One of the many advantages of being a Greenpeace Field Organizer for Northern California is the incredibly diverse region I am responsible for. Not only do I get to work out of the sweet San Francisco office, but I get to travel from the ocean to the mountains, and everywhere in-between, for the sake of fighting for the future of our planet. One place I was particularly thrilled to work in is the famous wine country just north of the Bay Area. It is here that I met Ted Lemon, his dog Bo, and got a peek into the life of a Californian winemaker.

Lemon began his career by studying in France where he apprenticed at several highly esteemed estates in Burgundy. In 1993, Ted Lemon and his wife Heidi founded Littorai Wines to produce Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines on the north coast of California. Lemon has worked as a winemaker and consultant to many prominent wineries and he owns or leases several small-scale vineyards throughout Sonoma and Mendocino counties.

I recently got the chance to visit one of his Sonoma County vineyards in the quaint town of Sebastopol. This biodynamically farmed vineyard serves as a self sustaining, integrated and diversified farm because Lemon follows a holistic approach to winemaking known as terroir. This concept posits that the quality and taste of wine depends entirely on the soil and climate conditions in which the grapes are grown. The pinots produced by Lemon and other winemakers depend on the climate of Sonoma's famed coastal influence. It lies just north of the San Francisco Bay and benefits from its moderating ocean breezes.


For centuries, the West Coast has been an ideal climate for grape growing and California alone makes up about 92% of the entire U.S. wine industry, with more than 90% of the profit in premium wines.  However, these homegrown wines face a serious threat from global warming. Scientists predict that global warming will bring higher temperatures, more heat waves and less precipitation - changes that could destroy the state's $15 billion wine industry. Furthermore, a study conducted by Purdue University’s Climate and Earth Systems research group projects that there will be over an 80% reduction in total premium wine production due to climate change . Lemon’s pinot noir is particularly susceptible to the consequences of a changing climate. If left unaddressed, global warming could make it impossible to grow Pinot Noir in California.

While concern for the impacts of global warming on his life’s work is not new to Lemon, he is now taking action beyond sustainable growing practices. He is calling for the necessary leadership from President Obama to meet this challenge of our generation head-on. Recently, world leaders met in Copenhagen, Denmark for the most important United Nations Climate Negotiation to date. Unfortunately, President Obama did not listen to the calls for real climate solutions from scientists, heads of developing countries and the tens of thousands of protesters that flooded into Copenhagen for the Negotiations. Leadership from President Obama is essential for both a global climate treaty and locally protecting the longevity and prosperity of the Lemon’s wine business.

 

Anne Mulkern wrote an interesting article in today's New York Times/Greenwire about Big Oil's efforts to greenwash their dirty image with misleading advertisements.  As the article details, giant oil companies like BP, Shell, Exxonmobil, and their industry trade group, the American Petroleum Institute, are spending millions to convince Americans and policymakers that they are investing in clean energy, even though in reality, "...for all three companies, the alternative energy investments still are a small part of their overall business. BP, for example, puts $1.3 billion to $1.6 billion a year into alternative energy projects. That's about 1 percent of the company's total $20 billion investment this year in future business prospects."

Last week, we looked at some of Shell's ads, some of which were so misleading that they were forced to stop using them in the UK.

In Mulkern's article, Chevron attempts to explain their PR push:

Chevron's ads are aimed at getting people to think about conservation while also expanding their view of the company, said Helen Clark, Chevron's manager of corporate marketing.

"Oil and gas is a majority of our business, but there's a lot else we do that's important," Clark said.

"We want people to see past the rhetoric and past the view of 'Big Oil,'" she added. "We want to make sure it's showing all sides of the corporation."

All sides of the corporation? OK, let's check out some sides that you might not hear about on a giant billboard or full page ad in the Washington Post.  How about the side that's been accused of extortion on Capitol Hill for their lobbying efforts to avoid responsibility for dumping billions of gallons of toxic wastewater in the Amazon? Or the side that just settled a lawsuit requiring them to cough up millions of dollars for unpaid lease royalties to state, federal and American Indian governments? 

No amount of focus group-tested advertising is going to fool the people living nearby Chevron's massive polluting refinery in San Ramon, California, hundreds of whom marched on the facility this summer:

But maybe that's not the point.  As marketing expert Bob Kenney points out in Mulkern's article, it's important to look at just who Big Oil is trying to fool:

Many of the ads have run in Washington, D.C. Those are less about reaching customers and more about reaching Congress,

"It's concerned with contributing information in the public debate at a governmental level," Kenney said. "It may look like a public campaign sometimes, but sometimes it's not."

As Big Oil pollutes local communities from the Bay Area to the Amazon, their massive PR and lobbying efforts pollute the understanding of what they are doing to this planet, and they're especially focused on policymakers here in Washington DC. You can find Chevron's ads all over our nation's capitol, at bus stops, on the sides of buildings and in the newspapers and magazines read by our legislators and their staff.

In fact, there's a Chevron banner ad right on Mulkern's article itself, inviting us to "Join the Discussion" about the UN Climate summit in Copenhagen:

 

As the US Senate takes up energy and climate legislation, we'll be watching what kind of "discussion" polluter lobbyists are really interested in.

Was Copenhagen historic or a failure (or both)? To discern the value of the Copenhagen deal through the din of spin, look no further than the 9% drop in the European carbon market on Monday, where confidence vanished following President Obama's "historic accord."

Last week, President Obama made an audacious effort to save what was a floundering process in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, his administration's claim of "historic accord" is little but spin. What the world was waiting for — the sinking island nations, the 300,000 that the World Health Organization says die each year from global warming, and the carbon markets — were binding agreements to cut carbon pollution, end tropical deforestation by 2015, and provide financing to assist developing countries in leap-frogging dirty development with clean energy.

What they got was business as usual. Earlier this year the House passed a deeply flawed climate bill that falls short of what the science says is needed to roll back climate change. The bill's contents were what the president promised in Copenhagen, and his words were met with disappointment the world over.

There is spin from all sides about just what happened in Denmark. Let me share my observations from someone with a global, not just U.S., perspective. The European Union, already actively engaged in the Kyoto Protocol, offered to cut its pollution by 20% and said they would go up to 30% if the U.S. put more ambitious goals on the table. The EU also pledged 30 billion euro per year for financing clean technology and other initiatives in the developing world. China, already outpacing the U.S. in the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies, offered to decrease the energy intensity of its emerging economy. India pledged the same.

The U.S. pressed China to allow its efforts to cut global warming pollution to be independently measured. China resisted the U.S. proposal to allow the U.S. to come in and inspect its industry, but felt that the negotiations with the U.S. were making progress on this point when it accepted an EU proposal on reporting and occasional checks. Meanwhile, the U.S. was punching loopholes into the pact.

The deal could possibly be sealed if the U.S. offered financing for developing countries and resolved the issue of transparency with China.

Enter Hillary Clinton, offering to somehow figure out how to give an unstated contribution of money from an unknown source to a $100 billion fund. In the process, she offended the Chinese premier, who was in such a fury that his negotiating staff was in a panic.

Enter President Obama. His speech, clearly written for one audience — the U.S. Senate — said three things to the Heads of State in the room: hey foreign leaders, we don't want foreign oil; hey China, even though we've been building trust and negotiating all year, I'm going to scold you for the benefit of domestic politics; and hey world: even though these are negotiations, I have nothing to offer. It's my way or the highway.

The President laid out what the U.S. had offered the world for the last eight months, budging on nearly nothing. He put forward a goal of cutting pollution by 4% below 1990 levels — about one tenth of what the EU offered. In fairness, he had little to offer. The combination of the President's hesitance to lead to overcome special interests to achieve his own stated objectives — whether on a public option in health care or pollution reductions of any respectable size — and the power of the coal and oil lobbies put the his negotiators in the awkward positoin of negotiating without very much to give.

The Chinese premier stormed out of the room and refused to meet with the President. Finally, the President secured a meeting and hammered out a deal that has the value of the carbon markets today: very little.

So few people had a clue about the "deal" that when President Obama later announced it the EU negotiators were still forging a deal and G77 delegates were talking in the halls about the perilous state of the Summit. Ultimately, most signed on, because if they did not, then their countries would not get a cut of a $30 billion package for clean energy and adapting to current global warming. A few brave countries, not wanting to be bought, said "no" to the deal. The historic accord was "noted" by the process, a nod to its existence.

The world still expects great things of President Obama and the US, but we cannot expect him to save the world on his own. We can expect — and must demand — that the president leads in recommitting the U.S. to the democratic UN process, doubles his efforts through the EPA and other methods to cut global warming pollution without the loopholes, clean air act rollbacks, impending nuclear disasters, and green light for coal that we see in current legislation, and approaches the negotiations as what they are — negotiations to save millions of lives, dozens of countries, 70% of the world's species, and a future that is worth passing on to our children.

This article was cross-posted on the Huffington Post.

The Southern California wildfires of October 2007 were some of the most devastating fires the state has ever seen.  The fires burned over 500,000 acres from Santa Barbara County to the U.S.-Mexico border.  Nine people died,  eighty five(including fire fighters) were injured, and over 800,000 people were forced to flee their homes in what has been labeled as the largest evacuation in California’s history to date (larger than Hurricane Katrina)..  

The Witch Creek Fire, the largest fire of them all that October, tore through 197,990 acres of northern San Diego County. Over a thousand homes were destroyed with hundreds more damaged, and  two people lost their lives.  Of the forty one  people injured in the Witch Creek Fire, thirty nine of them were fire fighters faced with the task of fighting the blazes head-on.  

The increasingly hot and dry conditions we could see year after year as a result of climate change could bring more severe fires that will be even more threatening to people and property, and a massive drain of resources on our local, state and federal government.  Fires like the Witch Creek Fire could become common for Southern Californians, and now is our opportunity to demand real leadership on climate change to protect our communities.

A Closer Look

Eric Johnson, an information security specialist in the electronics industry, moved to Rancho Bernardo, a community about 20 miles northeast of downtown San Diego, in November of 2005.  His wife (then girlfriend) Megan, who works in media and marketing, moved in with him in spring of 2006. Eric and Megan’s apartment in Rancho Bernardo was their first home together.

The Johnsons had been camping a few hours north up the coast in Morro Bay, San Luis Obispo when the Witch Creek Fire started. They decided to stop for coffee before their long trek back home when they saw a headline in the Los Angeles Times about the fires.  They were overwhelmed with concern for the safety of their home, and particularly for their African Grey Parrot, Ivy, who they had left there.

The couple rushed back to San Diego, and Eric decided to risk the journey to Rancho Bernardo to see if he could rescue Ivy.  Many roads were blocked off, and Eric parked his motorcycle on a cul-du-sac overlooking their home and ran down a smoldering hill to their still-standing apartment complex.  Fortunately, Ivy was safe, but Eric had little time to sneak her into his pocket before leaving again, as the fires were still not contained.

Eric describes the first time they were permitted to return to their apartment as “foreign.”  Tragically, several buildings in Eric and Megan’s apartment complex burned down in the fires.  While the Johnson’s building did not burn down, they lost many belongings and their apartment was damaged so badly that it was declared uninhabitable.

“The place was a wreck, everything was caked in soot,” Eric recalls.  “We had to be escorted in by a police officer and had 10 minutes to get what we needed and then had to leave.  We weren't allowed to go back for good for another two days.”

Two years later, Eric, Megan and Ivy have rebuilt their lives and have settled in nearby Cardiff-by-the-Sea, part of North County San Diego’s coastal community.  They are happy and resilient people, and while they have moved on, it is clearly an experience that they will carry with them the rest of their lives, and as non-natives to San Diego, they have learned many lessons for coping with future fire seasons.  Most of all, Eric and Megan understand that they were lucky, as many in their situation have not been.  In a future ravaged by climate change, not as many will be as lucky as the Johnsons and more people and property will be put at risk year after year.  

The future of Southern California is not to be gambled with - we need strong action for the climate, and the “solutions” that our leaders in Copenhagen put on the table last week are not enough to protect us from the worst impacts of climate change here at home.  In the coming year, Californians need to speak up now more than ever for the real solutions to the climate crisis, otherwise we’re leaving our future up to chance.

The brave activists who crashed the Danish Queen's dinner for Heads of State last week in Copenhagen are being held for three weeks, according to the last report I heard. They managed to gain entry to the dinner and held up two banners calling on the world leaders assembled at that posh dinner to lead at the UN climate summit.

We need to let the Danish government know that we're watching how they (over)react to this situation, so can you please fan this Facebook page? More importantly, you'll be showing our activists that you support them (there's also an email address availble to send a personal message, if you choose).


Juantxo and Nora, pictured above, plus two other activists, are still being held by the Danish government.

While our activists remain in jail, the real climate criminals — so-called world "leaders" who failed miserably to move the world forward in dealing with the climate crisis — all flew home in style in their comfy private airplanes. If you just go fan this Facebook page it is a quick and easy way to show your support and keep pressure on the Danish government. Thanks.

Though shell has been punished twice in recent years for greenwashing in the British media (here and here), the company seems to have little concern about greenwashing in American media. Check out the ad it has been running frequently in all the most influential papers and magazines, including the Economist and Washington Post on a regular basis.

You would think that Shell would learn from mistakes in the past. Last year, Shell was told to stop using the ad to the right in the UK. The text says:

 

“... we need to find new ways of managing carbon emissions to limit climate change. Continued investment in technology is one of the key ways we are able to address this challenge, and continue to secure a profitable and sustainable future.

“The challenge of the 21st century is to meet the growing need for energy in ways that are not only profitable but sustainable... In Canada we're harnessing our global network of technical and financial expertise to unlock the potential of the vast Canadian oil sands deposit. In the USA we're helping to build what will be the nation's largest refinery.”

The UK Advertising Standards Authority disapproved of the ad:

“We noted that the large scale of the oil sands developments had considerable social and environmental impacts, including those on water conservation, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), land disturbance and waste management.

"Because we had not seen data that showed how Shell was effectively managing carbon emissions from its oil sands projects in order to limit climate change, we concluded that on this point the ad was misleading.”

The ASA concluded that the ad must not appear again in its current form.

But despite this lesson, Shell apparently has no qualms about making similar misleading claims in the US, for example the “less CO2” claim depicted above.

Shell also has no problem contributing funding to a large-scale anti-climate legislation campaign being run by the American Petroleum Institute.  That campaign was not only caught astroturfing, but also uses scare tactics and misleading, biased information to make the public and policy makers believe that climate legislation would kill jobs or drastically rise gas prices. For example, the API ad below is featured in many of the same media outlets as Shell greenwash ads. 

 

Two years of planning, two weeks of negotiating, and all we get is a worse-than-nothing deal slapped together in the last two hours.

The UN climate summit has just reached its anti-climactic close. The details of the deal reached here in Copenhagen are still being hammered out by ministers, but Heads of State are already on their way home, their photo opps and press conferences over. Even by their own admission, they have struck a deal that will not do what's necessary to stop global warming. I'm not sure that qualifies as even a half-measure. Also not really sure what else I care to say right now other than that.

But Greenpeace International executive director, Kumi Naidoo, has plenty to say:

Not fair, not ambitious and not legally binding. The job of world leaders is not done. Today they failed to avert catastrophic climate change.

The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through.

We have seen a year of crises, but today it is clear that the biggest one facing humanity is a leadership crisis.

During the year a number developing countries showed a willingness to accept their share of the burden to avert climate chaos. But in the end, the blame for failure mostly lies with the rich industrialized world, countries which have the largest historic responsibility for causing the problem. In particular, the US failed to take any real leadership and dragged the talks down.

Climate science says we have only a few years left to halt the rise in emissions before making the kind of rapid reductions that would give us the best chance of avoiding dangerous climate change. We cannot change that science, so instead we will have to change the politics — and we may well have to change the politicians.

This is not over, people everywhere demanded a real deal before the Summit began and they are still demanding it. We can still save hundreds of millions of people from the devastation of a warming world, but it has just become a whole lot harder.

Civil society, the bulk of which was locked out of the final days of this Climate Summit, now needs to redouble its efforts. Each and every one of us must hold our leaders to account. We must take the struggle to avert climate catastrophe into every level of politics, local, regional, national and international. We also need to take it into the board room and onto the high streets. We can either work for a fundamental change in our society or we can suffer the consequences of one.

Those of us who live in Southern California are geographically blessed with a Mediterranean climate that brings us gorgeous weather year-round, well-loved beaches and marine life, sprawling mountains and woodlands, and breathtaking desert scenes.

Unfortunately, climate change places much at stake for Southern California as we face a future with more severe droughts and heat waves. The California Energy Commission estimates average temperatures in California could rise 8-10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 if we don’t act now to curb our emissions. With warmer temperatures, California could see up to 70-90% decrease in the spring snowpack of the Sierra Nevada, the source of up to half of the state’s water supply in the warmer months.  

With increased temperatures, droughts and a shrinking water supply, we could see conditions that make fires throughout the state more challenging for firefighters and more threatening to people and property.  While Southern Californians are no strangers to the fires that are a part of natural ecosystems, without real action on global warming, growing populations living in fire prone areas could be subject to fires in the wildland-urban interface that are increasingly dangerous and more difficult to control.  If the United States does not act now to implement the solutions to climate change, we could be putting more Southern California residents and firefighters at greater risk in the future.

In order to understand better what the future may hold for so many in the region, I started talking to Southern Californians who already know too well the challenges that wildfires bring.  Karen Telleen-Lawton, is an environmentalist, economist, writer, and mother of two who has been a resident of Santa Barbara since 1980. Well-versed in local ecology and fire preparation, Telleen-Lawton and her family were well prepared with an evacuation checklist for the Jesusita Fire of spring May 2009.  It was only months earlier that her family was forced to evacuate their home in the November 2008 Tea Fire.

 

When Karen received a phone call from her neighbor alerting her to the oncoming Jesusita Fire, her family immediately sprang into action protecting the areas surrounding their home, packing family valuables and keepsakes in the car, and assisting their neighbors.  After law enforcement showed up at their home and ordered them to evacuate, the Telleen-Lawtons traveled to stay with nearby family where they tensely waited overnight to hear news of the fire tearing through their community.  The next morning, Karen and her family returned to their neighborhood to find to their relief that their house had been spared by the blazes, and to their dismay that some of their neighbors were not so fortunate.  

After a week, the family was finally able to safely return to their home and found their backyard severely burned.  Additionally, a yurt that had sat in their backyard and had been a home to Telleen-Lawton’s son and other guests for years was completely destroyed.  Karen and her family have been working to repair and revitalize their property since the Jesusita Fire.  The whole ordeal has been tremendously challenging for Telleen-Lawton, both in her efforts to mend her own home, and in her sadness for her neighbors who lost their homes entirely in the fire.

Karen’s story is a story that is shared by many Southern Californians year after year.  While wildfires are a part of life here, we could be putting more people at greater risk in the future if we do not act now to implement the solutions to climate change. We know that the actions taken by President Obama and other world leaders in Copenhagen last week were inadequate for protecting our climate.  California has a track record of taking strong action for the climate, and we must work harder to take our message to the rest of the US, and the rest of the world.

President Obama gave a short speech at the UN climate summit today, and it was, well… it was a bummer.

At a time when the world needed bold leadership perhaps more than ever, we didn't get it from the very guy who was elected because he promised exactly that.

The talks aren't over, of course. Maybe he's behind closed doors at the negotiations right now working some magic. But his speech certainly didn't give me any hope that that's what he came to do.

Update: We're hearing reports (unconfirmed) that Obama and China's Premier Wen Jiabao are in closed-door meetings right now trying to hammer something out. Call the US climate envoy right now and let them know that you support Obama taking bold, decisive action and showing some leadership: 202-647-9873. Leave a message if no one answers. Go here for a suggested script.

Obama didn’t put anything new on the table in terms of US emissions targets, commitments to help the developing world deal with the effects of global warming, or other US actions to ensure these talks result in anything resembling a fair and ambitious deal.

The full video of his 10 minute address can be viewed here, text here.

Obama’s speech took place one day after a leaked document from the UN Secretariat showed that the commitments on the table at Copenhagen would leave us with a "gigaton gap" leading to at least 550 parts per million of CO2 equivalent in our atmosphere and an average world temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius (about 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) or more.

There's a reason we talk about "350" and not "550."  The science is clear that levels of climate pollution at 550 or higher put us into a danger zone where feedback loops kick in (burning of Boreal forests, melting of tundra, etc.), making catastrophic climate change a reality and dooming millions of people in least-developed countries around the world to suffer the ever-worsening impacts of climate change even though they did little to nothing to create the problem.

Instead of change we can believe in, we’re getting climate change the whole world will be forced to live with. So, not to be flippant, but, like I said before: Bummer.

Our executive director, Phil Radford, had this to say:

The world was waiting for the spirit of yes we can, but all we got was my way or the highway.

President Obama can still save Copenhagen by doing what he called on other leaders to do and give some ground by increasing his commitment to cut global warming pollution. But as it is he crossed an ocean to tell the world he has nothing new to offer, then he said take it or leave it.

Read the rest of Phil's response here.

I’ve been asked if I still had hope going into this last day of the Copenhagen International Climate Negotiations. Definitely. Yes. I did.

President Obama and all the other heads of state would not be attending these negotiations if it were not to decide on something big. Rumor was that Obama would have some new updates on US commitments and surely, his presence alone has the potential to move nations just as it did last November when the global community celebrated his election.

 

The President’s 10-speech this morning, however, left me severely disappointed in his lack of leadership.

In the speech, Obama still only commits the US to a lousy 4% emissions reduction from 1990 levels by 2020 (the science calls for 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020). I was hoping President Obama would bring news today that he is pushing the U.S. commitment to higher levels. Why isn’t he showing leadership on this issue?

If I were President Obama, I would be extremely ashamed to bring such a low level of ambition to these  negotiations. We need to be communicating our disappointment now.

One thing I know for sure is that we, as activists in the environmental movement, are doing our part. If world leaders come out of Copenhagen with a poor deal, they need to know it is because they have failed us.

 

 

If you haven’t called President Obama’s administration yet, PLEASE DO!  We must create even more pressure today and hold these talks accountable to the demands of our movement!

The action is not over. We need an escalation. In the US, you still have the voice and we need to be loudest today.

 

Tomorrow is the last day of the UN climate summit and, by all accounts, the negotiations have descended into complete chaos. The voice of civil society has been increasingly marginalized. There has been no leadership from the developed countries that created the climate crisis. The pleas for survival by developing countries have been ignored. So we've taken action to demand leadership in the final 24 hours in order to save these talks and establish a real deal in Copenhagen.


Just moments ago, Greenpeace’s very own Head of State arrived at the Queen’s gala dinner for real Heads of State, 120 of whom are now here for the climate talks. Our distinguished faux-world leader and her entourage entered the dinner and held up two banners reading “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act.” We're sitting here watching coverage of the action on Danish news as I type.

They were there to represent the millions of people around the world who want a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty. World leaders risk condemning the world to climate chaos if they don’t take decisive action to steer the climate negotiations in the right direction on the final day of talks.

We also projected the message " Don't betray our children's future" onto the Parliament building where the dinner was held.


The climate negotiations are on the verge of massive failure, but Heads of State still have just under twenty-four hours to turn the situation around. The rich world must commit to deeper emissions cuts and funding for developing country to lower their own emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already being experienced. Demand leadership from rich countries by joining the over 13 million people who have already signed this petition calling for a real deal here in Copenhagen.

As a bonus, here's a video the activists shot in their car on the way to the dinner (apparently, their car was just ahead of Hilary Clinton's in the motorcade). This was livestreamed from a camera-phone they had with them, but it's also kinda arty in a way.

Yesterday, a student activist and I went to the White House to deliver the names of the more than 50,000 Americans who have signed a Greenpeace petition calling on President Obama to secure a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty at the UN Summit in Copenhagen.

Sorting some of the 50,000 petitions calling for climate leadership from President Obama

We already made sure that President Obama saw your call for leadership when his helicopter flew over our banner made of the names of those 50,000 people as he arrived home from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo last week.

But with the President about to depart for the final day of the Climate Summit in Copenhagen on Friday, we stopped by to meet with his staff and show them that so many hope for his leadership.  One of those people is our own Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace International.  He has written an open letter to President Obama on the eve of his visit, which we also delivered.  I recommend reading the full letter; here’s a selection;

I end by reminding you of something you said often during your campaign. You frequently invoked the powerful words of Martin Luther King: "The fierce urgency of now".

Sadly, according to the science the urgency of now has become even more fierce. I humbly appeal to you to reject the voices of short-term interest, of political expediency and of compromise.

Listen instead to the call of history. Listen to the voices of those most at threat. Listen to the voices of future generations, of our children and grandchildren. Of your children. Of your grandchildren, as yet unborn. Then, please, take the action that you know is needed.

 

Delivering a letter from Greenpeace Executive Director Kumi Naidoo to President Obama

So many people are ramping up the pressure today, from climate justice advocates outside the Bella Center in Copenhagen to activists here in Washington DC, and amazing actions all over the planet.

It’s our climate, President Obama; it’s your decision.

The Department of Commerce was declared a climate crime scene this morning. Greenpeace activists descended on its DC headquarters to try and free the climate talks, which were being held hostage by the Chamber and its clients. Chamber lobbyists work for the very industries that create and profit from criminal climate destruction.

Even if you weren’t in DC to witness the action as it progressed, thousands of people tuned in to Twitter to get updates live from the field as the events unfolded.

The Greenpeace twitter kept followers engaged in all the activities. The Chamber of Commerce decided to use twitter to try to discount everything Greenpeace was saying. This is where things started to heat up.

My favorite reply of the Chamber (@chamberpost) was how the activities disrupted a holiday concert for a local charter school. At first glance, it would seem as if the Chamber really cares for the youth of our country. It’s a clever way for the Chamber to make Greenpeace look like the bad guys. We disrupted a concert. But, let’s take a look at what the Chamber is doing to the future of all the youth in America.

As a parent, I’m very concerned with the effects of global warming on my son’s future. I want him to have a bright future and a healthy planet to live on. And, thanks to the Chamber and all their polluting clients, his future may be tarnished forever.


Companies that contribute to global warming (oil, coal) create a huge profit. The Chamber of Commerce lobbies for what’s in the best interest of these companies, their profits remaining huge. The Chamber doesn’t lobby for my son or the children at the charter school that were visiting the building today.

Currently, our future is in the hands of world leaders over in Copenhagen. They are in the final days of negotiating a climate treaty that has the potential to either save the day or keep us on a path to dangerous climate change.

I hope our world leaders will do the right thing and protect our future and not the bank accounts of polluting companies. It would be a crime, indeed, if world leaders gathered for two weeks and didn’t come out with strong, binding treaty to combat the effects of global warming.

We need YOU! Please take action today.

--Michelle

 

In what’s being hailed by some as “a truly remarkable tour de farce,” the US has earned first place in the Fossil of the Day award for the third day straight.

This time, the award was bestowed upon the esteemed delegation from the US for inserting “X %” as an alternative to the science-based targets currently in the draft text of a climate deal. This “X” is meant to represent voluntary pledges by countries, replacing concrete binding emissions reductions targets.


We’re at a critical point here, and nothing less than concrete, science-based targets will achieve the emissions reductions we need to avert catastrophic global warming. But the US is trying to move us in the direction of letting countries do whatever the hell they feel like, not what’s necessary.

Triggering unpleasant flashbacks of the Bush era, the US is also promoting a plan to abandon science-based targets altogether and instead wants a ‘pledge and review’ system, where everyone puts a voluntary target on the table, those targets are added up, and that number is used as the overall target. So my money says the US can keep the streak alive — but for the sake of us all, let's hope I'm wrong.

When French president Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Copenhagen, a Greenpeace welcoming committee was there to meet him with the message, “Politicians talk, leaders act.”

We deployed our banner, but it turns out Sarkozy might not have ever seen it. Why? Because, we’ve heard, he might have hid in the airport rather than drive by our big bad banner.



I’ve seen our executive director, Kumi Naidoo, speak several times the past couple weeks (the man is everywhere, it’s as impressive as it must be exhausting!), and he has a line he likes to use about our leaders all suffering from the same medical condition: They’re all hard of hearing, he says. At least, they are when it comes to calls for leadership and climate action.

But I guess in this case that’s not even true. Sarkozy isn’t hard of hearing at all, he’s just sticking his fingers in his ears and going “lalalalala” to avoid hearing us. Which means our message is still reaching him all the same.

President Obama is due in Copenhagen this week for the UN Climate Summit, where he'll join over 100 other Heads of State to hopefully hammer out an effective, fair, and binding climate pact. But there is another delegation here from the US, and although they have no official capacity, they are leaving their mark. We could call them the "Flat-Earthers," but they are really a collection of Congressional Republicans bent on preventing the US from committing to a global treaty and from having the US change its energy infrastructure from one that's fueled by dirty fuels to one powered by clean and green technologies.

