We seek to to promote awareness about Environmental Refugees and petition the UNHCR and Industrialized nations to recognize the legal status of those displaced by Climate Change so that they may seek asylum as refugees.
There is one disturbing diary up now about Saudi Arabia and here is one more.
It turns out that Saudi Arabia has convinced Qatar and Kuwait to join together to block a U.N. Climate Change study, in an apparent effort to protect their Oil Based Economy.
While there has been an orchestrated effort by Fossil Fuel lobbyists to weaken international Climate Change legislation, this is the first time a state Government has openly blocked reforms.
The immediate losers are the people who are members of A.O.S.I.S. - the Alliance of Small Island States - and what they have to lose by this action.
crossposted at Huffington Post, Square State, FDL and PRAER.org
It is no secret that Saudi Arabia would stand to lose a significant chunk of change if a Climate Study concluded that greenhouse gases created by Oil were going to cause the disappearance of low lying islands.
This is disappointing because while the European Union, Australia and New Zealand joined in support of AOSIS' efforts, the United States remained on the sidelines, quietly agreeing through silence with Saudi Arabia's efforts.
The United States' endless addiction to Oil profits feed by our transportation sector stands in the way of change to an all electric fleet and high speed rail which would help mitigate the already dangerous sea level rise that islanders face.
Saudi Arabia on Thursday blocked a call by vulnerable island states at climate
talks for a study into the impact of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming, delegates said.
The appeal came from the Association of Small Island
States (AOSIS), gathering low-lying islands in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Pacific, which is lobbying hard for the UN climate arena not to abandon the 1.5 C target.
The goal is receding as emissions of greenhouse gases rise and political problems for tackling climate change multiply.
AOSIS, supported by the European Union (EU), Australia and New Zealand, called for a technical report on the cost of reaching the 1.5 C target and the consequences of breaching it.
But it was thwarted by Saudi Arabia, with support from Kuwait and Qatar, under the UN's consensus rule, the sources said.
Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers argue that ratcheting up action on carbon emissions will hurt their revenues as fossil-fuel consumers switch to cleaner energy.
"Some small island states could become stateless from sea level rise, which is why they are calling for global temperature rise to be kept below 1.5 C," added Wendel Trio of Greenpeace.
"That Saudi Arabia, a country with such obvious oil interests, exploited the UN consensus rule to stop the world's most vulnerable countries from getting a much-needed summary of the latest climate science is breathtaking for its criminal disregard for the human impacts of climate change."
(Hattip to Dr. Rolph Payet)
As I have made the case before, only when citizens realize that the way they power their cars is directly causing the loss of entire ways of life, will the demand change.
Unfortunately, while we failed to convince people do at Copenhagen, the BP oil spill and the planet itself is showing the limits she can withstand.
I also humbly ask to also do the following:
#1 sign the
Environmental Refugee Legal Status petition that changes the legal status of Environmental Refugees
from Migrants to actual refugees - guaranteeing them the right to asylum and monetary restitution.
#2 sign the Gulf Oil Spill Electric Car Credit petition, and mention it to your elected officials.
#3 Talk to your candidates about Environmental issues - until they start to show that they are listening - I know one candidate in my state who has listened and promised some of the most progressive renewable energy legislation if elected to the Senate.
#4 Get involved with 350.org and tck, tck, tck.
Please take a moment to sign this petition in response to the 2010 Gulf Coast Oil Spill
To: The US President and US Congress from Americans
Concerned about the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill
Gulf Oil Spill Electric Car Credit
With oil prices expected to exceed $100 per barrel and millions of
dollars of catastrophic damage occurring to U.S. coasts, wildlife, and
coastal economies, all due to the 2010 Gulf Coast Oil Spill, it is time
for a new direction for transportation in America.
In response to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill, this petition asks the U.S.
Congress and Senate to introduce legislation and for the President to
sign into law a bill that will do the following:
1) Increase the electric car tax credit for any American made Electric
cars to 70% of the purchase price.
2) Provide a tax credit for consumers equal to the cost of labor to
convert their gas engine vehicle to an electric engine vehicle.
3) To require that all Federal Agencies must use American made Electric
cars for 70% of their vehicle fleets beginning January of 2011 and
thereafter.
This will create instant demand for U.S. made electric cars, which will
put Americans back to work, boost the American economy, reduce the
demand for Oil, and will give the American people a choice to drive an
affordable vehicle that is clean and does not pose a threat to our
coastal economies or our wildlife.
NEW DELHI -- For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued
over control of a tiny rock island in the Bay of Bengal. Now rising sea
levels have resolved the dispute for them: the island's gone.
New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged,
said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in
Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and
sea patrols, he said.
"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.
Scientists at the School of Oceanographic Studies at the university
have noted an alarming increase in the rate at which sea levels have
risen over the past decade in the Bay of Bengal.
