Ecotopia

15 February 2011

In the first part of the program tonight, we will be armchair travellers. We’ll be playing a prerecorded interview with Adrienne Scott, Curator of UC Chico’s Anthropology Museum, where we tour a new exhibit exploring the ecosystems of tourism.

 Then we will focus on several programs and projects coming up for young people in the Northstate that help kids become engaged in Ecotopian thinking. We’ll talk with Diane Suzuki about Pathway to Peace and Lisa Sun about California Dreams, and we’ll tell you a little about a Procession of the Species that we are developing for the Endangered Species Faire of the Butte Environmental Council.

 Listen to the Program

Our Interview with Adrienne Scott

Last week we traveled over to the Chico State University Anthropology Museum in the Merriam Library to talk with Curator Adrienne Scott about a new exhibit called “The Anthropology of Tourism.” She walked us about the exhibit and explained how an anthropologist looks at the artifacts and culture of tourism. We’ll now play the segments of that interview, interspersed with brief musical interludes in the manner of “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

000 Overview 2:54
001 Selling the Dream 4:14
002 Caribbean Dreams 7:24
003 Road Trip America 3:16
004 The Art of Travel 3:22
005 Authentic Culture 3:22
006 Surviving Tourism 2:30
007 Controversial Destinations 2:51
008 Museums as Artifacts 2:08

For full details about the exhibit and museum hours, go to: http://www.csuchico.edu/anthmuseum/

Our Interview with Lisa Sun

In this segment we’re going to talk about several youth programs coming up in the Northstate, all part of helping to raise the next generation of Ecotopians.

California Dream Week is an initiative organized by Soroptimist International of Chico to benefit students and high schools in Northern California, providing the opportunity for green inspiration & international cultural awareness. With us in the studio now is Lisa Sun, who is heading up this project.  

• What is California Dream Week and where did the idea come from?
• How do schools and individuals participate?
• What are the projects like and how will they be judged?

[Categories: architecture-interior design, transportation, product compliments]

• [Submissions shall consist of the following documentation in Word format (required):

Indicate any materials you would like to use in your design, and why. (for ex, performance, sustainability or aesthetics)

Outline the function of the principal components

An overall description of your concept, how you expect it to work.

Submissions may also include graphic or multi-media content to demonstrate your concept. NOTE: Judging for the contest will be based primarily on the sustainability and feasibility of your project.

• What are the rewards to schools and kids who participate?
• What are the deadlines and how can people learn more about your project? [Projects must be submitted by March 4,2011 http://www.californiadreamweek.com/]

Our Interview with Diana Suzuki

With us is Diana Suzuki, well know to our listeners as host of One World Radio on KZFR on Wednesdays. She is also the coordinator of the Beyond Violence Alliance and is heading up a project called Pathway to Peace for the Chico Peace and Justice Center. Welcome Diana.

• Please tell us about Pathway to Peace. [Saturday, March 19, 9-noon, Children’s Park to MLK, Jr. Park]
• How do kids and families get involved.
• How do kids collect money?
• Where does the money go?
• What other community groups and agencies are participating?
• What do you hope that children can learn from this project?
• Where can they learn more?  www.chico-peace.org 

About the Procession of the Species

Susan and Steve talk about Procession of the Species. Listeners of all ages are invited to create puppets (small or giant) or costumes from recycled material to parade at the Endangered Species Faire, May 7. Costume/puppet workshops will be held at the GRUB House, Dayton Road, Fridays, 4:30-7 on March 18, 25, April 1, 8. For more information, e-mail us at ecotopiakzfr@gmail.com.  Or check out the Faire at www.becnet.org.

Playlist:

1. Pictures At an Exhibition (X. The Great Gate of Kiev) 5:29   Orchestre National Du Capitole & Tugan Sokhiev Moussorgski, Tchaïkovski World

2. Life 4:16 Mike Wofchuck Flight

3. Peace Train 4:14 Cat Stevens Greatest Hits

4. Better Together 3:28 Jack Johnson In Between Dreams

5. Weave Me the Sunshine 4:28 Peter, Paul And Mary The Very Best of

Peter, Paul and Mary

6. Natural Order 4:23 MaMuse Strange And Wonderful

7. Joy 4:00 Mike Wofchuck Flight  

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February 8, 2011

Tonight we take a look at health and health care costs in Ecotopia. Our first guest is Colin Hoobler, a physical therapist out of Portland Oregon, who is interested in helping to control health care costs–active prevention through healthy living.

