Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

North Korea is Threatening a Strike on Guam After Trump’s Warning

North Korean officials say they are considering a missile strike against Guam, a U.S. territory, after President Trump issued a warning against the North that any threat to the U.S. would be met with “fire and fury.” After Trump’s harsh words, experts warned against taking part in rhetorical arguments with Kim Jong Un. North Korea has also claimed that the U.S. is planning a “preventive war” and if that becomes reality, Pyongyang will begin an “all-out war wiping out all the strongholds of enemies, including the U.S. mainland.”

About 163,000 people live on Guam, but it’s also the base of a submarine squadron, an airbase, and a Coast Guard group. U.S. officials have said they would prefer to use diplomatic means to solve any conflicts, but would not hesitate to use force if needed. However, Guam’s governor, Eddie Calvo, dismissed the threat and said the island is prepared for “any eventuality.”

North Korea says seriously considering plan to strike Guam: KCNA https://t.co/XLxpImmfG4 pic.twitter.com/qOiy7PJ0i0

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) August 9, 2017

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Former CNN Commentator Made a Pro-Trump “Real News” Video

Last weekend, political commentator Kayleigh McEnany left her position at CNN and by Sunday, she hosted a news segment about President Donald Trump that was posted on his Facebook page. It claimed to be the “real news,” but it looks more like state-run media in countries that have limited press freedom–like Russia or China. “Thank you for joining us as we provide the news of the week from Trump Tower here in New York,” McEnany said at the start of the segment. She went on to list some statistics about the Trump Administration, like the recent unemployment numbers and what Trump has done for veterans. She also claimed that Trump should be credited with creating more than 1 million jobs since taking office; however, she failed to note that recent job growth mirrors the same trend that existed in the last six months of the Obama presidency.

Wow. Feels eerily like so many state-owned channels I’ve watched in other countries https://t.co/dqsLEfuLj8

— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 6, 2017

The video segment was filmed in front of a wall with the Trump campaign logo and most people thought it was pretty creepy. McEnany has also been named the new spokesperson for the Republican National Committee.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post RantCrush Top 5: August 8, 2017 appeared first on Law Street.

A new Florida law allows residents to challenge any school textbook that they find inappropriate.

The legislation, which went into effect on July 1, is known as the Instructional Materials Bill. It permits any resident, regardless of whether or not they have a child in school, to challenge what Florida students are learning via an independent hearing. If the hearing officer deems the complaint justified, they can order the school to ban the book. However, school districts will still have the final say.

The Florida Citizens’ Alliance, a conservative group, pushed for the law after examining more than 60 textbooks in 2015. The group’s founder, Keith Flaugh, found more than 80 instances in one government textbook that he believes gives false information.

“We found [the textbooks] to be full of political indoctrination, religious indoctrination, revisionist history and distorting our founding values and principles, even a significant quantity of pornography,” he told NPR.

He goes on to explain the pornography is in literature within the school library or on summer reading lists.

While the bill can apply to any piece of required reading, the FCA’s main concern is with science textbooks. The group does not believe the schools should teach evolution or climate change as facts. One unnamed member claimed that the “vast majority of Americans believe that the world and the beings living on it were created by God as revealed in the Bible,” so the textbooks should only present evolution as a theory.

Similarly, an affidavit from a teacher complains that her school is teaching climate change as “reality.”

Other issues the FCA has with the books include attitudes toward Islam and anti-American portrayals of history.

In response to the bill, the Florida Citizens for Science Group posted a statement on its blog:

We believe that should this bill become law with the governor’s signature, people who crusade against basic, established science concepts such as evolution and climate change will have the green light to bog down the textbook selection process on the local level and bully school boards into compromises that will negatively impact science education.

Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, is also concerned. “It’s just the candor with which the backers of the bill have been saying, ‘Yeah, we’re going to go after evolution, we’re going to go after climate change,'” he said.

Delaney Cruickshank

Delaney Cruickshank is a Staff Writer at Law Street Media and a Maryland native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in History with minors in Creative Writing and British Studies from the College of Charleston. Contact Delaney at DCruickshank@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Florida Law Fights Against “Political Indoctrination” in School Textbooks appeared first on Law Street.

On Wednesday, Britain’s Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs released documents detailing the country’s plan to reduce air pollution over the next several years. Most notably, the United Kingdom will ban the sale of new petrol or diesel-powered cars and vans by 2040.

In addition to the ban on gas vehicles, the government reiterated its desire to fully implement its recently-announced £2.7 billion investments into low-emission taxis, car-rental programs, roads, and green bus retrofits.

In its plan, the government pledges to be the “the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we inherited it.”

Europe’s Green Trend

Britain’s announcement comes at a time when air quality levels are increasingly at the forefront of policies across Europe, as the continent tries to grapple with the increased effects of climate change.

“It’s important we all gear up for a significant change, which deals not just with the problems to health caused by emissions but the broader problems caused in terms of accelerating climate change,” Britain’s Environment Secretary Michael Gove said.

New diesel and petrol cars are to be banned from 2040 as part of a new strategy to tackle air pollution https://t.co/Bmj3JSq6BN pic.twitter.com/MEjFNoqO9R

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 26, 2017

Britain’s new policy mimics France’s ban on gas and diesel cars by 2040, which was announced last month after the country struggled with dense smog and pollution in its larger urban areas. It’s also inspiring some Irish politicians to advocate for a similar commitment.

“If Ireland doesn’t change it’s in the danger of becoming a dumping ground. We need to set a date and work from it, without targets we are rudderless,” said Ireland’s Green Party Councillor Ciaran Cuffe.

Too Little, Too Late?

Some politicians, including former Labour Leader Ed Miliband, are saying that this announcement is largely meant to act as a media charade, to distract from ongoing Brexit negotiations and the fact that the U.K. government has been slow to tackle the issue seriously.

Fear that new car petrol/diesel ban in 23 years time is smokescreen for weak measures to tackle 40,000 deaths a year from air pollution now.

— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) July 25, 2017

Criticism is also emerging from industry officials who condemn the government’s plan because of the negative ramifications it may have on car manufacturing jobs.

“Outright bans risk undermining the current market for new cars and our sector, which supports over 800,000 jobs across the U.K.,” said Mike Hawes, chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

Even among supporters of a gas car ban, some are critical of the timeline, which they consider to be too forgiving.

Areeba Hamid, a clean air campaigner at Greenpeace UK said: “We cannot wait nearly a quarter of a century for real action to tackle the public health emergency caused by air pollution.”

While 2040 was set as a benchmark by other countries, India has stated that every vehicle sold in the country should be powered by electricity by 2030.

Norway has adopted a similar rule, but has set its target to ban diesel-powered vehicles by 2025. Forty percent of all cars sold in Norway last year were electric or hybrid, making the country a leader in this area.

Maybe Not…

In comparison to some other countries, the U.K.’s goals seem far off. Yet, researchers are confident that the market might naturally transition to cleaner cars sooner than politicians expect.

The Dutch financial group ING released a report earlier this month predicting that the electric car market will see a major breakthrough between 2017 and 2024, and could supply 100 percent of Europe’s car demand by 2035.

Car manufacturers aren’t wasting any time either. Tesla made waves when it announced its mass market electric Model 3 car earlier this month.

Also this month, Volvo said that all of its cars would be be completely or partially electric by 2019. Volvo’s chief executive Håkan Samuelsson called for the “end of the solely combustion engine-powered car.” And BMW announced on Tuesday that it would start building an electric model of the Mini compact car in England through 2023.

Celia Heudebourg

Celia Heudebourg is an editorial intern for Law Street Media. She is from Paris, France and is entering her senior year at Macalester College in Minnesota where she studies international relations and political science. When she’s not reading or watching the news, she can be found planning a trip abroad or binge-watching a good Netflix show. Contact Celia at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Britain to Ban Sale of Gas and Diesel Cars by 2040 appeared first on Law Street.

Jerry Brown, the governor of California, made no bones about the dangers of climate change at a public hearing last week, calling it a “threat to organized human existence.” As the Trump Administration removes the U.S. from the frontline in the battle against climate change, cities and states have stepped forward to fill the void.

Monday evening, after hours of intense debate and an energized push from Brown himself, California lawmakers voted to extend the state’s cap-and-trade program through 2030. The current system, implemented in 2012, is set to expire in 2020. Extending the program, which Brown has been trying to spread to other states, has galvanized critics from two disparate corners: liberals and environmental groups who think it is too cautious, and Republicans who see it as a job killer.

But Brown, at 79 and nearing the end of his fourth term in office, has argued cap-and-trade is an effective way to combat carbon emissions while allowing economic growth.

“America is facing not just a climate crisis with the rest of the world, we are facing a political crisis,” Brown told lawmakers at the four-hour public hearing last week, after introducing the cap-and-trade extension bill. “Can democracy actually work? Is there a sufficient consensus that we can govern ourselves? That, I submit to you, is an open question.”

Brown has positioned himself as a buffer against President Donald Trump’s systematic unraveling of the Obama Administration’s climate regulations. In the wake of Trump’s decision to remove the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord, Brown and a number of other governors and mayors have soothed concerns at home and abroad. Brown recently traveled to China to talk climate change, and will attend a climate summit in Germany later this year.

While other governors and mayors have pledged to double-down on green initiatives and other carbon-cutting regulations, Brown has remained steadfast in his cap-and-trade approach. Championed by those who would like to fight climate change with a market-based system, cap-and-trade issues limited permits to carbon-producing companies, dictating how much carbon they can emit in a given time period. Some permits are free, others are auctioned off; companies can then sell, buy, and trade permits among each other.

But Brown’s extension effort received pushback from environmental groups and state lawmakers. Senate Republicans sent a letter last week to Brown, expressing their opposition to the bill, which is paired with another measure that seeks to improve air quality.

“We are committed to protecting and enhancing California’s environment,” a group of state Republican lawmakers wrote, adding that the cap-and-trade program is a “crushing blow to California residents and small business negatively impacting their quality of life.”

California progressives have also criticized the plan, though for a vastly different reason: many say it does not do enough to halt carbon emissions. Environmental justice groups see Brown’s bill as a capitulation to the oil and gas industry, and argue it includes too many compromises to pro-industry Republicans and moderate Democrats.

“It’s California climate policy that’s been written by big oil,” Amy Vanderwarker, co-director of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, recently said about the bill. “At a time when all eyes are on California, we have to stand strong and say this is not something we can support.”

After the bill passed Monday night, Brown applauded Californians for standing against “the existential threat of our time” by extending the cap-and-trade program. He also thanked both Republicans and Democrats who “set aside their differences, came together and took courageous action.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The House passed a defense bill on Friday that included a description of global warming as “a direct threat to the national security of the United States.” The bill, which sets the Pentagon’s budget and priorities for Fiscal Year 2018, easily passed by a 344-81 vote.

In addition to its acknowledgement of climate change as a potential security threat, the National Defense Authorization Act includes a number of amendments that directly contradict Trump Administration policy.

For instance, the bill declines President Donald Trump’s request to shutter a number of military bases around the country in 2021. Defense Secretary James Mattis told the Armed Services Committee in a hearing last month that closing the bases would save $10 billion over five years. The Obama Administration failed to garner congressional support with the same request.

An additional rebuff to Trump’s stated policies is the bill’s directive that the Pentagon create a so-called “Space Corps.” The proposed unit, opposed by both the Pentagon and the White House, would fall under the Air Force’s auspices, and would provide a front line of defense against future space-related threats. The Senate will negotiate the proposal when it takes up the defense bill.

But the bill’s most surprising feature is its nod to the myriad threats posed by climate change. In addition to calling climate change a “direct threat” to U.S. national security, it also directs the Pentagon to issue a report to Congress on the effects climate change might have on military bases.

Republicans in Congress have long been reluctant to address climate change as a real threat, and Friday’s vote by the Republican-controlled House might mark a change in posture.

Trump has made clear his own views on climate change–he recently withdrew the U.S. from the 194-nation Paris Climate Accord–but the Pentagon’s highest-ranking official, Mattis, has hinted that he recognizes the security threat posed by rising temperatures.

“‘I agree that the effects of a changing climate—such as increased maritime access to the Arctic, rising sea levels, desertification, among others—impact our security situation,” Mattis said in his confirmation hearing testimony earlier this year.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) expressly supported the bill, specifically for its 2.4 percent pay increase for military troops. “[The bill] includes support for military families, and honestly, a really well-deserved pay raise for our troops,” Ryan said earlier this week.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Earlier this week, 10 new states joined the U.S. Climate Alliance, affirming their dedication to “aggressive action on climate change” in light of President Donald Trump’s pull-out from the Paris Accord.

The Alliance now has 13 state members, including the three founding members. Governors Andrew Cuomo of New York, Jay Inslee of Washington State, and Edmund G. Brown Jr. of California formed the group to reduce emissions and continue pushing for climate change policy, according to a release on Inslee’s website.

“Those of us who understand science and feel the urgency of protecting our children’s air and water are as united as ever in confronting one of the greatest challenges of our lifetime,” Inslee said in the release. “Our collective efforts to act on climate will ensure we maintain the United State’s commitment to curb carbon pollution while advancing a clean energy economy that will bring good-paying jobs to America’s workers.”

The coalition announced Monday that Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia have all joined.

In a release, Cuomo called the decision to leave the Paris Accord “irresponsible,” and said that the group is committed to meeting the agreement’s goals to reduce carbon emissions 26-28 percent from 2005 levels and meet or exceed the targets of President Barack Obama’s landmark climate policy, the Clean Power Plan.

“We welcome these 10 new members and look forward to collaborating and maintaining the momentum in the global effort to protect our planet, while jumpstarting the clean energy economy,” Cuomo said.

New York is committed to meeting the standards set forth in the Paris Accord regardless of Washington’s irresponsible actions. #ActOnClimate

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 1, 2017

Pulling Out of Paris

The U.S. Climate Alliance was formed just days after Trump announced his decision to exit the agreement, making the U.S. one of three countries worldwide that did not sign on to the Accord. The other two are Syria and Nicaragua.

The president said the 195-nation climate agreement, which was negotiated under Obama and ratified into international law last November, would hurt the U.S. economy and American sovereignty, despite opposition from members of Congress and key players in his own administration.

Since pulling out of Paris, Trump has been criticized by American politicians, world leaders, scientists, celebrities, business leaders, educators, and the public. Two high-profile members of Trump’s advisory councils, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Disney CEO Bob Iger, have both stepped down from their roles on the councils following the withdrawal.

Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2017

“Forging Ahead”

In addition to the 13-state climate alliance, other localized groups have formed to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to protecting the planet.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is bringing together hundreds of businesses, university leaders, mayors, and governors in an unnamed alliance, which had more than 1,200 signatures when the pledge closed on Monday.

Bloomberg’s charitable organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies, also pledged $15 million to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which he said the group stands to lose from Washington as a result of Trump’s exit from the Paris Agreement.

“Americans are not walking away from the Paris Climate Agreement,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “Just the opposite–we are forging ahead.”

Avery Anapol

Avery Anapol is a blogger and freelancer for Law Street Media. She holds a BA in journalism and mass communication from the George Washington University. When she’s not writing, Avery enjoys traveling, reading fiction, cooking, and waking up early. Contact Avery at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Ten More States Join U.S. Climate Alliance in Wake of Paris Withdrawal appeared first on Law Street.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday his intention to pull the United States out of the Paris climate deal, an international environmental agreement dedicated to curbing the rise in global temperatures, adopting greener energy sources, and cutting down on carbon emissions. This decision drew criticism from foreign leaders, business executives, and even the mayor of Pittsburgh.

The announcement, given in the Rose Garden of the White House, was filled with the usual “America First” rhetoric that focused on a fear of being laughed at.

“We want fair treatment,” Trump said. “We don’t want other countries and other leaders to laugh at us anymore.”

To his credit, Trump defended his decision with evidence from the scientific community in between the comments focused on American exceptionalism. He mentioned that even if the agreement was followed all the way through by every country that signed it, the planet would see its global temperature drop two-tenths of one degree Celsius by 2100. A “tiny, tiny amount,” he said.

The good news is that the claim stems from a 2016 study by MIT titled “How much of a difference will the Paris Agreement make?” and is technically true. The not-so-good news is that Trump left out a key finding in that study. Researchers say that if nothing were to be done, global temperatures could rise over 5 degrees Celsius which one scientist said would be “catastrophic.”

Whether or not the president is aware of this fact is unclear. However, Trump’s track record on issues related to the scientific community does not provide much optimism for his understanding. His views on climate change, for example, leave a lot to be desired. On Nov. 6, 2012, he infamously tweeted:

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

Trump later downplayed the tweet as a “joke” in 2016 when Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) attacked his views on climate change in a Democratic Primary debate. But that was not the only time he has tweeted about global warming. Vox compiled all 115 of Trump’s tweets that mention his climate change skepticism including the following:

Snowing in Texas and Louisiana, record setting freezing temperatures throughout the country and beyond. Global warming is an expensive hoax!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2014

Despite the president’s old tweets, NASA’s climate change website states that at least 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends are a result of human activity.

It’s not just climate change that the president has some questionable views on. Earlier this spring, the Washington Post reported Trump’s beliefs on how the human body works. According to the New Yorker piece the article references, Trump stopped engaging in athletic activities after college because he “believed the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted.”

This is not true. The American Council on Exercise states that exercise improves the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to muscle tissue, allowing muscles to produce more energy for the body. The Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least 150 minutes of intense aerobic exercise per week. And the Mayo Clinic says that exercise improves muscle and heart health which gives people more endurance, and more energy.

But the most fascinating scientific belief that our commander-in-chief holds is his support for the use of asbestos. Trump believes that the movement to phase out asbestos in the nineties was a conspiracy set up by the mob. In his 1997 book, “The Art of the Comeback,” he says the following:

I believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and as usual, the politicians relented. Millions of truckloads of this incredible fire-proofing material were taken to special ‘dump sites’ and asbestos was replaced by materials that were supposedly safe but couldn’t hold a candle to asbestos in limiting the ravages of fire.

Later in the book he calls an anti-asbestos law “stupid” and claimed that it is “also 100 percent safe, once applied.”

This belief continued well into the 21st century. In 2005, he credited the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11 to its lack of asbestos and doubled down on this in 2012.

.@dubephnx If we didn’t remove incredibly powerful fire retardant asbestos & replace it with junk that doesn’t (cont) http://t.co/d10u18dh

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2012

 Prior to its collapse, the World Trade Center had upwards of 400 tons of asbestos used in its insulation, fireproofing materials, steel, and drywall. Nearly 410,000 people were exposed to the deadly carcinogen that kills 10,000 Americans a year, according to the World Trade Center Health Registry.

The connection between asbestos and mesothelioma, a cancer developed through asbestos exposure, has been known since the early 20th century but only recently been acted upon due to a decades long cover-up.

The irony in all this comes from a standout quote from Trump’s speech last week: “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” he said. Between 1999-2013, Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh resides, had 1,616 people die from asbestos-related deaths, the highest in the state, and the asbestos-related death rate was nearly 80 percent higher than the national average.

Gabe Fernandez

Gabe is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a Peruvian-American Senior at the University of Maryland pursuing a double degree in Multiplatform Journalism and Marketing. In his free time, he can be found photographing concerts, running around the city, and supporting Manchester United. Contact Gabe at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Donald Trump’s Interesting Relationship with Science appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

Cities Go Green in Support of the Paris Climate Agreement

Yesterday, President Donald Trump announced that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate deal. In a speech announcing the news, he focused once again on putting America first. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” he said. But Trump’s decision has come under heavy criticism–world leaders, climate experts, corporate executives, and members of his own party have criticized it. Trump also said he wants to renegotiate the deal to better suit America, but France, Germany, and Italy immediately issued a statement saying that renegotiation isn’t on the table.

Trump thinks the climate deal is an attack on America’s sovereignty: “We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be,” he said. Business heavy-hitters like Elon Musk and the leaders of General Electric and Goldman Sachs said the decision will harm the U.S. by de-emphasizing jobs in the clean energy sector. Musk said he will no longer be a part of Trump’s business council. And last night, major buildings around the globe lit up in green in support of the climate deal and in protest of Trump’s decision.

PHOTO: Paris’ city hall shines green in support of the climate deal. pic.twitter.com/LpF2z1nsw1

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) June 1, 2017

World: the Empire State stands with you. New York shines green for our planet, our health and our children’s future. #ParisAgreement pic.twitter.com/Ubw7WSPgu0

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 2, 2017

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post RantCrush Top 5: June 2, 2017 appeared first on Law Street.

The U.S. just became the third country, joining Syria and Nicaragua, that cannot be counted as part of the Paris Climate Accords. The 195-nation agreement set goals for reducing greenhouse gas pollution for developed and developing nations alike. President Donald Trump, in a speech at the White House Rose Garden, made the announcement, saying:

In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.

Trump said he will try to negotiate a deal that is “fair,” adding: “If we can, that’s great. If we can’t, that’s fine.” According to the Associated Press, however, a number of European nations will not be open to the U.S. renegotiating the deal:

BREAKING: France, Germany, Italy issue joint statement saying Paris climate accord can’t be renegotiated.

— The Associated Press (@AP) June 1, 2017

The White House deliberations leading up to Thursday’s announcement were reportedly split between two factions: those who wanted to remain part of the deal and those who wanted to withdraw from it. Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson apparently pushed hard for the president to remain, while EPA Chief Scott Pruitt and Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon lobbied him to exit the pact.

Stating his rationale for removing the U.S., the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China, from the accord, Trump said it hurt the U.S. economy and transferred coal jobs overseas. Vice President Mike Pence, introducing Trump at Thursday’s announcement, echoed that reasoning: “Our president is choosing to put American jobs and American consumers first,” he said. “Our president is choosing to put American energy and American industry first. And by his action today, President Trump is choosing to put the forgotten men and women first.”

But many of the leaders in the industries Trump said are harmed by the deal–like ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and BP–supported the climate agreement, and lobbied Trump to stay in. Environmental groups, Democrats, and dozens of congressional Republicans backed the deal as well. In the end, however, Bannon, Pruitt, and others, won the president over. Soon after Trump’s announcement, Jim Immelt, the CEO of General Electric tweeted:

Disappointed with today’s decision on the Paris Agreement. Climate change is real. Industry must now lead and not depend on government.

— Jeff Immelt (@JeffImmelt) June 1, 2017

The Paris deal, a non-binding agreement signed in December 2015, was an international framework to set the world on the path toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The goal was to keep the average global temperature from rising more than two degrees celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. The private sector, as well as some states and cities, have already taken steps to reduce emissions and invest in clean energy. Despite Trump’s decision, the U.S. will technically remain part of the pact until November 4, 2020, a day after the next presidential election.

Former President Barack Obama, who was a central architect in the Paris agreement, issued a statement after Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the accord. He said:

The nations that remain in the Paris Agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits in jobs and industries created. I believe the United States of America should be at the front of the pack. But even in the absence of American leadership; even as this Administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I’m confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we’ve got.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Three Countries Not Invested in Paris Climate Deal: Syria, Nicaragua…and the U.S. appeared first on Law Street.

A few minutes past 9 a.m. on Wednesday, President Donald Trump sent out a tweet that had much of the world on the edge of its seat:

I will be announcing my decision on the Paris Accord over the next few days. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017

Soon after Trump posted that tweet, the New York Times reported that he is expected to pull out of the 195-nation climate pact, according to three U.S. officials. One senior official told the Times that the decision was not final, and that specifics had yet to be hammered out.

But still, if the president makes good on one of his signature campaign pledges–he said he would “cancel” the agreement–the government’s commitment to combating climate change would essentially vanish–a symbolic blow that could lead other countries to withdraw.

The climate accord–an effort spearheaded by President Barack Obama and signed in Paris in December 2015–has split many of the key actors in Trump’s orbit; Congress has also taken opposing sides on the matter largely, but not exclusively, among party lines.

Leading the charge to abort the accord is Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist. Bannon, a highly influential force in Trump’s ascendance to the White House, sees it as making good on a central campaign promise. Despite reports that Bannon was losing sway with the president in recent weeks, his “don’t forget who got you here” line seems to resonate with Trump.

Scott Pruitt, the EPA director, has also lobbied Trump to withdraw from the pact. In an interview on “Fox & Friends” in April, Pruitt said: “It’s a bad deal for America. It was an America second, third, or fourth kind of approach.”

But there are competing voices as well, with some of Trump’s aides arguing to remain in the agreement or to work on re-tooling it. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Ivanka Trump have argued that leaving the climate deal could jeopardize relationships with allies–like Europe–and leave the U.S. in a less powerful position in setting the rules for the global climate change discussion in the future.

Tillerson is expected to meet privately with Trump on Wednesday afternoon–perhaps to deliver a final plea to remain in the pact.

Several major corporations–including oil and natural gas giants like ExxonMobil–support remaining in the agreement. Darren Woods, Exxon’s CEO, recently wrote a letter to Trump, saying that the U.S., by being part of the accord, “will maintain a seat at the negotiating table to ensure a level playing field so that all energy sources and technologies are treated equitably in an open, transparent and competitive global market so as to achieve economic growth and poverty reduction at the lowest cost to society.”

Congress, like the White House, is breaking along a few different fault lines–some GOP representatives and senators have urged Trump to remain in the agreement, while dozens of others have implored him to withdraw. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is one of the more vocal Republican voices supporting the pact. In a letter to Trump earlier this month, co-signed by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), she wrote:

Climate change is a significant environmental challenge that requires global solutions to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and to address the effects already being seen worldwide. For international climate efforts to advance, is is essential that the United States keep a seat at the table.

Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker, GOP Senators from South Carolina and Tennessee, respectively, have also argued that staying in the accord would benefit the United States. Graham recently said leaving it “would be bad for the party, bad for the country.”

Other Republican senators have either remained mum on the subject, or have lobbied Trump to exit the deal. A letter sent last week to Trump, signed by 22 GOP members of the Senate, argued that remaining in the agreement “would subject the United States to significant litigation risk that could upend your Administration’s ability to fulfill its goal of rescinding the Clean Power Plan,” an Obama-era initiative that has yet to go into effect.

“Accordingly,” the senators wrote, ” we strongly encourage you to make a clean break from the Paris Agreement.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Where Do the Trump Team and Congress Stand on the Paris Climate Accord? appeared first on Law Street.

In January, seven members of Greenpeace scaled a 270-foot crane at a construction site near the White House and unfurled a massive banner with the word “resist” printed in block letters. In April, Greenpeace members blocked the entrance to Coca-Cola’s UK headquarters with a 2.5 ton sculpture of a seagull regurgitating plastic and unfurled a banner reading “Stop Dirty Pipeline Deals!” on the center stage of Credit Suisse’s annual shareholder meeting. All of these Greenpeace interventions grabbed headlines but they did not shut down operations of the White House, Coca-Cola, or Credit Suisse. Greenpeace’s banners certainly entertain and uplift, but do they actually have an impact?

While Greenpeace would be nothing without its partnerships with local NGOs, it does have more brand recognition and funding than local organizations. Greenpeace campaigners unrolling banners and installing sculptures gain more publicity than a handful of protesters picketing outside of Coca-Cola headquarters. Images of a Greenpeace demonstration go viral within hours and that kind of power grants the group access to negotiations that smaller organizations never get. Greenpeace negotiators have worked with dozens of major corporations, including Nestlé, Mattel, LEGO, and McDonald’s, to address how the companies can reduce their carbon footprint, protect the environment, and divest from harmful supply chains.

Under the Trump Administration, when sustainability and climate change are treated like myths, businesses will feel no pressure to commit to green practices–unless they are publicly called out and the public is educated about their operations. The Science March and the People’s Climate March were powerful but brief–the true work will be sustaining the outrage and activism that those marches created over a four year period. Greenpeace has the network, the funding and the name recognition to turn individual protests into a larger, more cohesive movement.

Activists can continue to do their work challenging corporations but should also look to the local level as 2018 approaches. If they choose to expand the “market based campaigning” strategy they’ve used against corporations in the past to local and federal governments, they could build powerful local power bases. Imagine Greenpeace banners in town meetings or on the campaign trail during the mid-term elections–the setting for a Greenpeace campaign doesn’t always have to be a corporate meeting and negotiations should not be reserved for corporate sustainability departments.

When Greenpeace was founded in 1971, its first activists leased a fishing boat called the Phyllis Cormack and set sail for Alaska, protesting nuclear testing off of the coast by putting themselves in harm’s way. This ship was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard and turned back–but several members of the Coast Guard crew signed a letter supporting the protesters’ mission and the media attention the boat drew contributed to ending nuclear testing in Alaska. So, while that first fishing boat could easily have been written off as just another publicity stunt, look what it launched.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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Despite spending his campaign extolling the devilish scourge of globalism, international blocs, pacts, agreements, clubs, and any other united, transnational body, President Donald Trump’s actions in office thus far have done little to renege on any U.S. commitments with the wider world. Sure, Trump has hung up the phone on Australia’s prime minister; he has issued threats to North Korea, Iran, China, and a number of other bad actors or fragile allies. Trump promised a number of things during the campaign when it comes to existing international agreements–rip, tear, shred, renegotiate, etc. But he has yet to act on any of those impulses.

Here is a look at two international accords and one trade deal Trump has, at one point or another, promised to withdraw from or drastically alter. Instead, Trump has largely maintained the status quo as we approach the end of his fist 100 days in office.

Paris Climate Agreement

Trump once pegged climate change as a hoax invented by the Chinese. At a campaign stop last May, he pledged to “cancel” the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which the U.S. signed with nearly 200 other countries to combat climate change. Trump has since softened his questioning of climate change’s legitimacy and has largely ceased threatening to pull out of the agreement. And although EPA Chief Scott Pruitt favors withdrawing from the pact–Trump signed an executive order in March directing Pruitt to begin that process–he is reportedly questioning whether or not the political blowback of such a move would be worth it.

According to a recent New York Times report, Trump–a morally bankrupt man of few fixed beliefs in the eyes of critics, an open-mind in the eyes of his supporters–is split between two influencing camps within his administration. There is the Steve Bannon, anti-globalist school, and then there are those like Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner who support the climate pact. Trump is expected to make a final decision on the U.S. role in the Paris agreement by the end of May.

Iran Deal

During his campaign, Trump called the nuclear deal with Iran “the worst deal ever negotiated.” Engineered by the Obama Administration in 2015, the deal exchanged sanctions relief for a freeze on Iran’s nuclear program. Critics said the deal merely delayed the inevitable; once Iran’s economy was back on track, and once the 10-year deal expired, it would build up its nuclear arsenal. Supporters asked: “would you rather Iran start firing off nuclear bombs now?”

Trump, a fervent and vocal critic of the deal–which, along with the United States, was negotiated by China, Russia, France, Germany, and the U.K.–reprimanded Iran for a missile test in January. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently ordered a review to consider imposing additional sanctions on Iran–a move that could breach the nuclear agreement–just as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the deal “still stands,” confirming Iran was complying with it.

NAFTA

The Iran deal may be the “worst deal ever negotiated,” but in Trump’s eyes, NAFTA, or the North American Free Trade Agreement, is the “worst trade deal in history.” The 1994 trade deal between the United States, Canada, and Mexico has been the perfect straw man for the legion of Trump voters who had been disaffected and disproportionately affected by global trade (and of course by automation, but you can’t exactly renegotiate a deal with machines).

