Gristmill

Avoiding “dangerous” climate change

Well, if precise scientific terms haven't worked to dramatize the potential impact of climate change, perhaps imprecise, scary-sounding ones will. The U.K. government kicked off Tony Blair's promised climate science conference today with a call to avoid "dangerous climate change." All could agree it is to be avoided. Agreeing on a definition of "dangerous" is perhaps another matter.

This conference, held at the leading Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, England, is part of the lead-up to Blair pushing climate change as he hosts the upcoming G8 summit. The U.S. government is a key target audience. When pushed to provide evidence of any budging in the U.S. position, U.K. Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett offered no examples, according to this BBC story. See also Andrew Revkin in The New York Times on the Exeter Conference.

Sustainable development saves lives

This is a pretty remarkable story:

Two years ago, drought-stricken farmers in a village on the southern coast of India walked into the Guinness Book of World Records by planting the highest number of saplings in a 24-hour period.

On Dec. 26, as the killer tsunami struck down thousands of people and homes in Tamil Nadu state, the casuarina and eucalyptus trees which had been planted to appease the weather gods saved the lush green village of Naluvedapathy.

Of the nearly 8,000 people who died in the state, including 6,000 in one fishing village, only seven were from Naluvedapathy.

Lesson learned.

Authorities are now proudly showcasing the benefits of tree plantation in mitigating the impact of natural disasters, pointing to Naluvedapathy's example in an effort to encourage a coastal green belt.

Extractive myths

Speaking of rural renewables: One of the vexations of blog life is that good posts quickly recede down the page and get missed -- so don't miss this excellent post by new Gristmill contributor Tom Power on the myth that B.C.'s economy depends on extractive industries. Everything he writes could be transferred straightforwardly to Oregon, Washington, Kansas, etc. etc.

Rural renewables

Rural areas in America are hurting, losing people and vitality by the day. The extractive industries upon which many rural economies are based are either dying, being outsourced, or taken over by megacorporations who offer residents low-quality, unstable service jobs. What if greens had something to offer these red areas? As I keep saying, a rural future based on small-scale green industry is both substantively and politically a huge potential win for environmentalists.

A story in The Oregonian on rural Oregon's renewable energy potential illustrates both the opportunity and challenges involved.

The liter of the pack

I didn't know this: In Canada, automobile fuel economy is expressed as gallons per mile, not miles per gallon as it is in the U.S. (Well, really, it's liters per hundred kilometers, but if you're south of the 49th parallel and a metric-system-phobe, gallons per mile is essentially the same thing.)

Now, I don't mention this just to expose my lack of cultural knowledge of my northern neighbors. I mention it because it seems to me that liters-per-kilometer is a much better way of expressing the fuel efficiency of autos.

100 sustainable companies

As usual, I'm getting to this late.  Here are the 100 most sustainable corporations in the world, as announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The comically fuzzy definition: " A Corporation that produces an overall positive impact on society and the environment."

Joel Makower rightly criticizes the opacity of the ranking process and Alex Steffen rightly emphasizes that these types of rankings aren't about seeking perfection so much as moving the debate in the right direction.

Shrinking glaciers

Via BoingBoing, a series of pictures showing melting glaciers from story in the San Fran Chronicle a few months back.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talk

This evening I saw Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speak at Seattle's Paramount theater, thanks to Foolproof's excellent "American Voices" program.

The guy is pretty amazing. For one thing -- and I'm not sure why this is the first thing that struck me -- he looks like a Kennedy! It's a little strange, like some PBS documentary or Discovery channel special come to life. And he speaks like a Kennedy too, obviously erudite but completely at ease with the kind of aspirational, inspirational rhetoric for which his father and uncle were known.

It's one of the more substantive one-hour public talks I've ever seen. His pleasantries lasted about 30 seconds (with a quick shout-out to local eco-hero Rep. Jay Inslee), and he was off and running full tilt -- few personal anecdotes or attempts at humor, no sugar, just fiber. That style might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I love it. There was no slack.

The basic theme of the talk was less environmental stuff than corporate power. Here are a few random notes and reflections, off the top of my head, in no particular order (all this stuff will, of course, be familiar to those who have seen him speak or read his book):

Go “Geo-Green”

Environmentalists need to seek new allies and new rationales, according to the raging debates spurred by the "Death of Environmentalism." This country's most important foreign affairs column is increasingly giving voice to one such argument.

Tom Friedman in The New York Times once again bangs the drum for energy efficiency, renewables, and lowering oil consumption as a means to spur reform in the Middle East. He does throw in a call for nuclear power, an argument that won't sit well with many greenies.

But Friedman dubs himself a "geo-green," explicitly promoting green behavior for geopolitical ends. He wants to deprive the undemocratic regimes of the Middle East the huge petro dollars that allow them to buy their way out of facing realm reform.

You give me $18-a-barrel oil and I will give you political and economic reform from Algeria to Iran. All these regimes have huge population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the gap with oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue and they will have to open up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so that their people can compete. It is that simple.