LocaPower to the People! - Cancun can because locals can

by citisven

I don't know about you, but following all the different angles of negotiation at a conference as broad and multidimensional as the UNFCCC makes my head spin. I understand that dealing with a complex problem like climate change that literally affects every nation and every individual on earth offers no simple solutions, but the pitfall of trying to think about everything can be that you end up doing nothing.

This is why I'm very pleased to see that local governments and their representatives are gaining some real traction in Cancun.  

On Saturday, local governments took a huge step when the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) officially adopted the concept of "governmental stakeholders" for the first time in UNFCCC history.

continued at Daily Kos....

pakistan: climate = a human problem

by boatsie

In a stunning series of short films depicting last summer's biblical floods, Pakistan today issued a passionate and powerful appeal to the heart and soul of the international community.

Calling for COP16 negotiators to rise about politics and circumnavigate the complexities which have a stranglehold on both process and progress, a panel of Pakitani ministers, ambassadors and scientists called on the parties to reach agreement on an adaptation fund which recognizes and adequately addresses the disproportionate impact of climate change on the world's most vulnerable populations.

"Pakistan is on the front line in two wars, the war against terrorism and the war against climate change," said Khalid Sherdit, Director General of PDMA and General Relief, Punjab. "Both battles need global coordination and cooperation, Both are unpredictable. But in the war against climate change, there is no exit plan."

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Fossil Fools? Carbon Currencies & War Rooms

by boatsie

India’s Minister of State for Environment and Forests Shri Jairam Ramesh chaired a impassioned Saturday panel on "Equitable access to Carbon Space: A Paradigm for Agreement," promoting a 'shared vision' for negotiations based upon equitable 'carbon space' for developing countries

An enthusiastic crowd spilled out into the corridors to continue discussion after the expert panelists indicated keen interest in a few of the inspired ideas floated during the Q&A, all seemingly 'pie-in-the-sky' suggestions -- like advancing a shift from gold to a global carbon standard or replacing traditional finances with effort based systems as bargaining chips.

Later that evening, expectations ran high at the World Climate Summit, hosted by Carbon War Room co-founder and eco-gladiator Sir Richard Branson, who presented the first ever Gigaton Consumer Discretion Award to one of the  Global 1000 climate conscious companies.

Raising a buzz poolside today that if big news does breaks from Cancun, it just might come from a highly unexpected source.

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gender in cancun

by boatsie

For many women living in the Cook Islands, collecting yellow land snails to make jewelry and other handicrafts is their sole source of income.  Recent extensive dry spells have made these shells more difficult to find.

"Sometimes we will spend weeks on end to fill an empty can which we used to fill within a few hours," says Tangiruaine Ngaruaine. "At the beginning of this year, it was truly tough because there was hardly any rain. Whatever I make from selling these shells is my 'income' and it has been my only source of income."

Ngaruaine's story is represented here at COP16 by Ulamila Wragg, one of an expanding number of women participating in official UNFCCC climate negotiations.

Wragg is here at COP16 an an official delegate for the Cook Islands, one of the women delegates funded and trained by the Women's Development Fund to represent female voices, particularly those of women who are disproportionately impacted by the impacts of climate change in least developed countries.

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Eighteen Month Follow Up On The OTHER Dangerous Fossil Fuel Spill, the One in Tennessee.

by NNadir

On December 22, 2008, about a month before the end of the disasterous Presidency of George W. Bush, a containment dam at the Kingston, TN coal plant ruptured, releasing 3.7 million cubic meters of dangerous fossil fuel waste into the Emory River, a tributary of the Tennessee River.

The Tennessee River is a major source of drinking water for cities in the region, and is the drinking water supply for 4.7 million Americans.

A paper published in "ASAP" form in the current issue of the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology reports on the leaching of heavy metals and toxic nonmetals, from this dangerous coal waste now in the river.  The elements discussed are arsenic, selenium, lead, barium, strontium and boron, uranium, manganese and iron.

Here is a link to the paper.  

Environmental Science and Technology is a publication of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

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SHOCKER!!! 11-year old wants NOT A THING for her birthday!

by citisven

Happy Black Friday,

Allow me to introduce you to my friend Sylvie, who is spending this fall with her parents and two sisters in Kathmandu, where she celebrated her 11th birthday last week.