In the second half of the show, we talk with Forest Harlan of the Butte County Health Care Coalition who is an advocate of single-payer health insurance–Medicare for all.

At the close we have information about recent EPA decisions that are permitting Industrial Giant Monsanto to continue selling and planting its genetically modified, “Roundup Ready” alfalfa and beet seeds, despite evidence provided by Food Democracy Now and other organizations that this will continue the corruption of the nation’s (and world’s) food supply. There’s a link to a petition to President Obama to reverse these decisions.

Listen to the Show

Our discussion with Colin Hoobler:

Colin Hoobler is a physical therapist from Portland, Oregon. Colin is the author of Lose the Wait, a user’s guide to safe strengthening, stretching, and eating to promote health in those with injury and/or disease. He is dedicated to teaching people about medicinal exercise and its importance in controlling health care costs. He also hosts a health segment on NBC TV-KGW in Portland” and writes a weekly health column for the Oregonian.

• Let’s start with a little of your history. At one point you were a championship body builder, and there are photos of you online that make the Terminator Guy look like a 97-pound weakling. What made you get into body building in the first place? What made you change your mind about that approach to health and fitness?
• What is “medicinal exercise”?
• You still recommend some fairly traditional exercises: pushups, dumbbells. How does that approach relate to “lighter” or naturalistic exercises such as swimming, walking, jogging, biking, snowshoeing?
• As we shift the conversation to the hot topic of insurance, how does your approach relate control health care costs?
• What is your opinion of the original Obama health care program? Is it a sound approach to health care? Should other elements have been included? (Please tell us your opinion of the Republican repeal efforts and their possible consequences.)
• If you were starting from scratch to write a health care bill, what would you include?
• What do you think our government (or other agencies) should be doing to educate and promote healthy, preventative lifestyles? among the young? among the elderly? among people in between?
• San Francisco has recently passed a law that fast food restaurants cannot give prizes to kids if the contents of meals do not meet certain standards. Do you think that sort of rule can be effective?
• Can you tell us about any programs—in Oregon, around the world—that are successfully educating people into healthy, preventative lives?
• In addition to your books, articles, and TV programs, where can people go to get help and advice on these matters?

Our guest has been Colin Hoobler, physical therapist, author, and health advocate. You can learn more at his blog http://www.thefitnessshow.com/ and his website http://www.chphysicaltherapy.com/.

Our Interview with Forest Harlan

Forest Harlan is President of the Butte County Health Care Coalition:

•    The Butte County Health Care Coalition is an advocate of “single payer” health care—“Medicare for all.”  Please tell us what that means.

A great place to start might be to inform your audience of what are the guiding principles of the Butte County Health Care Coalition.  Our 6 Core Principles of Real Health Care Reform are:

* Universal-Everyone Must Be Covered-One Risk Pool
* Must Be Comprehensive with High-Quality Standards of Care

* Affordable for All, Not Just for Some or Most
* Cost Containment Through Global Budgeting

* Accountable to Consumers, Practitioners and Taxpayers
* Transparent in its Operations

If we start with these core principles, we can see that only a single payer system meets both the moral question of who is covered and the economic question of how do we pay for our health care.

In Europe, starting with the conclusion of WW II through the 60’s, there was a consensus reached that health care was an essential human right.  In every European country and many other countries at this time, national health care systems cover everyone, including Americans on vacations.  In the U. S., we appear to be far from reaching a similar consensus.

On the economic issue, we hold that the only efficient way to pay for health care is through a non-profit means.  This can be accomplished through private, non-profit companies which are heavily regulated or through a single payer system which allows for private delivery of health care through negotiated reimbursements across specialties and regions.  We believe that a single payer system is inherently more efficient than the both a government-owned public health care system and the chaotic multi payer system of relatively unregulated for-profit, investor-driven insurance companies we now are faced with.

One way to express the mechanism of single payer is to say that single payer is “Publicly Financed, Privately-Delivered Health Care,” with the emphasis on the private delivery of care.

•    Your group did not favor the final Obama health care package.  Why not?  What’s wrong with a system that requires insurance but gives the insured a choice of plans from non-governmental insurance companies?  Aren’t you proposing “socialized medicine”?

It would be fairer to say that we did not favor the initial Obama health care “reform” package either.  The closer the bill got to passage and the more “goodies” that were put in to appease the corporate players, the worse it looked to advocates of real reform.  As a movement, we chose to take no position of support or opposition to the bill as it worked its way through to passage.  The very fact that there was serious discussion of whether or not the bill did more harm than good told us all we needed to know about whether or not we wanted to support the bill at any stage.

