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Berta Cáceres is the most recent environmental activist to be killed trying to protect her home

by LaurenceLedger Posted on March 4, 2016

Activists draw a flower on the floor with chalk as part of a makeshift altar for slain environmental rights activist Berta Caceres during a protest outside the morgue in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, March 3, 2016. REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera

Berta Cáceres is the most recent environmental activist to be killed trying to protect her home

By Eve Andrewson 3 Mar 2016comments Share

In the middle of last night, Berta Cáceres, leader of the indigenous environmental activist group National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) and winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize, was assassinated in her home.

Perhaps that sentence does not mean much to you on its own — after all it’s just a sentence, about a woman you’ve never met, in a country you’ve likely never been to, fighting for something you understand in theory but do not relate to. Berta Cáceres — like many, many other indigenous women — was an environmental activist because if she were not, her community would be utterly destroyed. Cáceres led grassroots campaigns against hydroelectric dams on lands belonging to her people, the Lenca; most prominently the proposed Agua Zarca project in Río Blanco. Her work pushed the largest dam builder in the world, Chinese company SINOHYDRO, to withdraw from the project.

Perhaps that, too, does not carry much weight. Let me reword: This dam threatens to force people off of lands that they have called home for millennia. And, in fighting against it, they are subject to very real danger.

According to Global Witness, 101 environmental activists were murdered between 2010 and 2014 in Honduras alone, and 40 percent of those were indigenous. (For perspective: Approximately 16 percent of the Honduran population is indigenous and Afro-descendant.)

From an Ensia report on violence against environmental activists worldwide:

“Many of those murdered were ‘accidental’ human rights defenders,” says John Knox, a professor of international law at Wake Forest University and independent expert on human rights and the environment of the United Nations Human Rights Council. “They got involved because it was their own land, their own forests, their own water they were defending.”

As a result, Cáceres has been subject to death threats from those with interests in the hydroelectric project, including agents of DESA, the Honduran energy company — to the extent that she was granted a degree of protection by the InterAmerican Commission for Human Rights — and last night, tragically, her enemies made good on those threats.

When we talk about how indigenous women are on the front lines of climate change, this is a striking example: A woman murdered in the so-called safety of her home for fighting for her people’s right to their land, at a time when communities all over the world are losing their grip on their land, thanks to rising tides and more unpredictable disasters.

Berta Cáceres at the Global Greengrants’ Summit on Climate Justice and Women’s Rights in August 2014.Eve Andrews / Grist

In 2014, I had the honor of interviewing Cáceres about the unique challenges that indigenous women face in battling climate change, and she said something that has stuck with me since (translated from Spanish):

“I am absolutely convinced that if I were a man, this level of aggression wouldn’t be so violent. There are always campaigns against leaders. [But] as women we’re not only leading campaigns like the fight against this hydroelectric project, but also against … the whole militarization culture that’s involved in our defense of the public good of nature. We are women who are reclaiming our right to the sovereignty of our bodies and thoughts and political beliefs, to our cultural and spiritual rights — of course the aggression is much greater.”

In speaking with Cáceres, I almost couldn’t believe that she was receiving such threats — who would want to kill a woman so kind, so strong, so obviously good? Well, she triumphantly stood in the way of a corporation that sought to profit off her land, and that was enough.

Cáceres’ death is an incredible tragedy, because the world is minus one person who brought tangible light into it. It also calls attention to the fact that those who fall under the impossibly vague, much-maligned umbrella of “environmental activists” face danger that most of us cannot fathom.

So, at the very least, remember this next time you hear about land rights, or climate change, or violence against women: It is a much darker and more dangerous fight than we can often imagine — to the direct detriment of those fighting it.