About a half-dozen climate deniers are here in Denmark, according to Politico "to oppose plans for cap-and-trade legislation, express their discontent with the scientific community that researches climate change and call for the United Nations to halt any negotiations until the academic scandal known as "Climate-gate" is resolved."

They’re lead by House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana who said:

In the worst recession in 26 years, in the midst of an academic scandal and questionable science revealed in 'Climategate' and in the absence of a national consensus about policies that would bear upon the category known as climate change, we gather here to say, Mr. President, don't make promises in Copenhagen that we cant keep.

Rep. Pence would do well to read the United Nation's Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), which finds that a pathway to a low carbon economy can lead to big economic benefits.

According to the report:

There is no inevitable trade-off between climate change mitigation and development. On the contrary, climate change mitigation is a process of global structural change which offers huge economic opportunities for developing countries.

Pence and his allies could also listen to their party’s 2008 vice presidential candidate, who, when she was governor of Alaska, wrote her to constituents:

Alaska's climate is warming. While there have been warming and cooling trends before, climatologists tell us that the current rate of warming is unprecedented within the time of human civilization. Many experts predict that Alaska, along with our northern latitude neighbors, will warm at a faster pace than any other areas, and the warming will continue for decades.

The stakes here are too high for deniers to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that they can’t see what’s really happening to our planet. By committing to strong emissions reduction targets and by creating the cleaner technologies to power our world, the US can again lead the world. The US, traditionally the world leader in innovation because of our unmatched university and research institutions, is poised to show the way, but without Congressional leadership progress will be almost impossible. There's still time for the Flat-Earthers to listen to reason. Congress will again take up climate in 2010, and Pence and his allies can get on the right side of history.

All week long, the Fresh Air Center has been a really valuable place for me and Jamie to come work, especially now that we're not allowed into the conference center. Run by Tcktcktck.org, the FAC is a space for NGO and independent bloggers to work and coordinate messages.

I'm writing this as our executive director, Kumi Naidoo, addresses the crowd (he's also the chairman of Tcktcktck). He got a very warm welcome, and the speaker before him actually said he was glad not to have to follow Kumi on. But I dare say the crowd is really here to see the main event: a panel hosted by Kevin Grandia of Desmog Blog and featuring Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine (check her out at NaomiKlein.com); Andy Revkin of the New York Times; George Monbiot, author and columnist for The Guardian; and Katherine Goldstein, green editor for the Huffington Post. The panel discussion is about how coverage of the climate talks in the media will effect the final two days of negotiations.

Before the panel took the stage, I asked Naomi Klein (of whom, I freely admit, I am a rabid fan) to tell us what, in her estimation, the impact of activism outside of the conference center can have on the negotiations going on inside. Here's her response:

As Jamie reported yesterday, nongovernmental organization (NGO) delegations inside the Bella Center may have been dramatically reduced, but that doesn’t mean they can exclude our voice. We’re running lean, mean operations both inside and outside the conference center.

In my post yesterday about REDD, I mentioned that the US and Colombia had received a “Fossil of the Day” award for moving talks backwards. So we put together a little rapid response direct communication outside of the Colombian embassy calling on President Uribe to “Save the forests, don’t kill the climate.”



We also did a direct communication aimed at the US delegation yesterday morning:


I’m sure you got enough of the technical details about REDD negotiations in my post yesterday, but I was just reading an update from a member of our political team and thought it was perfectly illustrative of the type of really detailed policy wonk work they’re doing. Allow me to simply quote:

The critical issue of national vs. subnational must be resolved by ministers and we are depending on the EU, Brazil, and others to maintain a strong position on this. Our ask on this is very simple. In Section 5 [of the draft REDD agreement text] (natl v subnatl) we want: "the 3 Ands." I.e. having subnatl only as supplemental to national, not as a substitute for it. This means leaving "and" in 5a, replacing "or" with "and" in 5b, and replacing "with" with "and" in 5c (and deleting the phrase "optional interim measure" ).

For more on the distinction between national vs. subnational REDD projects and why we’re pushing for the national approach, check out my post, “Code REDD.”

By demanding a deal to save the climate both inside and outside the conference center, we have multiple means of leveraging our voice into the conversations happening right now about the future of our planet. So it’s like Jamie said, they can try to shut us out but they can’t shut us down.

It has come now to the police beating protestors. Tensions are extremely high at the Copenhagen climate talks. Security in the conference center apparently is afraid that their safe bubble will burst if they allow Friends of the Earth to remain inside. How ironic is that? I’m tempted to make this a rant post, but I will try to focus on one theme: negotiating.

Since before Barcelona, over a few weeks ago now, it seems there has been virtually no movement on the most important aspects of a climate agreement. How much will countries commit on paper to reduce their emissions? How much money will wealthy countries commit to help developing countries make sure global emissions reductions are sufficient to avoid catastrophe?

The purpose of ‘negotiating’ is to determine who should do how much – the idea being that negotiating Parties come to the table with at least some flexibility. Hence, one problem in most people’s minds. Some Parties (e.g., US) have come to the table with zero flexibility on how much global warming pollution they will reduce.

Complete inflexibility actually means that Parties are not negotiating at all – they are in Copenhagen just to convince all the other Parties to accept their position. So, the other Parties (e.g., EU), who have already stated some flexibility in their position (20 or 30% emissions reductions by 2020), effectively remain inflexible as well because the conditions for changing their positions rely on the flexibility of other Parties.

But the talks in Copenhagen should not be negotiations anyway. ‘Negotiating’ has a similar connotation as ‘bargaining,’ where everyone tries to get the best deal even if it hurts the other person. We cannot solve global warming with this approach. In actuality, it’s even worse than this! The predominant attitude is that a ‘deal’ can be reached where nobody has to sacrifice anything. This relates to our US climate legislation, which commits to spend zero public dollars on the worst problem of human existence. US policymakers have negotiated away any possibility that the legislation will work.

A saner attitude toward developing climate policy in Copenhagen is for countries to come to the table explaining how they can help solve this crisis. Think of it like your little brother has just fallen into a frozen pond. Who can run the fastest to go find help? Who has a rope? Who is the strongest and can try to pull little brother out? Who has ideas for making sure little brother doesn’t fall in again?

The EU is offering to cut 30% emissions, but only if others will do more? The US will not commit to reduce one whit unless China agrees to complete transparency? Right now countries are using lack of action as leverage to get other countries to do more. But let’s be clear that lack of action means more pollution, and therefore is a decision to cause harm. The approach that ‘I will if you will’ in this case is blackmail, hostage taking, and a game of chicken all at once.

This is not a climate bazaar, where everyone is trying to get the best deal. This is a global problem that everyone needs to come together to solve. Either we all get a good deal, or there is no deal.

 

 

Jamie Woolley is a web editor for Greenpeace UK who is in Copenhagen helping cover the UN climate talks. He wrote this blog after news broke that access to the conference center would be dramatically restricted for nongovernmental organization's (NGO's) delegations.

My COP15 badge. Bit useless now...

Since early last week, rumours have been flying round the Copenhagen negotiations about what would happen as we got closer to the arrival of the heads of state. Then a couple of days ago it was confirmed: access the conference centre would become more and more restricted for non-governmental organisations such as Greenpeace, and today was the start of those restrictions. We only have a few ID badges to go around the team and we'll have fewer with each passing day.

Over-subscription (it's been getting really crowded) and security have been used to justify the move, and I can't deny it's frustrating that our team is split between the Bella Centre and offices in the city centre. But the real concern is what it will allow the world leaders to do (or rather, not do) come the end of the negotiations on Friday.

Restricting access to huge chunks of civil society is not far removed from closing the door on a smoky gentlemen's club, and the transparent negotiation process we've been demanding will become shrouded in secrecy. With a nod, a handshake and a photo call, these guys (and they are mostly guys) could seal a deal which is a long, long way from the fair, ambitions and binding one we need.

Worse would be if they came out of their private rooms and span a great line about the wonderful deal they've struck but in reality, if you read the small print, it does little bits here and there, but the bigger picture will be missing and it'll be pretty much business as usual. If that's the case, they need to know we won't accept their spin and their greenwash will be exposed.

It's a concern but they're on their way to Copenhagen because we demanded they attend. The Global Day of Action at the weekend showed the worldwide support for that FAB deal and we have to keep pushing them for exactly that. We don't need to be inside the Bella Centre to do that.

 

Discussions at these climate talks are often in a highly specialized language that some of us like to call “Alphabet Soup” – because it is conducted almost entirely in acronyms. One such cup o’ soup we’ve been hearing a lot about lately is REDD, which stands for “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation.” So I thought I’d give you an as-brief-as-possible update on where the negotiations on REDD are at, and what we’re pushing for.

Stopping the deforestation and degradation of tropical forests is one of the quickest and most effective ways to reduce emissions quickly. And REDD can achieve a very substantial amount of emissions reductions.

As much sense as REDD makes, however, there are of course those countries who are undermining efforts aimed at writing a strong and effective REDD program into the climate deal being worked on here at the UN climate summit. And as is unfortunately true on far too many issues, the US is one of the major roadblocks. In fact, the US just won a “Fossil of the Day” award (which it shared with Colombia) for its obstructionist stance on the REDD issue (one of three Fossils it was awarded in the past two days, no less).


Over 50 Greenpeace activists from the Climate Defenders Camp on the Kampar Peninsula in Indonesia take action against deforestation — unfurling a 20 x 30 meter banner in a freshly destroyed area of rainforest that read ‘Obama you can stop this’, urging him to take strong leadership and work closely with other Heads of State to help avert a climate crisis by ending global deforestation, responsible for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. © Greenpeace / John Novis

The US and Colombia received this “slightly sarcastic yet highly prestigious” honor for moving REDD discussions in the wrong direction and delaying a draft text delivery to ministers, who will hammer out the final text to be presented to heads of state when they arrive later in the week. Both the US and Colombia are also supporters of what’s known as the sub-national or project approach to REDD.


We’re pushing hard for a national approach to REDD. The problem with managing REDD on a project-by-project or sub-national basis is that if you stop forest destruction in one place, it could just move to another part of the country. A national overview of all REDD projects and the emissions reductions achieved through them could prevent that from happening. The US is pushing for the project-by-project approach because it would benefit US corporate polluters who expect to receive cheap offset credits for investing in forestry projects abroad so they can continue to pollute at home.

On Monday the Rainforest Coalition led by Papua New Guinea opposed this approach and joined with the EU and Brazil in their demand for a national approach. We’re still waiting to see how this plays out and of course throwing as much support behind the national approach as we can (and lest you doubt that support will make a difference, check out who’s number four on this list of the most influential players here at the UN climate summit – ahead of President Obama, even!).

Another issue reaching a critical juncture in the REDD negotiations is the global goal for deforestation. We’re calling for zero deforestation by 2020, but as you might imagine there are attempts to water this target down by countries looking to avoid taking real action. The EU supports a goal of halving deforestation in developing countries by 2020 and stopping all deforestation in developing countries by 2030. Yet even this inadequate goal was recently undermined by an announcement from the UK, who proposed financing to halt only 25% of emissions by 2015.

Financing of forest protection is yet another issue coming to a head here. To achieve the full emissions reductions that are possible through REDD, the rich countries that are most responsible for causing the climate crisis must set up a global fund of USD 42 billion (30 billion euros) annually and make it immediately available to all countries with tropical forests. They must also make sure that the forest protection plans are set up in ways that protect wildlife and the rights of indigenous and local people.

These are just some of the key issues being worked on here as negotiators attempt to hammer out a plan for using REDD to tackle climate change. There are several more, but these are some of the main issues and this post has already gone on long enough, so I’ll stop there.

California, the third largest and most populous state in the US, is the place that we call home.  As residents of the Golden State, we're lucky to live in a state with some of the richest and most diverse ecology in the entire world: beautiful coastlines and world class beaches, snow capped mountains, bountiful farms and vineyards, spectacular deserts, and some of the oldest known trees in the world.  In addition to the state's natural wonders, California is home to world class cities, a rich history, hubs of creativity, progressive movements,  and a population as diverse as its environment.  It's our love for California and our work as organizers on climate change that inspired our project to take a closer look at the ways that climate change already is, or will, threaten life in our beautiful state.

California is at risk of severe climate impacts that could affect millions of people in the state: drought, wildfires, sea level rise and beach erosion, seasonal changes affecting the wine industry, decreased Sierra snowpack, and landslides.  The diverse landscape and demographic of the state means that many places and people will be affected if world leaders do not act to reduce global warming pollution according to scientific recommendations.  We've spent the past month talking with farmers in the Central Valley, wine growers in Northern California, and Southern CA residents living in fire-prone areas, who have experienced the impacts of wildfires.

 

We’re taking a closer look at climate change impacts here at home in these upcoming weeks while world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen for the UN climate negotiations to make decisions that will impact the future of our climate.  Ted Lemon, a winegrower in Sonoma County and Christopher Locke, a walnut farmer in the Central Valley, are already seeing the effects of a changing climate on their crops.  Karen Telleen-Lawton in Santa Barbara and Eric and Megan Johnson of San Diego have had their lives impacted by Southern California wildfires, which could become more challenging for firefighters and more threatening to people and property with continued droughts and a shrinking water supply.

The stories of these Californians represent a glimpse into the future of what climate change could look like for our beautiful state.  Californians are calling on President Obama to protect their future by taking action this week in Copenhagen. Efforts being made across the state can only go so far, and if our President does not commit to science-based global warming solutions, he will be compromising our businesses, our homes and the identity of California as the state that we've grown to love.  You can follow the stories of these individuals throughout the week right here on the Greenpeace USA blog.

-- By Jenny Binstock and Lauren Thorpe, Greenpeace Field Organizers in California

 

 

Having spent my entire trip here with activists from around the world has really clarified how incredibly diverse, yet united our movement is. Today I stood next to a 60 year old Irish woman making signs for the march tomorrow, I painted banners with a young girl from Finland, and I ate lunch with a man from Ecuador. I have heard that there are over 40 nationalities represented in this warehouse tonight. Isn't that amazing?

I spoke with a Swedish student this afternoon and when I mentioned that I was from the United States, he suddenly got a huge smile on his face. He said that he loved meeting activists from the U.S. because we were "badass." He explained more, saying that he had just been in Japan with the GOT (Greenpeace Organizing Term) students and that he was extremely impressed by the Greepeace Student Network. He was basicially jumping up and down as I was telling him more about what our student network has been doing over the past year and the passion and high level of involvement of our students in the network.

I usually get a little embarrassed when I say I'm from the U.S. to a foreign activist because I feel guilty for our country's poor leadership in environmental issues. But when I had this conversation today, I felt extremely proud of us and what we are doing in our country. I am so thankful for all the hard work our students have been doing and feel confident in knowing we are doing absolutely everything we can to influence our President to make the right decisions at this conference. If he doesn't follow through on his commitments, we will know that it was out of our hands. And he will know that he has let down hundreds (thousands) of students. I know that he wouldn't want that to happen. Let's continue hoping for the best and doing what we know how to do very well: keep up the presha! http://members.greenpeace.org/survey/start/234/

The Four Horsement of the Apocalypse rode through downtown Copenhagen today to remind world leaders of the consequences of inaction on climate change.

I know this sounds especially dour, whereas I think we all like to keep a positive attitude and believe that we can get through to world leaders and impress upon them the urgency of the moment we find ourselves living in, thereby inspiring them to act. That’s why our message isn’t that the arrival of the Four Horsemen is inevitable, but that we can change the future.

I put together this video of behind-the-scenes footage as well as footage of the Horsemen in Copenhagen’s Parliament Square so that you could have a full picture of this direct communication. Greenpeace’s Finnish climate campaigner, Sini, was kind enough to tell us what was going on.



Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death are especially good harbingers of the future we will face should we fail to keep global temperature rise below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), as these are all likely impacts of runaway climate change.

Climate change threatens to have a devastating effect on food supplies across the world, some of which are already in scarce supply. Some areas of the tropics would see massive crop failures from even a 1 to 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise (about 1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

This would of course bring on malnutrition for millions of people worldwise, while heat waves, floods, storms, and fires would intensify outbreaks of diseases such as dengue and malaria.

An estimated 300,000 people are already dying due to climate change every year, and those deaths are projected to increase to half a million people by 2030 if we don’t act now.

The death toll could rise even higher as resource scarcity and mass migrations bring the displaced and disempowered into violent conflict with other societies.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can change the future, if our politicians take bold and decisive action now.

Yesterday was the first time I've seen the sun since arriving in Copenhagen over a week ago. Literally. But that was not even close to the most exciting thing about the day.

The Greenpeace contingent of the December 12th "The World Wants a Real Deal" march was huge, lively, and — if you'll allow me to indulge in a bit of hyperbole — damn inspiring. I felt extremely fortunate to be there with so many passionate fellow activists. Despite the exhaustion from averaging 4 hours of sleep a night and the malnourishment from crappy convention center vegetarian food, their energy was so infectious that I was feeling great. And naturally I shot some video to share.

The march kicked off in Copenhagen's Parliament Square, where Kumi Naidoo spoke after the crowd had been warmed up by several other speakers, including "Mr. Green" and Vandana Shiva.


Once the march was underway, Greenpeacers stretched as far as the eye could see. We had three floats, several banners, a drum corps, and hundreds of shouting, dancing, marching activists. We'd made a few thousand yellow signs to hand out sporting various messages to world leaders, as you'll see. My favorite was "Bla bla bla - Save the climate."


I'd say the coolest part, though, was the "puppet master" float, which had a slick-looking, cigar-smoking business man controlling Obama, Merkel, and several other world leaders. I asked one of the activists pulling the float, Fidel, to explain it to us while he was pulling.


I shot short video blogs of a few other folks at the march, but I'll post those separately later.

Today was a total adrenaline rush. Ok, no, I wasn't hanging off a bridge or risking my life, but for a web geek like me, it was pretty amazing.

That's because we unfurled an enormous 80x40 foot banner with 50,000 signatures to President Obama DIRECTLY under his helicopter as he returned home from Oslo today.

In fact, his helicopter even slowed down and briefly hovered over the banner, so I'm SURE he could clearly see our message to him: LEAD, Save the Climate. The banner included an image of him that's made up of all of the signatures supporters like you sent in.

 

 

So you see, for me to get a chance to watch something we (50,000 of us!) did online get delivered in such an amazing way - THAT really was an adrenaline rush!

 

 

President Obama will head to Copenhagen in exactly a week, and I hope he takes our message to him to heart. We need him to lead the world to a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty.

If you weren't already part of this banner, I hope you'll sign up for our email list, follow us on Twitter, and fan us on Facebook to be part of everything we do in the future . And if you were one of the 50,000 people who were a part of this - THANK YOU!

 

A globe here in the Bella Center in Copenhagen left off several of the Pacific island nations through an "oversight." Unfortunately, the globe also provides a glimpse of how the South Pacific might look if we don't get a strong and legally binding deal here at the UN climate summit.

Yesterday, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) released a proposal for a two-protocol, legally binding outcome for the Copenhagen climate summit. In their press release, the group described the proposal as “designed to safeguard the Earth’s climate system and to secure the future survival of its 43 members.”

That’s well and aptly put, but far too modest. The members of AOSIS are some of the least-developed nations on Earth, including places like the Maldives, Tuvalu, and Papua New Guinea – nations that had virtually no role in creating the climate crisis but will suffer the most if global warming goes unchecked. It’s certainly true that safeguarding the Earth’s climate is key to these nations’ survival – but it’s equally true that it’s key to the survival of each and every nation on this planet.

The need for a legally binding agreement, as opposed to a politically binding agreement (which has lately been much touted by the US and other rich countries hoping to stall on making real commitments to take climate action), is evident enough, I think. But let me explain the “two-protocol” bit, because I realize that’s a bit technical.

What the AOSIS proposal would do is essentially two things: amend the Kyoto Protocol to extend it until 2017 (it currently is set to expire in 2012) and set new emissions targets for all parties; and simultaneously create a new “Copenhagen Protocol,” a legally binding agreement that would “enhance implementation of the [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)] in a balanced and comprehensive manner by addressing mitigation, adaptation, technology, financing and capacity-building support.”


6 August 2009 - Greenpeace activists scaled the 50-meter high coal loader at Hay Point Coal Terminal in Mackay, Australia and locked themselves on to the structure to stop its operation. The action took place during the Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns, to demand the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stop risking the future of Pacific Islands by undermining real action on climate change and expanding Australia’s coal industry. © Greenpeace / Hamilton

Perhaps the most important element of the Copenhagen Protocol proposed by AOSIS, however, is that it would bring the US – the country that has contributed the most to climate change and continues to have the highest per-capita carbon emissions levels in the world – into the legally binding agreement.

In other words, the AOSIS proposal lays out the real deal that the world needs. Climate chaos does not respect national borders and does not discriminate between rich and poor nations. It will affect us all. Establishing a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty here in Copenhagen is a matter of survival for us all.

A few days ago I gave a presentation here in Copenhagen on why President Obama should not extract his talking points for the international negotiations from the House-passed climate bill.

As we know, their weak stated target of 3% under 1990 by 2020 cannot ensure the planet sees peak emissions by 2015. Scientists tell us this is what we need to avoid reaching a tipping point to runaway climate disruption. However, the President and his delegates here in Copenhagen so far refuse to commit to a serious 2020 target or to say the US will sign something legally binding.

The administration so far has acted as if they are powerless in the face of a vacillating Congress. This despondence has led them to already speak as if it is a foregone conclusion that the serious work will continue in “about 6 months.” There can be no doubt they want to wait for the Senate to finish, but waiting for the Senate is a serious problem for two big reasons.

First, the developing Senate bill may become worse than the House-passed bill with respect to the weak 2020 target. (Both bills already cripple the Clean Air Act’s potential to address global warming pollution.)

Second, the Senate may fail to pass a bill altogether in 2010. The administration cannot and need not wait for new legislation. If the Senate fails to pass a bill, does the world have to experience the same stalling strategy from the US administration next year?

Let’s be completely clear: this decision to wait for Congress is completely political. It’s not because the President is legally bound to wait for Congress. In fact, he could rightly say that Congress already gave him the power to sign an effective climate agreement and to implement it.

Once I finished my presentation here in Copenhagen, Kassie Siegel from the Center for Biological Diversity gave a good explanation of why the President can act now. You can see her paper here.

In 1987 the Congress passed the Global Climate Protection Act (GCPA), which gave the President the power to negotiate and sign an international climate agreement. More importantly, the GCPA gave the president “congressional executive authority,” which many trade bills have utilized to bring the US into subsequent binding international obligations without requiring Senate ratification.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court in 2007 decided that, through its passage of the Clean Air Act, Congress also gave the administration the ability effectively to implement the obligations that would come with an international agreement.

So the question is: Why does the President insist on pretending he doesn’t have the authority to act on the climate?

 

Yes He Can: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/yes-he-can-president-obama-s

Biz As Usual: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/business-as-usual

Presentation: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/business-as-usual-presentation

Image: Climate change demonstrations in Oslo, during the Peace Prize Ceremony. © Christian Åslund / Greenpeace

This week the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), an international treaty body charged with tuna, billfish and shark management for the western Pacific is meeting in Papeete, Tahiti. Like most fishery management meetings progress for conservation moves at a glacial pace. Scientists here, like everywhere else in the world, have been sounding the warning about ongoing overfishing, the depletion of both Yellowfin and Bigeye tuna populations and the need to take immediate action to rebuild these stocks.

It’s a very contentious situation as the world’s huge fishing interests simply don’t want to slow down their plunder – they’re still making boat loads of money and the small Pacific Island nations want a sustainable future. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that by the end of the meeting progress will be made in reducing fishing effort  and at least some small steps toward sustainability are achieved.  

In today’s session Japan gave a nod to shark conservation and also reiterated their concerns about a CITIES listing for any tuna species. On the shark issue during the discussion about adding Silky sharks to the list of species of concern deserving special attention Japan brought to the Commission’s attention the plight of Hammerhead sharks in this region. They asked and the Commission agreed to add Hammerheads to the list of sharks needing special consideration thus making data collection on Hammerheads a priority issue.

It’s not often Japan leads the discussion of needed conservation measures for any ocean animal they actively target. They did cite the high value of Hammerheads and their depleted status as their reason for speaking out about Hammerheads. I personally took this as a good sign of Japan’s changing attitude about their role in the future of Pacific fisheries. 

The other interesting thing to come out of the Japanese delegation today was their expression of concern about the possibility of another tuna species qualifying for a CITIES listing. The Commission’s scientific committee had just finished their review of the stock status for the different tuna populations in the region where the Commission was informed that Yellowfin tuna population, in region 3, was only 10% of their unfished level.

Japan then referenced the low population level of Atlantic Bluefin tuna as qualifying for a CITIES listing and that the WCPFC needed to take action before Pacific Yellowfin were also proposed for a CITIES listing. It was very interesting to hear Japan cite the stock status of Alantic Bluefin tuna as meeting the criteria for listing on CITIES, because of low population levels and that this Commission can’t allow that to happen again. All I can say is, small steps are better than nothing, inspiring our Greenpeace team to keep on fighting for the Pacific ocean’s health and the island nations that depend on her. 

 

President Obama has officially arrived in Oslo and is entering the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony as I write this. Since the moment he arrived he has pretty much been inundated with messages from concerned citizens of all kinds, including a large contingent of Greenpeace activists with several direct communications for him.

We’ve been urging Obama to earn his Nobel Peace Prize by leading the world to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding climate treaty in Copenhagen when he attends the UN climate summit next week. 

Seriously, my Greenpeace Nordic colleagues and the crew of the Rainbow Warrior here in Oslo have been very busy.


Yesterday I posted a video of this “snow banner” they did out by the Oslo airport so that when President Obama’s plane landed here in Oslo, he was be greeted by a reminder that it’s “Our climate, your decision.”



This was but the first of many Greenpeace direct communications to Obama here in Oslo.

Several other messages were waiting for Obama as he traveled through Oslo: reverse graffiti made by pressure-washing stencils reading “Change the Politics, Save the Climate” on public structures:





We were also out there with signs and a physical version of that projection I posted last night, the one with Obama and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. Here’s a quick video of us greeting Obama as he arrives at the Prime Minister’s office and again later as he arrives at his hotel:



In the past few days, the Greenpeace Oslo team has made plenty of other attempts to communicate our message to Obama. They launched Greenpeace’s earth-shaped hot balloon right by City Hall, where the award ceremony will take place:




Speaking of City Hall, the director of Greenpeace's Norway office, Truls Gulowsen
, was inside the ceremony itself — check out this pic of him and Obama!



The Rainbow Warrior had a couple messages for him, as you saw in my video blog from yesterday. And then of course we held the candle light vigil last night. Here’s a video I shot of that (sorry it’s kinda dark, but my video camera doesn’t have a light on it):



I'm up here in Oslo, Norway to help our local Greenpeace activists and the crew of the Rainbow Warrior congratulate US President Barack Obama on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, which he'll be awarded in a ceremony at City Hall tomorrow. Our message for Obama is simple: You won it, now earn it. Which is to say, in order to live up to the prestige of the Peace Prize, he needs to go down to Copenhagen next week and help establish a fair, ambitious, and legally-binding climate treaty at the UN climate summit so that this doesn't become reality:


© Christian Aslund/Greenpeace

I shot this quick and dirty video to give you a glimpse of the Rainbow Warrior with its banner messages for Obama:


Traditionally, the people of Oslo hold a candle-light vigil the night before the ceremony for the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, but Obama isn't coming until tomorrow. We're having the vigil tonight anyway, and expect hundreds of concerned citizens to show up to help us call for leadership from the US president.

My colleagues here in Oslo have already been extremely busy sending messages to Obama in some very clever ways, as you can see in the pic above. When he gets here tomorrow he'll be welcomed Greenpeace-style as soon as he arrives at the airport, while he drives through town, and when he gets to City Hall to accept his award. Stay tuned, I'm going to have lots of video and photos for you.

The photo at the top of this post is a projection my colleagues here in the Oslo office did on the building where the prime minister's office is. In other words, the very same building where Norway's Jens Stoltenberg and Barack Obama will be meeting tomorrow to talk politics. The projection repurposes one of our airport adverts, but puts the Norwegian prime minister on there along with Obama to call on both of them to lead the way on climate change. I think it looks fabulous.

I've been in Copenhagen since November 28th and the streets have become increasingly crowded this week. Perhaps some of the crowds are Christmas shoppers, come in from the surrounding Danish towns. Some are negotiating teams and governmental staff from the 190 some nations that began official talks on Monday. A whole host of Copenhagen’s growing and lively morass, however, are neither Danes nor accredited negotiators, but paid representatives for companies with a stake in this meeting’s outcome.

