Last week, at long last, the legal review of timber concessions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was finally completed. Happily, concession titles (basically, legal agreements that allow timber companies to log in the Congo) for close to 7.5 million acres will be canceled!!! This is great news. The Environment Minister also confirmed support for maintaining the current moratorium on the allocation of new titles.

Greenpeace has been working hard over the past few years to influence the outcome of this process. We have released several reports highlighting the illegal actions of many of the logging companies (such as our report "Conning the Congo"). We have created legal assessments on what the real outcomes of the review should be ("Logging Sector Briefing for the DRC"). All of our active NROs have lobbied their governments as well as the Congolese to do the right thing.

Seeing a positive outcome of this review has been a key objective of the campaign for the past few years, and we have finally seen that come true. It was a week to celebrate!

We also managed to get a few good articles with our reaction. The UK office, along with GP Africa, did a fantastic job getting great quotes in BBC and The Independent online.

Now we need to keep up the pressure and see these titles canceled. And continue to show the Congolese government that their forests are worth more standing than cut down.

Thank you to everyone who has been working for years to make this a reality!

Cheers,

Michelle Medeiros
Africa campaign coordinator
Greenpeace International

This Houston Chronicle article provides a great snapshot of the state of our MusicWood campaign (and it’s in my hometown paper, no less! Yeah H-town!):

Musicians are always singing about social change. Now their guitars are getting into the act.

Martin Guitar Co. has just unveiled one of the greenest guitars to date: the D Mahogany 09, an acoustic guitar made entirely from wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Finding certified mahogany for the neck and certified spruce for the top and internal braces was the big challenge. Other sustainable woods were available, but they would have changed the tone of the guitar.

Very risky, in guitar circles.

“Nontraditional woods have what I suppose is a nontraditional sound,” said Dick Boak, spokesman for the 166-year-old Pennsylvania company. “And as green as the music community is, they’re very conservative when it comes to their instruments.”

Or, as Houston musician Lise Liddell put it: “Some people think their animals are people. We think our instruments are.”

Good guitars are typically made from old-growth spruce, rosewood, ebony and mahogany. It takes time for a new guitar to find its sound.

[…]

The best-case scenario is a guitar made from old-growth wood that’s had decades to mellow with age. Like wine.

“The great thing about a Martin guitar from, say, 1941, is that it’s going to sound better today than when it was made,” Spencer said. “I guess that’s the beauty of tonewoods. They just sound sweeter as they get older.”

But it’s hard to find tonewoods in sustainable species.

So a few years ago, Greenpeace got together with the heads of Martin, Gibson, Taylor and Fender — four companies synonymous with great guitars — to talk about wood. In particular, the environmental group wanted to discuss Sitka spruce, which is often used to make the soundboard, or top piece of an acoustic guitar. Once these trees reach a certain size — which can take 90 to 250 years — their wood lends great tone and projection to guitars, violins, pianos and other instruments.

But a lot of Sitka spruce grows in Alaskan forests that are rapidly being cleared for construction and other purposes.

Scott Paul, Greenpeace’s forest-campaign director, said the organization asked the guitar-makers to consider the environment.

“We’re aware that you are all buying your spruce from one company in southeast Alaska,” he said, recalling the meeting. “This company is logging at a rate that if things don’t change, they’re going to run out of wood in our lifetime.”

Relatively speaking, these guitar companies use a very small portion of the Sitka spruce logged by Sealaska, the Alaskan company in question. But Greenpeace figured that high-profile guitar guys could have a big impact on the public and on the logging companies. Greenpeace was right, and the Music Wood campaign was born.

“We brought the top guitar executives to southeast Alaska on a tour of the region,” Paul said. “We put these guys in the same room with guys from the logging company. We figured something would happen. The logging company is looking for new ways to stay profitable, and the guitar guys want old-growth wood forever.”

The logging execs really took to the guitar CEOs.

"It seems like everyone in America was in a band in high school,” Paul said. “All these guys are high-end craftsman. People just love them.”

The goal of the Music Wood campaign is to help the music industry use wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Wood certified by the global nonprofit comes from forests that have been audited for good management practices.

Today, Sealaska has taken the first steps toward certification. Gibson is FSC-certified and produces FSC guitars, though they’re mostly electric and don’t use Sitka spruce.

Climate scientists have long reported that Antarctica is one of the few places on the planet where climate change is linked with cooler temperatures. Many global warming skeptics pointed to cooling temperatures in Antarctica to bolster their arguments that global warming is not happening. It’s now looking like these skeptics will no longer have Antarctica in their arsenal of arguments against global warming:

Antarctica study challenges warming skeptics

Challenging warming skeptics who note that parts of Antarctica have gotten colder, researchers on Wednesday reported that overall the continent has gotten warmer since the 1950s, and that even those colder spots would be warmer were it not for the ozone hole.

"Contrarians have sometime grabbed on to this idea that the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling, so how could we be talking about global warming," said study co-author Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. "Now we can say: No, it's not true ... It is not bucking the trend."

And as if to underline the fact that Antarctica is warming, news has come out that the Wilkins ice shelf is on the verge of completely collapsing:

Antarctic ice shelf at risk

The vast Wilkins ice shelf in Antarctica is on the brink of collapse, scientists have warned.