The problem with private, for-profit health insurance is that profit can only be made when care is not delivered.  Actual care is called “medical loss.”  A choice of plans is no choice at all when every insurance company’s existence depends on not providing care.  When the for-profit enterprise is in a race to maximize its profits, the delivery of actual care sets up incentives for a company to devise multiple strategies to deny care to its customers.  To base any notion of health care reform on this model is deny the possibility of achieving actual health care reform.  On the other hand, in all non-profit models, the incentives/competition is to attract customers and are results-oriented.

Single payer is no more “socialized medicine” than the police department is socialized crime fighting.  In our pre-Revolutionary history, fire fighting services were privatized and run by insurance companies.  There were multiple firefighting crews in a jurisdiction.  If your neighbor’s house caught on fire and he/she had no insurance, then no assistance was offered.  Your insurance companies’ fire crews got busy when your house was threatened.  The final consensus was that firefighting services was one area where the government could perform the necessary service in a much more efficient manner than could the private sector.  We say that the analogy applies equally well to health care, with the caveat that private delivery works better than public ownership of the services.

“Socialized Medicine” is represented by the British Isles, the Scandinavian countries, Italy, and Cuba among others.  In the U. S., we have socialized medicine; it’s called the Veteran’s Administration.

Single Payer is represented by Canada, Taiwan, & South Korea.  In the U. S., we have single payer; it’s called Medicare.

•    Why did Obama and the democrats retreat from their original plan to at least discuss single payer?

I would take issue with the premise of the question.  Among the Democrats in Congress, only the Progressive Caucus seemed willing to push for consideration of single payer.  It’s my opinion that Senator Obama allowed single payer supporters to “hope” that his statements from 2003 in support of single payer was somehow a reflection of his true intentions.  I did a detailed analysis of the health care proposals of both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama prior to the primary in the spring of 2008.  Neither of them offered any mention of single payer.

So, when some Democrats announced that everything was “on the table,” single payer activists from various organizations, including Physicians for a National Health Program, California Nurses Association & Health Care-Now! forced their way into the Senate Finance Committee hearings to demand a voice for single payer.  Previously, President Obama held a much-heralded conference at the White House for over 50 stakeholders in the health care reform debate.  Not a single supporter of single payer was invited.  Single payer supporters were literally forced to demonstrate outside while “Let’s Make A Deal” played on the inside.  A key point to understand is that single payer advocates are not stakeholders in the traditional sense of the word.  Advocates for change are more correctly understood as stakechallengers.

•    You have worked actively with the Mad-as-Hell-Doctors who recently came to Chico advocating single-payer.  Are they representative of the medical profession generally?  Where does the AMA stand on single payer?

Let me answer your second question first.  The AMA opposes a “Medicare for All” system.  In the 1930’s, they opposed ‘Medicare for All’ and universal health care was defeated then.  In the 1960’s, they opposed ‘Medicare for All.’  At that time, a compromise of Medicare for citizens over 65 and the disabled and Medicaid for the indigent was passed as part of the War on Poverty.  It would be fair to say that the AMA has taken consistently reactionary positions in regard to health care reform.  Also, the AMA does not represent the practitioners of medicine like they have in the past.  Currently, the AMA represents around 20% of the 900,000 physicians in the U. S.  There are over 180 specialty and sub-specialty organizations for physicians.  There is no single voice for the “house of medicine.”

Do the ‘Mad as Hell Doctors’ represent the medical profession in a general manner?  I say “Yes,” in that recent polling shows that 59% of all physicians support a ‘Medicare for All’ system.  When you poll only primary care physicians, the support goes up into the high-60’s.  Single payer reform has been endorsed by the American College of Physicians, Physicians for a National Health Program, the American Public Health Association, and the California Nurses Association, among others.  Support for single payer national health insurance is growing among physicians and other health care professionals.

•    Let’s turn to California.  You are spearheading a campaign for Senate Bill 810, which would be a California single payer system. Please describe that campaign and its timetable.

