There are just over three weeks to Copenhagen and the term “boy-scout” has come up several times. “We’re always the Boy Scout in the room,” said Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Economic Development and Trade. Days earlier, Jim Prentice “wants the world to know he’ll be no Boy Scout when crucial climate-change talks convene in Copenhagen a month from now.”

Who ever thought of Canada as a boy scout? Boy scouts cooperate, right? Boy scouts respect others, right? Boy scouts do not go to international negotiations to repeatedly stand in the way of international cooperation only to receive a colossal fossil award…right?

If the Canadian government was a boy scout, a number of events in the past months would have unfolded a little differently:

• A gathering of 3000 people on Parliament Hill for International Day for Climate Action would have made politicians say: “Oh, I think Canadian civil society wants action on climate change.”
• Disruptions in the House of Commons, where youth told their MPs that they MUST ratify the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and pass Bill C-311, would not have turned into allegations about fake blood and NDP stunts. Instead, the many media hits regarding “Parliamentary protests” would have outlined the issues that the youth were really addressing and would have made politicians say: “Oh, I think Canadian civil society wants action on climate change.”
• The many phone calls and emails that politicians (especially Stephen Harper, Jim Prentice, members of the Environment Committee, and Michael Ignatieff) are receiving on Mondays as part of the Climate Crew Monday/Its Time to Listen campaign would have made politicians say: “Oh, I think Canadian civil society wants action on climate change.”
• The recent Climate Change Report released by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation, which showed that it is economically possible and viable to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and take action on climate change would not have been called “irresponsible,” by the Minister of the Environment—the one minister whose job it is to care about these issues. If the Canadian government was a boy scout they would have said: “Oh, Canada CAN take action on climate change.”

But Canada is not a boy scout. Instead, Canada has a very impressive marketing campaign that has created this idyllic image of Canada and Canadians. Many people all over the world think that Canada is this socialist country with beautiful forests, tons of fresh water, and free health care.

Sure…we’ve got some forests. But these forests are being destroyed. The pine beetle is surviving warmer and shorter winters and is taking over western forests. An area in the Boreal Forest the size of England has been clear-cut to make way for the Alberta Oil Industry which is the main reason Canada does not want to commit to any legally-binding emission reduction targets in Copenhagen. The oil produced from this area releases about 3 times more greenhouse gas emissions than does conventionally produced oil. A boy scout would not stand for this.

This oil industry is also using and destroying our fresh water resources. Water is diverted from lakes and rivers in order to process the tar-like substance that is extracted from the ground beneath the Boreal Forest. It takes 2-4 barrels of freshwater to produce a single barrel of tar sands oil, over 70% of which is then exported to the USA. We are virtually exporting our fresh water, but not in a form that is usable for human consumption. Water that is not exported may be reintroduced in the water cycle—contaminated and carcinogenic. Downstream communities are suffering from increased cancer rates and cardiovascular diseases. A boy scout would not stand for this.

With all of these human health impacts, Canada´s free health care may require much more time, energy, and human resources. This free health care may end up costing a lot if:

• Asthma rates keep increasing due to degraded air quality.
• Cancer rates and cardiovascular diseases keep increasing due to degraded water systems (drinking water and water reservoirs commonly used as sources of fish)
• Communities on water-boiling advisories run out of energy to boil their water (because all of the energy will either be used up or exported, and no one had the foresight to invest in clean, renewable energy sources) and thus suffer from other health affects brought on by contaminated water.

The Canadian government is allowing corporations to continue and expand destructive extractive industries, and is also providing a health care system that may soon do little more than damage control? A boy scout would not stand for this.

Heck…I´m no boy scout, and I don’t stand for this. No one should stand for this.

When Canadian citizens are meeting with their MPs asking them to commit to science-based emission reduction targets and alluding to their fears that a legally-binding treaty will not be made in Copenhagen—what do you hear? Do you hear anything?