It is held in place by a 25-mile long strip of ice that has shrunk to about 500m wide at its narrowest point and could collapse at any time.

In total, about 15,500 sq miles of ice shelves have been lost, changing the maps of Antarctica in one of the most dramatic signs of climate change.

Glaciologist David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey said it is miraculous the shelf is still there.

The Wilkins once covered 6,178 sq miles but lost a third of its area and is now the size of Jamaica, but once the ice bridge collapses, sea currents are likely to sweep away much of what is left.

[…]

The change is widely blamed on heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.

In total, about 15,500 sq miles of ice shelves have been lost, changing the maps of Antarctica in one of the most dramatic signs of climate change.

Ocean sediments indicate that some shelves had been in place for at least 10,000 years.

The Wilkins ice shelf is part of the Antarctic Peninsula in Western Antarctica, the part of the continent that has long been known to be warming. But it’s still a pretty drastic reminder of the ramifications of unchecked global warming, and how urgent it is that the US pass strong legislation to control global warming pollution. Antarctica may be a long way from us here in the United States, but the impacts of Antarctic melting affect us all.

Josef again, your friendly Web Editor in Washington, DC! Here's the latest update from the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah; written by my colleague Willie MacKenzie, an Oceans campaigner with Greenpeace UK.

Dramatic title perhaps, but maybe not quite so far-fetched. Here in sunny Sundance, one of the questions that has been coming up repeatedly at showings of the End Of The Line movie is ‘what about Climate Change?’ assuming, rightly, that a warming planet will have implications for our fish populations too. Well my practised response to this before I got here was simply that the effects of Climate Change make all of the issues of rapacious overfishing all the more important. They make the need for precaution when it comes to fishing, and the need for fully protected areas essential.

The truth is that Climate Change is already affecting our oceans, and we don’t know what the outcome will be on currents/temperature/salinity, which means we can’t predict what impact it will have on plankton or anything more complicated. But common sense tells us, in degraded oceans, where we have already diminished sealife’s ability to cope, it won’t be good news.

Then, just as we got here to promote a movie on overfishing, we find out that there’s a new article published in Science that shows a direct link between fishing and the effects of climate change. Yes folks, fish poo can help save the ocean, by locking up carbon.

So, the moral of the story is, that if we take all the fish out of the ocean, we increase acidification from Climate Change (and make it worse for everything else in the ocean in the process).

In the US, departing President Bush has left a ‘blue legacy’ behind him, showing that where there’s a political will, there’s a way. But whilst the US is ahead of many in creating protected areas, and arguably better at enforcing its fisheries, there is still a long way to go. The US imports most of its fish, and a visit to the local supermarkets here in Park City reveals some quite alarming species on display on the fish counter. The two stand-outs are Chilean Sea Bass (also known as Patagonian toothfish) –which is fished using indiscriminate long-lines (that kill albatrosses) and has a huge amount of illegal fishing too: Orange Roughy, a deep-sea fish that lives to be up to 150 years old (how do you fish that sustainably, exactly?) and is often caught by bottom trawling seamounts.

That these species are still readily available shows how far we have to go, but it also shows something else – that everyday consumers can have a huge impact by simply not buying them.

And remember, every Orange Roughy and Chilean Sea Bass that doesn’t get fished helps save the oceans by simply doing its own business…

Josef here in Washington, DC! You may have heard that some colleagues of mine are currently in Park City, Utah, attending the 2009 Sundance Film Festival to help draw attention to the plight of overfishing on our seas as documented in the Sundance entry End Of the Line. Willie MacKenzie, an Oceans campaigner from Greenpeace UK, has joined our international delegation at the film festival and brings you this latest report.

So, what’s the movie we’re here in Sundance with about then? Well it’s an adaptation of Charles Clover’s brilliant book on overfishing, the End Of The Line, which is an evocative, and shocking portrayal of what we have done, and are doing to our oceans – just to put seafood on our plates.

Seafood is a global issue, and practically nowhere on our seas is beyond human reach now – the movie gives an overview of the main issues like overfishing, destructive fishing and poor management. The movie takes a global look at the true price we’re paying for our seafood, vividly illustrating the impact we’re having, but that very few of us even realise.

All-too-often the things that concern us in the ocean involve what we refer to as “charismatic megafauna”– the big cuddly animals that people like to like. But if you really do care about whales, dolphins, seals, turtles, and seabirds, then you have to care about all the other sealife too. They can’t exist in isolation, and as well as killing these critters directly as “bycatch” we are also trashing their homes, and destroying their food sources too. To add insult to injury the disastrous effects of excessive and destructive fishing are all compounded more by the other ways we upset the ocean, like the impacts of climate change and pollution.

The film really gives you a vivid idea of just how vast, and urgent the issue is. And, as Charles Clover himself says in the film, at a time when human population is increasing exponentially, and when the impacts of climate change are affecting us all, unless we act now to stop overfishing, we will have squandered one of the most important natural resources we have.

So, assuming you care about the ocean, whether you just like the cuddly animals, or like the amazing, fascinating, weird ones, or assuming you like eating fish – this matters to you. And the film explains succinctly why. The oceans belong to all of us, not the fishing industry, the oil & gas industry, or the politicians who seem to listen only to them - and all of us need to claim them back.