Around every corner seems to be some mention of the COP15 (the UN’s official name for the international negotiations on climate change). Often it's a poster pasted onto a trash barrel, street light, or construction wall advertising the upcoming December 12^th international day of action. Gangs of activists, like your very own Greenpeace Youth, have set up informational stations around the city and many more are patrolling the streets with petitions and fliers for upcoming rallies and demonstrations.

Just as frequently, however, another kind of advertisement will catch your eye. Corporate branding of the COP15 talks is proving to be very popular, with companies spending real cash to make sure their name is out in force as thousands of government officials and media hit the town. Massive banners and billboards sponsored by Coke, Siemens, and Unilever have been hung and installed at most major intersections and metro stops – their messages range from entirely and intentionally vague to blatantly and ironically self-promotional.

Coke’s “Hopenhagen” billboards are generally non-offensive – they’re bright and playful illustrations of bunnies and flowers emerging from a Coke bottle. We are, I believe, to feel buoyed that the COP15 talks will bring forth a new day...just like Coke? (In all fairness, Coke has timed a big decision around their use of climate-altering chemicals in their vending machines and coolers to coincide with the start of the climate talks). 

 

 

Energy companies are another major player, though from what I’ve seen, most have hired Danish PR firms to do their talking for them – smiling faces with matching green coats on pedestrian walkways handing out stickers that say “energy alternatives” have been a new phenomenon here. I chatted with a couple of these green-coated champions today and they were curiously non-committal about their work.  For one, they were lacking in explicit information about energy, renewable or otherwise, and second, they didn’t have a lot to say about who they’ve been hired by; just a general statement of purpose: “We’re here to promote alternatives for our world’s energy needs...” A suspicious ellipses, point indeed! Methinks I smell the Nuclear Lobby!

Call these kinds of promotional stunts the hijacking of civic negotiations, call them corporate cover-ups, call them Greenwashing.  But one thing I will say about the escalated presence of climate-themed publicity here in Copenhagen is that it all at least connotes a determination, a will to do well, and a feeling that we are on the cusp of something big.

 

Trader Joe's recently sent out a mass e-mail to all members subscribed to their newsletter. It seems the popular grocery store is fishing for compliments from its loyal customers. They are essentially asking for a product ego-boost, requesting that all recipients vote for their favorite Trader Joe's products.

However, within the seafood aisles, hidden between the lines of misleading ingredient lists,Trader Joe's inconspicuously sells over a dozen red-list species. For example: "Trader Joe's Lightly Breaded Fish Sticks" are made with Alaskan Pollock. This billion dollar fishery is the largest in the United States, however, the Pollock population is currently at a record-low. Steller sea lions, which feed on the Pollock, have also been decreasing as overfishing continues to deplete their food source.

So, rather than comply with Trader Joe's request for product praise, Greenpeace USA suggests we instead remind them that they continue to stock their shelves with our LEAST favorite products, despite our efforts to persuade them to change their ways.

TAKE ACTION: E-mail Trader Joe's at favoriteproducts@traderjoes.com and send them the following message:

"Trader Joe's Lightly Breaded Fish Sticks"

These fish sticks are my LEAST favorite Trader Joe's product because they are made with Alaskan Pollock, a fishery under the threat of collapse. Stop selling red-list seafood species and adopt a sustainable seafood buying policy now!

"Trader Joe's Lightly Breaded Fish Sticks" are unsustainable, but so are the following list of Trader Joe's products, all tainted with red-list seafood species. You can personalize your message by choosing your LEAST favorite and telling Trader Joe's all about it!

"Wild Seasoned Turbot" (which contains red-list Greenland halibut.)

“Barbeque Cut Fresh Salmon Fillets," “Pecan & Hazelnut Crusted Norwegian Farmed Salmon," “Fresh Salmon Boneless Skinless Fillets," “Salmon Stuffed with Feta & Spinach," “Cajun Salmon," “Salmon Stuffed with Couscous & Dill," and “Pacific Supreme Smoked Salmon."(All contain Farmed salmon raised in a way that pollutes the ocean)

"New England Wild Jumbo Scallops" (Contain Atlantic scallops which are bing overfished)

"Trader Joe's Albacore Solid White Tuna"(Contains South Atlantic albacore tuna caught by the use of longlining which results in the bycatch of threatened or endangered sea turtles, sharks and seabirds in large numbers)

“Tempura Shrimp with Dipping Sauce," "Coconut Shrimp," “Medium Cooked Shrimp," “Large Cooked Shrimp," “Jumbo Cooked Shrimp," “Colossal Cooked Shrimp," “Uncooked Wild Blue Shrimp," “Colossal Butterflied Shrimp," and "Trader Joe’s Seafood Blend.” (All contain Tropical shrimp which are caught using fishing methods that are destructive to seafloor habitats)

Update: You can't watch it online any more, obviously, but you can watch the whole thing right here.

At 8:00PM Copenhagen time — 2:00PM Eastern, 11:00AM Pacific — you can watch our "side event" live online. It’s rather descriptively entitled, “Yes He Can! How President Obama Can Deliver Stronger Emissions Reductions.”

Though the UN climate summit is alredy upon us and it is now the 11th hour, Obama can still get it right. He can still inspire the whole world to take the necessary actions that will avert a total climate catastrophe. We’ve assembled a panel for our side event to layout just how he can do that. The speakers include:

• Greenpeace USA's very own Kyle Ash, global warming policy advisor;
• Kassie Segal, a lawyer from the Center for Biological Diversity;
• Marcelo Furtado, executive director of Greenpeace Brazil, who will give us the international perspective.

Keep in mind that this is a livestream from a conference center with over 20,000 people inside of it, all of whom are probably furiously tweeting, blogging, and emailing the folks back home. So there might be intermittent delays in the webcast. Just bear with us.

Also bear in mind that while this is a very exciting time, as we’re literally here witnessing negotiations on the future of the planet, this is going to be an in-depth policy and legislative discussion. There will be some powerpoint presentations, but otherwise nothing you’d call visually stimulating. Still, it should be very interesting if, you know, you’re into this kind of thing.

Starts in about an hour, tune in!

Here's a quick update from Brinkley, Student Network Activist on the ground in Copenhagen.  She'll be keeping us posted throughout the negotiations in Copenhagen, so stay tuned to www.greenpeacestudents.org to follow along.

Today, I will go to the Bella Center and see more people in one space than I have ever seen together in my entire life.  Thirty-four thousand people have sought entry to the negotiations, and Copenhagen, a city of 2 million, ran out of its 17,600 hotel rooms this weekend.  This morning, Greenpeace youth, we will be engaging the crowd that approaches the Bella Center to take photos with speech bubbles for leaders, hot coffee, and our vibrant, demanding presence.  I expect that today will be crazy and unlike anything I can imagine. People will be everywhere; all kinds of NGO’s, climate and social justice activists, climate skeptics, nationalities and ages in the same place for a conference the likes of which the world has never seen. I’m stoked!

Let's make sure that as many Americans as possible are paying attention to these very important climate talks. You can go here to get a sample letter to submit to your newspaper.

To a just climate future,
Brinkley

 

What happens once you sign a petition or take action online? If you're like me, you've signed up for lots of group's email lists and get newsletters, donation requests and calls to action. But, what happens to my name when I sign a petition? Is it used? Does it help?

Today, we got creative at Greenpeace. We used all YOUR names to create an actual Greenpeace banner. When we started the online petition to President Obama we couldn’t tell you all the details, but we hinted that it would be something big, really BIG! More than 50,000 amazing activists signed our petition urging President Obama to sign a legally binding treaty in Copenhagen to stop a climate catastrophe and unleash a clean energy revolution.

Our graphic designer took all 50,000 names and created a beautiful banner. I can tell you, first hand, that the banner is HUGE! It’s 80x40-feet and weighs about 100 pounds. We thought the eve of President Obama’s departure for Copenhagen would be a great time to unfurl the banner, right across the street from the White House.

It wasn’t easy, but we did it! About two dozen of us bundled up (it actually snowed here over the weekend). We opened up the banner and situated it just perfectly so we could get the message out to President Obama and the rest of the world.

 

President Obama: LEAD and Save the Climate

Simultaneously, while we were displaying the banner we were also faxing all 50,000 names to the President. He got the message, in more ways that one.

I was also tweeting with one hand, while my other hand was holding the banner. If you’re not signed up for Greenpeace twitter updates what are you waiting for? You can get real-time updates from us and stay in the loop and cool activities as they unfold.

President Obama and many world leaders are heading to Copenhagen for climate talks. They need to do a lot more than talk. They need to sign a legally binding treaty with sharp teeth.

We’ll be watching our world leaders to see if they can achieve a strong, binding treaty on climate change.

Thank you to everyone who signed the petition! Take a look at the banner images and pat yourself on the back for a job well done. Our banner will leave a lasting impression on the President as he heads over to Copenhagen.

--Michelle

Kumi Naidoo, GPI executive director and head of the GCCA, just handed a petition signed by 10 million people calling for an ambitious climate treaty to the prime minister of Denmark, Lars Løkke Rasmussen. The petition hand-over took place at an event held inside the Bella Center here at the Copenhagen climate summit.



Along with the petition, Kumi also presented Rasmussen with a pen he could use “to sign a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty.”



Legendary activist and 2004 Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai also spoke at the event. I have to say, it was a real treat to see her in person. Check out these pics of Kumi and Wangari with several of the youth delegates who were there to help drive home the message that there are more than 10 million people calling for climate action.

Another day has dawned cold and gray here in Copenhagen, but there’s plenty of reason for excitement and optimism.

Greenpeace of course has a delegation on the ground representing the millions of activists worldwide who have taken action to call for a deal that will do what the science says we must do to avert an utter climate catastrophe. I’m lucky enough to be part of the web team that will be updating you on what's happening both inside and outside the UN climate summit.

I’ll be working alongside some other fabulous Greenpeace webbies. We shot this video to introduce ourselves:


The pieces are all in place for a fair, ambitious, and legally-binding climate deal here in Copenhagen. All that’s lacking is the political will to make it happen.

But, as our executive director, Kumi Naidoo, told a packed house at Copenhagen University last night, our leaders all seem to suffer from a “common medical condition:” they’re hard of hearing when it comes to calls for bold action on climate change. The Greenpeace delegation is here to remind the people negotiating the future of the planet here in Copenhagen that millions of you are calling for them to live up to their moral obligation.

Today over 56 newspapers from all over the world are joining the call “because humanity faces a profound emergency.” These papers are all printing the same editorial – in 20 languages – which states, in part:

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.

But there is more than enough reason to have hope that these negotiations could be the turning point. Just yesterday, for instance, South Africa became the latest country to announce the emissions reductions targets they were putting on the table: 34% below business as usual over the next 10 years, peaking at 42% by 2025. This makes South Africa “one of the stars of the negotiations.” Let’s hope the other delegates at the conference are decent enough at astral navigation to follow their lead!

Stay tuned for more updates.

President Obama has announced that he will now come to Copenhagen on December 18th, the same day as other heads of state. This is most certainly welcome news. All the elements are now in place for world leaders to move forward and agree to a legally binding treaty in Copenhagen to stop climate chaos.

Now that Obama has moved the date of his trip, however, he needs to move the US's emissions targets and financial commitments to be in line with what climate science demands so that this doesn't become reality:

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit, we have some positive news from a US company: today The Coca-Cola Company announced that it will stop using HFCs in their coolers and vending machines.

For those that aren’t familiar with HFCs, they are the worst greenhouse gases you’ve never heard of. They’re used in refrigerators and air conditioners, and the most common one is 1,430 times more powerful at warming the climate than CO2.

Greenpeace has been encouraging companies to move to climate-friendly natural alternatives, like hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide – and Coca-Cola has been listening.

Coca-Cola’s transition to HFC-free refrigeration will reduce the equipment’s direct greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 99 percent. The company and its bottling partners have approximately 10 million coolers and vending machines in place today around the world, and they are responsible for the largest part of Coca-Cola’s total climate impact. As a result of today’s commitment, they’ll reduce emissions by more than 50 million metric tons over the life of the equipment – the same as taking more than 11 million cars off the road for a year.

In addition, since Coca-Cola is such a large global company, its demand for HFC-free technologies will help to accelerate the transition to this type of equipment throughout industry, reducing costs through economies of scale.

This is especially good news as more and more scientific research emphasizes the enormous threat of HFCs. New research by NASA and Purdue shows that HFCs and other “F” gases that contain fluorine are the most effective warming agents out there. And, a recent report by the National Academy of sciences shows that HFCs will be responsible for 28-45% of carbon emissions by 2050 if society reduces carbon dioxide while leaving HFCs unchecked.

Coca-Cola’s announcement demonstrates that phasing out HFCs is a tangible and near-term action that can be taken to protect the climate. Let’s hope other companies – and participants in Copenhagen – are listening.

I just got to Copenhagen a few hours ago, and this being my first visit to the city I was of course looking out the window of the plane as we approached Kastrup airport. And lo and behold, there was the Greenpeace ship Beluga II with a 15x20 meter banner (about 50x65 feet) attached to its stern, welcoming delegates to the UN climate summit with the message "Stop Climate Change Here."




Images © Christian Aslund/Greenpeace

Once delegates get into the airport, they're greeted with these signs portraying a possible future that we're hoping they work to avert while here in Copenhagen:

Coming to you live from Copenhagen, a city totally abuzz with anticipation, excitement, and lately - ACTION. Courtesy of the 40 plus Greenpeace youth of over a dozen nations assembled here, Copenhagen has seen a lot of activity in its streets and squares.

 

To add to the 10 million signatures that Greenpeace, in coordination with the tck tck tck campaign, has collected internationally, we've fanned out across downtown Copenhagen to gather an additional 2,000 petitions. When we asked passerbys "Will you add your name to millions of others calling on world leaders to commit to a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty?" The answer quite emphatically is "Yes!" and in big numbers. You can support an ambitious treaty too -- take action today to send a message to our leaders in the States. http://members.greenpeace.org/survey/start/233/

 

To spice up the constant petitioning, the team from Greenpeace USA kicked off a series of visits to the embassies of battleground climate nations. The US makes this list in a big way - we are far and away the biggest contributor to global warming pollution as well as the make or break voice at the United Nations' COP talks that begin next week. US students drove this action, coordinating a mass youth demonstration in the streets of Copenhagen. The movement for climate justice is truly one of the largest and most diverse in our nation's history. To take that movement to the doorstep of our decision-makers in the run-up to the most critical negotiations for our planet's future was a huge responsibility, opportunity, and...SUCCESS. 

The student activists' words matter most, so I'll give 'em to you straight. Jess Serrante, a Senior at University of Vermont and one of the negotiators inside the embassy wrote this run-down of what the US Embassy visit was all about:

"As a priority country in the upcoming climate summit, yesterday we lead the US national day at the international youth vigil, and I have to say that I’m so proud of the whole group because the whole day went off without a hitch!

To kick off the day we had a march from the vigil site in Kongens Nyrtov square to the US embassy and it was so energetic!

 

In true American fashion, we had a loud ‘n rowdy march. We taught our international crew of Germans, French, Russians, and Dutch some American protest chants, which involved a lot of hilarious accents where a lot of meanings were lost in translation. We had prepped banners – some we made here in Copenhagen and others flew across the Atlantic with us in our luggage – and put together drums out to make a scene in the streets on the way to the American Embassy. We arrived and the guards of the Embassy rushed out to usher the group away from the entrance – a little too lively for them, I’d bet.

Ruthie, my fellow Greenpeace Student Network leader, student activist leader Brinkley Hutchings, and I stepped up to meet our host at the embassy, First Secretary of the Regional Envioronmental Office, Erik Hall.

We asked Mr. Hall to deliver a message to President Obama from the youth-led climate movement in the United States: OUR movement. It’s a massive and dynamic movement, and unlike anything that US has ever seen before in its rich social history. We wanted to be sure that Secretary Hall and, through diplomatic communication, the rest of the American negotiating team in Copenhagen felt the sheer scope of this movement – from Environmental Justice to Green Jobs to all of the work we are doing individually on our campuses and in our home states.  This is a movement that is demanding a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty and we will not being backing down any time soon.

We talked about how a little over a year ago, as young people we put all our environmental work on hold to ensure that Barack Obama would be our next president. We fought to get him into office because he gave us hope and he promised us change. NOW, a year later, we are holding him accountable to the campaign promise that he made us about ‘restoring science to is rightful place’.

Another point that we discussed was that the US is in a position where our government can truly make the difference that all nations are waiting for. Being in this international youth team has been eye-opening. As hard as these other students work in Turkey or in Fiji or in Switzerland, their leaders can’t lead the world in the way that President Obama can. As big and as passionate as their movements are, their voices just aren’t as loud on the international stage. Ours are. So, to meet with Secretary Hall was really important not just for Brinkley and I and rest of the Greenpeace Student Network, but it was important for the world. 

Secretary Hall gave us his word that he would do what he could to get our message to President Obama. We made it clear that he’d be hearing from us back home as well. So, it’s importantthat you take action today. Obama needs to be HERE, in Copenhagen on December 18^th to push a binding and science-based treaty this year. We’re doing our best here in Denmark. Keep it up back home so that the US fulfills its responsibility to the world.  

 

With the start of the Copenhagen Summit set to start in early December, Greenpeace and the rest of the world watches and waits to see if this really “is a new day... a new era" on climate change and if Obama is the leader he has promised he would be.

Released today, a Greenpeace briefing highlights some of the key areas where the climate legislation in Congress falls short and outlines how Obama and the US can do more to deliver deeper emission cuts by harnessing the potential of renewable energy and energy efficiency. 

Read more...

 

 

Two days after the White House made its announcement that President Obama would, after all, be headed to Copenhagen — and just one day after America celebrated the gifts of turkey, potatoes, and sauced cranberries — three Greenpeace student leaders and I boarded planes headed across the Atlantic. An international team of youth activists and Greenpeace staff had likewise journeyed from their homes in over a dozen other countries to meet one another in this incredibly lively city.

In addition to the usual exciting fare of a European capital city (fountains, statues, and bustling pedestrian streets), Copenhagen this month offers a massive international gathering of thousands of world leaders, scientists, policy experts, media mavens, and environmental and social justice activists. The COP15 international climate negotiations will begin here in one week in what is likely to be the largest environmental gathering in history. As the start of the negotiations nears, what felt like a high level of anticipation back home in the States has reached a fever pitch here in Denmark.



Exiting the plane that brought me to my first breaths of Danish air, I was presented with a stream of billboards, all carrying the visage of one or another head of state. Angela Merkl of Germany, Gordon Brown of Britain, and the one above — all bearing the haunting message that we could have stopped climate disasters but we failed. A seemingly pessimistic message, but it suggests the very real tipping point in which we, as a global community, find ourselves this week.

In Copenhagen in 2009, we could literally make or break the future of this planet. If we commit to a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty that sets science-based targets on CO2 reduction, we could build a new global economy based on renewable energy and sustainable business. But if we bow to industry pressure and political cowardice, we could seal our sometimes metaphorical and sometimes terrifyingly literal coffins, as a world whose climate is spinning out of control.

Perhaps motivated by such precipitous stakes, the assembled team of international Greenpeace youth leaders is incredibly energized. Nevermind the jetlag, rain, or adjustment to colder, darker weather, this is a crew of inspired, creative, and damn intelligent youth. We are here not only to send a message to the negotiating teams that are beginning to trickle in to the city, but also to the world: This is our future that’s on the table, our climate that’s at risk. And though it’s the decision of a powerful few, we will be present, we will be heard, and we will hold these talks accountable to the future we deserve.

Here’s how you can get involved with these efforts, because we need your help:

1. Join the 40,000 + Americans that have already signed their names to a petition telling President Obama that it's time to sign a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty.
2. Follow our work here on the Greenpeace USA blog as well as on the Student Network Facebook page.
3. We are also tweeters! So follow us @GreenpeaceSN to get up to the minute details.

We’ll be updating all throughout the lead up to the talks as well as inside the conference itself.

Greenpeace activists at the Climate Defenders Camp in Indonesia shut down the export facilities of a major pulp mill operation to send a message to world leaders: there are only twelve days left until the Copenhagen climate summit, where it is imperative that we sign a fair, ambitious, and binding deal to tackle global warming and avert its worst affects.

Twelve activists blocked cranes at the port to stop pulp exports, and displayed banners reading, "Forest Destruction: You can stop this." Their action was meant to urge world leaders, including President Obama and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to provide strong leadership and provide a global fund for forests to end tropical deforestation.

Greenpeace activists hang a banner with the message "Forest Destruction: You can stop this" from the top of a loading crane in the port of a major pulp mill facility in Riau Province 900 kilometers (600 miles) Northwest of Jakarta. © Greenpeace / Sigit Pamungkas

Help us make the call for protecting forests as part of the climate treaty that will be negotiated in Copenhagen this December! Use that retweet button in the upper right of this post to let your followers on Twitter know about this action, or use the Facebook icon above my nerdy picture to tell your friends about it. Thanks for helping!

Here's a few more pics for your viewing pleasure:

 

Once again, President Obama will be in the right city at the wrong time.

News has just come out that the President will be going to the UN climate talks in person – except he’s going about a week too early. He’s stopping in Copenhagen on December 9th on his way to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on the 10th.

The Copenhagen climate summit is not about a photo opportunity, but unfortunately that seems to be how Obama is treating it. The climate talks in Copenhagen are aimed at getting a fair, ambitious, and binding global agreement to stop global warming.  President Obama needs to be there at the same time as all the other wold leaders – December 18. This is the last day of the negotiations, when all the heads of state show up, are presented with the agreements achieved so far by their delegates, and do the high-level negotiations that lead to a final agreement.

On October 2nd, 2009, when President Obama was in Copenhagen to lobby for Chicago to host the Olympics, Greenpeace activists let him know that he'd shown up in the right city on the wrong date. © Greenpeace/Juan Hein

Obama needs to be there on December 18 to ensure we get the right agreement. But once again, Obama is going to be in the right city on the wrong date.  Given the shamefully weak emissiosn targets Obama’s administration is going to announce ahead of the climate change talks, it almost seems like he's just not even taking this issue seriously. Tell Obama it’s time to sign an ambitious treaty in Copenhagen!

Update: The White House issued a statement on Nov. 25 confirming that President Obama will be traveling to the talks on Dec. 9th — a week too early — and officially stating the tragically weak emissions targets the Obama Administration is bringing to the table. And that's not even the worst part.

Science tells us we have to reduce emissions 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Obama's White House has just issued a statement — little more than a week before the international negotiations aimed at achieving those ambitious reductions — calling for 17% reductions below 2005 levels. That works out to only about 4% below 1990 levels. Half-measures in the face of the worst environmental crisis the planet has ever faced is not the leadership we were looking to Obama for.

But the most disappointing part of the White House's statement is what it doesn't say. There is no commitment to provide financing for developing countries to help them adapt to and mitigate the impacts of global warming. Nor is there a commitment to fund forest protection, one of the easiest ways to quickly lower greenhouse gas emissions. Financial assistance from wealthy countries like the United States is an essential component of any deal that developing countries will be willing to accept.

I'm not saying this to harshly criticize Obama and his administration. I'm saying it because he can do better. America can do better. America must do better.

The holiday season is upon us. While we all enjoy some time off from work and time spent with family and friends – it may also mean some uncomfortable situations for many. Whether you are vegetarian stuck at a dinner table with a giant turkey in the middle or an environmentalist that ends up sitting next to Uncle Tom – a global warming skeptic – here's a helpful guide for getting through this holiday season with your sanity intact...



Here are some tips for a peaceful Thanksgiving:

• Bring your own tofurkey to ruffle their feathers. If you don’t have a tofurkey to pass around – don't sweat it – the best food at Thanksgiving is the sides anyway (sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and rolls).

• Bring a compact fluorescent light bulb to give your host instead of wine or flowers.

• Don’t hide behind the mashed potatoes when asked about your thoughts on global warming. People ask because they want to learn. Share what you know and give others the chance to be informed about the truth.

• As you sit down to eat -- remind grandma that the rolls still in the oven.

• If there is a lull in the dinner chatter, share a story about your environmental activism. For example, the day you dressed up as a blue whale and walked around the city.

• If you can, ride your bike home from Thanksgiving dinner – you'll save on carbon miles and burn some calories too.

• Avoid the Black Friday Mania! Skip the long lines and avoid all those bargain shoppers who are sure to knock you over for the latest gadget.

• Get outside! Breathe in some fresh air, listen to the birds sing and enjoy the beautiful autumn leaves. Give thanks for what truly is important in life.

--Michelle

 

It’s not every day that the US Chamber of Commerce shows up on my doorstep here in the city by the Bay. Since the Chamber is the multi-million dollar lobbyist muscle for some of the biggest climate criminal corporations in the world, I decided to rearrange my morning to pay them a visit. Let’s see, to do list for Thursday:

8:00 am Punk Chamber with balloon banner in lobby of their conference. Check.


8:30 Meet up for coffee, tell stories, high five! Check.
8:35 Back to the office to take on more corporate polluters. Check. I love my life.

Here's a little backstory and an idea for what you can do:

We’ve seen some high profile businesses leave the Chamber recently because their extreme position on climate change has put it out of step with the growing number of US businesses that support the clean energy and climate legislation that would strengthen our economy and protect our planet. With President Tom Donohue at the helm of the Chamber, the climate lies and deception have been free-flowing. Hence, our banner reads: “ Donohue’s Climate Lies: Bad for Business, Bad for America.”

My personal message to Donohue: if you’re going to parade around in San Francisco with your sassy double talk on the climate, you’d better believe we’ll be there to speak truth directly to your power, even if it’s over your morning breakfast pastry at a swanky hotel.

The important take home here is that this isn’t about Tom Donohue or banners — it’s about saving the climate, and the millions of people and countless species that will be effected if we don’t. The American business community and the planet will continue to be harmed as long as Don0hue’s Chamber stands in the way of meaningful climate action.

What’s next for Tom Donohue? Well, that’s up to you. People like him could be leading the world toward climate solutions. He should be held accountable for doing the opposite. So call for Donohue to get fired. You can start on the Chamber facebook fan page here (a good read for some zany propaganda). Don't be shy about fanning the page, leaving a comment about what you think of Donohue and the Chamber's anti-climate propaganda, and then un-fanning the page.

Have fun and thanks for raising your voice to save the climate!

Through my few years of experience with organizing, I’ve never had the pleasure to join with such a diverse coalition of organizations as I did yesterday when the US Chamber of Commerce came to town. With a crowd of over 100 strong, Greenpeace joined with local labor unions, a national worker’s rights group, Change To Win, as well as Sierra Club, MoveOn and many more to call out Tom Donohue, the president of the US Chamber of Commerce.



Our event kicked off with a press conference that included high-energy speeches from local business owners, local labor union members, and representative from the Sierra Club and yours truly. After a collective call for the US Chamber of Commerce to represent the small businesses and not a handful of CEOs, we all marched over to the Fairmont Hotel where the conference was being held. There we were joined by local San Francisco City Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who jumped on the bull horn and called for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce to continue distancing itself from Tom Donohue’s US Chamber because of their polices on climate, health care, and workers' rights.



Why so much attention on one guy? Well, because under Tom Donohue’s leadership, the US Chamber of Commerce has been pushing an agenda that favors corporate CEO profits at the expense of people and the planet. They have spent millions lobbying against important legislation, from climate to health care.

Due to previous protests in Chicago and Philadelphia at their conferences, registration for attendees was closed early and nearly half of the room was filled. I assume they suspected that San Francisco, and its business owners, would not be as welcoming to a climate denier and progress inhibitor like Tom Donohue. Well, I guess they were right about one thing.

I think the administration may be winning, based on some press lately, with their goal to: lower popular expectations significantly and make Copenhagen appear a success even if it violates what the international community agreed to accomplish by Copenhagen.

Recently, President Obama and President Hu of China jointly declared that they "agree on the importance" of carrying through on the Bali Action Plan (BAP). The BAP set all parties on 2-year path to a real agreement with real numbers. Those two years are up in Copenhagen. However, Obama has recently stated his support for delaying an agreement in Copenhagen.

Now we hear from Capitol Hill not just that ‘US Congress may not finish by Copenhagen,’ but that the 'Senate will punt until the Spring' and 'Kerry says climate comes after [not just] health care, [but now] financial reform.' For many reasons, such as that 2010 is going to be a tough election year, this translates to... the US Congress very likely will not pass a climate bill before 2011, by the next scheduled climate meeting in Mexico.

If Obama is waiting for Congress, will his international climate strategy be the same next year? Will he try to lower expectations for Mexico, so it doesn't seem like the US contributed to its failure? Answers to these questions, of course, rely on the president's willingness to invest his time and energy in achieving effective climate policy. But not knowing if that will happen, the question for Copenhagen is how to get a result that prevents a repeat of this US procrastination strategy.