Until 2000, the sea levels rose about 3 millimeters (0.12 inches) a
year, but over the last decade they have been rising about 5
millimeters (0.2 inches) annually, he said.
Another nearby island, Lohachara, was submerged in 1996, forcing its
inhabitants to move to the mainland, while almost half the land of
Ghoramara island was underwater, he said. At least 10 other islands in
the area were at risk as well, Hazra said.
"We will have ever larger numbers of people displaced from the Sunderbans as more island areas come under water," he said.
Bangladesh, a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people, is one
of the countries worst-affected by global warming. Officials estimate
18 percent of Bangladesh's coastal area will be underwater and 20
million people will be displaced if sea levels rise 1 meter (3.3 feet)
by 2050 as projected by some climate models.
The North Carolina Coastal Resource Commission just finished the first study of sea level rise in the United States.
The most significant part of the study was what the report said about what the market has decided about sea level rise.
...even if the public and governments drag their feet on reacting to a changing coast, others aren't waiting to adapt.
State Farm, for example, announced this week that it will no longer write or renew insurance policies for structures on barrier islands to reduce its exposure in areas prone to catastrophic events like hurricanes.
Crossposted at Square State
Here is the real point of this story - that insurance companies, which are based on the so-called 'invisible hand of the free market' have seen the writing on the wall and are no longer in the business of insuring new homes on the Outer Banks in my home state of NC.
This is the lesson I want deniers who are in positions of power in our government to hear - the market is denying your denial.
Capitalism is recognizing something you refuse to do, based mostly either on your ignorance or perhaps on your close ties to fossil fuel industry lobbyists. And when you protest with your bully pulpit, average people become misinformed and impede the ability for our leaders and governments to take action or achieve meaningful goals (hint:Copenhagen), even as science shows us that the earth is continually heating, and that this past decade was the warmest on record.
In the UK a similar study was recently completed
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/asia/091203/australia-environment-sinking-continent?page=0,1
The report suggests private property owners "withdraw, relocate or abandon assets that are high risk."
Residents on the east coast of the United Kingdom, in Norfolk, are also feeling the sting of abandonment from local and national governments in some coastal areas, which have been deemed too costly to protect.
More than 15 million people live near the U.K. coastline, but Britain's Environment Agency has already said that the area known as the Norfolk Broads will probably be left to be reclaimed by the sea.
About 10 million people in England and Wales live in flood risk areas.
The project, launched on Friday, is a joint venture between the Institution of Civil Engineers (Ice) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba).
The report, Facing up to Rising Sea Levels, urges the government, planning authorities and the public, to act sooner rather than later.
"If we act now, we can adapt in such a way that will prevent mass disruption and allow coastal communities to continue to prosper," said Riba president Ruth Reed.
"But the key word is 'now'," she added.
The study warns that rising sea levels, an increase in the frequency of storms and sinking landmasses could leave many UK coastal areas vulnerable to extreme flooding.
Industrialized countries are planning their defense of coastal areas and acknowledge that this endeavor will be costly.
Other countries in less prosperous economies,however, are struggling with facing this economic reality.
Here is one report on the changing coastline of Africa
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BH4PD20091218
The United Nations estimates Africa has 320 coastal cities and about 56 million people living in "low lying" coastal zones, those less than 10 meters above mean sea level.
Some expects say sea levels have risen by about 20 cm since the start of the Industrial Revolution in northern Europe.
That is no surprise to residents of Abidjan's Port Bouet, where abandoned concrete shacks litter the beach. Some have lost their front walls. Scaffolding is all that remains of others.
"Twenty years ago the sea was far away from here," said Samassa Awa, 39, an unemployed nurse whose wooden shack has been flooded by the Atlantic many times. "You see all these destroyed houses? Many people fled but we decided to stay."
.............
"We want the authorities of the world powers to come and rescue the poor people from the sea," said Diakite Abdullaye, 46, looking over his shoulder at the ruins of a house he said had already been destroyed by the advancing ocean.
"If they can't stop the sea rising, then help us move somewhere else," said the resident of Ivory Coast's biggest city.
Mozambique has been identified as one of the countries likely to be affected most by climate change, and the issue will not go away.
Much of what Mozambique would like to do is deemed too expensive
While scientists cannot give an exact figure of how much the sea has already risen in Mozambique, the effects are already obvious.
"I went to the beach a lot as a child, and I've noticed things are changing," said 34-year-old Jose, who lives in Maputo.
"The water is eating the land - little by little it's eating the land."
Mozambique has compiled an action plan, and has been offered help from the World Bank, UN agencies and a plethora of other aid agencies.
But so far little has been done, and much of what the country would like to do is beyond its budget.
"I think people are still at the stage of 'Oh my God - what are we going to do?'" as environmentalist Antonia Reina puts it.