Yet, there is still hope. And if there is one message from the movie to take home (and one that’s all the more relevant being in the USA today) it’s that change is possible. If we want to move to sustainable methods and levels of fishing, then we can. And we can give our oceans protection by creating no-take Marine Reserves.

So if you’re wondering if this problem is one we can solve – the simple answer is “Yes, We Can.”

Check out the trailer online now at www.endoftheline.com

What a day. The crowd on the National Mall was overwhelming. The hope and joy was palpable in the air. It was a day I'll never forget.

And President Obama (how great it feels to type those words!) rose to the moment and delivered an address that in my opinion struck all the right notes (though I think he flubbed the first few words of the oath of office, a charming human moment).

He spoke in direct, sober terms about the challenges we face, but also tapped into the greatness of America to offer an inspiring vision for the potential future before us. And, most importantly in my view, he committed to tackle global warming head on.

I applauded in agreement when he said, "each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet."

I cheered out loud when he made this pledge: "With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet."

And I was in full-on, fist-pumping joy when he let loose with this:

But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids(!) and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science (!!) to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories(!1!!!11!!). And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

Greenpeace was out in force today as well, handing out stickers and postcards issuing the "Rushmore Challenge"--that the President who solves global warming will get his face on Mt. Rushmore. I saw more than a few people sporting their Greenpeace-Rushmore stickers with pride. Here's the image on the postcard:

Of course today was historic for many reasons, but I'm more hopeful than ever that today will be remembered as the day that America began to finally, forcefully, tackle global warming and lead the world to a safer climate future.

I'll leave you with these shots of President Bush's helicopter fading into the distance...

 

 

 

 

Greenpeace Global Warming Campaign Director Steven Biel released the following statement on the economic stimulus package released by the House leadership and Obama administration.

“With over $50 billion in new investments for clean energy, the economic stimulus package represents an important down payment on America’s clean energy future. We congratulate the Obama administration and House leadership for their efforts and urge members of Congress to pass the bill.

“This economic stimulus package represents a significant victory for the environment. President-Obama promised change we can believe in, and that’s exactly what this is.

“Highlights of the proposal include:

• $11 billion for development of a modern “Smart Grid” that will be needed to move clean, renewable energy across the country and end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels.
• Extension of the renewable energy production tax credit.
• $6.7 billion for improving the energy efficiency of federal buildings.
• $6.2 billion for weatherization of the homes of low-income families.

“The proposal isn’t perfect. Specifically, Greenpeace urges Congress to remove the $2.4 billion in funding for the carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that has received billions in public subsidies and has yet to produce any results whatsoever.  Rather than being squandered on 1 gigawatt of purely hypothetical power in the distant future, those funds would be better spent building 1.2 gigawatts of real, clean wind energy today.  Greenpeace also urges Congress to put greater emphasis on public transportation and repairing our existing roads and bridges and less for new construction.  We should use this stimulus not just to fix the problems of yesterday, but to build the America of tomorrow.

“Also, while the issue is not explicitly addressed in the proposal, we urge Congress and President Obama to reject calls to waive enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act for stimulus projects.”

This is a story, or part of one, written in today's Anchorage Daily News (you can read the whole story at ADN.com):

A heartsick letter describing cash-strapped families choosing between food and heating fuel in the village of Emmonak has state officials reconsidering a long-simmering request to declare a financial disaster in the region.

"I'm just now today getting information in from surrounding villages," said Tara Jollie, director of the state Division of Community and Regional Affairs.

A letter written by Nicholas Tucker of Emmonak describing parents battling to feed their families in his hometown -- plus concerns from others in the region -- prompted state department heads to plan a teleconference this morning. The topic: a crippling combination of high fuel prices, poor commercial fishing prospects and an unusual cold snap in the Yup'ik village and others like it.

I am posting this story here because I hope you focus on the problem of the people in Western Alaska not being able to care for themselves, much less their families. This can be due to the large salmon by catch the pollock industry has when they are fishing for pollock in Bristol Bay. We at Greenpeace have been working to force the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council to cut down the salmon by catch, or cut the pollock fishery down to a few days to stop the constant raping of the ocean, taking much needed food away from our people in the villages. 

One of the more serious problems facing the people, especially the children of Village Alaska, is malnutrition. When we are not able to get our foods, especially the food we have depended upon for thousands of years, many physical and spiritual problems develop. This is the main reason we have been working on the establishment of the Marine Cultural Heritage Zones. We need to bring attention to this serious problem. 

Thank you all for your continued support and attention. We are working diligently to bring environmental justice to Village Alaska.

Here's my statement on today's USCAP proposal, which is getting a decent amount of attention across the media.

 “The U.S. government’s chief climate scientist James Hansen once said that the CEOs of big fossil fuel industries should be tried for crimes against humanity. USCAP is their initial bid for a plea bargain.

“Unfortunately, the USCAP proposal falls short of what the science tells us is needed to prevent catastrophic global warming. It’s also a bad deal for taxpayers. Congress and the Obama administration should view this proposal as the absolute low bar for the debate on global warming and should respond with policy that is consistent with the findings of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It could mean the difference between a healthy planet for future generations and one that is inhospitable to life as we know it.

