From The Weekly Edition

Vandana Shiva: For Ecological Sustainability and Social Justice, Governments and the U.N. Should Tax Carbon. Commentary by Vandana Shiva, NewStatesman (UK), September 20, 2009. “Emissions trading, or offsetting, is not in fact a mechanism to reduce emissions… Such schemes are more about privatizing the atmosphere than about preventing climate change… Carbon trading uses the resources of poorer people and poorer regions as ‘offsets’ for richer countries: it is between 50 and 200 times cheaper to plant trees in poor countries to absorb CO2 than it is to reduce emissions at source. In other words, the burden of ‘clean-up’ falls on the poor. From a market perspective, this might appear efficient, but in terms of energy justice, it is perverse to burden the poor twice – first with the impact of CO2 pollution in the form of climate disasters and then with offsetting the pollution of the rich… Regulating by carbon trading is like fiddling as Rome burns. Governments and the UN should impose a carbon tax on corporations, both for production — wherever their facilities are located — and for transport, which the Kyoto Protocol does not account for directly. Incentives for renewable energy are also essential. We face a stark choice: we can destroy the conditions for human life on the planet by clinging to ‘free-market’ fundamentalism, or we can secure our future by bringing commerce within the laws of ecological sustainability and social justice.” Vandana Shivais Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource in Dehradun, India.

Park(ing) Day 2009: Battling the Auto over Public Space. By Daisy Nguyen, AP, September 18, 2009. “Activists across the nation parked themselves curbside Friday, taking up spaces reserved for cars and transforming them into mini parks with sod, potted plants, lawn chairs and even barbecues to raise awareness about how the auto has won the battle over public space in big cities… The movement started as a single installation four years ago in San Francisco and has become a worldwide event reaching more than 100 cities on four continents. Matthew Passmore, who helped start Park(ing) Day, said the concept strikes a chord with urban dwellers everywhere because they’re dealing with similar issues of traffic congestion and pollution. The temporary parks highlight the fact that curbside parking ‘results in increased traffic, wasted fuel and more pollution,’ Passmore said.”

Hip Hopping for Survival: 350.org. By Rev. Lennox Yearwood and Bill McKibben, September 9, 2009. “Almost without exception the places [most threatened by climate change] are filled with people of color, and with poor people. That’s why the fight against climate change is a very basic fight for people in New Orleans, or in Oakland, or in DC — or in Dhaka, and Calcutta, and Lagos. These are the places that will drive the demographic future, here and abroad; the centuries to come belong to black and brown and yellow humans. But 200 years of burning coal and gas and oil, mostly by Americans and Europeans, threaten to make that future impossible. That’s why, right now, we’ve got to take a united stand to slow it down — why 350.org will be holding demonstrations around the planet on October 24 to demand that our leaders pay attention to science and limit carbon concentrations to 350 parts per million. That’s the most important number on the planet, though no one knew it eighteen months ago. NASA’s Jim Hansen and his team reported recently that concentrations higher than 350 are not compatible with ‘the planet on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.’ Since we’re at 387 and rising right now, that’s very bad news. It explains why the Arctic is melting, why Australia is drying up and why we watch the hurricane season with more trepidation with each passing year… Now young people are singing new freedom songs and identifying with one another under an umbrella known as hip-hop. The swagger and style that young people and their urban-influenced culture bring to the green movement bear little resemblance to the old tree-hugging brand of environmentalism. But as the conscious caretakers of a ‘block’ on the brink of climate catastrophe, they are powerful partners in the green movement.” The Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. is president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus and Bill McKibben, noted author on climate change, is co-founder of 350.org.

College Students Protest Coal Use on Campuses. By Alan Scher Zagier, AP, September 16, 2009. “College students from Missouri to Oregon are urging their schools to stop using coal-based electricity in favor of cleaner energy sources ranging from wood chips to geothermal power. On September 16 students at the University of Missouri and other schools nationwide mounted a Sierra Club-led campaign [Campuses Beyond Coal] targeting coal-based power at colleges, whether generated at on-campus plants or purchased from private utilities. The campaign began the same day a group of college presidents rallied in Washington in support of clean energy legislation. Student organizers said colleges have a societal obligation to reduce and eventually eliminate coal use in favor of renewable energy. At Missouri, the school used more than 48,000 tons of coal to generate electricity in 2007, accounting for 80 percent of campus energy use. A Sierra Club report singled out UCLA, Oregon State, Indiana, Minnesota, North Carolina and five other schools along with Missouri. The environmental group identified 60 campuses with their own coal-burning power plants, including Georgia, Penn State and Virginia.”

New Post-Apocalypse Climate Film to Open. By Jerome Cartillier, AFP, September 20, 2009. “Could we, the human race, really miss an ever-narrowing chance to save the planet from the ravages of global warming? Age of Stupid, which will be screened in hundreds of venues around the world next week, contemplates this grim scenario with the open aim of galvanizing a collective effort to prevent it… The story is told in the voice of an ageing archivist — played by A-list British actor Pete Postlethwaite — looking back from the year 2055 on a world devastated by climate catastrophe… ‘We could have saved ourselves, but we didn’t. It’s amazing. What state of mind were we in, to face extinction and simply shrug it off?’ Postlethwaite’s character says with a flash of anger. Gazing back to our time, he details the lives of six people whose stories intersect with global warming in different ways: a dirt-poor, aspiring medical student from Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta; a young business scion starting up India‘s third ‘low cost’ airline; a pair of child refugees from the war in Iraq. We meet 37-year-old Piers Guy, struggling vainly against the opposition of his neighbors in the English countryside of Cornwall to a wind farm that could power several thousand households. And then there is 82-year old Fernand Parau, a French mountain guide who has watched Alpine glaciers retreat dozens of meters over his long career. The movie’s title comes from a retired oil company scientist in New Orleans, thinking out loud as to how future generations might look back our era if we fail to reign in global warming. ‘The Age of Stupid’ will be broadcast on Monday in more than 400 US theaters.”