Here's how she got there:

We're taking our family back to South Asia for a Fall Semester Sabbatical! Ever since our 2007 Fulbright semester in India, we've been saving up and planning for our return. We will enroll our own daughters, and teach at Manasarovar Academy, a charity school in Kathmandu serving children of Tibetan refugee families. Paul was granted unpaid leave from his teaching job, and Karen departed one month early from her summer park ranger position.

Their blog is worth checking out in its entirety, for inspiration on how a family of very modest means can offer their kids amazing experiences and opportunities.

I'd like to share the story of how sometimes the greatest gift can be to free a bird.

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Slouching Towards Ecotopia

by Dauphin

After reading Jerome a Paris' optimistic diary (the previous-to-last one) it got me thinking about social and economic processes which may ensure that, when all's said and done, we end up with sustainable economies, hopefully in time to avert the worst of global warming.

This may turn into a diary series, if there is interest. Since it's rattled around my head for a while, I'll address the oil issue in the first diary of the potential series.

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A More Ancient World: Twixt Land and Sea

by matching mole

In the best eKos tradition this is a recycled diary.  I wrote it for Dawn Chorus last weekend but didn't actually use it.  This is a virtual trip to Cumberland Island National Seashore, home to wild horses, armadillos, and the ever shifting boundary between the ocean and the firmament.

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Daily bigjac Black Friday Poetry Slam

by bigjacbigjacbigjac

I work at Walmart.

So.

A pallet,
for those of you who only shop in stores,
and have never worked behind the scenes,
a pallet is about four feet
by a little less
than four feet
by however high it is stacked,
often about four feet,
sometimes five or six feet.

Some special displays
are four by four by four, almost exactly.

Anyway,
I have been dealing with these pallets
for about 18 years,
but more so just lately.

This is the first time I have been
assigned to the backroom inventory crew
in the weeks leading up to,
in the days leading up to,
Black Friday.

Black Friday Riots

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How many Billionaires can dance on a Pinnacle?

by jamess

The GOP often dangles this dream, before its far too loyal followers:

You too, could one day be a Millionaire, or perhaps even a Billionaire, so don't ruin it for everyone, by raising Taxes on the Wealthy. Afterall, someday it could be you.  In their America, anything's possible.

Most everyone, wants to be rich someday.  It's part of the American Dream -- or at least it used to be.  But the way things have been going lately it seems the Dream has been downsized to:

I just hope I can find/keep my Job.

Despite the somber work-a-day reality most people face, far too many still take the Republican dream, at face value.  By following their lead, they hope to strike it rich someday, too.

Perhaps we Dems, should address this rouse, and dare to ask:

What would really happen if we ALL struck it rich?

Because obviously there is only SO much room "at the top" ...

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dailycancun: mosaic:EARTH & HARMONY

by boatsie

"In a musical context, the word dissonance is defined as ‘a combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension requiring resolution.’ In other words, the creative resolution of dissonance is harmony.

Dissonance of the cognitive variety abounded at last week's G20 meeting in Seoul where world leaders once again declared they would "spare no effort" in addressing climate change. Yet when it came to acting on their promise to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, a measure which would cut nearly 6% of energy related CO2 while bolstering the growing clean energy sector, they were clearly not singing from the same hymn sheet."
Kelly Rigg, Executive Director of the GCCA

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LSU prof ambushed by right-wing video mash-up

by Keith Pickering

Last week, a right-wing think tank called the Leadership Institute snuck a non-student spy into the lecture of Dr. Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University. The spy had a video camera, and the Leadership Institute (and its offshoot called Campus Reform) boasts "state-of-the-art T.V. studios." The result: a Breitbart-style selectively edited ambush video that unfairly maligns a good teacher for doing his job.

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Lamest Action of the Lame Ducks?

by A Siegel

From today's Senate calendar

At 11:00am, the Senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S.3815, "The Promoting Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles Act of 2010", and immediately proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill.

Let's consider more appropriate names for S3815:

• The Dig The Hole Deeper With More Fossil Fuel Subsidies Act
• The T Boone Pickens Profitability Act
• The WTF Are You Thinking Act?