And while too much water is an issue for Coastal inhabitants, not enough water is the other issue for many other people who rely on glacial melt for fresh drinking water - such as in Bolivia, where Scientists recorded the first glacier to 'disappear' from existence this past year.
Or in news closer to home, The Winter Olympics in Vancouver are having to use trucks to bring in Ice and Snow for their downhill skiing competition because it has been too mild for snowfall.
Winter Games officials have given up on any help from Mother Nature and will now be trucking in snow for the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events at Cypress Mountain, on Vancouver's North Shore....
Mild temperatures and heavy rains earlier this month forced officials to close the mountain ahead of schedule, as snow gave way to mud.
I find it to be the ultimate irony, that at the gathering of the world's countries to compete for Winter Sports, the phrase "giving up on Mother Nature" is being used. How much of Mother Nature's failure will we have to see before we realize what's going on?
It seems clear from reading these reports, that action to address these crises needs to start sooner rather than later.
However, the United States is home to some of the leading stalwarts of climate change denial and are increasing the severity of the problem.
In my other home state of Colorado - Rep. Dave Schulteis has proudly proclaimed why he has decided to vote against Martha Rudolph's appointment to the Executive Director of the Department of Public Health and Environment:
http://senatorschultheis.blogspot.com/2010/01/sen-schultheis-votes-no-on-gov.html
(hattip sufimarie)
1) Is there an issue with global warming...and is it caused by humans? Her answer to both related questions was an unqualified "yes."
2) Does she consider CO2 to be a pollutant? Her answer: It is a contributor to Global Warming, although it does not fit easily into the federal Clean Water Act...
...Based on her answers to the committee, I voted NO and will debate these issues on the full floor of the Senate when this comes to the full Senate for confirmation
I included this local story, because it seems in every state across this nation, there is a vocal global warming denier making news.
And with the recent Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns, the strength of the global fossil fuel lobbying campaign to impede meaningful legislation on Climate Change just got a whole lot tougher.
I take comfort in this video made by Peter Sinclair who debunks climate denial myths.
The point of this video indicates that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report discloses that it does not take into account "Rapid Dynamical Change in Ice Flow" - an event where glacial instability tips out of control and melts uncontrollably. This is what scientists are now coming to grips with, that the glaciers on Greenland and Antarctica are destabilizing at an exponential rate.
We have had a period of "Rapid Dynamic Change in Ice Flow". The last time we had such an event was 14,000 years ago (12,000 BCE) when Ice sheets suddenly destabilized - this was called the 'Meltwater Pulse 1-A' and in a rapid period of time sea levels rose 75 feet to their current level - which some scientists have speculated could have been caused by an impact from space, but the verdict is still out.
(Perhaps not too coincidentally, this is the same date of the massive die off of species in the Western Hemisphere such as the American Horse, Giant Sloth, Sabre Tooth Cat, Dire Wolf, and perhaps most famously, the Great Mastodon - one instance where I believe man has been wrongly blamed for the extinction of species of animals)
This event of worldwide sea level rise, I believe, is most likely the common event that is recorded worldwide both in oral and written tradition as the "Great Flood."
We are approaching another epic event, and it is now on the horizon, begging us to mitigate it's affects.
I have been frustrated by the lack of response by governments to address the threat to the millions of people that are already being displaced on low lying islands and who have no legal status as 'Environmental Refugees' - and even started a petition to remedy this issue of legal limbo. For their sakes, when our legislators realize that their beach houses are going to be threatened, or their ski slopes will be bare, then they will start thinking about the true human cost of their denial of the truth.
The inaction of these legislators on Climate Change may not be shameful to them, but in the future their children and their grandchildren certainly will discover they have been denied an honorable namesake.
To: President of the United States and the United Nations
We the undersigned ask President Obama to sign an Executive Order
recognizing people displaced by Climate Change as Environmental
Refugees and grant these Environmental Refugees asylum in the United
States as permitted by Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America.
We also ask United Nations Secretary General to call a special
session of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees to change
the legal status of people displaced by Climate Change from 'Migrants'
to 'Refugees' so that these displaced Refugees may seek asylum in other
countries around the world.
Great news here! Oil companies are going to have a great opportunity to drill in the Arctic Sea Floor to find more fossil fuels, because the Arctic Circle will soon be Ice Free in the Summers - making it very cost effective for drilling the last place we have not drilled for more oil.
So be happy! Gas prices are going to go down, you can invest in more profitable oil stocks, shipping lanes will open giving a shorter route than Panama, which will also increase transportation and thus increase oil consumption. It is a real win win for America!
And heck, you can invest in Beach front property in the Arctic. Just this past summer because the sea ice was missing, kids in the Arctic circle could go swimming with the temps in the mid 80's.
Oh wait, you are wondering if there is any downside to this news? Well, just a few things... but don't continue reading if you want to make your money guilt free...
So what if the Arctic becomes Ice Free in the Summer - what's the big deal?
