Kumi Naidoo - U.S. Obstructionism Is Hurting Climate Talks

Published on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kumi-naidoo/obama-get-your-climate-th_b_1131456.html

by Kumi Naidoo

We hope, we wish and we pray that the U.S. team at the UN Climate talks in Durban would set aside its obstructive, destructive behavior. But sadly, listening to U.S. negotiators Pershing and Stern, that is not going to happen. For that reason Greenpeace, WWF, Oxfam and the International Trades Union Congress have adopted a joint position demanding that the U.S. stand aside and let those who are willing to move ahead in saving lives, habitats and economies -- in agreeing to a climate saving deal.

Here in Durban, the U.S. is once again trying to kill off the global climate talks by eviscerating the mid-summit draft agreement. On Saturday, the U.S. axed a whole section of the draft agreement that would have offered real protection to those who are being hardest and fastest hit by global warming.

During the talks the U.S. is fond of insisting that they want to be involved, but at the same time makes derailing demands and announces commitments that barely survive the plane trip home.

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ecowatch.org - Fracking Compounds Found in Drinking Water

Published on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by EcoWatch.org

http://ecowatch.org/2011/fracking-compounds-found-in-drinking-water/

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a draft analysis of data Dec. 8 from its Pavillion, Wyoming ground water investigation. At the request of Pavillion residents, EPA began investigating water quality concerns in private drinking water wells three years ago. Since that time, in conjunction with the state of Wyoming, the local community, and the owner of the gas field, Encana, EPA has been working to assess ground water quality and identify potential sources of contamination.

EPA’s analysis of samples taken from the agency’s deep monitoring wells in the aquifer indicates detection of synthetic chemicals, like glycols and alcohols consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids, benzene concentrations well above Safe Drinking Water Act standards and high methane levels. EPA constructed two deep monitoring wells to sample water in the aquifer. The draft report indicates that ground water in the aquifer contains compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing. EPA also re-tested private and public drinking water wells in the community. The samples were consistent with chemicals identified in earlier EPA results released in 2010 and are generally below established health and safety standards. To ensure a transparent and rigorous analysis, EPA is releasing these findings for public comment and will submit them to an independent scientific review panel. The draft findings announced Dec. 8 are specific to Pavillion, where the fracturing is taking place in and below the drinking water aquifer and in close proximity to drinking water wells—production conditions different from those in many other areas of the country.

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Lester Brown - Rising Meat Consumption Takes Big Bite out of Grain Harvest

EcoWatch  2-03-2011

Lester Brown

World consumption of animal protein is everywhere on the rise. Meat consumption increased from 44 million tons in 1950 to 284 million tons in 2009, more than doubling annual consumption per person to more than 90 pounds. The rise in consumption of milk and eggs is equally dramatic. Wherever incomes rise, so does meat consumption.

As the oceanic fish catch and rangeland beef production have both leveled off, the world has shifted to grain-based production of animal protein to expand output. With some 35 percent of the world grain harvest (760 million tons) used to produce animal protein, meat consumption has a large impact on grain consumption and therefore global food security.

The efficiency with which various animals convert grain into protein varies widely. Grain-fed beef is one of the least efficient forms of animal protein, taking roughly 7 pounds of grain to produce a 1-pound gain in live weight. Global beef production, most of which comes from rangelands, has grown by about 1 percent a year since 1990.

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Common Dreams - US College Student Shames US Climate Delegation in Durban

Published on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/08-5

Abigail Borah, a Middlebury College student and climate activist from the United States, was ejected from a plenary session at the COP17 climate summit this morning after interrupting introductory remarks by US chief negotiator, Todd Stern.

Her statement, which was met with wide applause from the crowd, read as follows:

"I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot.  The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. 2020 is too late to wait. We need an urgent path to a fair ambitious and legally binding treaty. 

You must take responsibility to act now, or you will threaten the lives of youth and the world's most vulnerable. 

You must set aside partisan politics and let science dictate decisions. You must pledge ambitious targets to lower emissions not expectations.  Citizens across the world are being held hostage by stillborn negotiations.

We need leaders who will commit to real change, not empty rhetoric. Keep your promises. Keep our hope alive. 2020 is too late to wait."

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Steve Connor - Father of Climate Change: 2C Limit is Not Enough

Published on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by The Independent/UK

by Steve Connor

SAN FRANCISCO - Talks to limit global temperature rises to 2C will not prevent the possibility of dangerous climate change, warns the scientist who first raised the alarm over global warming.

