Rising sea levels have claimed another island, this one in the Bay of Bengal.

Marine patrols have confirmed that New Moore Island is now totally submerged beneath the surface of the water.  This isn’t the first island to disappear under water.  In 1996, another island called Lohachara was submerged and it forced the inhabitants to move to the mainland.

Global Warming Ends Border Dispute

A 30-year-long argument between India and Bangladesh was abruptly resolved after rising oceans claimed a tiny island in the Bay of Bengal.

Several other islands in the Bay of Bengal, pictured below left, are currently under threat from rising sea levels as a result of climate change.

“For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island’s gone.

New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

“What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming,” said Hazra.”

Bay of Bengal -- Photo source: Getty Images

WATCH VIDEO: Ralph Keeling has spent 20 years in the family business: studying climate change. His father pioneered CO2 monitoring in 1958.

Scientists at the School of Oceanographic Studies at the university have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal.

Until 2000, the sea levels rose about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) a year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) annually, he said.

Another nearby island, Lohachara, was submerged in 1996, forcing its inhabitants to move to the mainland, while almost half the land of Ghoramara island was underwater, he said. At least 10 other islands in the area were at risk as well, Hazra said.

“We will have ever larger numbers of people displaced from the Sunderbans as more island areas come under water,” he said.

Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people, is one of the countries worst-affected by global warming. Officials estimate 18 percent of Bangladesh’s coastal area will be underwater and 20 million people will be displaced if sea levels rise 1 meter (3.3 feet) by 2050 as projected by some climate models.

India and Bangladesh both claimed the empty New Moore Island, which is about 3.5 kilometers (2 miles) long and 3 kilometers (1.5 miles) wide. Bangladesh referred to the island as South Talpatti.”

Read more here

Will this be the coast of Florida in 10 years, or the east coast in general, or your favorite vacation island?

Nearly 100 Countries Formally ‘Associate’ with Copenhagen Accord — What other choice do they have?  It’s the only agreement going forward that exists, for now.

Image credit: america.gov/Flickr

By Jacob Werksman, WRI

In the months following the Copenhagen climate conference, where the Conference of Parties “took note” of the Copenhagen Accord, governments and commentators have been debating the legal status of this unique document.

The Accord was agreed upon by a subset of the UNFCCC parties, but it lacked the consensus required to be formally adopted by the Conference of Parties. The unusual circumstances left unclear which governments supported the Accord, which governments did not, whether some or all of its provisions could become “operational immediately,” and which would require further actions.

Shortly after COP-15, the UNFCCC Secretariat, with support from the UN Secretary General and the Danish COP Presidency, wrote to the UNFCCC parties and requested that they notify each other what targets for Annex I (developed) countries and actions for non-Annex I (developing) countries they were willing to put forward in response to the Accord. The Secretariat’s letter also requested that parties indicate if they wished to “associate” with the Accord and have their country’s name listed in the final version of the Accord’s opening paragraph.. . . .

As of [March 24th], a total of 73 countries — 40 Annex I and 33 non-Annex I countries (including Kazakhstan) — have submitted targets or actions to the Secretariat. Of these, 64 have explicitly associated themselves with the Accord.

An additional 35 countries have explicitly associated themselves with the Accord but have not submitted targets or actions.

13 countries — including Brazil, Croatia, China, India, Namibia, and Palau — have expressed support for the Accord without “associating” with it, as further discussed below.

4 countries — the Cook Islands, Kuwait, Nauru and Ecuador — have submitted letters to the UNFCCC not associating with or supporting the Accord.

5 countries — an interesting combination of small island and oil exporting countries — have notified the Secretariat that they will not associate with the Accord.”

Source: Solve Climate

How many people die each year from the use of coal?  At least 24,000 just from the particulate matter, (according to the two doctors quoted below).   That is more than from traffic accidents and murders each year.   What form of life does coal not manage to damage or kill?  Maybe cockroaches, but not many other living things can thrive in dirty polluted air or in the filth left behind when coal is used.  It’s even killing cows and dogs.  And amazingly, they put coal ash in toothpaste.

“Elisa Young says she has lost at least six neighbors to cancer in the last ten years.

“I’ve lost neighbors to lung cancer who have never smoked,” she said. “I’ve lost them to brain cancer, breast, throat, colon, multiple myeloma, pre-leukemia. When my son, who’s in his 20s, came home to visit, he said, ‘Mom, is it normal for your mouth to taste like metal?’ We pulled over and he coughed until he got sick.”

Young has no doubt about what she believes is causing all the cancer: coal. For the past 10 years she’s lived in Meigs County, Ohio, the center of the second largest concentration of coal plants in the nation, and has become an environmental activist.

“There isn’t a house on this road that hasn’t been touched by cancer… I had melanoma and I currently have two more precancerous conditions for breast and thyroid cancer, none of which are in my family,” said Young, 47. “My dog died of cancer, my best friend’s dog died of lymphoma. I just gave up a dog because I couldn’t afford to take him into the vet. He was getting lumps on him.”