For starters, once the Arctic Ice opened in 2007 with the arrival of the long sought Northwest passage, something significant was set in motion that had an exponential effect. The Ice had been blocking currents from the Atlantic and Pacific from entering the Arctic circle, but once they did encroach upon the Arctic, they brought in significantly warmer currents, starting a feedback loop of warming. This was an affect that scientists had not anticipated as little as a decade ago, which is why all the models for climate change are being drastically revised with shocking changes due to occur in years and decades instead of centuries.
And this from Martin Sommerkorn of the World Wildlife Fund:
"Such a loss of Arctic sea ice cover has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself. This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes."
This video done by Al Jazeera on Greenpeace reports on the new phenomena of tropic temperature water in the Arctic.
And what does this mean for the Indigenous Arctic peoples?
For the first time, people in the Arctic are reporting changes in the types of fish they catch and birds they see in their regions, with species of both fish and birds arriving from temperate climates. Native wildlife such as walrus, seals and polar bears are all becoming thinner and scarcer. Most alarming is the new presence of the sound of thunder, which is usually foreign in the Arctic circle.
Elders of these areas, have told oral folk myths, one of which warns that should the ice ever disappear during the summer, their way of life will end. This has been, until recently, a myth that seemed impossible, with the vast expanse of sea ice seeming to last forever.
For some, like the Kivalina of the coast of Alaska, the changes also include losing the very land they live on.
There is also the fact that islanders around the world will also become the world's first wave of Environmental Refugees, losing their land, national identity, and way of life through relocation to a mainland continent.
But that might take at least 10 years for some islanders and decades for others, so no rush right?
The majority of countries won't be affected right?
Well, there is the fact that this heating is destabilizing the Ice Caps on Greenland from the heating Arctic weather pattern.
What does that mean?
In Greenland, and to a lesser extent, Antarctica, ice sheets and glaciers are melting and more importantly, sliding in rapid bursts. This is caused by moulins, which are holes that melting water form from the top of a glacier to the bottom. The water then lubricates and melts the underside of the glacier, causing them to detach from the bedrock -- and creating a 'slip-n-slide' for glaciers that weigh in the megatons -- some the size of Manhattan.
Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat [Greenland] yesterday: "We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at 2 meters an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 meters deep. That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year."
The glacier is now moving at 15km a year into the sea although in surges it moves even faster. He measured one surge at 5km in 90 minutes - an extraordinary event.
The result, each 'slide' of these multi-ton glaciers sets off an 'ice quake' that register an average of 3 to 5 on the Richter scale. This might sound minor, but these are occurring multiple times a year. This means that the Earth is being jolted repeatedly by these ice quakes, destabilizing faults lines which has many, many consequences.
The latest scientific discipline to enter the fray over global warming is geology.
And the forecasts from some quarters are dramatic - not only will the earth shake, it will spit fire.
A number of geologists say glacial melting due to climate change will unleash pent-up pressures in the Earth's crust, causing extreme geological events such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
A cubic metre of ice weighs nearly a tonne and some glaciers are more than a kilometre thick. When the weight is removed through melting, the suppressed strains and stresses of the underlying rock come to life.
(from Alan Glazner, a volcano specialist at the University of North Carolina)
"When you melt glacial ice, several hundred metres to a kilometre thick . . . you've decreased the load on the crust and so you've decreased the pressure holding the volcanic conduits closed.
"They're cracks, that's how magmas gets to the surface . . . and where they hit the surface, that's where you get a volcano."
And it is not likely to slow down, but may instead speed up:
...quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 - matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.
"(Professor Taira) and his team studied repeating earthquakes because they provided a "background frequency" against which changes in the fault could be compared.
"These events happen regularly and the size of the event is about the same," he told BBC News.
"But after Sumatra (in 2004) the frequency changed - it increased - but the magnitude decreased.
"That is a signal of the fault weakening; you only have to push a little bit and the fault fails."
This fault that the team is studying, one that has weakened significantly since the Boxer Day earthquake and Tsunami in Sumatra, is the San Andreas Fault.
Well, it is not so bad, look on the bright side. You can vacation to Glacier National Park and you will be able to tell your kids and grandkids about what it was like to see a Glacier in the park.
Or you can book a cruise to the Arctic and watch calving glaciers - lots of fun!
Hooray! What fun!!!!
Whatever, invest while you can, before this oil opportunity passes you by!
Profits are always more important than human life.
Or you can get involved.
When will the time come that Climate Change talks will start considering Human Rights over Business rights?
There is a growing group of people in our world who are in a legal limbo,
Environmental Refugees.
Even though there are hundreds to thousands of people currently being displaced by Climate Change, they do not have a defined status as a group, hence they are not really 'refugees.'
And according to current predictions by Oxfam International, by 2050 there will be 75 million Environmental Refugees displaced due to Climate Change. Other models are predicting up to 250 million people.
