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U.S. urges IPCC to be less boring, try this whole “online” thing

by LeahShowers Posted on April 14, 2014

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U.S. urges IPCC to be less boring, try this whole “online” thing

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Thousands of scientists volunteer to review research published by thousands of other scientists – part of an effort to pack all of the latest and best climate science into assessment reports from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But anybody who takes the time to read these reports is in danger of being bored to tears — even before they break down in tears over the scale of the damage that we’re inflicting on humanity and our planet.

After publishing five mammoth reports during its quarter-century of existence, the IPCC is facing an existential crisis. How can it reinvent its aging self – and its dry scientific reports — to better serve the warming world?

The U.S. is clear on what the IPCC needs to do: It needs to get with the times.

Despite the exhaustive amount of work that goes into producing each of the IPCC’s assessment reports, relatively little effort goes into making the information in those reports easily accessible to the public. The IPCC’s main website is ugly and static, mirroring the dry assessment reports to which it links. The IPCC’s online presence seems designed to meet day-to-day demands for climate information by bureaucrats — and nobody else.

Instead of publishing huge, three-part reports every five to seven years, the U.S. thinks the IPCC’s assessment reports should be divided into two main sections that would be published on staggered timelines — a little bit like how the winter and summer Olympics arrive two years apart. The U.S. is also urging the IPCC to publish “special reports” on emerging topics between its blockbuster assessments. Here are some highlights from the U.S. recommendations to the IPCC about its future:

Between these regular assessments (which would be easily searchable on a web-based platform), IPCC authors could add relevant publications to the web site to yield a “living document.” … A possible solution could be the kinds of modalities used in various moderated listserves and wikis. …

Consider taking advantage of the significant advances in information technology by providing the full content of the reports online in an interactive format that hyperlinks in-text citations to the abstracts/articles/reports they reference, as well as links to underlying data and research, where available.

America’s comments mirror those of other groups and countries. Here, for example, are highlights from the European Union’s recommendations to the IPCC:

[G]iven the relatively long period between assessment reports (currently seven years) there is a clear need for updates over shorter time-periods, especially when important new elements of information are available and existing pieces of information become outdated. This could be facilitated by a full digitalisation of the reports and complementary use of a web-based ‘wiki-type’ approach, to provide an ‘interim’ (advanced) version of the assessment report.

The changes that would be needed to get climate science onto smartphones and into living rooms seems like basic stuff in an increasingly internet-savvy world. But it could be challenging to drive such change in a group that’s understandably more interested in climate science than public engagement. To this end, Sweden and other countries have suggested that the IPCC hire professional science writers, while others are urging it to hire multimedia professionals.


Source
Future work of the IPCC: Collated comments from Governments, IPCC

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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U.S. urges IPCC to be less boring, try this whole “online” thing

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Conflict in Crimea: Is Russia Poised to Invade Ukraine?

by GenevieveKunkel Posted on March 14, 2014

Mother Jones

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This article is being updated as news breaks. Click here for the latest.

Russia has deployed 10,000 troops to multiple locations along the Ukraine-Russia border, deepening fears that the simmering crisis in the Crimean peninsula is about to escalate into full-scale warfare. In London on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry attempted to broker a last-minute deal with Russia’s foreign minister to ratchet down the crisis, but their talks “ended inconclusively,” according to the New York Times. This weekend, voters in Crimea, an autonomous region of about 2 million in southeastern Ukraine, will vote on a referendum that would give citizens the option of asserting independence from Ukraine, or becoming part of Russia. (Remaining part of Ukraine isn’t an option.) The United States and European Union leaders have called the referendum illegal; Russia backs it. If Crimea votes to join Russia—which the Obama administration expects it to do—Russia could then use the results as justification for using force in the region. On Friday, Kerry said that Russia should respect the results of the referendum without proceeding with “back-door annexation,” which would bring international consequences. Here’s what you need to know about the current state of play. Check back frequently, since we’ll update this post as events unfold.

Western leaders are furious: On Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly slammed Russia’s actions, warning Russian President Vladimir Putin that if he continues intervening in Ukrainian affairs, “It will cause massive damage to Russia, both economically and politically.” She also accused Russia of breaking international law by deploying troops and warned that “the territorial integrity of Ukraine is not up for discussion.” President Obama also warned Russia that “if it continues on the path that it is on, not only us but the international community, the European Union and others will be forced to apply a cost to Russia’s violations of international law.” This week, a US Senate panel approved legislation that would impose strict sanctions—including freezing assets and denying visas—on Russians and anyone else involved in undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty. Those sanctions could be enacted as early as Monday, if Crimea chooses to secede.