California’s single payer campaign began in 1992 in support of the drive for universal health insurance encouraged by the election of President Bill Clinton.  In California, activists placed an initiative on the ballot named Proposition 186.  Reformers were grossly outspent by the insurance industry and we lost badly.  Activists regrouped around 2000 and called themselves “Health Care for All-California.”  As momentum gathered and legislators were educated, we gained the support of a majority of the legislators, but we were unable to obtain the signature of the Governor.   This year, we are reintroducing a bill, named SB 810, authored by Senator Mark Leno.   A broad coalition of statewide organizations, named the State Strategy Group, is directing the campaign.  We aim to either get a bill passed and signed by Governor Brown or we will go to the electorate via an initiative.  Key to each of our tactics is to continue to educate the general population, the new legislators and the Governor.  As the situation grows more desperate, increasing numbers of people realize that only single payer can deliver the type of health care system which truly serves every Californian.

•    Didn’t our legislature already pass this bill twice?  What are the prospects that Governor Brown will sign it if passed again this year?

Yes, the legislature did indeed pass a single payer bill, authored by Sheila Kuehl, in 2006 & 2008.  Both times, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bills.  As anyone who knows our new Governor at all well, there is no easy way of predicting his behavior.  It is our best hope that he will listen to our arguments in favor of signing SB 810.  We intend to highlight the rights-based and the economic benefits arguments.  As previous economic analyses by the Lewin Group & Legislative Analysts’ Office have shown, the annual savings to the state would be at least $14 Billion (in 2005 dollars).  So, we are pinning our hopes on his listening to the economic benefits argument in case the “Health Care is a Human Right” argument fails to persuade him.

For that reason we have a Plan B, Plan C and Plan D.  Funds are being raised as we speak to finance a replication and update of the original Lewin study.  This is critical to showing the tremendous savings achievable through adoption of a single payer system.  The audience for this study is the Administration, the Legislature and the voting public.  In the event that the Legislature passes SB 810 and Governor Brown chooses to veto it, then we will go to either a legislative or voter-qualified initiative for the November 2012 election.

•    Please tell us about the ballot alternative being proposed for the November, 2012 election.

If Governor Brown vetoes SB 810, there will be an initiative placed on the ballot for the Presidential election in November of 2012.  In order to win that fight, we will need to build the grassroots and organizational capacity to pass a proposition.  In such a contest, we are likely to see money spent in the range that Meg Whitman spent in her failed campaign for governor in the last election.  That means we must raise funds in the range that Jerry Brown spent in order to be competitive in such an election.  It is important that we have a proposition with language in the affirmative in order to frame the discussion around the universal need for high-quality, comprehensive health care.   Opponents of reform will likely roll out an initiative to repeal our single payer bill.

•    Are there other states proposing or implementing single-payer systems?

At this time, Vermont is racing to the head of the class.  In 2010, their legislature commissioned Dr. William Tsaio, the designer of the very successful single payer system in Taiwan, to propose a repurposing of health care financing for the state.  He proposed 3 distinct models of health care systems.

1. The first model is a publicly-administered single payer.
2. One is a public option exchange called for in the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act law for the nation.
3. The third one he called a “Public/Private Single Payer” Option, a “hybrid single payer.”

The final version of his report is due on Feb. 17, although there may be a delay because the private health insurance companies have refused to share essential data with the Hsaio team.

•    How can people learn more about single-payer issues?  How can they become involved in the single-payer campaign?

The Butte County single payer or “Improved Medicare for All” effort is led by the Butte County Health Care Coalition.  The best way to contact us is through our web site, www.buttesinglepayer.org.  For those listening outside of Butte County, please check out our extensive links on the web site to connect with allied groups where you live.   For tons of useful information no matter where you are, go to www.singlepayered.org.  To succeed, we need your support.  In order to win the battle for rational health care, we need at least twice as many people to dedicate themselves to activism and around $20 Million to wage an electoral contest.  Butte County is activist-rich and cash-poor, so we’re expecting to raise an army of activists.  Our two web sites will show you how to join us.

• Even as you campaign for single-payer, your group and the Northern California State Budget Alliance are trying to prevent cuts to health and human services.  You’re going to Sacramento this Thursday and next Monday to protest.  Please tell us about that campaign and how people can participate.

The BCHCC is a member of the Northern California State Budget Alliance.  The Alliance is part of an effort to convince the legislators, especially the Democratic leadership in the Senate to rework and reduce the cuts in the Governor’s proposed budget.  We are calling for additional sources of revenue to support higher education and spare the knife from the disabled who are already living on the edge.  We support cuts to the Prison-Industrial Complex; specifically by releasing non-violent first-time offenders.  There are alternatives to the Governor’s proposals.  We want to put proposals for new revenue on the table and redirect the cuts so they do the least harm.  Under the Governor’s proposal, people will die.  They can participate by caravanning to Sacramento on the 10^th, 14^th or 22^nd of this month.  They can write letters to the Democratic leadership.  To get detailed information, call the Independent Living Services Center of Northern California at (530) 893-8527 voice or (530) 680-3484 mobile to join the caravans or write letters or make phone calls.

