical blip—and man-made climate change is likely the main culprit. In just two decades, 50 percent of summers are likely to be hotter than the one Chinese people suffered through in 2013, according to the study. That means extreme summers like last year’s, which normally only happen once every 270 years, could happen every other year.

The research was conducted by the China Meteorological Administration, the Canadian government, and a researcher from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, and is featured in the latest edition of the science journal Nature Climate Change. The team analyzed historical climate data in eastern China, and found that man-made climate change has caused a 60-fold increase in the likelihood of extreme temperatures since the early 1950s, when reliable national records began. Similarly hot summers are becoming increasingly likely, they found. Heat waves are also starting earlier and ending later. The five hottest summers in China since records began all happened since 2000, according to the report.

“Human influence has produced a very large increase in the probability of clustering of extremely hot summers in the twenty-first century and of long-lasting severe heat waves such as that of 2013,” the researchers write. “The increase in summer heat, combined with the region’s rising population and wealth, would produce higher risks for human health, agricultural systems and energy production and distribution systems if sufficient adaptation measures are not in place.”

The link established by the report’s authors to man-made climate change adds yet another worry for China’s leaders, who are already battling an ongoing air pollution crisis that is currently blanketing the country’s north in extreme smog. China already has an alarming climate rap sheet: It is the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases and the world’s top coal producer and consumer; some 70 percent of its energy supply comes from coal. As Chinese leaders throw every new technology—including fracking—at breaking its decades-long coal addiction, China promised world leaders at UN climate talks that it would peak its emissions “as early as possible”—the first time a high-ranking Chinese government official has mentioned such a target. China has also recently promised to start a nationwide cap-and-trade program to put a price on its carbon emissions.

Tourists in Beijing walk through thick smog on October 9; local authorities raised the smog alert to orange, the second-highest level. Imaginechina/AP

The report is the latest in a string of new research linking last year’s heat waves around the world—in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, and Europe—to climate change with an ever-increasing amount of scientific certainty.

Martin P. Hoerling, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who reviewed the study for me during an interview, said the Chinese results are useful in understanding why heat waves are happening more often around the globe. “We can generalize some of the heat wave experiences in China from these authors to other areas.”

Hoerling, who called Sunday’s Chinese study “solid” and “entirely consistent” with previous findings, edited a supplement to last month’s Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society that summarized results from 20 separate research groups analyzing 16 different events in 2013. They found that while the climate change connection to events like droughts and storms remained unclear, scientifically, “human-caused climate change greatly increased the risk for the extreme heat waves.” The combined research shows that long heat waves are as much as 10 times more likely due to human-induced climate change.

Hoerling said that the authors of this latest Chinese study may even be taking a slightly conservative approach to “some of the more severe consequences that ongoing warming would have if you pushed this out a little bit into the second half of the 21st century.”

The 2013 heat wave in China, he said, would be a “cold summer for those living in the latter half of the 21st century in this area if we continue on our pathway of emissions.”

Environment Canada, a government department, declined to make their lead researcher for the study, Zhang Xuebin, available for interview, and did not respond to written questions—a practice that appears consistent with widely reported policies that bar government researchers, including climate scientists, from discussing their work with journalists. A survey last year of 4000 Canadian researchers revealed widespread “muzzling” of federal scientists.

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Half of All Summers Will Soon Be Boiling Hot for Hundreds of Millions of People

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U.S. tariffs on Chinese solar panels break trade rules, WTO says

by ElyseOgren Posted on July 15, 2014

U.S. tariffs on Chinese solar panels break trade rules, WTO says

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When it comes to global trade in solar panels and components, the U.S. trade representative wants to have his suncake and eat it too. Even as the trade rep has been hauling India before the World Trade Organization, complaining that the country’s requirements for domestically produced solar panels violate global trade rules, the U.S. has been imposing new duties on panels imported from China and Taiwan. By some estimates, the U.S. duties could increase solar module costs in the country by 14 percent.

On Monday, WTO judges who were mulling China’s complaint against the U.S. over its duties on solar panels and steel ruled in favor of — you guessed it — more world trade. Reuters reports:

In the $7.2 billion Chinese case, the panel found that Washington had overstepped the mark in justifying the so-called countervailing duties it imposed as a response to alleged subsidies to exporting firms by China’s government. …

And it told the United States it should adapt its measures to bring them into line with the WTO’s agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures.

The Coalition for Affordable Energy, a trade group, cheered the ruling. It primarily represents solar panel installers, not solar panel manufacturers, so it supports lower-cost panels — regardless of where they are made. “Today’s WTO announcement and the broader trade dispute should prompt the Obama Administration to reconsider the wisdom of additional solar tariffs,” CASE President Jigar Shah said in a press statement.

Trade Representative Michael Froman’s office said it “will evaluate all options to ensure that U.S. remedies against unfair subsidies remain strong and effective.” In other words, it is likely to appeal the ruling — something that could help keep the tariffs in place for at least another six to 12 months.