If Crimea joins Russia, it could take Ukrainian gas and oil reserves with it: Russian exports account for about one-third of Europe’s gas consumption and those pipelines run smack through Ukraine. As Mother Jones‘ James West points out, “Russia has long been able to use Ukraine as an energy choke point.” On Thursday, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported that authorities in Crimea have been securing offshore gas and oil in the region. Crimean parliamentary speaker Vladimir Konstantinov reportedly said: “These deposits and the platform fully become the property of the Republic of Crimea…We have guarded them. These are our fields and we will fight for them.”

Putin is cracking down on Russian press: Julia Ioffe reports in The New Republic:

What began just days before the Olympics with a Kremlin attack on Dozhd, the last independent television station in Russia, has now extended to Lenta.ru, arguably the best news site in Russia. On Wednesday, the site’s editor-in-chief was fired and replaced with a Kremlin loyalist, and the whole staff quit in protest. Yesterday, the Kremlin went full-China on the Internet, the holy of holies of the Russian opposition. Using some flimsy legal pretexts, it banned access to various oppositional news sites, to the website of Moscow’s biggest radio station, and to the blog of Alexey Navalny, who is currently under house arrest.

Russia maintains that it’s not going to invade: Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is not planning to annex Crimea and he would leave it up to citizens in the region to determine their future. He also said force would only be used as “a last resort.”â&#128;&#139; As recently as Friday, Russian officials have maintained that an invasion is still off the table:

But Western leaders aren’t optimistic that Putin will back down from annexing Crimea, after the referendum vote. According to the New York Times, “As of Friday, there had been no sign that President Vladimir V. Putin was prepared to take the ‘off ramp’ that the Obama administration has repeatedly offered.â&#128;&#139;” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov declared on Friday that Russia and the United States “have no common vision” about the crisis.

UPDATE, March 14, 2014, 3:00 PM EDT: The Pentagon is sending 25,000 ready-to-eat meals to Ukraine, according to the Associated Press. Two US representatives have asked President Obama to put names of Russian officials responsible for human rights abuses on the Magnitsky list, a public list of Russians created in 2012 as part of the Magnitsky Act, to punish Russian officials who have committed human rights violations. Members of the list are prohibited from entering the US or using the US banking system.

UPDATE 2, March 14, 2014, 3:35 PM EDT: Mimicking the language used to justify their invasion of Crimea, the Russian foreign ministry has issued a warning that they reserve the right to intervene in the city of Donetsk to protect lives after a series of clashes Thursday night led to at least one death and dozens of injuries.

Donetsk is a primarily Russian-speaking city in eastern Ukraine, not far from the Russian border. The clashes began yesterday after hundreds of demonstrators chanting Pro-Russian slogans broke through a police cordon and stormed a separate group protesting Russia’s invasion of Crimea and calling for “a united Ukraine.”

Here’s video of the incident heating up:

UPDATE 3, March 14, 2014, 8:06 PM EDT: Another two people were reportedly killed and five injured during clashes in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv Friday. There have been conflicting reports over who was injured and who was responsible for the attack, but many are alleging armed pro-Russian groups or the Ukrainian nationalist group Right Sector may have provoked the attack.

Kharkiv is Ukraine’s second largest city after Kiev, and historically, was the country’s first Soviet capital. Like Donetsk, it’s also close to the Russian border. As a result, large pro-Russian rallies have been common, which some are predicting could become a litmus test for the future direction of the country.

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Conflict in Crimea: Is Russia Poised to Invade Ukraine?

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Survey: These Are the Most and Least Obese States in America

by CarriMontague Posted on March 4, 2014

Mother Jones

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West Virginia’s tenure as the most obese state in America—a three-year run that no one ever called a dynasty—is over.

According to Gallup, which just released its 2013 survey on obesity in America, 35.4 percent of Mississippians have a BMI above 30, giving the home of 3 Doors Down the highest obesity rate in the Union. West Virginia came in second at 34.4 percent.

Meanwhile, Montana toppled three-time defending least-obese champion and budding marijuana tourist destination Colorado, with a svelte 19.6 percent.

You can check out the full results here.