Each year, coal-burning power plants release nearly 100 million tons of toxic fly ash into wet ponds, rivers and landfills, according to a 2009 report by Earthjustice, an environmental legal advocacy organization. A 2007 risk assessment by the Environmental Protection Agency found that people who live near one of these coal ash waste sites have as high as a 1 in 50 chance of developing cancer, as well as an increased risk of damage to the lungs, kidneys, liver and other organs as a result of exposure to toxic metals. Further, says the report, the danger to wildlife and ecosystems is “off the charts.” Linking exposure to specific diseases can be difficult to prove scientifically — it has not been definitely proven that exposure to toxic fly ash caused the sicknesses in Meigs County.

Despite these findings, the Environmental Protection Agency has deemed coal ash a “non-hazardous waste” since 1988, a classification that allows fly ash to be dumped into ponds with no protective liner and re-used as pavement, building materials, fertilizer, potting soil and even toothpaste.

In October of 2009, the EPA finally re-evaluated the dangers of toxic coal ash and proposed new rules to regulate coal waste disposal, but the proposed regulations have been stalled for five months at the White [...]

This is a perfect example of how people don’t think about the consequences of their actions when it comes to the environment.  I can’t imagine how bad the problem was to go to these lengths and why there was nothing else they could do about it. Six thousand trees!   This is what not to do if you have a human behavior problem. People need to think about what happens to the environment if forests are cleared, think about the whole ecosystem that is destroyed, and whether it’s a wise option.

6,000 Trees Axed to Prevent Sex in Forest

As many as 6,000 trees have been felled in a forest near a British town to prevent couples from having sex there, a media report said.

Trees cut along the A666

The trees were hacked at the 12-hectare site on the outskirts of Darwen, Lancashire, after a “health and safety survey”, Daily Express reported on Tuesday. Officials say the forest that runs for kilometres along the busy A666* was cleared as some of the trees, planted after the Second World War, were in danger of falling.

Police and councillors have, however, confirmed that another reason was to discourage strangers from the known “dogging” area. Dogging is a term for people having sex with strangers in public places, or watching others have sex, often in woods or country lay-bys.

Backlash

The felling of 6,000 trees to try to stop couples having sex there has prompted an angry backlash. “It’s awful that a public green space, an asset to the local community, has been destroyed mindlessly. If the law was enforced properly then there would be no need to chop down these trees,” Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, was quoted as saying.

Alistair Foster, an environmentalist, said: “It is such a terrible thing to do. Old trees do not just fall down. What next, chop down 300-year-old oak trees in case they suddenly fall over one day? And to do it to reduce people having sex in the woods is farcical.” Terry Hardman, who travels past the clearance site every day, said that the work had “absolutely devastated the area.”

“There was a massive forest that’s been reduced to open space. Surely that can’t be good for the environmental situation?”

Sergeant Mark Wilson said that the sexual activities in the area were “an ongoing problem and very worrying for members of the public”. “It’s far too early to tell if cutting the trees back has had any impact on the dogging situation, but we’ll be paying regular attention to the area.”

Double whammy

“I’m more than happy this is being carried out and it has a double whammy in terms of the sexual behaviour. I’ve heard anecdotally that since the trees have been cleared it’s quietened down a lot,” ward councillor Jean Rigby was quoted as saying.

So if you have a problem in the trees cut them down, [...]

Belize is a little country in Central America next to Guatemala,  and I’ve been there twice. You would think Belize would look a lot different than Minnesota, but it has lots of pine trees in the Mountain Pine Ridge area, which reminded me of home.   On the way to ruins called Caracol in the middle of this little country are miles of hills covered with pine trees.  In 2005, the first year I was there, we saw so many of these pine trees dead, just trunks standing there stripped on the top half of the tree.  Hills and hills full of dead trees.  We were told it was caused by pine beetles which were recently infesting the area.  It was the first time I had ever seen mass areas of trees being eaten by beetles and it was an eerie sight. Two years ago I saw the same thing in South Dakota, only worse and on different trees.  Entire trees, grey and stripped of every leaf, dotted the landscape in small groups.  I was entering the Black Hills national park, and was not allowed to bring any wood from anywhere else due to beetles,  which were eating trees all over the state.  Now these tree-eating beetles are in Minnesota, eating ash trees.  And they are all feasting on weakened trees due to climate change.

Central America is fighting back at the beetles with pesticides, and when we went back in 2007, the trees in the same area looked a bit better, though many of them, as you can see in the photo above I took in 2007, were still without foliage in the top portions and appeared to be dying.  South Dakota didn’t look like it was successfully fighting the beetles, at least not then.  The question is whether or not this is a battle that can even be won.  It’s not just North America because I’ve seen this in Central America.  And it’s not just America.  Trees all over the world are being infested with insects that are killing them.  Here’s an article on the latest news on the subject from Yale’s e360:

What’s Killing the Great Forests of the American West?