If the Canadian government was replaced with a boy scout you would hear something along the lines of:

“In Copenhagen, Canada needs to be a climate leader, not a climate laggard. Canada needs to commit to IPCC targets of at least 25% greenhouse gas emission reductions below 1990 levels by the year 2020. Canada needs to pass Bill C-311 and establish a just climate policy that respects the rights and traditions of all people. Canada needs to do what it is currently not.”

Instead, Canada is pointing the finger at other countries. “China needs to do this–” or “India needs to do that–” But Minister Prentice, this isn’t about what other countries need to do. This is about what everyone needs to do…and everyone includes Canada. Canadian citizens know what YOU and the Canadian government need to do, and we are clearly asking you to do it. Boy scouts listen. Some of us feel that we have never been listened to.

Dear Prentice:

You may want to play the tough guy in Copenhagen, but it is just not your place to do so. Learn how to be a boy scout.

Sincerely,

Maryam Adrangi
A concerned global citizen

Aside from statisticians rejecting global cooling, this has got to be one of the most damning sets of temperature data that I’ve ever seen. This kind of information should be forwarded widely. Article is re-printed below.

Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across U.S.

November 12, 2009

BOULDER—Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.

“Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States,” says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting.”

The study, by authors at NCAR, Climate Central, The Weather Channel, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. It was funded by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor, the Department of Energy, and Climate Central.

If temperatures were not warming, the number of record daily highs and lows being set each year would be approximately even. Instead, for the period from January 1, 2000, to September 30, 2009, the continental United States set 291,237 record highs and 142,420 record lows, as the country experienced unusually mild winter weather and intense summer heat waves.

A record daily high means that temperatures were warmer on a given day than on that same date throughout a weather station’s history. The authors used a quality control process to ensure the reliability of data from thousands of weather stations across the country, while looking at data over the past six decades to capture longer-term trends.

This decade’s warming was more pronounced in the western United States, where the ratio was more than two to one, than in the eastern United States, where the ratio was about one-and-a-half to one.

The study also found that the two-to-one ratio across the country as a whole could be attributed more to a comparatively small number of record lows than to a large number of record highs. This indicates that much of the nation’s warming is occurring at night, when temperatures are dipping less often to record lows. This finding is consistent with years of climate model research showing that higher overnight lows should be expected with climate change.

More records ahead

In addition to surveying actual temperatures in recent decades, Meehl and his co-authors turned to a sophisticated computer model of global climate to determine how record high and low temperatures are likely to change during the course of this century.

The modeling results indicate that if nations continue to increase their emissions of greenhouse gases in a “business as usual” scenario, the U.S. ratio of daily record high to record low temperatures would increase to about 20-to-1 by mid-century and 50-to-1 by 2100. The mid-century ratio could be much higher if emissions rose at an even greater pace, or it could be about 8-to-1 if emissions were reduced significantly, the model showed.

The authors caution that such predictions are, by their nature, inexact. Climate models are not designed to capture record daily highs and lows with precision, and it remains impossible to know future human actions that will determine the level of future greenhouse gas emissions. The model used for the study, the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model, correctly captured the trend toward warmer average temperatures and the greater warming in the West, but overstated the ratio of record highs to record lows in recent years.

However, the model results are important because they show that, in all likely scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions, record daily highs should increasingly outpace record lows over time.

“If the climate weren’t changing, you would expect the number of temperature records to diminish significantly over time,” says Claudia Tebaldi, a statistician with Climate Central who is one of the paper’s co-authors. “As you measure the high and low daily temperatures each year, it normally becomes more difficult to break a record after a number of years. But as the average temperatures continue to rise this century, we will keep setting more record highs.”

An expanding ratio

The study team focused on weather stations that have been operating since 1950. They found that the ratio of record daily high to record daily low temperatures slightly exceeded one to one in the 1950s, dipped below that level in the 1960s and 1970s, and has risen since the 1980s. The results reflect changes in U.S. average temperatures, which rose in the 1950s, stabilized in the 1960s, and then began a warming trend in the late 1970s.

Even in the first nine months of this year, when the United States cooled somewhat after a string of unusually warm years, the ratio of record daily high to record daily low temperatures was more than three to two.