This wide disparity in ranges is because we still don't know how wrong our Climate Change models will turn out to be, as evidenced by the updated 2009 IPCC report (Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change) which is drastically worse than scientific estimates by the IPCC in 2007.
Morally, we must look at who is responsible for the millions of people who will lose their homes and way of life and look to solutions as well.
According to the definition by UN High Commissioner on Refugees, (UNHCR) a Refugee is someone either inside or outside their national borders fleeing persecution due to their affiliation with their social group - for instance ethic, religious, political etc.
But a person whose island is swallowed up by rising sea level has no rights under Refugee law, in fact, they are considered 'Migrants' meaning they are 'voluntarily' leaving their country.
A great example of this in current Governmental policy is with the eruption of Soufriere Hills Volcano in Plymouth, Montserrat in the 1990's and continuing through today.
In that situation, the US and UK issued temporary humanitarian visas for people to leave that island under the legal provision of 'non-refoulement.' (This is also the provision that calls on governments not to return a person to a country where they may be tortured or killed.)
However, after the eruptions kept continuing, the U.S. revoked the temporary visas and issued a statement saying that because the volcano was an "ongoing situation" and "no longer temporary", that they were no longer eligible to stay in the US under the temporary humanitarian visas. The United Kingdom has done the same for the people from Montserrat in their country. In both countries, many of the Montserrat people displaced by the Volcano are simply overstaying their visas and trying to avoid deportation.
Professors Andy Pittman, Pr. Jane McAdam and Anna Samson of the University of New South Wales explain this issue in this video. (an hour video)
As I have written before, displacement due to volcanoes or earthquakes is likely to get worse due to the rising number of Ice Quakes in Greenland.
The United Nations
The first choice would be to get the United Nations to expand the charter of who is covered under the current definition of a Refugee.
Right now, perhaps the best person to speak to this issue is President Mohamed Nasheed of the island nation of Maldives. The Maldives is home to 350,000 people, all living at 8 feet above sea level. With current models showing a 6 to 9 foot rise by 2100, President Nasheed has decided not to wait for the Governments of the world to act, but has gone on a speaking tour around the world and before the UN to make arguments for curbing emissions and for money for relocation. He has even gone so far as to have his cabinet get SCUBA training in order to have a full government cabinet meeting underwater to emphasize the threat of sea level rise due to Climate Change.
The same is true of Ursula Rakova of the Carterets who has formed a non-profit called Tulele Peisa which means "Sailing the Waves on Our Own" and seeks to empower the Carteret people to raise money for relocation, and has been advocating on her people's behalf.
I have hope that there will be enough momentum to get something legal status established this year at Copenhagen.
Roadblocks at the UN
Right now there are already staggering numbers of Refugees that need help.
10 million traditional refugees,
13 million refugees displaced within their own borders,
6 million refugees who were considered 'stateless'
1 million 'people of concern'
Add to that the costs associated with Climate Change.
The U.N. Development Program estimated that industrialized nations must provide $86 billion a year by 2015 for people most vulnerable to catastrophic floods, droughts and other disasters that scientists fear will accompany warming.
As a realist I know that the United Nations will have a hard enough task in just getting the Industrialized Nations to agree on a global emissions plan at Copenhagen.
Tackling that issue as well as addressing status of Environmental Refugees may be too big, but we can hope.
Government Intervention
At some point, the Governments of the world are going to have to get involved.
What is the hold up for giving people displaced by Climate Change 'refugee' status?
It is simple. If you establish that people displaced by climate change are refugees, then the governments of the world are compelled to aid them and/or to stop them from becoming refugees.
Right now, it is a big leap to say that a wave washing over your island is a form of persecution, but the practices of the Industrialized countries through pollution, are in fact, the source of this persecution.
If this was established as international law, then Governments would have to cease and desist from engaging in this persecution, namely by no longer using contributing to the problem of Greenhouse gases.
This is a place where fossil fuel companies like Coal and Big Oil do not want to go. Think of the Waxman - Markey Climate legislation, which has 60 Billion dollars in Coal industry tax subsidies.
If Environmental Refugees were given status, then that type of tax subsidy could make the US a participant in state sponsored persecution.
Additionally, Senators taking lobbyist money from these industries could be stigmatized as caring more for profits than for human lives.
The other main issue is cost. Governments around the world are dealing with a recession, so who is willing to step up and pay for humanitarian aid such as water purification, food, and the most costly, relocation?
And where will the people be relocated to? Immigration is already a touchy subject in this country as well as many other Industrialized nations.
My argument is one that is based on the Civil Rights movement. Industrialized nations are causing the problem, therefore they should pay the costs and lead the way to reform.
But that is just one idea.
Traditional Litigation
There is a pending case centered on Environmental Refugees off of the coast of Alaska. This is the Kivalina Islanders lawsuit - which was reported in this article in the Atlantic.