On average, residents of the 10 most obese states were—unsurprisingly—less likely to eat healthily, consume fruits and vegetables, or workout regularly than residents of the least obese states.

Overall the national obesity rate rose to 27.1 percent in 2013. It has risen every year since 2008.

Impeach.

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Survey: These Are the Most and Least Obese States in America

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Is the Right’s "Religious Liberty" Campaign About to Backfire?

by WolfgangSwank Posted on February 26, 2014

Mother Jones

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At the state level, Republican legislating comes in waves. After the 2010 midterms, there was a big wave of voter ID laws. For a while, it seemed as if every Republican-controlled state in the union had suddenly decided to pass the exact same laundry list of provisions designed to minimize the turnout of Democratic voters. That was followed by a wave of anti-abortion laws, again eerily similar. Now there’s a new wave: “religious freedom” laws designed to allow businesses to discriminate against gays. It’s the latest frenzy among conservative legislatures. “By my count,” says Steve Benen, “there are now 15 states — nearly a third of the country — where Republican state lawmakers have at least proposed a right-to-discriminate measure.”

In some cases, the similarity of the laws is easy to explain: a group like ALEC writes model legislation, and that becomes the basis for laws all over the country. It’s all a very well planned operation. Other times, it’s apparently more organic. That seems to be the case with right-to-discriminate measures, which are mostly a case of conservatives getting a whiff of something that appeals to the tea party and then all trying to one-up each other.

Ed Kilgore and Josh Marshall suggest that the “religious liberty” campaign represents a sort of Waterloo for right-wing nutbaggery. These laws tend to “elicit less sympathy than ridicule from the non-aligned,” says Kilgore. “The whole thing appears to have collapsed under the weight of its own ridiculousness in Arizona,” says Marshall, “and not just its ridiculousness but the fact that resisting the changing mores of acceptance and equality is bad business and bad politics.” But a friend emails to push back on this. The best evidence that right-wing cultural overreach isn’t backfiring, he writes, is when pundits on the left all start speculating that a big backlash is coming without any objective evidence that it’s really happening:

To me, the AZ and MO and other bills are not some indication of last gasp, panic, or something else. No, they are a sign of strengthening radicalism and a demonstration, once again, of the relatively nonexistent societal penalty for advocating heinous laws. We’ve made advances and broken barriers, but those aren’t the end of the struggle, nor the turning of the tide. They are just a changing of the battlefield.

Andrew Sullivan’s article “Goodbye to All That” was a classic of this effort. Sullivan interpreted Obama’s promise as essentially closing the door by rendering irrelevant the cultural wars of the 60s that have been fought for decades now. Instead, we get a rise in voter suppression laws; a reactionary political party that brings the country to a grinding halt; and a continuous, deeply problematic inability to grapple with and confront the growing radicalism on the right side of the spectrum.

We just have to be sober about this stuff and not wish it away — as appealing as that may seem, especially for content producers looking for any kind of social cues to let them write dramatic, eyeball snagging announcements of enormous societal shifts.

The AZ law is not a victory for the left. It’s a sign that the left either isn’t being heard or has a glass jaw.

I’m not actually sure who I agree with here. On the one hand, I think my friend is right: even if these religious liberty laws fail, and even if they generate some ridicule, it won’t have any real effect. The tea partiers will just move along to a new fight as soon as one of them gets a bright idea. On the other hand, there really is a point where the Old Testament wrath starts to backfire—or, at the very least, distracts attention from potentially election-winning strategies.

If this year’s midterms get fought on the battleground of hating on gays rather than on Obamacare or lower taxes, Republicans are going to perform pretty poorly and tea partiers are going to get the blame. It’s already pretty obvious that the GOP leadership is fed up with the tea party faction leading them into unwinnable battles, and doing it again when control of Congress seems within their grasp might be the final straw. If right-wing Kulturkampf really is starting to backfire, November will tell the tale.

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Is the Right’s "Religious Liberty" Campaign About to Backfire?

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We’re Still Losing the War on Carbon

by StefanieMercado Posted on February 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Listening to President Obama’s State of the Union address, it would have been easy to conclude that we were slowly but surely gaining in the war on climate change. “Our energy policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet,” the president said. “Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth.” Indeed, it’s true that in recent years, largely thanks to the dampening effects of the Great Recession, US carbon emissions were in decline (though they grew by 2 percent in 2013). Still, whatever the president may claim, we’re not heading toward a “cleaner, safer planet.” If anything, we’re heading toward a dirtier, more dangerous world.