Despite the increasing number of record highs, there will still be occasional periods of record cold, Meehl notes.

“One of the messages of this study is that you still get cold days,” Meehl says. “Winter still comes. Even in a much warmer climate, we’re setting record low minimum temperatures on a few days each year. But the odds are shifting so there’s a much better chance of daily record highs instead of lows.”

Millions of readings from weather stations across the country

The study team analyzed several million daily high and low temperature readings taken over the span of six decades at about 1,800 weather stations across the country, thereby ensuring ample data for statistically significant results. The readings, collected at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center, undergo a quality control process at the data center that looks for such potential problems as missing data as well as inconsistent readings caused by changes in thermometers, station locations, or other factors.

Meehl and his colleagues then used temperature simulations from the Community Climate System Model to compute daily record highs and lows under current and future atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Cross-posted from: The Dernogalizer

Good Afternoon Climate Champions,

The SustainUS Agents of Change COP-15 delegation needs your help! Each of our 26 delegates is working to raise funds for the SustainUS delegation as well as a Latin American Youth delegation for travel to Copenhagen.

We’ve submitted a proposal to the Brighter Planet Project Fund, and have an opportunity to win $5000 for the delegation. Your 3 votes can help us get even closer to our fundraising goals. Voting goes until Nov. 15th, and the race is incredibly close. As of right now, we cling to a razor-thin 27-vote lead.

We’ve had a solid lead all of last week, but over the weekend, another group started gaining on us, so we’d really appreciate your votes. The funding will help us make sure that economic status doesn’t prevent any of our delegates from attending the negotiations in Copenhagen, and will also help the delegates put more of their energy into fundraising for a Latin American youth delegation.

Voting is simple:
1) Visit http://brighterplanet.com/. Sign up or log-in. If you’re a new member, you’ll have to confirm your email address before you can vote.
2) Go to http://brighterplanet.com/project_fund_projects/68 or click on the Project Fund tab.
3) Vote up to three times for the Agents of Change project.
4) Share far and wide!

The Brighter Planet Project Fund seeks to foster local leadership and seed worthy community projects that will help people fight or adapt to climate change. Grants are available every month and Brighter Planet members decide—as a community—which project to seed.

Thank you so much for your support!

The SustainUS COP 15 Delegation

This post is provided on behalf of Project Survival Media – a grassroots, student-run media project designed to highlight the true costs of fossil fuels in the lead up to Copenhagen.  As part of this initiative, Project Survival Media team members in California and Oregon are documenting industrial agribusiness’ contributions to global warming and displacement of communities, as well as the role which small, sustainable farms can play in creating a more viable and just food-production system.

When Anne Berblinger delved into the world of small-scale organic farming in 1991, the concept of global warming had not yet entered mainstream consciousness in the US.  “It wasn’t at the top of everyone’s mind,” says Berblinger while slicing freshly harvested peppers in the kitchen at Gales Meadow farm – a site she and her husband Rene’ have been farming since 1999.  Yet though climate concerns had yet to penetrate mainstream thought in the early ’90s, Berblinger says she was inspired to take up small farming in part out of her feeling that “the earth was in peril.”  Motivated by concerns about soil, wildlife, and the other casualties of industrial agribusiness she says, “Having a small piece of land to care for and be the steward of seemed important.”

Today, Anne and Rene’ Berblinger and a team of youthful helpers, many of them recent graduates of Pacific University, cultivate more than 200 varieties of certified-organic herbs and vegetables on the nine flat acres of Gales Meadow Farm. Many crops at Gales Meadow are heirloom varieties not found in the industrial farm zones that have given way to endless high-yield monocultures.  Each plant variety has a history, dating back to its origins in the traditional farming communities of Europe, North America, or elsewhere.  Every carefully cultivated strain represents a reservoir of genetic diversity – a diversity that’s become all the more important to bolster our agriculture’s resilience in a world where modern high-yield crops may turn suddenly vulnerable to changing climates.