“The good news is that the proposal represents how far the global warming debate has come. Just a few years ago, some of these industries denied global warming was even a problem. For that, we can thank the American people, who have come to understand the urgency of the problem and voted for new political leadership that is committed to science-based action on global warming.

“But, while Greenpeace welcomes the change represented in this agreement, it should be viewed for what it is: a political document from polluters hoping to cut a favorable deal for themselves. It is not a science-based response to global warming.”

Key Points and Shortcomings of the USCAP Proposal:

USCAP has proposed reductions of 14-20% from the country’s 2005 emissions levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050. These reductions translate to about a 0-7% cut from 1990 levels by 2020 and a 77% cut by 2050. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finds that to have a 50% chance of preventing the worst effects of global warming (and keep warming below 2 degree C), developed nations as a whole must cut emissions by 25-40% from 1990 levels and 80-95% reductions by 2050 from 1990 levels. Therefore, USCAP’s targets fall short of even the lowest end of the range needed to achieve a 50-50 chance of preventing catastrophic global warming.

But even these numbers overstate the reductions that would be achieved by the plan. USCAP allows for a massive share of the emissions reductions proposed in the plan to be met through carbon “offsets,” which could allow polluters to demonstrate reductions on paper that are never achieved in the real world. In fact, the proposal would allow up to 3 billion metric tons of emissions “cuts” to be achieved via these offsets. According to EPA, the entire U.S. economy emitted 7.130 billion metric tons of global warming pollution in 2005. Therefore, all of the 42% emissions reduction required by the proposal by the year 2030 could be achieved with these offsets. This is a scenario that is wholly incompatible with what the science shows is needed under virtually any scenario.

Finally, USCAP would provide polluters with windfall profits by allowing them huge numbers of free, tradable pollution credits. The plan also provides large direct subsidies for pursuing the hypothetical technology of “carbon-free coal,” which has never been shown to work on even a pilot basis despite enormous public subsidies. We should be investing scarce resources in proven, truly clean technologies like wind and solar power.

Joe Romm--Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, former acting assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy during the Clinton Administration, and author of one of the best global warming blogs out there, Climate Progress.

This week he joined Greenpeace's call for the Obama administration to commit to stronger short-term emissions reduction goals to bring his plan fully in line with the findings of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Check out his post here.

Last Friday I went to New York to attend the release of Forever Princess, the final book in the bestselling Princess Diaries series.  Okay, so maybe I don’t meet the demographic typically associated with its fan base, although I do have an eight-year-old daughter who is just beginning to read them.  But that’s not why I was going.  I went because the author Meg Cabot is donating all of her worldwide proceeds from her latest novel (entitled Ransom my Heart) to Greenpeace.

Well actually, if you ask Meg, it’s not her novel.  Ransom my Heart was allegedly written by Princess Mia, the main character of the Diaries series, in the final book during her senior year of high school.  If you’ve read the series, you’ll know that Mia is a big fan of Greenpeace, at one point dreaming of spending her gap year working for Greenpeace and riding motorized inflatables to help save the whales.  My daughter, for whom Meg signed a book with a personal note that proclaimed her “a true princess!”, came to me the other night very excited, having just read that “Princess Mia supports Greenpeace and is a vegetarian!” (which my daughter, an animal lover like the princess, is as well).

Don’t think too much about the book inside a book thing.  It tends to lead to contemplation of paradox and the like, and that’s a silly place to end up after starting from a young adult book.  

Or is it?

Anyway, the event was held in the New York Public Library, which is an impressive place in and of itself.  What better way to promote a series adored by young readers than in a library, and a beautiful one at that!  It was great to see kids lining up around the corner of a library over a book, instead of camping out at the mall for the latest version of PlayStation.

I was there with two of my Greenpeace colleagues, and we arrived early to meet with Meg and thank her personally for this amazing opportunity.  Upon meeting her we liked her instantly.  She’s warm, welcoming, funny, charming, and a kindred spirit in her love of the environment.  And the tiara was a great look for her.  Not a lot of people can pull off a tiara.  She did it easily.

Our visit with her went fast, and all too soon it was time for Meg to head for the stage and address the packed house, most of whom were young fans of the Diaries books and sporting their own princess wear for the occasion.  They were a captive audience, as Meg delighted them with stories and anecdotes that clearly showed she was one of them at heart.  To our delight, she also took the opportunity to talk with her young loyal readers about Greenpeace and our work to protect the planet.

Their planet.

Which was probably the most poignant part of the evening for me.  As a father of two, around the same age as many in the room, it reminded me why I do this work.  Because children – all children – deserve a future with a healthy planet.  It’s probably a big reason why Meg loves Greenpeace as well.  The Princess Diaries series was so successful because she understands, relates to and loves the children to whom the books appeal. And by supporting Greenpeace, maybe that's her way of helping to ensure their kingdoms will be healthy and vibrant for many generations to come.