A series of recent developments highlight the way we are losing ground in the epic struggle to slow global warming. This has not been for lack of effort. Around the world, dedicated organizations, communities, and citizens have been working day by day to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote the use of renewable sources of energy. The struggle to prevent construction of the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline is a case in point. As noted in a recent New York Times article, the campaign against that pipeline has galvanized the environmental movement around the country and attracted thousands of activists to Washington, D.C., for protests and civil disobedience at the White House. But efforts like these, heroic as they may be, are being overtaken by a more powerful force: the gravitational pull of cheap, accessible carbon-based fuels, notably oil, coal, and natural gas.

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We’re Still Losing the War on Carbon

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How the US is Bankrolling Israel

by WadeScheffler Posted on February 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

We Americans have funny notions about foreign aid. Recent polls show that, on average, we believe 28 percent of the federal budget is eaten up by it, and that, in a time of austerity, this gigantic bite of the budget should be cut back to 10 percent. In actual fact, barely 1 percent of the federal budget goes to foreign aid of any kind.

In this case, however, truth is at least as strange as fiction. Consider that the top recipient of foreign aid over the past three decades isn’t some impoverished land filled with starving kids, but a wealthy nation with a per-head gross domestic product on par with the European Union average, and higher than that of Italy, Spain, or South Korea.

Consider also that this top recipient of such aid—nearly all of it military since 2008—has been busily engaged in what looks like a nineteenth-century-style colonization project. In the late 1940s, our beneficiary expelled some 700,000 indigenous people from the land it was claiming. In 1967, our client seized some contiguous pieces of real estate and ever since has been colonizing these territories with nearly 650,000 of its own people. It has divided the conquered lands with myriad checkpoints and roads accessible only to the colonizers and is building a 440-mile wall around (and cutting into) the conquered territory, creating a geography of control that violates international law.

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How the US is Bankrolling Israel

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EU Concludes Google Antitrust Action With a Whimper, Not a Bang

by HeribertoMcConn Posted on February 5, 2014

Mother Jones

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The European Union has announced an agreement with Google that resolves a longstanding antitrust action. If you search for, say, gas grills, you’ll no longer see a results page with a bunch of Google ads for gas grills. You’ll see ads from both Google and others. Tim Lee explains:

Instead of showing six Google-selected ads for gas grills, the results would show three gas grills from Google’s product search engine and another three ads from competitors. Google will be allowed to charge these competitors for including these ads at regulated rates comparable to those Google charges for inclusion in its own product search engine. Similar changes will be required in other cases where Google includes results from a specialized search engine in its general search results.

Let me get this straight. There will now be two categories of ads. One will be “Google shopping results,” which you pay Google to be included in. The other will be “Alternatives,” which you pay comparable rates to Google to be included in. Both will be displayed next to each other.

That’s not nothing, I guess, especially since advertisers will have more control over the presentation of their products in the “Alternatives” section. And there are some other tidbits in the agreement that also represent improvement, though they’re mostly things Google had previously agreed to implement. Unless I’m missing something, this seems like fairly small potatoes. School me in comments if I’m wrong about this.

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EU Concludes Google Antitrust Action With a Whimper, Not a Bang

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What Pete Seeger Taught Me About Activism

by LoisSteigrad Posted on February 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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I was waiting for Pete Seeger along Route 9 in Wappingers Falls, an hour north of New York City, when he pulled up in the strip mall parking lot in his Toyota Highlander. It was 2008, and I was there ostensibly to write for the New York Times about Seeger’s weekly Saturday protests against the Iraq War, which he’d been attending for four years. But the secret reason I went was because I’d recently entered local politics, and had found change difficult to accomplish, and progress sluggish. I wanted to know how a man who’d been castigated, blacklisted, and even stoned (literally, by a mob in Peekskill, New York, in 1949) over five decades of political activism had kept the faith.

From his car trunk, Seeger pulled out his banjo and a few signs, including one on which he had spray-painted “Peace” in orange. As he walked to meet about a dozen other protesters, he bent like the handle of an old water pump to pick up a discarded Burger King coffee cup and a damp brown napkin.

“This is my religion now,” he said, stuffing the trash into his pockets. “You do a little bit wherever you are.”