Across western North America, huge tracts of forest are dying off at an extraordinary rate, mostly because of outbreaks of insects. Scientists are now seeing such forest die-offs around the world and are linking them to changes in climate.  by jim robbins

For many years, Diana Six, an entomologist at the University of Montana, planned her field season for the same two to three weeks in July. That’s when her quarry — tiny, black, mountain pine beetles — hatched from the tree they had just killed and swarmed to a new one to start their life cycle again.

Now, says Six, the field rules have changed. Instead of just two weeks, the beetles fly continually from May until October, attacking trees, burrowing in, and laying their eggs for half the year. And that’s not [...]

Like to fly? We’ll be able to fly in the future and not have a huge carbon footprint. SolveClimate reports that Airlines might be flying on Biofuel within 5 years!  That seems very optimistic to me, given the fact that jets use an immense amount of fuel. Where will we get all the plants?  Algae is one of the answers and a big reason this seems plausible.

“Just a few years ago, the idea of replacing kerosene-based jet fuel with renewable fuel from plants seemed out of the question. The cost of producing such alternative fuels dwarfed that of traditional jet A-grade fuel, and moving a severely carbon-intensive industry toward cleaner fuels would only happen if the economics worked out.

A 2008 spike in oil prices and a global economic slowdown later, and suddenly bio-jet fuel isn’t just back on the table, it might be in your airplane’s engines in the next four or five years.

“Generally speaking, three years ago I think many people felt that it was something on paper and it was a bit of a pipe dream,” said Steve Lott, the head of corporate communications for the airline industry group International Air Transport Association, or IATA. “The tests we’ve seen in the past two years or so have definitely moved the ball forward and accelerated the process forward toward certification.”

The tests Lott mentioned are a series of flights by various airlines around the world demonstrating the capability of so-called “drop-in” biofuels. These fuels, derived from second-generation biomass sources like algae and the jatropha plant, can power a jet engine with no modification to the engine or plane, saving the industry from the economic impossibility of upgrading the worldwide airplane fleet.”

Continental Airlines, for example, has already flown a demonstration flight using a 50-50 blend of kerosene and algae-based fuel in one engine of a Boeing 737, and Lott said there was even some indication that of the plane’s two engines the biofuel-powered one performed slightly better than the kerosene engine.. . . . “

Read More here.

Depero con Campari

March 18 – June 18, 2010
Galleria Campari – Sesto San Giovanni (MI)
Curated by Marina Mojana and Ada Masoero
Catalog (De Luca Editori d’Arte)

To celebrate its 150th anniversary, Campari has opened a gallery space and has displayed more than 70 works by Fortunato Depero.

Check out the slide show of the exhibit at Campari.com

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If governments want to reduce the cost of health care, then air pollution must be reduced. And air pollution can only be reduced when we stop burning fossil fuels.  Air pollution causes early deaths around the world and raises health care costs.  A new report describes how it causes the deaths of up to 50,000 people a year in England.

More could be done to prevent the early deaths of up to 50,000 people each year hastened by air pollution, [UK] MPs say. A Commons Environmental Audit Committee report said failure to reduce pollution had put an “enormous” cost on the NHS and could cost millions in EU fines.  It said the UK should be “ashamed” of its poor air quality which was contributing to conditions such as asthma, heart disease and cancer.  The government accepted more could be done and would consider the report.. . .

Pollutants such as ozone, nitrogen oxides and “particulate matter” – tiny particles – from transport and power stations have been blamed for contributing to early deaths.   Particulate matter is estimated to reduce people’s lives by an average seven to eight months, while in pollution hotspots vulnerable residents, such as those with asthma, could be dying up to nine years early, the report says.. . . .

Air pollution also leads to damage to wildlife and agriculture, with ground-level ozone estimated to reduce wheat yields in the south of Britain by 5% to 15%.  EAC chairman Tim Yeo said: “Air pollution probably causes more deaths than passive smoking, traffic accidents or obesity, yet it receives very little attention from government or the media.”

Why isn’t this reported by the media? Particulate matter and other pollutants come primarily from coal and the burning of fossil fuels.

It sounds like the British media is as pathetic in reporting the effects of global warming, fossil fuel burning and pollution as the U.S. media is.

In the United States,  air quality has improved from the 1960s, but there is still a negative health effect.  It’s estimated in reports that there are 24,000 coal-related deaths and a total of 60,000 air pollution impacted deaths in the United States, out of 2.5 million deaths from any cause.  About 3-4% of all deaths in the United States each year  are due to air pollution.

LONG-TERM EXPOSURES — American Cancer Society Cohort Study: This study of half a million people in 100 American cities over 16 years has been audited, replicated, re-analyzed, extended and ultimately reconfirmed. The latest results show that long-term exposure to fine particulate matter is associated with premature death from cardio-respiratory causes and lung cancer. Increased risk of premature death is evident at concentrations below current standards.