I am starting to wonder if Obama will engage in a serious public campaign on climate before 2011, if even then. We should have seen some hint of this by now. His stated goal for US emissions reductions was actually worse than what the Congress is considering. He has supported a 2020 deadline of getting the US back to 1990 levels of emissions, when the world started to seriously discuss climate change. From the perspective of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this goal by Obama is to do nothing. We should be reducing about 40% from 1990, not 0%.

In the joint declaration by Obama and Hu, it was sadly apparent which delegation drafted which sentences on carbon sequestration and on nuclear energy. The few public comments from Obama have included endorsement of both of these non-solutions.  We hope President Obama will listen to President Hu and abandon efforts that benefit industry instead of renewable energy solutions that harmonize with goals for a healthy economy and environment.

If we cannot get the BAP fulfilled with any poignance, maybe we can get a pre-launch type of agreement that counts down to a lift-off no later than Mexico. And somehow the US should be given a spanking for not doing its chores (corporal punishment is still normal in many parts of the US). Perhaps that involves a second commitment period for Kyoto, in other words the rest of the world moves forward while the US is an outsider. But the spanking must include thwarting any notion that the US has been a wise and moral leader on climate policy.

Click on some relevant articles below from the last week:

Obama calls for climate pact with 'immediate' effect

Obama must be more engaged on climate change: Greenpeace

U.S. weighs backing interim international climate agreement

 

ICCAT has gone too far.  The greed and corruption running this Commission are now about as well camouflaged as a stegosaurus trying to hide behind a postage stamp.  Forgive the hackneyed humor, but there is no longer any doubt whatsoever that ICCAT does in fact stand for “The International Conspiracy to Catch All the Tuna.”

Last week, at a meeting in Recife, Brazil, the scientific advisers to the Commission proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Northern bluefin tuna is in a critical situation.  Not a single delegate dared voice an objection to the fact that the animal’s perilous status qualified it for protection under CITES.

Numerous scientists from a multitude of different countries and environmental organizations submitted proposals stating unequivocally that the quota must be dropped from the current 19,500 metric tons to no more than 8,000 metric tons, if we hope to give the population even a 50% chance of recovery.

The science was bulletproof.  There was not a single shred of evidence that could countervail this assertion.  Greenpeace, WWF, and other environmental groups belabored the point until they were hoarse. Charles Clover, author of The End of the Line and prominent champion of the bluefin, made the trek to Recife to plead the poor fish’s case – he even managed to arrange a screening of the film for the ICCAT delegates.

So, when all was said and done, what was the final decision of the Commission?

In its infinite wisdom, the august body that is ICCAT voted to set the upcoming season’s bluefin quota at 13,500 metric tons.

This number far exceeds any remotely defensible figure.  It’s a quota with zero scientific basis that flies in the face of conventional wisdom and virtually ensures the commercial extinction of this animal.  Such a calculus is justifiable only to the members of what is clearly no more than a political cult idolizing greed, corruption, and piracy.

I need to take a few seconds and collect myself before continuing, lest this post degenerate into rabid polemics and I end up with spittle all over my computer screen.  I am so angry right now that it is difficult for me to express myself in a manner that doesn’t involve the wanton destruction of some nearby appliance.

ICCAT has failed.  It has failed us, and it has failed the bluefin.  It has failed the oceans, it has failed the planet, and it has failed our children.

In fact, ICCAT has even managed to fail the myopic fishing interests that control it.  Any corruption-riddled junta worth its salt should at least be able to satisfy its puppeteers to the degree that it provide them with their illicit plunder for more than just a couple of years.  This quota will not only ensure the destruction of the bluefin, but it will result in the controlling parties not even having a resource to exploit come the end of the Mayan calendar.

Immediately folloing the closing session of the Recife meeting, Charles Clover wrote a scathing and comprehensive letter in response to this kangaroo court escapade, noting that not only was the Commission unable to adopt sensible protections for several shark species, ICCAT actually voted to allow three member nations to continue to use drift nets — one of the most indiscriminate and destructive fishing methods on the face of the planet.  And thus do we all sally forth together into this bright new tuna-free world.

So where’s the silver lining here?  Believe it or not, it rests with the US government.

Nearly a month ago, I wrote a short post about how Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), had passed on Monaco’s proposal and threw her support behind ICCAT with the proviso that ICCAT set “responsible science-based quotas,” among other instructions.  Clearly, the Commission did not adhere to this directive.  As such, it is now Dr. Lubchenco’s responsibility to live up to her promise and champion Monaco’s proposal to grant the Northern bluefin tuna protection under CITES Appendix 1.  And it is our responsibility, as stewards and citizens of this planet, to show her our support.

I urge all who read this to send an email to Dr. Jane Lubchenco at Jane.Lubchenco@noaa.gov reminding her to rise to the occasion and stand up for the bluefin tuna.  ICCAT clearly cannot do so, regardless of the clarity and quantity of science that would justify such action.  It is time to cast off the trappings of this useless, obsolete Commission and to try something that will actually work.

Additional background on this issue can be found in Ashley Mirabile's excellent and comprhensive post on the plight of the bluefin.

On November 16th, two Greenpeace activists from Germany and Italy and two members of the press from India and Italy, all of whom were traveling on valid business and journalist visas, were picked up and detained by Indonesian police. They were on their way to meet the villagers of Teluk Meranti, who have been supporting Greenpeace in its efforts to highlight rainforest and peatland destruction in the Kampar Peninsula--ground zero for climate change. The police also took into custody an activist from Belgium who had been working at our Climate Defenders Camp there.

Despite the validity of their travel documents and the absence of any wrongdoing, two of the activists and both journalists are now being deported by immigration authorities on questionable and seemingly contrived grounds, even though no formal deportation permits have been issued. Just a few days before, immigration authorities deported eleven other international Greenpeace activists who participated in a non-violent direct action on November 12th, in a concession where APRIL, one of Indonesia's largest pulp and paper companies, is clearing rainforest and draining peatland on the Peninsula.

We set up the Climate Defenders Camp to bring attention to role of deforestation as a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions in advance of December's Copenhagen climate negotiations. If we are stop climate change, we must end global deforestation by 2020 and bring it to zero in priority areas like Indonesia by 2015. A drive through the Kampar Peninsula reveals acre after acre of forest conversion from healthy rainforest to palm oil plantations. There is no sign of animal life or biodiversity -- just row after row of palm. The destruction of the peatlands helps to make Indonesia the world's 3rd largest emitter go greenhouse gases, just after the US and China.

In the interest of the environment and human rights, Greenpeace is calling upon world leaders and concerned citizens to contact Indonesia's President Yudhoyono to ask him to stop these repressive actions by the Indonesian Police and Immigration authorities. The tactics currently being used by the authorities are likely to adversely impact upon the Indonesian government's international reputation as well as the country's reputation as a vibrant democracy.

It is not Greenpeace activists or journalists who should be the focus of the authorities, but the companies who are responsible for this forest destruction. We are working to make President Yudhoyono's recent commitment to reduce Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions a reality and the journalists are telling that story.

You can take action at www.greenpeace.org.

The new "deal" to delay signing a climate agreeement until next year, which was announced at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting this past weekend, is nothing more than an attempt to lower expectations for the climate talks taking place in Copenhagen this December. It’s especially disappointing given President Obama’s key role in the announcement. What we really need is for Obama to step up and lead the world as a bold advocate of an ambitious and binding treaty.

What’s even more disturbing is that this is part of a larger trend in Obama’s handling of the climate crisis since taking office. In his inaugural address he promised to “restore science to its rightful place,” yet he has not followed through on that promise. Instead, he sat back and watched as the coal industry essentially rewrote climate legislation as it moved through the House. And now that the Senate is in no rush to pass a similar bill, Obama is letting that dictate his foreign policy and stalling an international climate agreement.

Fed up with the stalling and lowering of expectations? I know I am. Tell Obama that December is the time to sign an ambitious climate treaty, not some unspecified future date.

This brazen stall tactic is all the more unconscionable when you consider the fact that it ignores the plight of the developing world, which will be hit hardest by global warming even though they did not have nearly as large a hand in creating the problem as developed countries like the US had. There’s more on this topic and the “deal” to not make a deal in Copenhagen in this statement from Greenpeace International:

“ Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen has become complicit in a so-called ‘deal’ which would put Obama’s political difficulties ahead of the survival of the world’s most vulnerable countries,” said Kaisa Kosonen, Climate Policy Advisor for Greenpeace International, in Copenhagen ahead of tomorrow’s “Pre-COP” gathering of key environment ministers in preparation for December’s climate summit.

“I don’t think a majority of countries will buy this face-saving plan. When Obama started downplaying the Copenhagen outcomes, did he check with the world’s most vulnerable countries as to whether their survival was now negotiable? That’s certainly not the message we have heard – climate change impacts are already affecting millions across the developing world and they need action now. There is no real excuse to postpone decisions on legally binding, ambitious action,” said Kosonen.

She questioned whether any EU leaders knew about Rasmussen’s cop-out deal. They were not at APEC, which only includes some of the world’s industrialized countries – the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan.

“ EU leaders, including Merkel, Sarkozy and Brown, must immediately step in and publicly oppose this back down from a legally binding climate agreement in Copenhagen,” she said.

Just two weeks ago in Barcelona the 43-member Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) expressed outrage at attempts to steamroll the world’s most vulnerable countries into accepting a watered down political agreement at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Their calls are supported by the African Group, which said it would accept only legally binding commitments on deep emission cuts and adequate funding from the industrialized world for climate adaptation and mitigation, including tackling deforestation.

“This is not about time but rather the absence of political will from industrialized countries, which are refusing to take their fair share of the global efforts and instead continue to postpone important decisions into eternity. Denmark should be ashamed of itself for caving in to Obama in this so-called deal,” said Kosonen.

Industrialized countries recognized two years ago that they would need to cut their emissions in the range of at least 25-40%. But right now their aggregate emissions stand at a mere 10-17%, not enough to stop climate change. The industrialized countries at the APEC meeting are largely those at the lower end of this range.

The bill passed by the House is certainly at the lower end of emissions reductions targets, aiming for a mere 4% reduction relative to 1990 levels by 2020. Half-measures like this will doom us all to runaway climate change we can believe in – because we’ll be increasingly witnessing its effects with our own eyes.

There was enough bad news last week to make me want to crawl under my desk and never come back out. But as the saying goes, sometimes the darkest hour is just before the dawn. First came news that President Obama, along with other leaders of Asian Pacific countries, would announce that they will not pursue a binding treaty in Copenhagen next month. Millions of climate activists have been working for years to make the Copenhagen negotiations the time when the world would come together to make the necessary agreements that will halt catastrophic climate change. Now that chance is in serious danger of being lost.  

 

 

 

On the heels of this dereliction came word that police were descending on Greenpeace’s Climate Defenders Camp, our outpost in the threatened Kampar Peninsula in Indonesia, designed to show Obama and other leaders the face of deforestation, a primary driver of climate change.

 

But in an amazing turn of events, the chief of police of the Pelalawan district revoked an earlier order of the Governor of Riau to evict Greenpeace activists and permitted them to stay following massive support from local communities. Over 300 community members of Teluk Meranti village, across the river from the camp, came in the morning to prevent Greenpeace activists from leaving the camp under police escort as per the orders of Riau police.

 

The activists in the camp were overwhelmed and humbled by this extraordinary support from the people of Riau, and it confirms our belief that the people of Indonesia wish their forests to be protected. The community support should be a signal to President Yudhoyono that his people are willing to help him honor his ambition to reduce emissions from deforestation.

 

Greenpeace opened the camp three weeks ago to bring urgent attention to the role that rainforest and peatland destruction play in driving dangerous climate change. Almost a fifth of global warming causing emissions come from deforestation, making Riau ground zero for climate change.

 

The camp will continue to serve as a beacon of hope for all of us waiting until our leaders wake up to reality. These leaders will not act until massive public outrage forces them to.The time for action is now, not next year or the year after. We can't kick this can down the road for the next generation to deal with. President Obama, show leadership and galvanize support for a binding treaty now.

Our Land and our Waters: Our Future


As Unangan (Aleut) people who have lived and survived on the Islands of the Aleutian Chain for almost 10,000 years, our survival and our foods have always come from the waters surrounding our Island villages.

The Pribilof Islands were discovered in 1786 by Russian navigator Gavriil Pribilof, ending a three-year search by Siberian merchants for the breeding site of the valuable fur seals. The roaring of seals drew Pribilof's boat through the summer fog to St. George Island. Thus the Pribilof Islands. These islands were not inhabited when discovered. Following this discovery, small bands of Unangan were enslaved to these islands from the Aleutian Chain to protect and harvest the millions of fur seals found there. Thus began a 200 year history of a people misplaced by governments eager to make money off of the vast resources found then and now in the form of fish and crab. The legacy of slavery seems to continue into twenty-first century America.

Today the descendents of the enslaved Unangan, done first by Russia and later by America, are struggling to survive on the islands in which our ancestors made a living and in which many are buried.  The once abundant northern fur seal populations, once ranging in number into the millions, are now numbered around 550,000 and steadily declining. The millions of pounds of king and tanner crab fishery are either a fraction of what they once were or are now closed due to overfishing. Today only a small percentage of fish once so abundant are now being taken by a hand full of large industrialized factory trawlers, long liners and crabbers, many coming to the Bering Sea from far away ports in the lower 48 states.

Traditional foods are moving away, or in many cases becoming so stressed due to the lack of their own foods, that the Unangan are finding it very difficult to fill their needs. With “store bought” foods so expensive and non-nutritious, the Unangan are once again facing an uncertain future. Again a group of people taken from their homes to protect and harvest fur seal may be forced to move from their homes because of poorly managed fisheries by the United States of America.  

These distressing activities are not only happening to the Unangan of the Bering Sea, but to all coastal tribal communities who depend upon the waters for survival.  For every village, it’s the water that provides and not the land.

As a result, the Alaska Federation of Natives recently passed a resolution at their 2009 convention in Anchorage to establish cultural heritage zones to help protect our foods and the habitat they depend upon in our waters. This is a major first step. Now our tribal governments must take the lead and begin to identify and designate these sites.

One such community is the Pribilof Island village of St. George. Their tribal leaders have been in discussions, workshops and research to find a solution to how the bottom trawlers can be stopped before critical benthic habitat is destroyed!

Recently both the Village Corporation and the tribal government of St. George have joined forces to seek cultural heritage zone protections for the waters immediately around their island as well as within the critical habitats of both the Pribilof and Zhemchug Canyons. What they are demanding our governments do is establish no trawl zones within twenty miles around St. George Island and no trawls deeper than 100 fathoms in both Canyons.

The leadership of our Tribes are also requesting that the State and Federal Governments responsible for the management of these resources formulate co- management agreements to ensure local input in any future decisions regarding the use of these fishery resources. This is about the survival of a people. This is about food security. This is about finally recognizing local tribal communities as valuable partners in the understanding of our nation’s ocean resources and seeking their valuable input in its management.

Willie, from Greenpeace UK, blogs from Brazil, where he is attending the ICCAT meeting.

The vultures were literally circling overhead as we approached the ICCAT meeting venue this morning... so something is on its last legs.

So, with just one day of the ICCAT meeting left, it’s time to see what has been achieved here this week. The short answer is ‘not a lot’. Despite a week of meetings, including extra, lengthy, evening sessions, virtually nothing has been decided on or agreed yet. Decisions on quotas for fish like bluefin tuna, protection of sharks and seabirds, are being left until the last minute, and all need to be discussed on the last day.

This wouldn’t be so frustrating if the week’s discourse had been more constructive. Don’t get me wrong, undoubtedly there are many at the ICCAT meeting who are working very hard and very long hours, but the system is so fundamentally flawed that it gives us little hope for very positive outcomes.

Little wonder, perhaps, that articles in today's (London) Times and New York Times poured a great deal of scorn on the whole process.

For days we have heard over and over how ICCAT must regain credibility, and for days we have seen some meaningless ping-pong across the tables as countries blamed each other whilst coming up with perfectly valid reasons why they could not be blamed themselves. It’s akin to a class of school kids explaining in turn where their homework is – you know the kind of thing, ‘dog ate it’, ‘mum put it in the washing machine’, ‘it blew away on the way to school’. Individually every excuse seems plausible. Collectively it means ICCAT has a very, very long way to go.

Last night saw, what was in ICCAT terms, a major step, with countries accepting letters of admonishment when they had not complied with the conservation and enforcement measures they had undertaken to do. A letter home from teacher, if you like. To us, this is pretty lame, but to them it is the first time countries are acknowledging formally that they have not done what they should. Trouble is, of course, the parties to ICCAT are here representing their own governments, and quite possibly have a note from their mum too. Personally, I blame the parents.

All this complying through gritted teeth is hugely frustrating. This week we have seen bizarre acceptances of others wrong-doing (and praise for them admitting it) and even some tacit derogations for a couple of countries to do what they want on hugely controversial issues. Remember driftnets, anyone? Fancy killing a few endangered species?

Ultimately, my impression from this meeting is to feel despondent, and I am even more convinced that there need to be a fundamental reforms of the way we ‘manage’ (and I use the word quite scornfully) our oceans. This gradual way of improving the systems we have bit by bit, issue by issue, year by year, just is not enough. The damage we are doing is happening far faster than our willingness to change.

So yes, we need drastic measures. That means setting large areas off-limits to fishing as Marine Reserves, and the bigger the better. It also means banning certain ways of fishing, and banning fishing for certain species altogether. And it means actually enforcing things too, with legal and financial consequences.

If we don’t start doing this on a huge scale, we will have lost not only our credibility, and our homework, but many irreplaceable species and livelihoods too.

 

Greenpeace activists delivered over 7,000 "Stop Whaling" petitions to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C today, just hours before President Obama was scheduled to travel to Japan. As Michelle wrote yesterday, there is a very real possibility that Japan's whaling program could be ended soon. That's why we took the opportunity to send the message to Japan that they should stop whaling in the Southern Ocean international whale sanctuary, and use Obama's visit as a chance to make that announcement to the world.

Check out these pics from the delivery event today:



If you want to lend your voice to the call for Japan to stop slaughtering whales, sign our petition urging President Obama to to talk about whale conservation with the new Japanese Prime Minister.

Serious climate issues are often shrouded in complicated and arcane scientific and political language.  This makes it easy for corporate polluters to disguise their agenda and intentions when talking about climate and energy policy.  Below is a letter polluters sent to decision-makers this week urging them to increase the number of international offsets in climate legislation.  I’ve taken the liberty of translating it for you.  Read on to see what they’re really saying.

Also note the list of companies signing the letter.  Among them are many huge polluters such as Duke Energy, Dominion, Exelon and American Electric Power – the company that was a focus in the recent Greenpeace Carbon Scam report.

But also on the list is Intel, a company that strives to associate its brand with innovation and the future.  Why are they associating themselves with some of the biggest, most backwards polluters in the country?  Good question.  You can read more about how Intel stacks up against other tech companies on our Cool IT Challenge campaign site.

Anyway, read on…

=============

Re: The Importance of International Offsets for U.S. Climate Change Mitigation Efforts

Dear Senator Kerry, Senator Graham, and Senator Lieberman:

We, the undersigned, are companies that employ hundreds of thousands of American workers, and serve hundreds of millions of American consumers. We expect that our companies would be affected significantly by any greenhouse gas regulatory program. We write today to communicate our firm belief that in order for any such program to be both environmentally effective and economically sound it should be market-based and incorporate both domestic and international offsets. To this end, we are concerned about the further restrictions on use of international offset credits in S. 1733, reported last week by the Environment and Public Works Committee.

TRANSLATION: We are some of the biggest, richest polluters in the world and we have a lot invested in dirty business.  If you pass climate legislation without huge loopholes for us, we’re going to be very upset.  One of the most important loopholes we want are carbon offsets – cheap vouchers that allow us to side-step cutting our pollution with the rationale that someone else, somewhere else, will cut pollution instead.  Sure, the legislation in Congress already has massive subsidies for us and billions of tons of offsets in it, but we are still not happy.  We always want more.

The cost containment provided by international offsets is dramatic and critical. Every major study of greenhouse gas regulation has reached this conclusion. The Environmental Protection Agency’s analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill found that the costs of the cap-and-trade program would increase by 89% without international offsets. By cutting the costs of a cap-and-trade program almost in half, international offsets preserve U.S. jobs and U.S. competitiveness.

TRANSLATION: Outsourcing jobs saves us a lot of money.  Likewise, we want to outsource investments in green jobs and cleaner skies we would otherwise have to make to cut our own pollution.  It’s just so much cheaper for us to do it overseas.  If we have to do it here in the U.S., it will cut into our giant profits too much.  For example, the last American Electric Power quarterly profits rose 18% over last year to $443 million due to “higher rates charged its utility customers” despite lower demand for electricity.  We don’t need investments in green jobs and cleaner skies eating into that.  We want to keep our pockets well lined, thank you very much.

Until low-carbon technologies are widely available, U.S. companies need to have the ability to pay for low-cost, readily-available reductions wherever they may be found, which includes other countries. Put another way, allowing U.S. companies to invest in at least some reductions abroad, makes it possible to continue production here, allowing for a gradual transition of the U.S. economy to a low-carbon future. At the same time, international offsets give U.S. companies new export markets for low-carbon technologies made in this country.

TRANSLATION: We already have the technologies needed to dramatically reduce climate pollution, but we don’t want to pay for them.  We’d rather pretend that some miracle technology like “carbon capture and sequestration” will magically become effective and affordable in the future…and that we can’t take real action to clean up our acts until then.  Allowing U.S. polluters to buy their way out with cheap international offsets will allow us to slash investments in green jobs in the U.S. and continue to pollute American skies.  We want to avoid climate action as long as possible, so we can pass the buck to future generations of Americans.

International offset policies also offer an opportunity to address the serious problem of tropical deforestation, which causes 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions annually and threatens the survival of more than half of the world’s plant, insect, and animal species. International offsets therefore offer a win-win situation; they make it possible for the U.S. to address critical global environmental issues, while saving jobs here.

TRANSLATION: By taking credit for “avoided deforestation” projects, we can really side-step American green job/clean tech investments.  That’s because avoided deforestation offsets would be among the cheapest and most abundant in the world.  Why build windmills and invest green jobs in the American Heartland if we could – for much less – pay to keep trees standing in, say, Bolivia?  It’s super cheap, we get to keep polluting, and we’ll have money left over to run TV commercials showing pretty rainforest animals we’ll claim to be saving.  This is the ultimate greenwash, and if you’re lucky Senators, we’ll let you in on it.

It is important that any international offsets are as environmentally rigorous as domestic offsets, which means that offsets from other countries should be subject to review by the relevant agencies. International offset credits subject to such review should not be subject to any arbitrary discounts or other barriers, which can only diminish their cost containment potential.

TRANSLATION: For years, evidence has mounted showing offsets often don’t deliver what they’re supposed to.  So, we have to pretend to be really concerned about the quality of offsets.  But, what we really want is universal green stamp of approval that will make people believe our offsets are 100% reliable so we can trade them in carbon markets and make buckets of money.  Don’t set up standards that are too tough -- just tough (and confusing) enough for people to believe in them.  Carbon markets could be worth trillions of dollars in coming years!  We want our carbon cake and want to trade it too!

Finally, we believe that well-designed international offset policies can play a vital role in encouraging other countries to adopt appropriate limits on their emissions, which will further limit the competitiveness impacts of climate legislation on the U.S. economy. International offsets are a necessary component of our diplomatic efforts.

TRANSLATION: Polluters in developing countries don’t want to change their ways either.  By counting offsets as a replacement for real U.S. pollution cuts AND counting them as cuts in developing countries, we really game the system.  It’s called “double-counting.”  Nothing like a little creative accounting to confuse the situation and make it look like we’re doing more than we are to address global warming.  And, if anyone asks you, just tell them you’re doing this to “protect American competitiveness.”  That always works.

For these reasons, we strongly urge you, as you consider cap-and-trade legislation, to ensure that the program protects the vital cost-containment role of international offsets, and avoids any arbitrary barriers to the use of such credits.

TRANSLATION: We’re watching you.  And the 2010 elections are right around the corner.  We’re making our campaign contribution list right now.  Don’t mess this one up for us, or there will be hell to pay!

Sincerely,

Alpha Natural Resources, American Electric Power, DTE Energy, Dominion, The Dow Chemical Company, Duke Energy, DuPont, El Paso Corporation, Exelon, Southern Company, FPL Group, Intel, International Paper Company, NRG Energy, National Grid, PG&E Corporation, PNM Resources, Rio Tinto

Hey Activists!  This is my first time in the blogging world, and I'm here to write about what happened today in Chicago at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce meeting.



You may have already read in Tracy's blog that the U.S. Chamber is having meetings around the country this month. They stopped off in Philadelphia first, and then headed out my way to Chicago. You may have also seen in the national media that the Chamber is the center of a lot of controversy lately. Big name companies have left the Chamber, quit from the Chamber board, or publicly disagreed with the Chamber. These companies include Nike, Apple, Exelon, Levi Strauss, GE... the list goes on and on.  

Why aren't businesses and the Chamber seeing eye to eye? Doesn't the Chamber represent American business? Well, in the last 3 months alone, the Chamber spent $34 million dollars lobbying AGAINST reforms of all kinds. The Chamber has continually sided with overpaid CEO's against the interests of the average Americans, and it's very members aren't standing for it.



So who is the Chamber speaking for? Two small Chicago business owners headed to the conference today to learn more about the Chamber. Despite having paid premium non-member admission they were turned away at the door. Their tickets, businesses, and local Chamber memberships were not enough to allow them to attend the Chamber meeting. I met them across the street where they asked me and the Channel 7 News cameras, "Is small business not valued by the Chamber?"

So who is it that the Chamber is speaking for? They don't speak for Apple, Nike, GE, Microsoft and others...

And they certainly don't speak for small business owners in Chicago. It's a question I'd like to ask them, but as an average American they certainly wouldn't invite me to the meeting.

Willie, from Greenpeace UK, blogs from Brazil, where he is attending the ICCAT meeting.

So, here in Brazil, the game is on. At the end of yesterday’s session the parties around the table at the ICCAT meeting were asked what their priorities were for conserving bluefin tuna. One by one they made positive murmurings about wanting to 'follow the scientific recommendations', and enforce compliance with them. They all pretty much said they want to see illegal fishing tackled. No rocket science there, and you would be forgiven for wondering why they have not done those things already!

More importantly there were also some hints as to how low some countries would go in terms of a quota, with several actually suggesting the possibility of closing the fishery. To you and me that may be a no-brainer. To many of them, it is a seismic shift.

Now, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves here. There is a lot of horse-trading to be done behind closed stable doors. And it's worth noting that the talk about closing the fishery is just for one year – which could well be a very convenient way of avoiding bluefin being subject to an international trade ban under CITES.

Greenpeace, and other conservation organizations here, won’t settle for that – and we are reminding the participants at ICCAT that the only credible thing they can do is close this fishery.

And it seems they desperately want to regain some credibility here. You can understand that, after all ICCAT was branded an 'international disgrace'  by an independent review. The spotlight is on them because of what they have allowed to happen to bluefin, and the bureaucrats who attend these meetings really don’t like that. Delegate after delegate has talked about the need for ICCAT to claw back credibility, conveniently ignoring that this is a situation their own bad judgement in the past has gotten them into.

From an observer’s point of view here there is much to be cynical about. This is a dysfunctional meeting in a tropical paradise, at a resort whose very construction has caused disruption and problems for the local coastline in Brazil, with gala dinners, cocktail receptions, and a self-congratulating bunch of faceless bureaucrats mismanaging species, fisheries, and livelihoods.

Yesterday was an eye opener, with some impassioned and stirring interventions (particularly from some of the African delegations) requesting stronger action to protect stocks of fish in their waters. At several points I wanted to stand up, cheer and applaud. But those heartfelt pleas were met by some cynical process point-scoring by delegations on the other side of the table, immediately filling me with despair.

There is still a long way to go here.

We've all seen the horrific images of whaling. The harpoons. The sea turning red. It's a terrible vision and hopefully it may be a vision we won't have to see much longer!

We've just heard a bit of good news out of Japan. A major review of Japanese government spending could spell the end to whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The review committee, commissioned to cut wasteful programs by Japan's new government, has proposed massive cuts in subsidies to a body which funds the so-called whaling research program.  

 

Without government subsidies, the whaling program would be doomed.

The Spending Review Committee recommended that the Overseas Fisheries Cooperation Fund (OFCF), which gives loans to the Institute for Cetacean Research (ICR) to run the discredited science program, have all of its funding revoked, except money needed for loans in 2010.

The OFCF claims it needs $780 million for various programs, including whaling, in 2010. The Review Committee and Cabinet Office will determine by early next year if the proposed operations for 2010 are actually "necessary" or should also be cut.