James Hansen, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said there was a widespread misconception among international climate negotiators meeting in Durban, South Africa, that the 2C "safe" target would stop extreme changes. James Hansen, director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said there was a widespread misconception among international climate negotiators meeting in Durban, South Africa, that the 2C "safe" target would stop extreme changes.

He believes carbon dioxide concentrations – now at nearly 389 parts per million (ppm) – should be no higher than 350ppm to stop catastrophic events such as the melting of ice sheets, dramatic sea level rises and methane being released from beneath the permafrost.

Dr Hansen, the "father of global warming", first raised the issue at US Senate hearings in 1988.

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Mara Lee - Toll from Weather Disasters in US This Year Hits $52 Billion

Published on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by Hartford Courant

http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/toll-from-weather-disasters-in-u-s-this-year-hits/article_7f03b9cf-30ce-5d4c-9df1-5b86de274a02.html

by Mara Lee

HARTFORD, Conn. - The United States had a dozen weather disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage this year, the greatest frequency of severe weather that caused costly losses in more than 30 years of federal government tracking.

In this Feb. 2, 2011 file photo, hundreds of cars are seen stranded on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago after a winter blizzard of historic proportions wobbled an otherwise snow-tough Chicago. America's wild weather year has hit yet another new high. (AP) However, even with the number of events, the total losses this year from these storms, flooding and droughts is $52 billion, not even close to the most expensive year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina alone cost $145 billion in today's dollars. It was the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history, and, with more than 1,800 deaths, the highest toll in lives since the 1928 hurricane in south Florida.

The Joplin, Mo., tornado was the deadliest single tornado in 61 years, with 160 deaths, and the tornado there, along with 179 others across 15 states in late May cost $9.1 billion, with $6.5 billion in insured losses.

The disasters this year caused more than 600 deaths, NOAA said. In addition to the Groundhog Day Blizzard, Hurricane Irene and many tornadoes, drought-fueled wildfires in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona crossed the $1 billion threshold.

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The Washington Independent - U.S. called ‘immoral’ at United Nations climate conference

The Washington Independent 

Wednesday, December 07, 201

As the United Nations climate talks in Durban progress, they are becoming increasingly combative, offering a soft preview of the kind of political atmosphere destined to prevail in a world where agriculture in vulnerable regions of the planet begins to succumb to catastrophic drought and flooding. The United States and Canada have drawn intense criticism here during the first two days of the conference.

Participants lamented Canada’s new status as a “laggard country” when that nation’s conservative government announced its plan to quit the Kyoto Protocol, which it called a thing of the past. And, to almost no one’s surprise, people inside the conference halls and out on the streets joined together in labeling the United States “enemy number one” for the way it is wielding its vast global influence in the service of intransigence, backpedaling and obfuscation. A top South African religious leader Tuesday called the high-profile climate-change skepticism of many U.S. leaders “immoral.”

At a well-attended briefing Tuesday morning held by NGO umbrella organization Climate Action Network, Bishop Geoff Davies, executive director of the Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute, highlighted what he saw as the contradiction inherent in the fact that the people of the United States are deeply religious but also alienated from the responsibility faith demands to address suffering tied to climate-altering pollution.

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Noam Chomsky - Marching Off the Cliff

Tuesday 6 December 2011

by: Noam Chomsky, Truthout | Op-Ed

http://www.truth-out.org/marching-cliff/1323195281

A task of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, now under way in Durban, South Africa, is to extend earlier policy decisions that were limited in scope and only partially implemented.

These decisions trace back to the U.N. Convention of 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which the U.S. refused to join. The Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ends in 2012. A fairly general pre-conference mood was captured by a New York Times headline: “Urgent Issues but Low Expectations.”

As the delegates meet in Durban, a report on newly updated digests of polls by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Program on International Policy Attitudes reveals that “publics around the world and in the United States say their government should give global warming a higher priority and strongly support multilateral action to address it.”

