US to Washington: Act on Environment

Americans want bold action from national leaders on environmental issues, and are dissatisfied with the lack of action, according to a new survey. (See excerpt of the AP article about it below):

People want their leaders to move boldly to help the environment but give them dismal grades for their actions so far, according to a poll released Wednesday that highlighted rampant pessimism on the issue.
Only about one in five voiced approval of how President Bush, Congress and U.S. businesses have been handling the environment. And while decisive majorities said they want strong public and private action, fewer than one in 10 said they had seen such steps in the past year, according to the poll by The Associated Press and Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment.
The survey, conducted days before Bush was convening an international climate conference in Washington, showed that though Democrats and independents were consistently more critical than Republicans, anxiety is widespread over the environment and global warming.
''I don't understand why we're letting people destroy the Earth the way we are,'' said Jerry Menees, 34, an independent voter and truck driver from Potosi, Mo. ''It scares me what this world is coming to.''
Only about a fifth think the environment is in good or excellent shape, including 39 percent of Republicans. Just over one in 10 think it is faring better than a decade ago or will improve a decade from now, while about eight in 10 say global warming is under way -- views that were broadly shared across party lines.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 22 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htmShop for energy Saving Products at http://www.shopipl.org/.

UN Chief To USA: Do Something About Climate Change

According to an AP article in Salon (excerpt below), the UN Climate Chief is calling for the US to act on President Bush's newfound concern for climate change.

The Bush administration has made a "significant" shift on global warming, but still falls short on the "much more aggressive" policies needed to head off its damaging impact, the U.N. climate chief said Saturday.
"It's very clear that we're not on track," Yvo de Boer told The Associated Press.
More than 70 presidents and prime ministers and 80 other national representatives are gathering here for Monday's U.N. "climate summit."
The unprecedented meeting comes in a year when a series of authoritative scientific reports warned of a drastically changed planet by 2100, from rising seas, drought and other factors, unless nations rein in their emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
Monday's one-day session is designed to build political momentum toward progress at December's annual U.N. climate treaty conference, in Bali, Indonesia, which many hope will launch negotiations for an emissions-reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. Kyoto, which the U.S. rejects, set first-phase reduction quotas for 36 industrial nations.
On Thursday, the Bush administration convenes its own two-day meeting, with 15 other major "greenhouse" gas-emitting nations, to discuss ways to limit emissions.
De Boer, head of the U.N. climate treaty secretariat, cited the Washington meeting as another example of what he called "significant political change over the past year" in the Bush administration's position.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 22 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htmShop for energy Saving Products at www.shopipl.org.

Is 2007 the Climate Change Tipping Point?

Is interest in saving the world from human-caused climate-change disasters taking permanent hold in people's consciousness, or will the current uptick in climate awareness turn out to be just a fad? Newsweek explores that frightening but very relevant question this week.

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Bush Pushes Flex Fuels

US President George W. Bush is endorsing "flex-fuel" vehicles in development at the Big Three US Automakers. He is promoting the idea that the US should reduce gas consumption by 20% in the next ten years, according to MSNBC.

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World Responds to Climate Report

While the Bush Administration endorsed the UN Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change report released February 2, they rejected demands for mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, the administration said President Bush would rely on his plans to develop more renewable fuel and require more efficient vehicles, according to the Mecury News.

Meanwhile, according the Australian publication The Age, Prime Minister John Howard has used the report to push his nuclear plan.

And in France, President Chirac called for "a revolution," according to the Canadian publication The Gazette.
“Faced with this emergency, the time for half measures is finished,” Chirac said at the opening session of an international conference on the environment.
“It is time for a revolution,” the French president added. “A new industrial revolution, that of sustainable development, lies before us.”
Chirac proposed that this revolution would be led by transforming the existing United Nations Environment Program into a new United Nations Environment Organization, with a political mandate to propose common efforts to deal with climate change.
“We must build global governance for the environment,” Chirac said. “Multilateralism is the key to sustainable development.”
Sir Nicolas Stern, a British expert on climate change applauded Chirac's proposal, saying, “a global problem requires a global response.”

According to the Jackson Hole Star Tribune from an AP report,

Officials in Indonesia and the Maldives, two archipelagos threatened by rising sea levels, said they feared for the future of their lands. Others said the threat was not simply to the environment, but to international peace, prosperity and development.South Africa's Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said failure to act would be "indefensible."

India, which along with China is developing rapidly with a quickly-expanding population, faces the challenge of how to develop economically without ruining its environment. A senior ecology official noted that the climate change panel is "a network of scientists" that cannot set policy."This is a group of climate experts attempting to reach a scientific consensus. It doesn't commit governments to any course of action," said the official, Pradipto Ghosh, of India's Ministry of Environment and Forests.

But beyond the responses of world leaders, perhaps the most eloquent response to this report in the AP article came from a mother in Spain.

"I am worried for him more than anything," said Maite Leon, gesturing toward her 6-month-old. "By myself I cannot do anything, but if we each do our little bit, maybe we can change things. We have to do it all together."

On the NPR radio program Talk of the Nation, several segments dealt with energy alternatives.
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A First: President Mentions Climate Change in State of The Union Address

He didn't have a lot to say about it, but for the first time, U.S. President Bush used the phrase "global climate change" in a State of the Union Address. Find out what he said about this and other topics, in a searchable index of all of the President's State of the Union Addresses in The New York Times.
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Industry and Evironmentalists Push Bush on Climate

According to a story in the Independent (reprinted in the Hamilton Spectator),

An unprecedented coalition of blue-chip American companies and environmental lobby groups will urge President George W. Bush this week to get serious about global warming, calling for caps on carbon dioxide emissions that would cut greenhouse gases by 10 to 30 per cent over 15 years.

The group, called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, will unveil the details of its plan on the eve of President Bush's State of the Union speech tomorrow. The companies involved include some of the old-fashioned pollution-generating industries normally associated with anti-environmental policies and politicians -- chemical giant DuPont, bulldozer company Caterpillar, aluminum producer Alcoa and the U.S. subsidiary of BP.

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Bush Administration Denies Climate Reversal

Yesterday's British Observer claimed that the Bush Administration planned a 180 on Climate Change in the State of the Union Address, but according to ABC News, the White House has issued a flat denial of this report.
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Will Bush Do a 180 on Climate Change?

Senior government officials in Britain have leaked the news that President Bush plans to reverse his previous position on global climate change. The Blair administration hopes this will lead to a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, according to the Mail and Guardian.
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US Ratification of Kyoto Unlikely

So said Stuart Eizenstat, lead negotiator for former U.S. President Bill Clinton on the Kyoto Protocol for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. While concern about Climate Change is increasing in the US Government, President Bush refuses to back the Kyoto Protocol and even though the balance of power has changed in Congress, the numbers simply do not add up because a two-thirds majority is required to override a presidential veto-- and that looks unlikely given most Republicans' ideological hatred of Kyoto.
"With the changeover in Congress we really do have the potential for greater interest but not really legislation. It hasn't changed the dynamic," Eizenstat said.

Read the full article in Reuters.
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Green Gridlock? Environmental Legislation in the New Congress

Will the new Congress be good for the environment? Or will they clash with the president and create partisan gridlock? Analysis by Amanda Griscom Little, a columnist for Grist Magazine. Her articles on energy, technology and the environment have appeared in publications ranging from Rolling Stone to the New York Times Magazine. Her essay appears in Salon (note: you have to watch a brief ad to see the full article.)