Last week, Trump hinted that “some very big changes” were coming to the trade agreement. But on Monday, during a speech in Mexico, Chamber of Commerce executive Thomas Donohue soothed concerns that the administration would drastically alter the deal, or scrap it altogether. “I want to assure you that despite what you may see in the news, or hear in the news, there is a constructive process underway behind the scenes,” he said.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Despite Rhetoric, Trump Hasn’t Abandoned Any International Agreements in His First 100 Days appeared first on Law Street.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who is on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has become known for defying climate research and trying to prove that global warming is a hoax. In 2014 he brought a snowball to the Senate floor. Back then, 2014 was the hottest year on record and Inhofe asked the chair, “You know what this is?” before throwing the snowball. On Thursday, he appeared in an interview on CNN’s “New Day” and accused the Environmental Protection Agency of brainwashing American kids with propaganda.

It is not clear whether he really doesn’t believe in science, or if he doesn’t understand it, or if he’s just trying to make a political point. But he actually said, without providing any examples or proof: “we are going to take all this stuff that comes out of the EPA that is brainwashing our kids, that is propaganda, things that aren’t true, allegations.” Inhofe was referring to Donald Trump’s new budget proposal, which shows huge cuts in the funding for the EPA.

A lot of people were outraged by Inhofe’s comments.

The deniers have taken over. Future generations will despise these people for their recklessness and selfishness. https://t.co/TBR6kmuoBx

— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) March 15, 2017

Lunatics like this are one of the main reasons your clean water is at risk https://t.co/esoPQErEpB

— Jordan (@JordanChariton) March 16, 2017

When interviewer Poppy Harlow asked Inhofe to explain his remarks about brainwashing, he avoided the question and instead started praising Scott Pruitt, the new head of the EPA, who sued the agency when he was the attorney general of Oklahoma.

Inhofe has made this allegation before; in July he made similar comments to radio host Eric Metaxas. He told Metaxas he “was the first one back in 2002 to tell the truth about the global warming stuff and all of that.” Then he told an anecdote in which his granddaughter asked him why he doesn’t understand global warming. Inhofe told the radio host, “I did some checking and Eric, the stuff that they teach our kids nowadays, you have to un-brainwash them when they get out.”

In 2010, Inhofe took his grandchildren to build an igloo on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and named it “Al Gore’s New Home.” He has called global warming the “the greatest hoax” ever imposed on Americans. Now, given the GOP’s control of the government, he has a chance to do some real damage. “Now he and his cronies have far more reach and are far more dangerous than they’ve ever been… That’s good news for the polluters but horrible news for public health,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Bucking scientific consensus in the U.S. and around the world, Scott Pruitt on Thursday questioned the belief that carbon dioxide is a “primary contributor” to climate change. Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will soon be rolling back many of President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations, perhaps as early as next week. And now, as Pruitt publicly undermines the widely accepted dangers of carbon dioxide, some worry that he will launch an attack against the EPA’s rule that the agency is obligated to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, also known as an “endangerment finding.” 

In 2009, the EPA issued this endangerment finding, which concluded that carbon dioxide, along with other greenhouse gases, is a threat to “the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” The agency reviewed thousands of published studies, poring over findings from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, among others.

Pruitt, in an interview with CNBC, undermined his own agency’s previous conclusions. “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so, no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” he said, referring to the impact carbon dioxide has on global warming. 

Under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, the EPA stipulated that it was a duty of the agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. The American Chemistry Council and other groups appealed the findings to a federal circuit court in D.C. In June 2012, the court upheld the EPA’s decision. Soon after, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, and the endangerment finding has stood its ground ever since.

That is, until President Donald Trump chose Pruitt–a longtime ally of the oil and gas industry and a determined opponent of environmental regulations–to lead the EPA. In his Senate hearing in January, Pruitt was asked if he would consider revisiting the endangerment finding. “It is there, and it needs to be enforced and respected,” he said.

Despite Pruitt’s apparent promise to respect the EPA’s finding, its future standing is not guaranteed. For one, the energy industry has been lobbying the Trump Administration to construct a legal case against the endangerment finding. Pruitt, or anyone else in the administration, does not have the unilateral authority to unravel the endangerment finding, because it was upheld in court.

If Pruitt decides to heed the calls of energy lobbyists, and balk the international scientific consensus, he would need to build a science-based legal challenge to the D.C. court’s 2012 ruling. Given the body of evidence supporting the EPA’s initial finding, that carbon dioxide does indeed contribute to global warming, and is a public health threat, Pruitt would have a difficult time building a successful legal challenge. But that does not mean he won’t try.

“President Trump’s campaign commitment was to undo President Obama’s entire climate edifice,” Myron Ebell, who worked on Trump’s EPA transition team, told the New York Times. “They’re thinking through the whole thing,” he said, adding: “I do think they are looking at reopening the endangerment finding.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Last week, nearly 200,000 Californians were asked to evacuate their homes after workers at the Oroville Dam noticed the emergency spillway was severely damaged. The spillway was activated in response to rapidly rising water levels in the Oroville reservoir. While the dam was never in danger of collapsing, the failure of a vital failsafe and the subsequent mass evacuation serves as a reminder of the dire state of American infrastructure.

In its 2013 Report Card, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s infrastructure a D+, citing “a significant backlog of overdue maintenance across our infrastructure systems” and “a pressing need for modernization.” While both Democrats and Republicans recognize the need to improve the nation’s infrastructure, there is debate on how these public works projects should be carried out. Any comprehensive infrastructure program must work to consider and shape long term environmental conditions.

The Oroville Dam overflow is demonstrative of how existing infrastructure is unsuited to changing climatic conditions. Since 2011, the state of California has been battling an intense drought and Oroville was not immune. However, snow melt and heavy rainfall over the past week caused water levels in the Oroville Reservoir to rise rapidly.

https://twitter.com/erbrod/status/831151275387531265

There is indisputable causal evidence linking climate change, drought conditions, and floods. According to the Climate Reality Project, as global temperatures rise, the atmosphere is able to hold more moisture at a given time. This leads to less regular but more intense downpours. Infrequent rain leads to more frequent droughts. When downpours finally occur over drought stricken land, the unsaturated soil is unable to absorb the deluge, meaning much of the water simply runs off into streams, rivers, lakes and oceans.

The Oroville Dam incident is just one example of how climate change is expected to exacerbate weather conditions. The Department of Transportation has released a number of reports in which it identifies climate change as a major threat to infrastructure. The country’s crumbling infrastructure is incapable of withstanding extreme weather conditions and future projects must acknowledge these climatic realities. Furthermore, the prioritization of certain infrastructural policies over others could either ease or worsen the effects of anthropogenic climate change.

President Donald Trump’s infrastructure plan promises $1 trillion worth of investment, places an emphasis on mass transit and high speed rail projects, and includes a plan for a modest increase in green energy investment. Nonetheless, the president might struggle to get congressional approval for his plan as it will likely not sit well with some of his fellow Republicans. The Republican establishment has traditionally called for smaller infrastructural spending packages and has resisted the expansion of public transport and green energy projects. Even if Trump’s infrastructure plan gets the green light, any gains made in public transport and green energy are likely to be offset by his overt hostility toward the environment and environmentalist work. The Untied States’ aging infrastructure is unequipped to deal with climate change, and the president refuses to admit climate change is an issue.

While it can be easily ignored, infrastructure shapes everything from socioeconomics to environmental conditions. The Oroville Dam incident reminds us that while investment in infrastructure is a necessity, new projects must not only by equipped to tolerate extreme climatic conditions, but should also work as tools that mitigate anthropogenic environmental impacts.

Callum Cleary

Callum is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is from Portland OR by way of the United Kingdom. He is a senior at American University double majoring in International Studies and Philosophy with a focus on social justice in Latin America. Contact Callum at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The Doomsday Clock is ticking.

No, not literally. But on Thursday, a group of scientists moved the hands of the symbolic clock 30 seconds closer to midnight as a result of threats posed by climate change and President Donald Trump.

So what is this clock, if not an instrument used to tell time?

It was created in 1947 by scientists involved in the Manhattan Project–an effort led by the United States to develop atomic weapons during World War II–to warn people about potential disasters caused by nuclear war. The closer it is to midnight, the greater the possibility of an impending catastrophe.

The hands now sit at 2.5 minutes from midnight, the closest they have been since 1953, when they were moved to 2 minutes from midnight as a result of Russia and the United States testing hydrogen bombs during the Cold War.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which oversees the clock, said in a release that “world leaders have failed to come to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats: nuclear weapons and climate change.”

Specifically, the Bulletin cited Trump’s “disturbing comments” about nuclear weapons, dismissal of climate change, and the rise of “strident nationalism” as factors that affected the decision to change the time.

A statement from the Bulletin’s Science and Security board referenced growing nuclear arsenals in North Korea and Russia, as well as in Pakistan and India where relations have been tense for decades. Although it praised the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal to limit nuclear programs in Iran, the board questioned how long the deal would last under Trump’s administration.

Additionally, the statement criticized the lack of progress made at the Marrakech Climate Change Conference, following the Paris Accord.

Another issue the board took into account was the risk posed by new, autonomous technologies, like self-driving cars. The scientists described a troubling hypothetical scenario in which such machinery could be used for weapons that  “make ‘kill’ decisions without human input or supervision.” The statement also warned of threats to democracy, like fake news and election hacking.

So how do we turn the clock back?

The board called upon leaders across the world, including Trump, to consider expert opinions and scientific evidence as they make decisions and create policies regarding the environment and use of nuclear weapons.

But it also urged average citizens to pressure their leaders, particularly on social media, to reduce nuclear arm programs, commit to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and consider the consequences of new technologies.

Victoria Sheridan

Victoria is an editorial intern at Law Street. She is a senior journalism major and French minor at George Washington University. She’s also an editor at GW’s student newspaper, The Hatchet. In her free time, she is either traveling or planning her next trip abroad. Contact Victoria at VSheridan@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It’s official–2016 was just named the hottest year on record. This is the third year in a row that Earth set a new record high, with average surface temperatures 1.69 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20^th century average. Actually, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that last year was the hottest year globally on both land and ocean since record keeping began in 1880. In a separate report, NASA officials also announced that 2016 was the warmest year they have on record. And if that’s not enough to scare you–what climate science may look like moving forward might.

Leading up to the inauguration of a climate skeptic president and his team, the Guardian is doing a 24-hour live reporting roundup, highlighting different climate facts. According to their numbers, the president-elect’s vacation home, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, will soon be in danger from floods. By 2045, a weak Category 2 hurricane could bring the seawater up to the main building. Just an hour south, the pace of the sea-level rise in Miami has tripled in the past ten years.

Many Americans have already been displaced due to climate change as they live in places that are vulnerable to rising sea levels. In August, residents in Shishmaref, Alaska, voted to move their village to avoid having their homes flooded by the sea. They had already lost 2,500 to 3,000 feet of land to coastal erosion in the past 35 years. Five out of the ten international cities that are most vulnerable to rising sea levels are American: New York, Boston, New Orleans, Tampa, and Miami.

2016 was the hottest year on record. Children are the first to suffer from the effects of #climatechange. @nytimes https://t.co/SXqecIGlv8

— UNICEF (@UNICEF) January 19, 2017

What’s more? Crops in the U.S. are estimated to be cut almost in half because of the warmer temperatures. The U.S. saw 15 natural disasters caused by climate change last year, which cost the country 138 lives and over $1 billion to fix. California has had a drought for several years, and just saw some rain that may provide some relief. But experts warn that this won’t end the longtime pattern of droughts, which are now just part of California’s climate, and may worsen in the future. Increasing temperatures will make the ups and downs more dramatic. It also makes it difficult to replenish the snow in the mountains that supplies water during the dry periods.

The scientific community is virtually unanimous: Climate change is a global crisis requiring bold action. Rick Perry? He doesn’t agree.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 19, 2017

Trump has talked about pulling out of the Paris climate agreement; a deal that 194 countries have signed that aims to limit the global warming to a 2 degree Celsius increase from what the average temperature was pre-industrialization. If Trump were to follow through with his promise, he wouldn’t be able to pull out for three years. But many countries still worry that he could make that move. That’s a problem–the U.S. historically has been the largest CO2 emitter globally. And if we don’t set an example and limit our emissions, then why should other countries make the effort?

In the rest of the world there is significantly less discussion about whether climate change is “real”—the question usually tends to be “what do we do?” Even China, which was named the worst climate polluter in the world in 2006, emphasized the importance of sticking to the deal when President Xi Jinping became the first Chinese leader to speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week.

In a 2014 survey by market research group Ipsos Mori, America has a higher population of climate change deniers than any other country that participated in the survey. And another survey by Pew Research Center showed that the number of Americans who do not believe humans have contributed to climate change is about 50 percent. The results showed a big discrepancy between the opinions of the general public and those of scientists. Alan Leshner from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) collaborated on the survey. “It’s partly a function of the American educational system that does a terrible job… at educating young people in science, math and technology,” he said.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Scott Pruitt, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for the head of the Environmental Protection Agency appeared before part of the Senate for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Pruitt, a former attorney general of Oklahoma, said he would like to shift some regulatory control from the federal government to the states. He purported that being pro-energy and pro-environment can be mutually exclusive. And while he acknowledged that climate change and human activity are linked, he questioned just how strong that causality is.

As attorney general, Pruitt advocated on behalf of states’ rights in the face of what he saw as federal overreach. In fact, Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times; he also led the 27-state lawsuit against President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. If he is confirmed as the next EPA chief, Pruitt could become involved in some of the lawsuits that he filed. In Wednesday’s hearing, Senate Democrats asked Pruitt if he would recuse himself from those lawsuits. He did not commit to doing so.

Scott Pruitt will not say whether he will agree to upholding California’s high vehicle pollution standards. That is unacceptable.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 18, 2017

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) introduced Pruitt: “Yes, as attorney general, Scott fought the EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the outgoing administration on many fronts,” he said, “but all of these suits were brought to protect state and local interests from overzealous and activist agencies.” Outside the hearing room, protesters, some wearing pink hats and surgical masks, others donning oil rig gear, represented the dueling sides of the hearing itself: Democrats who questioned Pruitt’s ties to the energy industry, and Pruitt’s long-held disdain for environmental activists and what he sees as job-killing regulations.

“We must reject as a nation the false paradigm that if you’re pro-energy you’re anti-environment, and if you’re pro-environment you’re anti-energy,” Pruitt said during the hearing. In his opening remarks, Pruitt, who is often called a climate denier, clarified his stance on climate change: “Science tells us that the climate is changing and human activity in some manner impacts that change,” he said. “The human ability to measure with precision the extent of that impact is subject to continuing debate and dialogue, as well they should be.”

If we look at EPA’s major legacy rule – CPP, WOTUS, haze, CSPAR, tailoring rule – the agency is batting 0.00. #confirmpruitt

— Jim Inhofe (@jiminhofe) January 18, 2017

Pruitt’s hearing was on the same day the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report that said 2016 was earth’s hottest year on record, since at least 1880, when record keeping began. Though he made clear that the EPA under his watch would grant more power to state legislatures, Pruitt mentioned the Flint, Michigan water crisis as an instance when the federal agency failed to do enough.

“In Flint, the EPA should have acted faster. With air quality, water quality across state lines, there is a role where EPA is important,” he said. Pruitt added that he does not know the science behind lead poisoning: “I haven’t looked at the scientific research,” he said.

In 2009, the EPA found that carbon emissions endanger humans and warm the planet. That ruling serves as the basis for subsequent emissions regulations, including Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Pruitt, who Democrats worry will scrap a number of regulations, said he would enforce that ruling. “It is there, and it needs to be enforced and respected,” he said. Pruitt is expected to pass a full Senate confirmation, as all 51 Republicans will likely support him; Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is also expected to support Pruitt.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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President Barack Obama, while vacationing in Hawaii on Tuesday, used an obscure 1953 law to protect millions of acres of federally owned waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans from future gas and oil drilling. With weeks left in his presidency, Obama’s unilateral action could make it difficult for President-elect Donald Trump to pursue drilling in the protected regions. Existing licenses will not be affected.

Leaning on the rarely-used 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Obama froze fossil fuel exploration in 98 percent of federally owned waters off the coast of Alaska, totaling 115 million acres. And 3.8 million acres in the Atlantic, stretching from Norfolk, Virginia to the tip of Maine, will be restricted from further drilling. Obama’s sweeping actions were in conjunction with similar moratoriums on drilling in Arctic waters off the Canadian coast by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“These actions, and Canada’s parallel actions, protect a sensitive and unique ecosystem that is unlike any other region on earth,” Obama said in a statement. “They reflect the scientific assessment that even with the high safety standards that both our countries have put in place, the risks of an oil spill in this region are significant and our ability to clean up from a spill in the region’s harsh conditions is limited.”

Bold measure by @POTUS to protect the Arctic Ocean and parts of the Atlantic, (1/2)

— Al Gore (@algore) December 20, 2016

The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act contains a clause that allows the president to “withdraw from disposition any of the unleashed lands of the outer Continental Shelf.” Obama’s team is confident that what the bill lacks–language allowing a president to redact any actions taken under the bill–will provide a bulwark against future drilling in the protected areas. Trump’s cabinet, most notably his appointment to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, has a pro-drilling bent.

Obama, who has often used unilateral power as a means of pushing climate change action, is confident there is little Trump’s team can do to erase Tuesday’s move. Amending the 1953 act is one potential course of action, but doing so would require 60 votes in the Senate; Republicans hold 52 Senate seats. Environmental groups praised the new protections, while oil industry groups warned they could result in a future of oil dependence.

Congressmen were also split on the issue. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) said the new protections “put the interests of millions of Americans ahead of those of Big Oil,” while Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT), the chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, called Obama’s actions “an abuse of power.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Obama Protects Millions of Acres from Future Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling appeared first on Law Street.

Last week on Law Street scientists geared up climate change data in lieu of Trump, a woman impersonated her ex to send herself threats, and Israel’s drug agency recommended decriminalizing marijuana. ICYMI–check out these top stories from Law Street below!

1. Scientists Rush to Back Up Climate Data Before Trump Takes Office

The President-elect has been criticized because he claimed that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese. The new proposed head of the EPA is a climate change denier. And the new proposed Secretary of State is an oil company CEO with close ties to Russia. So, it’s no wonder that environmentalists across the globe are worrying. Now, American climate scientists are copying as much of their research and climate data as possible onto independent computer servers, in an attempt to protect the information from any political interference. Read the full article here.

2. Woman Impersonates Her Ex on Facebook, Sends Threats to Herself

Imagine being arrested for a crime you didn’t commit–let alone even know about. Now, imagine being arrested four times for crimes you didn’t commit. That was the reality for an Orange County, California man whose ex-girlfriend had been impersonating him online. She had been sending herself messages from an account she created on Facebook in his name threatening to harm and kill her, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. Read the full article here.

3. Israel’s Drug Enforcement Body Recommends Decriminalizing Marijuana

Israel’s central drug enforcement body, the Israel Anti-Drug Authority (IADA), expressed its support of marijuana decriminalization during a Knesset special committee hearing on Monday. Eitan Gorani, chairman of IADA, said the authority “favors the Portugal model,” referencing Portugal’s focus on marijuana, and all other drugs for that matter, as a public health issue, not a criminal one. Portugal decriminalized all drugs, including marijuana, in 2000. Read the full article here.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post ICYMI: Best of the Week appeared first on Law Street.

The five structures rise out of the Atlantic Ocean, in a perfect horizontal line. They look like toy pinwheels when viewed from the coast. But these five behemoths are certainly not toys–they’re the country’s first offshore wind turbines, spinning and generating power off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island, a tiny vacation hamlet sandwiched between Long Island to the west and Martha’s Vineyard to the east.

“Rhode Island is proud to be home to the nation’s first offshore wind farm–and I’m proud to be the only governor in America who can say we have steel in the water and blades spinning over the ocean,” said Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, in a statement from Deepwater Wind, the company that built the wind farm. The turbines were completed in August, testing was completed by October, and on Monday, they finally started spinning.

This is America’s very first offshore wind farm, off the coast of Rhode Island, which came online this week https://t.co/hfiGy197Ld

— Sustainable Business (@GuardianSustBiz) December 13, 2016

Block Island’s residents previously relied on diesel-fueled generators to power their homes, but with Deepwater Wind’s groundbreaking project, 17,000 homes, or 90 percent of the island’s electricity needs, will be generated by the powerful gales that blow just off the coast. Still, Rhode Island is the smallest state in the country, and the wind farm is expected to generate only one percent of the state’s electricity. The $300 million project is set to shave off 40,000 tons of carbon emissions each year, according to Deepwater Wind.

With the environmental costs of fossil fuels becoming increasingly clear to scientists, politicians and private companies are working in concert to embark on job-creating projects that provide energy from clean sources. “With this project, we’ve put hundreds of our local workers to work at-sea and at our world-class ports and are growing this innovative industry. I applaud Deepwater Wind for leading the way,” Raimondo said.

Wind farms already dot the country, with more springing up over the past few years. There are about 50,000 turbines on U.S. land, supplying roughly five percent of the country’s energy. But while offshore farms are more expensive to build, and more difficult, they have a significant upside, as winds are stronger and more consistent over water than land, and offshore turbines could generate much more power than those on land.

While many Republicans deny or downplay the effects of climate change, offshore wind farm projects have attracted bi-partisan support. Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat of New York, set a goal for 50 percent of New York’s energy to be generated by renewable sources by 2030. And Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a Republican, signed a bill that orders state utility companies to work with offshore wind farms companies.

Many subsidized renewable energy undertakings are built on a policy drafted by the Republican-led Congress under President George W. Bush, the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which provides “loan guarantees for entities that develop or use innovative technologies that avoid the by-production of greenhouse gases.”

“As the Ocean State, we’re motivated by our shared belief that we need to produce and consume cleaner, more sustainable energy and leave our kids a healthier planet,” Raimondo said. 

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post First Offshore Wind Farm in the U.S. Begins Operations in Rhode Island appeared first on Law Street.

The President-elect has been criticized because he claimed that climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese. The new proposed head of the EPA is a climate change denier. And the new proposed Secretary of State is an oil company CEO with close ties to Russia. So, it’s no wonder that environmentalists across the globe are worrying. Now, American climate scientists are copying as much of their research and climate data as possible onto independent computer servers, in an attempt to protect the information from any political interference.

“Something that seemed a little paranoid to me before all of a sudden seems potentially realistic, or at least something you’d want to hedge against,” said Nick Santos to the Washington Post. He is an environmental researcher at the University of California at Davis and spent last weekend copying climate data onto a non-governmental server that will be available to the public. Other efforts include “guerrilla archiving” in Toronto–meaning the copying of irreplaceable public data–discussions on how to download as much information as possible as quickly as possible, and the creation of a website for storing all this scientific information.

This isn’t something we should have to be worried about as researchers in the developed world. But here we are.https://t.co/m9nTzWgvF7

— Ari Belasen (@DrBelasen) December 13, 2016

On Friday, Trump’s transition team sent a questionnaire to the Department of Energy to find out the names of employees who attended domestic and international climate talks. It also asked about all publications written by employees at the department’s laboratories for the past three years. This could be a sign of coming retaliation against employees who simply were doing their jobs, and drew criticism from Democrats and environmentalists.

Yes Mr. Trump, climate change is a “hoax.” It was just a haphazard occurrence that that 13 of the 15 hottest years have occurred since 2000. pic.twitter.com/2kvVpjTNb5

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 12, 2016

On Tuesday, however, the Energy Department’s spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder said it would not comply with Trump’s request. He said that the demand for individual names of employees left many people in the department feeling unsettled. He said:

We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department. We will be forthcoming with all publicly available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team.

For many people it is deeply worrying that several of Trump’s cabinet picks are skeptical about climate change, which is a fact the vast majority of scientists in the world agree upon. Michael Halpern from the Center for Science and Democracy said it’s not unreasonable to believe the new government would want to get rid of climate data that proves a fact that they dispute. “There is a fine line between being paranoid and being prepared, and scientists are doing their best to be prepared…” he said.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Scientists Rush to Back Up Climate Data Before Trump Takes Office appeared first on Law Street.

In Paris, officials are making use of excess heat from electrical appliances to heat up the city’s swimming pools. This environmentally friendly move is spearheaded by Jean-François Martins, deputy mayor in charge of sports. He wants to make swimming pools more sustainable. Paris is in the running to host the 2024 Olympic Games, and becoming more eco-friendly would help its chances both to win the bid, and to save money in the process.

Specifically, France is utilizing the excess heat from computer servers and sewage systems. Wastewater coming from 2.2 million Parisians’ sinks, toilets, washing machines, and dishwashers keep a temperature of about 55 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Some swimming pools are being built on top of the sewers, so that the water and waste run directly underneath the pool, where the heat gets captured through metal plates in the pipes. Then, a pump system transfers the warmth to the pool water. Next year, a start-up company is planning to install several hundred computer servers in the basement of a building with a swimming pool in the city’s 13th Arrondissement. The heat generated by the servers will be captured and transferred to a boiler that warms up the water as well as locker rooms. “We wish to reduce the environmental impact and ecological footprint of these facilities, while reducing chemical product use,” said Martins.

On the whole, Paris is making an effort to be progressive on climate issues. The city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, recently announced a ban on car traffic on a two-mile stretch along the Seine. The area will be transformed into a river promenade for pedestrians and cyclists. As a part of Hidalgo’s anti-pollution campaign “Paris Breathes,” the plan had the support of 55 percent of Parisians, even though some on the right opposed it. Paris is actually one of the most polluted cities in the European Union and air pollution is calculated to contribute to 2,500 deaths in the inner city every year.

Décision historique au #ConseildeParis : la fin d’une autoroute urbaine à Paris et la reconquête de la Seine. pic.twitter.com/Q0TQLzuHjA

— Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) September 26, 2016

Monday, December 12 marks the one-year anniversary of the adoption of the Paris agreement, the first global deal aimed at battling climate change. Representatives from 200 nations met in Paris and agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. President-elect Donald Trump has previously said that he will withdraw from the Paris agreement when he takes office. On Sunday he said, “nobody really knows” why climate change happens, but claimed that he is “open-minded.” Both France’s President Francois Hollande and its former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, reacted to the statement. Sarkozy suggested a tariff on imported American products in case Trump backs out. Hollande said: “The United States, the most powerful economy in the world, the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, must respect the commitments that were made. It’s not simply their duty, it’s in their interest.”

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Paris is Reusing Energy From Wastewater to Heat Swimming Pools appeared first on Law Street.

Environmental taxes and “ecotaxes” are not a new phenomenon. Proponents of sustainability have advocated for environmental-impact taxes for a variety of products and activities. By requiring a tax, the goal is to drastically change behavior and encourage a more “green” lifestyle. Until recently, no significant research had been completed to determine the global environmental and health impacts of an environmental tax on food. Now, the journal Nature Climate Change has published the first global analysis of such a tax. Read on to learn more about these taxes. 

Environmental Taxes

Environmental taxes, or “ecotaxes,” are taxes on products or activities that are considered harmful to the environment. One of the central goals of a more “green” economy is having prices reflect the true cost of certain activities. The purpose of ecotaxes is to change people’s behavior and promote environmentally-friendly activities. Because the free market fails to address environmental concerns and sustainability, ecotax policies are meant to force the market to consider environmental impacts.

These policies are known as the “green tax shift.” Examples of these taxes include carbon taxes, waste disposal taxes, and taxes on pollution and other hazardous wastes. Generally, ecotaxes can fall into two distinct categories: revenue-motivated and incentive-motivated. Revenue-motivated ecotaxes are designed to actively change behavior by putting or increasing taxes on products or activites that are deemend harmful to the environment. Incentive-motivated ecotaxes instead take a different approach, offering tax credits and relief in exchange for consumers engaging in more environmentally-friendly behavior.

Currently, many products externalize environmental costs. This means that prices are placed at an artificially low value on non-renewable resources. Effects on the air, water, and soil are not taken into account when determining the price of a product. Thus, ecotax reform encourages internalizing these costs, so the long-term environmental consequences of economic activity are not completely ignored.

Agriculture’s Impact on Climate Change

Curbing climate change is of the utmost importance as the world moves further into the 21st century. At the forefront of mitigating the damaging effects of climate change is the agriculture industry. Perhaps what’s even more critical than regulating agriculture as a whole is focusing efforts on the meat and dairy industries. The global livestock industry contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than cars, planes, trains, and ships combined, though most people still mistakenly believe that transportation is the biggest contributor to climate change.

Changing consumer perception regarding meat consumption, however, is a difficult task to complete. Researchers and scientists across the world agree that changing dietary habits is crucial to curbing climate change. In a landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 2014, researchers found that dietary changes have the ability to substantially lower emissions, despite very little global action to achieve those goals. Many calls to reduce meat consumption have been met with controversy and significant pushback.

Also, the rising demand for meat across the globe, including rapidly increasing meat consumption from heavily-populated countries such as China, may push climate change over the tipping point. Thanks to a rising population and more affordable meat prices, these products are being consumed at a higher rate than ever before. Recent peer-reviewed studies have shown that agricultural emissions will take up the world’s entire carbon budget by 2050, meaning every other industry like transportation and energy would have to be zero carbon.

An Environmental-Impact Tax on Food?

Food production and agriculture are massive contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Recent research demonstrates that the global food system is responsible for roughly 25 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. However, agriculture has never been included in American plans to reduce emissions. A brand new study suggests using an environmental-impact tax on food to combat this problem.

A study recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change states that if taxes were applied to food products based on the environmental impacts of their production, the environmental costs of agricultural activity could be substantially lowered. Specifically, climate taxes on meat and milk could lead to vital cuts in carbon emissions. The study is the first of its kind; the first global analysis of both the environmental and health impacts of a greenhouse gas on food.

The study runs through the environmental impact of each food type, figuring out the tax required to compensate for damage caused. Beef has the largest footprint, due to deforestation and massive methane emissions. Taxes of 40 percent on meat and 20 percent on milk would be substantial enough to account for the damage the production of these products causes people through climate change, the authors contend. Additionally, increasing the price of beef by 40 percent would likely result in a 13 percent drop in consumption. Some other taxes needed to compensate for climate change are 15 percent on lamb, 8.5 percent on chicken, 7 percent on pork, and 5 percent on eggs. Vegetable oil would require a 25 percent tax increase, but mostly because the initial price of the product is very low.

Some countries are already considering environmental impact taxes on food products. Denmark is one country that has already considered implementing a tax on red meat to fight climate change. The Danish Council of Ethics has recommended a tax on beef this year, coming to the conclusion that “climate change is an ethical problem.” Denmark views climate change as a direct threat to the country. Since it can’t rely on ethical consumers, it believes society must send a clear message regarding climate change through regulation. 

Optimum Tax Arrangement

The authors also took their study one step further, assessing the optimum tax arrangement for both emissions and health. After examining different tax regimes, the authors determined that the ideal policy would combine these taxes with subsidies for food, specifically healthy food such as fruits and vegetables. Moreover, maintaining a broad tax coverage–meaning many countries adopt such policies–would have the most beneficial effects.

This tax plan would reduce emissions by 1 billion tonnes a year, which is the total of the global aviation industry. The researchers were also surprised by the ability to cut emissions on such a massive level, especially when looking at the heavy impact of the dairy industry. Successful food tax policies take money generated through higher taxes and use the revenue for positive outcomes. Here, researchers advocate for utilizing tax revenue to ensure people can afford healthier diets.