Today, Berblinger cites global warming and the dangers of fossil fuel dependence as a major reason to reduce the scale of agriculture.  Small-scale farms cultivating a diversity of traditional plant varieties are not only more resilient to climate destabilization, but have the potential to replace industrial agriculture operations – today among the leading contributors of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.  The fertile farmland of Oregon’s western Washington County, where Gales Meadow Farm is located, is home to both types of operations.  And the monotonous stretches of monoculture fields, propped up by heavy inputs of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, could hardly be more different from sustainable, organic operations like Gales Meadow.  In addition to vegetable fields, greenhouses, and a large chicken pen, Berblinger’s property also supports a forested hillside and a stretch of riparian zone where cottonwood trees thrive beside the waters of Gales Creek.  According to one rough estimate, Berblinger reports, the farm is actually carbon negative, with its trees and other vegetation absorbing more carbon from the air than is produced by machinery and other sources of emissions.

Asked if government policies need to be reformed to smooth a transition to sustainable farming, Berblinger replies, “Absolutely.”  Like renewable electricity start-ups attempting to compete with coal and gas providers, sustainable farms face an uneven playing field.  Just as the US government has handed out subsidy after subsidy to make electricity from coal appear cheap, so industrial agriculture has benefited time and time again from policies favoring energy intensive, oil dependant, large-scale agriculture.  If the world’s international powers are serious about addressing the threat of global warming, they cannot afford to ignore the contribution of Big Agribusiness.  Re-scaling agriculture to feed a growing population with sustainable food will mean eliminating unfair subsidies, and doing away with international trade pacts that favor giant corporations over small home businesses like the Berblingers’.  Were the barriers to localized farming removed, Berblinger believes that many more young people would flock to a way of life that carries with it a certain self-sufficiency and the ability to contribute to a community’s needs.

Walking the rows of heirloom peppers in the Gales Meadow front garden, or watching a red-tailed hawk circle above the forested ridge behind the farm, it becomes momentarily difficult to remember that like small, sustainable farms across North America, this place is the scene of a frontline battle against the forces of corporate globalisation and industrial climate insanity.  Yet the truth is, Gales Meadow is even more directly impacted by government policies favoring the fossil fuel industries than are most small farming operations.  If giant energy companies get their way, Gales Meadow could be sacrificed through eminent domain to the right-of-way for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) pipeline, proposed by Oregon LNG to shunt imported gas through Oregon to the California market.  This fossil fuel infrastructure development project threatens to destroy years of hard work at Gales Meadow, making it impossible for the Berblingers’ home business to survive.  Right now Oregon LNG and other LNG developers are seeking eminent domain status for their projects, which would allow them to lay pipelines through landowners’ property without receiving permission from the landowner first.

Perhaps there is no more apt symbol of the current political system’s skewed priorities than a pipeline built directly through some of the Northwest’s most fertile farmland, to deliver a foreign fossil fuel to an increasingly globalised gas market.  Yet beside the rows of giant yellow, green, and red peppers at Gales Meadow, it’s impossible not to feel a certain faith in the future – the same faith that the traditional farmers who cultivated so many plants now grown on Berblinger’s property must have felt as they passed on the seeds of their crop to the next generation.

In attempting to follow the complex ins and outs of the international climate negotiations in the lead-up to Copenhagen, and the intricacies of the Kerry-Boxer climate bill’s slow progress through the US Senate, it’s easy to get bogged down in a feeling that such high-profile discussions sometimes devolve into mere political bickering.  However for communities which are already making ready to deal with the impacts of a changing climate, and for which struggles against the globalised fossil-industrial complex are a daily fight, there can be no compromise on sealing a global deal that works for the planet.  With the Copenhagen climate talks less than a month away, the peaceful scenery of Gales Meadow Farm is a poignant reminder of what we stand to lose with a failed global treaty – and of what we can gain with a return to local, climate-sane policies for all.