We headed down to the Keys early Monday for some more rescue exercises with the boat crews. At our first stop in Key Largo, three manatees appeared in the canal behind the house. It was awesome to see these endangered mammals up close. The larger ones bore the telltale scars of close encounters with boat propellers. It is estimated that many of the fatalities of this species are from boat hits. It was the first time any of the Greenpeace crew encountered a manatee and they were clearly enthralled with the sea cows. It is rare that you are working actively for conservation and come in  contact with the species you are trying to aid. We traveled farther south, to Bahia Honda, to post up in a campsite for the night. I won't lie, it wasn't paradise but we carved out a nook for the night. With hammocks tied between the roof racks, we slept out under the winter moon.  

On Tuesday, with the forecast looking up, we met up with the boat crew for a few hours of boat rescue training as well as some kiteboarding. We launched from the city marina with Key’s local, Sean Reyngouldt, joining the crew for not only the day but the record run as well. We headed west toward an encroaching cold front and landed in Key West’s backcountry islands. We got the kites setup and in the air. It was blowing a strong 18knots and the Greenpeace crew got to see the kiteboarders in their element and we performed a ride-along while the kiteboarders rode downwind back to Key West.

For the first time yesterday we had the boats and kiteboarders interacting while the kiteboarders were fully powered. The boat crew was able grasp the dynamic relationship between the kites inmotion and the 27.5ft Billy Greene underway. Our plan stands to head north and attempt the record run of 180 plus miles on Friday. Our exact starting location and ending location is yet to be determined. John, Rachel, Brent, Kate and I chased the kiteboarders back to Key West, through the decent chop, with ear-to-ear grins. Finally getting some wind in our kites added new life to this safari. We left Key West last night, salty, tired and ready for more. 

--Wells Preston, Guest Blogger for Greenpeace--

      Our Collegiate Kiteboarding Association event, despite being plagued by light wind conditions, was a complete success. Greenpeace’s presence was well defined and our event brought a new crowd of passionate ocean users to Greenpeace’s table to sign petitions for President-elect Obama. With several hundred college-age students filling the beach, as well as hundreds of other spectators, the event drew a large, diverse crowd. Event organizers had a stand-up paddleboard race and M.C. Neil Hutchinson kept spirits lively during the day.

       Artist Norm Gitzen’s art display was setup at the beach access, along with the Greenpeace booth, directly en-route to the competition site. This layout let the spectators meander their way through the art display and  speak to Greenpeace representatives about the purpose of the tour: Marine reserves, conservation and environmental awareness. Norm's beautiful sculptures and wood carvings of marine life and  brought an air of culture to the event.  

        Our age demographic is one that is stereotyped as being both environmentally aware and paradoxically inactive. Being part of an effort to educate and involve more and more students in the fight for our environment makes this awareness campaign worth every minute of waiting for the right conditions. 

Our plan is to head south and then north to chase the wind for an attempt this week. 

-Wells Preston, Guest Blogger for Greenpeace-

Greenpeace and the Collegiate Kiteboarding Association held an event yesterday in Lauderdale by the Sea to promote ocean conservation and the sport of kiteboarding. Kiteboarders from around Florida came together to compete and sign petitions urging the Obama administration to make ocean conservation a priority.

Two Greenpeace inflatable boats anchored offshore and as the winds never picked up enough to launch the kites, paddle boarding became the main sport of the day.

The event continues today as the kiteboarders continuously monitor the wind to find the most promising conditions to attempt their record-breaking run.

-Nicole

(photos © Greenpeace / Jason Arnold) 

For the second time in less than three weeks, a coal-burning power plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has leaked toxic coal ash into a nearby watercourse. This time, it was at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant in northeastern Alabama. TVA claims to have contained the leak, and has confirmed that some gypsum spilled into Widows Creek, but according to this report by the Environmental Integrity Project, this new spill contained "even more toxic metals" than the spill at a TVA plant in Tennessee last month. The Widows Creek plant is located on the Guntersville Reservoir, which lies along the Teneessee River, the same river polluted by the massive spill at TVA’s Kingston power plant in Harriman, TN last month.

The ruins of a home destroyed by a flood of coal ash slurry from the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant is surrounded by debris Dec. 29, 2008 in Harriman, Tenn. An earthen dam holding a containment pond broke Dec. 22, 2008, unleashing a billion gallon flood of toxic sludge into the Emory River and surrounding homes. © Greenpeace / Wade Payne

Clearly there has been a drastic failure of safety protocols at TVA, and there needs to be an investigation to establish exactly what has gone wrong. Some responsible adults must then implement safety measures to protect the public, since TVA seems incapable of doing so.

However much toxic material has been dumped into Widows Creek, this second spill points out once again the even larger problem: coal is and can never be a clean source of energy. We tend to focus much more on the degradation of ecosystems caused by the mining of coal, especially the horribly destructive mining practice known as "mountain top removal", as well as the huge amounts of CO2 emissions from the burning of coal that contribute to global warming. Coal ash has emerged in the past few weeks, however, as yet another drastic example of why there is no such thing as “clean coal.”

Congress passed legislation in 1977 that, for the first time, forced coal plants to install “scrubbers” on their smoke stacks to remove some of the more dangerous elements from the smoke they were pouring into the atmosphere – things like mercury that had been linked to health problems in people living near the coal plants. But when these elements are scrubbed from the smoke, they must go somewhere, and that somewhere ends up being the ash left over from the burning of the coal. This ash is then “stored” in unlined ponds or pits near the plants. About a decade ago the EPA proposed regulating these toxic ash lagoons, but the coal industry lobby killed the idea.

