Tag: global warming

May 09 2008

Updated – Burma’s Military Junta Deports Aid Workers

YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar said Friday it was not ready to let in foreign aid workers, rejecting international pressure to allow experts into the isolated nation where disease and starvation are stalking cyclone survivors.

One week after the devastating storm killed tens of thousands, Myanmar’s ruling generals — deeply suspicious of the outside world — said the country needed outside aid for those still alive, but would deliver it themselves.

The foreign ministry announcement came as a top UN official warned time was running out to move in disaster experts and supplies to prevent diseases that could claim even more victims.

Instead, the ministry said some relief workers who arrived on an aid flight from Qatar on Wednesday had been deported.

link: http://afp.google.com/article/…

Al Jazeera has an exemplary in-depth analysis of this tragedy, including an extended round table featuring UN Humanitarian Chief John Holmes, Bo Hla Tint, spokesperson for the Burmese Government in Exile and Marie Lall of the Asia Programme at Chatham House:

May 09 2008

One hand clapping …

The latest news suggests that the Lieberman-Warner Coal Subsidy Act (the Climate InSecurity Act, CISA) has moved from critical condition to the morgue.  As it will require 60 votes to get past any threatened filibuster (not that the Senate Democratic Party leadership could force a filibuster on anyone other than their own Senators fighting for Americans’ privacy rights),  corraling enough Senators to vote for even the CISA’s inadequate measures looks to be an impossible task.  

May 08 2008

Updated – Over 100,000 Dead In Burma: Why We Need To Change

ITN News UK is reporting that experts predict the death toll in Burma will be over 100,000:

This is bolstered by the military junta’s own estimates:

The Burmese military says it believes 80,000 people died in the one district of Labutta in the Irrawaddy delta, which bore the brunt of the storm.

That figure would imply an overall death toll for Cyclone Nargis well above 100,000 people.

link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/sto…

And yet the authorities in Burma have put up roadblocks to international assistance, including receiving relief supplies and – more vitally – disaster workers as the situation on the ground deteriorates.

It’s time for us, all of us, to start changing the way we do business.

May 07 2008

Updated (2x) – 80,000 Dead In Burma: The High Cost Of Oil

Despite economic sanctions against Myanmar by the United States and the European Union, Total continues to operate the Yadana gas field, and Chevron Corp. has a 28 percent stake through its takeover of Unocal. Existing investments were exempt from the investment ban.

Both Total and Chevron broadly defended their business in the nation.

“Far from solving Myanmar’s problems, a forced withdrawal would only lead to our replacement by other operators probably less committed to the ethical principles guiding all our initiatives,” Jean-Francois Lassalle, vice president of public affairs for Total Exploration & Production, said this week in a statement.

link: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/BU…

ABC News Australia is now reporting that the death toll from Cyclone Nargis in Burma could be as high as 80,000 right now, and a perfect storm of lack of sanitation, food and aid workers to – among other things – dispose of dead bodies decomposing in rice fields and local water supplies could lead to an even larger human tragedy. link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/sto…

Apr 29 2008

Skeptical about Skeptics? Check this out …

Being skeptical about Global Warming skeptics’ arguments has proven, to date, to be a healthy and sensible way to deal with their truthiness claims and arguments.  The Heartland Institute‘s distribution of a list of scientist supposedly doubting Global Warming yet again verifies the value of being skeptical about Global Warming skeptics.

DeSmogBlog decided to take a look at Heartland‘s list: emailing the scientists to ask them about the situation. From 500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares:

  • The Heartland “article purports to list scientists whose work contradicts the overwhelming scientific agreement that human-induced climate change is endangering the world as we know it.”
  • “DeSmogBlog … emailed 122 of the scientists … calling their attention to the list.”
  • “in less than 24 hours – three dozen of those scientists had responded in outrage, denying that their research supports Avery’s conclusions and demanding that their names be removed.”

Hmmm, maybe Heartland should change the title from 500 scientists to 464 scientists maybe have documented doubts of man-made global warming scares until, of course, they are asked whether they agree with this article’s assertion.

Apr 24 2008

Buying our way to a better planet …

There is a debate, subdued at times, between various approaches toward changing the planet to the better.  In many ways, my viewpoint (on the optimist side) tends toward the ‘enviro-capitalist’, thinking that we can work to structure the economy to make the right choice, the easy (and preferred) choice.  There is a challenge between using financial mechanisms as a tool to move toward a A Prosperous, Climate-Friendly Society and going overboard.  

The line can be thin … or thick.

GreenSumption or Greening our Choices?

Apr 23 2008

The rhetoric of the other side: Ecosocialism or Barbarism

This is a rhetorical critique of the anthology Ecosocialism or Barbarism, edited by Jane Kelly and Sheila Malone, an introductory text in ecosocialist thought apparently meant for European audiences.  In it, I suggest that its main problem is that it skimps upon the presentation needed to anticipate objections to its main arguments, and so I suggest amendments here.