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World Net Daily - $2 trillion sunstorm coming, NASA warns - Recovery time period estimated at 10 years

World Net Daily: December 04, 2011

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=373629

Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted fromJoseph Farah's G2 Bulletin,the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. is becoming increasingly aware and concerned about the possibility within a few years of an electromagnetic pulse attack from an enemy's high-altitude nuclear explosion. The impact would include the loss of critical U.S. electrical infrastructure that could send the nation back into an 18th century agrarian economy, according to a report fromJoseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

But experts have warned that such an attack could produce conditions more difficult than the 18th century due to the considerable increase in population and the total reliance by society on electricity and technology for life-sustaining factors, such as food production and delivery. Also hit would be transportation, medical and emergency services, telecommunications, and the economic and financial system.

Republican presidential candidate and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, in a nationally televised presidential debate, recently declared that the potential for an EMP attack is perhaps the most serious national security threat facing the United States today.

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worstpolluted.org - New Report is First to Quantify Health Impact from World’s Worst Toxic Pollution Problems

http://www.worstpolluted.org/2011-press-release.html

New York, NY--November 9, 2011--A new report released today by New York-based Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland identifies the top ten toxic pollution problems and sources. The report also calculates, for the first time, the health impacts of toxic sites. The calculations show that people impacted by the polluted sites analyzed in the report could lose an average of 12.7 years to death or disability. This measurement is called Disability-Adjusted Life Year or DALY, and represents the sum of life years lost and years lived with disability. The report also reveals that, contrary to popular belief, most toxic hotspots result from poorly regulated, locally owned small- and medium-scale operations, rather than large multinational corporations. The report offers the most targeted picture of pollution’s toll to date, and is a crucial step in prioritizing life-saving cleanup efforts

The World’s Worst Toxic Pollution Problems 2011 report is the latest in a series of annual reports documenting global pollution issues. Since 2006, Blacksmith's yearly reports have been instrumental in increasing public understanding of the health impacts posed by toxic pollution, and in some cases, have compelled cleanup work at pollution hotspots. Blacksmith reports have been issued jointly with Green Cross Switzerland since 2007. The 2011 report, as well as all previous reports, are available online at www.worstpolluted.org. 

“This report shows pollution’s toll in real quantifiable numbers, allowing us to identify which sites have the most at-risk populations and which pollution problems and toxins cause the most damage,” says Richard Fuller, president, Blacksmith Institute. “Using the same methodology, we intend to calculate health impacts for all the polluted sites and problems in our database so that can prioritize our cleanup efforts in order to save the most lives.”

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory - Carbon dioxide emissions rebound quickly after global financial crisis

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, December 5, 2011

http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20111205-00

OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY, Tenn., Dec. 5, 2011 — The sharp decrease in global carbon dioxide emissions attributed to the worldwide financial crisis in 2009 quickly rebounded in 2010, according to research supported by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

In 2010, emissions reached an all-time high of 9.1 billion tons of carbon, compared with 8.6 billion tons in 2009. The downturn was also followed by milestone carbon dioxide emissions from the developing world's emerging economies. In developing countries, consumption-based emissions, or those emissions associated with the consumption of goods and services, increased 6.1 percent over 2009 and 2010.

As a result, 2009 marked the first time that developing countries had higher consumption-based emissions than developed countries.

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Global Carbon Project - Annual emissions summary

Global carbon dioxide emissions increased by a record 5.9 per cent in 2010 following the dampening effect of the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), according to scientists working with the Global Carbon Project.

·         Global Carbon Project, 5 December 2011

·         http://www.csiro.au/en/Portals/Media/Global-Carbon-Project.aspx

The Global Carbon Project (GCP) published its annual analysis today in the journal Nature Climate Change, reporting that the impact of the GFC on emissions has been short-lived owing to strong emissions growth in emerging economies and a return to emissions growth in developed economies.

Contributions to global emissions growth in 2010 were largest from China, USA, India, the Russian Federation, and the European Union, with a continuously growing global share from emerging economies. Coal burning was at the heart of the growth in fossil fuel and cement emissions accounting for 52% of the total growth.

Coal burning was at the heart of the growth in fossil fuel and cement emissions accounting for 52% of the total growth.

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TERRA DAILY - Abrupt permafrost thaw increases climate threat

by Staff Writers, TERRA DAILY.com
Fairbanks, AK (SPX) Dec 07, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Abrupt_permafrost_thaw_increases_climate_threat_999.html

As the Arctic warms, greenhouse gases will be released from thawing permafrost faster and at significantly higher levels than previous estimates, according to survey results from 41 international scientists published in the Nov. 30 issue of the journal Nature.

Permafrost thaw will release approximately the same amount of carbon as deforestation, say the authors, but the effect on climate will be 2.5 times bigger because emissions include methane, which has a greater effect on warming than carbon dioxide.

