Tag Archives: politics

3 Things You Must See on Climate Today

August 6, 2010
  1. Coalition of the Willing – a crazy beautiful mixed-media animation about one strategy to solve the climate crisis using lessons from the free open source software movement.
  2. “We’re Hot as Hell and We’re Not Going to Take It Any More” – an inspiring post by Bill McKibben on the next steps for the climate movement.
  3. What the Zapatistas Can Teach us About the Climate Crisis – another great piece on the global movement for climate justice by Jeff Conant.
  4. Update: this just in – a fourth reason to get excited on a Friday afternoon… GetUp just won their High Court challenge against former conservative Australian Prime Minister Howard’s electoral laws meaning that 100,000 more people are now eligible to vote in the Federal Election on August 21. Read the story here.

Watch the video then find out more at coalitionofthewilling.org.uk

“We’re Hot as Hell and We’re Not Going to Take It Any More”

Some choice excerpts:

  • According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record.
  • A “staggering” new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950.
  • Nine nations have so far set their all-time temperature records in 2010, including Russia (111 degrees), Niger (118), Sudan (121), Saudi Arabia and Iraq (126 apiece), and Pakistan, which also set the new all-time Asia record in May: a hair under 130 degrees. I can turn my oven to 130 degrees.
  • And then, in late July, the U.S. Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change. They didn’t do less than they could have — they did nothing, preserving a perfect two-decade bipartisan record of no action. Senate majority leader Harry Reid decided not even to schedule a vote on legislation that would have capped carbon emissions.

…

For many years, the lobbying fight for climate legislation on Capitol Hill has been led by a collection of the most corporate and moderate environmental groups, outfits like the Environmental Defense Fund. We owe them a great debt, and not just for their hard work. We owe them a debt because they did everything the way you’re supposed to: they wore nice clothes, lobbied tirelessly, and compromised at every turn.

…

By the time they were done, they had a bill that only capped carbon emissions from electric utilities (not factories or cars) and was so laden with gifts for industry that if you listened closely you could actually hear the oinking. They bent over backwards like Soviet gymnasts.  Senator John Kerry, the legislator they worked most closely with, issued this rallying cry as the final negotiations began: “We believe we have compromised significantly, and we’re prepared to compromise further.”

…

Step one involves actually talking about global warming.  For years now, the accepted wisdom in the best green circles was: talk about anything else — energy independence, oil security, beating the Chinese to renewable technology. I was at a session convened by the White House early in the Obama administration where some polling guru solemnly explained that “green jobs” polled better than “cutting carbon.”

…

Step two, we have to ask for what we actually need, not what we calculate we might possibly be able to get. If we’re going to slow global warming in the very short time available to us, then we don’t actually need an incredibly complicated legislative scheme that gives door prizes to every interested industry and turns the whole operation over to Goldman Sachs to run. We need a stiff price on carbon, set by the scientific understanding that we can’t still be burning black rocks a couple of decades hence. That undoubtedly means upending the future business plans of Exxon and BP, Peabody Coal and Duke Energy, not to speak of everyone else who’s made a fortune by treating the atmosphere as an open sewer for the byproducts of their main business.

…

Asking for what you need doesn’t mean you’ll get all of it.  Compromise still happens. But as David Brower, the greatest environmentalist of the late twentieth century, explained amid the fight to save the Grand Canyon: “We are to hold fast to what we believe is right, fight for it, and find allies and adduce all possible arguments for our cause. If we cannot find enough vigor in us or them to win, then let someone else propose the compromise. We thereupon work hard to coax it our way. We become a nucleus around which the strongest force can build and function.”

…

Which leads to the third step in this process. If we’re going to get any of this done, we’re going to need a movement, the one thing we haven’t had. For 20 years environmentalists have operated on the notion that we’d get action if we simply had scientists explain to politicians and CEOs that our current ways were ending the Holocene, the current geological epoch. That turns out, quite conclusively, not to work. We need to be able to explain that their current ways will end something they actually care about, i.e. their careers. And since we’ll never have the cash to compete with Exxon, we better work in the currencies we can muster: bodies, spirit, passion.

…

As Tom Friedman put it in a strong column the day after the Senate punt, the problem was that the public “never got mobilized.” Is it possible to get people out in the streets demanding action about climate change? Last year, with almost no money, our scruffy little outfit, 350.org, managed to organize what Foreign Policy called the “largest ever coordinated global rally of any kind” on any issue — 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries, 2,000 of them in the U.S.A.