Harvard Six Cities Study: This long-term cohort study has also been subject to an independent audit, review, and re-analysis and the original findings have been confirmed: long term exposure to fine particle pollution shortens lives and contributes to an increased risk of early death from heart and lung disease, even at [...]

An important thing happened in Montana last week.  This is the first known case of its kind in the United States.  A federal judge has approved a settlement requiring the government to suspend oil and gas leases on almost 38,000 acres in Montana because future “climate change impacts were not studied prior to leasing.”  This is one reason the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill should not pass (as is):  their new bill would take away the rights of states and the EPA to take action on climate change, like this, if they choose to do so.  Power should never be taken away from the states or the EPA to do what needs to be done to stop global warming.

“An attorney involved in the case says it marks the first time the Bureau of Land Management has agreed to go back and consider if a lease sale could exacerbate climate change.”

That is what I consider some progress — not the drilling for more oil and gas, but looking at the effects extracting fossil fuels will have on the world’s climate.  It’s also noteworthy that the leases suspended included the polluting process of natural gas drilling.

BILLINGS, Mont. – A federal judge has approved a first-of-its-kind settlement requiring the government to suspend 38,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Montana so it can gauge how oil field activities contribute to climate change.

At issue are the greenhouse gases emitted by drilling machinery and industry practices such as venting natural gas directly into the atmosphere.

Under the deal approved Thursday by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula, the Bureau of Land Management will suspend the 61 leases in Montana within 90 days. They will have to go through a new round of environmental reviews before the suspensions can be lifted.

“We view this as a very big deal, if a modest first step, in the BLM addressing climate change in oil and gas development,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Erik Schlenker-Goodrich. “It’s quite a dirty process, but there are ways to clean it up.”  “

Except there is no way to clean up the pollution and CO2 emissions from burning oil and gas.   Real progress would include the consideration of the pollution when the fuels are burned in whether or not to suspend the leases.

“Plaintiffs in the case were the Montana Environmental Information Center, the Oil and Gas Accountability Project and Wild Earth Guardians.

A parallel lawsuit challenging 70,000 acres of federal lands leased in New Mexico remains pending.

Industry representatives contend emissions from oil and gas fields are necessary to develop a valuable domestic resource. And they argue that natural gas still comes in ahead of dirtier fuels like coal in terms of climate change contributions.

Oil and gas operations contribute about 23 percent of annual U.S. methane emissions and 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

A BLM spokesman, Greg Albright, said reviewing lease sales for climate [...]

This is one of the official Earth Hour videos for this year.  Here is the Earth Hour website.

Earth Hour is next week, March 27th.  Last year I didn’t think much of this event and I still don’t, but this year I’m going to turn my lights off and take my dog for a walk, (which I do every night anyway) during Earth Hour  — and see how many lights are on.  I might even take a few photos of a dark street, which shouldn’t be too hard to find.  My city is in debt, like a lot of U.S. cities, and they are turning off street lights to save money.   I can actually see the stars at night in some neighborhoods.   Light pollution is down because of the bad economy.  That’s good, but the reason for it isn’t.   I also see, from the official site, that Wells Fargo Bank is a “featured corporate partner” in Earth Hour.  There is a Wells Fargo Bank on my walking route and they leave most of their lights on all night, lighting up the entire block.   I will report right here whether they turned off all of their lights or not.*   (Want to make any bets?)

Turning off lights for one hour is great, but it’s not going to stop global warming.  The purpose of the event is to raise awareness.  The official website writes:

The movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations.

Overall, there can be some unintentional messages with events like this.   Turning lights off for one hour while coal plants are belching out toxic pollution and smog settles over our cities for another evening  seems pretty lightweight to me.   I hope no ones gets the idea that turning off their  lights for one hour is where it stops.  Earth Hour should involve some sort of climate action like shutting down a coal plant for an hour.  Civil disobedience (as advocated by James Hansen and Al Gore) should probably be a part of any real future Earth Hours, because we are running out of time to stop global warming.   Or,  Earth Hour should spur people to action in whatever way they can contribute, but it should be a way of life, something that people do all the time, even if it’s just talking to people about climate change.  There is a big lack of knowledge in the U.S. about what climate change is.  Everyone, no matter who you are, can help to change that.

In addition, driving around to get photos to upload, and then turning on computers all over the world to upload these photos uses energy.  Probably more than what would be used if this event wasn’t going on. In other words, what is the carbon footprint of this event?  (We will never know, because no one is measuring it.)

After Earth Hour is over, [...]

Sens. Kerry, Lieberman and Graham -- giving the climate away.

We need real action to stop climate change and control greenhouse gases, not giveaways and incentives to Big Oil and other fossil fuel companies.  Yet that is the opposite of what some in the U.S. government are working on.