This lack of oversight has had dire consequences for the environment, as we’ve seen all too clearly the past few weeks. There is reason to hope these spills will lead to better oversight, however. From a post by our own Kate Rooth over on Coal-is-Dirty.com:

[Today’s spill] comes after yesterday’s Senate Environment and Public Works committee hearing at which TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore admitted that the plant had earlier leak problems. The committee promised close scrutiny of the disaster and the potential for future federal environmental regulations as a result.

In 2000 the EPA decided against designating ash as hazardous. However last year they EPA identified 67 coal ash storage sites in 23 states that had caused or were suspected of causing contamination. Sen. Barbara Boxer said she plans to press Lisa Jackson, nominee to head EPA, on this issue during the confirmation hearing next week. For statements from the hearing visit the committee website.

It couldn’t be any clearer, at this point, that as long as we’re burning coal to meet our energy needs, we need to regulate every single phase of the process to force the industry to clean up its act as much as possible – from the mining to the burning to the leftover waste products, every step of the process is dirty as can be and needs to be closely monitored by responsible public servants.

Of course, the real solution is to stop burning coal and instead produce our energy using clean renewable sources like wind and solar. There is and never can be such a thing as “clean coal” when every step of the process of using coal as an energy source is hazardous and dirty. So-called “Carbon Capture and Sequestration” (CCS) technology, which has no more Earthly existence than so-called “clean coal” and yet is the basis of the green claims being made on a daily basis by the coal industry, is no kind of solution. CCS is really an absurd idea, since it essentially involves pumping an odorless, invisible gas underground and hoping it stays there permanently -- especially when you consider that we’d be entrusting this process to an industry that can’t even ensure their giant pits of toxic sludge don’t spill into nearby rivers. Read more about CCS in our report, False Hope: Why carbon capture and storage won't save the climate.

This second spill underscores the need for Renewables Now! Check out this slideshow of pictures from the coal ash spill at TVA’s Kingston plant, and help spread the word that coal is dirty by posting the pics anywhere you can. You can also take action right now and tell the EPA to help stop global warming by regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Feel free to put in your own language about ensuring there are no more ash spills at TVA facilities or any other coal plant.

Yesterday we got word that environmental champion Ed Markey (MA) will be the chair of the House subcommittee in charge of global warming and energy legislation. Here's the article in the Boston Globe covering the announcement, which includes some really exciting quotes from the new chairman on his plans for the year.

Ed Markey's credentials as an environmental champion are unparalleled. He led the fight to block the Bush administration's headlong drive to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He was the point-man in the House on the successful effort to raise gas mileage standards for the first time in 30 years in 2007. He wrote legislation that passed the last Congress to steer train shipments bearing hazardous waste away from population centers. He was one of the key champions behind passage of the landmark Superfund toxic waste law, which cleans up the most dangerous hazardous waste sites in America, including Woburn, Massachusetts, the site in Markey's district that inspired the book and movie "A Civil Action."

All those legislative achievements are wonderful, but what always comes to mind for me when I think of Ed Markey is his passion.

I remember years ago first hearing him speak at an event to a roomful of environmental activists and Markey was practically shouting, in his thick Boston accent, "ya gotta aw-ga-nize!"

I remember another time when a campaign I was working on (and I'm embarrassed to admit this, but the story is too classic) accidentally printed some materials that listed Markey's pro-environment voting record as 95% instead of 100%. In the next meeting we had with him, he tore into us for making him seem like he wasn't a good champion for the environment. One of our people said something like, "we're really sorry, but at least 95% is still an A." And Markey replied, "not to my mother it isn't!"

With global warming champ Henry Waxman chairing the committee in charge of global warming and Ed Markey in charge of the subcommittee, we have our all-star lineup in place to pass strong legislation to solve global warming. But with so much at stake and the opposition they'll fact, we need every Greenpeace member and activist ready to fight to win.

We spent this morning in a round table discussion in the shade. It was a meeting with breakfast as a side note. We covered nearly everything from risk awareness and assessment to planning the world record run and accounting for the most evasive and difficult variable in this trip: the wind. Test runs on the boats and an errand to the event site were in order early. Alex, Matt and Tripp drove with Phil to the event site, while I went with the Greenpeace crew on their two boats: the 20ft long Patrick Grech and the Billy Greene. Each boat is named in memoriam of fallen Greenpeace activists. We did test maneuvers with both boats and shook the grip of winter off the Greenpeace crew. Alex, Matt, and Tripp paddled out on Stand up Paddleboards and carried their new kites to shore Tahitian style.

My favorite moment out on the boats came when Matt kited out, and unveiled for the first time the Greenpeace branded kites. The hundreds of hours of labor that Amanda and Rachel spent drawing sharks, whales and turtles on the kites were reflected in the awesome decals. Their eyes lit up when Matt got close and they could see their work fluttering and flying in the light breeze. Rescue procedures for picking up a disabled or injured kiter exposed the Greenpeace crew to handling the kites for the first time. It was fun to see this adept group look bewildered for a moment. This effort has been culminating for months and finally starting after months of planning is fantastic. Alex has been quiet and smiley, I can tell he’s proud to watch his child take its first steps on the ground. Pray for wind.