This legal argument in this case on behalf of the U.S. Citizens living on Kivalina, is that much like the Tobacco companies conspired to hide documents proving they knew Tobacco was bad for a person's health, the Fossil Fuel industries and energy companies also have conspired to deny climate change even though the have evidence otherwise.
In February, Berman and Susman--along with two attorneys who have previously worked on behalf of the village, and Matt Pawa, an environmental lawyer specializing in global warming--filed suit in federal court against 24 oil, coal, and electric companies, claiming that their emissions are partially responsible for the coastal destruction in Kivalina. More important, the suit also accuses eight of the firms (American Electric Power, BP America, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy, and Southern Company) of conspiring to cover up the threat of man-made climate change, in much the same way the tobacco industry tried to conceal the risks of smoking--by using a series of think tanks and other organizations to falsely sow public doubt in an emerging scientific consensus.
Sowing public doubt is exactly what Industry shills have been doing, and throughout the Bush administration, scientific evidence proving Climate Change was redacted to leave room for doubt about whether or not Climate Change was real.
Another one of the roadblocks in the handful of Climate Change related lawsuits has been the defense citing the Political Question Doctrine - which is summed up in this case as well.
(Environmental) Lawsuits in California, Mississippi, and New York have been dismissed by judges who say a ruling would require them to balance the perils of greenhouse gases against the benefits of fossil fuels--something best handled by legislatures.
In other words, industry defendants have argued and so far, judges have agreed that the political process and legislatures should handle this issue, not the courts.
In September, I had the opportunity to be part of a panel on Environmental Refugees at an Environmental Justice conference at the University of Oregon Law School.
While I was there, I had the privilege of meeting
Brent Newell of the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, who is a legal counsel for the Kivalina people.
At that time he was watching a court of appeals decision which could strengthen the Kivalina's case.
I am glad to announce that as of September 21, 2009,
the Second Circuit made an important decision on a case known as
Connecticut vs American Electric Power.
Without going into too much detail, this was a case several groups like the Audubon society were trying to stop coal plant emissions because it was harming the value of their land trusts. The lower court ruled as other courts have, that Climate Change was part of the political realm, not the courts.
However, the appellate court overturned this decision on the grounds that the Energy company were causing a public nuisance, and nuisance cases have been heard by courts for decades.
"Nowhere in their complaints do plaintiffs ask the court to fashion a comprehensive and far-reaching solution to global climate change, a task that arguably falls within the purview of the political branches. Instead, they seek to limit emissions from six domestic coal-fired electricity plants on the ground that such emissions constitute a public nuisance that they allege has caused, is causing and will continue to cause them injury."
This is a huge decision, one that will help strengthen the case on behalf of the Kivalina people and could keep the judge from dismissing the case as has happened in other states.
If the Kivalina Islanders win their case, then a precedent will be set, opening polluting companies up to liability for public nuisance.
So good news, right?
Unfortunately, this case also demonstrates the problem with our legal system - the wheels of Justice turn very slow. The Connecticut vs American Electric Power was started in 2006 and surely will be appealed to the Supreme court.
Or take for instance the Exxon Valdez. That accident which happened in 1989, and in which everyone could see was clearly Exxon's fault, was just decided last year, when the Supreme Court ruled to reduce damages from 2.5 billion to 500 million. Now you might be ticked that a company that raked in 40 billion that same year gets a reduction in the amount of punitive damages, but the key here is not the money, it is the time. 19 years. 19 years for Justice.
Our neighbors living on low lying islands, people who are living the closest to a sustainable lifestyle and who have contributed the least to carbon emissions, do not have 19 years to wait for justice.
Some islands will be submerged or uninhabitable before 2020.
In addition to meeting the legal counsel for the Kivalina, I also got to meet Professor Maxine Burkett, of the University of Hawaii Law school.
I would say that she and I had the most similar view on this issue.
Her view on a remedy for the Environmental Refugees was to address this issue based on the model of reparations.
This model has 3 basic requirements.
1) An apology from the offending party for the action or harm.
2) Monetary compensation for losses caused by the action or harm.
3) A guarantee that this action or harm will not happen again.
This last requirement is the essential point.
If, for instance, you were to win lawsuits against polluters, then you would probably only get monetary compensation, but the pollution would probably still continue in other parts of the world.
With the reparations model, the pollution, which is the harmful action, would need to cease. And since pollution is worldwide, this would be the end of the fossil fuel industry as we know it.
These are just some of the scenarios for getting justice for Environmental Refugees.
Internationally, this is a situation where definitions matter. Definitions like Refugee, as in Environmental Refugee, or Genocide, as in Environmental Genocide.
By keeping people displaced by Climate Change in a category of 'Migrant', governments are let off the hook to do anything about the cause.
There are millions of people who can't wait for the right political will to exist for them to have legal status.