Three U.S. Senators are writing a “secret” climate bill with corporations, out of public view. On Tuesday of this week they shared that draft bill not with the American public, but with industry leaders involved with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the oil and gas industries.  They refused to let the press see it but insiders talked about it after the meeting. The senators are working with some of the biggest polluters to craft a so-called climate and energy bill, and we can’t even read it.   From eenews.net (subscription only):

“Details emerged [Tuesday] on a sweeping Senate energy and climate proposal just days after three senior Democrats huddled to discuss alternative ways to tackle the issue later this spring on the floor.

Under pressure to quickly produce a bill, [who is this pressure coming from?] Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) … shared an eight-page outline of their draft plan in a closed-door meeting with major industry groups.

According to several sources in the meeting room, the bill will call for greenhouse gas curbs across multiple economic sectors, with a target of reducing emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Power plant emissions would be regulated in 2012, with other major industrial sources phased in starting in 2016. . . .”

This issue is discussed in the latest Climate Files podcast here.  At the end of these negotiations, which no one is a part of outside of government and industry, we may end up with an energy-only “climate-energy” bill.  Even more frustrating, the 3 senior Senators involved in this bill won’t make it public, won’t let anyone other than select senators and industry leaders read it, and refuse to discuss details of it. This is just  like the secret energy meetings held during the Bush administration, when Dick Cheney went behind closed doors with Exxon and other energy corporations to craft U.S. policy.  This is what these 3 Senators are doing, presumably with the blessings of the White House.  CALL YOUR SENATORS and tell them we want a public process on climate change that reflects what is best for Americans, not Big Coal and Big Oil.  Writing them is also very effective (see below).

On Monday, Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) met for about 45 minutes with Reid to plead their case for taking up energy legislation approved last spring by Bingaman’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That bill (S. 1462 includes a renewable energy standard and offshore oil drilling but no cap on greenhouse gas emissions — a centerpiece of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman effort.

Three sources familiar with the meeting said [...]

L’universo futurista: 1909-1936 [The Universe of Futurism]

March 23 – July 31, 2010
Fundación PROA di Buenos Aires
Curated by Gabriella Belli

From April 1st, nothing will rest idly at the museum. Nothing will be destined for the grave. Nothing will die beneath the surface of a book. From April, 1st, Proa will present The universe of futurism, a travel trough the Art systems that the most distinguished Italian avant-garde movement was able to achieve from 1909 to 1936. Futuristic painting. Futuristic literature. Futuristic cinema. Futuristic music. Futuristic architecture. Futuristic dance, cooking and fashion. Organized together with the Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (MART) and under the curatorship of Gabriella Belli, The futuristic universe will include an special section on Filippo Tomasso Marinetti’s, father of the futuristic movement, travels to Brazil and Argentina. A series of associated activities will also take place, willing to bring back the gist of the artistic adventure that, more than any other of its contemporaries, imposed a unique way of producing Art and conceiving Time. A style that, as one of the manifestos highlights, lives “deprived from the past and free from tradition”. In other words, forever new. Fast as the machines. Noisy and industrial. Uncomfortable and impotent. Futuristic.

With the support of the Italian Embassy in Argentina. Sponsored by Tenaris / Techint Organization

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The anti-science minority continues to make a lot of noise.  They are growing increasingly ignorant and loud, but I really don’t think they are growing in number.  They seem to revel in the fact that they obviously don’t care to even understand what global warming is, or what causes it. Other people in other countries are not like this, willfully ignorant and proud of it. Are Americans divorced from logic?  Most of us are not.  The denier movement gets more press than the rest of us only because their antics make interesting press.  Meanwhile, a  new government panel that represents people who live in the real world will urge climate change measures.  What are they up against?  This video, the Climate Crock of the Week by Peter Sinclair, is on this week’s topic, Flogging the Scientists, and describes some of the claims made against the facts and science of climate change.

And in a recent article they write about a new panel that has come out with a report showing the U.S. is not ready to deal with climate change.

Climate change has already wrought “pervasive, wide ranging” effects on the United States, and the federal government has “significant gaps” in its strategy to cope with those effects as they accelerate in the future, a White House task force will warn in a report today.

The report will call for better risk assessments, more thorough scientific research and improved coordination of federal and local governments to handle the impacts of warming temperature, according to a draft obtained by the Tribune Washington Bureau.

Adapting to warming temperature, the report concludes, “will require a set of thoughtful, preventative actions, measures and investments to reduce the vulnerability of our natural and human systems to climate change impacts.”

The report urges federal agencies to fundamentally change how they plan for the future, by factoring the potential risks and opportunities of a changing climate into their decision-making. It also advises agencies to rely less on historical climate data when making plans for transportation, energy, infrastructure and natural resource use.

The task force that produced the report includes the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and representatives from nearly every corner of the federal government.

The report comes at a time when global warming skeptics are increasingly criticizing the science of climate change, fueled by a string of controversies surrounding leading climate scientists.

President Barack Obama has asked the task force to lay the groundwork, by this fall, for an explicit federal strategy to adapt to climate change.

The draft report is a first step in that process and light on specific recommendations.