Image Courtesy of Robert Couse-Baker : License (CC BY 2.0)

Many of the products that could have the greatest climate change impact also tend to be products that should be consumed in limited quantities. In the U.S., people on average consume three times the recommended amount of meat products, likely due to the relative ease of accessibility as well as a penchant for meat and dairy products. The most deadly and widespread diseases, such as heart disease, strokes, and cancer, may be curbed immensely by reducing meat and dairy consumption. Just last year, the World Health Organization classified processed meat as a carcinogen, while simultaneously classifying red meat as a probable carcinogen–specifically colorectal cancer. Thus, this new published research even noted that imposing an environmental impact tax on food products could end up saving more than half a million deaths each year in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and China. Saving significant money on health costs is a distinct possibility through these policies, as healthier diets would be both encouraged and subsidized.

Conclusion

Environmental impact taxes on food products are certainly controversial, just as the highly-debated soda taxes being implemented across the U.S. have been over the past few years. However, changing habits and behavior simply through marketing and advertisements can be nearly impossible to do. Public sensitivity regarding food choices has led to very few changes in how food is produced and consumed. Sometimes, financial incentives can be the ideal method for encouraging better and more responsible consumption.

As the global population increases, feeding the world will likely become a more daunting task. Currently, many food and tax policy issues are tied up in political knots, with governments hesitant to interfere in what is viewed as more “personal” choices. The powerful sway the food and agriculture lobbying industry has in shaping food policy cannot be ignored either. Additionally, this new research was not all positive, as there are potential negative impacts of adopting such tax regimes. Reductions in food availability and security is a possibility but could be mitigated by tailoring tax plans to each region of the globe. 

For now, environmental impact taxes on food may just be an idea rather than a reality. Such policies would impact more than just climate change, they would impact human health as well. Scientists and researchers across the globe seem to be coming to the same conclusion: to have a substantial impact in reversing climate change, dietary changes are essential to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius. This is a burgeoning field of research in both food and tax policy areas, but the current results are certainly compelling.

Nicole Zub

Nicole is a third-year law student at the University of Kentucky College of Law. She graduated in 2011 from Northeastern University with Bachelor’s in Environmental Science. When she isn’t imbibing copious amounts of caffeine, you can find her with her nose in a book or experimenting in the kitchen. Contact Nicole at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Environmental Taxes: Can Food Taxes Combat Climate Change? appeared first on Law Street.

It’s not exactly surprising when President-elect Donald Trump contradicts himself on certain policy views: he’s taken differing stances on issues such as immigration, Obamacare, and gay marriage, among many others. But his inconsistency on climate change just this week has been causing some major whiplash for anyone following Trump’s opinions on the issue closely.

Earlier this week, in a meeting reportedly set up by Ivanka Trump, Al Gore met with the President-elect to discuss the issue of climate change. While the details of the discussion have not been disclosed, Gore told reporters that the two looked for “areas of common ground” in the “interesting discussion.” Trump also allegedly met with Leonardo DiCaprio to discuss green jobs, and was gifted a copy of DiCaprio’s climate change documentary, which he reportedly promised to watch.

While those meetings may have offered some hope to environmental activists, those hopes came crashing down after Trump announced yesterday that Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt would be his appointment to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt has called the issue of climate change “far from settled” and referred to himself as the “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda” in his official bio.

The appointment of Pruitt falls more in line with the Donald Trump who has called climate change a “hoax” and has called for abandoning Obama’s climate change actions such as the Paris Climate Agreement and the Clean Power Plan.

Trump has continuously stated that he’s “not a huge believer” in man-made global warming, and while he’s claimed that the research as it stands isn’t conclusive on the issue, he also doesn’t seem to be interested in investing in further research.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

On the other hand, Politico has reported that Ivanka Trump plans on making climate change one of her “signature issues.” While this might just reflect a difference of opinion between the President-elect and his daughter, Trump has also made comments that have shown a more balanced approach on the issue, such as his comments to the New York Times post-election:

“I think there is some connectivity” between humans and climate change, Trump says.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016

If this inconsistency indicates anything besides Trump’s own lack of convictions, it’s that Trump will likely take a backseat on the issue and allow his advisors and appointees to decide what role the U.S. will play in the fight against climate change. While Ivanka puts on a deceptive show of being a climate change spokeswoman, our new EPA director will likely be rolling back the progress made during the Obama administration.

If anything’s certain, it’s that we’re in for an unpredictable four years.

Mariam Jaffery

Mariam was an Executive Assistant at Law Street Media and a native of Northern Virginia. She has a B.A. in International Affairs with a minor in Business Administration from George Washington University. Contact Mariam at mjaffery@lawstreetmedia.com.

The post Trump’s Confusing Stances on Climate Change appeared first on Law Street.

President-elect Donald Trump took a significant step in fulfilling his promise to scale back the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, announcing Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as the agency’s next leader. Pruitt, 48, has spent years waging legal battles against the agency he is now set to steer. In his six years as attorney general, Pruitt has been a consistent and vociferous critic of government overreach; President Obama’s environmental regulations have frequently been targets.

“For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many other businesses and industries at every turn,” said a statement from Trump’s camp, adding that Pruitt will “reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.”

Pruitt, who has voiced his disdain for government overreach in editorials and in his work as attorney general, said he will run the agency in “protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.” Working as the attorney general of Oklahoma, one of the country’s leading producers of oil and natural gas, Pruitt partnered with energy companies to fight Obama’s environmental regulations on things like greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution.

“There’s a mentality emanating from Washington today that says, ‘We know best,’” Pruitt said during his 2010 election campaign for attorney general. “It’s a one-size-fits-all strategy, a command-and-control kind of approach, and we’ve got to make sure we know how to respond to that.” He also has a cozy relationship with wealthy energy industry players: the CEO of Continental Energy was the co-chairmen of Pruitt’s 2013 re-election effort. 

Perhaps the most maligned target of Pruitt’s crusade against federal overreach is Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which imposed caps on emissions at power plants. Writing in the National Review on Obama’s key energy achievement in May, Pruitt said: “The checks and balances built into our system of government were simply ignored as inconvenient impediments to the president’s agenda,” referring to Obama’s executive action on the bill, which circumvented Congress. Oklahoma and 28 other states filed an anti-regulation suit against the act. The suit is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

A Kentucky native, Pruitt went to the University of Tulsa law school, started a private practice upon graduating in 1993, and five years later served in the Oklahoma State Senate, before running a successful campaign for attorney general in 2010. An avid baseball fan, Pruitt co-owned and managed the Oklahoma City Redhawks, a minor league baseball team, from 2003 to 2010.

Environmental groups and some lawmakers were unhappy with Trump’s latest cabinet appointment. “Scott Pruitt has a record of attacking the environmental protections that EPA is charged with enforcing. He has built his political career by trying to undermine EPA’s mission of environmental protection,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called Pruitt a “sad and dangerous” choice. “I will vigorously oppose this nomination,” he added. 

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Trump Cabinet: Who is Scott Pruitt? appeared first on Law Street.

The Weather Channel decided to strike back at Breitbart News after it published a not-so-accurate article claiming that climate change is a hoax last week, and used a Weather Channel clip to back up the piece.

In the Breitbart piece, the writer, James Delingpole, claimed that increasing temperatures over the past few years are only due to El Nino and that global temperatures have plummeted since the middle of 2016. He also wrote that the “alarmist community” has been quiet about this, mostly because “lefties” get their information from “unreliable fake news sites like Buzzfeed.” Along with the text, there was a video clip from the Weather Channel featuring scientist Kait Parker talking about how the phenomenon of La Nina will bring cold air to the U.S. this winter. That detail is true, but that doesn’t mean climate change is not real.

Seeing this, the Weather Channel tweeted a chart about global temperatures from the past 50 years and told Breitbart to stop using its video to mislead Americans.

Note to @BreitbartNews: Earth Is Not Cooling, Climate Change Is Real and Stop Using Our Video to Mislead Americans https://t.co/ipP0fD2BEg pic.twitter.com/ypSMJ4eML6

— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) December 6, 2016

Filmmaker Michael Moore cheered the move.

How is it that The Weather Channel has more balls than most of the mainstream media? https://t.co/PxYwsllwhG

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) December 7, 2016

On its website, the Weather Channel called the Breitbart article ”a prime example of cherry picking, or pulling a single item out of context to build a misleading case.” Temperatures dropping globally for a short period of time doesn’t mean climate change isn’t happening. In fact, temperatures typically drop after a strong El Nino. Kait Parker pointed that out in a video clip specifically aimed at responding to all of Breitbart’s false claims in its article.

Parker also called out the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, which tweeted a link to the Breitbart piece as if it was true, captioned, “Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists.”

The committee is a governmental body with jurisdiction over a bunch of scientific areas, such as environmental, marine, and astronautical research. But its chairman is a well-documented climate change denier, Congressman Lamar Smith. The tweet prompted a perfect response from Bernie Sanders.

Where’d you get your PhD? Trump University? https://t.co/P5Ez5fVEwD

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 1, 2016

Parker finished her message to Breitbart by saying, “finally, to our friends at Breitbart: The next time you write a climate change article and need fact checking help, please call. We’re here for you. I’m sure we both agree this topic is too important to get wrong.”

On Wednesday, Breitbart News hit back by calling the Weather Channel statement an “Argument from a Pretty Girl” that is “engaging in agenda-driven politics.” It seems like they missed the facts that Parker has a degree in Atmospheric Science and that climate science is not politics–it’s science.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Weather Channel Slams Breitbart Over Climate Change Article appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

Why did Dan Quayle Visit Trump Tower?

Late Tuesday, people were speculating why former Vice President Dan Quayle would be visiting Trump Tower in Manhattan, walking side by side with Kellyanne Conway. He served during George H. W. Bush’s presidency, from 1989 to 1993. Reportedly, journalists didn’t recognize him as he walked in, until Republican Party spokesman Sean Spicer told them that it was the former VP. A bystander even took a selfie with Conway without acknowledging Quayle, who stood in the background.

Former Vice President Dan Quayle waits in Trump Tower lobby as @KellyannePolls obliges a selfie seeker. #2016 pic.twitter.com/7dUDSZb3vU

— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) November 29, 2016

After visiting Trump, Quayle told reporters that he only went to offer his well wishes in person. “Things are in good hands, he’s moving forward, and he’s going to make America great again,” Quayle said.

But his appearance had some fondly remembering the years of Bush and Quayle, when controversial events in politics were maybe a little less complicated:

remember when Dan Quayle misspelled ‘potato’ and because the American people held politicians to such high standards he never recovered?

— Matt Oswalt (@MattOswaltVA) November 29, 2016

Rant Crush

RantCrush collects the top trending topics in the law and policy world each day just for you.

The post RantCrush Top 5: November 30, 2016 appeared first on Law Street.

One California city, Santa Monica, is taking quite a dramatic step to make sure that new single-family homes built there don’t add any more stress to the environment–beginning in 2017, any house built in the city will have to be “net-zero” energy (ZNE). That means that it cannot use more energy than it produces, a hugely ambitious move in California’s quest to get greener.

There are a few different ways that a house could fit ZNE rules. Houses that produce their own energy, such as through solar power, are able to achieve that distinction. The new houses built in the town will also likely be seriously efficient, in an attempt to reduce the amount of energy needed.

ZNE technology is certainly not new. The EcoTerra House in Quebec, Canada, opened in 2007 and is a landmark ZNE building. Kentucky was the first state to build a ZNE-friendly public school, the Richardsville Elementary School in Warren County. The first retail store that is ZNE is a Walgreens in Evanston, Illinois. But Santa Monica is believed to be the first city worldwide to implement this kind of measure.

Mayor Tony Vazquez said in a press release after the ordinance was passed by the City Council:

Santa Monica is proud to take a global lead in zero net energy building standards that put the State’s environmental policy to action. Council’s adoption of this new ordinance reflects our city’s continued commitment to the environment. ZNE construction, considered the gold standard for green buildings, is a major component that will help us reach our ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

And Dean Kubani, Santa Monica’s Chief Sustainability Officer, spoke about the benefit to the homeowners in the city, saying:

This ordinance makes environmental and economic sense. With the price of utility power continuing to rise, ZNE homeowners will avoid those escalating costs while benefitting from local renewable power for all of their energy need.

If Santa Monica’s idea works as plans, it could contribute to California’s attempts to cut emissions, and provide inspiration for cities both domestically and worldwide.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Building a New House in Santa Monica? It Will Need to be Very Green appeared first on Law Street.

In a curious role reversal, a top Chinese foreign diplomat promised President-elect Donald Trump that no, climate change is not a hoax cooked up by the Chinese, and yes, it is indeed a problem that will affect the entire world. In an hour-long briefing with reporters after a climate meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco on Wednesday, deputy foreign minister of China, Liu Zhenmin, discussed the history of climate negotiations as a Republican-backed initiative, and the continued commitment of China to combat rising temperatures, “whatever the circumstances.”

Days before the 2012 election, Trump sent a tweet that targeted the Chinese as being the inventors of climate change:

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

Even though a vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is greatly accelerated by the actions of mankind, Trump has promised to “cancel” the Paris climate deal that was reached by the U.S. and 194 other countries last December. In another tweet from November 2012, Trump called global warming “nonexistent.”

And although China is the world’s foremost emitter of greenhouse gases–the U.S. ranks second–it is not the inventor of climate change, nor of the very real effects seen in coastal areas around the world. At the climate summit in Marrakesh, Liu reminded Trump that it was Republicans, some of whom continue to dismiss climate change, who first took carbon-cutting negotiations to the international stage.

“If you look at the history of climate change negotiations, actually it was initiated by the IPCC with the support of the Republicans during the Reagan and senior Bush administration during the late 1980s,” he said, referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Liu added that that was the moment China first acknowledged the very real threat that climate change posed to the world. He also said that Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated the importance of global cooperation in fighting the threat during his phone call with Trump on Monday.

Regardless of Trump’s plans, other countries have signaled that they are committed to the Paris deal, with or without the U.S. But as one of the leading emitters of greenhouse gases, and a global leader in technology and influence, the U.S. is a major player in the effort. The deal was ratified recently, however, making the U.S. commitment binding for at least three years.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post China to Trump: We Didn’t Invent Climate Change appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

Obama’s European Trip is all About Trump

This morning, Obama arrived in Europe for his last visit as president. And he has a tough job while he’s there—-to try to convince European politicians that Trump isn’t as bad as everyone thinks. Many leaders in European countries are very worried about what could happen during a Trump presidency, especially since nationalist movements using similar language have gained ground in a few different countries.

We warmly welcome in Athens @POTUS Barack Obama. A meeting of great importance for our country and Europe. pic.twitter.com/M0pe0sPr3O

— Alexis Tsipras (@tsipras_eu) November 15, 2016

Obama is starting off in Greece today and will head to Germany tomorrow. “I believe that European integration is one of the greatest political and economic achievements of modern times, with benefits for EU members, the United States and the entire world,” he said to a Greek newspaper.

Rant Crush

RantCrush collects the top trending topics in the law and policy world each day just for you.

The post RantCrush Top 5: November 15, 2016 appeared first on Law Street.

Donald Trump never included anything about his stance on climate change and global warming in his campaign platform. While Hillary Clinton featured the issue prominently on her website, Trump has previously said that climate change is a hoax created by the Chinese. Though he denied that odd stance in the first presidential debate, his tweet from 2012 was widely spread by the media.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

He has also promised to go back to larger domestic coal, oil, and gas industries. And Trump has tweeted a whole lot about what he thinks of global warming…primarily that it doesn’t exist. You can find a list of all his tweets on the matter here. One example:

President Obama was terrible on @60Minutes tonight. He said CLIMATE CHANGE is the most important thing, not all of the current disasters!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2015

During a speech in May, Trump said that he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement if elected, and said that it is “bad for U.S. business” and allows “foreign bureaucrats control over how much energy we use.” The U.S. has pledged to cut down greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2025. We are the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after China, so it is a pretty big deal.

But on Friday, the Paris agreement was ratified into international law, after 96 countries signed the deal. This happened way faster than expected, which is a positive sign. And it means that Trump cannot technically renegotiate any parts of the deal until three years in, and after that one additional year must pass before he could officially withdraw from it.

However, he could technically get out of the deal by disassembling and undermining the ways in which America reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, and by simply not living up to the goals of the agreement. There is also a more aggressive way to get out of the deal, namely by withdrawing from a climate treaty from 1992, which would automatically pull us out from the Paris deal as well. Though this is legally possible, doing so would definitely undermine how trustworthy other countries perceive the U.S. to be and not favor our own interests in the long run. And according to environmental think tank Climate Interactive, this would have a significant impact on the climate. These are pretty alarming things going on.

The “lesser of two evils” argument was BULLSHIT– Trump will repeal Obamacare, pull out of Paris climate deal, stack SCOTUS #NotMyPresident

— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) November 9, 2016

Climate Interactive said that since the U.S. pledge is so large—the percentage translates to 22 billion tons of carbon dioxide—a withdrawal from the deal would directly impact the rest of the world. “Pulling out of the Paris agreement matters not just in leadership, but also in a direct impact on the climate,” said Andrew Jones, co-director of the group, to the Washington Post.

Also, if the U.S. chooses to not partake, other countries like India are less likely to do it too. Trump has also said he wants to reduce the EPA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, by 70-80 percent. In September he picked Myron Ebell as head of environmental policy on his transition team—a climate skeptic who is a director of a conservative think tank and whose sponsors are some of the biggest polluters in the country.

Yet another depressing point is that the election on Tuesday resulted in a defeat of a Washington State initiative, Initiative 732, that would have been the country’s first revenue-neutral carbon tax. It would have imposed a $25-per-ton fee on carbon dioxide emitted in different sectors, money which then could be used to reduce the state sales tax. But looking at the bigger picture of what a Trump presidency will bring, this barely matters, according to Charles Komanoff, director of the Carbon Tax Center. “We’re in for many years of backsliding on climate at a time when we really had to ramp it up,” he said.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Could Trump Reject the Paris Climate Change Agreement? appeared first on Law Street.

In the first part of Law Street’s look at the presidential candidates’ environmental policies, we evaluated Donald Trump’s plan to deregulate the energy industry and peel back many of the existing efforts to address climate change. His plans largely focus on undoing as many regulations as possible to allow greater operational freedom to American businesses and using his executive powers to undo previous president’s attempts to protect certain areas of land from fracking and mining.

In the second part, we will review Hillary Clinton’s environmental record and policy proposals. Since Donald Trump’s plans focus more toward energy production rather than protecting the environment and combating climate change, it is not surprising that Hillary Clinton’s positions do more from an environmental perspective. She has committed to some extremely ambitious goals with regards to renewable energy implementation. At the same time, she has chosen to forgo several of the traditionally recommended policy tools used to combat climate change, such as the carbon tax. Are her plans really attainable or are they just empty claims used to attract alienated far left voters to her side? Is she even likely to follow through on her promises based on her political track record? Read on to find out.

Read Part One: Where Does Donald Trump Stand on Environmental Policy?

Hillary Clinton the Environmentalist?

In stark contrast to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton believes in climate change, believes it’s man made, and believes it’s an urgent threat. She has publicly spoken on the importance of combating climate change since the early 2000s; however, her legislative track record on major issues doesn’t always indicate that she’s driven by environmental interests. When asked her position on current issues related to the environment, such as the Keystone XL Pipeline, she has often avoided taking a stance. Clinton chose not to take a final position on the Keystone XL Pipeline for over a year, even stating that she wished to declare a position after the election ended. But in September 2015, she announced her formal opposition to the pipeline.

Whether you interpret this as anti-environment is up for debate; Clinton has maintained that her lack of a stance on the issue stemmed largely from the fact that the analysis of whether the pipeline was beneficial to national interest was incomplete. If you see her lack of a choice as her withholding a stance until all the facts were clear, then her decision is understandable. However, many environmental activists, including her primary challenger Bernie Sanders, saw the issue as much more simple: the pipeline endangers U.S. waterways and sets the United States on a track toward dependence on oil instead of investing and committing to renewables. Your interpretation of her stance largely depends on how hard-line of an environmentalist you are.

“Secretary Clinton Speaks at a Press Conference” courtesy of United States Mission Geneva; License: (CC BY-ND 2.0)

As Secretary of State, she openly supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which critics claim would prevent individual countries from being able to establish environmental trade regulations. Critics also argue that the TPP openly supports anti-environmental practices such as over-fishing and deforestation. As the Trans-Pacific Partnership evolved it has been modified to include wildlife protection mechanisms to promote the sustainable management of forested zones and fisheries. However, most of these efforts are considered to be small in scale, without any monitoring system in place and the long lasting negative impacts of the TPP are projected to outweigh any potential benefits.

Read More: Growing Holes in Our Ocean’s Fisheries

As a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton has reversed her position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership as well–recently coming out against the final deal, while having supported the effort during her term as Secretary of State. It bears noting that Donald Trump has historically opposed the TPP on the grounds that it will damage American manufacturing. If Clinton hadn’t doubled back on her original stance, this would make the deal one of few issues where Trump is effectively taking a more  environmentally progressive position.

Voting Record

Clinton’s voting record also tells a confusing story. While serving as a Senator she voted for a variety of small-scale bills supported by environmental groups and co-sponsored a number of unsuccessful bills to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. But she’s also given her support to several policies that have had seriously detrimental effects on the environment. Possibly the most notable example of this is Clinton supporting the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the legendary bill that gave hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to fossil fuel companies and allocated only a fraction of this money to renewables. The bill also contained Dick Cheney’s infamous Halliburton Loophole, which gave fracking companies special permission to inject toxic chemicals underground and essentially opened the doors for hydrofracking within the United States.

Hillary Clinton has also taken flack over the years for taking donations from fossil fuel interests. According to the most recent analysis by Open Secrets, Clinton has raised a total of $2,203,018 from energy employees, with $2,167,333 of this going to the campaign and the remaining $35,685 going to associated Super PACs. While there’s no way to connect the money she’s taken directly with particular policy decisions, some have claimed that this represents a conflict of interest in terms of her claims of being an environmentalist. Given her confusing voting record, recent shifts on controversial issues and her willingness to take fossil fuel funds, many accuse Clinton of green-washing her public persona for the election, especially in order to compete with Bernie Sanders’ pull with the environmentally-minded millennial generation. Objectively speaking, Hillary Clinton has supported environmentalism out loud but has generally done little to help the movement and on several occasions has directly supported policies that will hurt the environment.

Hillary Clinton’s Plan

Of the two front-runners, Hillary Clinton is the only one with an environmental policy at all, unless you call dismantling E.P.A. regulations an environmental policy. She has publicly committed to supporting and building upon President Obama’s Clean Power Plan as well as ensuring that the United States lives up to its COP 21 Paris Agreement commitments. Clinton and her campaign manager John Podesta have both stated that while she would like to see a carbon tax imposed, given the current makeup of Congress such a law would be highly unlikely to pass. In its place, Clinton is committing to more achievable goals, which include increasing funding for renewables, research and development, and energy efficiency, all in the context of increasing American jobs. Even though she has voted for large subsidies for fossil fuel companies in the past, she currently advocates for cutting back funding for oil and gas interests and she has proposed getting rid of tax expenditures for the fossil fuel industry.

With regard to renewable energy, Hillary Clinton has an incredibly aggressive plan to increase proliferation of renewables throughout the country. The plan has two main parts, the first being the goal of installing half of a billion solar panels across the nation during Clinton’s first term. The second is to generate enough renewable energy to power every U.S. home within a decade. To do this she wants to expand upon the Clean Power Plan with a Clean Power Challenge, which would utilize competitive grants, tax incentives, and other market-based incentives to encourage and enable states to independently work toward renewable proliferation. The challenge also places a huge emphasis on updating the grid, improving its infrastructure, and thus also the reliability and efficiency with which it transmits energy. The challenge would include the creation of a fund or a prize that would help enable low-income families and communities to install rooftop solar panels. In addition to increasing renewable energy implementation in American communities, Clinton has championed utilizing public land in the West for solar arrays and wind farms as well as opening up offshore wind farming.

If these goals sound incredibly lofty and ambitious it’s because they are. In fact, they are more ambitious than really anything proposed by anyone before, with the possible exception of Clinton’s primary challenger Bernie Sanders. Many critics have projected that it would be literally impossible to make such a policy work without a carbon tax to make renewables competitive with America’s incredibly cheap natural gas supply. The fact that Clinton has chosen to not pursue a carbon tax and instead attempt to pass smaller scale measures through Congress have made many skeptical that she’s not going to be able to actually do enough to turn her plan into reality.

Realistically, she’s almost certainly right that a carbon tax wouldn’t make it through Congress, but it’s pretty unclear if her alternative plan would be any more welcome. The Clean Power Challenge would cost $60 billion, and its main selling point to Republicans would be that it is designed to create new job opportunities. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the challenge’s commitment to renewable energy flies against what the majority of Republicans are interested in supporting. To bypass Congressional gridlock, Clinton’s plan places a strong focus on using executive power to make these things happen. While it’s not Clinton’s fault, there’s only so much she’ll be able to accomplish solely through executive action; large chunks of her plan will certainly require Congressional approval.

So What Can Actually be Accomplished?

There have been numerous claims over the years that if X or Y region was properly utilized, it could provide enough energy to power the entire United States. While it is technically possible to power this country completely with renewable energy, these claims are often touted by people who don’t understand the engineering behind energy systems or by people with a zealous and innocent belief in what policymakers are capable of or willing to do. Currently, one of the most comprehensive plans for how the United States could run on 100 percent renewable energy has been created by renewable research heavyweight Mark Z. Jacobson and the Standford Precourt Center for Energy. Even this highly ambitious plan projects that if the necessary massive social and economic change were to happen in order to make such policies possible, and it was followed to the letter, the United States still wouldn’t be able to convert fully until 2050. One of the biggest impediments to such a nationwide conversion to renewable energy is that it would require every fuel source to be changed, including the liquid fuel we use to power our cars, trucks, boats, and planes. To completely transform the American transportation sector is a borderline impossible goal because while a solar panel or a wind turbine can feasibly connect to and power any home, most of our cars still run on gas. Electric cars just don’t have the mass circulation that would make such a change possible and to completely eliminate gas-powered cars would go against fair business laws.

What’s truly interesting about Clinton’s renewable plan is that she’s one of the first major politicians to call for opening up the use of offshore wind farming. There’s a good reason why the coastal regions of the United States have been called the “Saudi Arabia of Wind.” There is a massive amount of unused energy lying along our coasts that has been incredibly difficult to tap into thus far due to the extremely high cost of launching such projects, combined with the many public interests that bitterly oppose the industry. It is nearly impossible for Hillary Clinton to live up to her goal of powering the United States on 100 percent renewable energy. However, if she aggressively pursues spreading renewable energy throughout American communities, on public lands and offshore, she could still have a gigantic impact on our renewable energy makeup. The real question is whether she’d actually be able to make any of that happen or if her efforts will be completely blocked off by Congress. Unfortunately, we will simply have to wait and see what happens if she’s elected.

One of the more original and intriguing elements of Clinton’s plan is her proposal to create a Western Water Partnership with the goal of coordinating water use between the West Coast states and the different agencies that control water use within the region. Furthermore, she has proposed creating a Water Innovation Lab dedicated to utilizing and recycling water more efficiently. This proposal is one of the first of its kind in terms of addressing water scarcity in the West on a large scale and could be part of a much-needed solution to help alleviate the burden of the California drought. Clinton has also called for significant revisions to water infrastructure in the United States, including dams, sewage, and waste water systems. This is actually one of few ideas that she and Trump might actually agree on; Trump has stated that he believes water to be a vital issue and that it’s crucial that we update our water infrastructure. However, unlike Clinton, he has given no details on how to do this and has stated that he wants to remove restrictions on drilling near waterways, which would ultimately worsen the American water crisis. Clinton has also promised to protect public lands and prioritize wildlife conservation, in stark contrast to Trump’s announcement that he would open up all federally protected land to oil and gas companies.

Conclusion

Neither candidate has a sterling history of environmentalism, but only one candidate has actually made a commitment to combat climate change. If Trump were to become president, it would be possible for him to hinder progressive environmental policy by replacing the EPA leadership with climate deniers while fighting to remove environmental regulations. If his preferred candidates to lead the EPA were to get approval from Congress, then it would be feasible for him to undo a lot of the progress that has been made thus far with American environmentalism.

Clinton has a spotty record when it comes to the environment and has made dubious choices about many important issues in the past, such as the Energy Policy Act, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Keystone XL Pipeline. However, her current environmental platform has made her commitment to the environment clear and she has doubled back on all of her previous controversial positions (at least with regard to the environment). Whether her current stance is due to green-washing for the 2016 election, or due to Obama’s legacy of the Clean Power Plan influencing her opinions, or due to Bernie Sanders forcing her to move further to the left in the primaries, the end result is that she’s pursuing an aggressively progressive environmental policy. Whether her methods to make that policy a reality will be effective remains to be seen, but when it comes to environmental policy, Hillary Clinton is the superior candidate.

Resources

The Atlantic: How Green is Hillary Clinton?

Business Insider: Where Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Stand on Climate Change

Democracy Now: How Much Money has Hillary Clinton’s Campaign Taken from Fossil Fuel Companies?

Environmental Protection Agency: Summary of the Energy Policy Act of 2005

Fact Check: Clinton’s Fossil Fuel Money Revisited

Grist: Who’s Really in Charge on E.P.A. Rules? A Chat With Legal Scholar Lisa Heinzerling

High Country News: Are Hillary Clinton’s Clean Energy Goals Achievable?

Hillary Clinton Fact Sheets: Renewable Energy Vision

National Geographic: 4 Ways Green Groups say Trans-Pacific Partnership will Hurt the Environment

New York Times: Clinton’s Ambitious Clean Power Plan Would Avoid Carbon Tax

NPR: Fact Check: More on Hillary Clinton and Fossil Fuel Industry Contributions

Open Secrets: Hillary Clinton

Politico: Clinton Says her Keystone XL Position Isn’t a Flip Flop

Politico: Hacked emails from John Podesta: Clinton Disses Environmentalists in Private Meetings with Unions

Politico: The Politico Wrong-o-Meter: Fact Checking the 2016 Presidential Debate

Think Progress: Environmentalists: The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a Disaster for Climate Change

Scientific American: Hillary Clinton’s Plan to Combat Climate Change

Sierra Club: Trans Pacific Partnership

The Washington Post: Campaign Finance 2016

The Washington Post: Bernie Sanders Thumps Hillary Clinton for Keeping Mum on the Keystone XL Pipeline

The Washington Post: Energy Bill Raises Fear about Pollution, Fraud

The Washington Post: Fact Checking the Campaigns for and against the TPP Trade Deal

The White House: What Environmental and Conservation Advocates are Saying about the TPP’s Environmental Chapter

Vote Smart: Hillary Clinton’s Voting Records

Vox: Here’s What it Would take for the U.S. to Run on 100% Renewable Energy

Time: Lobbyists Celebrate Democratic Party’s New Embrace at Convention

Kyle Downey

Kyle Downey is an Environmental Issues Specialist for Law Street Media. He graduated from Skidmore College with a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies. His main passions are environmentalism and social justice. Contact Kyle at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Where Does Hillary Clinton Stand on Environmental Policy? appeared first on Law Street.