People were rallying not just about climate change, but around a remarkably wonky scientific data point, 350 parts per million carbon dioxide, which NASA’s James Hansen and his colleagues have demonstrated is the most we can have in the atmosphere if we want a planet “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.” Which, come to think of it, we do. And the “we,” in this case, was not rich white folks. If you look at the 25,000 pictures in our Flickr account, you’ll see that most of them were poor, black, brown, Asian, and young — because that’s what most of the world is. No need for vice-presidents of big conservation groups to patronize them: shrimpers in Louisiana and women in burqas and priests in Orthodox churches and slumdwellers in Mombasa turned out to be completely capable of understanding the threat to the future.

…

But no one will come out to fight for watered down and weak legislation. That’s not how it works. You don’t get a movement unless you take the other two steps I’ve described.

…

Mostly, we need to tell the truth, resolutely and constantly. Fossil fuel is wrecking the one earth we’ve got. It’s not going to go away because we ask politely. If we want a world that works, we’re going to have to raise our voices.

Read the full article here.

What the Zapatistas Can Teach us About the Climate Crisis

In the 1990s, the Zapatistas told the world “Enough already!” That message resonates in today’s climate crisis.

While political forces have conspired to make the Zapatistas largely invisible both inside Mexico and internationally, their challenge has always been to propose a paradigm of development that is both just and self-sustaining. It seems fair, then, to see if Zapatismo can shed any light on the muddle of politics around the climate crisis. Can the poetic riddles of Zapatista spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos serve as signposts on the rough road toward just climate solutions?

Read the rest here.

Also tagged , , , , , , , , , – No Comments

Copenhagen: Last Week & Why I’m Here

December 19, 2009

Update: Some of the early info I had on the “Copenhagen Accord” was incorrect – see corrections near the end of this post and have a look at this Guardian article for the full low-down.

Well, the COP15 UN Climate Summit is almost at an end. I’m sorry to say I don’t know anyone who thinks there is any chance the world leaders will rescue the sad state of affairs as they stand. Personally, I think the last two days of the conference have been more of a photo opportunity than anything else. Apparently, the text that now looks set to be the “Copenhagen Accord” basically looks the same as what was leaked from the Danes at the beginning of the two weeks. You would be justified in asking what it was all for.

Yes, my blog from Copenhagen lapsed, I’m sorry, but here’s a wrap-up of how we went with our Australian actions.

I already posted photos from our little Aussie bloc in the main protest last Saturday, but the following Monday we were actually covered on page 2 (or 4, depending on the edition) of The Australian, sadly our only national broadsheet – sad because it’s actually a really crap paper. Anyway, yay to them for covering us!

Aussie Protest in The Australian newspaper

Then our little story about our first day of action outside the Bella Centre was published in the SMH on Wednesday and got republished in The Age too.

Cries of 'C'mon Aussie' stir yobbo pride

We just found out yesterday that Celia’s little piece was published in this week’s Blue Mountains Gazette too – and surprisingly have received much more feedback about that than page 2 of the national broadsheet. Ah local papers, I love you. If you can believe it, I think the title was “Local Girl Does Good”. Beautiful.

We also came across a reporter from ABC’s Radio National on the metro one day in Copenhagen, with the Sooty twins (our inflatable kangaroos) under arm and he posted one of my photos with their latest Copenhagen update, online here.

Finally, GetUp had their camera at the main Saturday protest and featured us in their “COPTV” update that recently went out to their members. Watch the video here.

We took our Aussie protest, inflatable kangaroos and new chants to the Bella Centre a few more times in the second week, even in the snow. I have to say, I was, and still am, really unimpressed with a lot of the campaign, lobby and “activist” organisations who have been whinging about not being allowed into the Bella Centre. Okay, the world needs to know. Okay, we need observers there. Okay, we need some activists on the inside. Did the Danish government massively stuff up on the number of passes issued? Yes. Okay, it’s terrible that many people flew to Copenhagen thinking they could get in for the second week and ended up wasting the carbon-debt of their long-haul flight in their hotel rooms. However, did we need as many observers as there were? No. Should there have been limits on lobbyists from both the fossil fuel and environmental sides? Yes. Should there have even been limits on government negotiators and at the same time subsidies so that Tuvalu didn’t have one person there while Australia had 100? Yes. Anyway, what really made me lose faith in some of these people was when we were out near the entrance of the conference, singing a few Aussie climate chants. In a break, the crowd, some of whom to be fair had been queuing for six hours, starting chanting ‘let us in’. Okay, that’s reasonable. Then we thought we’d offer another chant since people were obviously in the mood & it helps with the morale:

What do we want?
Climate Justice
When do we want it?
Now.