From Joel Batterman, Senior at Reed College in Portland, OR

Students at Reed College in Portland, Oregon have been working to green their campus for years. In the past decade, they’ve established an Environmental Studies major, composting program, organic farm, and sustainability grant fund. The Student Senate has called on the College to hire a Sustainability Coordinator and develop a carbon reduction plan. Yet despite students’ repeated entreaties, Reed President Colin Diver continues to resist such action on the grounds of defending the College’s “political neutrality.”

Their patience wearing thin, concerned Reed students crashed a question and answer session with the President at the College’s Parents Weekend. Using humor to leaven a deadly serious thesis, they sent a clear message that Reed has a moral responsibility to clean up its act, all to the tune of “American Pie,” as seen in the video above.

Project Survival Media is alive and working globally to bring the survival tactics and sustainable practices of real people to the UN conference in Copenhagen. Right now all over the world, teams are filming different groups of people for their own documentaries.

Luke Estrella at the UN Plaza Farmers Market

Here in the Bay Area, California, after wwoofing for two months in Willits, I have been given the opportunity to lead the Northwestern project.

Today I went to the U.N. Plaza Farmers Market on my way around the city to see the prevalence of organic farm choices for the mainstream San Franciscan public. This market is not known for its sustainability, but for it’s prices and accessability.

There were a few organic farm choices, but I did have the opportunity to talk to one young organic farmer, Luke Estrella from Bounty of the Valley, Salinas Valley. Bounty of the Valley is a 50 acre human powered farm, full of young farmers who are learning how to grow their own food.

I asked him what he thought about the next generation of farmers, since in this area there seems to be a growing trend of young farmers. Farmers used to be an average of 60 years old, but people in their 20’s have, for the first time in years, started to pick up the old pitchfork.

“[young farmers] have a lot of new ideas to bring to the table, young farmers will bring about the change we need for sustainable action.”

He also warned against green washing on the organic front, and how current policy may encourage this.

“There are 500 acre certified organic plots that have organic soil and seeds, but they have a machine that does everything. These are also the farms that have the money to pay for being certified [organic]. These farms are unsustainable by design.”

He elaborated on a machine that many large scale farmers contract out to plant, till, and harvest. Many of these farmers do not touch soil and are not acquainted with their own land, although their products are touted as sustainable.

But, what may be organic isn’t necessarily sustainable. It is important that we not only push for policies that help organic farmers, but that we pay close attention to new policies, and make sure that they are also helping local and sustainable farmers, which organic is only one factor in.

We also need to make this clear to the UN delegation. We are young, ready for change, and unwilling to adapt to old standards.

This is according to Veteran Richard Allen Smith, a member of the group VoteVets and Operation Free, in response to an e-mail sent out by ACCCE, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which reads

“Greetings!

With Veterans Day around the corner, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on all the military personnel who are involved in ensuring our country is protected.

Energy security is one issue that has become increasingly important to our veterans. In fact, national veterans groups Votevets and Operation Free are urging the government to become more energy independent and less reliant on foreign oil.

We can do this by using the abundant domestic fuels we already have. With more than 250 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves, the United States has more coal than the Middle East has oil.

We need to start putting our coal to use – and technologies such as hybrid-electric cars and cleaner, more efficient power plants are making it easier for us to do that.

How do you feel about the issue? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter.

As always, thank you for your continued support. We hope to hear from you!

Cheers,

The ACCCE Team”

This e-mail is of course misrepresenting what VoteVets and Operation Free advocate for. As Smith writes, the groups are not advocating for increased coal use…

“ACCCE got one thing right. Veterans do have a unique perspective to offer on national security as it relates to climate change and clean energy. Producers of non-renewable energy are lobbying against clean energy legislation and are implying that we’re campaigning for their energy plan. The fact that they are attempting to hitch on to our wagon (albeit falsely) shows the level of credibility we have in this debate. ACCCE, a coalition of carbon polluters, understands that the work their members do is part of the problem.