Soon, President Obama will be in Japan meeting with the new Prime Minister. Perhaps, President Obama could bring up whale conservation in their discussions. Take action and tell the President that whales are important to save.

We're keeping our fins crossed that once, and for all, Japan will hang up their harpoons and leave the whales alone.

 

--Michelle

 

This morning, an international team of Greenpeace activists issued an urgent call to action to President Barack Obama from the heart of Indonesia's threatened rainforests by unfurling a banner in a freshly destroyed area of forest that reads "Obama: you can stop this."


© Greenpeace/John Novis

As Rolf wrote last week during the Barcelona climate talks, the United States continues to block progress in advance of critical UN climate negotiations that will take place in Copenhagen next month. The banner hang was meant to urge Obama to join with other world leaders and help avert a climate crisis by ending global deforestation, one of the quickest and most cost effective ways to lower carbon emissions and combat global warming.


© Greenpeace/John Novis

Global deforestation is responsible for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Greenpeace estimates that ending global deforestation requires industrialized countries to invest $42 billion annually in forest protection.

While the banner was being deployed this morning, several other Greenpeace activists locked themselves to four excavators owned by Asia Pacific Resources International Holding Limited (APRIL), one of Indonesia’s biggest pulp and paper producers, to stop the company from destroying more rainforest to make way for tree plantations.

Over 50 Greenpeace activists from the Climate Defenders Camp on Indonesia's Kampar Peninsula take action against APRIL, one of Indonesia's biggest pulp and paper producers, to prevent it destroying the rainforest on the Kampar Peninsula to make way for tree plantations, grown for pulp and paper. © Greenpeace/Ardiles Rante

Check out lots more great photos in this slideshow:

President Obama, who will meet two days from now with 20 other Heads of State in Singapore to discuss Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), has promised to take decisive action on climate change. Yet his administration is actively undermining and stalling global climate change negotiations while the US Congress delays its vote on an inadequate bill.

It’s time for leadership. Help us send this message by signing our petition telling President Obama that it’s Time To Sign a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty.

Today’s action took place on the Kampar Peninsula on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, where Greenpeace has set up a Climate Defenders Camp. Rainforest and peatland destruction in Indonesia emits huge quantities of CO2, causing the country to become the world’s third largest climate polluter after China and the US.

Greenpeace activists are also working to reduce carbon emissions by constructing dams in the area to stop paper companies from destroying the rainforest’s carbon rich peat soil, which contains approximately 2 billion tons of carbon. They will continue to protect the rainforest peatlands in coming weeks as December’s UN climate summit approaches.

To find more info and resources on deforestation in Indonesia and climate change, click here.

Willie, from Greenpeace UK, blogs from Brazil, where he is attending the ICCAT meeting.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the plenary room of the ICCAT meeting, whilst Charles Clover's film 'The End of The Line' is being screened. This in itself is a great coup.

In a memorable scene from the film, whilst attending a previous ICCAT meeting, Clover himself chastized the bureaucrats in that meeting for setting irresponsibly high quotas that ignored scientific advice. In his words they were '…negotiating with biology. And you just can't do that, and expect to see the biology survive'.

It's a stunningly simple thing. Fishing is harvesting wild animals, and that can only happen if there are healthy populations of those animals, which in turn means healthy ecosystems to support them. And you simply can't take out more fish than is being replenished. Fish, like any other animals, are only a renewable resource up to a point!

 

 

Organisations like ICCAT, which are Fisheries Management Organizations, theoretically exist to make sure that the countries involved are managing the fisheries, OUR fisheries, effectively. But there's a catch. To you and me this would mean setting sensible quotas and not trashing fish stocks. But many of the people involved in ICCAT and other such organizations, seem to think their job is to squeeze every last fish out of the oceans, and keep their fishing industries happy. So when it comes down to setting quotas, it doesn't quite make sense.

ICCAT gets its own scientists to give it information on the stocks for which it is responsible (tuna, swordfish, sailfish and sharks). It then uses those to decide on quotas, which is a game of political haggling until an agreement is reached. Note that I said it 'uses' those. It isn't bound by them, and sometimes it just ignores them altogether. In fact they routinely set quotas vastly higher than the upper limits of what the scientists suggest would be safe especially on lucrative species like bluefin.

This is utter madness.

This year with huge amounts of public pressure, bad press, and celebrity outrage at the state of bluefin, ICCAT members are all talking very sincerely about setting catch levels that 'follow the science'. Surely they should be bound by the scientific recommendations – otherwise, what's the point of having them? Surely it should not take campaigns and catastrophic stock collapses to make ICCAT see that?

The starting point for ICCAT, and other fisheries management organizations should be the science, and the quotas shouldn't exceed that. But that in itself isn't even enough, as the New York Times has ably pointed out this week.  We are doing lots of things to our oceans, trashing other species as bycatch and altering ecosystems in ways we can't imagine. So we should be much more precautionary than the science suggests, especially when we factor in illegal fishing activity (which, as we know, is rampant for the profitable bluefin).

ICCAT has its work cut out. It has been dragged kicking and screaming to the realization that it has mismanaged bluefin tuna. And that's just the tip of the fishy iceberg. Most of the species under ICCAT's control are large predatory species, and globally they have declined by 90% over the last few decades. 

No wonder ICCAT is uncomfortable that the world is watching them this week.  But it remains to be seen if they will be shamed into usefulness. I'll keep you posted.

 

News of the historic chemical security bill, just approved by the House of Representatives, has been heating up and spreading far and wide. Check out this editorial in the New York Times.

More than eight years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the House of Representatives has passed a bill to shore up security at this country’s chemical plants. The requirements are reasonable, vital and long overdue. If terrorists were to attack a chemical plant near an American city or large town, they could unleash a toxic cloud that could endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Environmental groups, most notably Greenpeace, and organized labor have been pushing Congress to enact tough chemical plant security legislation, but the chemical industry — concerned about the cost — has long resisted.

The House bill is a carefully written compromise that is more than accommodating to the concerns of industry. It focuses only on the highest-risk plants, and it would make them use safer chemicals or processes only when the Department of Homeland Security determines that they are feasible and cost-effective.

Read more...

While we're excited the bill was approved by the House, now we have to stay focused on the Senate. Soon, they will take up chemical security legislation. We want the Senate legislation to be strong, too.

 

 

Take action! Tell your Senator it's time to introduce strong chemical security legislation in the Senate.

--Michelle

Here's a great video from the Greenpeace banner hang at Barcelona's Sagrada Família last week:

Hikmat Soeriatanuwijaya is a campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia who is currently at the Climate Defenders Camp in Indonesia.

I am now on the peatland area of Semenanjung Kampar, half an hour away by boat from Greenpeace's Climate Defenders Camp.

As far as I can see are bushes, grasses, several trees, and bushes again. Man, this is not the rainforest. Here I am, at Semenanjung Kampar, which has more than 1.7 million acres of forest and stores more than 2 billion tons of carbon. Oh yeah, I remember now, the latest data said that almost half of Semenanjung Kampar forest, over 740,000 acres, has already been destroyed for plantations.

And this area must be one of  those 740,000 acres we are talking about. The peatland on this particular area is damaged because of the several canals built a couple years ago for illegal logging activity. Now the logging activity is stopped, but the canals remain, draining and damaging the surrounding peatland each and every day.

In one canal, I see about 50 Greenpeace activists and local community members working hard to build a dam. Under the command of Petteri, the dam is looking good. They have already finished the first wall and continue to build the next one.


Greenpeace activists and local community members work on a dam to stop the draining of Indonesia's peatlands. © Greenpeace /Will Rose

“Greenpeace activists and local communities are working together to build this dam and restore the ecosystem of this place,” said Petteri.

Building the dam in this canal will stop the greenhouse gas emissions and restore this peatland to the normal condition of the rainforest. It's big work, and a mighty big act of hope considering this peatland has already been severely destroyed.

But it is not a Mission Impossible! What’s the point of planning the mission if we already feel it’s impossible to achieve the goal?

Just call it Mission Possible, or even better, Mission of Hope.


Jesus Fernandez from Greenpeace Spain and other Greenpeace activists work on the dam. © Greenpeace /Will Rose


Local community members work with Greenpeace activists to build the dam. © Greenpeace /Will Rose

Because no matter how hard it is, there’s always hope. Scientists say that what Greenpeace and the community are working on here really can restore the condition of the surrounding peatland.

“Much of the carbon released from peatland swamps is the result of draining so the land, or the logs, can be used,” says Professor Jonotoro, a peatlands expert. Professor Jonotoro has been joining Greenpeace efforts to stop deforestation for quite some time. This friendly man is also very concerned about the future of Semenanjung Kampar forest.

We stand in the river bank while the damming work is still in process. Jonotoro is the right person to talk to get to know more about the peatland situation. He is one of the peatland experts from Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry, and a lecturer at Lancang Kuning University in Pekan Baru.

According to Jonotoro, peatland is made up of a store of waterlogged and semi-decomposed vegetation, which squelches underfoot. The deeper the peatland - it can stretch to a depth of more than 15m - the more carbon it holds. “As the water level drops, more and more of the stock of carbon is released into the atmosphere,” he explains. This not only takes a toll on biodiversity, but if set on fire dry peatland can burn for weeks. The fire can even be extinguished on the surface only to continue burning underground and reappear the next day.

“By building this dam, we aim to restore the peatland to the rainforest condition, so the ecosystem is able to thrive here again,” Jonotoro explained.

"So Professor," I asked him, "can you tell me just how much this area has been damaged? And when this damming project is finished, how long until the restoration process begins?"

Jonotoro paused and looked at me sharply. I was afraid he no longer wanted to explain further because I’ve already asked a lot of questions since we departed from the camp. But no, he grabbed his field hat and said: “Come with me!”

We walked deeper inside the area. Have to be careful because peatland is very unstable. Bustar, our Forest Campaigner, fell down when we crossed a wood bridge. After 20 minutes of walking, we arrived at an area surrounded by tall grasses. There was a pipe there and Jonotoro checked it by putting wood tools in it.

“It’s pretty dry. This place is losing the water table,” he said. He pulled his measuring tools out and showed me: 50 centimeters.

“The best condition for peatland is 20 to 0 centimeters. When this peatland can achieve that condition, the environment can be restored. Usually, we can see the effect on the ecosystem at around three months. The result will depends on many things. But when the dam is built, we will definitely get positive results.”

Yes, Professor, we will get results. Because the dam is built, the water table is rebuilding, and we are restoring Indonesia's peatlands!
 

- Hikmat

Eight years after the September 11th attacks, the House of Representatives today approved the “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009,” (H.R. 2868) by a vote of 230 to 193. This is the first time either house of Congress has approved permanent and comprehensive chemical security legislation. 

“Although it’s a compromise, this bill represents a historic first step toward protecting the 100 million Americans living in the shadow of high-risk chemical plants,” said Rick Hind, legislative director of Greenpeace.  “It’s now time for the Senate to recognize the urgency of this issue and embrace common sense solutions that eliminate these risks once and for all,” said Hind.

Earlier this week, Clorox announced plans to convert all of their U.S. facilities from ultra-hazardous chlorine gas to liquid bleach to “strengthen our operations and add another layer of security,” according to their CEO Don Knauss. Clorox also indicated that these changes “won’t affect the size of the company’s workforce." 

Since 9/11 more than 200 chemical facilities have converted to safer chemical processes, eliminating poison gas risks to more than 30 million Americans. Yet 300 other chemical plants together put 110 million Americans at risk.

 “For the first time since the September 11th attacks Congress and the administration are in agreement on how to protect the millions of Americans at risk from chemical plants,” said Hind.

In addition, water utility groups and a coalition of more than 50 organizations are urging Congress to enact this legislation. They include: Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, the United Auto Workers, Steelworkers, Teamsters, Fire Fighters, Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace. 

The House passed bill (H.R. 2868) will:

• Conditionally require the highest risk plants to use safer chemical processes where feasible and cost-effective and requires the remaining high risk plants to “assess” safer chemical processes;
• Eliminate the current law's exemption of thousands of chemical facilities, such as waste water and drinking water plants and port facilities;
• Involve plant employees in the development of security plans and provides protections for whistleblowers and limit background check abuses;
• Preserve state’s authority to establish stronger security standards;
• Provide funding for conversion of plants, including drinking water facilities and wastewater facilities, and
• Allow citizen suits to enforce government implementation of the law. 

As the last day of climate talks before the Copenhagen summit drew to a close, Greenpeace activists attached a banner reading "Climate chaos: Who is to blame?" to Barcelona’s Columbus Monument, which points to America. The US delegation has emerged as one of the chief obstructions to progress at the talks that took place in Barcelona this week.




Images © Greenpeace/Pedro Armestre

Today's action was the final one of a series of actions Greenpeace did this week in Barcelona. Check out pics from our banner hang at Sagrada Família and the "extreme weather event" we created to show delegates what lies in store for the planet if global warming goes unchecked.

If the political courage of the developed world’s leaders remains missing in action, then we won’t have a deal in Copenhagen. And despite their best efforts to continue floating half-measures and make them stick, consensus is not forming around a deal with weak emissions targets. Developing countries are pushing back and fighting for their survival.
 
We singled out President Obama, however, because his actions fall so far short of his promises to “restore science to its proper place” and lead the world’s response to global warming. He has stood aside while Congress let the fossil fuel industry hijack its climate legislation. And on the international scene, he has been silent while his negotiators obstruct the progress on a treaty intended to deal with the most pressing environmental crisis of our time.

Write to President Obama now and tell him that it’s time to sign a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty.

One year ago President Obama was elected and my hopes for a clean energy future soared.  However, just two weeks ago, that hope began to be blown away in West Virginia when Massey Energy began dynamiting Coal River Mountain—the site of a proposed 328-megawatt wind farm—to prepare for a massive mountaintop removal coal mining operation.

 

But today, organizations from across the country are coming together to demand that President Obama’s Administration be a leader for both clean energy and communities and stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain. In fact, it’s the biggest online action to stop mountain top removal coal mining in history.

Can you take a moment right now to tell the Obama Administration to not blast away our clean energy future?

Here’s what’s at stake:

-The homes, healthy air, streams and ecosystems of the local residents of Coal River Mountain.

-A Coal River Mountain wind farm that would provide 85,000 households with electricity, 700 long-term green jobs, give back $1.7 million in annual county taxes and stand as a model for clean energy across the region.

-The health of the climate as when burning the coal pumps tons upon tons of carbon into the atmosphere of an already dangerously warming planet.

The EPA has the power to either protect the climate and the communities of Coal River Mountain, or it can allow the creation of a 6,000-acre dirty energy wasteland.

You can make a difference today by taking one minute right now to tell the Obama Administration to support clean energy and save Coal River Mountain.

With your help, we can make the clean energy revolution a reality. As my colleague from Rainforest Action Network, Scott Parkin, says

“Coal River Mountain must become our line in the sand. We can no longer allow fossil fuel interests to build more pipelines, belch out more pollution, and destroy more mountains that could become clean energy wind farms. If we can stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain we can stop talking about a clean energy future and start living in a clean energy present.”

 

Greenpeace activists staged an extreme weather event today for delegates at the UN climate talks in Barcelona, Spain to give them a taste of what the future will look like if they don’t create the right conditions for a fair, ambitious and binding climate deal in Copenhagen next month.

Amidst a mock storm of thunder, lightning, rain and wind outside the Barcelona conference center, the Greenpeace activists deployed a banner that read “Our climate, your decision”.



© Pedro Armestre/Greenpeace


© Pedro Armestre/Greenpeace


© Pedro Armestre/Greenpeace

The really bad news is that, according to reports coming out of Barcelona, it is the US that is the biggest threat to the deal the world needs in Copenhagen. Rolf has all the dirt on the excuses the US delegation is making in his post, "Call to Action: US obstructing Barcelona talks." There's also a sample script and numbers you can use to call Secretary of State Hilary Clinton or US climate envoy Todd Stern to let them know that you expect the US to lead the world's response to climate change, not obstruct those efforts.

If you haven't made a call, please make one now. If you have made a call, consider calling again. The Obama Adminstration needs to hear from us that we expect the leadership that then-candidate Obama promised on global warming.

This semester, I’ve worked with student activists who have coal plants on campus — you know, those antiquated, decades-old, polluting machines that fill the air with toxins like mercury, arsenic, and millions of tons of global warming pollution. At Iowa State University, a monster coal plant looms in the center of campus. The plant consumes over 150,000 tons of coal a year — that's one half the weight of the Empire State Building!

Iowa State had been dumping fly ash from the coal plant into unlined storage ponds, which is incredibly dangerous due to the risk of contaminating ground water supplies (our drinking water) with numerous deadly toxins. Upon learning about this, Greenpeace campus coordinator Graham Jordison organized a protest on the first day of school. The protest generated several media hits and started a conversation on campus about the plant. A nervous university administration quickly issued a public statement vowing to address the issue.

Weeks later, all 3 of the main public universities in Iowa, including Iowa State, announced that they would begin a ground-water monitoring program for the fly ash disposal. Talk about power of the people!

One week after this announcement, Graham and his team met with the university president to thank him, and ask him to shut down the coal plant and replace it with clean, renewable sources like wind power. Although the students didn't get a commitment to close the plant, the President and his administration are definitely listening as the students continue to demand clean energy on campus. Graham said it best when quoted in a newspaper article: “We’re not afraid to step it up, get our activists together and do some non-violent actions. Whatever it takes to get the school to wake up and realize students want this to change.”

Photo: Iowa State student activists protesting at the campus coal plant.

The story is unfinished at Iowa State or at your school, but there is only one ending in which we all win. This ending has 100% clean, renewable energy, where coal is no longer part of our vocabulary. To make this happen, we need leaders to fight for the environment. Join Graham, Iowa State, and the Student Network as we fight for the only planet we’ve got.

Let’s make sure President Obama transitions our country to clean, renewable energy. Send a message to President Obama right now!

For more information about the Student Network, visit our website and friend us on Facebook!

Send me an email right now and I’ll get you started organizing for climate action at your school.

For the climate,

David

One of the weird consequences of overfishing is the very real possibility that jellyfish will replace the niche left by fish species. It makes for nice scary pieces of news, like this bit out of Japan. A ten-ton fishing boat was capsized after dozens of giant jellyfish were caught in their net. As the crew tried to haul the net onboard, the boat started to capsize and they were thrown into the sea.

The three men are safe. Thankfully, another trawler in the area was able to rescue them.

If we are about to be taken over by jellyfish, let's try to look on the bright side. Maybe they taste good? Maybe they're healthy for us to eat. I really can’t say, but perhaps we should be open-minded.

British cartoonist Steven Appleby tried to find a way we could cook jellyfish. And, at the rate our oceans are being overfished, you'll want to watch this video, just to be sure you're well-prepared.

 

Most people here in Barcelona I think would say 'slow progress' is an exaggerated description of the state of climate negotations. For a recent issue of Eco, the daily newsletter of Climate Action Network-International, I wrote this article which goes over a couple elements that may be mucking up negotations as well as confusing domestic discussion of climate legislation.

Many voices are complaining that the US delegation has put no numbers on the table, but there is one number that just keeps popping up. That number is 2005, the base year for the Kerry-Boxer climate legislation.

Even though it was four years ago, 2005 just happens to be the year of the highest US emissions in history. Obviously, reducing 20% of emissions from a higher pool means less reductions. Kerry-Boxer aims to reduce 7% below 1990. Using 2005 base year allows for a more ambitious sounding target.

In Barcelona this proposed base year of 2005 distorts an important discussion on 'comparability' and has become a red herring in assessment of the adequacy of the scale of mitigation targets.

The US delegation often seems to insinuate that 1990 was just an arbitrary base year. Of course, 1990 was not selected at random: it was the year of the IPCC’s First Assessment Report; the year when the world began negotiating what became the Convention.  

But arbitrary or not, shifting to a different base year like 2005 allows the US to imply that the EU proposed mitigation target of 20% by 2020 relative to 1990 is about as ambitious as that in the US legislation. In effect, this amounts to suggesting that emissions reductions elsewhere between 1990 and 2005 are irrelevant to negotiations today.  The comparison we really should be making is the distance between the proposals on the table and what the science is saying we have to do.   

Countries may find it domestically convenient to use a different baseline year, but this presents several problems. Converting reporting data from one country to another appears to be simple enough in theory. But in practice, measurement, reporting and verification requires comparing apples to apples. Converting multiple data points across multiple countries using a variety of different baselines is a convenient recipe for confusion and avoiding the big picture (remember? 'compare the targets to what the science demands').  So even if the experts can provide conversion formulas for differing baselines, there is still a question of public transparency and accountability.

And finally, if the baseline changes, so must the targets. Were we to use a 2005 baseline, the IPCC says global emissions should come down 35-50% by 2020 (as opposed to 25-40% with a 1990 baseline). In the context of history and science, using 1990 is not at all arbitrary. 

Yesterday I reported on a Greenpeace banner hang at the UN climate talks in Barcelona, as well as the fact that several African nations had walked out of the negotiations in protest of the weak emissions reductions targets commitments made by developed nations.

I mentioned in that post that the talks were to resume today, but also noted that I didn't know what resolution had been reached to allow talks to resume. Today, via The Associated Press, we have our answer:

BARCELONA, Spain — African countries ended a boycott of meetings at U.N. climate negotiations on Tuesday, after winning promises for more in-depth talks on how much rich nations need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Due to the Africans' demands, most of the rest of this week's talks in Barcelona will be devoted to discussing carbon-cutting pledges rather than other issues including carbon offsets and action by developing countries, said John Ash, chairman of the negotiations on emissions.

The Africans, supported by about 70 other developing countries, said industrial nations were making weak commitments to stave off dramatic temperature rises while Africa was being devastated by droughts and floods blamed on global warming.

Scientists say industrial countries should reduce emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, but targets announced so far amount to far less.

...

"It's really good that the Africans have finally been able to stand up together," said Fiona Musana of Johannesburg-based Greenpeace Africa. "That sends a strong signal."

Of course, low emissions targets aren't the only ways the leaders of the developed world are attempting to shirk their responsibility to solve the climate crisis. Jess, blogging on Greenpeace International's Climate Rescue Weblog, reports that negotiators for developed countries are now arguing for a "politically binding" agreement as opposed to a "legally binding" agreement:

The climate negotiations have arrived at yet another war over words that might prove detrimental to a deal in Copenhagen this December. Check this one out - developing countries are demanding that negotiators stick to the commitment of a legally binding treaty while developed countries seem to be pleased with showboating their new idea of a politically binding agreement. Sound like just semantics to you? May sound like it but consider this: When was the last time you trusted a promise that a politician made to you before they took steps to make good on it?

...

“I do not know anything called a politically binding agreement. They are worth very little. Tell me of any politician that delivered on their (election) manifesto,” Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, a delegate with Sudan.

OK, so maybe it sounds like a whole lot of unwarranted distrust to you, so let’s use President Obama as an example. I campaigned and voted for President Obama based on the promises he made. As someone that cares about the environment, I was inspired by his statements about leading the world in the fight against climate change. After he was elected, he talked about returning science to its rightful place and leading the world in a solution to the climate crisis. But just 32 days out, where is the leadership and return to science that my President Obama promised? How much longer do I trust in promises without any accountability?

Where is the accountability, indeed. We now learn that, far from providing the leadership that was promised by Obama, the US is actually doing its best to undermine negotiations in Barcelona. If you're as fed up with this lack of leadership as I am, you can call Obama's Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, right now — click here for the number and a suggested script.

I had the pleasure of spending the last two weeks with a terrific crew of Greenpeace activists, our GOT students, and volunteers from around Vermont.  We organized events in Montpelier, Rutland and Burlington with our One World hot-air balloon.  We had state representatives, business leaders, other environmental groups and community members come out to the events to address the crowds.  The best quote came from State Representative Paul Poirier who said something like: “I’m no nuclear engineer, just a regular guy, but know that we can’t have Vermont Yankee around any longer.”

The balloon tour highlighted the fact that Vermont doesn't need nuclear power.  We have local renewable companies that could replace the plant's energy, which would put our money into the hands of our friends and neighbors rather than in Entergy's pockets.  Vermonters are standing up across the state to call for a clean energy future, and we hope you are too.

No nukes in Vermont!
-Jarred

This week in Barcelona, Spain, the United Nations climate change negotiations are tasked with setting the table for the long-awaited talks in Copenhagen. A lot of preparation needs to happen to create a fair, ambitious, and legally binding international treaty in December.

However, halfway through the week-long talks, that important work is not getting done. And the biggest impediment to progress in Barcelona is the United States. There are three main things the U.S. needs to do to move things forward:

1. Make ambitious science-based commitments to reduce its climate pollution (between 25-40% below 1990 levels by the year 2020).
2. Commit to deliver its share of funding to developing countries so they can slash climate pollution and deal with the effects of global warming.
3. Agree to an international treaty that will be legally-binding and enforceable.

But the U.S. delegation is claiming it cannot negotiate important issues without climate change legislation first being passed by Congress. There are three big problems with that excuse:

First, the bills have been corrupted by big polluters. They simply do not deliver anything close to what scientists say is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. Low emissions cuts targets and loopholes in the bills allow for dirty business as usual.

Second, even if the legislation was science-based and effective, Congress does not time before December to pass the bills. 

Third, the President is charged with leading U.S. foreign policy and negotiating treaties, not Congress. President Obama should not take the back seat as a slow-moving Congress drives U.S. climate policy towards failure.

The clock is ticking towards Copenhagen. We have about thirty days before those talks begin. Our climate and our future are too important to let political excuses get in the way of real action. 

Please call the person in charge of the U.S. delegation in Barcelona — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — at 202-647-5291 and tell her the U.S. needs to lead climate talks, not drag them down.

If you cannot get through on the number above call the lead U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern: 202-647-9884.

Use your own words, but here is a sample call script you can work from:

My name is _______, calling from ________. I'm calling because I think climate change is the single most important issue facing the world, and I understand that the US is continuing to obstruct real progress at the U.N. talks in Barcelona. This is outrageous, and it's not what the American people voted for when they elected President Obama a year ago.

It's time for U.S. leadership to stop listening to industry and start listening to science. We need a fair, legally enforceable treaty at Copenhagen, not more foot-dragging in Barcelona.

Spread the word — tell your friends and family to make a call today. You can use that retweet button on the top right of this post, or use those little icons up under the title of this blog to post a link to your Facebook, send an email, or post to most any other social network.

For the climate,

-Rolf

We’re now just over a month away from the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, which commence on Dec. 7th. World leaders are currently meeting this week in Barcelona, Spain for the last time before Copenhagen. These meetings are crucial to establishing a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty in December, yet early signs are not good. Greenpeace activists are there reminding world leaders of their moral obligation to solve the climate crisis. And we’re not the only ones protesting: Several African nations walked out of the meetings to point out that the developed world was simply pursuing business as usual.

Barcelona’s famous church, Sagrada Família, which was designed by renowned architect Antoni Gaudí, was the scene of a series of stunning banner hangs by Greenpeace activists on the first day of the talks. Check out these amazing pics:


More than twenty Greenpeace activists climbed the Sagrada Família, Gaudí's monument, in Barcelona, Spain. They deployed two banners at the cranes with the message "Save the climate" — in Spanish, "Salvad el clima." Greenpeace is asking world leaders to make the climate call and to take the responsibility for tackling climate change. © Greenpeace/Pedro Armestre


Greenpeace activists hold a banner that reads "Activist for the climate" in Spanish. © Greenpeace/Pedro Armestre


Greenpeace activists deploy a banner at Barcelona's Sagrada Familia that reads "World leaders, Make the climate call." © Greenpeace/Pedro Armestre

There’s also video of the activists deploying the clear banner at twilight:


But like I said before, Greenpeace is not alone in protesting the dithering of developed countries on climate change. The so-called African Group walked out of the meetings when it became clear that developed countries were not willing to set aggressive emissions reductions targets. Greenpeace New Zealand campaigner Geoff Keey is on the ground, and posted this report:

The first signs of trouble occurred in the morning when the African Group (the group of African countries at the negotiations who work together) warned that if there wasn’t sufficient progress in the negotiations on developed country emission reduction targets, they’d walk about and not allow further meetings to be scheduled.

The African Group’s threat reflects increasing frustration over the refusal of developed countries like New Zealand to adopt strong climate change targets.

Then in the afternoon, the chair of the meeting to discuss developed country targets told countries to not restate their targets (e.g. New Zealand’s nothing - 20% target) but to talk about how they could increase those targets. In other words, current proposed targets are well below what’s needed.

The request from the chair of the negotiations was met with complete silence from developed countries for around five minutes before South Africa finally said they were disappointed no developed country was willing to speak. From then on a walk-out was inevitable.