I would like to close with a quote I came across recently which summarizes neatly my summary of the recently concluded process of fake reform in Washington, DC

“Politics is the conduct of public affairs for private advantage … Reform is a thing that mostly satisfies reformers opposed to reformation.”

–Ambrose Pierce (1842-1914?), American editorialist, journalist and author of The Devil’s Dictionary

Thank you, Stephen and Susan, for inviting me to be on the show.  It’s been a pleasure.

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Tonight our guest is Carl Safina, author of a new book titled, The View from Lazy Point (Henry Holt and Company, 2011). It is centered at the place where he lives at the tip of Long Island. Carl Safina is a marine biologist and writer who has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Study from the State University of New York Purchase and a PhD in Ecology from Rutgers.  He has written a number of articles and books on the fate and future of the oceans and their dependents.  

Listen to the program.

1. Please begin by telling us about yourself and Lazy Point. Where is this place?  Why did you come to live there? 

2.  Would you read a page or two for us?  Perhaps you could read from from the Prelude or from your choice of a passage.

3. The book chronicles a year at Lazy Point, February to January–the arrival of the Red-Wing Blackbirds to their return a year later.  Please tell us a few of your observations from Lazy Point that document changes in our environment, e.g.,
–Changes in bird populations and migration patterns. [It feels to us as if you are above all, a birdwatcher and bird lover–you write about the birds in such loving detail.]
–The horseshoe crabs.
–Fish–both fish passing by and those you catch, sometimes eat, and sometimes release. (Why do you go shark fishing?)

4. Interspersed with your observations from Lazy Point are trips to the corners of the earth: Arctic, Antarctic,  Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean.  How do your global observations corroborate and extend your view of the environmental crisis (e.g, salmon, whales, bears and smaller species)?

5. Many of your observations stress the interconnectedness of life, of symbiotic relationships not always obvious.  Could you give us an example, perhaps your claim (p. 155) that “forests grow salmon” and “salmon also grow forests”?

6. An impossibly broad question:  What do you see as the current State of the Union between people and the planet?  Rising seas will submerge islands and exterminate species; yet, the Red-Wing Blackbird (still) returns to Lazy Point. When might we pass the tipping point?

8. Your book includes some instances where human intervention (or non-intervention) is making a difference in preserving the natural world (e.g., Falcons and Ospreys, the corals of Paulau).  Do we have the scientific and technological knowledge to recover the ecological balance of the planet?

9. But you also write, “I know it’s heresy on a slippery slope to say this, but I don’t think conservation needs to focus on saving every nearly identical type of bird or lizard on every island.” (251)  Please explain this.  How does one determine the parameters of or criteria for preservation?

10. You write at length about economics and market capitalism and say that “Market economics falls on the wrong side of the moral divide.”  What is being left out of current discussions of the market and the environment?

11. You also argue that “Problems of the environment are crucial matters of justice, peace, and morality.” (265)  Can we anticipate that humans’ sense of these values will be enough to turn the tide?

12. As we read the book, we anticipated that your last chapter might outline programs for large-scale political, economic, and environmental action.  But you focus instead on individual action.  [Optional:  Please read the wonderfully comprehensive paragraph for individual action beginning at the bottom of p. 310: “The revolution is as simple as this: . . . ] Why didn’t you include actions for, say, the U.S. Congress or the U.N. Climate Change conferees?

13. You have personally been involved in political and legislative actions to “ban high-seas driftnets, re-write U.S. fisheries law, use international agreements toward restoring tunas, sharks, and other fishes, achieve a United Nations fisheries treaty, and reduce albatross and sea turtle drownings on commercial fishing lines.” <blueocean.org> When do those kinds of actions kick in and how do they augment or grow from personal, moral actions? 

14. Please tell us about the Blue Ocean Institute that you co-founded and how you use “art, science, and literature” in combination to raise people’s awareness of environmental issues. 

We’ve been talking with Carl Safina, author of The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World, published this month by Henry Holt and Company.  We’d also encourage listeners to learn more about ocean preservation at the Blue Ocean Institute web site <blueocean.org>. 