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FBI could investigate Exxon Mobil for climate change cover up

by WindyLlyyh Posted on March 3, 2016

FBI could investigate Exxon Mobil for climate change cover up

By Katie Herzogon 3 Mar 2016comments Share

Last year, an investigation by InsideClimate News found that scientists employed by Exxon Mobil warned the company about the connection between burning fossil fuels and a warming climate all the way back in 1977. Even more damning, reporters found that the company systematically ignored what it knew, even allegedly misleading the public about the science as it continued to pump carbon into the atmosphere unabated. Exxon, one of the most profitable companies in history, was handsomely rewarded for the subterfuge. But now, the oil giant may have to answer to for their actions. To the FBI.

InsideClimate News now reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has forwarded a request for a federal investigation to the FBI’s criminal division from two Democratic members of Congress. In a letter to Reps. Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier, Joseph Campbell, the DOJ’s assistant director for criminal investigation, wrote:

As a courtesy, we have forwarded your correspondence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI is the investigative arm of the Department, upon which we rely to conduct the initial fact finding in federal cases. The FBI will determine whether an investigation is warranted.

This doesn’t mean we’ll see the well-heeled executives at Exxon in shackles any time soon. John Marti, a former federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, called the Justice Department’s response a “punt,” according to InsideClimate News, and said that the DOJ “appears to be reluctant to engage in this matter.”

But should the FBI decide to look into Exxon, the future for the company could be bleak. “This is turning into a nightmare for Exxon,” wrote 350’s co-founder Jamie Henn in a statement, “No company wants to hear their name and ‘criminal’ in the same sentence. This FBI investigation must quickly lead back to a full Department of Justice inquiry and, ultimately, legal action. There’s too much public pressure and action by state Attorney General’s for this case to disappear into a bureaucratic blackhole. Exxon knew about climate change, they misled the public, and it’s time for them to held to criminal account.”

But will they be? In a nation where white-collar criminals are more likely to see Christmases bonuses than jail time, the idea that anyone from Exxon will be held accountable seems unlikely. Then again, at least one U.S. politician is intent on changing this culture: Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently released a report on criminal justice and the lack thereof among corporate criminals. “The failure to prosecute big, visible crimes has a corrosive effect on the fabric of democracy and our shared belief that we are all equal in the eyes of the law,” wrote Warren.

Clearly, as the justice system operates now — when nonviolent drug offenders get more jail time than major polluters — we aren’t all equal in the eyes of the law. Maybe a probe into Exxon will be the start.

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Why is Donald Trump like climate change? Watch Trevor Noah explain

by SherrylKilburn Posted on March 3, 2016

Why is Donald Trump like climate change? Watch Trevor Noah explain

By Kate Yoderon 3 Mar 2016comments Share

There’s a new inconvenient truth at hand for the Republican Party, and it goes by the name Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah compared Trump’s Super Tuesday success to something else that GOP candidates love to deny — climate change. It’s a connection that William Saletan made on Slate a week ago, and a delightful one at that.

Marco Rubio, Noah explains, “would rather question the numbers” than admit Trump is crushing him. Then there’s Ted Cruz, who “willfully misinterprets” the Super Tuesday results to mean something a little rosier.

The analogy doesn’t stop there. Noah continues:

Whether you believe in it or not, political climate change is happening, just like it is in nature. And we know this because we see it. You know, in nature, you see birds migrating earlier. Insects showing up in areas they’ve never been. Rats forced to hunt pizza in the wild. And it’s not different in the Republican Party, where we’re seeing political animals adapting to survive.

This is followed by a video of Chris Christie (once a “lone wolf,” now Trump’s “trained lapdog”) endorsing America’s favorite churlish chump with a combover.

Remember the days when the Donald’s bid to ascend to the presidency seemed like far-fetched tomfoolery? Well, we finally have something in common with you, Rubio and Cruz: We’re in denial, too. Because with Trump at the presidential bully pulpit, the future would look very scary, indeed.

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Here’s how major cities measure up on climate change spending

by SofiaStout Posted on March 1, 2016

Here’s how major cities measure up on climate change spending

By Tim McDonnellon 1 Mar 2016 5:07 pmcomments Share

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The headline negotiations during the Paris climate summit in December were between national governments: What would China, the United States, and other big emitters be willing to do? But just outside the spotlight, some of the most optimistic commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions, ramp up clean energy, and invest in adaptive measures were being made by cities.