The survey, led by University of Florida researcher Edward Schuur and University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student Benjamin Abbott, asked climate experts what percentage of the surface permafrost is likely to thaw, how much carbon will be released and how much of that carbon will be methane.

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Michael Klare - Obama’s Risky Oil Threat to China

Posted on December 6, 2011, Printed on December 6, 2011
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175476/

Obama’s Risky Oil Threat to China 
By Michael T. Klare

When it comes to China policy, is the Obama administration leaping from the frying pan directly into the fire?  In an attempt to turn the page on two disastrous wars in the Greater Middle East, it may have just launched a new Cold War in Asia -- once again, viewing oil as the key to global supremacy.

The new policy was signaled by President Obama himself on November 17th in an address to the Australian Parliament in which he laid out an audacious -- and extremely dangerous -- geopolitical vision.  Instead of focusing on the Greater Middle East, as has been the case for the last decade, the United States will now concentrate its power in Asia and the Pacific.  “My guidance is clear,” he declared in Canberra. “As we plan and budget for the future, we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region.”  While administration officials insist that this new policy is not aimed specifically at China, the implication is clear enough: from now on, the primary focus of American military strategy will not be counterterrorism, but the containment of that economically booming land -- at whatever risk or cost.

The Planet’s New Center of Gravity

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Stephen Leahy - Kyoto Protocol on Life Support

Published on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 by Inter Press Service

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/06-0

by Stephen Leahy

DURBAN, South Africa - The United States has become the major stumbling block to progress at the mid point of negotiations over a new international climate regime say civil society and many of the 193 nations attending the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban.

"The U.S. position leads us to three or four degrees Celsius of warming, which will be devastating for the poor of the world," said Celine Charveriat of Oxfam International.

"They are proposing a 10-year time out with no new targets to lower emissions until after 2020," Charveriat said.

At COP 15 in Copenhagen the U.S. committed to reducing its emissions 17 percent from 2005 by 2020. This is far short of what is widely agreed as necessary: cuts in fossil fuel emissions 25 to 40 percent below those in 1990 by U.S. and all developed nations.

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TerraDaily - Brazil says Amazon deforestation down to lowest level

by Staff Writers, TerraDaily.com
Brasilia (AFP) Dec 5, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Brazil_says_Amazon_deforestation_down_to_lowest_level_999.html

Brazil said Monday that the pace of deforestation in its Amazon region fell to its lowest level since authorities began monitoring the world's largest tropical rainforest.

The head of the National Institute of Space Research (INPE), Gilberto Camara, said deforestation dropped to 6,238 square kilometers (2,408 square miles), between August 2010 and July this year, down 11 percent compared with the same period in 2009-20100.

"It's the lowest deforestation rate measured since INPE began its monitoring in 1988," Camara told a press conference.

"It's a great victory for Brazil. It's the lowest deforestation rate. The Amazon is a great instrument for carbon sequestration," one of the tools to combat global warming, said Aloizio Mercadante, the minister of science and technology.

Still, the area deforested in the year ending in July is four times the size of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, according to the state Agencia Brasil.

Between August 2009 and July 2010, the Brazilian Amazon lost 7,000 square kilometers (2,700 square miles) of rain forest, until then the smallest loss recorded.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon reached a historic peak of 27,700 square kilometers (10,700 square miles) in 2003-2004.

Monday's announcement came a day before the Brazilian Senate was due to adopt a reform of forestry legislation which could reduce the protected area.

The bill, which would have to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies, has the backing of Brazil's powerful agribusiness sector.

The current forestry code, which dates back to 1965, limits the use of lands for farming and mandates that up to 80 percent of the Amazon remain intact.

Authorities say key reasons for Amazon deforestation are fires, the advance of agriculture and stockbreeding and illegal trafficking in timber and minerals.

Al-Jazeera-English - 'Facile': Greenpeace Penetrates French Nuclear Plant

Published on Monday, December 5, 2011 by Al-Jazeera-English

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2011/12/201112514312118302.html

Activists hang banner on reactor building in what they say was operation to expose weaknesses in national security.

Greenpeace activists secretly entered a French nuclear site before dawn and draped a banner reading "Coucou" and "Facile", (meaning "Hey" and "Easy") on its reactor containment building, to expose the vulnerability of atomic sites in the country.