After a year of intense debates, drama, and scandals, election day is now less than a week away. The results of the 2016 election will have a major influence on the next four years in politics with regard to a variety of issues, including gun rights, immigration, and tax reform. While environmentalism has not been a highlight of this election cycle, each president has a dramatically different approach to the issue, and the winner will have a serious impact on the future of environmentalism in the United States.

In this two-part series, we will unpack each candidate’s stance on environmentalism and their plans for the future, as well as outline exactly what is within their power to do. This first part will focus on the Republican side of the issue and analyze Donald Trump’s environmental policy. How exactly would Trump’s plan to loosen environmental regulations influence global warming as well as air and water quality? What exactly is Hilary Clinton’s renewable energy proposal and how effective would it really be? These are pressing questions that have gotten little attention throughout the campaign season.

Read Part Two: Where Does Hillary Clinton Stand on Environmental Policy?

The G.O.P. Debates: The Case of the Missing Environmentalist

First a little context. While the 17 original Republican candidates fought bitterly on a variety of issues, they were almost all united in their belief that climate change is a hoax. There were a few exceptions to this rule; Jeb Bush and John Kasich admitted that climate change was real, but not that it was caused by humans, while Carly Fiorina both admitted that climate change was real and caused by human activity. Chris Christie and Rand Paul have both publicly admitted to climate change being real and human-caused (Rand Paul even signed onto a bill agreeing to this) but both later went back on their statements, claiming that the science is still unclear.

Republican runner-up Ted Cruz briefly drew public attention with a clever scientific misinterpretation when he claimed that there has been no warming over the past 18 years, at least if you go by satellite data. His timeline of 18 years would take us all back to the uniquely hot 1997-1998 El Nino. It is true that if you only look at a short period of time and begin with a hot year, it doesn’t appear that much warming has taken place. But if you look at global temperatures over any kind of longer period, they are very clearly going nowhere but up. The methodology behind his assessment also flies in the face of the scientific community, which creates climate change models based on satellite atmospheric data combined with surface measurements, because satellite data can easily be subject to flaws due to confounding variables.

Current Republican nominee Donald Trump has had an even more outlandish position–that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese in order to render American manufacturing less competitive. He has since both claimed that this was a joke and that he never said any such statement, although it still exists on his Twitter account and in videotaped interviews.

“Donald Trump” courtesy of Gage Skidmore; License: (CC-BY-SA 2.0)

Where the Party Stands

The Republican party is often viewed as being anti-environmentalist and generally for good reason. Currently, 182 members, or 34 percent, in Congress do not believe in climate change. While this list of climate deniers includes both Republicans and Democrats, Republicans make up the vast majority of this demographic. In fact, only eight out of 278 Republican members of Congress have taken open stances that they believe climate change is real. However, it wasn’t always the case that Republican presidential candidates also soundly rejected the existence of global warming. Both George W. Bush and John McCain did have environmental proposals when they ran for president and made public speeches about their intentions to aid the environment (although Bush’s environmental legacy was far from positive).

It is not exactly unique that environmental protection isn’t high up on the list of Republican priorities, but is unique that climate change and environmentalism were hardly even touched upon in the Republican presidential debates. The closest these topics came to being debated was within the context of which energy sources the candidates supported, which were universally oil, gas, or coal. Several of the candidates offered support for renewable proliferation to increase domestic energy security, but not at the expense of the economy or energy producers.

The internationally acclaimed COP 21 agreements came to pass without so much as a mention during the G.O.P. debates; the California drought was similarly ignored. This may be reflective of the voting base Republican politicians appeal to, which also has a high percentage of climate deniers. Interestingly enough, this is beginning to shift with time as well; where 24 percent of Republican voters believed in climate change in 2014, now 47 percent embrace the science. If the Republican party shifts enough in its position on environmentalism, it will be interesting to see if Republican politicians will also be forced to change their stances.

Donald J. Trump: Get Rid of All Regulations

Republican nominee Donald Trump does seem to have a consistent view on whether climate change is real (unless you count being confused as to whether or not he blames the Chinese for it). Historically, he has always claimed that climate change is a hoax. His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, publicly stated that, while Trump acknowledges that temperatures are rising globally, he doesn’t believe that human activity has had any influence over this. Trump’s running mate Mike Pence, however, spoke on CNN a day after the first debate to say that climate change was definitely real and man-made–although he reiterated Trump’s general stance that no environmental policies should be put into place that would hurt businesses or cost jobs.

Trump’s environmental policy logically follows his general denial of climate change as relevant or real. Trump’s original plan was to entirely abolish the Environmental Protection Agency–the government body that designs new environmental rules and regulations (working together with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an umbrella department within the Office of Management and Budget). While it is not within his power to do so unilaterally, one of the most important ways a President can influence energy policy is by choosing a new administration for the EPA. Each new President can appoint a new Administrator, who must be approved by Congress. If the president’s recommendation is approved, that further gives him or her the power to reshape both the upper positions of the EPA and the direction the agency will take.

Trump’s proposed selection to lead the EPA transition team is none other than Myron Ebell, the director of the Center for Energy and the Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group that uses bogus science to question “global warming alarmism.” Ebell is a famous climate denier and believes that Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which will dramatically shift the future of energy production in the United States, is not only a huge waste of government funds but also illegal because of the undue burden the regulations place on American businesses. At this time it’s unclear if Trump’s intention is to attempt to make Ebell the new EPA Administrator, but his current position as leader of the team puts him at the top of the suspected list. Alongside Ebell, the EPA transition team includes Republican energy lobbyist Mike Mckenna and former Bush Administration Interior Department solicitor David Bernhardt.

In the event that Trump is able to get his EPA transition team approved by Congress (and they will almost certainly face some opposition), they would be well equipped to try to dismantle the Clean Power Plan and remove many environmental regulations. Which brings us to the simple cornerstone of Trump’s environmental policy: remove as many regulations as possible. Trump has said that he will fight to do away with all regulations he believes are unnecessary in order to allow American businesses more operational freedom and greater room to grow.

In terms of Republican politicians, this position is in no way unique, but few presidential candidates have taken such a hard line stance against previously established environmental regulations (runner-up Ted Cruz would be fighting a very similar battle right now). Trump’s plan includes freeing up protected federal land, both on and offshore, for oil and gas drilling. Interestingly, designating an area as federally protected government land under the Antiquities Act is one of the few ways a president can directly use their executive authority to protect the environment. George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are both known for designating huge areas of land as federally protected, Clinton doing so several times specifically to prevent oil and gas companies from drilling in certain areas. For Trump to attempt to use executive power to remove these designations is a little like one president fighting directly with the legacy of a previous president.

More Fossil Fuels

Trump has said he would open up these swaths of federal land for coal mining leases and remove some of the rules that protect waterways throughout the nation from drilling, which is of concern if you’re an environmentalist or if you drink water. Trump is, in fact, one of few politicians still talking about the fantasy power source of “clean coal” in 2016. The general concept behind clean coal is to burn coal as efficiently as possible and then capture the emissions afterward, making it as “clean” as possible. While it’s true that we have made coal cleaner, it’s impossible to burn coal without some pollution. Clean coal has proven much more expensive and difficult to scale than its early proponents thought, making it far from a viable method to reduce carbon emissions. This is particularly true when less expensive and more efficient alternatives exist.

Trump’s focus on coal in particular is interesting, because coal as an energy source has dropped significantly in popularity and coal-fired power plants are rarely built these days (President Obama, coming from coal-heavy Illinois, also once preached the benefits of the mythical Clean Coal, although he’s since done an 180 on the issue and one of the key focuses of his Clean Power Plan is to regulate and reduce coal emissions by as much as possible).

Trump has made public that he views regulations on pollution as an obstacle to the success of business and jobs in America, although research indicates that over the past few decades the negative impacts of regulation on business have been modest and the demand for cleaner technology has in the past repeatedly stimulated innovation and growth in the private tech industry. If his EPA team was driven by the goal to free up businesses from all regulation, this would also involve dismantling key provisions of the Clean Water act and Clean Air Act. While a president can’t literally change the provisions of these acts, the administration he or she puts in place can reinterpret them and Trump could effectively remove the enforcement mechanisms that enable these acts to have their nationwide impact. Trump has, in fact, publicly stated that he would review the EPA endangerment findings, which are used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. To strip away the EPA’s ability to regulate air and waterborne pollution would dramatically increase the United States’ role as a global polluter and worsen public health throughout the United States.

Conclusion

It’s important to look at our current political context to see if Trump really could do any of what he proposes. His selection of an EPA transition team of climate deniers is a little ridiculous and simply unrealistic considering that any new administrator could be blocked by Democrats in the Senate. A figure as divisive as Myron Ebell, or any of the other members of the team, will simply not make it through Congress. If Trump does become president he will most likely have to consider a more neutral person to take the EPA Administrator role.

The fact that Congress is largely deadlocked between the two parties on environmental issues has been and will be a huge obstacle for any president trying to accomplish anything (a problem that extends far beyond the environment). Because of this gridlock, nearly all political efforts to combat climate change have had to come through executive action, a pattern that can be easily seen throughout Obama’s two terms. Trump’s commitment to reversing Obama’s executive actions would potentially mean undoing much of the last eight years of environmental policy efforts, worsening air and water quality and giving fossil fuel companies greater access to federal land for fracking and drilling. By specifically using executive power to accomplish this, it would be within Trump’s hands to dramatically peel back the progress that the environmental movement has made in the United States. His plans should be taken seriously by American voters as a threat to the future of our public health and energy security and to the ever worsening global problem of climate change.

Resources

The Blaze: Mike Pence Breaks From Trump, Says Humans Have a Hand in Climate Change

Business Insider: Where Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump Stand on Climate Change

CBS News: Where the 2016 Republican Candidates Stand on Climate Change

CNN: Campaign Manager: Trump Does Not Believe Climate Change is Man Made

Competitive Enterprise Institute: Myron Ebell

The Economist: Green Tape: Environmental Regulations May Not Cost as Much as Governments or Businesses Fear

Fortune: How Donald Trump’s Energy Policies Are All About Removing Regulations

Grist: How Obama Went from Being Coal’s Top Cheerleader to its No. 1 Enemy

Governing: Economic Engines: Do Environmental Regulations Hurt the Economy?

Grist: Who’s Really in Charge on EPA Rules? A Chat With Legal Scholar Lisa Heinzerling

Grist: Why is Trump so Fixated on Abolishing the EPA?

The Hill: Top Climate Skeptic to Lead Trump’s EPA Transition Team

Politico: The Politico Wrong-o-Meter: Fact Checking the 2016 Presidential Debate

Think Progress: The Anti-Science Climate Denier Caucus

Think Progress: Christie Says He’s Not ‘Relying on any Scientists’ to Inform Climate Change Views

Think Progress: The Environmental Implications of a Trump Presidency

Scientific American: Many More Republicans Now Believe in Climate Change

Scientific American: Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition Team

The Washington Post: Ted Cruz Keeps Saying that Satellites Don’t Show Global Warming: Here’s the Problem

Kyle Downey

Kyle Downey is an Environmental Issues Specialist for Law Street Media. He graduated from Skidmore College with a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies. His main passions are environmentalism and social justice. Contact Kyle at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Where Does Donald Trump Stand on Environmental Policy? appeared first on Law Street.

The Paris Climate Agreement, signed by 195 countries last December, was officially ratified into international law on Friday. “Today we make history in humankind’s efforts to combat climate change,” U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon said at the U.N.’s New York City headquarters. India, China, the U.S., the European Union and scores of other countries, totaling 96, have signed the agreement. Others, including Russia and Japan, signaled they will do so in the coming weeks and months.

“We are still in a race against time. We need to transition to a low-emissions and climate-resilient future,” said Ban, whose term ends in January. “Now is the time to strengthen global resolve, do what science demands and seize the opportunity to build a safer more sustainable world for all.”

For the agreement–which aims to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100–to go from abstract idea to concrete law, it had to be signed by at least 55 participating nations (making up 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions), a goalpost that was met on October 5. Though the accord is not legally binding–meaning there is no legal ramification for not complying–there are abstract mechanisms in place to ensure each signing party meets its individual carbon-cutting vision.

Those abstract enforcement measures will be hammered out at the COP22 meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco next week, where scientists, engineers, and researchers will gather to discuss emission-reduction techniques and strategies. Each country that signs the Paris agreement shapes a carbon-cutting plan suited to their needs and realities, with the international coalition acting as a sort of watchdog.

Rising seas, warming temperatures, melting ice caps, and all of the other consequences of fossil fuel abuse led nearly all of the world’s countries to bind together to secure a safer planet for future generations. As the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the U.S. will play a vital role in shaping that future. But Donald Trump has pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the accord should he be elected to the White House next Tuesday.

It is an impossible promise however, because the U.S. is bound to the accord for three years. And even if Trump decides to renege on the U.S. commitment during his third year, another year must pass before an official withdrawal. Hillary Clinton supports the agreement.

Ratification of the Paris Climate Accord went much faster than most expected: 2020 was the initial target date. By comparison, the Kyoto Protocol, a similar international carbon-reduction measure, was adopted in December 1997 and ratified over seven years later. Friday’s achievement is an important step toward weaning the world off fossil fuels, which still provide much of the world’s power, and the flip to renewable energy sources–wind, solar, hydro–will be a slow, arduous process.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Paris Climate Agreement Officially Becomes International Law appeared first on Law Street.

Rising seas and warming temperatures. A nuclear-ambitious Iran. An erratic and dangerous North Korea. The unmooring and uneven tides of international trade. A global terrorism menace in the Islamic State; a global tragedy in the refugee crisis borne out of a warring Syria. These are some of the global challenges President Obama has faced during his tenure in the White House.

On Tuesday, in front of representatives from nearly every country on the planet, Obama delivered a speech defending his (at times controversial) diplomatic approach to foreign policy, and highlighting the global challenges that will transcend his years in office. Here are the highlights of Obama’s eighth and final speech at the U.N. General Assembly headquarters in New York:

Global Integration

In countries around the world, movements are bubbling that, along with other sentiments, center around the uncomfortable effects of globalization: Trump and Bernie Sanders, a one-time Democratic presidential hopeful, have earned scores of followers for ripping trade deals. Britain elected to leave the world’s largest trade market in the European Union with Brexit.

In his speech on Tuesday, Obama reflected on the genuinely disruptive and for the least advantaged, disturbing, trends of globalization, but also commented on why embracing its flow is vital for a prosperous future.

“The answer cannot be a simple rejection of global integration,” he said. “We should work together to make sure the benefits of global integration are broadly shared.” Obama, who delivered his remarks later than scheduled, said the world needs a “course-correction” in its trend toward greater integration. “Too often those trumpeting globalization have ignored inequality,” he said.

As he prepares to leave office in January, Obama continues to push his signature global trade deal–the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP–through Congress. It’s unlikely the 12-nation deal will pass Congress before year’s end.

Global Security

One day after a man was arrested for dropping bombs in New Jersey and Manhattan, Obama addressed the world’s prime exporter of terrorism: the Islamic State. Calling the group, commonly referred to as ISIS, a “mindless medieval menace,” Obama defended his diplomacy-heavy approach to confronting the group’s presence in Syria, a country whose five-year civil war has killed nearly 500,000 and displaced millions more.

“There is a military component” to fighting ISIS, he said, but “in a place like Syria, there is no ultimate military victory to be won.”

Obama’s speech came a day after an aid convoy headed toward Aleppo–Syria’s second largest and hardest hit city–was attacked by government-launched airstrikes. He largely restrained from addressing the crumbling cease-fire agreement in Syria, but did call on all nations to do more to accommodate the refugees that continue to spill out of that war-torn country.

“We have to follow through even when the politics are hard,” he said, adding the world must “do more to open our hearts to help refugees who are desperate for a home.” He implored his globe-spanning audience to “imagine what it would be like for our family, for our children, if the unspeakable happened to us.”

Global Warming

And of course Obama spent considerable time speaking on a key concern of his administration, and one of its proudest achievements: climate change, and the Paris climate accord.

Before Obama spoke, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who also will be finished with his term in January, took the lectern and voiced the threats all countries must contend with: “The Earth assails us with rising seas, record heat and extreme storms. And danger defines the days of many,” he said.

A touchstone accomplishment of the Obama administration, the Paris climate accord calls on nearly every country–developed and developing alike–to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in the decades to come. Combating climate change, Obama said on Tuesday, is “not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.” He also warned of potential conflicts if climate change continues down its current path.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What did Obama Talk about at his Final U.N. General Assembly Address? appeared first on Law Street.

Welcome to RantCrush Top 5, where we take you through today’s top five controversial stories in the world of law and policy. Who’s ranting and raving right now? Check it out below:

Brazil Crowds Disappoint Olympics

The Rio Olympics have seen some of the greatest performances in history, yet their image in the public mind has been tainted. Allegations of corruption have mired the games since they were announced. Rio’s facilities have been found wanting and many have expressed very real concerns about the health and safety of the World’s greatest athletes.

Yet, aside from an incident in Judo and the potential embarrassment of Ryan Lochte, these Olympics have seen stellar sportsmanships and camaraderie.

Until Monday evening. In the high jump, Frenchmen and favorite, Renaud Lavillenie lost to the Brazilian native Thiago Braz Da Silva. While his defeat was certainly a disappointment, to be awarded a Silver medal at the Olympic games is a high honor indeed. It was at the medal ceremony, however, that the people of Rio disappointed the globe. Rather than applaud the skills of all, Lavillenie was booed to the point of breaking into tears.

Yesterday IOC President Thomas Bach came out publicly, stating simply that such behavior was unacceptable. We agree and hope that the rest of the games can proceed in the proper spirit of sportsmanship and love that they deserve.

At least Braz had some class.

Pole-vaulter Renaud Lavillenie consoled by Thiago Braz and Sergei Bubka after he was booed at medal ceremony pic.twitter.com/BrMoF3KGA0

— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) August 17, 2016

Rant Crush

RantCrush collects the top trending topics in the law and policy world each day just for you.

The post RantCrush Top 5: August 18, 2016 appeared first on Law Street.

I never thought I would have anything in common with a Kenyan who was born and raised in a small African village, has two master’s degrees from the University of Nairobi in Kenya and University of Pretoria in South Africa, worked on environment and development policy in East Africa, and now is a technical leader working in the elevation and advancement of the links between population and environment. But on June 23 we had something in common–we were both sipping ginger ale and conversing over the intersectionality of women’s empowerment and climate change. 

Hours before, Clive Mutunga was one of a dozen expert panelists present for “At The Eye of the Storm: Women and Climate Change,” an event geared towards fostering conversations about how women are most affected by climate change and the role they play as victims. According to his fellow panelist Jacqueline Patterson, director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program, “Climate change exposes gender vulnerabilities.”

“Women are resilience personified.” Roger-Mark De Souza opens Wilson Center #EyeOfTheStorm event pic.twitter.com/QAjWDypkfm

— UniversalAccessProj (@UnivAccessProj) June 23, 2016

The experts in attendance consisted of both men and women who held distinguished positions at the Department of Defense, Congress, Project Concern International (PCI), University of Hawaii Law School, Tetra Tech, and Solar Sister. Most of them appeared to be young and in their thirties, yet they had already accumulated impressive resumes consisting of environmental and humanitarian jobs aimed at helping women effected by climate change. Sono Aibe, a senior advisor at Pathfinder International perfectly encapsulated the ideology of the event saying, “There is no justice in climate change. Nature does not choose its victims, we do.”

Elhers: Women aren’t invisible. We just aren’t listening. @NewSecurityBeat #EyeOfTheStorm

— Maria Prebble (@maria_prebble) June 23, 2016

In developing countries, most women must rely on collecting natural resources (water, food, and energy for cooking and heating) to sustain their livelihood and the livelihood of their families. Uncertain rainfall, drought, and deforestation–all common symptoms of climate change–make it harder for women to maintain their livelihood. Compared to men in these poor countries, women are disadvantaged because of their limited access to education, economic assets, and a place at the table to make decisions on how to combat the problem.

At the event, there were three different panels that looked at the different angles in which climate change disproportionally impacts women.

Women in Crises: Conflict, Disasters, and Complex Emergencies

Most of the panelists on this panel had traveled to remote parts of the world, and experienced first-hand how women were at the center of the effects of climate change in some of the poorest areas. They also shared stories of how violence against women during times of environmental crisis are happening right in our backyards. Patterson elaborated on this by sharing a startling stat from Hurricane Katrina–nearly 300 women were raped during and after the lawless days of the storm.

Similar violence happened to women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Kelly Fish, a gender technical advisor for PCI, recounted one story about an African woman she worked with who had to walk for miles to collect firewood in order to cook for her family. Sadly, the same wood that she had walked miles to retrieve, was used as a tool for violence–her husband beat her with it every night.

Walks to collect water from miles away can also be dangerous for women, Fish explained. Women in the area were encouraged to wear female condoms when walking to collect water because the risk of rape was so high.

Our Bodies, Our Planet: Climate, Gender, and Health

With the U.S. Agency for International Development, Mutunga works in areas where contraception isn’t easily accessible, or there is a lot of ignorance surrounding it–many women end up raising eight or nine children in poverty-stricken areas. It’s not unusual for the daughters who grow up in these families to be sold off as child brides, because as he described during this panel, “Marriage means one less mouth to feed in a poverty-stricken family.”

He added that when women have children young, and have lots of them, it decreases their chances of staying in school and in the workforce–perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

Prez @SuzannePAI discussing the importance of #familyplanning in mitigating effects of climate change #eyeofthestorm pic.twitter.com/PV9zaKjRE8

— PAI (@popact) June 23, 2016

Climate Champions: Women Entrepreneurs & Climate Solutions

The stories of women who had been victimized by the effects of climate change were important to the context of the event, however, the point was not to dwell on the tragedies, but to offer solutions.

“It’s important that we be climate victors and not climate victims,” said Sherri Goodman, former deputy under Secretary of Defense, at the event’s final panel.

Neha Misra, Co-Founder and Chief Collaboration Officer of Solar Sister, a company that provides clean energy technology to remote areas of Africa to help empower women, emphasized that the response to fighting climate change “has to include women.”

“I believe in a world where women, girls, and their communities have access to the sustainable energy they need to create a prosperous life,” she added.

Another panelist, Swathi Veeravalli, a research scientist for the Army Corps of Engineers found in her research that sometimes simple solutions can make a big difference. “If you provide access to lighting, just lightbulbs the incidents of rape go down immediately.”

Roger-Mark De Souza, Director of Population, Environmental Security, and Resilience at the Wilson Center went as far as saying, “every problem we have is linked to climate change.”

The debate over whether or not climate change is real is essentially over, but it is just the beginning when it comes to grasping what the consequences are. Jane Harman, Director, President, and CEO of the Wilson Center, said women should be at the forefront of creating climate change policy. Harman stated,

Climate change is coming to all of us, but women are the ones who are disproportionally hurt— we bare the burden of sick relatives and personal issues. Women as parents and sisters and caregivers, we are qualified to make security policy and to sit at any security policy table in the world. Who should be the leaders in the climate change policy debate? I would say women.

Following the three panels there was a Happy Hour for the panelists to mingle with the audience. I showed up to the event that day wearing a t-shirt, blue jeans, and dirty converse. To say I didn’t fit in with all of the expert panelists and well-dressed young professionals there is an understatement. However, I felt almost a little guilty for worrying about what I showed up in after learning about the women all over the world who have much bigger problems that affect their well-being.

That’s how I started my conversation with Mutunga, and he responded in a thick Kenyan accent, “Think how lucky those women would be to worry about what they were wearing.” After an inspiring chat with him and learning what I did at the panels, I left the event feeling grateful and motivated to make sure I do my part in helping women impacted by climate change.

Editor’s Note: This post has been edited to reflect that one of the featured quotes was said by Sono Aibe, a senior advisor at Pathfinder International. 

Inez Nicholson

Inez is an editorial intern at Law Street from Raleigh, NC. She will be a junior at North Carolina State University and is studying political science and communication media. When she’s not in the newsroom, you can find her in the weight room. Contact Inez at INicholson@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Victimization of Women From Climate Change appeared first on Law Street.

Scandinavian countries are already among the best in the world when it comes to boasting low levels of carbon emissions, garbage recycling, and sustainable living. Sweden recycles 99 percent of its garbage, and now Norway has pledged to become climate neutral by 2030–20 years earlier than previously planned. Norway currently emits around 53 million tons of carbon dioxide each year.

On Tuesday night the Norwegian parliament agreed to accelerate its CO2 cutting program to try and meet the carbon emission goals that were set for 2050 two decades sooner. But this might be hard to accomplish considering Norway’s major export products are oil and gas. The leader of the Norwegian Green Party Rasmus Hansson said: “This is a direct response to the commitments Norway took on by ratifying the Paris agreement and means that we will have to step up our climate action dramatically.”

The climate talks in Paris took place in December 2015 and resulted in the world’s first legally binding agreement concerning the global climate. In total, 196 countries agreed to keep global warming down and reduce emissions.

#Norway says it will be climate-neutral by 2030, accelerating goal by 20 years https://t.co/QFPSHGr2FT pic.twitter.com/sXpkBSbFYv

— The Local Norway (@TheLocalNorway) June 7, 2016

The ruling Progress and Conservative parties voted no to the proposal on Tuesday, with the argument that overly ambitious reductions today could result in interference with future climate negotiations.

However, the next step is for the government to go back to Parliament to discuss how to implement the change. Some ways to achieve the ambitious goal are to work for the reduction of gas-fueled cars (24 percent of the country’s cars are already electric), increase the use of wind power, and emissions trading.

At the end of May, Norway voted to commit to zero deforestation, making it the first country in the world to do so. This means that no product that has contributed to deforestation will be used or sold in Norway. The country has also donated money to other countries’ rainforest preservation efforts, such as Guyana and Brazil.

Norway’s commitment to zero deforestation led Alec Baldwin to tweet this video greeting:

Watch this clip of my greeting to my friends in Oslo. Thank you, @VidarHelgesen https://t.co/aDL65niVom

— AlecBaldwin (@AlecBaldwin) June 14, 2016

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was also in Oslo on Wednesday signing a deal for a closer cooperation between the nations on protecting the world’s forests.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Norway Vows to Be Carbon Neutral by 2030: 20 Years Earlier Than Planned appeared first on Law Street.

On a nine acre cay between Queensland and Papua New Guinea, human-influenced climate change is thought to have claimed its first mammalian casualty. Melomys rubicola, or the Bramble Cay melomys–coined after the tiny speck of land it once inhabited–was a small rodent with long whiskers and a thin, scaly tail. Last week, in a survey conducted on behalf of the the Australian state of Queensland over six days in August and September 2014, researchers finally revealed their findings. The 59-page report concluded “human-induced climate change being the root cause of the loss of the Bramble Cay melomys.”

Meet the first mammal to go extinct due to human-induced climate change–the Bramble Cay Melomys. LIVE SUSTAINABLY pic.twitter.com/uS3qKx0amH

— Jake Marconi (@jake_marconi) June 15, 2016

Native to Bramble Cay, its only known habitat in the world, the creature had been in steady decline since the 1970s, when researchers found hundreds of them living on the heavily vegetated, pinprick-sized hamlet atop the Great Barrier Reef. Only ten were found in a 2002 study, 12 in 2004. And as of 2016, at least as far as researchers know (they will not rule out the possibility that the animals exist in other, not yet discovered habitats), the Bramble Cay melomys is extinct.

The team of three researchers–two University of Queensland scientists and a Queensland government official–used 150 total traps made from a mixture of rolled oats, peanut butter, peanut oil, and golden syrup, as well as camera traps and daytime searches. There was no sign of the nocturnal creature. The team concluded:

The key factor responsible for the extirpation of this population was almost certainly ocean inundation of the low-lying cay, very likely on multiple occasions, during the last decade, causing dramatic habitat loss and perhaps also direct mortality of individuals.

Between 1901 and 2010, global sea levels rose by 20 centimeters, a figure much higher than similar periods over the past 6,000 years. And in the waters of the Torres Strait, the ocean alleyway which Bramble Cay is situated in, sea levels rose at twice the average rate between 1993 and 2014. But shrinking living space and diminishing food stores were not the only forces at work behind the animal’s extinction. Stiff competition for a narrow, dwindling cache of grasses–a diet staple for the melomys, seabirds, and turtles–led to the rodent’s erasure as well.

The permanent loss might be an ominous portent of things to come for a vast chunk of the animal kingdom in the coming decades. A 2015 study published in Science warned that one in six of the planet’s species could face extinction if current trends continue. A meeting between most of the world’s governments, including its highest carbon emitters, in Paris last year sought to mitigate the effect of climate change on rising sea levels, glacial erosion and other potentially devastating environmental shifts that would upend the existence of human beings and other creatures alike. The Paris climate accord has yet to go into effect, and whether its tenets will help save any species from extinction remains to be seen.

John White, an ecologist from Deakin University in Australia who was not involved in the Bramble Cay survey, told the Guardian he has “no doubt” more species will be lost to climate change, especially those animals that live in niche, isolated environments like the melomys. “Certainly, extinction and climatic change has gone hand in hand throughout the history of the world,” he said. “So, if this is one of the first, it is more than likely not going to be the last.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Extinct: Tiny Rodent Is First Mammal Claimed By Human-Induced Climate Change appeared first on Law Street.

In a May 17 vote, the Portland Public School board unanimously approved Resolution No. 5272 to develop a new plan for how information about climate change is taught in local public schools. The controversial catch? The resolution specifically included a section mandating the abandonment of any books that are “found to express doubt about the severity of the climate crisis or its root in human activities.” While proponents of the resolution argue that textbooks containing doubt about the existence of man-made climate change lead to fewer informed children, many people are outraged at the idea of textbook censorship being enacted in public schools.

From the view of the school board, removing texts that cast doubt on the severity of man-made climate change will help to enlighten students in Portland. Rather than seeing the initiative as a ban on certain viewpoints, the school board has identified it as a way to make climate change literacy a priority in the school system. Bill Bigelow, editor of the Rethinking Schools magazine, said: “a lot of the text materials are kind of thick with the language of doubt, and obviously the science says otherwise.”

He even discussed the fact that it is not uncommon for fossil fuel producers and their PR departments to influence written sections in textbooks about climate change, which could lead to skewed information. “We don’t want kids in Portland learning material courtesy of the fossil fuel industry,” Bigelow said.

On the other hand, the stir that has been created in response to the school board’s resolution has been overwhelming in the last few days after the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) released an official statement against the resolution. Its response detailed several features of the resolution that it considered concerning including the resolution’s overly broad nature, its undervaluing of students being able to consider all sides of an argument, and the fact that it was almost entirely created because of political pressure by environmental lobbyists. The coalition even tweeted last week that the resolution was  unnecessary:

Portland’s climate education resolution is over-broad, politically influenced, and unnecessary. https://t.co/QLf33nDleB

— ncacensorship (@ncacensorship) June 3, 2016

To NCAC, the censorship of books curtails individual students’ rights to read multiple opinions on global warming and then decide for themselves what impact they believe it is having. In addition, the ban could limit accurate exposure to the debate over man-made climate change from the last couple of decades for students. NCAC’s statement express concern over wresting independence from those who teach the material, teachers:

Deciding how to approach the existing political debate around the causes of climate change should be left to those who teach about it: science professors, social studies and civics professors may approach the issue differently in accordance with the requirements of their subject matter. Elected officials have an important role in ensuring the availability of an adequate education to all students; they should devote their energies to that worthy goal, and leave decisions about what and how to teach to the people who are trained to do it.