VoteVets and Operation FREE are not, have not and will never advocate the continued use of carbon based fuels. Such an action would be completely counter to the work we do, as so called “clean coal” only pushes us closer to inevitable catastrophic climate change and threatens our national security. For the ACCCE to hijack America’s Veterans who are working to ensure secure, clean American energy alternatives while simultaneously claiming to honor us on Veterans Day is an act of despicable hubris.”

I don’t think many are surprised that ACCCE is willing to stoop so low in order to protect their own interests, but this gaffe certainly doesn’t help their side.

Cross-posted from: The Dernogalizer

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

As the world’s biggest companies and their friends in government continue to fight a transition to more just and sustainable ways of living, climate change threatens to turn our world upside down with water shortages, crop failures, sea level rise and ecosystem collapse. A million species face extinction by the end of the century, and the people who have contributed least to the problem will continue to be the hardest hit. What can be done at this critical juncture, with our future at stake?

Throughout history, social change has come about when regular people get fed up with business as usual, get organized, and take to the streets. If we leave climate solutions up to politicians and corporations, then we will lose – not just a political battle, but the life-support systems of the planet. Time is running out to avert the worst impacts of climate change: the time to act is now.

A broad coalition of organizations working for social, ecological, racial and economic justice has come together under the banner of the Mobilization for Climate Justice. Join us as we organize mass action on climate change on November 30, 2009! November 30 (N30) is significant both because it immediately precedes the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen and is the ten-year anniversary of the protests that shut down of the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle, demonstrating the incredible power of collective action.

Every indication is that any agreement that emerges from Copenhagen will be nothing more than business as usual—sacrificing real emissions reductions in favor of market-based approaches that enhance corporate profits while delaying a transition away from fossil fuels. The current approach to climate change in the UN, and in the US Congress, is based on the creation of a new market in carbon emissions. Carbon trading (aka “cap and trade”) and carbon offsets do not address the root causes of global warming, nor do they reduce emissions. They are designed by and for corporations, and are a dangerous distraction that should be abandoned.

We urgently need to implement real solutions like ending excessive consumption, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, re-localizing production and consumption, and drastically reducing greenhouse emissions. We must also protect the rights of workers, displaced peoples, and others affected by the transition.

In recent months, people of the world have taken valiant action for climate solutions. On Oct. 24th, people in 181 countries staged over 5,200 actions calling for global action on climate change. And on November 4, African delegates walked out of pre-Copenhagen negotiations in Barcelona – demanding that rich countries commit to deeper and faster emissions cuts – while European activists used civil disobedience to disrupt the talks.

And now, we’re asking you to join us in taking the next step – a global day of action for climate justice on Monday, November 30, 2009. Take the day off, get together with friends, and take a stand for real, just and effective solutions to the climate crisis!

__________________

WHAT YOU CAN DO ON N30:

Several actions are already being planned for November 30 – and many more will be coming soon – so if there’s an action happening in your city or region, we urge you to join it! See the MCJ site for a map of N30 actions across the country and across the world.

If there isn’t an action being organized in your town, organize one! If you’re already involved in a campaign against a company that’s contributing to climate injustice, organize an action on against them November 30. You can submit actions by clicking HERE.

If you’re organizing an action from scratch, we’d suggest you go after one of the following companies: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Chevron, BP, or American Electric Power. We picked these six companies because they’re all, through their investments, lobbying, and day to day business, going out of their way to obstruct real solutions to the climate crisis. For more info about them, see our Corporate Criminals page.

Corporations like these will keep trying to distract us with false solutions, but we will send them a loud, clear message: Our climate is not your business!

Help us spread the word – we’ll see you in the streets!

If you can’t make it out, please consider helping others take action by making a donation.