What you can do
Get involved with the Islanders directly - such as the Carteret Islander's facebook support page
Stop by AVAAZ's climate page and get involved.
Stop by our website or become a member of our facebook page.
Talk to your elected representatives about the need for President Obama to
issue an Executive Order recognizing the rights of Environmental Refugees.
DIVEST from any stock or mutual fund portfolios that include fossil fuel companies and invest in Green companies or funds like Calvert Investments.
If Divesting could change South Africa, perhaps it can change the world.
There are many solutions, such as converting your
car from gas to electric.
There are also ways to adapt to overcome this problem - I think this one is particularly promising.
But we can't simply plan to adapt without first stopping the cause - business as usual won't work.
Also I would appreciate your suggestions here in this venue, so that it can be added to the efforts.
Perhaps if these avenues are pursued, the definition of 'Environmental Refugee' will no longer be in limbo, and will be equated with Justice.
NO ISLAND LEFT BEHIND
(crossposted at Huffington post)
Update: I will be inserting additional information about the new Earthquakes and Tsunamis that were triggered since Tuesday...
In the recent climate change debate, some of our leaders, like Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, are still insisting that these are cyclical, natural changes, or that global warming is not real because "God is still up there".
I foresee that a decade from now -- when we see all the damage that has happened -- Sen. Inhofe's comments on climate change will be viewed as some of the most misguided statements ever made by a senator.
Why?
There was a significant development that occurred yesterday, as an 8.3 earthquake struck Samoa and set off tsunami warnings in the South Pacific. Comparisons were being made to the Indian Ocean earthquake, which was the worst earthquake ever recorded at over 9 on the Richter scale.
Update it seems the same fault line in Indonesia has become active - from Huffington Post
A powerful earthquake struck western Indonesia on Wednesday, triggering landslides and trapping thousands under collapsed buildings - including two hospitals, an official said. At least 75 bodies were found, but the toll was expected to be far higher.
The temblor started fires, severed roads and cut off power and communications to Padang, a coastal city of 900,000 on Sumatra island. Thousands fled in panic, fearing a tsunami.
Buildings swayed hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in neighboring Malaysia and Singapore.
In the sprawling low-lying city of Padang, the shaking was so intense that people crouched or sat on the street to avoid falling. Children screamed as an exodus of thousands tried to get away from the coast in cars and motorbikes, honking horns.
The magnitude 7.6 quake occurred at 5:15 p.m. (1015GMT, 6:15 a.m. EDT), just off the coast of Padang, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. It occurred a day after killer tsunami hit islands in the South Pacific and was along the same fault line that spawned the 2004 Asian tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 11 nations.
...and the damage in Samoa was worse than previously reported
From Huffington Post
APIA, Samoa -- Disaster officials rushed food, medicine and a temporary morgue to the Samoas on Wednesday after a powerful earthquake unleashed a tsunami that flattened villages and swept cars and people out to sea. At least 119 people were killed. Survivors fled to higher ground on the South Pacific islands after the magnitude 8.0 quake struck at 6:48 a.m. local time (1:48 p.m. EDT; 1748 GMT) Tuesday
Scientists are reporting that these events are unrelated - which very well may be true, however, as you will read below, there is a common denominator to the tectonic instability that is being witnessed.
How can this be? Well, the Earth's tectonic plates have sensitive fault lines, which when triggered to move, cause earthquakes and volcanoes. As a sphere, the Earth 'reflects' vibration internally, so that an earthquake in the South Pacific is picked up by seismologists across the world -- say in Alaska. The Indonesian quake resonated so strongly that it set off quakes in Alaska. (Samoa also had a 7.9 earthquake in March.)
Now, add in this to the equation. In Greenland, and to a lesser extent, Antarctica, ice sheets and glaciers are melting and more importantly, sliding in rapid bursts. This is caused by moulins, which are holes that melting water form from the top of a glacier to the bottom. The water then lubricates and melts the underside of the glacier, causing them to detach from the bedrock -- and creating a 'slip-n-slide' for glaciers that weigh in the megatons -- some the size of Manhattan.
Robert Corell, chairman of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, said in Ilulissat [Greenland] yesterday: "We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at 2 meters an hour on a front 5km [3 miles] long and 1,500 meters deep. That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one year to provide drinking water for a city the size of London for a year."
The glacier is now moving at 15km a year into the sea although in surges it moves even faster. He measured one surge at 5km in 90 minutes - an extraordinary event.
The result, each 'slide' of these multi-ton glaciers sets off an 'ice quake' that register an average of 3 to 5 on the Richter scale. This might sound minor, but these are occurring multiple times a year. This means that the Earth is being jolted repeatedly by these ice quakes, destabilizing faults lines which has many, many consequences.
The latest scientific discipline to enter the fray over global warming is geology.