Monday’s ruling was unrelated to the U.S. complaint against domestic manufacturing rules imposed under India’s burgeoning solar panel program – a program that appears set to grow even more under the country’s new leader. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced that taxes on coal would be increased to help fund a clean-energy revolution. But the ruling does not bode well for Indian factories that hope to continue manufacturing the panels that are being used in that revolution.


Source
WTO faults U.S. over duties on Chinese, Indian steel goods, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Climate action could spur $2 trillion in economic growth in 2030 alone

by TabathaPoole Posted on June 24, 2014

free money

Climate action could spur $2 trillion in economic growth in 2030 alone

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John UptonUnclogging streets in India could encourage economic growth and help save the climate at the same time.

Republicans in Congress, dim-witted politicians abroad, and fossil-fuel companies would all like you to believe that taking action on climate change is too expensive. Better to blow all our cash and credit on unsustainable oil and coal today and live large and dirty for as long as possible, they argue.

Cue World Bank study.

The international lender, which has been belatedly waking up to the dangers of climate change in recent years, modeled the potential costs and benefits of using taxes, incentives, and regulations to clean up key sectors of some of the world’s biggest economies. It analyzed reforms that could spur cleaner transportation, more efficient industrial use of energy, and less energy-hungry buildings and appliances. It concluded that such reforms would create GDP growth of $1.8 trillion to $2.6 trillion per year by 2030.

Oh, and it would prevent 94,000 premature deaths annually.

In many cases, the analysts looked at local case studies, such as the benefits of providing rural Chinese with cleaner cookstoves and improving public transportation in an Indian city, then considered what the impacts would be if those initiatives were scaled up to national or regional levels. They concluded that the public-health, economic-development, food-supply, and energy-supply benefits of reforms in those key sectors far outweighed the costs of the reforms.

World Bank

“Thanks to a growing body of research, it is now clear that climate-smart development can boost employment and can save millions of lives,” states the World Bank report, released Tuesday. “Smart development policies and projects can also slow the pace of adverse climate changes. Based on this new scientific understanding, and with the development of new economic modeling tools to quantify these benefits, it is clear that the objectives of economic development and climate protection can be complementary.”


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New Study Adds Up the Benefits of Climate-Smart Development in Lives, Jobs, and GDP, World Bank

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Climate action could spur $2 trillion in economic growth in 2030 alone

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Campus Christian Groups Should Be Allowed to Remain Christian

by MonikaZakrzewsk Posted on June 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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I think I’m over the stomach bug that laid me up this weekend, so let’s get back to this blogging thing. Today, the New York Times informs me that university Christian groups are losing official recognition because they won’t agree to allow anyone, regardless of religious beliefs, to become a group leader:

At Cal State, the nation’s largest university system with nearly 450,000 students on 23 campuses, the chancellor is preparing this summer to withdraw official recognition from evangelical groups that are refusing to pledge not to discriminate on the basis of religion in the selection of their leaders. And at Vanderbilt, more than a dozen groups, most of them evangelical but one of them Catholic, have already lost their official standing over the same issue; one Christian group balked after a university official asked the students to cut the words “personal commitment to Jesus Christ” from their list of qualifications for leadership.

At most universities that have begun requiring religious groups to sign nondiscrimination policies, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and mainline Protestant groups have agreed, saying they do not discriminate and do not anticipate that the new policies will cause problems. Hillel, the largest Jewish student organization, says some chapters have even elected non-Jews to student boards.

Apparently this was sparked by a court decision that ruled it was OK for public universities to deny recognition to student groups that exclude gays—including Christian groups. I’m fine with that. But requiring Christian groups to allow non-believers to lead Bible studies and prayer services and so forth? That seems pretty extreme. I have to admit that if I were a member of a campus Christian group, I’d have a hard time believing there were no ulterior motives at work here.

As for the Jewish/Muslim/Catholic/etc. groups that “do not anticipate” problems, I hope they’re right. But this is the kind of thing that’s ripe for mischief-making. I can easily imagine a bunch of campus halfwits who think it would be the funniest joke in the world to join a religious group en masse and then elect an atheist president. These are 19-year-olds we’re dealing with, after all.

But maybe not. Perhaps that requires too much sustained effort. Nonetheless, if it were up to me, I’d allow Jewish groups to remain Jewish and Christian groups to remain Christian if that’s what they want to do. It’s hard to see the harm.

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Campus Christian Groups Should Be Allowed to Remain Christian

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How Many Countries Have Direct Access to All Phone Calls?

by RoderickHaswell Posted on June 6, 2014

Mother Jones

Vodafone is one of the largest telecom companies in the world, with a strong presence in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Here’s what they told us today:

Vodafone said that it had received thousands of requests from 29 countries in the 12 months through March 31. But the report also said that governments in certain countries had direct access to its networks without having to use legal warrants.

In a “small number” of countries, Vodafone said in the report, the company “will not receive any form of demand for communications data access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link.”

Vodafone wouldn’t say which countries have this kind of unrestricted access, but the Guardian takes a guess here.

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How Many Countries Have Direct Access to All Phone Calls?

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