Activists hung a banner reading 'Coucou' (Hey) and 'Facile' (Easy) on the reactor containment building. (AFP) Police, whom the environmental activist group immediately told of the publicity stunt, took several hours to round up nine intruders who had broken into the power plant in Nogent-sur-Seine, about 95km southeast of Paris, on Monday.

Greenpeace said the break-in aimed to show that an ongoing review of safety measures, ordered by French authorities after a tsunami ravaged Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant earlier this year, was focused too narrowly on possible natural disasters, and not human factors.

"With this nonviolent action, Greenpeace has shown how vulnerable French nuclear plants are," said Sophia Majnoni d'Intignano, a Greenpeace activist.

Activists who tried to enter three other French nuclear sites, in a co-ordinated action on the same day, were prevented from doing so, but Greenpeace said other invaders were still holed up inside other, unspecified, nuclear sites.

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eurekalert.org - Global carbon emissions reach record 10 billion tons -- threatening 2 degree target

Public release date: 4-Dec-2011
University of East Anglia

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/uoea-gce120111.php

Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased by 49 per cent in the last two decades, according to the latest figures by an international team, including researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia (UEA).

Published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, the new analysis by the Global Carbon Project shows fossil fuel emissions increased by 5.9 per cent in 2010 and by 49 per cent since 1990 – the reference year for the Kyoto protocol.

On average, fossil fuel emissions have risen by 3.1 per cent each year between 2000 and 2010 – three times the rate of increase during the 1990s. They are projected to continue to increase by 3.1 per cent in 2011.

Total emissions - which combine fossil fuel combustion, cement production, deforestation and other land use emissions - reached 10 billion tonnes of carbon1 in 2010 for the first time. Half of the emissions remained in the atmosphere, where CO2 concentration reached 389.6 parts per million. The remaining emissions were taken up by the ocean and land reservoirs, in approximately equal proportions.

Rebounding from the global financial crisis of 2008-09 when emissions temporarily decreased, last year's high growth was caused by both emerging and developed economies. Rich countries continued to outsource part of their emissions to emerging economies through international trade.

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International Center for Integrated Mountain Development - New reports identify impacts of climate change on world's highest mountains

Public release date: 4-Dec-2011

International Center for Integrated Mountain Development

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/bc-nri120211.php

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA -- Findings from the most comprehensive assessment to date on climate change, snow and glacier melt in Asia's mountainous Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region -- site of Mount Everest and many of the world's tallest peaks -- highlight the region's extreme vulnerability to climate change, as rising temperatures disturb the balance of snow, ice and water, threatening millions of mountain people and 1.3 billion people living downstream in Asia's major river basins.

The findings, published in three reports by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), were released today during Mountain Day, a convening of mountain experts, policy makers, and climate change negotiators on the sidelines of UN climate talks.

The three reports published by ICIMOD provide the most up-to-date compilation of information on the current status of climate change in the HKH region and the first authoritative data on the number and extent of glaciers and the patterns of snowfall in the world's most mountainous region.

"The Hindu Kush-Himalayan region is like a gentle giant. While physically imposing, it is one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the world," said David Molden, director general of ICIMOD. "We must meet the intensity of climate change in these mountains with an equal intensity of will to mitigate and to adapt to the impacts."

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Kanya D'Almeida - US Inaction on Climate is "Criminal", Activists Say

Sunday, December 4, 2011 by Inter Press Service

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106086

by Kanya D'Almeida

WASHINGTON - The United States' delegation at the 17th annual Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCC) in Durban, South Africa has come under heavy fire from civil society leaders and activists around the globe for standing in the way of real solutions to climate change.

Between 15,000 and 20,000 farmers, unionists, teachers, peasants, students, garbage pickers, transport workers and other indignant citizens gathered outside the U.N. consultation chambers in Durban on Saturday calling for "system change, not climate change".

Many of these protestors marched to the U.S. embassy, demanding that the "world's biggest polluter" start supporting climate solutions that benefit the 99 percent.

In solidarity with their African counterparts, citizens in 20 cities across the U.S. rallied against the eco-destructive actions of the "one percent" as part of the Dec. 3 global day of action to save the planet and "occupy the climate".

Spearheaded by the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJA), a national network of grassroots organizations, along with the North American chapter of the 200 million member international farmers' movement, La Via Campesina, Saturday's events were an attempt to draw together disparate climate-related struggles under one banner.

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