TheDailyBanter.com

The Nature Crunch

By Ben Cohen

Forget the credit crunch, the destruction of our natural environment is far more costly, says George Monbiot:

On Friday, Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading a European study on ecosystems, reported that we are losing natural capital worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year, as a result of deforestation alone(1). The losses incurred so far by the financial sector amount to between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Sukhdev arrived at his figure by estimating the value of the services - such as locking up carbon and providing freshwater - that forests perform, and calculating the cost of either replacing them or living without them. The credit crunch is petty when compared to the nature crunch.

It's easy to forget about environmental issues when the economy is on the brink of collapse, but Monbiot reminds us that the two are not mutually exclusive:

The two crises feed each other. As a result of Iceland’s financial collapse, it is now contemplating joining the European Union, which means surrendering its fishing grounds to the Common Fisheries Policy. Already the prime minister Geir Haarde has suggested that his countrymen concentrate on exploiting the ocean(5). The economic disaster will cause an ecological disaster.

The Big Food Grab

By Ben Cohen

George Monbiot explains how the West is creating famine throughout the third world:

In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis tells the story of the famines that sucked the guts out of India in the 1870s. The hunger began when a drought, caused by El Nino, killed the crops on the Deccan plateau. As starvation bit, the viceroy, Lord Lytton, oversaw the export to England of a record 6.4 million hundredweight of wheat. While Lytton lived in imperial splendour and commissioned, among other extravangances, “the most colossal and expensive meal in world history”, between 12 and 29 million people died(1). Only Stalin manufactured a comparable hunger. Read more..

McCain vs Obama on the environment

By Ben Cohen

Do either candidates have a serious environmental policy? The Real News provides a serious analysis:

Bush Lifts Ban on Offshore Drilling

By Peter Bauer (Contributing Editor) and Tom Drake (Science and Environmental Analyst)  

On July 14th, President Bush issued a memorandum to lift the executive prohibition on oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).  Arguing that Americans are "feeling the squeeze of rising prices at the pump," Bush encouraged expanded domestic oil production. 

With this memorandum, Bush declared that "all Executive Branch restrictions on access (to offshore drilling) have been cleared away" and that "the ball is squarely in Congress's court."

Bush lauded the potential of oil shale, which he claimed could  "provide Americans with domestic oil supplies that are equal to a century's worth of current oil imports."  He further stated the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would produce the equivalent of "two decades of imported oil from Saudi Arabia."

Bush concluded by saying that "this is a difficult period for millions of American families," and that every dollar spent on fuel costs is "one dollar less they can use to put food on the table or send a child to school."

This sets up as an argument of ‘hard-working-family’ wants vs. the potential catastrophic threat of climate change.  The public’s climate-change fatigue is well documented and with the economic slow down, people are likely to think with their pockets instead of their brains. Bush attempts to balance this by pitching offshore drilling as a temporary solution while America undergoes the transition to sustainable energy sources.

 

Green Flying

By Ben Cohen

George Monbiot suggests a green method of flying. Apparently, taking an airbus from London to New York would take 43 hours, but would have virtually no environmental impact whatsoever. This means we do not have to sacrifice long distance travel to reduce carbon emissions, although weekend shopping trips to the Big Apple would unfortunately become a thing of the past....

Gore pours money into climate change initiative

By Ben Cohen

With lots of silly talk about Al Gore resolving the Democratic presidential contest by offering himself as candidate (an idea put forward by super-talking head Joe Klein), Gore has been busy doing what he does best: Not being a politician and working on serious solutions to climate change.

He recently announced a $300 million initiative to raise awareness of the issue. The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin reports:

"The Alliance for Climate Protection's "we" campaign will employ online organizing and television advertisements on shows ranging from "American Idol" to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

Here is a clip from the "We" campaign:

Make Hay

If there's anything that developing countries are lacking, it is time. Developmental needs press up against changing internal and external environments constantly. Output must expand in order to satisfy the developmental needs of a growing population. Commodity prices are high now but that does not preclude against some massive drop in the medium to long term. Expanding output requires expanding energy supply. All of this in a world where the major powers have been making noises about reducing their fossil fuel dependency. Ghana and a good number of African countries have responded intelligently it would seem by boosting bio-fuel production.

German towns lead the way environmentally

By Ben Cohen

While the U.S and U.K spend billions of dollars on war and phantom enemies, Germany has quietly begun to transform itself into the bastion of sustainability. It's eco towns are by no means enough to combat its overall carbon emissions, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

Papua New Guinea shames the Bush Administration...and wins

After years of denial, equivocation, obfuscation, and obstruction on the environment, the Bush Administration has finally been pressured into giving some ground...by Papua New Guinea.  The (economically) small island nation had no problem piling the shame on the U.S. delegation to the U.N. environment conference in Bali.  The delegate from Papua New Guinea told the United States to etiher lead or get the hell out of the way and stop trying to prevent other nations from making progress.  It was great, and worked.  To be certain, all they got was an agreement by the U.S. to allow negotiations to continue, which isn't much, but with a short speech they managed to accomplish what so many others have failed at. 

From the Guardian UK: 

           Late-night drama pushes US into climate deal

It overran by a day and the American delegation found itself being roundly booed, but a compromise deal on saving the planet has been hammered out at the climate change conference. Juliette Jowit, Caroline Davies and David Adam in Bali report

After tears, jeers and a dramatic eleventh-hour U-turn by the United States, a compromise deal for a new international climate change agenda was finally struck in Bali yesterday, just as talks appeared on the brink of collapse.

Amid extraordinary and emotional scenes, which at one point saw the American delegation booed at the UN climate change conference, ministers from more 180 countries thrashed out agreement after days of wrangling.

The resulting 'Bali roadmap' is a global warming pact that starts a two-year process of negotiations designed to agree a new set of emissions targets to replace those in the Kyoto protocol.

But the road was extremely rocky. Talks stalled as Paula Dobriansky, head of the US delegation, signalled that America opposed calls from poorer countries for technological and financial help to combat climate change. It seemed any agreement was doomed. Then Papua New Guinea took to the floor and, in a highly charged speech, its delegate challenged the US: 'If you're not willing to lead, get out of the way.'

Minutes later, in an astonishing reversal, Dobriansky returned to announce, to cheers from the hall: 'We will go forward and join the consensus.'

Read the full article here

 

Europe Stands up to America

Finally, someone other than Hugo Chavez is growing a spine:

From the AP:

European nations on Thursday threatened to boycott U.S.-led climate talks next month unless Washington accepts a range of numbers for negotiating deep reductions of global-warming emissions at a U.N. conference here.

The move raised the stakes as delegates from nearly 190 nations entered final-hour talks on Bali aimed at launching negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

The United States, Japan and several other governments refuse to accept language in a draft document suggesting that industrialized nations consider cutting emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020, saying specific targets would limit the scope of future talks.