After Seeger found his way to the other war protesters, they started chatting about the “Patriotism is Patriotic” placard displayed at a pro-war demonstration across the road. “I went over once,” Seeger told his fellows. He’d walked right across the road, where he’d told a man, “‘I’m glad we live in a country where we can disagree with each other without trying to shoot each other.’

“He had to shake my hand,” Seeger concluded. “He didn’t know what to say. I even picked up a little litter over there.”

The singer also told us about a teenager who sometimes attended the anti-war protest, and who was less diplomatic toward the opposition. “If somebody gives us the finger, he shouts, ‘Fuck you,'” Seeger said. “I try to persuade him: ‘You should say, “God bless you. That would confuse them. Blow them a kiss.”” Seeger’s own resistance didn’t wear a scowl, it wore a smile.

As Seeger stood there with his peace sign, I asked him how he overcame the molasses pace of change activists face, not to mention the inevitable setbacks. He responded by tilting his head back and breaking into one of his songs, “Take It From Dr. King,” written after the September 11 attacks.

“Don’t say it can’t be done,” Seeger sang, his Adam’s apple bouncing, hands slapping out the rhythm on his knees. “The battle’s just begun/Take it from Dr. King/You too can learn to sing/So drop the gun.” Then he told me that justice had gained ground during his lifetime, and that change often seemed impossible until it happened: Think about civil rights in this country, he said, or the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union without a fight.

Still, I asked him: “Do you think a dozen people protesting here really makes any difference?”

“I don’t think that big things are as effective as people think they are,” he said. “The last time there was an anti-war demonstration in New York City, I said, ‘Why not have a hundred little ones?'”

As part of the day’s protest, Seeger joined other musician-activists without his name recognition singing tunes such as “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” the spiritual used to give guidance to escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad, and “This Land is Your Land,” written by Seeger’s late friend, Woody Guthrie. At one point he stopped singing and crowed over the noise: “This song was never sold in stores. It’s one more example of a small thing that’s spread.”

He played these songs on the very same banjo he’d used to protest the Vietnam War. Around the instrument’s rim, in a rainbow of Magic Marker colors, he’d written: “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”

A few hours later, he carried the banjo, like an old musket, back to his car. There, I asked him the most important question I’d brought along with me that day: Given the odds, the political landscape in America—an unnecessary war, growing inequality, a dysfunctional government—how did he manage to stave off bitterness?

“You have to keep your sense of humor,” he replied. “And you have to keep in mind the little victories. And you have to keep articles and share them.” Earlier in the day, he’d been handing out copies of a Philadelphia speech on race recently given by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. “If you write a good article, I’ll copy it,” he told me. “I’ll share it around.”

That made me laugh.

I returned home with a broader perspective, and I’ve tried to hold on to what I learned about activism that day: Be friendly to the opposition, engage locally, laugh, take inspiration from history, stay optimistic, stand with others, share good news, and be grateful for the little victories. It’s more than a prescription for survival while fighting for social change. It’s a prescription for happiness, even in hard times.

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What Pete Seeger Taught Me About Activism

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Pete Seeger Memorial Playlist: War, Protest, Johnny Cash, Eric Clapton, Olivia Newton-John, Stalin

by Gabrielle Hartzog Posted on January 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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Pete Seeger, the folk-music legend and activist, died on Monday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He was 94. His impact his on American culture was profound, as he influenced popular music and iconic musicians, including Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, for decades.

“Once called ‘America’s tuning fork,’ Pete Seeger believed deeply in the power of song,” President Barack Obama said in a statement on Tuesday. “Over the years, Pete used his voice—and his hammer—to strike blows for worker’s rights and civil rights; world peace and environmental conservation. And he always invited us to sing along.”

Here are some cool clips, songs, and text for you to check out while reflecting on Seeger’s life and music:

1. Pete Seeger sings in Barcelona about the Spanish Civil War: “56 years ago, I had some friends who came to Spain,” Seeger tells the crowd. “Some of them did come back—and this is the song that they taught me. It’s a song of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion.”

2. Seeger testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), 1955: For refusing to testify about his time in the Communist Party, he was later sentenced to a year in prison for contempt. But the conviction was overturned. Here’s an excerpt from his testimony:

I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it….

I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life. I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody. That is the only answer I can give along that line.