Apr 23 2008

Not A Solution

In Meteor Blades’s post, Denis Hayes explained why nuclear power is no answer to global warming and climate change. Here’s some more…

The nuclear power industry and its astroturf supporters have been attempting to co-opt the discussion about global warming and climate change, and use it to rationalize nuclear’s continued existence. And the industry has powerful friends in Congress. As the New York Times reported, last summer:

A one-sentence provision buried in the Senate’s recently passed energy bill, inserted without debate at the urging of the nuclear power industry, could make builders of new nuclear plants eligible for tens of billions of dollars in government loan guarantees….

The biggest champion of the loan guarantees is Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee and one of the nuclear industry’s strongest supporters in Congress….

Power companies have tentative plans to put the 28 new reactors at 19 sites around the country. Industry executives insist that banks and Wall Street will not provide the money needed to build new reactors unless the loans are guaranteed in their entirety by the federal government.

Which is curious. Because if the industry has such promise, you would think it wouldn’t need the government to assume the entirety of its financial risks. The problem, however, is that nuclear power still has the same problems it’s always had, which is why Wall Street won’t back it. And part of the reason it’s not worth backing is that the latest excuse for its existence is a sham. As Reuters explained:

Nuclear power would only curb climate change by expanding worldwide at the rate it grew from 1981 to 1990, its busiest decade, and keep up that rate for half a century, a report said on Thursday.

Specifically, that would require adding on average 14 plants each year for the next 50 years, all the while building an average of 7.4 plants to replace those that will be retired, the report by environmental leaders, industry executives and academics said.

If that sounds like an impossibly enormous amount of plants to build, that’s because it is. But the story gets worse.

Apr 22 2008

Latest News – THE ENVIRONMENTALIST’s Earth Day

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

Golf and the Environment

Golf courses can be breathtaking in their beauty.  Environmentally?  Not as much…  Includes an interesting survey of golf professionals about climate change and sustainable use.


NASA rolls out the ‘Green Carpet’ for Earth Day

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is commemorating Earth Day with a ‘Green Carpet’ campaign of press conferences, features on NASA TV, links and new photos of the earth taken from the latest shuttle missions.

U.S. Identifies Tainted Heparin in 11 Countries

Contamination in the blood thinner Heparin that was produced in China has been discovered in eleven countries, accounting for 81 deaths in the United States, so far.

More new articles at THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

Apr 21 2008

Port Fourchon: Perpetual Motion Machine



Several Louisiana newspapers carried the Associated Press version of the Baton Rouge Advocate article on the Loren Scott & Associates study on the economic importance of the Port Fourchon energy complex.

In the style that has become expected of studies for hire, the report lays out the case for which it was produced, namely that getting more money to raise the road to the the port is a very important project. However, in making the case, it ignores the reason that the road must be raised – a sinking coast and rising sea levels.

Here are the opening paragraphs of The Advocate article:

Port Fourchon services 90 percent of the deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and even a brief interruption of services would cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, a study released Thursday shows.

The Greater Lafourche Port Commission, which commissioned the study, hopes the information will help convince Congress to fund upgrades and repairs to the area’s levee system and the $250 million shortfall for an elevated highway and bridge from Golden Meadow to Port Fourchon, port director Ted Falgout said.

It’s understandable that the Port Fourchon study would not mention the reasons the road must be raised are due, at least in part, to the significant energy industry contributions to the destruction of coastal marsh lands and the climate change producing the rising seas.

Apr 16 2008

Report Says Climate Change Happening NOW in Western States

We have been warned for years that global warming will happen at some distant time in the future.  Today, a report was released which concluded that human activities have already caused increased temperatures in the Western states. This follows on the heels of another report that decreased mountain snowpack is also due to global warming.  This presents a dilemma for California: Should the limited water supplies be used for people or endangered species?  Today, courts are correctly following the law by mandating that water projects maintain instream uses for species, which means less water available for people. In fact, last year, one judge issued an injunction to turn off the pumps that divert the water which supplies people in order to maintain instream uses of water.  Soon, the state or water purveyors will be lobbying Congress to change the Endangered Species Act so that protected species can die. Soon, the state or water agencies may be arguing that water infrastructure should be constructed without regard for environmental impacts.  Yet, Congress is not taking action to address global warming now.  

Apr 08 2008

Interior Secretary no-show at Senate Polar Bear Hearing

Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

The Bush Administration’s Interior Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne, was a no-show at last Wednesday’s Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee hearing, chaired by Barbara Boxer, on the listing of the polar bear as an endangered species.

“This listing is months overdue, in violation of the Endangered Species Act,” the California Democrat said at the hearing of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee.

The deadline for a decision was Jan. 9. Conservation groups petitioned to list polar bears as threatened more than three years ago because their habitat, sea ice, is shrinking from global warming.

In a letter to Boxer, Kempthorne said he “respectfully” declined her invitation to appear at the hearing, since he is a named defendant in a lawsuit over the polar bear listing filed by an environmental group.

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