And the forecasts from some quarters are dramatic - not only will the earth shake, it will spit fire.
A number of geologists say glacial melting due to climate change will unleash pent-up pressures in the Earth's crust, causing extreme geological events such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
A cubic metre of ice weighs nearly a tonne and some glaciers are more than a kilometre thick. When the weight is removed through melting, the suppressed strains and stresses of the underlying rock come to life.
(from Alan Glazner, a volcano specialist at the University of North Carolina)
"When you melt glacial ice, several hundred metres to a kilometre thick . . . you've decreased the load on the crust and so you've decreased the pressure holding the volcanic conduits closed.
"They're cracks, that's how magmas gets to the surface . . . and where they hit the surface, that's where you get a volcano."
And it is not likely to slow down, but may instead speed up:
...quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 - matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.
LET ME REPEAT THAT STATISTIC...
...quakes ranged from six to 15 per year from 1993 to 2002, then jumped to 20 in 2003, 23 in 2004, and 32 in the first 10 months of 2005 - matching an increase in Greenland temperatures.
That is tripling of earthquakes in a 15 year period and more importantly an exponential change in the activity.
This trend is causing changes exponentially. For instance, since the Arctic has opened an ice free passage, the Arctic is no longer a stationary sea -- currents from the Pacific and the Atlantic are encroaching into the Arctic circle and creating an additional heating feedback loop -- which is as equally dangerous as a heating feedback loop as the loss of reflective ice.
This video highlights the feedback loop that scientists are seeing in Greenland.
And, sadly, the latest report from the IPCC reflects this exponential change, as scientists report now that even if the world's countries commit to all of the recommendations to reach by 2050 -- (which the U.S. Senate is likely to block) the Earth's temperature will rise 6.3 degrees by 2100.
This is not good, since scientists worldwide have agreed that to survive climate change, we must limit the temperature rise to 2 degrees.
So, not only are we on a path that with displace as many as 75 million people by 2050, many of them islanders, but we are also putting many more people in peril due to the threat of this increased tectonic activity.
The industrialized countries must change their polluting policies and begin to think about their responsibility for the Indonesian earthquake that resulted in 229,866 people lost, including 186,983 dead and 42,883 missing.
These may have been the first wave of people who have died in a widespread fashion from the unintended effects of climate change.
And yes, even though as some will argue, tectonic plates have been moving for thousands of years, it is a fact, that the climate is changing, the Arctic is heating, and Ice Quakes are increasing, all due to human made pollution.
Since writing this story Tuesday, I feel both vindicated and horrified to see the very things I am worried about happening - and to see that our Senate is still waffling on the middling, do little, but necessary ACES Climate bill. We must do pass much, much more effective legislation and recognize the legal status of Environmental Refugees.
There are many changes that are going to happen, and we are going to have to realize, globally, that we are all in this together. Most importantly, we must begin to talk openly about adaptation to these global changes, and not act in merely a reactionary approach.
I love living in the Mile High City of Denver - I love that since I have moved here in 2000, we have turned from a 'red state' to a purple or even blue state.
I even am willing to give Josh McDaniels a little props for the Broncos getting to 2-0.
Denver is a great city with the great outdoors and the Rocky Mountains just a 20 minute drive away.
But this information reported today, makes me sad and mad with Denver.
Denver released the largest amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) and Barcelona the smallest amount in a new study documenting how differences in climate, population density and other factors affect GHG emissions in global cities.
Now living in a city that is this beautiful, it is hard to believe that we beat out Los Angeles for pollution.
Denver had the highest overall GHG emissions, with levels two to five times higher than other cities. Its high levels were due partly to its high use of electricity, heating and industrial fuels, and ground transportation, they note - Los Angeles was second on the list...
What if a city's reputation for pollution was reflected in the Sports team's names?
Instead of the Denver Broncos we would be the Denver Bronchitis?
It really should give the leaders of our state's energy policy pause, in light of global warming's threat to the 2 billion dollar Colorado skiing and tourism industry, when deciding on how to power our state and what Denver emits.
Anyone visiting Colorado Rockies can already see the 2 million Pine trees that are dead or dying due to Pine Beetles - an epidemic many scientist attribute to global warming.
The voters have proven that they want alternative energy - and they proved so by passing approving Amendment 37 in 2004 - the first bill in the nation to require a percentage of the state's energy sources be derived from renewable energy.
The time is now to call on our elected leaders like the Mayor and the Governor to change the way we power our city.
And it is not just about Colorado, while our pollution is 'just' killing our trees in Colorado, it is robbing others of the world's citizens their very way of life.
the time to act is now - even if you are not from Colorado - we are all in this together - contact your Senator to support Climate Change legislation like Waxman-Markey a.k.a ACES
As I have written previously, even though ACES is not perfect,especially when it comes to coal - we must go to Copenhagen with some kind of climate bill to get some real action globally started for their sakes.
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