Playlist

1. 3 Birds 3:45 The Dead Weather Horehound  
2. Natural Order 4:23 MaMuse Strange And Wonderful 
3. Nature’s Way 2:40 Spirit Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus 
4. Eh! 4:28 Mike Wofchuck Flight 
5. Weave Me the Sunshine 4:28 Peter, Paul And Mary The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary 
6. Mother Nature’s Son 2:48 The Beatles The
7. Life 4:16 Mike Wofchuck Flight 
8. Joy 4:00 Mike Wofchuck Flight
9. Red Bird 5:28 MaMuse Strange And Wonderful

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January 11, 2011

Tonight we’ll be talking with Scott McNall, author of a new book, out just this week, Rapid Climate Change: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions (London and New York: Taylor and Francis).

Following that, we talk with Chris Kerstin of Chaffin Family Orchards about a visit by renowned agricultural reformer, Joel Salatin, who is coming to Chico next week.

[Sadly, we failed to record this show, which was an excellent one.  All the more reason for you to tune in live to the show each week!]

Our Questions for Scott McNall

Scott McNall is the founding Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development at the University and he served as three years in that capacity. He is also a professor of Sociology and served as the University’s provost for 13 years. He now focuses his energies on teaching and writing about issues of climate change and the business of sustainability.

1. Can you start by giving us an overview of the book? What topics do you cover? Who is your audience?

2. What prompted you to write Rapid Climate Change?

3. Your first chapter, “Why is the Earth Getting Warmer and What Difference Does it Make?,” summarizes the science, and you talk about seven tipping points. Can you describe what those are and what makes them so important?

4. One concept you explain in the book is “overshoot,” about the limitations of growth and the system dynamics model it’s based on. And you also talk about “peak everything.” Could you tell us a little about how we’re managing resources in the world?

5. And you talk a lot about how “culture” shapes our use of resources. Describe the difficulties of balancing social, economic, and environmental interests.

6. A continuing theme in the book is how climate change will have a disproportional effect on the poor. Tell us why that’s the case.

7. The book devotes a whole chapter to climate change deniers. You talk about four overlapping themes of deniers. Can you tell us about those themes?

A rejection of scientific literature.

The prioritization of other problems, i.e., the economy is more important.

A free-market philosophy and pro-growth perspective.

The view that environmentalism is a threat to progress.

8. And who’s behind the climate change deniers? What are some of their more egregious claims?

9. How is climate change a moral issue? How do our world views affect our attitudes toward climate change? What do we have to do to address that issue?

10. You also talk about risk assessment and what gets people to act and why they don’t act. Can you tell us what that’s all about?

11. You describe climate change as a “wicked problem,” and we’d like you to talk about that concept a bit. It’s an issue that a lot of our guests address–the interrelatedness of problems–the economy, the environment, population, technology, distribution of wealth, etc.

(Problems to solve: population growth, increasing emissions, degradation of Earth’s ecosystems, and poverty)

12. What are some of the solutions proposed to solve the climate change problem? You pose the question of what we expect government to do and what should we as individuals do? What’s your answer to that? What do governments have to do? What can other groups do? What can individuals do?

13. The book is short but synthesizes enormous amounts of material and draws on myriad resources. Can you talk a little about how you managed the process of synthesizing so much information?

14. If we have time, could you talk a little about the efforts at Chico state in sustainability? We could talk about the various ways the university demonstrates its concern for sustainability.

Chris Kerston on Joel Salatin:

Joel Salatin will be speaking “About the Power of Local Food” on Monday, January 15, at he Masonic Family Center. Doors open at 5:30. Salatin’s Polyface Farm was featured in Michael Pollan’s bestselling book Omnivore’s Dilemma as the example of the ideal pastoral based farming model. Though Joel has long been a role model among alternative farmers with a very popular series of farming books, he has since become a bit of a superstar to mainstream America. His farm was showcased last year in the film Food Inc. which went on to be an Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary. He was also featured in the popular and film FRESH.

According to Chaffin Orchard’s announcement in Facebook, “Joel Salatin is an extremely well educated but light hearted and humorous speaker. He makes the power and mystery behind food and farming come to life for eaters of all walks of life. His ability to communicate the importance of traditional foods, clean grass based farming, and local foods is amazing. You will be entertained and your heart will be touched. He is a master at empowering individuals to move mountains and make real change in their communities.”