A new analysis from social scientists at University College London sheds some new light on the money behind those municipal efforts — and the results paint a highly uneven picture. The researchers compared spending on climate adaptation in 10 major global cities — that is, investments in infrastructure, public health, water systems, etc., aimed at making them more resistant to climate change. All 10 cities are members of the Compact of Mayors, an initiative that came out of Paris to hold cities to a high standard of climate action.

On average among those 10 cities, spending on climate adaptation accounted for one-fifth of one percent of GDP in 2015, or about $855 million. Not surprisingly, cities in wealthier countries such the U.S. and the U.K. spent far more than cities in African countries and Southeast Asia:

Nature

Cities in developing countries also lag behind on spending on a per-capita basis. (The Paris figure is so high in part because the study counted population just within a city’s official boundaries, not the surrounding metropolitan area, and Paris’ boundaries are relatively small) …

Nature

… and as a share of GDP:

Nature

The findings illustrate that spending on climate adaptation is more a function of wealth, and the value of local real estate, than the size of a city’s population or its relative vulnerability to climate impacts. The researchers conclude that “current adaptation activities are insufficient in major population centres in developing and emerging economies.”

That may not be very surprising — of course New York and London will be better able to rally funds for climate readiness than Addis Ababa. But it’s an important snapshot of the uphill battle developing countries face in confronting climate change.

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Our election process is dead. Only the internet can revive it

by linwoodcurley Posted on March 1, 2016

Our election process is dead. Only the internet can revive it

By Katie Herzogon 1 Mar 2016 5:02 pmcomments Share

Happy National Pig Day! Coincidentally, it’s also Super Tuesday, the day when citizens of 13 states will cast their ballots for the candidate they want to represent their party in the general election — who, in one case, may be an actual pig. And how many people will take part in the glorious democratic process today? Hardly any! Voter turnout in 2008, the last time both parties were in hotly contested races, was a historically high 27 percent. That’s right: 27 percent was actually record-breaking turnout. And this year, it’s predicted to be even lower, at least among Democrats, who aren’t being forced to choose between four climate change deniers and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Why is it that so few of us turn out to vote in the primaries, even in races as dramatic and consequential as this year’s? Well, voting is surprisingly difficult, and the process varies widely depending on where you live.

Take Colorado, where tonight’s primary is actually a caucus, one of the more confusing aspects of American democracy. Caucus states require registered voters to go to a precinct meeting run by their local parties, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, listen to the rules, stand around for a while, and then cast their ballots for their preferred presidential nominee. After that, each precinct will elect a designated number of delegates based on the votes for presidential candidates. It’s confusing, and the process — which can take several hours — begins right around the time you would normally be making dinner. They don’t make it easy, especially if you have to work, have to travel, have children, are registered as an independent in the state, or don’t have access to transportation and many free hours to commit to the onerous process.

And even in places without the oh-so-confusing caucus, voting in primaries is actually getting harder as some states (looking at you, North Carolina) have shortened the early voting period, curtailed same-day registration, and now require government-issued IDs in an effort to prevent non-existent voter fraud.

Whew! It’s almost enough to make you want to skip it all together — which, incidentally, is what the vast majority of eligible voters do. But would we skip voting if it were easier? According to a new survey of 1,000 registered voters by Smartmatic, a corporation specializing in voting technology, the majority of respondents view our current voting system as “inefficient” and say that it discourages people from voting. While all demographics held this view, it was especially true of minority populations. As Brentin Mock at CityLab points out, Smartmatic found that 83 percent of African-Americans and 76 percent of Hispanic/Latino voters agreed that modernizing the voting system would increase voter turnout and strengthen our democracy.