It concludes that climate change “is affecting, and will continue to affect, nearly every aspect of our society and the environment” — through increasingly severe floods, droughts, wildfires and heat waves, along with rising sea levels — and that those impacts are already “affecting the ability of federal agencies [...]

Emergildo Criollo attempted to deliver letters to Chevron CEO John Watson on March 2nd 2010.

Exposed: Chevron’s Cover-up of Gross Environmental Abuses in Ecuador

We need to save what is left of the rainforests and replenish what has been lost.   Can people do this in time to prevent runaway climate change?  An area the size of Greece has been cleared away already in the Amazon. This can’t continue. And the Amazon has additional problems.  Industrial wastewater is being dumped into the Amazon and there is a lot of contamination from oil drilling and spills and open oil pits.  It never fails to amaze me what people will do to the environment all in the name of making some money.

Alternet — Chevron claims it’s not responsible for dumping 18 billion gallons of industrial wastewater into the Amazon. A local leader says otherwise. A recent lawsuit has been brought by Ecuadorian indigenous groups against the U.S. oil giant, Chevron, for environmental destruction it allegedly wrought as Texaco in the Amazon rainforest of eastern Ecuador. The suit asks Chevron (which acquired Texaco in 2001) to pay for the environmental cleanup of an area three times the size of Manhattan, pocked with open oil pits and steeped in 18 billion gallons of dumped industrial wastewater. The damages in the case — calculated by a court-appointed expert at a record $27 billion — would also establish a health fund to pay for the estimated 1,400 cases of cancer caused by the pollution — a number that will likely continue to grow until the site is cleaned up. The rest of the damages fall into the catchall category, “compensation.”

The rainforests need more respect and protection than turning them over to the highest fossil fuel bidder.  They are the lungs of the planet, along with the oceans (something else human CO2 emissions are gravely harming).   The Rainforest Action Network gives us the story of Emergildo Criollo, the Indigenous leader from Ecuador.  From RAN’s story.

Criollo met with California legislators and asked for their support in the 16+ year campaign to demand Chevron remediate massive oil contamination affecting over 30,000 people. Along with supporters from Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network, Criollo spoke with lawmakers about the impact of California’s largest company in Ecuador, and what they can do to support his community’s call for environmental cleanup and action to prevent such tragedies in the future. . . . .

. . . .  At the reception, Criollo shared his story. He told the lawmakers about how he was only 6 years old when Chevron (then Texaco) began oil drilling in his community. He spoke of how his family was forced to relocate because of the contamination. About he had to part centimeters of oil off of the river to drink the water. About how he has lost two sons and nursed a wife through uterine cancer because of the contamination. His family drank, bathed, and fished in water that was poisoned [...]

US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu spoke at Stanford University last week on  clean energy , climate change science, innovation and education. It’s a science and solutions oriented talk so it’s valuable for everyone. Secretary Chu met with students before the talk for a student round table discussion on energy. The event was followed in the evening by a panel called “Educating the Energy Generation,” focused on how the U.S. can build a competitive clean energy workforce as quickly as possible. See here for an article about Secretary Chu’s visit to Stanford, “The Biggest Speaker of the Year,” and why his perspective is important. On the DoE website, Chu asks,

What are the steps we must take as a nation to create new, clean energy jobs and ensure America’s long-term competitiveness? What are the consequences for our climate of inaction? How can science and technology offer us new and better choices – and how can America’s young people make a difference?

I recently returned to Stanford University, where I spent many years as a professor, to discuss these and many other issues with a great group of students. I’d like to invite you to watch a replay of my speech here, and then share your thoughts afterward on my personal Facebook page (www.facebook.com/stevenchu) to continue the conversation.

During the speech he said something to take notice of: “Humans are altering the destiny of the planet. . . . [but] it’s not too late.”  He also repeated the quote Obama has used frequently on the “fierce urgency of now” and repeated that there is such a thing as being “too late”.

The message was clear — the U.S. has to act on the climate crisis as soon as possible.  Not next year, this year.

Chu  used the phrase climate crisis, which is strong language coming from the Secretary of Energy.

Download/listen to the Climate Files podcast here. (link to video is below)

More info from Stanford

“The Green Alliance for Innovative Action (GAIA), an initiative of the ASSU Executive (http://assu.stanford.edu), hosted U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu on March 8, 2010 on the Stanford Campus (live webcast at http://gaia.stanford.edu). Dr. Steven Chu, distinguished scientist and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics (1997), was appointed by President Obama as the 12th Secretary of Energy and sworn into office on January 21, 2009. Dr. Chu’s speech was titled “Meeting the Energy and Climate Challenge.” ASSU President David Gobaud noted that he “expected Dr. Chu’s talk to raise awareness on campus about the global energy and climate challenge and inspire students to work on solving the world’s biggest problems in the area.” Dr. Chu’s talk was followed by a panel titled “Educating the Energy Generation: How Universities Can Empower Future Energy Leaders” hosted by Energy Crossroads (http://ecstanford.org).”