For tickets go to http://chaffinorchards.eventbrite.com/

Bring Gerard Home

Another event we’d like to announce is a fundraiser called, “Bring Gerard Home.” Gerard is Gerard Ungerman, whom we’ve interviewed a couple of times on Ecotopia, once to talk about his film, Belonging, and again to talk about his efforts to create Chico as a Green Transition Town.

Gerard is in France, unable to get his visa to return to the United States. A legal effort is being launched to bring Gerard home to his family and friends and work. The fundraiser is being held on Sunday, January 23, from 5-10 PM at the Chico Women’s Club. The event will include hors d’oeuvres, a wine and beer cash bar, live music, and a silent auction. We hope the wholecommunity turns out to show its support of Gerard.

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28 December 2010

Tonight our program is entitled “Auld Lang Syne,” the traditional New Year’s Eve hymn with lyrics by Scotsman Bobbie Burns. WikiPedia helped us remember what that phrase actually means: “The song’s Scots title may be translated into English literally as ‘old long since’, or more idiomatically, ‘long long ago’, ‘days gone by’ or ‘old times.'”  But we’re not going to be particularly nostalgic for the year 2010. We’re going to open with a particularly unsentimental review of some of the worst and most discouraging environmental news from the past twelve months. Then we’ll grow a little more positive and remind us all of some of the positive achievements on the Ecotopian front during the last calendar year. We’ll also take a candid view of prospects and environmental priorities for 2011. We’ll close, not with Auld Lang Syne, but with our usual theme song, Peter, Paul, and Mary’s perpetually upbeat: “Weave me the sunshine, out of the falling rain,” a pretty good metaphor for ecotopian dreams and possibilities.

Listen to the Program

The Mostly Bad News:

This is Ecotopia on KZFR , and tonight we are reviewing environmental news from 2010, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ll start with the obviously ugly: the Gulf Oil Spill. Here’s an December 26 reflection on that disaster by Rob Edwards of the Herald Scotland newspaper. He writes:

 It started around 9.45 pm on April 20.

Methane gas came shooting out of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, then ignited and exploded. The ensuing fire engulfed the rig, killing 11 workers. And then the oil started gushing into the sea, becoming the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, and the worst environmental disaster so far faced by the US.

For the next three months it kept on gushing, and estimates of the volume of oil escaping every day kept rising. BP initially suggested it might be 1000 barrels day, but then US authorities said it could be 5000, then 30,000, then 60,000 barrels a day.

In total, nearly five million barrels of oil are now thought to have spilled into the sea between April 20 and July 15, when the well was eventually capped. That’s more than 200 million gallons – a massive amount of the black stuff, which has resulted in huge pollution problems.

In May, 6814 square miles of water were closed to all fishing by the US Government, an area that was increased to nearly 87,000 square miles in June. That covered more than a third of all the federally-controlled waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

The costs to the fishing industry were estimated at $2.5 billion. The federal government officially declared a fisheries disaster in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Although the fishing bans were gradually relaxed, as late as November some 4200 square miles had to be re-closed to shrimping after balls of tar were found in nets. In the same month the length of Louisiana shoreline affected by the oil was said to extend to 320 miles.

The damage to wildlife has been widespread. By November more than 6800 dead animals had been collected from the area, including 6100 birds, 600 sea turtles and 100 dolphins and other mammals.

Dolphins were reported to be spouting oil from their blowholes, and some were said to be “acting drunk”. The Gulf of Mexico is very rich in animal life and hundreds of endangered species are at risk, including five kinds of turtle.

But the consequences have resounded far beyond local fishing and wildlife, rocking boardrooms and governments. Estimates of the total economic losses due to the disaster have varied from $3 billion to $30bn – and someone is going to have to pay.

BP took an immediate hit, losing more than $105 million from its market value a month after the accident. It agreed to put $20bn into a reparation fund, and reported a second-quarter loss of $17bn, its first in 18 years.

The company’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, was widely vilified and lost his job because of the disaster. He never really recovered from telling a reporter in May: “There’s no-one who wants this thing over more than I do – I’d like my life back.”

Earlier this month the US Government announced it was going to sue BP and other companies involved in the disaster. The total amount for which the company will end up being liable is unknown, but some estimates suggest it could run into hundreds of billions of pounds.

“I’ve seen the devastation that this oil spill caused throughout the region, to individuals and to families, to communities and to businesses, to coastlines, to wetlands, as well as to wildlife,” said the US Attorney General, Eric Holder. “We will not hesitate to take whatever steps are necessary to hold accountable those responsible for this spill.”[…]

Friends of the Earth Scotland pointed out that it was the poor communities that bore the brunt in the US. “It was only when oil started to reach Florida, rather than Louisiana, that the US took it seriously,” said the group’s head of campaigns, Juliet Swann.