The United States Congress is in its last days of Democratic control of the House and a large D majority in the Senate.  After inadequate (Senate) action to address climate change, lack of action to reduce subsidies to the fossil foolish sector, the closing energy action might just be significant additional subsidies for fossil fuels?

Consider me not just dismayed but disgusted.

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dailycancun: #racetothefuture

by boatsie

Climate activists launch an opening salvo in their imaginative and visionary global campaign to inform and awaken the world to the urgency of the November 28-Dec. 10 UNFCCC talks.

"We have lost something very precious. That is an understanding of our interconnectedness with nature and a world beyond the material." - His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales

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The incredibly Thinning Arctic Ice Cap -- simply Chilling!

by jamess

I had one of those conversations with a co-worker today.

about Climate Change.  

The "Earth Cycles" rhetoric is gearing up for 2 years of give-aways, it seems.

My co-worker, despite having several science degrees, including one in physics and one in meteorology, is still under the belief that Climate Change is just a matter of Natural Cycles.  Mankind has nothing to do with it.

Well I struck upon an idea, that I thought might appeal to his "inner scientist" --

The Idea of Inertia.

The "Inertia" of the Ice Thickness, specifically.  The "heat reservoirs" in the ocean warm top layers;  the "cold reservoirs" in the various Ice Caps, around the world, too.

And the Fact that the Arctic Ice Cap has been rapidly thinning for a while now -- got his attention.  He was unaware of this Fact.

And the associated permafrost melting, with its expected Methane release got his attention too.  He was unaware of that Methane was a potent Greenhouse Gas, nor about the frozen Methane Hydrates on the Ocean floors, either.

The "inner scientist" seemed to be listening ...

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Shadow of Bagheera--the black leopards of the Malay Peninsula

by Username4242

More below the fold.

continued at Daily Kos....

Climate scientists to fight climate zombies

by DWG

Climate scientists have recently made some eye-opening discoveries. Here are a few of those discoveries. The richest multinational corporations in the world stand to lose trillions in future profits if the United States rapidly shifts away from carbon-intensive energy sources like oil, coal, and gas. Those companies will gladly spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to fund a media campaign to attack climate science and scientists. This campaign is primarily aimed at conservatives, a fertile ground filled with vested business interests and religious fundamentalism. Conservative politicians have been transformed into climate zombies, claiming that climate science is a hoax while taking millions in campaign contributions from carbon energy companies.

Climate scientists have decided to take the fight to climate zombies.

Faced with rising political attacks, hundreds of climate scientists are joining a broad campaign to push back against congressional conservatives who have threatened prominent researchers with investigations and vowed to kill regulations to rein in man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

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Texting on the Farm: Mobile Technology Provides Farmers with Useful Information in India

by NourishingthePlanet

According to the U.N. Population Division, over 70 percent of Indians live in rural areas and over half of all Indians are farmers. Yet access to technology and information in many areas is limited, meaning farmers are often left uninformed and at the mercy of erratic weather and disease and pest outbreaks. And even in good growing conditions, farmers may not have access to price information that could help them negotiate with buyers or decide which markets to bring their products to.

But across rural India, mobile phones are quickly becoming an indispensable tool for farmers, helping to shrink the information gap.

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/...

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BREAKING: KS Gov Sacks Health Official to Please Coal Interests, Republican Legislature

by greendem

Roderick Bremby, the Kansas official who blocked the proposed Sunflower coal plant on global warming and health grounds during the Governorship of Kathleen Sebelius, was forced out of office today by "Democratic" Governor Mark Parkinson in an election-day push designed to avoid media scrutiny.

The move is being seen by Kansans as a dirty-trick designed to please Big Coal and ram through a new plant most Kansans neither want nor need before the EPA steps in with new regulations.

The plant's power would largely be sent out of state, while the pollution would accumulate in state.

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Massive weathered oil plumes off Louisiana coast

by DWG

The New Orleans Times-Picayune has been reporting massive plumes of weathered oil off the Louisiana coast.

Just three days after the U.S. Coast Guard admiral in charge of the BP oil spill cleanup declared little recoverable surface oil remained in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana fishers Friday found miles-long strings of weathered oil floating toward fragile marshes on the Mississippi River delta.

The report was dismissed by the Coast Guard, which suggested the miles long orange plumes were likely to be algae.

It is déjà vu all over again.

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