Basically no-one joined in and shortly, we had several people telling us to shut up. So many of these people are here to urge governments to do more on climate change but they want the protesters to shut up? That’s a pretty funny kind of logic.

The second major action of the two weeks was on Wednesday, Reclaim Power, when the plan was to march to the Bella Centre and attempt to breach the perimeter, taking over proceedings and creating a People’s Summit on climate change. Could have been a great idea but I think it was a little over-ambitious and because many activists arrived only days before the action, along with the Danish police pre-emptively arresting some key organisers it ended up a little disorganised. Anyway, we marched with a few Aussie signs, though sadly Sooty had taken a hit and was put out of action. The whole protest was pretty positive and very peaceful on the part of the protesters. Sadly, once we arrived at the Bella Centre the police got a little edgy and sprayed a lot of people in the eyes with pepper spray – very painful – and bashed a number of people in the head with their batons. They even assaulted one and arrested a number of other people trying to exit the Bella Centre and join the protest outside. After some time it calmed down and we actually had a great time holding a line across the road on one side of the main body of the protest so that the People’s Summit could go on outside without police intervention. We had clowns dancing around in front of the police line, sausages being thrown to their attack dogs and a classic linked-arm rendition of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.

What else happened to us in the last week? Our last days were put partly out of action when two of our crew, Mithra and Martin had their bag, containing their passports, stolen and had to go to a cop shop (ha!), report the theft, go to the Australian embassy, etc. So we might have had one more exciting action up our sleeves but it wasn’t to be. That day I went to see Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org and Mohammed Nasheed, President of the Maldives speak at Klimaforum which was really beautiful and powerful. We were also caught in a riot (okay, that’s probably dramatising it a little) in Copenhagen’s free, autonomous suburb of Christiania. We were at an activist gig at a bar inside Christiania. When the gig finished someone announced that the front door was closed and you couldn’t leave that way because a riot had started and the police were firing tear gas outside. It’s hard to get an exact idea of what happened, but there was a big event in a climate tent there that night that was attended by many organisers from Climate Justice Action, the main group behind the Reclaim Power action, and the word was that police used a minor excuse to try to move in and pre-emptively arrest a bunch of people. This was resisted with fire blockades and broken glass which was answered with tear gas. Anyway, we got out a couple of hours later, walking through a weird scene with helicopter searchlights shining down from above, clusters of police in full riot gear and coach-loads of riot police in the surrounding streets.

So I travelled all the way to Europe, taking five weeks to get here with one of the big motivations for my trip to be here at the end of the year in Copenhagen for the COP15 UN Climate Summit. What was it all for?

There’s not much point in rehashing words that have been eloquently written elsewhere, so here’s an excerpt from 350.org (my favourite climate campaign, and these days there’s a lot of choice) which more or less sums up what I think would have been a good outcome for Copenhagen:

we at 350.org are fighting for a deal that is fair, ambitious and binding (FAB) — fair because developed countries provide at least $200 billion a year for developing countries to develop on a low carbon pathway and face the impacts of climate change, ambitious because the treaty sets 350 ppm as a target and demands at least 40% carbon cuts by 2020 for developed countries, and binding, because it will be a legally binding treaty, not just a political agreement.

We definitely fell far short of that, but there are some things to celebrate. Over 100 countries now support a deal based on bringing global CO2 back down to 350 parts-per-million, which is well over half the countries that were involved at Copenhagen. Also, many small nations, especially small island states had an opportunity, in front of a mass concentration of global media to present to the world the stark choice that particularly rich countries are making – unless we bring the world back to 350ppm and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures – we are signing a death sentence for those people and millions more across the planet. The final piece of good news is that 1.5 degrees makes a minor appearance in the text as it currently stands – that in 2016 the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees will be reviewed to see if we might need to keep it to 1.5 degrees instead, this is barely a win and more of a way to stop island nations from walking out of the summit. By 2016 it will almost certainly be too late to keep the average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. Update: sadly, all references to 1.5 degrees were removed from the final text.