In other words, students should be exposed to all viewpoints and then it should be up to teachers and professors to determine what is and is not taught in schools–not politicians. Other opponents have criticized the public school system in Portland of promoting “political indoctrination” over the education of children.

While the new Portland plan may raise questions about student access to accurate summaries of the historical debate over man-made climate change, 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree that it is reality. Maybe what Portland needs is an amendment to the plan rather than a complete overhaul: some way to teach kids that the cause and existence of climate change has been debated, but that science overwhelmingly supports its existence and human origin. It seems like the Portland Public School Board had its heart in the right place, and that the controversy stirred up by the NCAC may help the board tailor its policies to be slightly less all consuming and perhaps more effective.

Alexandra Simone

Alex Simone is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street and a student at The George Washington University, studying Political Science. She is passionate about law and government, but also enjoys the finer things in life like watching crime dramas and enjoying a nice DC brunch. Contact Alex at ASimone@LawStreetmedia.com

The post Portland Censors Climate Change Material In Textbooks, Sparking Controversy appeared first on Law Street.

Globally, we eat more meat now than ever before. Cultures that traditionally held vegetarian diets have become steadily more meat-oriented. In many areas, meat is seen not only as a delicacy but also as a luxury expense and a symbol of status. As the production of meat has gone up in recent decades and the cost has steadily dropped, meat is now much more affordable than ever before. This has led to what is referred to as a “global meatification of our diets.”

However, this new trend carries with it a series of environmental burdens. The livestock industry creates enormous amounts of waste, generates pollution, and also releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

Waste

Vegetarian farming methods generally require large-scale irrigation and sometimes pesticides and fertilizers as well. Livestock farming, alternatively, requires keeping animals alive, which requires land, food, and water for the animals. Because of this, animal farms are also dependent on grain farms to create a food source for their animals. This food could be eaten by humans directly, but instead is used over a long period of time (in combination with a variety of animal growth hormones) to get an animal to an edible size. In fact, more than two-thirds of all agricultural land worldwide is dedicating to feeding livestock. In contrast, only eight percent of agricultural land produces food exclusively for humans. The land used for animal grazing, as well as the land that goes to specialized crop production for livestock animal diets, often causes mass scale deforestation: in the last 40 years, an estimated 40 percent of the Amazon trees were taken down with the vast majority of this land going to livestock feed production. Freshwater is also a finite resource that’s being used in mass quantities for irrigating animal feed and nourishing the animals.

“Pink.”courtesy of Rosalba Tarazona via Flickr

Every bite of meat that is eaten represents all the various inputs that went into raising that animal to adulthood. NPR published a report showing that a single quarter-pound of beef requires 6.7 pounds of grain, 52.5 gallons of water (for the cow’s personal needs and also for watering the crops it ate), 74.5 square feet of land for grazing, and 1,036 BTUs (British Thermal Units) of fossil fuel energy for food production and transport. If you calculate the amount of water required to sustain an American citizen, the average meat eater requires no less than 4,800 gallons whereas a vegan only needs 300. But when the average consumer eats a burger, all they will see is the finished product while the hidden costs remain unnoticed. Herein lies part of the problem with the meat industry: all of its worst elements aren’t ever visible to consumers who decide what kinds of food they want to spend their money on.

Fossil Fuels

First, fossil fuels are used to make the pesticides and fertilizers that keep grain crops growing rapidly and protected from insects. These inputs are essential to many of the traditional commercial vegetable farms throughout the world, which is a serious problem for the environment on its own. However, specialized grain or corn crops are created specifically to sustain livestock, which adds an unnecessary burden that wouldn’t exist without the meat industry. Carbon dioxide emissions also necessarily come with the large-scale transport of meat to grocery stores and restaurants throughout the world. Some of the largest meat-producing nations–such as the United States, Brazil, and the Netherlands–also export meat products to other countries, sometimes halfway around the world.

However, transportation actually only accounts for about six percent of livestock emissions. Ten percent comes from manure storage and disposal, 39 percent comes from food processing and production, and 44 percent comes from enteric fermentation. Enteric fermentation is the process by which a cow’s stomach digests its food and releases greenhouse gasses as a result. Interestingly, while the typically unnatural corn-based diets (in concert with a constant stream of growth hormones and medications) dramatically worsen the health of cows, grass-fed cows actually release far more greenhouse gasses than corn-fed cows. This is because the roughage eaten by grass fed cows is high in cellulose, which is then broken down into methane during anaerobic digestion. In contrast, commercial farm cows generally subsist off of foods that are low in cellulose and high in simple sugars. Because of this, grass fed cows can release up to two to four times as much methane as commercial cows.

As a greenhouse gas, methane has as much as 86 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Methane only stays in the atmosphere for about 12 years while carbon dioxide can remain for hundreds; however, in terms of a greenhouse gas’s ability to rapidly impact global warming, methane is considered to be far more dangerous.

Methane emissions from a single dairy cow amount to the equivalent of up to 1.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. Globally this adds up to the equivalent of  2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) calculated that cows contribute 53 percent of the world’s human-related nitrous oxide and 44 percent of its methane. There has been some debate over exactly how much the livestock industry contributes to climate change. The FAO claims that the livestock industry releases 14.5 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gasses.

However, the FAO’s analysis has been criticized for being conducted exclusively by livestock specialists, not environmental specialists, and for understating the extent of livestock’s impact on climate change by overlooking and undercounting related emissions sources. The FAO has also been criticized for having a partnership with the International Meat Secretariat and the International Dairy Federation. Current and former World Bank environmental specialists conducted their own study and argue that livestock actually accounts for 51 percent of the world’s anthropogenic greenhouse gasses–much more than the 14.5 percent estimated by the UN.

Livestock as a Public Health Issue

In some areas, the growth in meat consumption has had a positive impact on the diets of the local people. This is particularly true in food insecure regions such as some areas in Sub-Saharan Africa where meat is an important source of protein. However, the livestock industry has also posed a danger to public health in several facets of life. The first is simply through pollution. Fertilizers and pesticides used to grow feed crops are washed away in runoff and taken to streams and rivers. On farms, animal manure is swept away by that same runoff and taken to water sources where it can contaminate drinking water with fecal bacteria.

A red meat-based diet can also be unhealthy. Regular consumption of meat can raise cholesterol and lead to cardiovascular disease and cancer down the road. Furthermore, the unnatural diets and regimen of growth hormone that we administer to livestock essentially keeps them sick, which also requires constant medication. Almost 80 percent of all antibiotics sold in America are used for livestock and not for people.

“Vasikkakasvattamo” courtesy of Oikeutta eläimille via Flickr

The diets we force upon animals can also potentially impact our own health when we consume them. For instance, many of the pathogens and bacteria that develop in cows stomachs can be easily killed by our stomach acids. However, as we continue to modify their diets we’ve caused cow stomachs to become increasingly more acidic as well. In the worst case scenario, this could lead to dangerous pathogens, such as E.Coli, adapting to live in a more acidic environment and potentially being able to survive in our stomachs as well.

Conclusion

Despite many problems in the livestock industry, the popularity of meat is only projected to continue increasing. Some anticipate meat demand to double expected to double by 2020. Although some organizations dispute the validity of this projection, most agree that meat consumption will continue to increase in the coming years. If humans don’t manage to reduce our global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, then the globally accepted goal of limiting warming to 2°C will be extremely difficult to accomplish. Without dramatic changes to the livestock industry, these reductions will never be able to happen.

A traditional meat-based diet simply isn’t sustainable for the entire planet. However, the majority of the current problems with the industry are far out of consumers’ sights. As long as meat continues to get cheaper and people enjoy how it tastes, its popularity will continue to grow as well. Greater transparency on the issues might change public perception of the industry and shift consumer attitudes. Another possible solution could be an increased emphasis on alternative lifestyles, whether they be vegetarian based or just focused on eating from small, more sustainable livestock farms. The FAO actually suggests that we intensify the commercial livestock industry in order to reduce and eliminate the greater degree of emissions that comes from grass fed cows as opposed to commercial farm cows. Whatever the method may be, it’s clear the world can’t continue to consume meat at such alarming rates.

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to clarify the debate over livestock’s effect on climate change and its share of human-related emissions. Additional information has also been added about the implications for grass-fed cows on methane emissions and the environmental effect of commercial farms has been clarified. Additionally, methane is now thought to have 86 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide, not 25 times as scientists previously believed. The post has been updated to reflect that change. Updates also add context the debate over the projected growth in meat demand by 2020.

References

Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations: The Role of Livestock in Climate Change

Food and Agricultural Organization of the Unite Nations: Key Facts and Findings

New York Times Opinion: FAO Yields to Meat Industry Pressure on Climate Change

Reuters: Grass-Fed Beef Packs a Punch to the Environment

John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Health & Environmental Implications of U.S. Meat Consumption and Production

New Harvest: the World’s Leading Driver of Climate Change: Animal Agriculture

NPR: A Nation of Meat Eaters: See How it All Adds Up

Policy Mic: Farm Bill 2013: Small Farmers Can’t Make Money from Farming Anymore

Politifact: Rep. Louise Slaughter says 80 Percent of Antibiotics are Fed to Livestock

Salon: What Nobody Told Me About Small Farming: I Can’t Make a Living

Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment: Consequences of Increased Global Meat Consumption on the Environment – Trade in Virtual Water, Energy & Nutrients

United Nations News Centre: Rearing Cattle Produces more Greenhouse Gases than Driving Cars, New Report Warns

US Environmental Protection Agency: Overview of Greenhouse Gases: Methane

World Watch: Livestock and Climate Change

World Watch Institute: Is Meat Sustainable?

Kyle Downey

Kyle Downey is an Environmental Issues Specialist for Law Street Media. He graduated from Skidmore College with a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies. His main passions are environmentalism and social justice. Contact Kyle at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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As climate change continues to wreak havoc on the world’s weather patterns, individuals around the globe are taking their respective countries to task for their roles in contributing to the problem. The New York Times reports that several attempts to take governments to court have taken place in countries such as Pakistan, New Zealand, Peru, and even the United States.

Whether or not these lawsuits could have any effect on actually holding these countries accountable is debatable, but it is giving clout to people who traditionally would have little power in such a fight. Children, farmers, and students  have brought cases in various countries, all citing a need for countries to take action to protect current and future generations from a host of devastating effects.

In the U.S., a group of kids in the state of Washington won a lawsuit last month to force the state to be held to a deadline for taking action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The kids were represented by Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit that works to help young people fight for their right to a healthy atmosphere. While this particular case was fought at a state level, the organization has been fighting another case at the federal level–it has also filed a suit against the Obama administration on behalf of a group of kids from various states across the country. The suit claims that the Obama administration has “continued their policies and practices of allowing the exploitation of fossil fuels,” targeting in particular the approval of a CO2-emitting export terminal in Oregon.

Pakistan, a country particularly vulnerable to climate change, has recently seen two such cases come to its courts. Last month, a seven-year-old girl filed a lawsuit against the government, saying that the promotion of fossil fuels violates “the Public Trust Doctrine and the youngest generation’s fundamental constitutional rights.” Last year, farmer and law student Asghar Leghari took his case to the Lahore High Court after his crops were threatened by the unpredictable weather. Leghari’s case prompted a judge to order the formation of a “Climate Change Commission” to ensure that the government is implementing policies to combat the problem.

The Times piece highlights other cases that are popping up worldwide. Regardless of whether or not these suits will actually be successful in forcing governments to change their policies, they are bringing attention to the media and the public of the role that governments have played in the climate crisis.

In the end, these lawsuits might be the most effective way that individuals can truly make their voice heard to the entities that truly have the power to create change. While these methods will still be difficult for those without legal resources at their disposal, it may be the best way to force governments to take action.

Editors Note: A previous version of this story stated that the kids represented in the federal case against the Obama administration were from Oregon. This story has been corrected to clarify that many of the youth plaintiffs in this case live in other states apart from Oregon. 

Mariam Jaffery

Mariam was an Executive Assistant at Law Street Media and a native of Northern Virginia. She has a B.A. in International Affairs with a minor in Business Administration from George Washington University. Contact Mariam at mjaffery@lawstreetmedia.com.

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Twenty-one young people are suing the federal government over climate change–and according to a recent ruling from a federal judge, they’re allowed to continue with the suit.

The 21 plaintiffs range in age from 8-19 from across the United States, and the lawsuit is being supported by an advocacy group called “Our Children’s Trust,” based in Oregon. The ideal endgame of the kids’ lawsuit would be for the federal government to come up with a concrete plan to fight climate change. They’ve filed petitions in every state, but it was the one in Oregon that a federal judge is allowing to move forward. Federal District Court Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin, wrote:

The nascent nature of these proceedings dictate further development of the record before the court can adjudicate whether any claims or parties should not survive for trial. Accordingly, the court should deny the motions to dismiss.

Cotton also called the lawsuit unprecedented and wrote:

If the allegations in the complaint are to be believed, the failure to regulate the emissions has resulted in a danger of constitutional proportions to the public health.

The next step for the lawsuit is for another judge to review it, but Our Children’s Trust appears to be optimistic that it will be able to move forward.

The plaintiffs rely heavily on the concept of the public trust doctrine in their lawsuit. Essentially, the public trust doctrine is what allows the government to own certain resources for public use–for example the Great Lakes. The plaintiffs are arguing that the climate and atmosphere should be treated the same way. Additionally, the plaintiffs argued that their constitutional rights were being infringed upon. A press release from Our Children’s Trust reads:

These plaintiffs sued the federal government for violating their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property, and their right to essential public trust resources, by permitting, encouraging, and otherwise enabling continued exploitation, production, and combustion of fossil fuels.

So while there’s no guarantee this lawsuit will move forward, it will be one to watch.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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On Saturday, landmarks around the world shut off their lights for an hour to draw attention to climate change. The event was started in 2007 by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and has been held every March since.

This year, 366 landmarks participated in over 175 nations, including Big Ben, the Colosseum, and the Empire State Building. Each landmark turned off its lights between 8:30 and 9:30 PM in its respective timezone. Here are some pictures of the world’s most famous landmarks gone dark:

Great photos of the @EmpireStateBldg participating in #EarthHour. pic.twitter.com/MYcniHgBUl

— World Wildlife Fund (@World_Wildlife) March 20, 2016

#ChangeClimateChange! UN Headquarters in NYC went dark for #Earthhour on Saturday! Message: https://t.co/L34HPKY8hY pic.twitter.com/2nbVESfQ9r

— United Nations (@UN) March 20, 2016

Time for lights out! We’re proud to take part in this year’s #EarthHour
Pic: Simon Hewson/@wwf_australia @earthhour pic.twitter.com/uFCvtl2JIy

— City of Sydney (@cityofsydney) March 19, 2016

We’ve switched off the lights at Emirates Stadium from 8.30-9.30pm for #EarthHour pic.twitter.com/aLGbPTJEuk

— TheArsenalFoundation (@AFC_Foundation) March 19, 2016

The Eiffel Tower is switching off its lights to celebrate #EarthHour in @Paris. @WWF@RoyalSegolene@Anne_Hidalgopic.twitter.com/iYB8Kyn0mH

— Pierre Cannet (@pierrecannet) March 19, 2016

The CEO of the WWF, David Miller, explained the uniqueness of this year’s event:

This year, because the nations came together in Paris in December for the first time and agreed on a plan of action, I think the goal is not only to draw attention but also to celebrate the fact we’ve seen really important action on this critical challenge.

However, while the world may have seen increased action against climate change, we have also seen mounting reason to be concerned about the state of the world climate. According to the Independent’s Geoffrey Lean:

Last month, it was revealed on 14 March, was not merely the warmest February ever, but witnessed the biggest month-on-month jump in temperatures ever recorded – and by a big margin. Normally cautious climate scientists called it ‘jawdropping’ ‘terrifying,’ and ‘a true shocker.’

Worse, the previous record rise occurred just the month before, in January. This has been the warmest winter ever worldwide, and February was the tenth successive record-breaking month.

The photos of the Earth Hour are always striking, but it’s important that the event be paired with action that is more than just symbolic. Miller is certainly correct that we’re making progress, and a blacked out Eiffel Tower (and other landmarks) are great reminders that it’s paramount that we continue moving forward.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Earth Hour 2016: A Coordinated Protest Against Climate Change appeared first on Law Street.

A recent study discovered something rather upsetting about our nation’s science teachers: roughly two-thirds are misinformed when it comes to climate science and change.

This revelation came from a survey conducted by Eric Plutzer of Pennsylvania State University, as well as collaborators from Wright State University and the National Center for Science Education. According to Vox:

The researchers mailed questionnaires to 1,500 science teachers, who taught disciplines ranging from biology, chemistry, physics, and earth sciences, since the study of climate change straddles fields and they weren’t sure which classes were paying the subject more attention.

The study participants included both middle school and high school teachers.

An overwhelming majority of scientists believe that climate change is being caused by humans–roughly 97 percent. It’s viewed as a consensus in the scientific community. However, about 30 percent of American science teachers teach their students that climate change is caused by natural causes, another roughly 30 percent instruct that it’s caused by a combination of human actions and natural causes. Both of these lessons are problematic, and inaccurate.

There’s some debate over why teachers are teaching climate change incorrectly–it’s no secret that in some parts of the country, teaching climate change accurately could be protested by parents and the community. While this recent study only found that only about 4 percent of teachers reported feeling pressured to teach climate science a certain way, earlier studies have put the number as high as 15 percent.

The researchers also found, quite alarmingly, that many teachers didn’t even know they were teaching anything incorrectly, as only 30 percent of the middle school teachers and 45 percent of high school teachers even knew that there is such a thing as a scientific consensus on climate change.

Many of the teachers also answered that they hadn’t received much formal education on climate change, although the good news is that two-thirds would like to learn. So, if it’s possible to provide that kind of education to our teachers, we may soon see a change to way that climate change is taught to young American students.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The Twittersphere was treated to a particularly strange dose of conspiracy theory nuttiness this week when rapper B.oB. went head-to-head with famed scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson over whether or not the earth is flat. Fellow Law Streeter Alexis Evans published an excellent rundown of the bizarre feud on Tuesday, but it got me thinking: why do so many seemingly insane conspiracy theories exist? After all, we all know that the earth is round, and vaccines don’t cause autism, and that Elvis Presley is probably dead. But then, some conspiracy theories do kind of turn out to true–take, for example, the NSA spying on Americans. So, how do we separate the crazy from the not-so-crazy? Turns out University of Oxford postdoctoral research associate David Robert Grimes has figured out a way, by determining how long it would take conspiracy theories to be debunked.

Grimes essentially set out to answer a simple question: how long would it take for the truth to come out about a conspiracy theory? In order to test the equation he developed, Grimes looked at three conspiracy theories that have turned out to be true, and compared them to four other long-standing theories, in an attempt to figure out how long it would have taken those theories to be debunked, whether intentionally or accidentally.

The three “true” conspiracy theories that Grimes looked at were:

• The NSA’s spying program, which whistle-blower Edward Snowden released information about in 2013.
• The Tuskegee syphilis experiment, a horrifying “clinical study” that involved researchers essentially experimenting on and withholding treatment from 600 African-American male participants.
• The FBI’s use of questionable techniques and pseudo-science in sworn testimony, particularly involving the FBI’s microscopic hair comparison unit, that led to hundreds of wrongful convictions.

According to Grimes, these conspiracy theories were exposed in six years, 25 years, and six years respectively. Grimes’ equation takes into account conditions like how many people would have to be involved in each coverup and the amount of effort the coverups would require. So he was able to mathematically calculate how long it should take a secret to be exposed–whether from a whistle-blower’s actions or accidentally.

Using that calculation, he was able to determine how long it would take four popular conspiracy theories to have been debunked:

• NASA faking the moon landing would have been uncovered in four years.
• Climate change, if only concealed by climate scientists, would have taken 27 years to be debunked. But, if you involved scientific bodies and agencies, the possible cover up time drops to under four years.
• The conspiracy theory that vaccines aren’t safe would take just over three years if drug companies were involved, but much longer (35 years) if it was limited to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.
• If pharmaceutical companies knew how to cure cancer but were withholding those cures from the public, we would have found out in a little over three years.

According to Think Progress’s Lauren C. Williams:

For a conspiracy to last five years, just over 2,500 people could actively know the truth before it’s revealed. Fewer than 1,000 people can know about it to keep the conspiracy alive for 10 years, and only 125 people could be involved to keep a conspiracy going for a century, the study found.

So, is the world flat? Well, we already know it’s not, but now here’s proof that if it is, it defies what science tells us in more ways than one.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Tonight will be the first Republican primary debate of the new year, and the seven candidates that made it on to the big stage are expected to talk about a whole wide range of issues. But one issue that has been notably absent from the debates so far has been science–particularly climate change. These are issues that are going significantly affect future generations, and that’s why a non-profit called ScienceDebate.org has rallied some kids to request that the 2016 presidential candidates talk about science:

The fantastic ad was created by ScienceDebate.org, a nonprofit which features a petition asking the candidates for president (and other elected offices) to debate and talk about science, medicine, technology, and climate change in their campaigns. The petition reads:

Given the many urgent scientific and technological challenges facing America and the rest of the world, the increasing need for accurate scientific information in political decision making, and the vital role scientific innovation plays in spurring economic growth and competitiveness, we call for public debates in which the U.S. presidential and congressional candidates share their views on the issues of science and technology policy, health and medicine, and the environment

The nonprofit argues that the American people support hearing about scientific issues in the debate. According to ScienceDebate.org and Research!America, in a recent national poll:

87 percent of likely voters think the candidates for president ought to be well versed on science issues. 91 percent of Democrats, 88 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Independents also said the presidential candidates should participate in a debate to discuss key science-based challenges facing the US.

Those stats are interesting, because it does seem like Americans want to hear politicians talk about science almost across-the-board. However, it’s kind of unclear exactly what aspects of science they want actually discussed. Climate change, for example, remains a huge point of contention in American politics–according to a ABC/Washington Post poll conducted in late November, 36 percent of Americans don’t think that climate change is a big problem, and 51 percent think scientists disagree on climate change, despite the fact that a vast majority do not disagree.

That being said, regardless of how you feel about climate change (and other scientific issues) it is important to know where the candidates stand. I’d like to see the Republican candidates talk about it tonight (as would the kids from from the above video), but given their track record to date, it’s probably not likely.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Most of us use Facebook everyday, for a variety of reasons. We use it to share pictures, to chat with friends, and to, sometimes, share our political opinions. Prior to Facebook we may not have known that our childhood friend is voting for Donald Trump, or that our high school acquaintance has a really strong stance on the legalization of marijuana. But sharing our opinions on Facebook may not always be a good thing–researchers believe that many of us are creating virtual “echo rooms” in which we only see our own viewpoints, and shut out those who disagree with us.

Now, it’s no secret that many people limit their consumption of news to sources they agree with. But this kind of social media censorship appears to be a new revelation. A group of researchers from the U.S. and Italy published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. In order to reach their conclusions they analyzed publicly available Facebook data from 2010-2014.

Interestingly, the researchers determined that this may be how scientific misinformation and conspiracy theories are shared and gain ground. Because people are usually interacting on Facebook with people they agree with, it makes it more unlikely that an alternative point of view is discussed.

One of the phenomenons that the researchers studied was the dissemination of misinformation about climate change. The researchers also pinpointed the Jade Helm 15 conspiracy from last year, when some Americans believed that routine military operations in Texas were signs of an imminent takeover by the American government.

The researchers pointed to confirmation bias, which is when we seek out information to support our beliefs no matter how thin it is, but ignore contrary evidence, as a big part of the problem. The papers’ authors point out that this is dangerous, saying: “Massive digital misinformation is becoming pervasive in online social media to the extent that it has been listed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as one of the main threats to our society.”

So, in light of these findings, how can conspiracy theories and misinformation become debunked? According to the researchers, trying to infiltrate the small subgroups in which the conspiracy theories are bouncing around will be ineffective. Instead, the researchers recommend trying to spread information more generally, to a larger audience,

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Beijing currently resembles a scene that could be from an apocalyptic horror movie: sidewalks deserted, citizens wearing masks, and an impenetrable layer of gray smoke flowing through street corners. Beijing recently announced its first “red alert” for smog, which led to the closure of schools and construction sites and a restriction on the number of cars on the road.

Since Beijing issued its red alert, Shanghai has issued a “yellow alert” and has taken to curbing factory work and suspending outdoor activities at schools. Elderly, young, and sick citizens are asked to stay indoors while the smog alert is in effect–but smog can take days or weeks to clear, leaving these residents essentially trapped in their homes. China’s smog problem has been growing for years but it is reaching a critical level wherein smog actually interferes with the daily behaviors of Chinese citizens. Read on for a look at how the smog problem developed and what the red alert signifies for the future.

The Meaning of the Red Alert

Although the Chinese government never instituted the red alert before this year, Beijing has had higher levels of pollution in the past. Beijing has reached the next-highest level, orange alert, several times but always stopped there. It has been speculated that the government decided to issue the red alert as a nod to public sentiment regarding the smog problem. According to the South China Morning Post,

A red alert marked official acknowledgment of the public perception that previous bouts of bad air had been played down. Some state media tried to put a positive spin on the development, with China Daily editorialising that ‘with the first such red alert, the capital has set a good example in this respect.’ But others took a darker view. China.com.cn, a news portal run by the State Council Information Office, said smog had damaged the government’s image, and Xinhua contrasted photographs of the city on pollution-free days and the depths of the alert.

Smog interferes with the image of a modern, progressive China. Pollution impacts not only the environment and the healthcare of the Chinese population, it also leads to a decline in economic growth. Smog limits the number of days workers can leave their homes and causes health problems for those who do work in urban centers. Toxic air means that life expectancy is an estimated five years shorter for a person living in Northern China than a person living in Southern China.  In addition, China’s brain drain–a phenomenon where educated professionals emigrate to other nations rather than working in their country of origin–has been largely linked to pollution. Educated young workers want to start families in countries where the air is better. Chinese youth have an altogether different concept of outdoors than their parents do. In an interview with the New York Times, a cafe manager named Kan Tingting said that

What bothers me the most is that my child may have a very negative view of nature. She loves nature much less than she would in a normal environment. I don’t want her to grow up thinking nature is ugly.

In a country where “smog days” are akin to snow days in the United States, many children are growing up thinking of smog as a part of their daily life rather than an environmental hazard.

 Smog in the Cities

China’s air pollution comes largely from the use of coal in its major industrial cities. China’s economic boom has generated massive economic growth, but that led to a parallel spike in airborne pollutants. Coal pollution is compounded with car emissions to create a toxic atmosphere, only exacerbated by dust storms and construction dust that floats in the air of most urban centers. Beijing recognized the sources of its pollution and has striven to use coal substitutes and limit the use of cars, but those solutions have yet to create lasting change in the smog levels.

Yang Weimin, Deputy Chair of the Central Leading Group on Finance and Economic Affairs, stated earlier this week that China will need to build ten new mega-cities to offset the pollution and traffic pressures of Beijing. Mainland China has six mega-cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Chongqing) and the Chinese government has recognized the need for shifting growth to other areas of the country. However, building these cities is a twofold challenge. First, it will be difficult to convince people to relocate to new cities without stable job prospects so the government will need to convince major companies to set up headquarters in this new set of mega-cities, but at the same time, they will need to retain the job sector in the existing cities. Second, building new cities requires a great deal of construction, which creates hazardous dust and only contributes to negative air quality in the short term.

Cleaning Up Before 2022

China will host the Winter Olympic Games in 2022 and officials have already stated that they plan to welcome athletes from around the world to a city with healthy air. The Beijing Olympics of 2008 were an unforgettable marvel that China hopes to match with the Winter Games, but air pollution has made athletes and coaches worry about the safety of competing there. When China made its bid for the 2008 Games, it promised to cut down on pollution in Beijing, and was largely successful in meeting its goal–during the Olympics, Beijing air quality was the best it had been in a decade. Beijing is clearly capable of reducing smog in the short-term, but the return of smog in the wake of the 2008 Games has left many pessimistic about the probability of long-term smog reduction. Although organizers of the Olympics have stated that they are treating the smog as a serious threat and plan to mitigate before athletes arrive, they have not outlined a precise plan for what they will do to reduce smog.

Profiting off of China’s Plight

This week, a Canadian company made headlines for charging up to $28 for bottles of “clean air” on the Chinese market. Vitality Air, which bottles air from Banff and Lake Louise, has seen a massive spike in sales in China over the past two months. Vitality Air began almost as a joke–co-founder Moses Lam listed a Ziploc bag of air on Ebay to see how much he could get from it, and then ran with the idea of “selling air”. Vitality Air prides itself on being hand-bottled and is supposed to be used to fight hangovers, lethargy and now, pollution.  Bottled air may seem to be a ridiculous concept but according to the Times of India:

Vitality Air is not the only business cashing in on China’s pollution problem – a restaurant in in Zhangjiagang city recently started charging patrons for fresh air, after owners bought air filtration machines for the establishment and added a surcharge to people’s bills for the operation costs.

Selling air like it is any other commodity may be a fad sparked by the introduction of the red alert, but it raises interesting questions about the future of commodities in China. What products are Chinese citizens willing to buy in order to feel safe, and does that make them a target for companies that seek to profit off of their distress? Will foreign countries take advantage of China’s environmental weaknesses to sell them unexpected products or will they commit valuable technology to solving the pollution problem?

 Conclusion

As the world celebrates the major climate agreement made in Paris this week, managing pollution and reducing smog seems like a more manageable task. Yet in China, the damage may be irreversible and a new generation may grow up without access to clean air. It is tempting to accept China’s air pollution as a problem too monolithic to tackle but considering the impressive reduction in smog that the country enacted before the Olympics of 2008, mitigating smog is possible. It will require political action and firm commitments to reach the government’s goal of reducing smog by 2022. China’s leading officials need to seek immediate, effective changes before the red alert becomes a commonplace event in Beijing.

Resources

CNN: Smog in China Closes Schools and Construction Sites, Cuts Traffic in Beijing

The Guardian: Smog Envelops Beijing: Before and After Pictures as City Goes on Red Alert

New York Times: Smog So Thick, Beijing Comes to a Standstill

South China Morning Post: China Needs to Build 10 More Megacities to Ease Pollution and Traffic Pressure on Beijing, Top Planner Says

South China Morning Post: Winds of Change: After Years of Denial, China’s Politicians Have Finally Woken up to Nation’s Concerns Over Hazardous Air Pollution

USA Today: Punchlines: China’s Smog Days Beat Snow Days

ABC News: Hazardous Smog Blankets Shanghai, China Pledges to Clean up by 2022 Winter Olympics

Times of India: Canadian Company Sells Bottled Fresh Mountain Air in China as Smog Levels Worsen

CNN: Canadian Start-up Sells Bottled Air to China, Says Sales Booming

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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On Saturday, 195 countries managed to reach an unprecedented climate change agreement that intends to unite the international community around the goal of reducing emissions and preventing the most severe consequences of global warming. But despite the agreement, much work remains to be done to meet previously established targets. So was this agreement a success and will it solve climate change?