Wells Preston
Guest blogger for Greenpeace
Kiteboarding for Marine Reserves Tour

My name is Wells Preston, and I am guest blogging for Greenpeace as part of the Kiteboarding for Marine Reserves tour. We're a group of kiteboarders whose goal is to raise awareness for the plight of our oceans through our unique and exciting sport. After a Collegiate Kiteboarding Association (CKA) event this weekend in Lauderdale by the Sea, the four riders, Alex Moore, Tripp Hobbs, Matt Sexton, and Chase Kosterlitz are attempting to kite the entire east coast of Florida in different segments, with a goal of breaking the world record for distance kiteboarding. Learn more about the tour.

After spending sunset re-packing the truck at the cable park in Fort Myers, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale well after dark. Alex, Tripp, Matt and I wandered into our home for the weekend. It was easy enough to find, even at night, with two large rescue boats nestled in the driveway of the hostel. Inside we met Phil Kline. I recognized his distinctive voice from dozens of conference calls and voicemails. He’d assembled a team of eight Greenpeace activists to run support for the kiteboarding record, safari, and the CKA event this weekend. They drove down from D.C., and suffered through a 7-hour breakdown in their own backyard of Richmond, VA. An axle on the trailer hauling Billy Greene (their 27.2 foot rescue boat) snapped in a mix of smoke, steel and highway friendliness. Phil introduced us to his team, who’d scattered themselves around the pool, enjoying the warm Florida night: There’s John, the captain of the crew, Brent their chief engineer who operates the boats and maintains the engines, Kate, another boat driver, Rachel, who works in the warehouse in D.C., Lauren, a volunteer, who came from a direct action seminar in Indian Town, FL. and Amanda, who runs logistical support for Greenpeace events like this and larger. Much larger. The amount of effort that has gone into this awareness campaign from Greenpeace is staggering.

Wells Preston
Guest blogger for Greenpeace
Kiteboarding for Marine Reserves Tour 

 

On Monday, Energy and Environment Daily reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes that the votes are there to pass a bill to cap global warming emissions, but that she wasn't sure whether it would make it onto the calendar for 2009.

E&E is a subscription-only site, so I'll quote the article at length here:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said today that she has enough votes to pass cap-and-trade legislation aimed at curbing the effects of global warming but would not commit to holding a vote in 2009.

Speaking to reporters in the Capitol, Pelosi said she has sufficient backing in the Democratic-controlled House to move a cap-and-trade bill, but will not force the issue. "I'm not sure this year, because I don't know if we'll be ready," Pelosi said. "We won't go before we're ready."

Pelosi acknowledged the December deadline looming over U.N. negotiations toward a new international climate change agreement. "We're sensitive to Copenhagen and the rest of that," she said, referring to the Denmark capital that will host the next annual U.N. conference. "And it's a very high priority for me."

But Pelosi said she could not guarantee that President-elect Barack Obama would be able to sign a cap-and-trade law before Copenhagen.

"I would certainly hope so, but I can't tell you that that is the case right now," she said. "Of all the bills that we have done, you know I sort of know the policies, I know what the possibilities are, this is the most, should we say, controversial, not controversial, mysterious."

Pelosi added, "There's so many ways we can go. We're seeing, studying what the Europeans did. They had to have some trial and error in what they did. And I think we have to be very careful, because we have to do it right, with cap and trade. We have to do it right. I don't think we can take any chances. So this is going to take some very thorough scrutiny as to how we go forward."

Speaker Pelosi has been a very powerful and effective champion for the environment. I truly believe her commitment to the issue is sincere. In the last Congress she stood up to some very powerful interests to push through the first increase in fuel economy standards in 30 years, among other accomplishments. And it's often a mistake to read too much into a single quote to one reporter.

But I have to ask, on an issue as critical as global warming, given the truly existential threats to our health, economy, and national security, what could possibly be more urgent?

I can understand wanting to take time to think through the policy given the complexities of the issue. This is a global issue that touches every part of our lives.

But the studies have been done. The verdict is in. If Congress isn't "ready," they need to get ready, and if that means staying up late and burning the midnight oil, well, it's past time for that too.

Congress needs to act now. There's no excuse for further delay. If the votes are there, the bill should be on the floor now.

 

President-Elect Barack Obama has made it clear in no uncertain terms that global warming will be a top priority for his new administration. In a taped message to the Global Climate Summit hosted by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on November 18, Obama said:

Few challenges facing America – and the world – are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear... I know many of you are working to confront this challenge... But too often, Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office.

Couldn't have said it much better myself. What a breath of fresh air. And not a moment too soon. 

In that address, he reiterated his campaign promises to "reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050."

Here's the rub. While Obama’s commitment to cutting emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050 is in the range of what the science says is needed, his 2020 goal of returning to 1990 levels is a bit behind the times.

According to the research completed in 2007 by the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of global warming, developed nations must reduce emissions by 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80-95% by 2050.