Even though I didn’t expect much more from Copenhagen than what we have – essentially a political agreement with no legal power for wealthy countries to reduce emissions 80% by 2050 [Update: all targets removed from the final text] and no interim (2020) targets – it is sad to see that realised. It is sad that even with a mountain of scientific evidence for the crisis ahead of us and in the face of heartfelt pleas from countries like Tuvalu, world leaders still did nothing.

Our little group of individuals just wanted to be there to show that there are Australians who aren’t aligned to any lobby group or organisation who are prepared to come halfway around the world off our own bat to freezing Copenhagen just to have what small impact we can in the face of our government offering a woefully inadequate response and even trying to wriggle out of what little targets we have offered through dodgy accounting.

Update: Please leave your comments on what you think the next steps could be for the climate movement, globally, but particularly in Australia in light of Copenhagen.

Also tagged , , , , , , , , , – 2 Comments

Kangaroo Climate Crew Strikes Again

December 12, 2009

Before I share a few more fabulous photos of our recent actions at COP15 in Copenhagen, I want to let you know that I’ve coined a new term. Progressive boganism. That’s what our actions so far at Copenhagen have all been about. Check it out.

Fair Go Aus: Don't Do The Dodge

Nothing says day out at the footy like an inflatable green and gold boxing kangaroo. This shot was taken at Copenhagen’s iconic ‘little mermaid’ statue yesterday and is targeted at the issue of loopholes that various countries, especially Australia, have been trying to get in to the final text of the Copenhagen agreement. We might here more in the next fews days from journos inside the conference, but you can read a little more about it here in the mean time.

After a quick placard re-arrangement, we snapped a second shot in support of a treaty that will bring global carbon dioxide in the atmosphere down to 350 parts-per-million. The Australian government is currently angling for a 450ppm deal as their ‘ambitious’ position. This is a death sentence for mainly low-lying island nations including many of our Pacific neighbours and would also spell disaster for the Great Barrier Reef and potentially a lot of Australian agriculture. Find out more at 350.org

C'mon Aussie - Get Real - 350 Deal

Right now we’re patching up the ‘Sooty twins’ – our two inflatable roos – to take down to the Aussie bloc in the Global Day of Action on Climate Change march starting at Parliament Square, Copenhagen.

We also found our little actions spreading around the web in a few more places:

More actions to come, so keep on eye on my unfolding set of my COP15 photos here.

Also tagged , , , , , , , , , – 1 Comment

Hope & Inspiration for Copenhagen

November 12, 2009

EDIT: You can now Sign the Survival Pact, standing in solidarity with President Nasheed & the Climate Vulnerable Forum. Read on below the video to find out what I’m talking about.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, but I wanted to share a couple of things, in the lead up to the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen.

First, while working at a WWOOF place in Devon, I tragically missed the opportunity to attend an action on 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action. There were some scheduled around Devon, but no way to get out from the property on that particular day. Anyway, all reports suggest that the day was amazing: over 5200 actions in 181 countries and the biggest global news story of the day, so I want to share the two minute video with you.

If you want to see more (and it’s really worth it) check out the slide-show on the 350.org homepage or all 22,000! photos on Flickr. Since October 24, the 350 crew have been working hard to make the day have the biggest impact possible – putting the images and messages of the day in the face of the decision-makers who have it in their power to strike a just and effective deal at Copenhagen. The images were up all over the UN meetings in Barcelona last week – the last round of negotiations before Copenhagen – on the right you can see them presenting a photo of the Copenhagen human sign to Yvo de Boer, the Secretary General of the UNFCCC.

There’s some other really important news on the Copenhagen/COP15 front. If you haven’t heard before, the government of Maldives appears to have become the latest international climate activist organisation, read about that here. Now, President Nasheed of the Maldives, presumably in despair at the state of the negotiations as they stood at the conclusion of the Barcelona talks, has formed the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of (so far 11) countries most vulnerable to – and already suffering – the impacts of climate change. It’s best if I let President Nasheed tell it in his own words, as I think this is one of the most inspiring speeches made recently on climate change…

Members of the G8 rich countries have pledged to halt temperature rises to two degrees Celsius.

Yet they have refused to commit to the carbon targets, which would deliver even this modest goal.

At two degrees we would lose the coral reefs.

At two degrees we would melt Greenland.

At two degrees my country would be on death row.

As a president I cannot accept this.

As a person I cannot accept this.

I refuse to believe that it is too late, and that we cannot do any better.

Copenhagen is our date with destiny.

Let us go there with a better plan.

When we look around the world today, there are few countries showing moral leadership on climate change.

There are plenty of politicians willing to point the finger of blame.