The short answer to that questions is yes and no–the agreement was in some ways a success, but it won’t solve climate change by itself. Evaluating climate change progress is particularly difficult because there are multiple ways to measure success. Committing all countries to the goal of limiting climate change is a massive step forward that should not be understated, but if you ask climate scientists, it is becoming increasingly unlikely that the world will be able to meet its intent to limit global temperatures to 2°C (3.6°F), above pre-industrial levels.

Let’s first look at what the agreement will require and where some gray areas remain. The legally-binding portion of the agreement mandates that all countries must submit plans to reduce their emissions, consistently monitor their progress, and then regularly report reductions to the international community. The agreement outlines a plan for regular international meetings at which additional measures will be discussed. While that step, by itself, is significant, the agreement has no binding mechanism to compel countries to meet their own standards. Moreover, based on the 185 plans that were submitted before the Paris conference, global warming will most likely continue past the agreed upon goal of 2°C.

If we proceed according to each country’s emissions plans, formally referred to as the intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), temperatures will rise an estimated 3.5°C, but due to uncertainty in predictions, it could be as much as 4.6°C (Take a look at this graphic from the Climate Interactive for a visual representation). Because counties must track and update their emissions progress, countries could conceivably change their targets to become much more ambitious, making the 2°C goal attainable. But doing so would take a massive amount of political will and would need to happen sooner rather than later. The Climate Interactive refers to that as the “Ratchet Success” scenario. Check out this explanation to see what that would actually entail.

It is appropriate to question whether 2°C is a reasonable goal, as it was created somewhat arbitrarily. But the available evidence suggests that once the earth warms to that point significant changes will occur. Vox’s Brad Plumer has a pretty succinct breakdown:

Critics grumbled that the 2°C limit seemed arbitrary or overly simplistic. But scientists were soon compiling evidence that the risks of global warming became fairly daunting somewhere above the 2°C threshold: rapid sea-level rise, the risk of crop failure, the collapse of coral reefs. And policymakers loved the idea of a simple, easily digestible target. So it stuck.

While the 2°C threshold marks a certain point of no return for some climate-related consequences, scientists argue that significant effects will likely come before the earth warms that much. Generally, predicting the exact temperature at which changes will occur is difficult because rising temperatures could actually accelerate warming even further. Some manifestations of climate change, like permafrost melting, could actually speed up warming, which can be difficult for models to account for. Most models give a range for the potential consequences of warming, but even those may be revised upwards.

While it’s clear that in order to meet the U.N.’s target of 2°C much more needs to be done, that does not render the recent Paris agreement useless. The mere fact that nearly every major country has committed to reducing global warming is a significant achievement. This is particularly true when you look at the history of these talks and how they have failed in the past.

There have been several monumental steps that made the recent Paris deal possible in the first place. An agreement between the two largest CO2 emitters, the United States and China, bridged some of the disagreement between developed and developing countries. China recently announced a plan to let its emissions peak by 2030 and began working on a cap and trade system to do so. The Obama administration created a stringent Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce electricity sector emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2030, as well as a 26 percent reduction in all emissions before 2025. Moreover, the fact that 185 countries managed to commit concrete plans to reduce their emissions is a remarkable a show of international commitment.

Despite recent progress, there are several key obstacles that remain in the way of a meaningful solution, arguably the most notable of which is the U.S. Congress. While negotiators were working in Paris to hash out a deal, the Republican-led Congress sought to dispel any optimism that might come from the deal. Earlier this month, the Republican party held a, notably symbolic, vote to block President Obama’s clean energy plan. Afer the Paris agreement was reached, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said,

Before his international partners pop the champagne, they should remember that this is an unattainable deal based on a domestic energy plan that is likely illegal, that half the states have sued to halt, and that Congress has already voted to reject.

While the stark disagreement between Republicans and the rest of the world on climate change hasn’t stopped all U.S. attempts to reduce emissions, a comprehensive strategy will need support from Congress. President Obama has largely managed to pursue his clean energy agenda through executive action, but when he leaves office the next president could easily reverse his progress. Another key part of the Paris agreement is the goal to provide $100 billion in climate-related aid to developing countries, yet U.S. funding for that must be approved by Congress. It’s true that the most important parts of the Paris agreement are not legally binding–there is no way to punish a country that does not meet its emissions plan–but that is largely a result of political reality.

So yes, the Paris agreement was a success in the sense that it marks a historic commitment to fight global climate change. The United Nations received climate reductions plans from 185 countries, which will continue to be revised and monitored in an effort to mitigate the negative effects of global warming. But at the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that we will not meet our established goal to limit warming to 2°C. More to the point, there are several significant barriers to enacting the legislation needed to reduce emissions and transition to clean energy. Perhaps the Paris agreement is accurately a starting point, and if the international community is able to build momentum going forward, pressure could help force necessary change.

Read more: The Paris Climate Change Conference: What Should We Expect?

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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A large international study conducted by the British think tank and policy institute Chatham House has determined that taxing meat wouldn’t cause as much of an uproar as previously believed. The motivations of such a tax would be that it would promote healthier eating, as well as serve as an attempt to combat climate change.

Chatham House’s study surveyed 12 different nations and also conducted focus groups in the U.S., U.K., Brazil, and China. They were attempting to determine how people would react to government policies like higher taxes on meat, as well as cutting subsidies to livestock farmers and introducing more vegetarian meals in public institutions like schools. While they discovered there would be a backlash to these policies in many scenarios–people love their meat–it will most likely be short-lived as long as the rationale for the policies was strong.

This is an important finding, as steps to reduce global consumption of meat may need to be taken soon. The production of livestock is responsible for 15 percent of global emissions–more than the world’s cars, trains, planes, and ships combined. It’s going to get worse, too, as global meat consumption is expected to rise roughly 76 percent over the next 35 years. When countries become richer, they’re more likely to consume more meat. And countries that already consume a lot of meat aren’t really doing so safely. Developed countries eat on average, twice as much meat than what’s considered healthy. Americans are also big offenders–we on average eat roughly three times as much meat as what’s considered healthy. But because of that love of meat, it has traditionally been viewed as a bad move politically to create meat taxes or make it more expensive in any way.

But Chatham House’s research stands in contrast to that hypothesis. Chatham House lead author Laura Wellesley said:

The idea that interventions like this are too politically sensitive and too difficult to implement is unjustified. Our focus groups show people expect governments to lead action on issues that are for the global good. Our research indicates any backlash to unpopular policies would likely be short-lived as long as the rationale for action was strong.

When discussing the possibility of a meat tax, a consistent comparison that’s being made is the evolution of taxation on cigarettes. Once commonplace higher taxes on cigarettes as well as public service campaigns helped decrease the amount of smokers.

While it’s doubtful that we’ll all be taxed on our meat anytime soon, it may be something that’s brought up at the UN Climate Change conference in Paris next week. So, if you’re big meat fan, this may be something to keep an eye on.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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At the end of November, UN delegates will gather in Paris for the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) and engage in the annual Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Nearly two decades after the Kyoto Conference and 10 years since the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations is still struggling to create a legally binding solution to climate change. As Paris looms, there’s a sense of cautious optimism that this conference may finally promote the action to avert the climate change threat on the horizon. Read on to find out about the major events of the conferences over the last 18 years and the impacts they have made.

What can we expect from this year’s Climate Change Conference?

Why Climate Change Matters to World Leaders

Scientific consensus has concluded that the human production of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) beginning with the industrial revolution have impacted, and are continuing to impact, the global environment. GHGs include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons.

A 1995 report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.” In 1997, the Kyoto Conference produced the Kyoto Protocol, which attempted to establish caps on industrialized nations’ carbon emissions. Most European countries agreed to the legally binding treaty, but the U.S. Senate failed to ratify it. In 2001, the Bush administration formally rejected the Kyoto Protocol.

Climate change currently holds a prominent place in the U.S. Intelligence Community’s annual Worldwide Threat Assessment. Global climate change threatens strategic resources, habitable coastal regions, food supplies, promotes the spread of infectious diseases, leads to more extreme weather events, and exacerbates humanitarian crises. The generally accepted figure for average global temperature rise in the last century is 0.8 degrees Celsius and the projected rise in the next century will be an additional 1.2 degrees. However, many scientists fear the temperature rise could be more severe, projecting as much as a 4 degrees Celsius rise from pre-industrial levels by 2100.

Such an increase would reduce the amount of habitable land available, cripple agriculture, and lead to major flooding in coastal regions. Nations previously resistant to the idea of a severe climate change threat are coming around to engage in the international discussion.

History: Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Kyoto (1997)

After the 1995 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that the evidence supports the existence of human-influenced climate change, the United Nations sought to create a treaty to deal with the issue. In 1996, U.S. undersecretary for global affairs Timothy Wirth stated that the Clinton Administration accepted the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and called for legally binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions to be drafted. In 1997, the Conference of the Parties met again, this time adopting the Kyoto Protocol. The conference acknowledged that the majority of the burden to halt climate change fell on the industrialized Annex-I countries (developed countries like the United States, Japan, Russia, and most of Western Europe). Several developing (Annex-B) nations also accepted the stipulations of the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol introduced mechanisms such as emissions trading, a global fund–to assist developing countries to minimize their emissions–and a monitoring system to measure emissions and ensure compliance. Nations that ratified the agreement had to independently find solutions to cut their emissions. However, the Protocol allowed for flexibility, acknowledging that the cost of reducing emissions varied among countries.

Enforcement of the Protocol was relatively weak, but still present. A nation failing to hit its initial emission reduction target would be required to increase its secondary target by 30 percent and would be barred from the emissions trading program.

Although President Clinton signed the agreement, the Senate refused to ratify the Protocol due to the exemption of countries like China and India, which the protocol classified as developing. Ultimately, the United States feared that the protocol would damage its economic competitiveness.

Bonn (2001)

Early in his presidency, George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol for the same reasons the 1998 Senate refused to ratify it. The United States also did not participate in the 2001 Climate Change Conference held in Bonn, Germany, choosing to observe.

The previous conference in the Hague in 2000 devolved rapidly into an argument over enforcement policies and political disagreements. The disagreement created between the United States and the European Union eventually caused the talks to be suspended and resumed at a later date. As a result, there were low expectations for the 2001 conference. One of the major remaining issues was the role of carbon sinks in net carbon reduction (championed by the United States) versus direct source reduction (preferred by the E.U.). With the U.S.’s withdrawal in 2001, many feared the Kyoto Protocol would collapse.

The Protocol could only be ratified if agreed upon by nations making up 55 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions from 1990. The United States was responsible for 35 percent of GHG emissions in 1990, so its withdrawal meant that countries such as Russia (17.4 percent) and Japan (8.5 percent) had strengthened negotiating positions. Without either of these two nations, the Protocol would likely collapse.

Despite the high stakes and low expectations, an agreement was reached. The Bonn agreement allowed for nations to use various mechanisms, such as carbon sinks, to achieve their target emissions reduction without necessarily reducing their GHG production. The agreement tackled forest and crop management which had proved significant to negotiation breakdowns at The Hague, allowing for countries to credit land allocations toward their GHG reduction, but included a hard cap to these credits. The success of the negotiations at Bonn set the Kyoto Protocol on the path to international ratification.

Nairobi (2006)

In 2005 in Montreal, Canada the Kyoto Protocol entered into force at the first annual Meeting of the Parties. The Protocol was extended beyond its initial 2012 expiration and set in motion plans to negotiate deeper cuts to GHG emissions. The optimism for the future of the Kyoto Protocol dimmed a little in Nairobi the following year. While certain steps were taken to include developing nations in the Protocol, the negotiations also faced criticism. Observers like BBC corrospondent Richard Black criticized many delegates for failing to effectively discuss cutting emissions for fear of economic costs and competitiveness. This has been a recurring criticism of the global effort to reduce GHG emissions.

In order for countries to pursue solutions based on national interests, they would need to see climate change mechanisms as opportunities to increase economic growth rather than costs. The concern is always that making money, rather than reducing emissions, is the priority for governments at these conferences. The Nairobi conference also raised questions as to whose climate problem the U.N. is solving. The responsibility to reduce emissions lies largely with the wealthy, developed nations while the impact is most strongly felt by poorer, less developed nations.

These concerns eventually led the international community to re-evaluate the Kyoto Protocol and begin new negotiations on emissions cuts, suggesting global emissions would need to see a 50 percent cut in the near future. Work on technology transfer to developing countries was extended but only on a limited basis.

Copenhagen (2009)

Prior to the 2009 Meeting of the Parties, most anticipated that an emissions reduction goal would be agreed upon, as the first commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol was to end in 2012. However, leading up to the conference, world leaders elected to put off the crafting process for a later date. Most of the major negotiations fell short and one of the few takeaways from the Copenhabgen conference was an external agreement between the U.S., China, South Africa, India, and Brazil. This conference is widely considered a failure by those preparing to attend the 2015 Paris Conference.

Because the five-nation agreement was external, it was not considered binding by the U.N. Although it calls for individual nations to track pollution-related goals and allocate funds for developing nations, the agreement failed to produce the long-term goals. Developing nations felt excluded, as did the E.U., while all parties felt the conference itself was sub-optimally organized and run.

Durban (2011)

The Durban conference set in motion the events leading up to the Paris conference of this year. It was agreed that a legally binding deal would be ratified by all countries in 2015 to take effect in 2020. Additionally, the framework for the Green Climate Fund (GFC), which had been established the previous year, was adopted. The GCF would assist poorer countries adapt to the climate change challenges. The president of the conference declared the Durban Meeting of the Parties a success, though scientists warned that more drastic action was needed to avert the 2 degrees Celsius increase predicted for 2050.

What to Expect from Paris

So far, 148 out of 196 countries have met the U.N. deadline to submit emissions reduction plans leading up to the Paris conference. The U.N. argues that if more countries submit these plans, it is more likely that the conference will result in a strong global treaty. India’s plan drew attention by stating that the country would require 2.5 trillion USD to meet its emissions goals. While it is unclear how much of that money India intends to draw from foreign investments, it is clear that it will have to be a significant amount.

As more plans are submitted, temperature predictions have been established and updated. At present, the current projection for global temperature rise is 2.7 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels–an improvement from the earlier projection of 3.1 degrees Celsius.

The IPCC has also elected a new chairman for the first time in 13 years. Hoesung Lee of South Korea will chair the Paris conference. While it is still very early, many have approved of the selection, suggesting he could serve as a link in negotiations between the developed and developing countries.

The Paris conference will be tasked with ratifying a legally binding treaty much like the one produced at Bonn in 2001. While almost all of the U.N. member nations have accepted the reality of human-influenced climate change, there will likely be intense debate over how net emissions ought to be reduced. As always, the weight of economic and competitive costs will weigh on the minds of delegates from developed countries while delegates from developing countries will continue to press for climate change adaptation funds. There is currently a very real sense from the global community that something must be done and a cautious sense of optimism that something will be.

Conclusion

The history of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is long and messy. While most agree on the necessity for global emissions reduction, there are numerous disagreements over how to do so and who is primarily responsible. Most agree that the primary blame for climate change lies with the developed nations, but there are questions regarding how much these nations should help those that are currently developing. The role of emissions sinks has been contested before and may come up again in Paris. Meanwhile, India, China, and the United States will play major roles in determining the success of the Paris conference, and the ultimate effectiveness of any agreement reached. While the UNFCCC has been successful in reducing global emissions over the last 10 years, there is still much more work to do, and only time will tell if the nations of the world are up to the challenge.

Resources

Primary

UNFCCC: Durban Climate Change Conference

UNFCCC: The Green Climate Fund

UNFCCC: Provisional Agenda for the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties

The White House: President Barrack Obama at UN Climate Change Summit

The White House: President Barrack Obama’s Climate Change Plan 2015

105th Congress: Byrd-Hagel Resolution

Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency: Trends in Global CO2 Emissions 2014 Report

Senate Armed Services Committee: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community

IPCC: Climate Change 1995 The Science of Climate Change

UNFCCC: The Kyoto Protocol

Additional

BBC: Climate Talks a Tricky Business

NYTimes: Many Goals Remain Unmet in 5 Nations’ Climate Deal

NYTimes: Leaders will Delay Deal on Climate Change

The Guardian: Durban Deal will not Avert Catastrophic Climate Change, says Scientists

Hoesung Lee: The Risk of No Action

BBC: UN Battle Looms over Finance as Nations Submit Climate Plans

BBC: Paris Climate Summit: Don’t Mention Copenhagen

BBC: Why did Copenhagen Fail to Deliver a Climate Deal?

Matthew Vespa: Climate Change 2001: Kyoto at Bonn and Marrakech

Ehsan Masood: United States Backs Climate Panel Findings

BBC: Kyoto: Why Did the US Pull Out?

TedxTalks: Climate Change is Simple: David Roberts

TedxTalks: The Reality of Climate Change: David Puttnam

Samuel Whitesell

Samuel Whitesell is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill having studied History and Peace, War, and Defense. His interests cover international policy, diplomacy, and politics, along with some entertainment/sports. He also writes fiction on the side. Contact Samuel at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The science curriculum for Alabama public schools is getting a much needed facelift thanks to state officials deciding that both evolution and climate change should be taught to all students.

The unanimous vote decided last week by the state Board of Education was the first change to Alabama science standards in a decade, according to NPR, and is indicative of the state being behind in the times in more ways than one.

Take the state’s controversial evolution “warning stickers” for example, which have accompanied biology textbooks containing any mentioning of Darwinism since 1996. The stickers act as a glorified disclaimer, referring to evolution as a “controversial theory” and sometimes even mention creationism as an alternative. Even though the board’s decision shows a willingness to make this material more accessible to students, the state hasn’t made any substantial steps to banish the archaic stickers.

Some of the motivation behind the board’s decision could also stem from college educators, who claim that students who lack knowledge about scientific theories such as evolution are ill-prepared for college curriculums and arrive at a disadvantage compared to other students.

According to NPR, dozens of Alabama school teachers welcome the change in curriculum, including science teacher Ryan Reardon, who supports the new standards saying,

You might not accept it, but that doesn’t change the fact. Talking about evolution in a classroom is controversial, but there is no controversy about how all the organisms on the planet are related to each other.

Another controversial theory is that of climate change. Like the theory of evolution, climate change has also been adopted as fact within most circles of the scientific community, with a 97 percent consensus that humans are causing global warming. Despite this, several Republican presidential candidates including Ben Carson, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump have all publicly denied its existence. The Obama administration, on the other hand, considers climate change to be one of the biggest threats Americans face. Obama also recently took a highly publicized trip to Alaska, where he attempted to rally support for the issue by highlighting melting glaciers and rising sea levels.

Just because Alabama students will now be required to learn about both theories, it doesn’t mean they will be required to believe in them. Instead students will need to be able to show “detailed knowledge” of the subject matter and are encouraged to come to their own conclusions.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Amid a recent push to make climate change a larger issue in American politics, President Obama is traveling to Alaska to help give a more visual appreciation of how the climate is changing. The Obama administration has ratcheted up its efforts to fight climate change, but the Alaska trip shows a slight change in its tactics. Until now, Obama has focused largely on taking action in the form of new regulations and subsidies that prevent pollution and encourage the use of renewable energy. But in Alaska, Obama seeks to put a face to an issue that is often seen as complicated, boring, and distant.

Before his departure to Alaska, President Obama announced that the name of Mt. McKinley will be changed back to Denali–the name originally given to it by Alaska Natives.

The mountain has spoken Mt McKinley officially renamed Denali: http://t.co/VSN2vl7yZo Congrats, Alaska! pic.twitter.com/ZdRTJ2PEHL

— US Dept of Interior (@Interior) August 30, 2015

While in Alaska, the President visited melting glaciers, met with Bear Grylls, spoke with Alaskan Natives, and gave multiples speeches about the importance of addressing climate change. The tone of his trip is focusing on the real life effects of climate change and the growing need for action, a topic that Obama will likely discuss frequently in the months leading up to the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris this December.

The President’s decision to visit Alaska is significant but also complicated. Of the 50 states, Alaska is arguably the most affected by climate change, yet the Obama Administration recently granted Royal Dutch Shell a permit to drill in the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea. The decision to allow drilling caused backlash from environmentalists and the timing of the President’s Alaska trip has caused some groups, like the progressive social change organization Credo, to call Obama a hypocrite (although some of the group’s other claims are problematic).

Despite the drilling controversy, Alaska is experiencing significant climate change effects and Obama’s trip intends to highlight that. Temperatures in Alaska have risen more than in the rest of the United States, and climate change is beginning to affect the lives of the state’s residents. According to a recent National Climate Assessment:

Over the past 60 years, Alaska has warmed more than twice as rapidly as the rest of the U.S., with average annual air temperature increasing by 3°F and average winter temperature by 6°F, with substantial year-to-year and regional variability.

A possible consequence for the increase in temperature is a rise in the number and severity of wildfires, which are a big problem for Alaska. According to recent research, the Alaskan wildfire season has increased by more than 40 percent since 1950, and was particularly bad this summer. Melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, and reduced snow cover are quickly affecting the Alaskan landscape. A recent Atlantic article highlighted the effects of climate change on the people in Newtok, Alaska–who actually voted to relocate their town before it was destroyed by rising water levels.

For years, Obama has lamented the lack of action and pushback from Congress, but now he is taking a much more aggressive approach. In his speech on Tuesday, he attacked those who refuse to acknowledge the issue, saying, “The time to plead ignorance is surely past.  Those who want to ignore the science, they are increasingly alone.  They’re on their own shrinking island,” in a speech to the GLACIER conference. His remarks also emphasized that time to address climate change is running out, painting a grave picture of what could happen if emissions are not significantly reduced, saying:

If we were to abandon our course of action, if we stop trying to build a clean-energy economy and reduce carbon pollution, if we do nothing to keep the glaciers from melting faster, and oceans from rising faster, and forests from burning faster, and storms from growing stronger, we will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair

It’s difficult to tell whether the President’s new approach to trumpeting climate change will shift public opinion, but climate change will likely get more attention moving forward. With the Paris climate conference in December, the Democratic presidential candidates continuing to raise the issue, and impending legal challenges to new EPA regulations, climate change will be the topic of much discussion. Although most Americans acknowledge the fact that the climate is changing, they still rate it low on their list of priorities. While the future remains difficult to predict, the conversation has certainly been started.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Monday, President Obama announced what he has noted as the “biggest, most important step we’ve ever taken” in the fight against climate change. He introduced America’s Clean Power Plan, aimed toward a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s coal-burning power plants.

Obama said Monday from the White House:

Today after working with states and cities and power companies, the EPA is setting the first ever nationwide standards to end the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from power plants…Washington is starting to catch up with the vision of the rest of the country. 

Essentially, America’s Clean Power Plan is a set of environmental rules and regulations that will focus on pollution from the nation’s power plants, setting limits on power-plant carbon emissions for the first time. The goal of the revised Clean Power Plan is to cut greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power stations by nearly a third within 15 years. The measures will place significant emphasis on wind and solar power with other renewable energy sources, transforming America’s electricity industry. Obama said on Monday: “we’re the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.”

The most aggressive of the regulations require existing power plants to cut emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, an increase from the 30 percent target proposed in the draft regulation. The new rule also demands that power plants use more renewable sources of energy like wind and solar power. Under the plan, the administration will require states to meet specific carbon emission reduction standards, based on their individual energy consumption. The plan also includes an incentive program for states to get a head start on meeting standards with early deployment of renewable energy and low-income energy efficiency. Obama said in the video:

Power plants are the single biggest source of harmful carbon pollution that contributes to climate change. Until now, there have been no federal limits to the amount of carbon pollution plants dump in the air.

President Obama also claims that the plans will lead to lower energy bills in the future for Americans, create jobs in the renewable energy sector, and ensure more reliable energy services.  Power plants account for roughly 40 percent of U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide–the most common greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Regardless of these benefits, there are still many critics that are opposed to this new plan. 

Many Republican opponents dispute the existence of global warming, questioning whether or not humans are to blame for the issue. Critics also claim that the plan will bring an unwelcome increase in electricity prices. Opponents in the energy industry believe that president Obama has declared a “war on coal.” Power plants powered by coal provide more than one third of the U.S. electricity supply. Many states plan to fight the new regulations, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urging states not to comply with the plan in a letter to all fifty governors. Vice President of  Communications for the National Mining Association Luke Popovich stated: 

This plan is all pain and no gain. That’s why state leaders across the country are coming to the same conclusion — that we should not sacrifice our power system to an unworkable plan built on a faulty interpretation of the law.

However those that are arguing against the new plan appear to be overlooking the benefits it can bring. According to the World Health Organization, research in Italy suggests that 4.7 percent total of mortality, or 3,500 deaths annually in a population of 11 million, are caused through cancer and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases attributed to air pollution. Many argue that reducing green house gas emissions doesn’t hurt the economy, but can in fact benefit the economy by saving businesses and consumers money, as well as improving public health.

It is unclear how this new plan will develop during President Obama’s remaining time in office, as well as the presence it may or may not have as campaigns begin to really take off. But, it’s certainly a big move in the right direction.

Angel Idowu

Angel Idowu is a member of the Beloit College Class of 2016 and was a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Angel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post President Obama Makes Historic Move to Combat Climate Change appeared first on Law Street.

Much of the environmental activism combating global warming is based on the rhetoric of personal responsibility and consumerism: if we buy more “green” products, global warming can be stopped. But can we really buy our way out of rapidly rising temperatures and increasing devastation from human-created environmental disasters? Read on to learn about the emphasis on personal responsibility in environmentalism, and the arguments for and against such an approach.

Global Warming: “You” Can Fix It

It is nearly impossible to find articles addressing climate change without finding a list of things that “you” can do to help stop a massive planetary process.

These tips are meant to be empowering and are geared toward combating a frightening sense of apathy about issues of dire importance like global warming. Climate change in particular is something that many people perceive as being in the distant future, and therefore a sense of denial colors so many people’s thinking about climate change.

Lists of “Top 10 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Dioxide Emissions Footprint” that abound on the internet are meant to help break down global warming into something digestible; something that is not so colossal that you might as well give up before you start trying to do anything about it. People and organizations concerned about climate change want to break it down into little things that “we can all do everyday” to combat it. Talk of “greening your commute,” “greening your home,” and “buying energy efficient products” dominate many discussions about addressing global warming.

However, critics of this approach point out that the desire to do “something” may be just as damaging–if not more so–than recognizing that this is a huge problem with no easy solution. Discussing global warming as though it can be adequately addressed by individuals using fluorescent light bulbs arguably risks minimizing the gravity of the situation.

Greenwashing

Gas, technology, and car companies that make so many daily commutes possible engage in practices that have been accused of creating enormous amounts of pollution and unnecessary toxic waste. Instead of encouraging actions that target these corporate practices at a systemic level, many efforts to “fight” global warming may actually encourage the greenwashing of these massive corporations.

Greenwashing is usefully defined on the Greenwashing Index–an online-based, awareness-driven attempt to “help keep advertising honest”–in the following way:

Everyone’s heard the expression ‘whitewashing’ — it’s defined as ‘a coordinated attempt to hide unpleasant facts, especially in a political context.’ ‘Greenwashing’ is the same premise, but in an environmental context. It’s greenwashing when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be ‘green’ through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact. It’s whitewashing, but with a green brush. A classic example is an energy company that runs an advertising campaign touting a ‘green’ technology they’re working on — but that ‘green’ technology represents only a sliver of the company’s otherwise not-so-green business, or may be marketed on the heels of an oil spill or plant explosion.

People who criticize corporate greenwashing argue that articles and organizations encouraging people to buy “green” products are actually encouraging people to increase corporate profits by endorsing greenwashing practices. Thus, companies all the way from airlines to those that sell home appliances and personal beauty products engage heavily–and successfully–in greenwashing.

The meat industry often takes the lead in greenwashing. These companies actively distance themselves from the environmental devastation that accompanies factory farming and associated industries, as described by Scientific American here:

Current production levels of meat contribute between 14 and 22 percent of the 36 billion tons of ‘CO2-equivalent’ greenhouse gases the world produces every year. It turns out that producing half a pound of hamburger for someone’s lunch a patty of meat the size of two decks of cards releases as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as driving a 3,000-pound car nearly 10 miles.

Meat company Tyson, for example, has advertised itself as animal-friendly, claiming to slaughter its animals in a “humane” manner. But advocates point out that these claims are greenwashed, as the pigs Tyson sells live their lives in cages so small that they cannot move one step back or forward. Critics point out the greenwashed term that Tyson uses for this torturous practice is “individual housing.” This kind of advertising also erases the tremendous environmental destruction that can result from factory farming. When consumers are encouraged to buy “green” and “ethical” meat, they are encouraged not to think about the ways that any form of mass-meat production inherently contributes to  global warming.

Critics of greenwashing would argue that encouraging people concerned about global warming to “fight” it by changing their buying practices often only encourages companies to simply change the ways they advertise themselves: once they market themselves as “greener,” consumers can feel better about buying what are often more expensive “green” products, and help the corporation to turn a profit.

Unequal Burdens of Personal Responsibility

Critiques of the “you can stop global warming” movement are also concerned that harm can occur on an individual, not just corporate, level.

This individualist focus arguably takes attention away from the ways that the environmentally destructive practices that are driving global warming are not the result of individual failings, but rather of massive structures of capitalism. Sustained collective action, rather than individualized consumption choices, are required to combat these larger systems of oppression that fundamentally shape global warming.

When considering the potential impact of “what you can do to reduce global warming” lists, it is important, also, to ask: who is this “you” that these forms of media are talking to? Awareness website Time for Change refers to “a drought in Africa” because of “your increased yearly consumption of fuels,” which makes it clear that the intended “you” is not African, but probably North American. However, even within the presumed North American audience, the burden of personal responsibility arguably falls differently on people of color and people with dis/abilities.

“What you can do to stop global warming” lists that advocate for increased use of public transportation and biking instead of driving seem to work only for those who live in and near cities with accessible and affordable public transit systems. Public transportation systems–even relatively extensive ones like those found in New York City–are often of vastly unequal quality, cost, and distribution.

When cities are designed in ways that lead to modest-income workers of color being driven out of living in city centers where they are often employed and thus must have long commutes to work, these workers are disproportionately impacted by the very climate disasters that are becoming more frequent with global warming. “What you can do” lists encouraging the use of public transportation as a means to fight climate change take for granted the idea that the “you” the list is addressing are people who have cars and who have consistent, reliable access to public transportation–the structure of which is often biased against modest-income neighborhoods of color to begin with.

Bike riding is also often touted as something “you” can do to put a dent in rising carbon dioxide levels. But not everyone can simply hop on a bicycle: the “you” addressed here is clearly not a person with mobility-related dis/abilities who already has inadequate access to public transportation. Additionally, in neighborhoods like those in the South Bronx that the government and corporations target as dumping grounds, it can actually be unhealthy to ride your bicycle–when you exercise in highly polluted areas, you increase the amount of toxins you are inhaling. With asthma rates already devastatingly high in areas like this due to the practices of governments and corporations, encouraging people to ride their bikes as though everyone can is simply misguided. Individualist steps to address climate change can sometimes backfire, and raise other causes for concern.

So…can “you” stop global warming?

Alone? Perhaps not. Changing individual consumer practices shift some of the priorities of corporations, which puts at least the rhetoric of fighting climate change at the fore. However, these shifts don’t necessarily end environmentally destructive corporate practices. Collective action that targets systemic causes of global warming rather than displacing all the responsibility–and therefore, the blame–onto unconcerned individuals might be a common place to start.