According to Jess Miller, another Greenpeacer on the ground in Barcelona, the walk-out has ended and talks will resume tomorrow. No word yet on what resolution was reached between the African Group and developed nations, but Jess adds that “the walk out by the African Group proved to be an effective way to get developed countries to realize that business as usual will no longer be tolerated!”

A bit of background on why the Barcelona talks are important: In December of 2007, the world's leaders agreed to spend two years crafting a global treaty to stave off the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. The talks happening right now in Barcelona are the last milestone on the road to the UN negotiations that will take place in Copenhagen at the end of the year. The aim of the Copenhagen talks is to establish a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. Meetings like those going on in Barcelona have happened consistently throughout the past two years, and were intended to be used for laying the groundwork for a successor climate treaty. Alas, little to no progress has been made in the previous rounds of talks.

Hence why the African Group was absolutely right to walk out when developed nations refused to discuss ambitious emissions targets, and why Greenpeace is there on the ground to remind world leaders that it is their moral obligation to lead the world’s response to global warming. Copenhagen is our last, best chance to avert the worst impacts of global warming, and the developing nations of the world will be hit the hardest if we don’t get it right, even though they had an inordinately small role in creating the problem in the first place.

GPUSA climate campaign head Damon Moglen is in Barcelona, and said this of the walk-out by the African Group: “It is clear that for many countries, enough is enough. President Obama can no longer hide behind failed congressional legislation. He must provide ambitious, science-based emissions reductions targets.”

President Obama has the power to use this meeting as a springboard to the treaty that the world needs. If the US fails to show leadership during these crucial moments, our children and grandchildren will pay the price. Take action now and tell Obama that it's time to sign a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty.

Hikmat Suriatanwijaya is a media campaigner at Greenpeace's Climate Defenders Camp in Indonesia.

No flashlights. No red carpets. Don’t talk about fancy five-star hotel because here we don’t even have a proper toilet.
 
But Inglourious Basterds superstar Mélanie Laurent seems like she's really enjoying life at Greenpeace's Climate Defenders Camp, in the heart of Indonesia's tropical forest, Semenanjung Kampar, Riau Province.


Oct. 30, 2009 - Mélanie Laurent, who stars in Quentin Tarantino’s latest movie ‘Inglourious Basterds’, in the Indonesian Rainforest with Greenpeace speaking out against forest destruction and climate change in the lead up to the UN Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009. ©Will Rose/Greenpeace
 
“I miss my comfortable bed, though. But I really am enjoying my stay here,” said Mélanie in the middle of a sunny morning conversation.
 
We had just finished breakfast. Everyone was gathering in the main area of the camp. Not luxurious but we've got everything that we need: Coffee, milk, bread, fried rice, and friends.
 
About twenty activists were preparing their gear for the damming activity. They were willing and ready to pull another hard and tiring day of work. Mlanie had already prepared for the trip to Kerumutan Conservation Area to see the beauty of the untouched peatland forest on this beautiful Sunday morning.
 
Kerumutan is two hours by boat. I am sure Mélanie will enjoy the surroundings. But mother nature's beauty is not always the scenery for her trip to Sumatra. Mélanie has been on this Greenpeace trip since last Friday, and she has witnessed a lot of horrible forest destruction.
 
On our way to Kampar Peninsula last Friday, we stopped at Pangkalan Bunut, at PT, the Arara Abadi concession area. Mélanie was just stunned seeing the massive peatland forest being destroyed by canals and being burned for land clearing.
 
“It’s horrible. I am really sad to see how this once beautiful forest now more looks like a war zone,” she said. She couldn’t stop capturing this massive destruction with her digital camera.
 
Mélanie understands that forests are the lungs of the world and shouldn’t be destroyed like that. The 26 year old actress wants that to stop, and she knows that Greenpeace's Climate Defenders Camp is here to stop deforestation.
 
“I am impressed with all of Greenpeace's efforts here. What makes me more impressed is the spirit, I’ve visited the dam-building activity and see everyone working really hard. But I’ve never seen anyone looking down, everyone was working with passion and the spirit is high.”
 
Through the sparks in her beautiful eyes I can see that she really meant what she said. And I believe when she said she really likes the life at the camp. Blistering heat, bugs and mosquitos can not keep her from enjoying herself. For the past two days Mélanie has mixed with all the activists and local communities at the camp. Having lunch and dinner together, sharing the beautiful scenery of Kampar River, even hanging out and singing together during night time.
 
“In this camp, everyone treated everybody with respect. I am glad everybody treated me the same, not as an actress. Without flashlights and public attention, I can really enjoy myself here,” Mélanie smiled.
 
No flashlights and no red carpet for Mélanie. Just a lot of friends who share the common interest and objective: to stop deforestation!

-Hikmat

I’m back in San Francisco after the Defending Our Pacific tour wrapped up in the Cook Islands on October 21st. We ended the tour by hosting an “open boat,” where a couple hundred locals and tourists got the chance to tour the Esperanza, and by holding a press conference to inform local journalists about what we accomplished out on the high seas.

We also met with some folks from the Ministery of Marine Resources in the Cook Islands. It was a pretty exciting meeting for all of us, because just the week before we had busted the Koyu Maru 3, a Japanese ship we caught fishing in Cook Islands' waters illegally, as you might recall. The Cook Islands has started a formal investigation of the vessel with their counterparts at the Fisheries Agency of Japan. I’ll be posting updates on that as well as on how all of the actions and documentation work we did plays out at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting this December, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, being that the tour was a really amazing experience for me and seeing as I’m still trying to process all of it, I thought I’d share just a few more videos about life onboard a Greenpeace ship.

We saw an abundance of amazing marine life, including dolphins, whales, flying fish, seabirds, and more. Here’s a video of a baby whale shark we encountered one day:


Our helicopter, Tweety, is an invaluable tool that we use to scout out the open water, document pirate/unlicensed fishing, etc. I went on one early morning heli flight to search for another two Japanese longliners, which we suspected might be fishing in the Cook Islands' waters with their sister ship the Koyu Maru 3. We didn't find them, but I put this video together anyway because I think it's interesting how a heli flight gives you a whole new perspective on just how small the Espy really is in relation to the deep blue sea:

 Lastly, I shot this video tour of the ship, which is pretty self-explanatory:

Like I said, there are definitely more updates coming on the political developments resulting from the actions we took and the documentation we compiled of the vessels plundering the Pacific. When the WCPFC meets this December, we’ll be pushing to have all four of the high seas pockets in the Pacific designated as marine reserves at this meeting.

There might be a few more videos coming from the tour, as well. Keep checking back!

We've been pressuring Trader Joe's to adopt sustainable seafood purchasing policies throughout all of their stores—for months. But, they still haven't changed their ways.

Store managers and corporate big-wigs have felt the heat from Greenpeace's mock website, relentless phone calls from supporters, poignant karaoke songs from shoppers and in-store demonstrations across the country.

Have they been ignoring the public's cries for ocean protection? Or are they simply unwilling to tell the truth about their actions to their consumers?

Whatever the reason for their complete lack of responsibility, it's high-time to turn up the heat, once again. Ocean conservation is too important to ignore!

Please, take action today! Tell Merchandising V.P., Matt Sloan, to clear up the story for Trader Joe's with this simple message: "We're still waiting for Trader Joe's sustainable seafood policy!"

We will continue to demand sustainable seafood until Trader Joe's makes that a reality. 

 

 

Greenpeace received word this morning that Clorox will be switching production methods at all of its factories to eliminate the use of chlorine gas. This will eliminate the risk of injury or death to 13 million Americans in the case of an accident or attack on one of these plants. This announcement also provides Congress with another good reason to pass comprehensive chemical security legislation being taken up in the House on Wednesday of this week.

“By leading the way in eliminating the potential consequences of a catastrophic terrorist attack or accident, Clorox’s announcement also provides Congress with compelling new evidence to enact chemical plant security legislation,” said Rick Hind, Greenpeace legislative director. 

Take action and tell Congress to put safety first, too. 

This week I traveled from my post as a Field Organizer in Baltimore up the well-seasoned train tracks of the mid-Atlantic to Philadelphia to help out Jillian, my fellow Organizer based in PA. Looking out the window on the train ride, the skyline was spotted with coal-fired power plants and massive chemical facilities. Although I admittedly see the world through an activist's eyes, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the fight we have ahead of us if we want to convert our country to a clean energy economy and break free from our addictions to fossil fuels and the stronghold that industry has on our way of life.

I made the trip to Philly to help organize a last-minute rally held today to draw attention to the fact that this business as usual won’t do, and that the American people, the labor community and business owners from coast to coast are ready to attack climate change head on.



This week, the United States Chamber of Commerce held a Regional Government Affairs Conference in Philadelphia. Speaking at the conference today was the Chamber President Tom Donohue. The chamber has been the source of much media attention in recent months as their stance on climate change and health care reform have been drawn into question. Among the various headlines we learned that the group, which is comprised of thousands of businesses ranging from your local diner to giants like Nike, has spent $34 million this year lobbying against clean energy and health care reform legislation.  

What Greenpeace and a slew of other groups, businesses, and most importantly the American public have realized is that Tom Donohue and his Chamber are lying about climate change. By doing this they are only representing a few corporate CEOs and not American businesses and the public. That’s why major corporations like Apple, PG&E and Levi’s are quitting the chamber, because they understand the severity of, and are committed to tackling, climate change. By fighting real progress, they argue, the Chamber is not accurately representing the views and priorities of its members.  

So at noon today, a chilly fall day in Philadelphia, while Donohue spoke to the crowd inside, we stood outside on a busy street corner, about one hundred strong, to tell him that he can’t speak for us anymore. Addressing our crowd were health care advocates, environmentalists and labor union members. What brought us all together is what is uniting Americans in communities everywhere: we came out in droves at this time last year to vote for then-Senator Obama because we believed he would sideline people like Tom Donahue and because we won’t stand for lies about climate change anymore. You don’t have to be an expert to know that climate change is the greatest challenge of our time and we can’t afford the policies of the past if we want a shot at a sound future.



I had a great trip up to Pennsylvania, and not because I spent time with a colleague I rarely see and got to meet her wonderful volunteers, or because I got to watch the Phillies beat the dreaded Yankees (although that was all memorable). It was a great trip because as I sit writing this on the train back down to Baltimore I look out at the smoke stacks and I don’t feel that overwhelming challenge of a country barreling down the tracks to climate destruction. I feel a real sense of pride to be part of a growing grassroots movement in this country that has had too many years of the status quo and is finally standing as a united front to call on the true culprits to use their power for good and stop climate change before it’s too late.

Greenpeace activists in two inflatable boats intercepted a ship, the Izmuir Castle, as it carried more than 15,000 tons of palm kernel oil into the French port of Montoir-de-Bretagne this morning.  Palm oil plantations are a leading cause of forest destruction in Indonesia and other southeast Asian nations.  The activists painted "Climate Crime" on the hull of the huge cargo ship.  Eleven activists climbed on top of three cranes that were unloading contents of the ship and unfurled banners reading "Funding for forest protection, not their destruction."

This happened while the European Union leaders met to discuss if they’d put on the table to help developing countries fight and deal with global warming.  It’s also on the eve of United Nations climate negotiations in Barcelona next week.

The action is part of an international Greenpeace effort to get world leaders to invest in tropical forest protection for our climate.

While everyone seems to agree that tropical deforestation must be tackled to deal with global warming, few world leaders seem ready to actually do anything about it...and forests continue to fall.  Most conspicuous is President Obama who needs to show the world that the U.S. is ready to lead the fight against global warming.

What needs to be done?  Simple.  Developed nations should pool money together, mostly from their polluting industries, and create a financial incentive for countries with tropic forests to protect forests for our climate.  In the lead up to the United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Greenpeace created a proposal to do just that.

To motivate Obama and world leaders, Greenpeace launched a Climate Defenders Camp this week in the Kampar Peninsula peat forests of Indonesia.  Check out photos of the Kampar Peninsula here.

The Climate Defenders Camp has attracted international media attention as they deployed giant banners calling for forest funding, began damming illegally-drained peatlands, and worked to amplify the voice of local communities.  The action at the Climate Defenders Camp is just warming up.  You can read more first-hand accounts, see videos and get daily updates here.

The peat soils of the Kampar, which have built up over ages, store an estimated 2 billion tons of carbon, forming one of the world’s largest carbon stores on land.  When these forest are drained and burned to make way for tree farms and palm oil plantations, the consequences for our climate, and the rainforest species that depend on them, is devastating.

Learn more about peatland forests and global warming in the video below.  And stay tuned as we continue to defend forests for our climate!

-Rolf

On Saturday, October 24th, thousands of people came together calling on our world leaders to act on climate change. The Greenpeace Student Network held events across the country that got over 600 people out on campus or in the streets calling for climate action!

Here are a few highlights:

At Iowa State University, student activists marched with community members to the campus coal plant. Chanting, “no coal is clean coal, clean coal’s a dirty lie,” nearly 30 people came together to demand that Iowa State’s president power past coal. The event had great media coverage and was well received even by workers at the coal plant who were actually smiling and waving when they saw the demonstration!

 
In New York, student activists at SUNY Geneseo held a rally on campus. They had several speakers, including their university president. Over 100 people attended the rally, which wrapped up with a large photo op on the campus lawn. This photo was shown on the TV screens in Times Square with the message to world leaders: “You pick our future.”

 
In North Carolina, student activists from UNC Wilmington held a 5-hour event, which included a full lineup of speakers, music, and a candle light vigil march through the streets of downtown Wilmington. For a city located just miles from the Atlantic Ocean, the event was fittingly called “Turning the Tide,” and brought together over 100 people. Check out a short video of the event!

From rallies to marches, photo ops, and phone calls to President Obama, student activists were heard loud and clear on October 24th. Our movement is growing, and when it comes to climate action from President Obama and world leaders, we won’t take no for an answer!

Visit the Student Network website to get involved today!

You can view more event photos on our Facebook page.

For the climate,

David

Greenpeace has been working for four years on trying to develop an alternative to marine reserves in Alaska, especially in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea, and now in the vast and still somewhat pristine Arctic Ocean. It should come as no surprise that the ecosystems of these once rich and living oceans are fast becoming laboratories on how not to manage, as though man could, environments delicate and complex. Because it has been politically impossible to create the successful and ocean repairing marine reserves, we have been looking at creating marine cultural heritage zones (CHZ) in and around coastal communities as well as critical habitats within our country’s 200 mile exclusive economic zones (EEZ) here in Alaska.

And today we are another very important step closer to realizing our dreams. The Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) is the largest statewide Native organization in Alaska. Its membership includes 178 villages (both federally-recognized tribes and village corporations), 13 regional Native corporations and 12 regional nonprofit and tribal consortiums that contract and run federal and state programs. This organization has and continues to successfully represent our people in Congress, with businesses, and the State of Alaska. Just a week ago, AFN unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the creation and establishment of CHZ’s to protect our foods and the habitats upon which they depend for survival. This task, given a birth by our State’s Alaska Natives remains a daunting task. The lobbyists, lawyers and politicians of the billion dollar a year industry, the commercial fishing industry, will be fighting the development every step of the way. However, one of the most powerful traits of our people is the strong attitude of patience. If nothing else we are a very patient people, and we will see this priority to fruition. We were here before our waters were destroyed and we will be here when the commercial fishers move on. This is home. What we envision CHZ’s will do is similar to what marine reserves do but with more local input in uses and management.

We want to find a way to move destructive fishing practices away from our homes and critical habitat and involve local and traditional knowledge to the management of these protected zones. We the Unangan (Aleut), Yupik and Inupiat Eskimo invite you to join, what most surely will be, our long vigil to protect our waters, our homes, our foods and the food upon which they depend. Offshore oil drillers, large commercial fishing conglomerates and fish stick sellers are a seemingly powerful group. If we work together to stop the slow death affecting our waters and our environments, we will succeed. We the Alaska Native people are not quitting, for we know our ancestors worked to ensure our survival with our bounty. Join our work.

Greenpeace is working tirelessly to join our peoples of Alaska, our peoples of the Arctic to ensure a healthy planet. A patient journey guided by the wisdom of our ancient peoples cannot fail. We are all necessary parts of this walk, a walk together that must realize the dreams of all our peoples; to live where plants and animals are not our enemies but rather our co-inhabitants of this beautiful planet.

I'm on the ground in Sumatra at Greenpeace's Climate Defenders Camp. We're here to let world leaders know that this is ground zero for deforestation and if immediate action isn't taken to end the destruction of our rainforests, climate catastrophe is all but assured.

Southeast Asia is the region most exposed to and least prepared for the impacts of climate change, according to the Asian Development Bank. The ADB warns that the poor — and especially women — are the most vulnerable. Approximately 2.2 billion Asians are subsistence farmers; they are already experiencing falling crop yields caused by floods, droughts, erratic rainfall and other climate change impacts.

As well as supporting biodiversity and forest-dwelling communities, forests and their soils are huge carbon stores; they contain nearly 300 billion tones of carbon. That is 40 times more carbon than we currently emit to the atmosphere every year.

© Greenpeace / John Novis

Tropical forest destruction accounts for about a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the world's trains, planes and cars put together. Therefore, we can only avert a climate crisis if world leaders commit to deep and binding cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions from both fossil fuels and deforestation at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

Globally, more than one million hectares of forest, mostly tropical rainforest, is destroyed every month — that is an area of forest the size of a soccer field every two seconds. Destruction and degradation of forests drives climate change in two ways. First, the clearing and burning of forests releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; and second, the area of forest that absorbs carbon dioxide is reduced. Their role in regulating the climate is so crucial that if we destroy the last tropical forests, we will likely lose the battle against climate change.

INDONESIA'S RAINFORESTS AND PEATLANDS


On the ground, it's easy to see the massive destruction that has taken place here. A drive through the Kampar Peninsula reveals acre after acre of forest conversion from healthy rainforest to palm oil plantations. There is no sign of animal life or biodiversity — just row after row of palm. The roads are congested with trucks carrying out palm kernels and the sky is filled with the smoke from hundreds of fires set to clear the land for planting.


Riau Andalah Pulp and Paper Company owned by the April Group. © Greenpeace / Daniel Beltrá

Indonesia is a stark example of the need for a robust plan and the provision of international funds to protect tropical forests. According to the latest available figures, it has one of the fastest rates of deforestation. This emits so much CO2 that Indonesia is the third largest climate polluter, after China and the US.

The reason these emissions are so high is twofold. It is caused by the rapid rate of deforestation, and the drainage and burning of the carbon rich peat soil the forests grow on. Deforestation of tropical forests is driven by global demand for products like paper, palm oil (which is used in toothpaste), chocolate, and as a biofuel. Since 1950, over 182 million acres of Indonesia's rainforests have been destroyed completely and others have been seriously degraded.

In a recent report, the Indonesian Government identified the oil palm, pulp and paper, agriculture, and logging industries as those primarily responsible for draining peat, for destroying its forests, and for causing the country's enormous CO2 emissions. It predicts that, unless action is taken, these emissions will continue to increase.

However, the government continues to hand out the concessions that allow these companies to destroy the remaining rainforest. The Indonesian government has laws to protect some of these carbon-rich peat areas but it fails to enforce the law and even continues to grant permits to companies to destroy them. Under Indonesian law, it is prohibited to develop or clear the forest and to drain any peat if it is deeper than three meters. Over 80% of Kampar's peat is deeper than that, but companies are still granted licenses to destroy its forests and peatlands. Only 10% of the peatlands that remain intact are officially "protected". The remaining 90% is under immediate threat, encircled by encroaching pulp and paper companies. They have been allocated for conversion in spite of the law.

THE COPENHAGEN SOLUTION

International governments give companies that are destroying the rainforest here an incentive to keep up business as usual and drive climate change by allowing imports of paper and palm oil products that come from forest destruction. With the UN Copenhagen Climate Summit just around the corner, the Heads of State of developed countries must show real leadership and secure a robust climate deal in December that includes a global funding mechanism that will transfer $42 billion annually from industrialized countries to poor forested countries like Indonesia, Congo, and Brazil, with the aim of ending deforestation by 2020. Such a deal must deliver substantial emissions reductions from deforestation as well as protect wildlife and respect the rights of forest dwelling people. It must also ensure that money does not end up in the hands of those responsible for forest destruction, like those in the logging industry.

Greenpeace is also calling on Indonesia's President Yudhoyono to commit to zero deforestation by 2015 in Indonesia and to implement an immediate moratorium on the destruction of forests and peatlands to give the climate some breathing space while the forest protection plans are put into action.

President Obama can do his part by coming to Copenhagen to attend the negotiations himself and help push other world leaders to commit to funding solutions to end deforestation. Obama must show leadership now by pushing Congress to pass legislation that will cap our emissions at the levels scientists say is safe and that will help pay for a global funding mechanism for forests. The bills in Congress are too weak and the international talks are veering off course. Now is the time for action from President Obama.

Cross posted at The Huffington Post

I don't have to tell you that the threats that face the planet are absolutely dire. People are doing things they never imagined in hopes of ensuring that our children's children have a planet that is livable.

What keeps me inspired through all of this? Working with youth that are willing to put their lives on hold, to join the Greenpeace Organizing Term. Every semester, 25-30 students are taking time off of school, fundraising to cover tuition, convincing parents to let them join, and moving their lives sometimes across the country to learn how to become leaders in the environmental movement.

The Greenpeace Organizing Term is a semester long program where students learn basic to advanced campaign and grassroots organizing skills. Students spend 12 weeks learning how to build the movement back home, pressure big corporations and elected officials, and how to inspire coming generations of environmental activists.

During the program students' travel to work on campaigns in the field, where they get to use their new skills on Greenpeace campaigns. On their expedition trip, they get a chance to see how environmental issues effect global communities, and have a chance to support those communities through organizing. .

Check out this awesome slideshow that we put together of a few of our over 200 alumni sharing why they decided to take a stand:

Do you want to be apart of this growing movement of youth who are willing to take a stand for the environment? Check out the G.O.T.’s website for more info and to apply!

The Organizing Term is an amazing experience for current undergraduate students who are 18-24. If you are, or know someone whois currently a student who is passionate about environmental change, check out our site at http://www.greenpeace.org/got and apply today for our Spring 2010 semester!

Today Greenpeace is joining 350.org and a massive coalition of organizations and grassroots activists around the world to demand world leaders do what is necessary to stop global warming. I'll be updating this blog post throughout the October 24th International Day of Climate Action with news and photos from events around the country and around the world. You can also follow Greenpeace USA on Twitter.

Twitter Updates

Live Blog

October 24 9:19 PM EST It has been an amazing day of climate action with over 4,000 events all over the world. We have made it clear to world leaders that people everywhere demand a fair, ambitious and binding UN climate deal in Copenhagen this December. As I close shop for this one momentous day I urge folks to remember what dirty energy does to our world and our communities everyday. In the words of Greenpeace Executive Director, Phil Radford, who spoke today at Chicago's march on Fisk Coal-Fired Power station:

Dirty energy is giving asthma to kids in President Obama’s hometown and pushing our planet toward a global warming catastrophe.  It’s time for Obama to live up to his promises to return science to its rightful place and stop letting coal and oil industry lobbyists write our nation’s energy policy. The world can’t afford anything less.

 9:03 PM EST Photos from Boulder's Power Past Coal Bike Ride to Valmont Power Plant are in! You can find Greenpeace Flickr Photos like this one from Colorado here, here, and here.

6:10 EST West Coast events such as the San Francisco Bicylce Tide Line and a Manhattan Beach rally are ongoing. Photos from farther east are pooring in! Check out thes photos Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, and NYC:

Created with flickr slideshow.

This is one of my favorite photos from the Boston Under Water Festival where a coalition of organizations and activists called attention to threat of rising sea levels do to global warming:

And at a rally earlier in Tampa:

 

October 23 4:52 PM EST - October 24th, the International Day of Climate Action poses to be the largest, most coordinated day of action for the environment in history. And it has already begun in New Zealand!

As part of a large global alliance of organizations coming together on Oct. 24th, Greenpeace is  calling on the world's leaders to agree to a climate deal that is ambitious, fair and binding. Together, we are pushing for a strong climate treaty that will not only reverse the march of dangerous climate change but also help us tackle some of the world’s largest challenges like deforestation.

TAKE ACTION:  Demand a global climate deal that is ambitious, fair and binding.

Participating in the day of action? Leave a comment to this blog and tell us what you are doing!

Today, President Obama gave an energy-themed speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His speech is just ahead of hearings on the climate and energy legislation scheduled to be taken up by the Senate next week.

Here's a statement by Damon Moglen, Greenpeace’s Global Warming Campaign Director:

“President Obama’s speech comes at a critical moment in the national conversation about how our country must respond to the global warming crisis, and we welcome his renewed engagement in this critical debate.

“However, with negotiations stalled just six weeks before international climate talks in Copenhagen, the world needs President Obama to go beyond political speeches and make firm commitments based on science.

“The climate and energy legislation passed in the House and now the similar Senate bill have been a source of international disappointment. The bills’ weak targets for reducing emissions, and billions in wasted giveaways to the coal industry, handicaps America’s ability to build a clean energy future at home and to provide global leadership on this life and death matter.

"It is clear that Congress will not pass legislation this year that goes far enough and fast enough in addressing the demands of climate change. The President must get out of the back seat and take the wheel of America’s climate policy. At a domestic level, the President needs to assert executive authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stimulate decisive growth in the clean energy economy.

"At the international level, Mr Obama should be articulating ambitious vision and commitments for Copenhagen which are in-scale with the global need to address climate change.

"Tomorrow, the most widespread day of global political action the planet has ever seen will demand that world leaders secure a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty at Copenhagen capable of preventing the worst impacts of global warming. We hope President Obama will be listening because today the American plan to address the crisis falls short of this imperative.”

When you close your eyes and picture a polar bear, what do you see? A couple years ago, when I closed my eyes, I saw a mama polar bear with two adorable baby cubs playing in the snow. But, now when I close my eyes I have the sad imagery of a desperate polar bear, thin, shaking and clinging to a small piece of ice, stranded in the middle of a cold arctic sea.

Polar bears are the unfortunate victim of our dependence on oil. When decisions are being made, big oil wins out and polar bears are left to die. They just can’t catch a real break. Their habitat is quickly disappearing – melting ice from global warming. And, if that’s not enough, the land that is still solid is being drilled and polluted for oil exploration.

Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to designate 200,000 square miles acres of coastal land and waters along the north coast of Alaska as critical habitat for polar bears. This proposal was in response to the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Greenpeace.

But, just as the polar bears were about to celebrate we remembered that this week another Interior Department agency, the Minerals Management Service, approved oil-company plans for exploratory drilling in the polar bear’s habitat in the Beaufort Sea. And, the Interior is considering a similar drilling proposal in the Chukchi Sea.

How can polar bears survive when the agency with the power to protect them is schizophrenic?  The Department of Interior (DOI) declared its intent to protect polar bear habitat in the Arctic, and simultaneously sacrificed that same habitat to feed our unsustainable addiction to oil.

Having a hard time keeping up? Here are some cliff notes...

• May 2008 the DOI listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

• At the same time, the DOI issued a special rule exempting greenhouse gas emissions from certain provisions of the Act.

• May 2009, new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reaffirmed this Bush-era exemption for the fossil-fuels industry.

• A court challenge to this regulation by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Greenpeace is ongoing.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Interior has until June 30, 2010 to finalize critical habitat designation for the polar bear. Designating polar bear critical habitat is a good first step toward protecting this species, but as long as the Secretary of the Interior maintains that he can do nothing about greenhouse emissions and global warming, protections for the polar bear will ultimately be ineffective.

 

 

I gave my Macbook a hug last night after reading on Apple's website that it has cleared the last hurdle in eliminating toxic PVC plastic. Apple is now the first PC maker to completely eliminate hazardous brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride plastic in its new iMac and Macbook.

Removing PVC from PC power cords was the last step in Apple’s industry leading position on toxics elimination. Apple was first with PCs virtually free of BFRs and PVC (except for the power cord) in March this year. While HP recently produced their first BFR/PVC free (except power cord) model, Apple has again moved further ahead of the competition.

While removing the last use of PVC might not sound like a big deal, it means Apple’s new products will be safer and easier to recycle and cause less pollution at the end of life. There were significant technical and safety certification barriers to finding PVC alternatives, but Apple has now proved it's now possible and has completed the phase out, while reducing product price and boosting profits.

Apple’s PVC free power cords are only available in certain markets currently but should be available more widely when safety certification is obtained.

This lays down the gauntlet to other major PC makers such as Dell, HP, Lenovo and Acer to catch up with Apple again, and we’ll be keeping up our pressure on them to match Apple’s lead.