(Thanks for the video info. from which I got the audio to It’s Getting Hot in Here)

To watch a video of this event, see the Department of Energy homepage

Photo: Shruti Shrestha -- A woman wears compact fluorescent light bulbs during a protest rally in Kathmandu demanding alternative sources of energy March 11, 2010. Nepal's government is announcing 13 hours of power cut a day from today due to the low water levels in the hydro electric dams.

“The head of U.S. EPA’s research division on Wednesday defended the science used in the agency’s pending climate regulations to skeptical GOP lawmakers. “The overwhelming science that this finding is relied on is solvent and reliable,” Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development, told the House Science and Technology Committee. (E&E Daily, 03/11/2010)

Things are really heating up with the politics of global warming lately, with much pressure being put on tired politicians who seem to want to pass health care and then go on vacation. Fortunately, scientists are urging the need to act. Scientists, including Steven Chu (see post below)  are strongly urging Congress to pass meaningful legislation this year that will begin to address the climate crisis. American politicians have been spending most of their time fighting for health care reform in the U.S., but that battle should be over in a week or less. Then they need to tackle climate change, no matter how tired and weary our representatives claim they are, and they need to hear from us on this extremely important topic.  That means call them!  (They get paid enough to work hard, and maybe they need to be reminded of that.) From USATODAY:

“Eight Nobel-prize winning economists and scientists have joined more than 2,000 others in signing a letter today that urges the Senate to take swift action on climate change.

“The longer we wait, the harder and more costly it will be to limit climate change and to adapt to those impacts that will not be avoided,” reads the letter, which is available on the Union of Concerned Scientists’ website here. ”Many emissions reduction strategies can be adopted today that would save consumers and industry money while providing benefits for air quality, energy security, public health, balance of trade, and employment.”

The renewed effort to focus attention on the issue comes after a difficult few months for advocates who want Congress to pass legislation to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. First, there was the “climate-gate” scandal, in which hundreds of e-mails from climate scientists were posted on-line — including some that questioned just how fast the earth’s temperature is rising. . . . . .

At one point last year, climate change legislation had been queued up behind health care in the list of priorities for congressional Democrats. The House narrowly passed so-called cap-and-trade legislation in June that would have taxed carbon emissions. But the Senate never embraced the approach. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who has been a lead negotiator on the issue, has said lawmakers are pursuing a new bill that would instead focus on utility companies.”

Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham are [...]

Le donne di Umberto Boccioni
attraverso le opere e i suoi scritti

[The women of Umberto Boccioni throughout his works and writings]

March 8 – March 31, 2010
* Vernissage March 8th, 11am
Galleria Nazionale di Cosenza, Palazzo Arnone
Curated by Nella Mari, Melissa Acquesta, and Francesca Mandarino in coordination with Fabio De Chirico, Soprintendente.

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This is the trailer for Dirty Oil, a film about the Alberta Tar Sands that premieres this week in 25 theaters across the UK.  This looks like an excellent movie and let’s hope it has an impact.  But it’s important to remember that all oil is dirty when it’s burned, not just the tar sands kind.  It just so happens we get a ton of oil from Canada’s tar sands that is the filthiest form of oil we use.

“Released in cinemas March 15th 2010 as part of the trilogy for The Co-operatives “Toxic Fuels” campaign”. Dirty Oil goes behind-the-scenes into the strip-mined world of Alberta, Canada, where the vast and toxic Tar Sands deposit supplies the U.S. with the majority of its oil. Through the eyes of scientists, big oil officials, politicians, doctors, environmentalists, and aboriginal citizens directly impacted by the largest industrial project on the planet today, the filmmakers journey to both sides of the border to see the emotional and irreversible toll this black gold rush fueled by Americas addiction to oil is taking on our planet.” (from Youtube)

I came across a blog, The Enbridge Pipeline in My Backyard. It contains a lot of information, photos and personal stories from a person who lives near the new pipeline construction area in northern Minnesota.   Life hasn’t been easy for the people there.  The blog writer has taken a lot of photos and two of them are on page 2.

Pipeline mess in northern Minnesota -- Photo by J. Johnson

They will pump 7.6 millions gallons of water from Chub Lake, then run it through the pipelines, both the 20" and 36" pipes, from Superior to Alberta, and back to Chub Lake Park. From there, they will filter it, test it, and return the 7.6 million gallons of water to the lake, all with "minimal impact on the lake". Photo by J. Johnson

See More here

The Obama administration and new energy legislation will (probably) allow for and even encourage more drilling for oil and natural gas.  The Alberta Clipper pipeline was approved by the U.S. State Department in August 2009 by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If this project is allowed to continue, we can probably be assured of increasing CO2 emissions and runaway climate change sooner than if it were shut down as soon as possible, which is what should happen.  It was an enormous mistake to approve of this pipeline and the world’s dirtiest oil that it will carry into the United States, feeding our addiction. We are still oil junkies, but a growing number of us want off the drug.