 Resources

Huffington Post: 14 U.S. Cities That Could Disappear Over the Next Century, Thanks to Global Warming

About News: Top Ten Things You Can Do to Reduce Global Warming

Guardian: What’s the Carbon Footprint of… a New Car?

Greenwashing Index: About Greenwashing

Business Pundit: The Top 25 Greenwashed Products in America

Scientific American: How Meat Contributes to Global Warming

Animal Legal Defense Fund: Tyson Exposed by Former Suppliers’ Convictions

One Green Planet: Five Ways Factory Farming is Killing the Environment

CounterPunch: Global Warming is Economic Imperialism

Policy Link: For Millions of Low-Income Workers Left Behind by Public Transit Systems, Every Day’s a Snow Day

Daily News: Bronx, Brooklyn Residents Claim City Targeting Their Neighborhoods for Waste Transfer Stations

Jennifer Polish

Jennifer Polish is an English PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, where she studies non/human animals and the racialization of dis/ability in young adult literature. When she’s not yelling at the computer because Netflix is loading too slowly, she is editing her novel, doing activist-y things, running, or giving the computer a break and yelling at books instead. Contact Jennifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Regardless of the political debates about global warming, scientists have long been involved in trying to combat this environmental problem. But what exactly are activist-scientists doing–or not doing–to address global warming?

One facet of combatting global warming is dealing with raised carbon dioxide levels. A lot of talk about carbon dioxide levels focuses on so-called “carbon sinks”–forests that, due to plants’ ability to process carbon dioxide, remove the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere–and their potential to mitigate the effects of global warming. But can forests and artificial means of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere actually “save us” from global warming?

Capturing Carbon Dioxide

Instead of working to prevent the rising carbon dioxide levels that have been fueling global warming, one of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent projects has been the capturing and storage of excess carbon dioxide. This process involves the harvesting of carbon dioxide from facilities such as electricity power plants that emit a great deal of carbon dioxide. Once the carbon dioxide is harvested directly from these sources, it is channeled–sometimes by pipeline and sometimes by truck–usually underground, where it is re-introduced into the earth in order to produce more oil.

Carbon dioxide capturing and sequestration is often upheld as an easy fix to global warming:

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a technology that can capture up to 90% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced from the use of fossil fuels in electricity generation and industrial processes, preventing the carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide capture can occur through three basic methods. Pre-combustion capture is used in industrial processes like natural gas burning; post-combustion capture is used in the food and beverage industries; and oxyfuel combustion capture is used with water instead of air as a combustion material in industries other than power generation.

Once harvested, the carbon is transported and injected into the earth in liquid form, where it is often channeled into increasing oil production. While sponsors of carbon capture argue that this process is completely safe, there are serious concerns that the injection of such large amounts of liquid into the earth actually increases the likelihood of devastating earthquakes.

Is fueling oil production to fight global warming wise?

Though many support carbon dioxide capture and sequestration, there are serious concerns that this process is used to directly increase, rather than reduce, dependence on non-renewable, highly toxic oil production and use. The carbon dioxide that is harvested from power plants is channeled back into oil production and therefore “helps the United States continue producing record amounts of oil.”

This capture and sequestration method is arguably so popular because it actually creates profits for the massive multinational corporations involved in oil production and related fields. But some scientists are concerned that this process actually further entrenches unsustainable energy practices. David Biello at Scientific American points out:

The process will perpetuate fossil fuel use and may prove a wash as far as keeping global warming pollution out of the atmosphere. Then there are the risks of human-caused earthquakes as a result of pumping high-pressure liquids underground or accidental releases as all that CO2 finds its way back to the atmosphere.

There’s certainly evidence that this corporate-motivated approach to reducing carbon emissions has its drawbacks, especially given the amount of energy that is inefficiently used by the capture and sequestration technology.

 Alternative to Oil: Artificial Photosynthesis

Some scientists are beginning to reevaluate their hesitations about carbon sequestration. Scientists at Berkeley have been working to refine a way that captured carbon can be broken down through artificial photosynthesis instead of being channeled back into oil production.

Dr. Peidong Yang, a chemist at the Berkeley Lab working on artificial photosynthesis–the process that plants use to create food by breaking down carbon dioxide and sunlight into glucose and water—has stated about the research that:

Our system has the potential to fundamentally change the chemical and oil industry in that we can produce chemicals and fuels in a totally renewable way, rather than extracting them from deep below the ground.

Through combining nanowire technology with specific bacterial populations to mimic the photosynthetic processes that leaves undergo naturally, the Berkeley team has created the potential for solar-powered chemistry that non-lethally utilizes sequestered carbon.

The question now is once this new technology is ready for market (it is not quite there yet) will the corporations that profit from the current methods of the re-use of sequestered carbon utilize it?

To the Forests: Natural Photosynthesis and Global Warming

It is important to note, however, that despite the hopefulness with which many are embracing the new developments in artificial photosynthetic capabilities, we seem to be forgetting one crucial thing: Photosynthesis, even on a massive scale such as that accomplished by rainforests, cannot reverse or halt global warming.

Because carbon dioxide is essentially “plant food,” it is easy to focus on an abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as being good for plant growth. In turn, the more plants there are, the more carbon dioxide will be taken out of the atmosphere. Since extremely excessive carbon dioxide emissions are a principle driver of global warming, plants (particularly strong concentrations of plants, such as rainforests) are often thought to be helpful in reducing carbon emissions and in slowing global warming. Indeed, some scientific studies show that, under certain laboratory greenhouse conditions, increased carbon dioxide levels can contribute to a greater amount of plant growth. This is extremely important because, as Carol Rasmussen, a member of NASA’s Earth Science News Team, reports:

Forests and other land vegetation currently remove up to 30 percent of human carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. If the rate of absorption were to slow down, the rate of global warming would speed up in return.

Through a natural process referred to as carbon fertilization, plants “eat” the extra carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by human processes, thus reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

Recently, however, the purported impacts of carbon fertilization have been called into question: a recent study found that increased tree growth does not always result from increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

Regardless of whether forest growth is stimulated by increased carbon dioxide, Climate Science Watch encourages us to think beyond the small picture of plants taking already overwhelming amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. There is a bigger picture of the relationship between global warming–which is already occurring–and plant life. A report by Climate Science Watch reminds us that:

Climate [change] impacts like drought, floods, extreme weather, shifting seasons, and increasing ranges of weeds, invasive species, and plant pests will all negatively impact crop yields [and other plant growth].

Additionally, other nutrient restrictions limit the amount of increased natural photosynthesis that can occur in forests. Differentials in rainfall levels and subsequent droughts that are already being caused by global warming negatively impact the amount of plants that can grow and photosynthesize.

Hammering home these cautionary pieces of evidence is the fact that massive forests like the Amazon have been suffering from increased tree mortality–both due to direct human destruction and the indirect impacts of altered conditions from climate change. Therefore, the Amazon rainforest is consuming a billion tons less each year than it has previously. For perspective, each yearly Amazon drop amounts to twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the U.K. per year.

So Should We Take Carbon Dioxide Back Out of the Atmosphere?

Investing hope and massive resources in carbon capture and sequestration, forest-driven photosynthesis, and artificial photosynthesis produces a sense of calm in many that the impacts of global warming can be combated without creating actual changes in the corporate practices that are increasing dangerous carbon dioxide levels. These debates about removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are important, but they are fundamentally invested in addressing symptoms rather than causes. While these are great scientific achievements, the causes of global warming need to be addressed as well.

Resources

Primary

Environmental Protection Agency: Carbon Dioxide Capture and Sequestration

NASA: NASA Finds Food News about Forests and Carbon Dioxide

Additional

Environment 360: Can Carbon Capture Technology Be Part of the Climate Solution?

Alternet: Corporations Have Big Plans to Profit From Global Warming

Guardian: Chevron Accused of Racism as it Fights Ecuador Pollution Ruling

Guardian: Tropical Rainforests Not Absorbing as Much Carbon as Expected

Guardian: Just 90 Companies Caused Two-Thirds of Man-Made Global Warming Emissions

Science Daily: Major Advance in Artificial Photosynthesis Poses Win/Win For the Environment

Climate Science Watch: The CO2 “Fertilization” Effect Won’t Deter Climate Change

Corp Watch: Climate Change and Environmental Racism

Jennifer Polish

Jennifer Polish is an English PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, where she studies non/human animals and the racialization of dis/ability in young adult literature. When she’s not yelling at the computer because Netflix is loading too slowly, she is editing her novel, doing activist-y things, running, or giving the computer a break and yelling at books instead. Contact Jennifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Carbon Dioxide Capture: Can it Stop Global Warming? appeared first on Law Street.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) just announced that they’re not playing nice with climate change-deniers anymore. FEMA has officially proclaimed that unless states create plans that consider how to combat climate change, they may not be eligible for disaster preparedness funds from the agency.

The new FEMA guidelines acknowledge the problems that have come or may develop from climate changes, including things like more intense storms, heat waves, drought, and flooding. Given that all of those are situations in which states often turn to FEMA for funding and assistance, the agency is asking that when making their disaster preparedness plans, states “assess vulnerability, identify a strategy to guide decisions and investments, and implement actions that will reduce risk, including impacts from a changing climate.”

It’s important to note that this change won’t affect how much aid FEMA will give to states affected by natural disasters such as earthquakes, storms, and hurricanes. That’s called disaster relief, and it’s not part of this change. Rather, if states don’t provide adequate hazard-mitigation plans that acknowledge climate change and its effects, it will withhold the funds for that disaster preparedness. These funds are used for things like training and purchasing equipment. Overall, FEMA gives out grants of this sort that total about $1 billion each year.

This creates a big political problem for some of America’s most visible and prominent Republican governors, many of whom have long either advocated that climate change is not a product of human activity, or that it’s simply not happening. Deniers who are now on the chopping block include Governors Rick Scott (Florida), Bobby Jindal (Louisiana), Chris Christie (New Jersey), Greg Abbott (Texas), and Pat McCrory (North Carolina).

Jindal and Christie have, at the very least, been floated in talks about possible 2016 Republican contenders. Ironically, Louisiana gets the most disaster preparedness money and New Jersey comes in at number three, so Jindal and Christie, as well as the other Republican governors who deny climate change, are faced with an interesting catch-22. They can either sign off on plans that comply with FEMA regulations and lose some political clout among the conservatives they may have to woo in a presidential primary, or refuse to acknowledge climate change and lose funding that their states probably need.

This policy shift comes amid many debates happening around the country over how states should individually handle climate change. There are allegations that in Florida, for example, there’s an “unofficial policy” to not use the words climate change, even when discussing the phenomenon and its effects.

No matter what, this is certainly a bold move on FEMA’s part, and shows that politics can’t always take the front seat when it comes to safety. FEMA is making a move that it thinks will help mitigate the results of climate change–if it ruffles a few political feathers in the meantime, so be it.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post FEMA to States: Recognize Climate Change or Lose Funding appeared first on Law Street.

Out of context, the words “climate change” don’t sound very scary at all. Here’s the context that makes it scary.

The earth’s climate has been in flux since it burst into existence some 4.5 billion years ago. It’s been hot and cold and everywhere in between. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere danced between 200-300 parts per million (ppm) during the earth’s long lifespan. But starting in the 1900s, carbon dioxide  pushed past the 300 ppm marker and kept climbing. Today, carbon dioxide levels “weigh in” at about 400 ppm. So what? Well, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap heat and send average temperatures climbing. Even worse, experts believe human activities like burning fossil fuels and deforestation increased carbon dioxide and caused climate change.

We’ve only been on the earth for a fraction of its lifetime. We’ve evolved based on certain conditions, and now those conditions are changing. In other words, we’re not well adapted for the world we’re creating. The changing climate is a crucible of possible human health complications.

Here’s what the future of health looks like if we don’t combat and adapt to climate change.

 Climate Change: What’s Happening?

Before I run away with how climate change will kill us all (just kidding!), let’s do a quick overview.

Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide hang out in our atmosphere and absorb heat from the sun. Since these gases don’t occur naturally, the extra heat they absorb causes temperatures to increase above normal levels. As of 1900, carbon dioxide emissions from human activities have billowed up by 40 percent and global temperatures keep creeping upward too.

In our interconnected world, increased temperatures have implications beyond needing more A/C. Increased heat warms our oceans, melts polar and alpine ice, and drives up the sea level, which in turn facilitates stronger and more devastating storms.

Why is climate change bad for our health?

Ripples from climate change impact things directly related to your health, like the water and food supply. The World Health Organization predicts that climate change will cause 250,000 additional deaths a year between 2030 and 2050 because of heat stress, malnutrition, malaria, and diarrhoeal disease. Areas with fewer resources to adapt will suffer the most.

Here are some startling health scenarios of the future, and how climate change might cause them.

Diseases Will Become More Virulent

Climate change will make it easier for existing diseases to infect more people by altering their geographic range and lengthening the infection season. For example, ticks carrying Lyme Disease will cover more ground as more regions warm to temperatures where they can survive. Mosquitoes, which carry many diseases like Malaria and Dengue, will also flourish in warmer temperatures. High temperatures increase their reproduction rate, grow their breeding season, and enable them to bite more people. In general, all bacteria multiply faster in warmer temperatures, so many pathogens will find our warming climate suitable for proliferation.

Climate change might also encourage emerging and shifting diseases. Experts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln say climate change makes it easier for diseases to switch to new hosts. Many assume that the co-evolution of pathogens and specific hosts will make it harder for pathogens to shift and infect a new host with different biological makeup. Alarming evidence has shown that pathogens can shift to new hosts rather quickly when necessary. The researchers offer Costa Rica as an example, where humans decimated the population of capuchin and spider monkeys. A parasite once exclusive to these monkeys was unphased and latched on to howler monkeys, a different genus of monkey. If pathogens need to make rapid shifts, humans might find themselves facing several for which they have no immunity. Climate change threatens to uproot habitats and living patterns, bringing humans, animals, and insects into closer contact with each other–and their unfamiliar pathogens.

More Will Die From Extreme Heat

Heat stroke and heat-associated dehydration are the most common causes of weather-related deaths. People with existing cardiovascular issues are especially vulnerable to extreme heat. Furthermore, heat complications have a cumulative effect; your vulnerability to heat stroke increases after one episode. Cities have been heating up at a higher rate than rural areas in recent years. This leaves some of the world’s most populated areas in danger.

Basic Hygiene Won’t Be Guaranteed

As rainfall becomes less predictable, it will compromise our safe water supply. With less safe water, it won’t be nearly as easy to do simple things that prevent disease, like washing hands. People take hand-washing for granted, but it reduces risk of diarrhoeal disease by 20 percent, which actually kills 760,000 children five and under annually.

Too much water, brought from the climate change risks of severe flooding, also wreaks havoc on sanitation. Floods contaminate freshwater, spread waterborne disease, and create ideal living conditions for mosquitoes–one of the most prolific disease carriers.

Breathing Won’t Be as Easy

Warmer temperatures bring more ground-level ozone, a miasma of pollutants like carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Ground-level ozone is also called smog, a term you’re probably more familiar with. It’s been known to damage lung tissue and aggravate respiratory systems. Increased smog will make breathing an excruciating task for people with existing lung diseases and Asthma. It might even encourage the development of Asthma in otherwise healthy people.

People with allergies should also be very afraid of climate change. The spring allergy season has already grown in the United States and it threatens to continue expansion. Ragweed allergies? Tests show that more carbon dioxide and higher temperatures increases the yield of ragweed pollen.

More People Will Go Hungry

Climbing temperatures, patchy rainfall, droughts, and floods will devastate staple crop yields in the world’s poorest regions. Malnutrition and undernutrition will burgeon as a result. By as early as 2020, crop yields in some African countries could be halved.

Increasingly severe weather already destroys crops. Pollinators disappear while pathogens and pests flourish to chomp through human crops. For example, soybean rust, a fungal infection caused by the pathogen P. pachyrhizi, spreads easily in warm, moist environments. Soybean rust has been a scourge in Asia and Africa for years and was introduced to the United States by a hurricane. Winds carry the spores for miles, leaving behind crop devastation. Similar diseases will most likely plague crops in new climates.

911 Might Not Be Working

Scientists believe climate change will lead to much stronger storms. The World Health Organization says that natural disasters reported globally have tripled since 1960, resulting in over 60,000 deaths.

Strong storms and natural disasters destroy medical facilities, cut the electricity that powers medical equipment, interferes with emergency communications tools like 911, and hinders transportation. Many injuries will happen in times when disaster strikes, even though our responsive capabilities will be restricted.

We Gotta Do Something

It’s pretty clear that we have to do something before things get out of hand. Do something…but what?

We’re flooded by climate change recommendations, but here are some key points from the 2014 National Climate Assessment. The assessment distills climate change responses into two main categories:

• Adaptation: Reducing negative impacts of climate change through infrastructure and preparedness planning. An adaptation example is the creation of the State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience that aims to prepare communities for the challenges of changing weather.
• Mitigation: Attempting to reduce the climate change itself through updated policies and practices. A mitigation example is the Appliance and Equipment Standards Program, which pushes for energy efficiency.

While these two categories encompass different approaches, we need both to achieve the greatest effect. If you’re interested in reading about more climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives, check out this fact sheet on President Obama’s Climate Change Action Plan. In terms of public health, however, we’ll stick to a few health-related initiatives, most of which fall under the adaptation category.

The Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Healthcare Facilities Initiative

As the name suggests, this plan aims to prepare healthcare facilities for climate change and related complications. The Department of Health and Human Services released an intensive guide with a framework designed to help healthcare facilities revamp their infrastructure and technology. The initiative includes an online planning toolkit that serves as an interactive guide to walk professionals through these steps of resilience:

1. Identify the problem.
2. Determine vulnerabilities.
3. Investigate options.
4. Evaluate risks and costs.
5. Take action.

So far, healthcare industry leaders like Kaiser Permanente have committed to use the guides to help in their resilience planning.

The BRACE (Building Resilience Against Climate Effects) Framework

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed a framework of preparedness geared more toward public health professionals working locally. Their framework involves projecting the impacts of climate change and assessing effectiveness of interventions. The evidence of effectiveness will be especially useful for people planning future interventions. Click here to see a chart made by the CDC to explain the BRACE framework.

NYC Cool Roofs

The NYC Cool Roofs initiative presents a perfect real-world example of an initiative already underway. Reflective surfaces are added to New York City roofs, which mitigate further climate change by reducing cooling energy needed, consequentially lowering greenhouse gas emissions. They’re also adaptive as they’ll help cool the city, and hopefully reduce heat-related deaths.

Controversy in Congress

Many look at the Keystone XL pipeline decision to judge the climate change temperature in Congress. To the dismay of environmentalists, the Senate rejected two amendments related to the Keystone XL pipeline bill that admitted the human role in climate change and called for more government interventions. The President just vetoed the bill and many believe Congress will not override it.

Still, many climate change advocates are alarmed that the bill went as far it did, saying it would contribute to climate change because of the sheer amount of extra energy it would require and carbon pollution it would make. According to this NRDC Issue Brief, building the pipeline would create the same carbon dioxide emissions as Americans driving 60 billion more miles this year.

Conclusion

If you’re frustrated with the accuracy of forecasts now, be prepared. While climate change poses a new challenge without guiding evidence or precedent, the health complications from climate change have already begun. We see more cases of Lyme disease. Allergies grow in severity. We’re not sure what will work, we’re not sure what the future will bring, but we’re sure we need to brace ourselves for coming changes and meet current changes head on. We all need to work together to make sure that we stay healthy in coming years.

Resources

Primary

World Health Organization: Climate Change and Health

Environmental Protection Agency: A Student’s Guide to Climate Change 

U.S. Global Change Research Program: National Climate Assessment 2014

White House: Strengthening the Climate Resilience of the Health Care Sector

City of New York: NYC Cool Roofs

World Health Organization: Diarrhoeal disease

Additional

Emergency Management: How a Warming Climate Impacts Public Health

Science Daily: More Infectious Diseases Emerging in Animals as Climate Changes

Nature: Climate Variation Explains a Third of Global Crop Yield Variability

Nature: Delays in Reducing Waterborne and Water-Related Infectious Diseases in China Under Climate Change

Science Daily: Heat Waves Becoming More Prominent in Urban Areas

Science Daily: Preparing for Hell and High Water: Research Advocate for Climate Adaption Science

New England Journal of Medicine: Climate Change and Human Health

American Meteorological Society: Climate Change Risk Management

American Phytopathological Society: Soybean Rust

The New York Times: Senate Rejects Human Role in Climate Change

Natural Resources Defense Council: Climate Impacts of the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline

BBC News: Obama Vetoes Keystone Oil Pipeline Bill

Politico: President Obama Vetoes Keystone Bill; GOP Plans Override Vote

Ashley Bell

Ashley Bell communicates about health and wellness every day as a non-profit Program Manager. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Economics from the College of William and Mary, and loves to investigate what changes in healthy policy and research might mean for the future. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Climate Change: How Will it Impact Our Health? appeared first on Law Street.

A relatively new concept regarding how to address large-scale environmental concerns has been popping up in the debate lately. It’s called “geoengineering” and it involves deliberate human actions intended to remedy global warming. There are many potential problems with this concept, and hopefully it never comes to full fruition.

Geoengineering leans on technological intervention intended to stabilize the climate and reduce the effects of human-induced global warming. For example, there have been several proposals as to how to remove carbon dioxide from the oceans, such as introducing large amounts of lime, as well as enveloping the planet in a layer of sulfate in order to reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface.

Problem #1

Assuming people are finally coming around to the idea that human society has been playing a negative role in climate change, geoengineering stands as a human role in seeking to fix it. Much environmental damage resulting from human activity over the centuries has partly been a consequence of mankind’s hubris, or idea of superiority over nature and ability to tame, control, and manipulate it to his advantage. Geoengineering is no different; while it may be a concept with good intentions, it is born of a line of thinking that has already proven itself to be problematic and damaging; there are many reasons to be concerned that these steps would cause more and unforeseen problems.

Intentionally enveloping the planet in anything sounds like a bad idea. If part of the reason why we continue to damage the Earth is that we still do not fully understand its environments and ecosystems, meaning that we are not yet able to live harmoniously with it, then directly intervening could cause immediate problems because we simply do not know what we are doing.

Earth’s thin atmosphere. Courtesy NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr.

Problem #2

There is no substitute for reducing emissions and pursuing more sustainable lifestyles and societies. Geoengineering might be thought of as a get-out-of-jail-free card; we enter into a vicious cycle of causing damage and attempting to fix it without addressing the real causes of the problems in the first place. Some people counter that it could spark investments and more attention to innovative scientific research, but those things can also be accomplished with a more wholehearted pursuit of sustainability and conservation.

A severe drought in Australia. Courtesy of Vicki via Flickr.

Problem #3

Geoengineering is being described as an attempt to remedy “global warming.” In this sense, its purpose is to try to stop rising temperatures. It should be noted that “global warming” is a less and less common phrase, because this is not the only issue at hand. “Climate change” is a more appropriate term, because the issues we face have more to do with radicalization of climate and weather; it is a matter of more extremes, not just rising temperatures. Hotter summers, yes, but also colder winters, stronger hurricanes, more frequent earthquakes, more floods, more droughts, and so on. If we attempt to geoengineer the Earth with the objective of reducing warming temperatures but not stabilizing the climate in general, disaster may follow.

Hurricane Katrina. Courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr.

An ongoing trial project in Iceland has been injecting carbon dioxide mixed with water into volcanic rock. While previous attempts at carbon storage have not borne fruit because the element tends to bubble back up to the surface, this approach relies on the reactive nature of basalt; in a relatively short amount of time, the mixture crystalizes into minerals. Yet this process is enormously expensive and requires a titanic amount of water. Again, it does not serve as a solution to our polluting ways. There are also many other causes of pollution and environmental damage that are not addressed with this process. Finally, there is still plenty of doubt as to how safe it really is. If injecting chemicals into shale rock for fracking purposes has proven to induce earthquakes, who knows what consequences tampering with volcanism, which is by nature volatile and unpredictable, might have.

There is no shame in letting go of our pride and admitting that we are not masters of the Earth. She is her own master. Yes, we have caused many problems of late. But rather than continuing to assert control and attempting to fix it, and in so doing only furthering those ailments and further endangering ourselves, we should cut our losses. It would be best to continue attempting to change our ways, and have faith that the Earth can repair itself in time. After four billion years it is still here and relatively healthy; ten thousand years of human civilization will not do it in.

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Climate Engineering is Not a Solution to Climate Change appeared first on Law Street.

Professor Jon Hanson of Harvard Law School has set out to change the way law is taught. This spring, the professor welcomed roughly 50 students into the inaugural Systemic Justice class at Harvard Law. The class will teach students to examine the common causes of injustice in history and explore ways to use law and activism to make positive changes.

From the first day of the term, it became clear to students that the new class was unique. Referring to the students in the class as a “community,” Professor Hanson came across lighthearted and funny, cracking jokes and even asking the class to come up with a name for said “community.” He said to students on the first day of class: “None of us really knows what ‘systemic justice’ is—yet you’re all here.”

Traditionally, law students enter law school expecting to master existing law and to learn how to apply those laws to jobs as attorneys. However, a survey revealed that students are actually most concerned with big, unsolved social issues–which is where this class comes in. Students believe that law is part of the issue when looking at social problems such as climate change, income inequality, and racial bias in policing. The goal of this class is to introduce a new approach to examining and dealing with these issues.

This class is just one facet of a new Systemic Justice Project at Harvard, which is led by Professor Hanson and recent law school graduate Jacob Lipton. The project arose out of a growing recognition that law students need to be trained to be problem solvers and policy makers. Another part of the program is a class called the Justice Lab, which is a think tank style class designed to ask students to analyze systemic societal problems and propose solutions from a legal perspective. In April, students from both classes will attend a conference alongside experts to discuss their findings.

In some ways, this project is part of a widespread effort to introduce a greater policy focus into law schools. For example, Stanford Law School recently launched a Law and Policy Lab that tasks students with finding policy solutions to real-world problems. After graduation, many former law students will go on to become policy makers, judges, politicians, and organizational leaders. According to Sergio Campos, a law professor at the University of Miami and a visiting professor at Harvard, those lawyers could be in trouble if they do not develop a background on policy during their time in law school. He worries that for those students,  “when you get to a position where you can change the law, you don’t have a background on policy and what it should be.”

The program has already gained popularity with students at Harvard who are, or desire to be, active in fighting for social causes. However, not all law students are interested in learning about policy–some just want to learn about existing law, and that’s fine too. This project is designed to be a way to extend a traditional legal education, not replace it. Even so, participating in a class such as the Systemic Justice class can give law students a new and valuable perspective that will strengthen their overall legal education.

Brittany Alzfan

Brittany Alzfan is a student at the George Washington University majoring in Criminal Justice. She was a member of Law Street’s founding Law School Rankings team during the summer of 2014. Contact Brittany at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Harvard Law School Launches New Systemic Justice Project appeared first on Law Street.

While debate still surrounds issues involving climate change, scientists have agreed that global carbon emissions must begin to be reduced by the year 2020 in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Unsurprisingly, however, this agreement has spawned new debates concerning what to do about it. One solution that has gained political momentum in the past decade is a process commonly referred to as “Cap and Trade”.

What is Cap and Trade?

Cap and Trade, as one might surmise from its name, is a two-step system that attempts to definitively lower carbon emissions and provide an incentive for carbon-reducing technological innovations. In step one, a governing body (be it state, regional, federal, or global) sets a maximum limit of carbon emissions for all participating entities that is a certain degree lower than current emissions. Each year this cap will be gradually reduced until the coalition meets its reduction goal in x amount of years. Simple enough.

Step two involves quantifying the carbon emissions allowable under the cap into carbon credits or permits. Each permit would represent a definable amount, such as one ton of carbon emitted. These credits would then be distributed amongst polluting entities such as factories, refineries, companies, and others, forcing these entities to pollute no more than the amount of carbon credits they possess. If a company comes in under their pollution amount, they can sell their excess credits to carbon brokers or to other companies for a profit. In this way, the trade system incentivizes technological innovations that reduce carbon emissions and the companies that invest in them. In turn, companies that are in danger of exceeding their given amount or are in the process of implementing long-term carbon reduction plans, the results of which would not be seen for a number of years, will purchase carbon credits so as not to exceed their limit. The ability to purchase credits off the carbon market allows for flexibility in the way polluting entities choose to reduce their emissions. Overall, there are only as many credits as the cap allows, and as the cap is incrementally reduced each year, companies will gradually receive less credits, ensuring carbon emissions are reduced annually until a specific goal is reached.

What are some examples of Cap and Trade programs?

Cap and Trade systems exist at different levels of government and have been created for pollutants other than carbon. The 1990 amendment to the Clean Air Act, which created a permits program for sulfur pollution in an attempt to improve air quality, is seen as one of the earliest of these programs and is often hailed by advocates as a successful Cap and Trade program. However, carbon is the principal greenhouse gas affecting climate change, and proponents of Cap and Trade claim that this program can be adapted for carbon as well as a number of other pollutants.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, implemented the Cap and Trade system as part of its global approach to emissions reductions. The trading program is operated by the United Nations and binds 37 industrialized countries to global emissions reductions, using several carbon emission trading schemes to accomplish the task. The global carbon market is unfortunately, to a degree, at the mercy of global politicians as they attempt to negotiate a post-Kyoto program, with the first commitment period having ended in 2012. Also at the international level, the European Trading System is a carbon Cap and Trade system created in 2005 and run by the European Union. This trading program is factory-based and distributes its emissions credits to individual companies, factories, power plants, etc. Because of this, the European Trading System is the largest Cap and Trade system in the world, incorporating more than 11,000 individual entities in 31 countries.

At the state and national levels, New South Wales and New Zealand have Cap and Trade emissions reduction systems, created in 2003 and 2009, respectively. Additionally, China plans to establish a nation-wide Cap and Trade system in 2016 in response to social unrest over increasing pollution levels in Chinese cities.

In North America, a number of American states and Canadian provinces in the American Northeast participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an organization aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 10 percent by 2020 from the 2009 levels. Pennsylvania, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec act as observers to the coalition, and while New Jersey was a founding member, Governor Chris Christie withdrew the state from the program in 2012. California also implemented an economy-wide Cap and Trade system in 2013 that seeks to reduce emissions by 16 percent between 2013 and 2020.

What are the advantages of a Carbon Trading program?

Advocates of Cap and Trade list a number of advantages this system has over rival emissions-reduction solutions, such as a flat carbon tax. Cap and Trade creates an assured and definite outcome, provides flexibility for the participating entities in their emission reduction methods, incentivizes technological innovation, and represents a global solution.

A flat carbon tax does not necessarily guarantee reduced emissions; it merely makes carbon more expensive in the hope of deterring polluters. Cap and Trade ensures a definite outcome through the cap on total emissions of the participating entities. As the cap is gradually lowered each year, the total emissions within that program decreases, regardless of the number of carbon permits any particular entity owns.