A bit of history

Back in 2006 we launched our Green my Apple campaign because we knew Apple had the potential to lead the industry towards greener, less toxic products. Huge numbers of Apple fans also called for a Greener Apple and the new iMac and MacBook are the final steps on the road Apple started down with Steve Jobs May 2007. This news marks an active few weeks for Apple’s environment team. Apple deserves credit for these positive moves but also big credit to all those Apple fans who helped make environment a top priority for Apple.

On October 21st, the House Energy and Commerce Committee chaired by Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Subcommittee Chair Edward Markey (D-MA) approved comprehensive chemical plant security legislation (H.R. 2868 & H.R. 3258) in a 29-18 vote. The Committee rejected all 15 Republican amendments designed to cripple or delay both bills. The legislation is expected to go to the House floor later this fall. This is the first time this legislation has been approved by the two authorizing committees. On June 23rd the Homeland Security Committee also approved a weaker version of H.R. 2868.

“A compromise acceptable to leading industry lobbyists wasn’t enough for Committee  republicans. If they had had their way, chemical plants that pose catastrophic risks to densely populated areas would continue to put millions at risk for years to come,” said Rick Hind, Legislative Director of Greenpeace. In fact, the American Chemistry Council, in a letter to Chairman Waxman just before the committee markup, proclaimed HR 2868 "the appropriate vehicle for ensuring a permanant CFATS program."

More than 200 chemical facilities have converted to safer chemical processes since 9/11  eliminating poison gas risks to 38 million Americans. Hundreds of other plants together put more than 100 million Americans at risk. A blue-green coalition of more than 50 organizations has been urging Congress to enact legislation to eliminate these risks. They include: the  United Auto Workers, Steelworkers, Teamsters, Fire Fighters, Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility, U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Greenpeace. The Department of Homeland Security and the EPA testified in favor of this legislation at an October 1st hearing held by the Subcommittee.

*The final version of the Energy and Commerce Committee bills (H.R. 2868 & H.R. 3258) would:

• Conditionally require the highest risk plants to use safer cost-effective chemical processes where feasible and require the remaining high risk plants to “assess” safer processes;
• Eliminate the current law's exemption of thousands of chemical plants, such as waste water and drinking water facilities;
• Involve plant employees in the development of security plans and provide protections for whistleblowers;
• Preserve state’s authority to establish stronger security standards, and
• Provide up to $225 (H.R. 2868) and $375 (H.R. 3258) million respectively toward the implementation of safer chemical processes over a three-year period.*

 “Although this bill is a compromise, it is a giant step forward for communities at risk. We look forward to working with the House leadership in moving this bill to the House floor this fall,” said Hind.

Among the compromises, the legislation narrows the number of high-risk chemical facilities to approximately 107 that may be required to eliminate catastrophic risks with safer chemical processes. It also allows chemical plants a second appeals process to challenge agency decisions and exempts them from citizen enforcement suits. Instead, the bill contains a petition process giving citizens the right to initiate a government investigation into potential violations by a chemical facility. The legislation also does not ensure that residents living downwind of high-risk chemical plants will be informed if nearby facilities are in compliance with security regulations or even part of the program.

In June, the House Homeland Security Committee approved a different version of H.R. 2868, which included four major loopholes not contained in the Energy and Commerce bills.

--Mae

Our tour is wrapping up. We steamed into port here in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, on the 19th. We spent the last few days of the tour in high seas pocket number 3 (see a map of the high seas pockets here), looking for fishing vessels that are threatening the future of the Pacific. And let me tell you, we had absolutely no problems finding them.

On Thursday, the 15th, we found a Taiwanese long-liner, Kai Jie No. 1, that had no license to fish in the waters of any Pacific island countries. This does not make it illegal for them to be fishing on the high seas, since these waters belong to no particular nation, but this is one of the main ways fishing fleets get around the regulations that Pacific island countries are introducing to better manage their tuna stocks.

We spoke with the captain of the vessel and explained that what he was doing was decimating the tuna stocks that Pacific island nations rely on and asked him to pull in his line. When he refused, we took action. We went out and, using a special contraption designed by our fitter from the first leg of the tour, Jono, to hold the line up out of the water, we went down the long-line and removed the bait from their hooks.

I shot this video of the action, in which our resident marine life expert, Gabe, explains more about the process:


This ship may not have been a pirate fisher in a legal sense — though it was operating in an area known to host a lot of the region’s illegal fishing — but it was certainly plundering the Pacific. That’s why we’re trying to shut down the four high seas pockets to all fishing.

The next day we spotted yet another unlicensed Taiwanese long-liner fishing on the high seas. It might seem unlikely for us to come across one vessel after another in an ocean as vast as the Pacific, but when you consider that these ships are part of a massive fleet of more than 1,300 long-liners — and that’s just the Taiwanese fleet — you begin to realize how big the problem is and why we keep encountering them.

Again, we went and spoke with the captain, passed him information about our campaign and the science showing that Pacific tuna stocks are in bad shape, and asked him to stop plundering the Pacific. He also refused to haul in his line, as you’ll hear our translator Tan-chi tell us in this video:



As you could see, the captain of this ship was quite an agreeable guy who seemed genuinely interested in what we had to say. He sat and read our campaign materials for several minutes. He was even very hospitable towards us: when we refused the grape sodas he offered after reading our literature, he insisted we take them so vehemently that he actually threw them onboard our boats. We are not trying to set ourselves up in opposition to this hard-working captain and his crew.

As Tan-chi translated for us, the economics of the situation make it impossible for him to stop fishing and head back to port. And that’s what we are trying to change. You can read more about this situation — the vicious cycle of fishing in the Pacific and the diminishing returns these vessels are producing as Pacific fish stocks grow more and more depleted — in this blog by Karli, our onboard campaigner.

Karli is the lead campaigner onboard the Esperanza for the Defending Our Pacific tour.

Last week, we found no less than four Taiwanese fishing vessels on the high seas in the space of just three days. We took action against two of them (Mike wrote about those vessels and the actions we did in this post). Though this makes it seem as if these vessels and their crews are our adversaries in the fight to save the Pacific tuna stocks and close the four high seas pockets to all fishing, that is not the case. We were not there to try and tell these captains what to do, but rather to give them the information their employers might not be giving him, to appeal to their sense of morality, and to ask them to stop plundering the Pacific.


Greenpeace activists ask the captain of the Ming Jhy Fwu No. 16 to haul in his long-line after giving him information about our campaign and the state of Pacific fisheries. © Paul Hilton/Greenpeace

What we do oppose is the corporations they work for, which are colluding with the Taiwanese government – just as so many other corporations are colluding with governments around the world – to trap them and their crews into economic circumstances that only benefit the corporation, while also blatantly disregarding the plight of Pacific fisheries and the theft of fish right out of Pacific islanders’ waters.

Our adversaries are also governments, like that of Taiwan, that continue to ignore the warnings of scientists about Pacific fish stocks and instead allow new fishing vessels to be built and sent out to chase after fewer and fewer fish. One of the ships we encountered last week, the Ming Jhy Fwu No. 16, was just built in 2006 – at a time when we were already aware that overfishing in the Pacific was having dire consequences.

The captain of the Ming Jhy Fwu No. 16 seemed like a thoughtful guy. As Mike described, he sat right down and read the campaign literature we gave him with genuine interest. We are not against this captain or his crew. If anything, we have total sympathy for him and are glad to be on his side.

By allowing this vessel, and many, many others like it, to leave the ship-building yards and join the already bloated fleet in the Pacific, countries like Taiwan are locking their own fishing industry – and people like the captain of the Ming Jhy Fwu No. 16 – into a vicious cycle whereby they must fish to make a return on what they have invested in their fishing ship and gear. If governments do not take responsibility, the fishing industry will simply fish itself to death.

Though Taiwan has reduced its fishing capacity in the past years, they still build more vessels and then simply get them flagged under foreign nations. But it's usually still owned by the same owners. The fishing industry is always trying to find and exploit loopholes to avoid national, regional and international regulations. This irresponsible behavior on the part of the fishing industry compromises Taiwan's efforts.

The Taiwanese government and the regional fisheries management organization have to take a much stricter stand on the continued introduction of new capacity into the region and drastically reduce the masses of overcapacity of the fleets that currently exists.

It’s not just Taiwan that has such recent additions to its fleets. In fact, you might recall that on the first leg of the tour we exposed a refueling operation involving a brand new “super-seiner,” a massive fishing vessel with nets large enough to encircle whole schools of tuna and all the other marine life that is swimming with them. That ship, the American Legacy, only left the shipyard for its maiden voyage in 2008.

This is a cycle that we need to break, and this year is going to be a deciding moment for the Pacific. Through the Defending Our Pacific expedition, Greenpeace has again provided evidence that fishing in the high seas is undermining management and threatening the Pacific. We’ve also demonstrated that transshipment by long-line vessels and the use of fish aggregating devices (FADs) by purse seiners are enabling the plunder of marine life.

It’s time for those countries that want a future for their fishing fleets to stand up and be counted alongside the Pacific island countries in their call for the high seas to be closed to fishing.

- Karli

On October 14th, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment chaired by Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) approved comprehensive chemical plant security legislation (H.R. 2868 & H.R. 3258) in an 18 to10 party-line vote. The Subcommittee rejected 13 Republicans amendments aimed at crippling the legislation that will be taken up by the full Energy and Commerce Committee this week. This is the first time this legislation has moved through the Homeland Security Committee.  

“Given a choice between protecting millions of Americans at risk and doing nothing, Subcommittee Republicans not only chose nothing, they proposed doing nothing for three more years,” said Rick Hind, Legislative Director of Greenpeace.  “The compromises contained in each bill weren’t enough for subcommittee Republicans. They also tried to gut provisions in both bills that would eliminate catastrophic risks in densely populated areas,” said Hind.

The compromise legislation narrows the number of high-risk chemical facilities to approximately 107 that are required to eliminate catastrophic risks with safer chemical processes. It also allows chemical plants a second appeals process to challenge agency decisions and exempts them from direct citizen enforcement.  Instead, the bill contains a petition process affording citizens the ability to initiate a government investigation into potential violations by a chemical facility.  The compromise legislation also does not ensure that residents living downwind of high-risk chemical plants will be informed if nearby facilities are subject to or in compliance with security regulations.

 “This bill clearly represents a compromise on some major issues. We look forward to working with the Energy and Commerce Committee this week to improve the bill further,” said Hind.

More than 200 chemical facilities have converted to safer chemical processes since 9/11 eliminating poison gas risks to 38 million Americans. Hundreds of other chemical plants together put more than 100 million Americans at risk. A blue-green coalition of more than 50 organizations have been urging Congress to enact legislation to eliminate these risks. They include: the United Auto Workers, Steelworkers, Teamsters, Fire Fighters, Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility, U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Greenpeace. The Department of Homeland Security and the EPA testified in favor of this legislation at an October 1st hearing held by the Subcommittee.

In June, the House Homeland Security Committee approved a different version of H.R. 2868, which included four major loopholes not contained in the Energy & Commerce bills.

The Energy & Environment Subcommittee version of H.R. 2868 and H.R. 3258 would also:
- Eliminate the current law's exemption of thousands of chemical plants, such as waste water and drinking water facilities;
- Involve plant employees in the development of security plans and provides protections for whistleblowers;
- Preserve state’s authority to establish stronger security standards, and
- provide up to $225 (H.R. 2868) and $375 (H.R. 3258) million respectively toward the implementation of safer chemical processes over a three-year period.

Earlier this week, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere as well as NOAA Admisistrator – not to mention a member of President Obama’s Ocean Taskforce – finally broke the silence by officially weighing in on bluefin tuna.

Lubchenco announced that the United States is “sending a clear and definitive statement to the international community that the status quo is not acceptable.”  She formally acknowledged the peril facing the Northern bluefin tuna, citing stock declines of 72% and 82% in the eastern and western populations, respectively.  The good Doctor levels blame for these declines directly at the ineffectual International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), as well as the irresponsible activities of certain countries that target bluefin in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Lubchenco calls for ICCAT to address overfishing by setting responsible quotas, increasing enforcement, and instituting fishing closures during spawning periods.   She then goes on to declare the United States’ “strong support” for Monaco’s proposal to prohibit the international trade of the species by way of a CITES Appendix I listing.

Sounds great, right?  And it is, in a way.  It’s a strong proclamation that lets the world know the United States is seriously concerned about this issue.   So why aren’t I out in the street right now, lighting fireworks and drinking to excess?

What’s more important than what Dr. Lubchenco said is what she didn’t say.  Specifically, one particular word, the absence of which leaves me worried and somewhat dismayed.

That word is “sponsor.”

Lubchenco’s statement, while full of authority and righteous indignation, undercuts itself by failing to take up Monaco’s proposal whole-heartedly and champion it at the upcoming CITES meeting in March.  Here’s what I mean:

Sponsoring the proposal would have meant that the United States would have submitted Monaco’s resolution to the CITES parties itself.

Strongly supporting the proposal means that the United States is behind the idea in theory, but won’t stand alone to bring it to the table for due consideration and a vote.

The United States’ government has cast its weight behind a plan that would theoretically repair ICCAT rather than seek endangered species status for the bluefin.  And yes, there is some merit to this.  If ICCAT had the capacity to set quotas based on ecologically sustainable yield (ESY) as well as the teeth to enforce them in the face of pirates and greedy European bureaucrats – then it just might work.  In fact, by demonstrating its capacity to rebuild the tuna stock in the face of unrelenting market pressure, it could even prove a model for other fishery management tools.  But based on ICCAT’s shameful history, not to mention the infuriating myopia and relentless rapacity demonstrated by some of the countries participating in ICCAT, I am forced to remain skeptical.

While Lubchenco’s statement rings loudly, its effectiveness is yet to be determined.  The gap between sponsorship and strong support is wide indeed – potentially wide enough to swallow up all that’s left of the once-mighty bluefin tuna.

Being that I’m in the middle of the Pacific on an Oceans campaign, I thought it would be appropriate if I celebrated Blog Action Day ’09 with a post about the effects global warming is having on the world’s oceans.

I wrote yesterday about the obligation of the developed world to help developing nations deal with the impacts of climate change on the oceans, but I didn’t really specify what those impacts might be. Here are a few of the major impacts we can expect if global warming is not put in check:

• Coral bleaching
The world’s coral reefs are some of the most amazing and diverse ecosystems on the planet, but they’re in grave danger from global warming. Corals contain microscopic algae that provide the coral with food and give them their vibrant colors. Rising ocean temperatures cause corals to expel these algae, thus turning them white or "bleaching" them. Worse, the corals die if the algae don’t return.

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, experienced its worst ever case of coral bleaching in 2002, when over 60 percent of the reef was affected. Unless projected levels of climate change are slowed, much of the reef will be dead in decades. Worse, hundreds of species relying on the reef will also die out along with their living home.

Corals the world over are facing the threat of bleaching, from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean to the Galapagos Islands and the Philipines.

•Global melting
As global temperatures rise, the world’s ice melts. It’s as simple as that. And we’re already witnessing this happening. Our recent Arctic Impacts expedition was all about documenting the meltdown of Greenland’s glaciers and trying to understand the mechanisms behind it.



The melting of the world’s sea ice and glaciers will have a number of implications, perhaps the most discussed being that as Arctic sea ice melts there will be less habitat for polar bears, further imperiling this already endangered species. But global melting will also contribute to sea level rise and change the salinity of the oceans, hurting fish stocks and disrupting ocean circulation patterns.

Most worrisome is the fact that as the ice melts, more land and ocean water is exposed. The white ice reflects the sun’s light, but the darker water and land absorbs it, thereby potentially creating a negative feedback loop in which the melting of the world’s ice and the heating of our planet is accelerated. Already the Arctic is melting much faster than anyone predicted.

•Sea level rise
Melting sea ice does not contribute to sea level rise because that ice is already floating, but melting glaciers most certainly will cause the world’s seas to rise. A very sobering report was released earlier this month by the United Nations Environmental Program that forecasted a 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit rise in global temperatures by the end of the century. This would mean as much as a six-foot rise in sea levels.

Even a sea level rise of just around three feet, meanwhile, is projected to displace millions of people who live in low-lying parts of the world. In fact, the president of the Maldives, a Pacific island nation that is only 4.9 feet above sea level on average, recently held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat that the looming climate crisis and sea level rise pose to his country.

You can check out this Google Map to see what various degrees of sea level rise might look like.

•Threats to marine life
Coral and Polar bears aren’t the only species threatened by global warming. Rises in ocean temperatures will impact the entire web of marine life. For example, phytoplankton, which is the main food source of small crustaceans like krill, grow under sea ice. A reduction in sea ice implies a reduction in krill — and krill feeds many whale species, including the great whales.

Whole species of marine animals and fish are directly at risk. A recent study found that warmer waters, for instance, can lead to some species becoming more aggressive and more vulnerable to prey.

Ocean acidification is another problem threatening marine life. As more CO2 is pumped into our atmosphere, more CO2 is absorbed by the oceans, which decreases the pH level of the oceans. Unfortunately, ocean acidification is happening much faster than anyone predicted, making life harder and harder on organisms like molluscs that depend on calcium carbonate shells, which can be weakened or even dissolved by acid.

These are just some of the main impacts I wanted to talk about, but by no means all of them. I barely touched on what a change in ocean currents due to decreased salinity might mean to weather patterns, for instance. And speaking of weather patterns, you’re probably already aware that warmer ocean temperatures are widely considered to make tropical storms bigger and more frequent. There’s even some compelling evidence that climate change is causing the El Niño phenomenon to be more frequent and more persistent.

All of this, I think, makes it abundantly clear that we need to put pressure on President Obama and other world leaders to sign an ambitious climate treaty in Copenhagen this December.

For more than two decades, Daniel Beltrá has been saving the world, one photo at a time. Now, the world is recognizing him for the astonishing work he has produced for Greenpeace and for the work he has produced as the winner of a 2008 World Photography Award special category sponsored by Sony for the Prince's Rainforest Project.

On Friday, Oct. 16, 2009, Beltrá will be named "Person of the Week" on ABC's " World News with Charles Gibson, at 6.30 Eastern Time, and 5.30 Pacific. The scheduled program will showcase his year-long tropical rainforest project, broadcast an interview with Beltrá, and display images from an exhibition at the Mercy Corps Action Center which runs through Nov. 15th at 6 River Terrace, Battery Park City, New York, NY.

The segment will also feature footage of Beltrá at work in Sumatra where he was shocked to find that more than 80 percent of the original forests have been destroyed and replaced by monocultures of palm oil, acacia, and eucalyptus.

I'll be watching the footage of this master environmental photographer at work hoping to pick up any clues to his technique and to try and figure out how he is able to keep looking through the lens and making equally incredible images of the beauty of the natural world and the full horror of its ongoing destruction. I hope you will tune in whether you have appreciated his past work or are just discovering something new.  

Through Beltrá's lens we see the majestic grandeur of polar ice formations and the plight of polar bears leaping between melting ice pods in their disappearing habitat. Through him, we look down into depths of the Amazon forest and see the variety of plant and animal life and we see it disappear in a plume of dark smoke blotting out the wide horizon as it billows from the blackened earth under broken trees. Through his images, Beltrá takes us to the far reaches of the world bearing witness to what is happening to Mother Earth. He wields his camera to pierce the smoke and shatter the mirrors with which governments and corporations attempt to hide the awful truth of their plunder.

Is the Climate Bill morphing into an excuse to promote fossil fuels and new nuclear power plants? 

Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) recent promotion of a pro-nuke/pro-drilling/pro-coal agenda in the name of Climate Protection has been highlighted in a New York Times op-ed co-authored with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC). The piece brands nuke power "our single largest contributor of emissions-free power." It advocates abolishing "cumbersome regulations" so utilities can "secure financing for more plants." And it wants "serious investment" to "find solutions to our nuclear waste problem." 

The Senate Bill as now drafted also includes a "Clean Energy Development Administration" that could deliver virtually unlimited federal cash to build new reactors and fund other mega-polluters. 

Also on the table are vastly expanded permits for off-shore drilling. And Kerry/Graham have talked of making the US "the Saudi Arabia of clean coal" while bringing "new financial incentives for companies that develop carbon capture and sequestration technology." 

If you think pushing nukes, oil wells and coal mines to "prevent global warming" is counter-intuitive, you ain't seen nothin' yet. 

The give-aways are allegedly meant to attract GOP votes. The joint Kerry/Graham op-ed is being billed as a "game changer." 

But even with provisions pushing a hundred new reactors in the US alone, some GOP stalwarts hint they would NEVER vote for a bill that includes cap-and-trade clauses. So is the GOP set to play the same game with Climate legislation as it has with health care: prolong negotiations, gut the substance of reform, demand---and GET---untold corporate give-aways, and then oppose the bill anyway? 

What thin green substance survives could be limited to a few showpiece handouts for renewables and efficiency, with cap-and-trade as the centerpiece. But many environmentalists argue that cap-and-trade could create yet another costly bureaucracy with little real impact on the climate crisis. 

To get real about solving this crisis, Congress should demand---and fund---a definitive national transition to energy efficiency and modernized mass transit. We still waste half the energy we consume. There's no source of usable juice cheaper and quicker to install than increased efficiency. 

Taxes on carbon and other forms of "ancillary" pollution would help if they assess radioactive emissions (from coal as well as nukes), destruction of our oceans, lakes and rivers, removal of mountain tops, creation of nuclear waste, and so on. Merely axing the subsidies to King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes & Gas) and rendering a level playing field for true green energy sources to fairly compete with the old fossil/nukes would take us a long way up the road to Solartopia. A feed-in tariff that rewards renewables for the pollution they avoid would also help. 

Without all that, the Climate Bill's outright negatives could be huge. Atomic reactors can do little or nothing to bring down carbon emissions. Projected construction costs for new nukes have jumped from $2 billion to $13 billion and counting. Body-blows to the all-but-dead Yucca Mountain nuke waste dump have left the industry, after 50 years, with nothing tangible to do with some 50,000 tons of spent lethal radioactive fuel rods. And after a half-century, the industry cannot command private construction financing or private liability insurance to cover a catastrophic melt-down or terror attack. Even if reactors could help with greenhouse gas emissions, it would take a trillion dollars or more to make a noticeable dent, and a decade or more for such reactors to begin to come on line. 

But the reactor lifeline does not flow through licensing or waste. Because it has failed as a commercial technology, the industry must have massive infusions of cash and loan guarantees. The Climate Bill's real damage will be measured by the size and scope of reactor subsidies, if any. 

Kerry's willingness to entertain "clean coal" and new offshore oil drilling as "solutions" for climate chaos staggers the imagination. It seems to signal that King CONG still owns Washington, and that any meaningful Congressional push for green power will demand serious re-direction from the grassroots. 

DC insiders generally doubt that any Climate Bill can pass this year. Afghanistan and health care still dominate the national agenda. 

But Democrats are desperate for SOMETHING to show at December's Copenhagen Climate Conference. The question is: how much will they give fossil/nuke Republicans to get a bill---ANY bill---with the world "Climate" attached? 

The anti-nuclear movement has three times defeated proposed $50 billion loan guarantees for new nuclear plants. The environmental community still understands that solving the climate crisis requires the ultimate phase-out of fossil fuels. “A carbon-free, nuclear-free energy future is within the Senate’s reach," says Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service. "The approach laid out by Kerry and Graham would lead to a climate bill in name only." NIRS is organizing a national call-in this week. A nationwide series of demonstrations for the environment will take place October 24. 

Preserving our ability to survive on this planet demands we phase out fossil fuels and nuclear power, and win a green-powered Earth based solely on renewables and efficiency. Ultimately, we cannot live with less.

--
Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH is at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and senior editor of www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared.

Thursday, dozens of activists gathered outside the Democratic fundraiser in San Francisco. Activists hoped to get a glimpse of President Obama as he approached the fundraiser to speak to his party.

 

 

San Francisco has long been a city that’s given President Obama strong support-- in part, this support hinged on his promise to lead on global warming. Unfortunately, Obama has so far allowed industry lobbyists to drive US climate policy, in spite of the billions of people whose lives are touched by climate change. Like many regions of the world experiencing the early effects of global warming, California has suffered from record wildfires and water shortages.

To make sure he'd get the message that more is required, activists stood on the street corner and used music players to broadcast samples of Obama’s statements committing to leadership in addressing climate change. The audio also included a challenge from activists to live up to his promises to lead the world toward a solution to the crisis.

Activists had a very simple message of the President, “please be the leader you vowed to be.”

President Obama needs to go to Copenhagen and push for a strong world treaty that does what science says will protect future generations. So far, he's let Congress take the lead, but they have fallen dramatically short of what science says is necessary. The world desperately needs the president to be the leader he promised he would be.

Take action

It's finally here, a day when over 7,400 blogs with over 11,000,000 million readers will all be blogging about one thing on one day: climate. It couldn't come at a better moment, it is only 9 day before Greenpeace, 350.org and a host of coaltion partners and grassroots activists are calling for a Global Day of Action for the Climate!

What is today? It's Blog Action Day 2009, "an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web." This year, the organizers of blog action day chose climate as their issue and I couldn't explain why this is such an important move better myself:

Climate change affects us all and it threatens more than the environment. It threatens to cause famine, flooding, war, and millions of refugees.

Given the urgency of the issue of climate change and the upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December, we think the blogosphere has the unique opportunity to mobilize millions of people around expressing support for finding a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.

 Blog Action Day is perfectly timed to mobilize folks all over the world to participate in the October 24th International Day of Climate Action, when thousands of people just like you will Gather in more than 150 countries worldwide with the same message to world leaders: stop playing politics and save the planet.

And while we write about climate almost everyday, if you're a blogger, here are two things you can do to pitch in on Blog Action Day:

1. Write about the one of more than 2,400 events around the world happening closest to you.

2. Call your readers to action by posting this video:

Then, from the internet and in the streets, we can take this planet back!

When we caught the Japanese ship Koyu Maru 3 illegally fishing in Cook Islands waters, I made the point that their actions were not just illegal but immoral. I thought I'd write a little bit more on that, as well as the moral obligations of the developed world to deal with issues like overfishing and climate change — issues that developed nations are overwhelmingly responsible for creating.


September 02, 2009 - Activists from the Esperanza display banners alongside a Taiwanese fishing vessel that was illegally transferring fish to another vessel in the Western Pacific Ocean. The transfer of fish at sea is one of the methods used around the world to cover up illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU or pirate) fishing activities. © Greenpeace/Paul Hilton

Last week, The Commonwealth released a report written by 26 scientists and academics that underscores the drastic need for government action on overfishing and climate change in order to stave off a collapse of global fisheries. The report warns that the oceans could soon become as barren as deserts and goes on to say:

The study reveals that those least responsible for the state of the oceans are most likely to suffer the consequences of poor management and climate change. Small island states in particular are vulnerable to illegal and unfair fishing by foreign fleets and to migration of fish away from warming seas.

The Esperanza has been in the Pacific region since May to support Pacific Island countries on issues ranging from climate change to fisheries collapse and marine conservation (read more here and here).

But of course Greenpeace’s history in the Pacific Ocean goes back much further than that — all the way back to the early 1970s when we were protesting the French nuclear blasts at Moruroa. The fallout from these blasts also disproportionately affected those Pacific islanders living downwind from the blast sites — another instance of those not responsible for a problem suffering the most. While there was nothing technically illegal about these blasts, the total disregard for human health and welfare only highlights how egregiously immoral they were.

The industrialized commercial fishing vessels that are literally stealing fish from Pacific island nations' waters is just another example of the developed world doing as they please and disregarding the well-being of the people affected by their actions. That's why it’s very encouraging that eight Pacific island nations have come together and are standing up for their rights against the invading international commercial fishing fleets.

Pacific island states are not the only developing nations that are banding together to force the developed world to live up to their moral obligations: “Africa will demand billions of dollars in compensation from rich polluting nations at a UN climate summit for the harm caused by global warming on the continent, African officials said Sunday.”

Lest we doubt that there is any need for this stand by African nations, even the World Bank, which has not historically been known as a good friend to the developing world (Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine documents ample evidence of this assertion), is warning of the threats those nations are facing as the climate crisis looms: “The World Bank estimates that the developing world will suffer about 80 percent of the damage of climate change despite accounting for only around one third of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”

So the real question we must be asking ourselves is: Will the developed world stand up and do the right thing in regard to these moral obligations?

Greenpeace released the “America’s Share of the Climate Crisis: A State-By-State Carbon Footprint” report back in May to highlight the United States’ responsibility for leading the world's efforts to stop global warming given our outsized role in creating the problem.

Sign our petition to President Obama letting him know that Americans expect world leaders to agree to a climate deal that is ambitious, fair and binding this December in Copenhagen.

René Ngongo has been working closely with Greenpeace to save the Congo Basin Forests (the second largest tropical forest after the Amazon) since 2004. And, he is now being recognized for his good work.