______________________________________

The Mobilization for Climate Justice is: Alliance of Community Trainers, Art in Action, Asian-Pacific Environmental Network, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, Bay Localize, Beehive Design Collective, Burmese American Democratic Alliance, Communities for a Better Environment, Community Coalition for Environmental Justice, Direct Action to Stop the War, Earth First!, Eco-Cycle, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Environment and Social Development Organization, Environmental Justice &

Climate Change Initiative, Enviro Show, Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, Forest Ethics, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Global Exchange, Global Justice Ecology Project, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Greenpeace, Headrush, Indigenous Environmental Network, Institute for Social Ecology,

International Forum on Globalization, International Rivers, Justice in Nigeria Now!, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Movement Generation, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Pacific Environment, Poor Magazine, PR for People & the Planet, Rainforest Action Network, Richmond Mayor’s Taskforce on Environmental Justice and Health, Richmond Progressive Alliance, Rising Tide North America, Ruckus Society, SmartMeme, Solidarity, Uganda Network on Toxic Free Malaria Control, West County Toxics Coalition, Women of Color United, Youth In Focus, Zero Waste Vancouver, and 350.org

When people ask me the best way to get back to 350 ppm, my first answer is always: ”Organize!” That’s because citizen action is key to passing the type of national legislation and creating the international treaties we need to solve the climate crisis. But a constant obsession with top-down solutions — the big treaties or government programs — can sometimes distract us from the local solutions that are all around us.

Here’s a great video made by some friends in China (you can see one of the filmmakers, my buddy Bo Chung, holding a 350 sign on October 24 in the picture to the left) on one local solution: small scale biogas generators:

I love this video not only because it shows a compelling green path to rural development, but because it talks directly with the people who are managing and benefiting from the biogas generator. The upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen this December will be dominated by diplomats and politicians. Yet, as October 24 showed, the real leaders on climate change are the millions of average citizens around the world who are going out of their way to chart a new course towards green development.

Getting to 350 will require new technologies, mega-wind farms and fields of solar panels. But it will also require small scale solutions and community action. As our friend Van Jones says, “We’re going to need the PHD’s and hte PH-Do’s.” This video is a great look at some of the do-er’s on the ground in rural China.

Today, the Senate Finance Committee held its first hearing for the Boxer-Kerry bill. News such as this would typically be welcomed as necessary progress, as we are pushing for strong climate legislation to pass through the Senate before Copenhagen. However, one must take into consideration ulterior motives when Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) is chairing the committee in question.

As the only Democratic Senator to vote “no” on the bill as it was marked up in the Environment and Public Works Committee, Baucus continues to mire progress in hearings that are antithetical to the success of the bill. Today featured industry and conservative lobbyists testifying before the Finance Committee on “Climate Change Legislation: Considerations for Future Jobs”. Included amongst the pro-nuclear and coal representatives was our friend Kenneth Green from AEI (side note: he remembered us interrupting him at the adaptation hearing. Success?)

Brad Johnson on Wonk Room called out Baucus on his indefensible submission to the “polluter lobbyists”, sharing the same sentiments as us that this hearing was supporting nothing more than the same empty rhetoric that has been spewed “time and time again for the past 10 years”.

The action factory shifted into high gear, deciding that we had to bring Finance Committee Senator’s attention to youth demands and constituent calls for global climate action.

John Kerry accepts our 350 tie

We arrived shortly before the hearing began, with some of us dressed in our now infamous Astroturf suits and others as real people demanding bold action on climate change from our leaders. As Senators approached the Finance Committee hearing room, our real people for global climate action approached the Senators, handing them a 350 tie and a glossy photo from a 350 international day of action in their respective home state.

We were lucky enough to have constituents in our group for conversations with Senator Cantwell (D-WA) and Kerry (D-MA), who both gladly accepted our pictures and ties. Kerry even scolded our Astroturfers, saying that there is already $10 million worth of provisions for the coal industry in the bill (yeah…great).

Action Factory takes on Senator Roberts

Not all Senators were as receptive, though. Senator Roberts (R-KS) took a tie but argued against wind turbines in defense of migratory birds (yes, we also thought we would never hear that misnomer of an argument again). We also caught Senator Baucus on his way out of the hearing, and while he gladly accepts money from dirty energy lobbyists would not take a 350 tie from us. After saying he “supported climate change”, we challenged him, asking if he supported bold action against climate change. His response is best summarized by the title of this post- a lot of talk behind inconsistent action.