I know what you're thinking. Obama's 25-40% wrong? What's going on?!?!

Well, no, not quite. There's some apples to oranges going on here. Obama's commitment to cut emissions to 1990 levels, which is based on legislation he cosponsored as a senator and was introduced before IPCC's most recent findings became public, refers only to pollution here in the U.S. IPCC's 25-40% refers to that but also additional emissions cuts achieved in developing nations with U.S. financial support, like funding the adoption of clean energy technologies in India or stopping deforestation in Brazil.

Now, we can't solve global warming just by protecting trees. Would that it were so easy. We must break our dependence on fossil fuels and dramatically cut our pollution here at home as well, starting now. But we also must provide leadership and assistance so that we can get all the reductions that are needed worldwide.

It is critical that Obama bring his global warming plan fully in line with the science by committing to total reductions consistent with IPCC's recommendations for developed nations. To do that, he needs to do two things:

1. sharpen his commitment for domestic reductions to at least 8-12% from 1990 levels by 2020; and

2. commit to achieving the additional reductions needed to reach that critical 25-40% range through international climate assistance.

You can help persuade President-Elect Obama to sharpen his short-term pollution reduction goals by going to Change.gov and posting a comment on his "Open for Questions" page. Tell him that to prevent the worst effects of global warming, we need to listen to the best science. And that means 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020, no less. 

To solve global warming that's the change we need.

As we all know, the theme of President-Elect Barack Obama's campaign was "change we can
believe in" or sometimes, "change we need."  Since the election some have wondered how much real change Obama will succeed in implementing.

While it's much too early to answer that question, let's remember that Obama has also repeatedly reminded us that "change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas..."  In other words, it will happen if we get involved.

Long before 9/11 or even Bhopal, Greenpeace has challenged the notion that U.S. chemical plants have no alternative to the storage or use of large quantities of poison gases like chlorine. In 2006, instead of enacting legislation that would require the use of safer alternatives to eliminate the catastrophic risks these plants pose, Congress enacted a temporary law.  The new law is so bad it actually prohibits the government from requiring safer alternatives to poison gases and exempts thousands of chemical facilities, including all publicly owned water treatment plants.

So where is President Obama on this issue? Fortunately, he's been a leader on it since he arrived in the U.S. Senate.  He wrote about it in Audacity of Hope and co-authored the strongest legislation in the Senate.

When Obama introduced his bill (S. 2486) on the Senate floor he said, "there are other ways to reduce risk that need to be part of the equation. Specifically, by employing safer technologies, we can reduce the attractiveness of chemical plants as a target…This concept, known as Inherently Safer Technology [IST]...reduces the danger that chemical plants pose to our communities and makes them less appealing targets for terrorists.

"Unfortunately, the chemical industry has been lobbying nonstop on this bill. They do not want IST, they do not want protection of state laws and they do not want strict regulations...This is wrong. We cannot allow chemical industry lobbyists to dictate the terms of this debate. We cannot allow our security to be hijacked by corporate interests."

Obama wasn't exaggerating. Greenpeace counted 238 registered industry lobbyists who work on chemical security legislation. We estimate they spent approximately $1 million monthly, hijacking strong legislation and regulations.

During the Presidential campaign, Obama gave strong answers to Greenpeace's questionnaire to Presidential candidates. He also raised the issue in a debate with Senator McCain and again on the Letterman Show.  In October, Obama told MSNBC, "I think that chemical plant security is another where the chemical industry has been resistant to mandates when it comes to hardening their sites. But, you know what? If you've got a chemical plant that threatens 100,000, or a million people in New Jersey, we better have some say in terms of how serious they are about guarding that facility."

Since the election, Obama has also listed chemical security on the Transition Team's web site at: http://change.gov/agenda/homeland_security_agenda, but as we look ahead to the new Congress, we will have less than nine months to enact permanent legislation because the interim law expires on October 4, 2009. Obama's leadership will be critical in keeping Congress on the right track.  If the new President calls for strong legislation and that is reinforced by the new Secretary of Homeland Security (Janet Napolitano) and the new EPA administrator (Lisa Jackson), the Congress will have an easier time resisting the chemical lobby and paying attention to the people.

While Congress is famous for making compromises, that works better when they’re spending money which is infinitely divisible, than it does on toy safety or protecting communities from another Bhopal disaster. The "change we need" is simply a requirement that high-risk chemical plants that CAN convert to safer technologies do so. The challenge for Congress is to summon the political will to put the risks now borne by more than 100 million Americans ahead of the lobbyists. For the publicly-owned water treatment plants Congress should make available grants, as part of the economic stimulus package, to local water authorities so the cost of their conversion doesn't compete with other local needs.

And let’s remember that any loopholes that are slipped into the new law will also be visible to al-Qaeda or anyone else who would do us harm.

Alternatively, once a plant converts to safer chemicals or processes, as hundreds have already, they might as well notify terrorists directly because attacking them will no longer achieve the disasters they are aiming for.

The good news is that it will happen if "the American people demand it." But we must "rise up and insist on" it. If we don't those 238 industry lobbyists and their PR firms and front groups will spend the year running out the clock and then try to pressure Congress to make the temporary law permanent.

Tell Congress to get tough on chemical security.