The gradual decrease in the emissions cap and the ability to purchase carbon credit creates the flexibility inherent in this system and the incentive for technological progress. Instead of making carbon significantly more expensive overnight, the cap is reduced in increments while the polluting parties learn to adjust to the new restrictions. It provides companies, factories, and countries time to research, develop, and implement a plan for carbon emissions reduction and provides them with more breathing room in terms of how they want to address their concerns. Some entities might want to implement long-term plans which may have large effects but the results will not be seen for a number of years, while others may want to experiment with new, emerging technology. If the plan does not work the first time around, they can purchase more carbon credits for that particular segment of the process and try something else. Entities that have more successful pollution reduction methods, however, will spend less time and less money, prompting industry and economy-wide investment in clean technology.

Lastly, Cap and Trade represents a global solution to a global problem. Because the trading aspect of the system requires a coalition of entities working in tandem and agreeing to common pollution reduction goals, the carbon market makes an international, far-reaching solution possible. The Kyoto Protocol and the European Trading System are examples of this kind of cooperative effort. A carbon tax, unless agreed upon in the United Nations (an unlikely event), can only feasibly be employed on a national level. However, pollution is a global problem, and a reduction in pollution in one country will not reduce the pollution in others.

What are the disadvantages of a Cap and Trade system?

Despite the goals it sets out to accomplish, there is significant opposition to Cap and Trade as a pollution reduction mechanism. Opponents often favor alternate solutions such as a flat carbon tax or increased public investment in emerging green technologies. Many groups find fault with Cap and Trade because they feel it will create problems with the price of carbon within the artificial carbon market, making it difficult to sustain and even more difficult to produce actual beneficial effects for the economy. James Hansen, in his New York Times Op-ed article “Cap and Fade”, argues that if all or even a large majority of participating bodies were to reduce their carbon emissions in a given year, the market would be over-saturated with carbon permits. The price of carbon would plummet and the artificial Cap and Trade market would collapse. At that point, the individual bodies will see little incentive in continued participation in the program, and Cap and Trade will have ultimately done little to reduce pollution.

Opponents also malign the various “offsets,” or alternatives to carbon reduction that are included within Cap and Trade programs. These offsets raise the overall cap for such measures as the avoidance of deforestation in Brazil or planting trees in a former industrialized area. Opponents point out that reduced pollution in one area should not allow increased pollution in another area. These offsets end up producing no net decrease in overall pollution, hindering the main purpose for which Cap and Trade systems are created.

Another issue critics have with Cap and Trade is that unless it is implemented on a global scale, with as many countries participating as possible, much of the world will continue polluting unabated. If Norway enters into a global program or creates a domestic cap and trade carbon market, that’s great, good for Norway. However, this does not compel another country, say India, to join as well. Climate change does not discriminate where its effects will be felt, and the climate over Norway will be affected the same as the climate over India, regardless of who is participating in a cap and trade program. Therefore, if not all major polluters join the cause, what incentive does that give to the countries or entities that are willing?

Critics also point to the problems experienced in the European Trading System’s carbon market in recent years as a sign that large-scale carbon trading is not a sustainable or effective solution. In early 2013 carbon prices within the European market fell considerably, so low that it threatened to destabilize the market altogether, and forced the European Union to delay credits distribution and take other measures to drag prices back up to a reasonable level. While many advocates argue that a carbon market would regulate itself, many look at the example of the ETS and remain skeptical.

Many are also afraid that Cap and Trade lends itself to corruption and big-business manipulation. Already in the carbon trading programs that currently exist, carbon brokers have materialized to service the buying and selling of carbon permits, in an attempt to get in on a piece of the Cap and Trade pie. Because Cap and Trade relies on the price of carbon and the machinations of a free market, opponents worry that a program will become another appendage of Wall St. without producing real environmental benefits.

Conclusion

Due to economic downturn in 2008 and the increased costs to consumers as a result of a carbon cap, the drive to implement a national carbon trading scheme in the United States has slowed considerably. However, Cap and Trade programs continue to appear in various shapes and sizes, and as the debate surrounding its effectiveness continues, we will wait and see how successful the current programs in effect prove to be.

Resources

Primary 

United Nations: Kyoto Protocol

European Commission: EU Emissions Trading System

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: Model Rule

California Environmental Protection Agency: Cap and Trade Program

Additional 

Forbes: Four Reasons California Cap and Trade Had an Extraordinary First Year

Clean Technica: Five Good Things Cap and Trade Has Done for You

Environmental Leader: Why Cap and Trade is Good for Environmental Marketing

Environment 360: The Flawed Logic of the Cap and Trade Debate

The New York Times: Cap and Fade

Chron: Risks of Cap and Trade

Grist: Beyond Baby Steps: Analyzing the Cap and Trade Flop

Washington Post: The Folly of Unilateral Cap and Trade

Council on Foreign Relations: The Debate Over Greenhouse Gas Cap and Trade

Environmental Defense Fund: How Cap and Trade Works

Center for Climate and Energy Solutions: What Is Cap and Trade?

Ecosystem Market Place: Washington State to Pursue Cap and Trade Program

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Recently the United Nations made a series of declarations regarding the validity of climate change, its causes, and necessary measures to mitigate it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a very large “synthesis report,” a product of analyzing tens of thousands of scientific papers. The report covers all aspects, addressing atmosphere and emissions, oceans and sea level, air temperature, water cycle, and many other components of environmental systems. It goes over the changes to each over the last 150 years or so, and produces conclusions as to what induced those changes. Being that the report ultimately concludes that many of these concerns are products of human activity, it goes beyond being a summary of information and warnings, and provides many recommendations as to what needs to change and what measures ought to be taken to answer these warnings. These thoughts are more succinctly presented in the shorter summary for policymakers.

Among the conclusions therein, the most prevalent is probably the projections for changes in global temperature. If we continue on this course, by the end of the century the temperature could rise from 3.7-4.8 degrees Celsius from what it was before the Industrial Revolution. Since variation in global temperature of one or two degrees can result in radical and violent weather patterns, these numbers could presumably result in catastrophic changes to the climate and Earth. Deniers propose that these projections, and the evidence of rising temperatures in the past several centuries, might not necessarily be the result of human activity but rather an indication of general shifts in the Earth’s climatological patterns. For example, starting in the 1300s AD, many parts of the world–particularly in the Northern Hemisphere–experienced a Little Ice Age. Definite conclusions as to the causes of this phenomenon are still incomplete, but proposals range from general rises and falls within the Earth’s patterns to changes in solar or oceanic behavior.

During the Little Ice Age, temperatures dropped by about 1.5 degrees Celsius. The most notable consequence that resulted was major damage to agriculture and resulting famines. What kinds of consequences could there be for a temperature change of double that in the opposite direction as the IPCC proposes? The lesson that the Little Ice Age teaches us is that regardless of whether climate change is a result of human activity or not, it is clearly real and has dire consequences for human civilization if we are not prepared for it.

Supposing that it is in part due to human activity, the discussion on rising temperatures inevitably leads back to emissions and energy. The point of no return is a 2 degree Celsius increase, according to the report. After this point, damage to the climate and Earth could be irreversible. Governments and industries ought to set emissions standards so as to keep the rise in temperature from passing this marker; however, in order to do so we have less than forty years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent, and even further by the end of the century. These are very imposing numbers, and many fear that the existing financial structures cannot accommodate these objectives and the necessary changes to be made. On the other hand some feel that we should be more motivated to pursue these goals, not just because of the impending disasters but because energy-efficient systems are financially advisable.

There are many arguments that the economic infrastructure for renewable energy is already in place, and pursuing those courses is not only environmentally friendly but financially advisable because it would pay for itself in a short amount of time. This report should provide the impetus for making a more wholehearted attempt at transitioning to a substantial degree to these other options.

Carbon emissions go hand in hand with rising temperatures. Courtesy of Kim Seng via Flickr.

It is generally accepted that the Dust Bowl was largely a result of environmentally unfriendly agricultural practices. Did we require over half a century to reach this consensus? This framework can be applied elsewhere, as we consider unnatural elements of “natural disasters.” Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy have often been named in this debate. A heat wave that hit Europe in 2003 claimed 70,000 lives. As the report suggests, time to act is running out. These concerns are not ones to be dealt with solely by governments and world leaders; the threats of climate change pervade the globe and affect all people. We can all improve the decisions we make and the ways we live our lives, and advocate more vocally for positive change.

Courtesy of Giphy.

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The UN Validates Climate Change in New Report, Now It’s Up to Us appeared first on Law Street.

Species come and go. A virtually inestimable number of living creatures have existed on the Earth since the rise of life. Most of them are not currently in existence; this is the natural order of things. As evolution takes its course, more specialized or adaptable creatures force out less advanced ones. However, there have been several occasions where large numbers of species have disappeared over very short spans of time.

These mass extinctions have tended to be the result of a cataclysmic event that severely disrupted the Earth’s climate and natural processes. The most famous was the killer of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, most likely the result of a catastrophic asteroid impact near the Yucatan Peninsula. There have been more substantial ones though, such as the Cambrian Extinction about 500 million years ago, which is thought to have eliminated a much larger number of species than the Cretaceous Extinction. Some suggest that the Holocene Era, characterized by the last 10,000 years or so, which saw the rise of human civilization, can be characterized as a mass extinction event in its own right.

The duration of any mass extinction event is a constantly debatable topic. Due to the Signor-Lipps Effect, a paleontological theory addressing the incompleteness of fossil records, it continues to be difficult to determine how long it took for the Cretaceous Extinction to unfold. Initial theories were that it was gradual, but sentiments shifted to one of abruptness due to new discoveries including the impact crater. However, this still does not stamp a specific number of years on the process. “Abrupt” sounds very quick; possibly a few years. Yet in geological time, a few thousand years is very abrupt. Therefore human presence on the Earth is not much more than a tiny speck on a very large timeline, and an ongoing extinction occurring in tandem with the presence of humans might be viewed as an abrupt event.

The fossil of a creature from the Cambrian Period, courtesy of Wilson44691 via Wikipedia.

How significant is the current rate of extinction, and how do we know that it is a result of human activity? Since extinctions are a natural part of life, the Background Extinction Rate endeavors to declare a standard pace at which species come and go, outside of human influence and excluding the outliers that are mass extinctions. However this proposal is largely unreliable in and of itself because it is unknown how many species currently exist on Earth, or have existed at any point in time. Furthermore, it is mathematically impossible then to accurately calculate the relationship between this extinction rate and the rate of extinction we are currently seeing. Some suggest that it is about 100 times larger. Finally, it is fiercely debatable what portion of this increased rate is a result of human activity.

Some extinctions and their causes are easy to identify. The Passenger Pigeon, once clouding the skies with its swarm-like millions and an icon of colonial North America, was ferociously hunted and ultimately classified extinct in 1914. Similarly the Western black rhinoceros, mercilessly poached for its ivory, was just declared three years ago in 2011 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The Great Barrier Reef is on the verge of being listed as endangered. Aside from rising ocean temperatures and agricultural runoff, the Australian government has been entertaining a new project intended to bolster its coal industry, which would require dredging in order to expand major ports and dumping the silt in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Fortunately the project is meeting opposition, including the formulation of a long term sustainability plan for the reef which includes monitoring certain species populations and trying to reduce runoff. However the situation is more complicated. A huge number of plant and animal species life there, and the structure of the reef itself is composed of living things. Estimates suggest that it has lost over half its coral in the last 27 years alone. Thus it is not just the recent developments in the agriculture and coal industries that are threatening its survival, but the general patterns and lives we lead.

The Great Barrier Reef, courtesy of Sarah_Ackerman via Wikipedia.

Flora has come under threat as well. The Giant Sequoias of California, some as old as the Trojan War, are hard pressed to survive now that the past fifty years have brought changes to moisture, temperature, and fire patterns. These towering figures require specific patterns of fog in order to acquire the necessary water, and are very delicate when it comes to long-term drought and resulting dryness that can ignite conflagrations. Though they are for the most part not in outright danger, many scientists feel that the ongoing changes to climate might bring them under threat. Furthermore, the state of New Jersey has been grappling with a bill that would allow for commercial logging in state forests and parks. Bulldozing forests is devastating not just to the trees that are cut down, but it destroys the habitats of all the other plants and animal species that reside within. It would promote erosion and storm water runoff, invite invasive species, and detract from our cultural and aesthetic interests.

The President, a 3,200 year old Giant Sequoia. Courtesy of National Geographic via Wikipedia.

These are very recent, post-Industrial Revolution cases where extensive record keeping provides a comprehensive understanding of actions and consequences. On the other hand, the extinction of large mammals such as the mastodon is thought to be a result of human migration into North America, but it is unknown whether they were hunted out, human arrival corresponded with changing climate conditions, or a combination. Further, it is difficult to determine to what extent those changes in climate were a result of human activity. This continues to be the main point of controversy: as some naysayers continue to deny climate change outright, it is scientifically challenging to calculate to what extent the changing and erratic weather and temperatures we experience are due to humans versus to what extent they are the natural processes and shifts of the planet, much less what effect those things have on plants and animals.

The extent to which human activity is killing off other living things is debatable. There are clear instances wherein our behavior and economic interests inflict damage, while other issues are more vague and complex. Regardless, as humans are one of the only creatures in Earth’s history capable of so effectively driving other species into extinction, including ourselves, we should take theories of a Holocene Extinction as a dire warning.

The Dodo Bird. Courtesy of BazzaDaRambler via Wikipedia.

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Franklin R. Halprin (@FHalprin) holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Yoshikazu TAKADA via Flickr]

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Are We In the Middle of Another Mass Extinction? appeared first on Law Street.

Standing in the middle of a crushing crowd of people can be quite stressful, but this time it was worth it. The United Nations General Assembly spent the final week of September in session and one of the primary items of concern on its agenda is climate change and the environment, addressed in the form of the Climate Summit on Tuesday, September 23. On September 21, an astounding 400,000 people marched through the streets of Manhattan to vocalize the necessity of addressing climatic and environmental concerns.

In the largest environmental rally in history, activists began lining up earlier than 9:00am at designated locations from 59th street as high as 86th street. They organized under a variety of banners, from environmental organizations, scientists, private citizens, and more. It was under this final group that I started the march. It contained sub groups as well; there were community organizations, college students, and others. I am proud to note that a group representing my alma mater Rutgers University was among the most vocal in the area.

The March, at the steps of the Museum of Natural History. Courtesy of Franklin R. Halprin.

Reminiscent of how a car at the back of a long lineup will probably not make the light when it turns green because everybody hits the gas one at a time, my section of the four-mile long rally did not start marching until 45 minutes after the event was set to begin. It was very exciting once we did begin to move, and a surge of energy rolled through the crowd. However the density of the crowd meant that we moved like an inchworm; the line would stretch and we moved forward a little, but then compacted again and we stood in place for a bit. Eventually the line spread out and the walk became more consistent.

It was still quite slow going though, so eventually I exited the group and walked alongside on the sidewalk. As I was moving faster than the line, I was able to advance through the march and see all the different sections. There was no repetitiveness to the line’s appearance. Each group had its own chants and jingles, instrumental support, and occasional matching t-shirts. A migrant women’s workers rights group even performed a series of dances as they made their way down the street.

A section of the line, dedicated to protecting wildlife. Courtesy of Franklin R. Halprin.

At 12:58pm the march stopped dead in its tracks for a moment of silence in honor of those who have been lost to climate crises. The huge crowd, moving and making noise for an hour and a half, was still and silent with hands to the sky. It was a powerful moment. I’m not sure from which direction it came, but the moment of silence was ended by a wave of shouts that rolled through the entire length of the line. The ultimate call to action had been sounded, and the march resumed with great vigor and enthusiasm.

The moment of silence. Courtesy of Franklin R. Halprin.

Despite the motion and noise, music and megaphones, others took part in the call to action in different ways. Among the most striking was the Earth Vigil, a group sitting silent and meditative at the edge of Central Park. There are many ways for people of diverse backgrounds to express concerns over shared fates.

The Earth Vigil. Courtesy of Franklin R. Halprin.

It is this detail that really struck me throughout the march. The health of the environment and fate of the planet are issues that span every economic class, race, orientation, and geography. The sheer variety of people merging voices over a common cause speaks to the urgency of the challenges we face and the importance of addressing them effectively. Environmental activism has tended to be viewed as an activity of the middle and upper classes who have the wealth and leisure to dedicate their energies to this more abstract set of problems. The Climate March proved otherwise. Every level of society is aware, concerned, and willing to act. Furthermore, every level of society is affected by environmental woes; its consequences are real and tangible, not an abstract, theoretical, “out there” set of problems.

The rally in New York City was the most notable, but other cities throughout the world held their own rallies on this day and throughout the week as well. Twenty-six hundred events in over 150 countries, in fact. This further indicates the global awareness and importance of climate and environment. Before the event began, I had an interesting conversation with a Climate March surveyor of Nigerian origin. He explained how China has been buying up land there for agricultural and mining purposes, inflicting horrific environmental damage in the process. The locals there tend not to understand the consequences, and further are often excited about the Chinese presence in hopes of generating revenue and raising the standard of living. However, as the surveyor detailed, these activities are channeled to benefit the Chinese economy and industry only; locals are left no better off from it. He feels that this and other rallies around the world will help raise awareness of this, among many problems. The key is not just making a loud statement to global leaders, but spreading knowledge to all people.

We should come away from this event with great optimism. It demonstrated that more and more people are aware of these problems, and are willing to act in order to solve them. The people are not willing to continue down this path; society has reached a turning point and a new era of knowledge and responsibility is beginning. Whether that be on an individual, communal, national, or global level, the power to make change is growing.

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Franklin R. Halprin (@FHalprin) holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Franklin R. Halprin]

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Climate Change Unites World Community Across All Spectrums appeared first on Law Street.

The five-foot high tires were insufficient to prevent the specially designed bus from jostling about as it turned off the road and toward the Columbia Ice Field in Alberta, Canada. The massive carpet of ice expanded in all directions upon disembarkation, as I walked about the sheet that was hundreds of feet thick and thousands of years old. A small stream of water meandered by. It was water only recently thawed; water that had frozen before industrialization and heavy increases in air pollution. I cupped my hands in the crystal and cold flow and sipped. It was perfect. I was eight years old, enthralled, and officially a nature lover.

The Columbia Ice Field Snow Coach, courtesy of Leonard G. via Wikipedia

Four years later we returned to the Canadian Rockies to immerse ourselves in the wilderness once more, without any doubt that we would pay a visit to the Columbia Field. The bus again turned off the road, but this time onto an expanse of grey rock. We were in the same location as last time, but the glacier was not there. It still existed, but was far in the distance. In only a few years it had melted substantially, retreating into the mountains. I was 12 years old, horrified, and officially an environmental activist.

Glaciers are the most visible manifestation of climate change. Photographer James Balog utilized this concept in an attempt to bring to the forefront the urgency of the issue. In his project Extreme Ice Survey, he and his crew mounted 25 cameras to take snapshots of glacial activity every daylight hour for three years, yielding distressing results as to the rapidity of glacial melting. The project was documented in the 2012 film Chasing Ice.

Some argue that the situation is not so severe, as glaciers ebb and flow with the seasons. The guide at the Columbia Ice Field related that the sheet rises 50 feet in the winter and melts 80 feet in the summer. Therefore, while it does grow in the cold months, there is an overall trend of recession. Further, many glaciers consistently recede regardless of season.

A study in the Yukon from 1958-2008, Chasing Ice explains, tracked 1,400 glaciers in the region. Over the course of the half century, four grew, 300 disappeared entirely, and the other 1,096 shrunk. Though they are powerful symbols of environmentalism and conservation, these figures do not solely embody a concern for saving the glaciers. Despite the fact that they are often portrayed in tandem with other champions of conservation, such as polar bears and their struggles to survive in the face of melting ice sheets, the issues at hand are a microcosm of the challenges of mitigating the causes and repairing the consequences of human-induced climate change.

A recent article in the Alaska Dispatch News explored the potential effects of climate change on said state’s tourism industry. The U.S. Forest Service in Juneau has expressed concern over the shrinkage of several notable glaciers as they withdraw from the line of sight at lookout points, reducing the number of annual visitors. Furthermore, the author relates, a study suggested that melting permafrost might increase the region’s susceptibility to invasive species and shorten ski seasons.

The study attempts to take an optimistic angle in the face of these ominous developments, suggesting that the extended summer cruise season and concept of “last chance to see it” are about to create a short-lived boom in the tourism industry there. These are very shallow cheers. A “last chance” promotion is not financially sustainable for the long term of tourism, and more importantly, it is not an acceptable response to the threats to the environment there. Nor is it acceptable to sit back and allow unnatural change to occur, capitalize on the new reality, and allow the old state of things to disappear and be destroyed. While Alaska is beautiful in the fair weather and expanded opportunities for a summertime vacation there are enticing, that is not what the place was originally like before substantial human intervention. There are plenty of locations across the globe to which one can venture for a summer retreat; Alaska should be visited for what it was, and for what it ought to remain.

A cruise ship docked in Ketchikan, AK, courtesy of blmiers2 via Flickr

What Alaska was, and ought to remain, has figured substantially in American cultural identity and early manifestations of the conservation movement. In 1879, John Muir made his first trip to the wild lands. Many followed in his footsteps, including an expedition in 1899 on which a crew of scientists noted how deforestation, clear cutting, over fishing, and animal slaughtering were already stripping Alaska of its natural resources. One of the scientists later published a study arguing that the mining activities there, as the Yukon Gold Rush was in full swing, were not sustainable in the long run; Alaska’s economic future, he prophesied, lay in wilderness (eco) tourism. Furthermore, as historian Douglas Brinkley relates, Muir believed that the more people saw of Alaska’s frozen wonders, the more likely they were to become conservationists.

These two concepts formed powerful components of Teddy Roosevelt’s platform and presidential objectives. He agreed with the naturalist William H. Dall in seeing Alaska as “…having ecological, moral, scientific, and spiritual values that would help reserve the frontier spirit.” Regardless of truth or falsehood, the frontier mythos and concepts of rugged individualism played important roles in American identity. By the early 1900s, Manifest Destiny had brought the United States border to the Pacific Coast; Alaska was dubbed the final frontier. The wilderness, presumably so vital in the development of values and Americana, had to be preserved here if American culture was to survive. Enabling people to get in touch with nature would, as writer and environmentalist Aldo Leopold stated, “build receptivity for ecosystems in human thinking.”

Teddy Roosevelt (left) and John Muir (right) in Yosemite National Park, CA. Courtesy of Library of Congress via Wikipedia.

The growing awareness and value systems resulting from human contact with nature helped in the latter’s preservation, and continues to do so to this day. It worked for me; the spiritual beauty of the glacier inspired an appreciation in my heart for the natural world and its right to survive. In order to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, it must endure in order to inspire people and societies to maintain it. The current tourism industry in Alaska must remain focused on the real environments and benefits of the North. Establishing national parks to protect lands has helped in the past, as the main threats to the environment were direct human activities such as logging. Now, the threats are more varied in source and wider in scope. It will take many actions on multiple fronts to retain an interest in the locale and take the necessary steps to maintain the state of things there. The glaciers and tundra of Alaska and the Arctic are not a desolate wasteland, but places of great aesthetic value to be admired in their own right.

As John Muir wrote:

“Though the storm beaten ground it is growing on is nearly half a mile high, the glacier centuries ago flowed over it as a river flows over a boulder; but out of all the cold darkness and glacial crushing and grinding comes this warm, abounding beauty and life to teach us that what we in our faithless ignorance and fear call destruction is creation finer and finer.”

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Climate Change, Melting Glaciers, and the Future of Alaskan Tourism appeared first on Law Street.

The onset of summer means that wildfires are likely to occur more often. Last month one raged in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. As crews sought to tame it, questions arose as to its origins, effects, and how to view such forces.

Investigators believe human activity caused the fire. This immediately puts a bad taste in our mouths, as we accuse mankind of selfishness, carelessness, and destruction of our surrounding world. Indeed, the very thought of an unattended campfire or discarded cigarette butt igniting a forest-consuming conflagration is repulsive. “Conservation” and “sustainability” have not always been popular buzzwords.

It was not until the mid 1800s that Westerners began to view the environment as a thing of beauty, and as environmental historian William Cronon put it, “…a landscape where the supernatural lay just beneath the surface…expressed in the doctrine of the sublime…” Cronon has explained that cultural perceptions of human relationships to the wilderness have shifted, and the current discourse that we embrace reflects the romantic writings of towering figures such as Thoreau, Emerson, and Muir. We think of untamed nature as a cathedral to be preserved and only lightly trodden by our feet. This preservationist ethos has its merits, as protecting vast and beautiful spaces from the development, industry, and encroachment of society is vital to preserving nature itself as well as our cultural identity that has spawned from it.

Viewing nature and civilization as separate entities raises problems, Cronon points out. The value of “sustainability” is that it allows for an interaction between the two forces, which ultimately is an unescapable and acceptable dynamic if we are to live maturely on our planet and in our environments. The key is not necessarily to leave all nature alone, but to find a responsible manner in which to interact with it. Naturally, if the Alaska wildfire was caused by human activity, this was not a responsible interaction with nature.

It would seem the logical response to fight the fire and put it out. After all, “…fire officials are worried that recreational cabins and secondary homes…may be at risk.” This raises several points of interest. First of which is the obvious implication that the primary motivation for putting out the fire is the protection of human life, human residences, and economy & tourism; this trumps the genuine concerns for the health of the environment. However, especially considering that the fire was probably caused by human activity, putting it out has been determined the right way to go. California is already experiencing an above average occurrence of fires, and predicts an active season. Consequently, they have retrofitted Black Hawk helicopters to be an extreme response mechanism, unofficially called the Firehawk.This comes partly in response to a series of large fires in the San Diego area last May.

What if the Alaska fire was ignited by natural causes? We tend to view those differently. The mindset of separation between society and nature abounds in this concern. We hesitate to intervene with natural forces, citing that the lack of human involvement denotes a need to let nature run its course. Why, then, do we also instigate controlled burns? Despite continuing struggles to find a responsible way of living in the environment, we take it upon ourselves to be the guardians of nature. When is it acceptable for us to intervene, and when should we leave things alone?

People have a difficult time accepting change. This is problematic, considering nature is constantly in flux; change is vital. The environmental historian Nancy Langston argued that “…we only perceive a crisis when we have first learned to observe, and then to value, a particular set of relationships that are about to be destroyed.” When hailing “conservation” and “preservation,” what are we trying to protect: the environment as we see and value it, or the environment as it functions? California is expecting a particularly active wildfire season, and the coming years are expected to see increased damage from fires. A report by Headwaters Economics suggests that there are climate change-induced factors such as “higher temperatures, widespread drought, earlier snowmelt, spring growth, and expanded insect and disease infestations…” In this sense, the occurrence of wildfires is broadened from a case-by-case basis to the general and wider concerns of human global impact.

When should we start fires, and when should we put them out? How sure can we be that a particular wildfire occurred naturally, by direct human activity, or secondarily by shifting ecological parameters? The Alaska wildfire and California fire season are examples of mankind’s struggle to find appropriate ways of interacting with our fragile world.

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Franklin R. Halprin (@FHalprin) holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Franklin at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Famartin via Wikipedia]

Franklin R. Halprin

Franklin R. Halprin holds an MA in History & Environmental Politics from Rutgers University where he studied human-environmental relationships and settlement patterns in the nineteenth century Southwest. His research focuses on the influences of social and cultural factors on the development of environmental policy. Contact Frank at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Man vs. Nature: When Do We Intervene in Wildfires? appeared first on Law Street.

Good morning folks! Did you all survive the polar vortex? It’s on its way out now, thank goodness.

But! If you’re a Fox News watcher or a conservative talk radio show listener, you might think that the polar vortex was just a magical fantasy, invented by the Left to promote a global warming agenda.

Seriously. That’s what Rush Limbaugh is telling his gazillion listeners.

What a douche. I can personally attest to the reality of the polar vortex. Walking to and from work this week has been physically painful. My wife begged me to take a sick day on Tuesday, because the news was warning that the temperatures outside could actually burn exposed flesh.

On my street, there are potholes and flower boxes two-feet deep, filled with water from last week’s snow and rain — and that water is frozen solid. These are mini skating rinks, people. Yesterday, I saw a guy break a sheet of ice out on the sidewalk (where the fuck did he get that?! Beats me, you guys), and all of the individual chunks of ice DID NOT MELT.

So now, there are just blocks of ice, chilling on the sidewalk, not melting. Not even softening. They could be glass, for all anyone knows. You could put an ice sculpture on my fire escape and it would remain completely intact. The polar vortex is not a political myth. I promise you.

This guy promises, too.

Also this guy.

Seriously, the polar vortex is a real thing. This is not up for debate, Rush, you ass hat.

And Al Roker — my all-time favorite weather man, who is never allowed to retire — agrees with me! He shut Rush down in the most awesome way ever. So now he’s even MORE my favorite, if that’s possible.

First, he started with this awesome tweet.

For all the doubters who say the media "created" the Polar Vortex: From the 1959 AMS Glossary of Meteorology pic.twitter.com/x2Nyw0jx3j

— Al Roker (@alroker) January 7, 2014

Then, he followed up with this even more awesome tweet.

Rush Limbaugh claims the Polar Vortex is a creation of a left-wing, liberal media conspiracy. It's Meteorology 101. No political agenda

— Al Roker (@alroker) January 7, 2014

And then, he told Rush to “stuff it” on the Today Show.

I fucking love you, Al Roker.

But, Al Roker-loving aside, why do we care about this? Here’s why: global warming is a real thing, people. Climate change is happening. The way that humans are using the Earth right now is dangerous. We need to get that shit under control.

And when douche-nozzles like Rush Limbaugh convince millions of people that global warming is some kind of big, ridiculous joke, it’s dangerous. He’s asking listeners to use and abuse the planet with reckless abandon. He’s telling them to fuck recycling, fuck sustainable resources, fuck clean energy sources — because who gives a shit? They’re not harming anyone.

But that’s a lie. And it allows the cycle of harm to continue. Which, obviously, is not a good thing.

But it’s more than that. When Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners to forget about climate change and to just carry on as if it’s not a real thing, what he’s really saying is, “Your actions have no consequences.”

That’s a sentiment that’s rampant among conservatives, even the semi-moderate ones that aren’t total Right-wing loony tunes. For all their talk about personal responsibility, they often fail to see how their own actions affect other people.

Like, when Republicans vote to make food stamps harder to access, they’re causing more people to go hungry. When they advocate for decreased access to safe abortions, they’re causing more women to subject themselves to unsafe procedures and unwanted pregnancies. When they fight to eliminate Obamacare (which is a watered down, disappointing substitute for universal healthcare, to be sure), they’re sentencing more people to suffer through illness and injury without medical attention. And when they pretend global warming isn’t real, they’re dooming species — including our own, someday — to extinction.

But, Right-wingers don’t really see it that way. They tend to look at how their actions affect themselves, personally — I don’t want an abortion, so who cares if I can’t access one? — while ignoring how their actions affect the wider world.

It’s narcissistic. And at the end of the day, it’s really harmful. The polar vortex is real, people. And so are a whole mess of other things the Right would like to ignore.

So, let’s put an end to this, shall we? We can start by joining StopRush, which is successfully pressuring advertisers to pull funding from Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. But that’s not enough. We’ve got to engage with one another, with our communities, and with the nation to encourage more empathy. More compassion. Less personal responsibility and more community responsibility.

So, whatdya think? Can we Flush Rush?

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Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Elipongo via Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post My Face is Frozen and Rush Limbaugh’s an Ass Hat appeared first on Law Street.