While Smartmatic, a company that deals in voting technology, obviously has a horse in this race, it does seem crazy that in an era where you can apply for a credit card, buy a car, bid on a home, and find a mate from the comfort from your smartphone, voting is so old school. Why haven’t we invested in technology that would make it easier to vote? Clearly, if we can make driverless cars and send probes to Mars and create holograms of Tupac Shakur, we can figure out how to hold elections online. We landed a man on the moon nearly 50 years ago, for Christ’s sake! You’d think we can get a website up and running. And, if not that, the least we could do is make Election Day a holiday in all 50 states. Collectively, we could walk to our precincts, wave to our neighbors, cast our ballots, and think, just for a moment, how nice it is to be an American.

But, no. This Super Tuesday, the process will continue as it has in the past: A cumbersome and ill-devised system that keeps you from being heard. And until this system is fixed, until you can cast your ballot from your phone or you laptop or your local public library, the only way to take part is to force yourself, despite all the barriers, to show up — because someone wins when voter turnout is low, but it’s certainly not the voter.

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Meet Grist’s new executive editor — and awesome senior editors

by NolanGooch Posted on March 1, 2016

Scott Dodd, Rebecca Leber, and Matt Craft.

Meet Grist’s new executive editor — and awesome senior editors

By Grist staffon 1 Mar 2016 4:41 pmcomments Share

We’re thrilled to announce that, upholding a long tradition of convincing people to leave perfectly respectable jobs and cast their lot with our scrappy enterprise instead, we’ve added three top-notch editors to the Grist ranks this spring. We expect climate change to shut up and go away now — or at least to behave itself a little better.

Here comes the general: First and foremost, Scott Dodd is taking the helm as Grist’s executive editor. The award-winning journalist brings decades of experience as a reporter and editor, a strong leadership background, and a keen sense of humor to the role. And doughnuts. He brings doughnuts.

Among Dodd’s extraordinarily impressive accomplishments (it’s never too soon to kiss up to the new boss, right?), he landed a scoop about messy tar sands financial holdings that gained international attention and helped change the course of U.S. politics; he reported on everything from bioweapons to NASCAR in eight years at the Charlotte Observer; and he was part of a team that produced Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina for the Biloxi, Miss., Sun Herald. In addition to his work on the front lines of journalism and as editorial director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Dodd has spent years dispensing wisdom at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Dodd, who will oversee Grist’s 18-member editorial department and play an active role in shaping the organization’s future, did some kissing up of his own: “It’s a really exciting challenge,” he said. “Grist has been home to smart environmental writers and thinkers for over a decade, so that’s a tremendous legacy to build on. My job is to make it even more ambitious and essential. I want us to have greater impact and a sharper focus on what matters, while still keeping the edge and irreverence that makes everyone love reading it.”

Sounds good to us! “Scott’s energy and ideas will be a powerful addition to Grist,” Grist President Lori Schmall said. “Everyone who spoke with him during the interview process — from younger writers to seasoned editors — was very excited at the prospect of working with him. He has the leadership background and journalism chops to lead us into a new era as a media organization.”

Their skill with a quill is undeniable: In conjunction with Dodd’s arrival, Grist is pleased to announce the addition of News Editor Rebecca Leber and Senior Editor Matt Craft.

Leber, a former New Republic staff writer and ThinkProgress reporter who has won admiration from across the internet for her climate and politics reporting, will lead Grist’s daily news team. “Rebecca Leber has been making a name for herself with smart, detailed climate coverage for years now,” said Vox writer and former Grist columnist David Roberts. “It’s great to see her in a position to lead a team to the same level of excellence.”

Craft, who will guide the work of our feature writers and columnists, arrives at Grist from the Associated Press. He has deep experience finding ways to make opaque issues more palpable, and has covered the seeds of the Arab Spring in Egypt, oil spills in Louisiana, and everything in between. He also wrangled columnists for Forbes Magazine. While he loved editing billionaires, he says the thousandaires at Grist are more his speed.

With Dodd, Leber, and Craft on board, the Grist team is looking forward to finding even more ways to inform and inspire our monthly audience of 2 million and growing. We’ll experiment with new forms of storytelling and introduce new perspectives as we tackle issues ranging from oil spills to the oily presidential campaign in the year ahead.