Native American groups are suing the state department, or were trying to. I’m not aware of any success with their lawsuit.

Four environmental and Native American advocacy groups have filed suit challenging the US State Department’s August approval of Enbridge Energy’s plans to build the Alberta Clipper tar sands pipeline. The pipeline would pump 450,000 barrels of tar sands oil per [...]

Oh YIKES. Kerry and the Gang hold humanity's future in their political hands.

U.S. Senators now hold a large portion of humanity’s future survival prospects in their hands.

I’m very grateful for political climate news from ClimateWire. (A subscription-only service that recently bestowed on me a trial subscription.)  There is a very welcome push by the Obama administration lately to get some climate legislation passed this year, but what President Obama means by “climate legislation” is not necessarily what many people would define it as.  But if it doesn’t do a lot of harm with giveaways to coal and oil (like many people fear it will) then maybe, possibly, like the health care bill, it’s best to get something passed, crack the door open and later it can be amended and strengthened.  But what John Kerry and Lindsey Graham are working on reportedly has a lot of allowances in it for coal, oil and other undesirable energy.  Here is some of the latest.

President Obama yesterday huddled at the White House with more than a dozen key senators in an all-out push to pass stalled legislation that would put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. (E&ENews PM, 03/09/2010)

Partisan gridlock has largely kept the Senate climate and energy bill on ice, with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) trying to find a sweet spot on a plan that would limit carbon dioxide pollution from power plants and other major industrial sectors.  [This group is not necessarily going to do what is necessary, but at least they are pushing something forward].

The Senate trio is trying to get a draft bill out before the end of the month, but they face resistance from moderate Democrats and Republicans who are urging a slower, “energy only” approach. . . . .

Among those expected at the closed-door meeting in the Cabinet Room were Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), George LeMieux (R-Fla.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska.). Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) also got an invitation but said he could not go because of a meeting on health care with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Heading into the meeting, several of the Republicans showed little interest in tackling such a sweeping proposal.”

Surprise, surprise.  Of course Republicans and “blue dog” conservative Democrats aren’t interested, because they take a ton of money from Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Gas, and Big Ag, and everything under the sun that pollutes a lot and is Big.  When they are being bought and paid for, they won’t show much enthusiasm for biting the hands that feed them.  I also question the value of input from Republicans in that group that are actively trying to kill climate legislation, like Lisa Murkowski.  President Obama is taking his attempts at bi-partisanship  too far.  That is clear at this point.

Unfortunately, an [...]

Conservation Groups Align with World’s Worst Polluters

“Major environmental groups are coming under criticism from within their own ranks for taking positions that some say are antithetical to their stated missions of saving the planet. In the latest issue of The Nation magazine, the British journalist Johann Hari writes, “As we confront the biggest ecological crisis in human history, many of the green organizations meant to be leading the fight are busy shoveling up hard cash from the world’s worst polluters—and burying science-based environmentalism in return…In the middle of a swirl of bogus climate scandals trumped up by deniers, here is the real Climategate.”

(From Democracy Now)  There is money in any issue in Washington, and global warming is no exception.  No wonder climate change legislation has morphed into “green jobs and energy” legislation.  John Kerry and others are working hard to pass a bill that will (likely) allow coal use to thrive and new oil to be drilled and lots of natural gas to be extracted and burned, at a very toxic cost.  Our Congress just doesn’t get it.  There should be a moratorium on taking any money from any fossil fuel industries, given what we are facing with global warming.  (Yet Nancy Pelosi herself is a big investor in natural gas, for example).  Climate change and global warming are the biggest issues humanity has ever faced, and governments are dropping the ball.  However, it’s not just governments being corrupted by corporate cash — it’s also the very “Green” groups we depend on for climate action and Congressional pressure!

Consider what we are facing already, according to Johann Hari, a columnist who wrote for The Nation — ‘The Wrong Kind of Green’:

“I have spent the past few years reporting on how global warming is remaking the map of the world. I have stood in half-dead villages on the coast of Bangladesh while families point to a distant place in the rising ocean and say, “Do you see that chimney sticking up? That’s where my house was… I had to [abandon it] six months ago.” I have stood on the edges of the Arctic and watched glaciers that have existed for millenniums crash into the sea. I have stood on the borders of dried-out Darfur and heard refugees explain, “The water dried up, and so we started to kill each other for what was left.”

Flooding in Bangladesh

People don’t realize that flooding and other effects of climate change are already happening. That’s because the narrative, and the media, is focusing on human errors made in a few emails about some bad scientific practices at a little, obscure university that no one depends on for climate data anyway. We have other places where climate data is stored and gathered, including NASA, NOAA and places in Japan and Canada.  Who needs East Anglia.  The IPCC is now reviewing its practices of collecting data).  The real Climategate is that big fossil fuel companies continues to foul the process of coming up with [...]