René began his work for the Amazon first in his capacity as head of OCEAN and now as Political Advisor for Greenpeace Africa when he led the opening of our first office in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Right Livelihood Award is also known as the alternative Nobel Prize. It honors those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today. Several winners are announced every year and receive the prize in early December. We are beyond happy that René is one of them.

Congratulations René!!

 

Global warming is the challenge of our generation. And, while the issue may be daunting, it is inspiring to know that people everywhere are taking action to save the climate.

Our future depends on an ambitious global climate deal. Are you up for the challenge?

Live in the Washington DC area? Want to do something fun and show your green?  Greenpeace will be at this year’s Green Festival at the Convention Center in Washington DC Saturday from 10am-7pm and Sunday 11am-6pm.  Come over and say hello to our friendly volunteers who will be spreading the word about the UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen and what folks can do to get our leaders to engage in a fair, ambitious, and binding international treaty to curb global green house gas emissions and prevent the worst of climate change impacts. There will be information about many Greenpeace campaigns, so come to booth 122 with questions, concerns, or even a high five. If you can’t make the festival this weekend, you can sign on to our petition now, or find out about the International Day of Climate Action event in your area.

At Green Festival you can sample organic foods, listen to new music, learn about green innovations, see an environmental movie, listen to speakers like Ed Begley, Jr., Amy Goodman, and just announced, Ralph Nader.  Find out more at the Green Festival website.   Hope to seeyou there!

 

 

 

 

I'm always amazed at all the beautiful pictures Greenpeace captures. I wanted to share a slideshow of images from around the globe. Greenpeace is an international organization with offices in more than 30 countries. Take a visual tour with me and discover some amazing actions from around the world.

 

Hope you enjoy the pictures :)

-Michelle 

Just the other day, I was having a discussion with Karli, one of our onboard Oceans campaigners, about the origin of the phrase “caught red-handed.” One website I found said that it came about as a reference to literally being caught with blood on your hands after the commission of a murder or a poaching session.
 
Whether or not that’s the true origin of the phrase, it makes an apt introduction to what we witnessed yesterday. We literally caught the Japanese ship Koyu Maru 3 red-handed, hauling in its long-line and catching tuna within Cook Islands waters, where the ship does not have a license to fish.


The Koyu Maru 3 in Cook Islands waters. Image © Paul Hilton/Greenpace

We provided the Cook Islands Ministry of Marine Resources and the Fisheries Agency of Japan with photographic evidence of the illegal activity, which you can see here, and are now calling for the arrest of the ship’s captain.


The crew of the Koyu Maru 3 hauling in their long-line. Image © Paul Hilton/Greenpace


The crew of the Koyu Maru hauling a tuna onto their ship. Image © Paul Hilton/Greenpace

Greenpeace is also demanding that the Japanese government order Koyu Maru 3, which is owned by Tokyo-based World Tuna Co Ltd., to stop its illegal fishing activities and sail to the nearest port for further investigation.

This is more than an issue of what’s legal and illegal. The Koyu Maru 3 and other pirate fishing vessels are stealing fish from these waters and using it for their own profit, depriving the people of the Cook Islands of a vital source of income. Josh, another Oceans campaigner onboard who is from the region, put it well when he said, “These pirates of the Pacific must be stopped from plundering ocean life and robbing local communities.”

With that in mind, we decided that documenting the plundering of their seas and providing that evidence to Cook Islands officials, and thereby helping empower them to police their own waters, would be more effective than taking action against the vessel ourselves.

Globally, more than $9 billion dollars is lost each year to pirate fishing fleets, who reap their profits in European, American and Asian markets while threatening Pacific fish stocks and depriving coastal communities of much-needed income. A recent report estimated that pirate fishing in the Pacific accounts for an average of 36% of the fish caught there, much higher than the global average of 19%.

Long-liners like the Koyu Maru 3 mainly target bigeye, yellowfin and albacore tuna, as these species fetch top dollar in sashimi markets in Japan and other countries where this delicacy has become popular. Scientists have warned, however, that some Pacific tuna stocks, particularly bigeye and yellowfin tuna, are being fished beyond their limits. Pirate fishing further threatens the stocks and undermines conservation and management attempts in the region. That’s why it’s important that local Pacific islands governments have the resources they need to protect their waters.

As I sat on the bridge one day doing my regular watch duty, I pulled out my trusty digital camcorder and shot this quick pan across the bridge windows. This is pretty much what I spend two hours a day doing — staring out at the open sea, looking for other vessels, FADs, long-line beacons, whales, dolphins, or anything else there might be to see.
Sadly, I have never seen anything of much interest on any of my watches (aside from the occasional flying fish or seabird, that is). But one morning I did see some sperm whales spouting way in the distance — our wake-up call went something like this: "Good morning! It's 7:30, and there are whales off the bow!"

I didn't get to go out there and swim with the whales, but our photographer did:




Images © Paul Hilton/Greenpeace

This exclusive interview was conducted by Greenpeace correspondant Ashley Mirabile, and is cross-posted from the Greenpeace community blog.

The popular grocery store, Trader Joe's, known for stocking its shelves full of affordable products with natural and organic ingredients, has dodged many attempts by Greenpeace USA to discuss its less than satisfactory seafood buying policy. Despite the company's commendable evasive techniques, they have failed to silence deranged spokesman/ deviant pirate, Traitor Joe, who leaked some truly embarrassing seafood secrets in an exclusive interview with an official Greenpeace volunteer this week.

Traitor Joe, who has lately been rumored to frequent The Reef in order to feed his growing addiction to karaoke and the age-old pirate tradition of gluttonous drinking, was discovered mid-musical number on stage in a state of discombobulation Monday evening. The intoxicated pirate, whose already encumbered sight due to the necessity of an eye patch appeared to be blurred, spilled a flask of rum down a ragged t-shirt bearing the Trader Joe's insignia. His speech was slurred and his voice was hoarse from the repetition of his favored melodic verse:

 

"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We're shady, deceitful, so we can make loot,
Eat up me 'earties, yo ho.
We peddle red-list fish, and don't give a hoot,
Eat up me 'earties, yo ho."

When he stepped down from the stage and sat back down at his regular stool at the bar, Traitor Joe appeared to be loose-lipped with the unconcerned bartender about certain red-list fish species that have made it to the frozen aisles in various Trader Joe's locations.

There are 22 species included in the Greenpeace Seafood Red List and according to Greenpeace, "they have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries or unsustainable aquaculture operations."

Greenpeace surveys have found that Trader Joe's sells 15 of these red-list seafoods including orange roughy, Alaska pollock, and Greenland halibut.

Joe, in his state of inebriation, fortunately failed to recognize his interested bar companion to be a member of Greenpeace and so did not bother to relent in his speech when approached by aforementioned environmental activist.

"Arghhh, Matey. My favorite snack is Trader Joe's lightly breaded fish sticks," Joe said. "They've got a secret ingredient in them that makes me think them a tasty treat. It's Alaskan pollock!" 

For the last five years, survival of juvenile pollock has been recorded as below average in the Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Chain and Bogoslof area due to overfishing. Pollock fisheries may also be responsible for the rapid population decline of endangered Steller sea lions and northern fur seals.

"But you'd never know that the ingredients in me favorite Trader Joe's products were unsustainable 'cause of our ambiguous packaging," Joe said.

Trader Joe typically labels its products to help consumers purchase vegan, gluten-free or other diet-specific foods, but the labels on their seafood products inadequately advise customers who would otherwise commit to sustainable shopping.

 

Joe, smacking his lips in delicious delight, continued to list various other seemingly innocent Trader Joe products such as the "Wild Sashimi Grade Ahi" which contains longline-caught yellowfin tuna, and "Trader Joe's Seasoned Turbot" which is actually the bycatch-heavy Greenland halibut. Both of these are red-list species.

"I just wish all 'em darn activists would stop sending those bloody Singing Billie the Chilean sea bass telegrams," Joe said. "They be gettin' on me last nerve!"

Traitor Joe then abandoned the conversation and approached the stage once again to commence in singing his own rendition of "Row Row Row Your Boat."

The interview, however brief, gave insight into Trader Joe's unsustainable seafood buying policy and should encourage Trader Joe customers to continue to put pressure on the popular grocery store.

The debate over toilet paper softness is not going anywhere soon, not in the blogs, not in the media, and certainly not in my parents' house.

I will admit I was a loyal Angel Soft user for years, from high school when I would ask Mom to "buy the TP with the baby on the front" (how is that for brand imaging?) to college when I would throw it in my own cart at the grocery store.  I do not know what it was about that toilet paper that made me love it so, but I was one sure hooked consumer.

In college there was no Kleercut campaign on my campus.  We all happily used our Kleenex, 3-ply toilet paper, and Bounty paper towels like there was an endless supply of one roll after another.  All that changed though when I learned I was wiping up party spills with virgin wood fiber.  With the aid of the Tissue Guide I switched brands.  Yes, when my roommate and I ran out of TP one day this past spring I stopped in the paper products aisle and stared, stared at the baby and back again at the recycled toilet paper.  I had never paused before, had never considered buying another brand, but I did it.  I slid the package of recycled toilet paper under my cart and went about my grocery shopping.

When my roommate did not say anything about the new toilet paper in the bathroom I figured she had not noticed.  Not like I was trying to hide the package and trick her into thinking it was the cushy 3-ply we had been using, but a whole week went by without comment.  What was going on here?  Was the girl that had bought only Charmin really using recycled tp without a fuss?  Turns out, she was.  We went through roll after roll and when it came time to buy tp again I bought recycled.  I finally had to ask, "How do you feel about the recycled toilet paper we have been using?"  Her response, "Umm.. I don't know if I knew it was recycled."  She had even kept a roll bedside during a particularly nasty cold, how is that for an argument against all those tissues with lotion for red, scratchy noses!

Mom, on the other hand, is still a change in progress.  Before my younger sister left for college Mom bought a pack of recycled tp for the house but she promptly replaced it with that baby on the front tp.  Does she know what that baby stands for?? 

This past weekend, I was home enjoying an afternoon with my parents when a stray paper towel blew across the backyard.  As Dad chased it down, Mom joked, "In 20 years it'll break down!"  I stood up, walked to the paper towel holder, and said, "You know, you could at least use recycled paper towels, I don't think the countertops will complain." 

Take this time to thank Kimberly-Clark for their commitments to protect the Boreal Forest, and please sign those petitions we mailed to you demanding sustainable practices from Proctor&Gamble!  Shop with the tissue guide and introduce those in your life to recycled paper products.  I promise you, if my twenty-something year old friends can make the switch you can too!  In the meantime I will keep working on Mom to get those paper towels changed out..

Before we left Vanuatu for the second leg of the current tour, our onboard videographer did a quick dive test to check his underwater camera. He swam under the Esperanza and filmed the whole thing. I thought the footage was pretty amazing and definitely worth sharing with you all. But to make it even more interesting, I asked the Esperanza's chief engineer, Freddy, to narrate what we were seeing. Check out the video and a note from Freddy, who has been working on Greenpeace ships for quite a while — in fact, he was even there for the very beginning of the Defending Our Pacific tour way back in 2004.

My name is Freddy, I am from Argentina and am the current chief engineer on board the Esperanza. Since 1994 I have worked as an engineer on tankers and fishing vessels in my country. In 2002 I had the opportunity to start working as electrician on board the Arctic Sunrise, and I gladly took the opportunity. I have continued working as electrician and engineer on board all three Greenpeace ships since then.

Since people think I'm not busy enough with my 12 hours of work every day (at least), they sometimes ask me to tattoo them. I had to stop, though, because high stress levels were leading me to confuse fairies with pin-up girls... dangerous if the tattooed subject is a big hairy sailor asking for a pin-up girl.

In 2004 I had the opportunity to be part of the crew helping launch the Defending Our Oceans campaign to establish marine reserves on board the Rainbow Warrior. It was there that I found out what a FAD is and the destructiveness of the purse seiner method of fishing. Last year I was here on the Espy and again witnessed the same thing, with the only difference that the quantity of fish on the nets was getting lower and lower.

I hope this time we are able to get the full reserves and then start heavily with the enforcement. I feel really proud of having done my bit these past few years.

Bowing to pressure from the pro-nuclear lobby, Senators Boxer and Kerry have included nuclear power into their bill to address climate change. In their proposed legislation, the Senators claim that "nuclear energy is the largest provider of clean, low-carbon, electricity...." Funny we've heard that before. In fact, the bill's nuclear section reads like it was lifted off the Nuclear Energy Institute's (NEI) website, despite its lack of veracity.

Over a decade ago, environmentalists challenged the nuclear industry's propaganda that they were clean and green. As a result, the Better Business Bureau's ( BBB ) National Advertising Division found that the Nuclear Energy Institute's ads falsely claimed that nuclear reactors make power without polluting the air and water or damaging the environment. The BBB said that, "The nuclear industry should stop calling itself 'environmentally clean' and should stop saying it makes power 'without polluting the environment.'" The director of the division said such claims were "unsupportable." The bureau agreed with environmentalists that nuclear fuel is made using electricity from coal plants and that nuclear waste poses a threat to the public health and safety.

The nuclear industry's brazen disregard for the BBB prompted the environmental groups to bring NEI before the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC found that

 

[B]ecause the discharge of hot water from cooling systems is known to harm the environment, and given the unresolved issues surrounding disposal of radioactive waste, we think that NEI has failed to substantiate its general environmental benefit claim.

 

Unfortunately those same false claims have now found their way into the legislation offered by Senator's Boxer and Kerry.

Even Andrew Kadak, "Professor of the Practice" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has acknowledged that nuclear power contributes CO2 to the environment. In a speech before the American Physical Society entitled "A Renaissance for Nuclear Energy?" Kadak bemoaned the fact that the international community had already rejected nuclear power as a solution to climate change. However, Kadak recognized that:

 

For many years, nuclear energy, while arguably a -CO2 emitting energy source, has been judged to be unacceptable for reasons of safety, unstable regulatory climate, a lack of a waste disposal solution and, more recently, economics.

 

If the Senators actually want to abate climate change rather than merely enriching nuclear corporations, we need solutions that are fast, safe and affordable, and that rules out nuclear power. The Congressional Budget Office has already determined that the risk of default on the nuclear loan guarantees congress will supply to the nuclear industry is well above 50%. Is it really the Senator's intent to support the next taxpayer bailout?

Mid American, a subsidiary of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, has already conducted their economic due diligence on a new nuclear plant and determined that it does not make economic sense to build. If the "world's greatest investor" will not waste his resources on new nuclear power, perhaps the Senate should listen.

But Warren Buffet's corporation isn't the only one who thinks nuclear power is an economic non-starter. In April, Jon Wellinghoff, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, stated that new nuclear and coal plants are not needed. Renewable energy like wind & solar and improvements in energy efficiency will provide enough energy to meet our future energy demands. Wellinghoff concluded that nuclear and coal plants are too expensive.

In June, Moody's Investor Services released their analysis of new nuclear generation and determined that nuclear power was a "bet the farm" risk. Why should the American taxpayer be expected to support such an investment?

The history of nuclear power plant cost overruns that led Forbes magazine to call nuclear power the "largest managerial disaster in business history" is repeating itself with the current generation of nuclear reactors. Last month, the French nuclear giant, Areva announced that they had lost 550 million euros, a 79% drop in their profits, due to construction delays with their reactor in Finland. According to Areva, the 3-billion euro nuclear plant has now accumulated 2.3 billion euros in estimated losses. Does the Senate really want to repeat this fiscal fiasco in the U.S.?

Nuclear power is a deadly and dangerous distraction from real solutions to climate change and our energy needs. Nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomical & unnecessary. Rather than greenwashing nuclear power, Senators Boxer and Kerry should cut the nuclear title from their bill and work to oppose any attempts to support this failed experiment.

Jim Riccio, Nuclear Policy Analyst  

I may be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now, but I’m very excited to take a break from campaigning for marine reserves to bring you some HUGE news about our campaign to stop deforestation in the Amazon.

Sao Paulo, Brazil – In a major step forward for climate protection, today four of the biggest players in the global cattle industry — Marfrig, Bertin, JBS-Friboi and Minerva — joined forces to ban the purchase of cattle from newly deforested areas of the Brazilian Amazon from their supply chains, backing Greenpeace’s call for zero deforestation in the rainforest.

The move follows the release of the Greenpeace report ‘Slaughtering the Amazon’ in June, which exposed the link between forest destruction and the expansion of cattle ranching in the Amazon. This prompted calls for action from key international companies, including Adidas, Nike and Timberland, which committed to cancel contracts unless their products were guaranteed to be free from Amazon destruction, encouraging today’s move.

The announcement was made at a high-level event in Sao Paulo organized by Greenpeace, where each of the companies declared the adoption of environmental and social standards to ensure their products are free from cattle raised in newly deforested areas of the rainforest.

Measures include the monitoring of their supply chains and clear targets for the registration of farms that both directly and indirectly supply cattle as well as measures to end the purchase of cattle from indigenous and protected areas and from farms using slave labor. “This is an important step in the fight to stop the destruction of one of the world’s most critical rainforests and vital to helping tackle climate change,” said Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon campaign director.

The Brazilian cattle sector, which occupies 80 percent of all deforested areas of the Amazon, is the country’s leading carbon polluter.

As the press release quoted above notes, this is not just a victory for the Amazon, but a victory for the climate as well. Deforestation is responsible for more global carbon emissions than all the planes, trains, and automobiles in the world combined.

I’m personally very glad to see that these companies have agreed to help safeguard the rights of indigenous communities as part of the deal. For more info, read the full list of minimum criteria these companies have committed to, and the full press release.

Teams from professional disaster relief agencies are now firmly in place in Samoa. With the agreement of local authorities, the Esperanza has left the area and returned to our campaign in the Pacific Ocean.

We were close by when the tsunami hit and were able to help immediately. For three days we transported and donated supplies of fuel, water, medicine and food, and carried out aerial surveys with our helicopter.

Before departing Samoa we offered our assistance to the nearby island nation of Tonga, but it was not needed.

We are thankful we were on hand to support the people of Samoa and our thoughts remain with them, as well as with American Samoa and Tonga, as they begin to rebuild their communities.

The Esperanza had previously been in Samoa just this past July. This was certainly not the way the crew had imagined going back, but they are very happy to have been of service to the many brave Samoans they met back then.

We have now returned to the high seas, where we’re campaigning to create a global network of marine reserves covering 40% of the world's oceans (read the Defending Our Pacific blog for more). Such a network would give protection to vulnerable areas like the high seas pockets between Pacific islands’ national waters, which are currently being overfished by foreign fleets and threatening the health of the tuna stocks and therefore the livelihoods of local communities.

Like the rest of the world, we were shocked and saddened when we heard the news about the tsunami that had hit the Samoan islands. And because of our proximity to the affected areas, we were in the unique position of being able to offer aid very quickly.
 
The Esperanza was sailing to support Pacific countries in oceans conservation when the earthquake that caused the tsunami hit. We immediately offered assistance and equipment to the people of Samoa, and our offer was accepted by the Samoan authorities. We have medics, engineers, technicians, and logisticians on board the ship as part of the 34-strong crew. We will provide whatever help we can, under the direction of the Samoan disaster relief teams.
 
We have put our campaign on hold and are currently in Samoa doing whatever we can to help. I am sure you will all understand that we will be too busy to post any further blogs for now.

 

This past Tuesday the Supporter Care team and a handful of Frontline staffers were fortunate enough to represent Greenpeace at the U2 concert in Washington, DC.  Greenpeace's history with U2 goes aways back, from U2 partaking in an anti-nuclear action with our UK counterparts in the early 90's to a stop aboard the Rainbow Warrior II.  If you look inside an older U2 cd, you will see a tear-out to join Greenpeace.  Believe it or not, some still trickle in with the mail.

That afternoon the thirteen of us piled into the van headed for FedEx stadium to meet with volunteers from Amnesty International, One (Bono's own), and Free Burma.  After a quick run down of our do's and don'ts: no stickering concert goers and meet back at 8:30 or else, we set off to canvass the grounds.  Our goal:  gather 900 signatures to show our government leaders they have grassroots support for strong, ambitious, science-based climate legislation in Copenhagen.  This early in the afternoon though the only people there were back in the gravel lot where the van was or rushing to claim their space in the general admission line. 

Not wanting to trek right back over the stream and through the woods, quite literally, I positioned myself near the general admission line ready to catch someone on their way to pick up their holy wristbands.  The first young man I stopped enthusiastically signed the petition but asked no questions, instead I found myself asking him questions about U2.  He said, “This is my 29^th U2 show, I’ve been following them around the states.”  Yes, you read that correctly, twenty-nineth U2 show.  I can not even wrap my mind around seeing a show twenty-nine times!  I quickly realized while these people would spare a second to sign the petition, they could not physically spare another second to talk about climate legislation.  I wondered if such die-hard Greenpeace fans existed somewhere out there in the parking lots..

Josef and I figured we would try our luck back in the gray lot where we had parked the van.  We tried our luck with a few tailgaters, got a few signatures, before spotting a couple enjoying some good eats and the afternoon sun by a bright yellow VW bug.  As we approached with clipboards outstretched and our respective Greenpeace shirts on, I opened our pitch, “Hi!  We’re with Greenpeace..” but was quickly cut off, “Oh!  Greenpeace! How awesome!”  Had we met our equivalent of the die-hard U2 fan?  Yes!  Yes, we had!  We talked about climate legislation, told them about the Greenpeace Organizing Term their freshman college daughter may be interested in, who wouldn’t be?!  An action-packed semester of organizing, non-violence training, and traveling to see first-hand areas of devastation!   I passed along my contact information for their daughter and we wished them a good time at the concert.  Riding high from meeting this couple from the DC suburbs, Josef and I headed back to the stadium ready for the show itself.

By the time 8:30 rolled around, we were being briefed on our part during the show.  We, all forty or so of us, were going to walk out on stage with U2 during “Walk On", the tribute song to pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.  Excitedly we were led down to the inner circle, the best seats in the house, and sang along through “It’s a Beautiful Day”, and the other songs that have brought U2 international acclaim the past two decades.  Finally, it was our time.  Mixed inbetween volunteers from One and the other organizations we were handed our masks of Aung San Suu Kyi, currently under house arrest in Burma.  Bono began “Walk On” and with that we filed out one by one to the front of the raised platform.  There we stood in our respective t-shirts holding our masks in unity looking out over a crowd of nearly 90,000.  I honestly do not remember hearing Bono sing, I simply remember looking down from the bottom of the mask and eyeing a sea of people and feeling an incredible, unexplainable calm.  We were sharing the stage with U2 and looking out over the same crowd.  I thought, “How many of these people did we talk to today?  Does anyone out there think, ‘Hey! I talked to that Greenpeacer earlier!’” 

Despite our exhaustion the following day, we all retold our stories from the U2 show, from meeting truly cool people and talking about Greenpeace to canvassing for food in the parking lots before the gates opened, to being a part of “Walk On” and showing our solidarity.  It was a day none of us will forget and that was only made possible by Bono’s generosity and belief in Greenpeace’s campaigns.

I have attached a video of “Walk On” from the DC show, but there are other videos available on YouTube capturing the quiet..

Today the Obama Administration, represented by DHS Undersecretary Rand Beers and EPA Assistant Administrator for Water, Peter Silva testified in support of assessments of safer more secure chemicals for all 6,000 regulated chemical facilities, and conditional implementation of safer more secure chemicals at the highest tiered facilities (approximately 800). Full Copies of their testimony (and all witnesses from the second panel) can be found here:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1755:energy-and-commerce-subcommittee-hearing-on-hr-3258-the-drinking-water-system-security-act-of-2009-and-hr-2868-the-chemical-facility-anti-terrorism-act-of-2009&catid=130:subcommittee-on-energy-and-the-environment&Itemid=71

Excerpts of Beers and Silva identical statements on safer more secure technologies included:

"*The Administration supports consistency of IST approaches for facilities regardless of sector.

"* The Administration believes that all high-risk chemical facilities, Tiers 1-4, should assess IST methods and report the assessment in the facilities’ site security plans. Further, the appropriate regulatory entity should have the authority to require facilities posing the highest degree of risk (Tiers 1 and 2) to implement IST method(s) if such methods enhance overall security, are feasible, and, in the case of water sector facilities, consider public health and environmental requirements.

“* For Tier 3 and 4 facilities, the appropriate regulatory entity should review the IST assessment contained in the site security plan. The entity should be authorized to provide recommendations on implementing IST, but it would not require facilities to implement the IST methods."

The hearing also made clear that the neither bill (H.R. 2868 & H.R. 3258) creates a command and control structure.  Instead it establishes conditions and incentives:
1) safer chemical processes must be feasible
2) safer chemical processes must not impose onerous costs on a facility
3) safer chemical processes must not shift risks to any other facility
4) safer chemical processes must reduce risks
5) safer chemical processes are proposed by the facility itself
6) only the highest risk facilities are required to implement safer
chemical processes
7) there is funding in both bills to assist with implementation costs

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Every morning the first mate comes around at 7:30 and wakes us up. That gives us a half hour to grab some quick breakfast before we do our ship cleaning duties at 8:00. I'm not much of a breakfast person anyway, though, so many mornings I just go out to this one spot towards the bow of the ship and drink some tea. Just thought I'd share this short video I shot to give you an idea of what it's like out here.

So far on this tour we’ve done a lot of work to highlight the destructiveness of fish aggregating devices (or FADs) – and we’ve even confiscated a few as well, as there was a 2-month ban on their use in the high seas that evidently did not stop many commercial fishing vessels from using them. There's a pile of five of these things on our deck. One member of the crew described them to me as looking like giant, rusty crayons, but they're nothing nearly as benign as that.

The use of FADs results in the bycatch of many juvenile tuna and other species like sharks, turtles, and reef fish, contributing to the depletion of fish stocks and threatening vulnerable marine life.

To really show the diversity of marine life being threatened by FADs, our divers captured some footage and we’ve put together this short video:

In an absolutely heartbreaking turn of events, the European Union on September 22 refused to support Monaco’s proposal to award the northern bluefin tuna the protections of CITES Appendix I. 

I am gutted.

Even though a majority of countries within the EU – specifically those of Northern Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Isles – voted to co-sponsor, an uncompromising and hostile block of Mediterranean countries were able to defeat the process.   Because of convoluted EU law, these southern countries were able to demonstrate enough dissent within the Union that the mighty juggernaut of European bureaucracy creaked to a halt.

While 21 European nations seemed ready to support the ban, the unceasing whine generated by six short-sighted members – Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Greece, and Cyprus – was able to derail the process.  Without EU backing for Monaco’s proposal, it becomes increasingly unlikely that the bluefin tuna will find succor.  Rather, it will probably fall back under the domain of ICCAT – the very organization through whose lack of potency this magnificent fish has found itself in such dire straits.

This is not progress.

Want to point the finger at someone in particular?  No problem.  This nauseating story boasts a villain.

Remember all that nice stuff I said about Sarkozy a couple months ago?  I take it all back.  France’s first citizen has proven himself the worst type of turncoat; a traitor to his people and his planet.  France was the first country to step forward and support Prince Grimaldi’s proposal, but in recent weeks, Sarkozy has reversed his position and allied with the Mediterranean states.  If France had not switched camps, the proposal would have most likely been endorsed by the EU.  From a certain perspective, the actions of one individual may have doomed the world’s largest bony fish to an ignominious demise.

Want to tell Sarkozy what you think of his actions?  Sign Greenpeace’s petition. It's in French; Greenpeace UK has kindly provided an English translation.

Fortunately, all is not lost.  We can still save this animal – but yes, it is going to be more difficult that in otherwise would have been.

First of all, there is a chance that Europe will reverse its position.  Lobbying efforts are underway in France and other key countries, and if the balance of power can be swung away from the Mediterranean, the European Commission may vote in favor of the proposal after all.  Unfortunately, we most likely won’t know how this will fall out until early next year.  So, in the interim, Monaco’s proposal needs a new champion.

 

 

There is a meeting in Brazil in November that will revisit this issue.  Before it kicks off, we need to convince the government of a major world power to take a stand on this – and frankly, the best candidate is the United States.  If we can get Washington to step up, we can still save the bluefin tuna from extinction.

We’re gaining momentum here in the States.  The Coastal Conservation Association, a major recreational fishing association, has taken up the banner and is pushing to have Northern bluefin listed under CITES Appendix I.  President Obama’s Ocean Taskforce is traveling about the country holding open hearings on ocean issues, and the administration seems receptive to the idea of pushing this issue and creating marine reserves in the Gulf of Mexico to protect the bluefin spawning grounds.  And numerous environmental groups and activists soldier on, waving the flag and shouting to the rooftops.

Please, spread the word and get involved.  Tell your friends and co-workers about this critical issue.   Support Greenpeace’s actions in France and help us get Paris back on track.  Avoid sushi restaurants like Nobu that serve endangered bluefin tuna.   Most importantly – don’t give up on this amazing animal just yet.  We can still turn things around.