David Turnbull is Executive Director of the Climate Action Network - International, a network of over five hundred NGOs in dozens of countries working to develop and advocate for global solutions to the climate crisis. He joins DailyCancun this evening to reflect back on the failures of COP15 and forward as he presents a vision of what we've learned and a vision of realistic goals we can hope to achieve at COP16 in Cancun
Detroit may be feeling wind in their sails today, but they have a much bigger problem on the horizon.
A confluence of events — environmental worries, a preference for gadgets over wheels and the yearslong economic doldrums — is pushing some teens and twentysomethings to opt out of what has traditionally been considered an American rite of passage: Owning a car.
Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.
"The idea was to bring a lot of expertise from the corporate world to help young social start ups," says Fred Rose when asked about his motivation for founding the Acara Institute two years ago. As part of the Minnesota University’s Institute on the Environment, Acara has developed a classroom curriculum for universities in the U.S. and in India that challenges students to think creatively about how to use private businesses to solve pressing global issues such as hunger and poverty. But instead of the semester culminating in an exam or a paper, Acara provides students the necessary tools to turn their best class work into reality.
You are in the current Gulf Watchers BP Catastrophe - AUV #428. ROV #427 is here.
Bookmark this link to find the latest Gulf Watchers diaries.
Please RECOMMEND THIS DIARY, the motherships have been discontinued.
On Thanksgiving weekend there won't be a morning Friday Gulf Watchers AUV diary but there will be a Gulf Watchers Friday Block Party.
Gulf Watchers Diary Schedule
Monday - evening drive time
Wednesday - morning
Friday - morning
Friday Block Party - evening
Sunday - morning
The digest of diaries is here.
Please be kind to kossacks with bandwidth issues. Please do not post images or videos. Again, many thanks for this.
"Yes we can!"
Sadly, no we haven't.
Not that the Obama Administration with the support (and urging) of a Democratic House of Representatives and the drag of a Democratic controlled (???) Senate haven't tried to do tremendous things.
Note that, for the most part, President Obama has filled the Administration with competent -- incredibly competent --, dedicate, and ethical people who are interested in working diligently to solve real problems.
Sadly, no we haven't had the true simplicity and clarity of message that "Yes we can" ... "Hope" ... "Change" all represented in 2008.
Clarity, simplicity, stickiness lead to SUCCESs ...
Alan Grayson understands that.
And, looking to Grayson leads to a question: How would you spend $100 billion / year to help create solutions?
Conservative beliefs, which have not evolved from their agrarian tribal roots, are incompatible with a world population of 6.8 billion.
The first 10 months of 2010 tied with the same period in 1998 for the warmest combined land and ocean surface temperature on record.
Views about climate change continue to be sharply divided along party lines. A substantial majority of Democrats (79%) say there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been increasing over the past few decades, and 53% think the earth is warming mostly because of human activity. Among Republicans, only 38% agree the earth is warming and just 16% say warming is caused by humans. Roughly half of Republicans (53%) say there is no solid evidence of warming. These patterns are little changed from a year ago.
"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
Senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus have introduced Sen. bill 3864, which would delete protections of wolves in Idaho and Montana, allowing Sarah Palin and her blood hungry wolf hunter pals to decimate those populations.
Description of S 3864 -
To remove a portion of the distinct population segment of the Rocky Mountain gray wolf from the list of threatened species or the list of endangered species published under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and for other purposes.
...Democratic and Republican, liberal and conservative and Tea-Party and Green and Libertarian, young and old, and for generations to come. And yes, it is because of the election results. With the Republicans back in charge of the House, and beholden to both the batshit-crazy anti-science know-nothings of their base on the one hand, and the fossil-fuel corporate giants who poured so much outside money into their campaigns, on the other, it is absolutely guaranteed that no meaningful action on climate change, cap-and-trade, and alternative-energy production will be taken over the next two years. Even if the Democrats come roaring back in 2012, it will still take another year before they could cobble together and pass a useful bill to address this problem, and years after that to produce a meaningful impact.
The comment period ends tomorrow for the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed federal safeguards for toxic coal ash.
Coal ash is the by-product of burning coal for electricity, and it contains a toxic mix of chemicals: mercury, arsenic, lead, chromium, selenium, and more.
We've been calling for strong federal safeguards from EPA during the comment period over the past few months. You've seen more than 2,000 people wanting protection from coal ash rally and then pack the eight EPA public hearings across the U.S. We've helped more than 118,000 concerned citizens send in their comments via email and postcard so far.
