By Zachary Shahan •
January 30, 2010
It’s time to get angry. This is what John Kerry, not exactly the most extreme guy, is saying to us. Is it the best solution?
This is what Kerry told advocates of climate legislation recently:
“I want you to go out there and start knocking on doors and talking to people and telling people this has to happen. You know, if the Tea Party folks can go out there and get angry because they think their taxes are too high, for God’s sake, a lot of citizens ought to get angry about the fact that they’re being killed and our planet is being injured by what’s happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel and the old practices that we have. That’s something worth getting angry about.” (emphasis mine)
As part of my Bachelor’s thesis in sociology and environmental studies, about 6 years ago, I studied the history of the environmental movement in great depth. Since then, I have been keeping my eye on things, on the bigger picture, as I work in different fields — natural and organic foods, city planning and sustainable development, alternative transportation, and, now, online journalism with a green tint.
The underlying question, consistently, is: “How do we avoid, or — worst case scenario — deal with, huge environmental collapse?”
The issues have only gotten bigger (see: Global Warming in the Arctic — Much Worse than We Thought!, Greenland Ice Sheet Melting Faster than Ever and Oceans Absorbing CO2, Preventing Climate Change — Good, Right? No). But we seem to be going down the same road consistently, despite all the amazing efforts of people trying to turn this car around (and transform it into something green-friendly). The environmental movement, perhaps bigger than ever, still seems on the brink of failure.
By Steve Savage •
January 13, 2010
Over the last few days there has been a flurry of blogging activity about a study claiming “organ-toxic effects” in mice fed with GMO corn. The summaries of the study one sees are certainly scary, but if you read the original paper it is not nearly as clear as these commentators imply - in fact it is a really strange paper to read (seriously, have a look). Rather than go into the many legitimate questions about this research, I will simply refer you to a very lively, but technically sharp comment stream about it. Instead of getting into this fray I’d like to try to put this new “threat” into perspective.
Irony
It is ironic that at the same time this uproar is swirling around one bit of uncorroborated evidence for toxicity in corn, an extremely well documented toxin is occuring at unusually high levels in the 2009 US corn crop that is now entering the food supply. Yet there is no outrage, no activism, no calls for a ban, not even a mention on a “green blog” (until now). What am I talking about? If you had been following the specialized (but very public) press for farmers, grain traders and ethanol producers this fall and winter, you would know that there has been an exceptionally high level of contamination of the US corn crop this year with a toxic chemical called deoxynivalenol or “DON.” This contaminant is an epoxy-sesquiterpeneoid that is a “type B trichothecene.” It is a protein synthesis inhibitor which has the effect of increasing the brain’s uptake of tryptophan and thus to make more serotonin. It also irritates the gut. Animals exposed to it reduce their feed intake, sometimes severely, and they develop esaughageal stomach ulcers. It has potential chronic effects as well having been shown to be genotoxic in a chromosomal aberration assay with rat hepatocytes. The levels of this toxin are high enough this year that it has changed the balance of truck and rail traffic in parts of the Midwest as pork producers in particular scramble to avoid the toxin by shifting feed sources (swine are particularly sensitive to the toxin).
By Joe Walsh •
December 19, 2009
The Copenhagen agreement fizzled, but failure to take global action on climate change may have greased the skids for transition from the post-9/11 epoch into a new global Eco Cold War.
By Steve Savage •
December 2, 2009
Last week as I emerged from a grocery store I was met by a young GREENPEACE campaigner. He asked me if I would like to sign a petition to ”help save the whales.” I told him that as much as I like whales, I could not in good conscience support GREENPEACE as an organization. He looked genuinely stunned and asked why? I explained that GREENPEACE has been very successful at blocking GMO technology and that in doing so they have compromised the food supply and particularly the food supply for the poorest people on the earth.
At this point I could tell that he was quite willing to dismiss me because of his strong confidence that the anti-GMO struggle was part of the same “virtuous” calling that had him standing outside of this store. He asked me what I did for a living. I explained that I was an agricultural scientist and that I worked with the people who strive to keep humanity fed.
He asked what that had to do with GREENPEACE and I said,
“You should read Robert Paarlberg’s book, ‘Starved for Science’ which documents how anti-GMO forces like GREENPEACE are effectively setting up places like Africa for continued food shortages that might have been addressed by GMO crops.” He said he would look into that.
I parted by saying, “if GREENPEACE is wrong on this issue, which I believe it is, you and your organization bear a huge responsibility because of the effectiveness of your anti-GMO activities and what that means for the future of global food supply.”
By Susan Kraemer •
November 25, 2009
Two million square miles of permafrost—an area two-thirds the size of the United States has now thawed since the beginning of the 20th century. And all that thawing permafrost is costing the Russian oil and gas industry billions of dollars to repair damaged pipelines and infrastructure as global warming changes the face of western Siberia.
The energy program head of Greenpeace in Russia, Vladimir Chuprov, after interviewing experts at Gazprom, concluded, “For Russia, the biggest threat of the permafrost melt is to oil and gas company infrastructure.” (from Carbon-Based)
Thawing permafrost presents even more of a threat: it could release frozen methane deposits and causing runaway global warming, mass-extinctions, and huge amounts of economic damage to global infrastructure and economic well being. In addition to Gazprom’s, that is.
By Chris Milton •
October 27, 2009
The devastation Man’s appetite for seafood is wreaking on the ocean environment has been thrown into sharp relief by a “red fish list” published by Greenpeace.
These are the fish which are most in peril from destructive, illegal or simple over fishing. It lists 19 fish, two shellfish and one crustacean.
Cod we all know about and hopefully everybody avoids. However the list also includes other common white fish, including hoki and pollock.
Then there are other common seafood: salmon, quahog, swordfish, red snapper, halibut and most types of tuna.
The list goes on and on and is truly astounding: you can read it all at the Greenpeace Red Fish List page.
By Rhishja Larson •
October 23, 2009
Now that the polar bear is about to receive over 128 million acres of critical habitat designation, the state of Alaska is taking legal action to challenge the decision.
Following the announcement that threatened polar bears are set to receive over 128 million acres of critical habitat designation, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell and Attorney General Dan Sullivan responded by taking legal action against federal protection of polar bears.
By Zachary Shahan •
October 7, 2009
You can now explore the Amazon, Madagascar, and Sebangau National Forest in Borneo through Google Earth.
On September 25, I wrote about a Google Earth tour (narrated by AL Gore) and new Google Earth tools and layers which help people to look at the possible effects of climate change under three different scenarios. Now, three new tours have been launched that allow the exploration of critical rainforests and real-life success stories.
The tours (embedded below) have a great wealth of information and inspirational stories bound into succinct Google Earth or YouTube videos.
By Zachary Shahan •
September 25, 2009
A new report released today says that if we shift our economy — to a greener, low-carbon economy — we will have more jobs, not fewer.
Earlier this week, Tony Blair (former prime minister of the UK) and the Climate Group reported that if we worked to avoid climate change we’d create 10 million new jobs by 2020 — worldwide. Another recent study by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council says that such a shift could increase employment in the EU by 2.7 million jobs by 2030.
One more report, released today by the Global Climate Network (an alliance of nine influential think tanks) comes to similar conclusions.