“Don’t worry, Grist fans,” Dodd says. “I know how special this place is and what a wonderful opportunity I’ve been given. I won’t cock it up.” Dirty words disguised as British humor? Now we know we’ve found our guy.

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New York lost billions with fossil fuel investments

by Ingrid13L1986 Posted on March 1, 2016

New York lost billions with fossil fuel investments

By Melissa Croninon 1 Mar 2016 4:27 pmcomments Share

Investing in fossil fuels is becoming a liability — not only for the planet, but for the portfolio, too.

The industry garnered a staggering $5 billion loss for the New York State Common Retirement Fund (NYS-CRF) over three years, according to an analyst estimate from the investment research firm Corporate Knights. The state’s $189.4 billion pension fund, the third largest in the country, covers 1.1 million members across the state. The loss equates to $4,500 per person.

In order to measure what sort of impact fossil fuel holdings was having on the New York State Common Retirement Fund’s equity portfolio, Corporate Knights took the 100 biggest companies that the fund has shares in. Of those, the biggest fossil fuel companies, including coal utilities, were removed. Using data about the performance of the top 100 public coal companies provided by Fossil Free Indexes, the fund was then analyzed for how it would fare without these fossil fuel stocks, versus how it fared with them.

“Our findings…indicate that the Fund would have made an extra $5.3 billion over the past three years had it shifted its investments out of fossil fuel stocks into companies providing climate solutions,” Toby Heaps, CEO and co-founder of Corporate Knights, told Grist.

Corporate Knights, a Toronto-based financial information company, has analyzed the fossil fuel holdings of several large funds in the past, in an effort to promote a message of “clean capitalism,” a market system in which social, economic and ecological costs are incorporated into prices of goods and services. It publishes both information on corporate responsibility, like the annual list of the “Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada,” as well as analyses of corporate sustainability performance, like the annual “North American Sustainable Cities Scorecard.”

Divesting in fossil fuels has been a hot-button issue for years, with pressure on major universities to scrub their portfolios. Right now, it’s unclear exactly what outcome divesting will have. One study, funded by the oil and gas industry, found that universities could lose millions if they cut their cut oil, gas and coal holdings. Harvard, it reported, would lose up to $108 million per year if it divested from fossil fuel companies. But a slew of other studies have contradicted that finding, suggesting that divesting in fossil fuels can save big money. One analysis by the investment firm Trillium Asset Management directly contradicted the industry-funded findings for Harvard, reporting that the university lost an estimated $21 million dollars over three years by ignoring calls to divest. One 2013 analysis commissioned by the Associated Press found that university endowments would have been better off had they divested a decade previous. Last October, after beginning to divest from all fossil fuels a year earlier, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund announced that its $850 million portfolio was not harmed by the decision.

According to one 2015 analysis by MSCI, the world’s leading stock market index company, investors who cut out holdings in fossil fuel companies outperformed those that had stakes in coal, oil and gas over the past five years. The analysis attributed fossil fuel holdings’ poor performance to both the fall in the oil price, as well as investors considering oil and coal to be risky investments in the long run.

The New York pension fund’s investments in fossil fuels have been questioned lately, both by climate advocates and by investors. Last week, Thomas DiNapoli, the New York State Comptroller who manages the pension fund, joined four other Exxon shareholders to demand that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission force the company to address how climate change mitigation policies would impact its bottom line. New York’s retirement system invests directly about $1 billion in Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company. Exxon quickly challenged that resolution — but it seems that today, the Comptroller got his answer.

“The era of fossil fuels is coming to an end, and this report demonstrates very clearly why divestment is not only environmentally sound, but financially responsible,” New York State Senator Liz Krueger, co-sponsor of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act, said in a statement. “By staying invested in fossil fuels over the last three years our state pension fund missed out on over $5 billion in potential returns. Investment in fossil fuels is a sinking ship, and it’s high time we headed for the lifeboats.”