3. The Weavers sing “Goodnight, Irene”:

And while we’re at it, here’s Eric Clapton’s version:

4. When Pete Seeger hosted a TV show devoted to good folk music: It aired in the mid-1960s and was called Rainbow Quest. Here’s the episode with Johnny Cash and June Carter:

5. Seeger sings a protest of the Vietnam War and President Lyndon Johnson on the Smothers Brothers—and gets censored by CBS: His performance of “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”—in which Johnson is essentially labeled the “big fool”—was initially nixed from a 1967 broadcast for being too political. A few months later, Seeger was invited back, and Americans got to watch:

6. Seeger wrote a song denouncing Joseph Stalin—and got a fun Fox News headline out of it: The folk singer’s previous support for the Soviet Union had been a less-than-flattering part of his legacy. (He left the Communist Party in the 1950s.) In 2007, Seeger revealed he had written a new yodeling blues song blasting Stalin, titled, “The Big Joe Blues.”

“It’s my first overt song about the Soviet Union,” Seeger told the Associated Press. “I think I should have though, when I was in the Soviet Union, I should have asked, ‘Can I see one of the old gulags?'”

Here are some lyrics from “The Big Joe Blues”:

I’m singing about old Joe, cruel Joe. He ruled with an iron hand. He put an end to the dreams of so many in every land….

I got the Big Joe Bloo-ew-ew-ews!

Seeger remarked that it was the kind of song his old friend Woody Guthrie might have written in the 1950s.

7. Seeger sings “We Shall Overcome” on Democracy Now! and discusses his late wife Toshi Seeger:

8. Sam Cooke’s fantastic cover of Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer“:

9. Olivia Newton-John covers Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

10. “Bring Them Home”—a song for Vietnam and Iraq: After President George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq, Seeger rewrote and re-recorded his Vietnam-era number, “Bring Them Home,” with Billy Bragg, Ani DiFranco, and Steve Earle. The new lyrics included, “Now we don’t want to fight for oil/Bring ’em home, bring ’em home/Underneath some foreign soil/Bring ’em home, bring ’em home.”

Here he is performing the song in the 1970s:

And here’s Bruce Springsteen playing it on his Seeger Sessions tour in 2006:

11. Seeger performing “This Land Is Your Land” (with Springsteen, naturally) at the Lincoln Memorial: They were celebrating the election of President Obama, shortly before his 2009 inauguration.

12. And here’s Seeger singing Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young”—for an Amnesty International benefit album:

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Pete Seeger Memorial Playlist: War, Protest, Johnny Cash, Eric Clapton, Olivia Newton-John, Stalin

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Canadian tar-sands oil could start flooding into Europe

by SandraJohansen Posted on January 24, 2014

Canadian tar-sands oil could start flooding into Europe

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Hey, European drivers, how would you like your gasoline to be even more filthy and climate-changing than it already is?

When the European Commission proposed new climate and energy rules for the European Union this week, it recommended opening a door for companies that want to import Canadian tar-sands oil into the continent. Responding to Climate Change explains:

Oil from Canada’s carbon-intensive tar sands — one of the world’s single biggest sources of greenhouse gas pollution — could be used in the petrol tanks of European motorists from 2020 after the European Commission proposed to scrap curbs on imports of highly emissions-intensive fuels. …

“[The EC proposal] is good news for oil companies and Alberta, with its high-carbon tar sands, but bad news for Europe in our move towards a more sustainable transport system,” said Nusa Urbancic, a campaigner with Transport and Environment.

The Natural Resources Defense Council warns that without the E.U. restriction on dirty fuels imports, “global oil market trends suggest that Canadian tar sands exports to Europe will grow from a trickle to a flood.” From a new NRDC report:

Canadian tar sands crude currently only makes up 0.03% of European fuel stocks from an estimated 4,000 [barrels per day] of diesel imported from the U.S. Gulf Coast. However, changes in global energy dynamics left unchecked could lead to a significant rise in the use of tar sands derived fuel, increasing to upwards of 725,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2020 and 640,000 bpd by 2030 according to estimates by NRDC. 

This could make European Union goals to reduce greenhouse gas intensity in the transport sector more difficult.

This NRDC diagram illustrates how the Keystone XL pipeline would help tar-sands miners and refiners ship their product to Europe:

NRDCClick to embiggen.


Source
Canada tar sands set to benefit from EU 2030 climate plan, Responding to Climate Change
Canadian tar sands exports to Europe could grow from a trickle to a flood undermining Europe’s climate goals, Natural Resources Defense Council

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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Canadian tar-sands oil could start flooding into Europe

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