But there are few prepared to help solve a crisis that, left unchecked, will consume us all.

Few countries are willing to discuss the scale of emissions reductions required to save the planet.

And the offers of adaptation support for the most vulnerable nations are lamentable.

The sums of money on offer are so low, it is like arriving at a earthquake zone with a dustpan and brush.

We don’t want to appear ungrateful but the sums hardly address the scale of the challenge.

We are gathered here because we are the most vulnerable group of nations to climate damages.

The problem is already on us, yet we have precious little with which to fight.

Some might prefer us to suffer in silence but today we have decided to speak.

And so I make this pledge today: we will not die quietly.

I believe in humanity.

I believe in human ingenuity.

I believe that with the right frame of mind, we can solve this crisis.

In the Maldives, we want to focus less on our plight; and more on our potential.

We want to do what is best for the planet.

And what is best for our economic self-interest.

This is why, earlier this year, we announced plans to become carbon neutral in ten years.

We will switch from oil to 100% renewable energy.

And we will offset aviation pollution, until a way can be found to decarbonise air transport too.

To my mind, countries that have the foresight to green their economies today, will be the winners of tomorrow.

These pioneering countries will free themselves from the unpredictable price of foreign oil.

They will capitalize on the new, green economy of the future.

And they will enhance their moral standing, giving them greater political influence on the world stage.

Here in the Maldives we have relinquished our claim to high-carbon growth.

After all, it is not carbon we want, but development.

It is not coal we want, but electricity.

It is not oil we want, but transport.

Low-carbon technologies now exist, to deliver all the goods and services we need.

Let us make the goal of using them.

A group of vulnerable, developing countries committed to carbon neutral development would send a loud message to the outside world.

If vulnerable, developing countries make a commitment to carbon neutrality, those opposed to change have nowhere left to hide.

If those with the least start doing the most, what excuse can the rich have for continuing inaction?

We know this is not an easy step to take, and that there might be dangers along the way.

We want to shine a light, not loudly demand that others go first into the dark.

So today, we want to share with you our carbon neutral strategy.

And we want to ask you to consider carbon neutrality yourselves.

I think a bloc of carbon-neutral, developing nations could change the outcome of Copenhagen.

At the moment every country arrives at the negotiations seeking to keep their own emissions as high as possible and never to make commitments unless someone else does first.

This is the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collective suicide.

We don’t want a global suicide pact.

And we will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere.

So today, I invite some of the most vulnerable nations in the world to join a global survival pact instead.

We are all in this as one.

We stand or fall together.

I hope you will join me in deciding to stand.

Read the full speech at the Climate Vulnerable Forum.
via 350.org & Crikey’s Rooted Blog

In other news, a group of African countries joined the rest of us in frustration at the miserly, bickering attitude of rich nations who have put the majority of carbon currently in the atmosphere and are now unwilling to put forward any decent targets to bring down their high greenhouse emissions. The group literally walked out of negotiations in Barcelona, saying they wouldn’t be involved unless rich countries made more progress on mid-term (read: 2020) emissions targets. Read more about it from the Guardian and Adopt-a-Negotiator.

Stay tuned for more news about Copenhagen as we count down the 23 days until it starts. Once it’s happening, I hope to be blogging every couple of days from the city itself and twittering up-to-the-minute news (and whatever analysis might fit in 140 characters).

PS. Confused about UNFCCC, COP15, Copenhagen & all the mumbo-jumbo? Here’s an excellent article from the Guardian summing it up in brief: Copenhagen Climate Change Summit: The Issues.

Also tagged , , , , – Comments Off

Imagine Paying Someone to be a Pr*ck

October 24, 2008

Greenpeace have put out a new video as a hook to encourage people to call Kevin Rudd’s office about billions of dollars in compensation going to coal companies under the proposed “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” (read: emissions trading scheme). Check it out:

My take? It’s kinda lame, but kinda cute in a lame way. I think it fits Greenpeace pretty well – I reckon they straddle 3 broad approaches to their campaigns… really inspiring emotional direct actions (think Rainbow Warrior sailing in to stop French nuclear testing at Muaroa Atoll), trying to be funky but kinda lame and cute promos (you just saw that one) and endless days of strategic planning that subsequently gets thrown out the window when the deadline hits.

Regardless of my commentary, the campaign is really important – check out the site & call K Rudd today:

www.youcalloncoal.com

Also tagged , , , , , , – 1 Comment
« Older posts