Corporate Knights, working with other climate action groups, has found similar trends for other large shareholders that refuse to divest in fossil fuels. Last November, it launched “The Clean Capitalist Decarbonizer,” a tool to analyze the performance of 14 major funds, including Harvard’s endowment, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the pension plans of Canada and the Netherlands. Put together, these 14 funds would have been $23 billion better off had they divested from fossil fuels just three years earlier, in 2012.

For those looking to not make the same mistakes the state of New York and others have, there are easy ways to divest—but you may have to read the fine print to make sure there are no oil smears left on your money. Like many universities and corporations that have already pulled their stakes out of the grip of Big Oil, it’s an measurable way to contribute to the climate movement. What’s more, it may save you a whole lot of money.

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Milan wants to pay people to bicycle to work

by ArdenBMYpqhxih Posted on March 1, 2016

Milan wants to pay people to bicycle to work

By Kate Yoderon 29 Feb 2016comments Share

As the Starbucks empire makes humble plans to open its first shop in Italy, the city it’s moving to — Milan — plans to give a different sort of bucks away.

To combat air pollution, Milan officials hope to pay commuters to bike instead of drive to work. The Guardian reports that the system will be based loosely on the French program tested in 2014, which paid employees 25 Euro cents for each kilometer* they biked to work.

Milan’s air needs all the help it can get. Named the “pollution capital of Europe” in 2008, the city continues to struggle with dirty air. In December, Milan instituted a three-day ban on private cars due to heavy smog.

Which raises another point: Who wants to cycle to work on streets clogged with toxic emissions, anyway? Critics of the proposed program point out that a host of factors affect a person’s decision to bicycle to work, like the availability of bike paths, places to park your bike, and showers.

In the French pilot program, 5 percent of 10,000 total commuters ended up switching from driving to biking. This success encouraged copycat initiatives, including one that launched last year in a smaller Italian town, Massarosa. Programs like these are a sign that clean, personal transportation is becoming fashionable. After all, we’re talking about Milan — the world’s renowned arbiter of all things vogue.

Here’s to hoping this program will prompt the penny pinchers among Milan’s 1.25 million residents to step off the gas pedal and onto bike pedals instead.

*Correction: An earlier version of this article used miles instead of kilometers. Grist regrets the error and has sentenced the author to a four hour training session on the metric system.

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Republicans want to open up millions of acres of public lands to logging and mining

by AustinToRot405 Posted on February 25, 2016

Republicans want to open up millions of acres of public lands to logging and mining

By Katie Herzogon 25 Feb 2016comments Share

Federal lands management has been in the news ever since a group of outlaws decided to occupy a wildlife refuge in Oregon weeks ago. Well, even though the armed standoff came to a (relatively) peaceful end earlier this month and the militiamen and women have take their rightful place in federal custody, Republicans in Congress taken up their cause.

Two bills proposed Thursday by House Committee on Natural Resources Republicans Don Young of Alaska and Raúl Labrador of Idaho would allow state governors to lease millions of acres of national forests for logging. Labrador’s bill would also let industry bypass federal restrictions that protect air, water, and endangered species.

You’d think the Committee on Natural Resources would be in favor of saving those natural resources, but no.

“The natural resources committee is pretty radicalized at this point,” Bobby McEnaney, senior lands analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The Guardian. “The fact that they would react to what’s happened in Oregon to advance an agenda to take land from the federal government is seriously tone deaf. Most of this committee didn’t condemn the actions at Malheur, so this is not completely unexpected. The agenda here is being driven by oil, gas and timber industries. The Republicans are interested in a deregulation race to zero.”

There is, however, one Republican who is actually to the left of the establishment on public lands: Donald Trump.

Now, before you reconsider your vote, Trump isn’t some kind of closet environmentalist — the man is a climate-change denier after all. But Trump does seem to have a soft spot in his cold, dark heart for America’s public lands. Why? Because they’re great. “We have to be great stewards of this land,” Trump said at the Las Vegas Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show in January. “This is magnificent land. And we have to be great stewards of this land.”

Lord, help us: We actually agree with Donald Trump.

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