BP, meanwhile, is busy trying to repair its damaged reputation. It has said sorry, taken responsibility for the clean-up and ploughed untold public relations resources into “making it right”. The question is, could it happen again?

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/guest-commentary/the-bp-oil-disaster-1.1076517 

 Could the Gulf Oil Spill happen again? A new report on the perils of offshore drilling reminds Earth Justice of the old saying that “today’s generals are always preparing to fight yesterday’s wars.” Earth Justice is less than sanguine about a new report on what would happen in an oil spill in the Arctic:

The report, by Pew Environment Group, warns that the lessons learned in fighting the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill are not good guidelines to make drilling in Arctic waters safe. Says Pew: “the risks, difficulties and unknowns of oil exploration and development are far greater in the Arctic than in any other U.S. ocean area.”

In other words, [says EarthJustice], let’s not be fooled by oil industry assurances that the Gulf spill has prepared us to face down a spill in the Arctic. It’s a different battleground. What barely worked in the warm waters of the Gulf will surely fail in a sea of ice. Here’s how Pew puts it:

Industry and government plans for oil and gas exploration and development in the Arctic Ocean have been rushed, relying on a cursory environmental analysis of the potential impacts of a catastrophic oil spill. They also rely on inadequate and unproven oil spill response plans and techniques.

These plans have been pushed forward despite the lack of information on Arctic marine ecosystems and the effects of climate change and a lack of understanding of the impacts that oil and gas drilling would have on the Arctic Ocean’s unique species.

Pew Recommends:

• Federal resource management agencies must complete a comprehensive science plan, including research and data collection on the Arctic marine environment, before oil and gas exploration and development proceed.
• Oil spill risk assessments and spill prevention technologies must reflect Arctic conditions.
• Spill response must be tailored to Arctic conditions, and response planning standards must be strengthened.
• Review and oversight of oil and gas drilling must be enhanced.

EarthJustice also reports that some strategies used in the Gulf were largely innefectual. They write:

Miles of sand berms built to protect the coastline during the Gulf oil spill that cost millions of dollars were a huge waste of money, according to a presidential oil spill commission. During the spill, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal strongly insisted on having the berms, despite scientists and federal agencies raising concerns over the berms’ potential effectiveness. Yet, as the Associated Press quoted coastal scientist Rob Young as saying, the berm effort has so far done little more than draw “a pencil line of sand.”

“Ouch,” concludes EarthJustice.

http://earthjustice.org/category/tags/oil?gclid=CILGrq6xiqYCFQUSbAodR1P9nw

Much closer to home in our parade of less-than-good news stores comes a December 25 LA Times article by Michael Mishak weighing the positive and negative aspects of Governor Schwarzenegger’s performance as governor.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s efforts to give a boost to corporate California are colliding with his image as an environmental crusader in his final days in office.

Administration officials say their moves are needed to protect jobs in a fragile economy. But environmentalists are dismayed by what they see as a feverish push to limit restrictions on toxic chemicals in retail goods, ease key air pollution rules, and permit the use of a known carcinogen to treat soil in strawberry fields.

[Listeners will recall that we covered the strawberry story with members of Pesticide Watch and the Butte Environmental Council just three weeks ago. We learned that the use of Methyl Iodide on strawberries is environmentally unsafe and the approval is clearly a business decision that will endanger human health.]

The administration’s maneuvering highlights a tension present at the outset of Schwarzenegger’s tenure: the environmental activist versus the business executive.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the governor’s environmental record is indisputable, citing big strides he has made in curbing greenhouse gas emissions under the landmark global warming law, AB 32, signed by Schwarzenegger in 2006.

McLear said, “This governor has implemented the most historic aggressive environmental regulations in the country and sometimes the world. It’s just not credible to argue otherwise.”

But activists say they are sorely disappointed by some of the governor’s recent moves.

Bill Allayaud, director of government affairs for Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization focused on toxic chemicals says, “I think they’d rather take heat from some environmental groups and some scientists than they would from Dow, DuPont and Exxon Mobil.”

Last-minute actions on the state Green Chemistry Initiative were a particular letdown to environmental activists.

The program is meant to remove dangerous chemicals from retail products. But a recent loosening of the regulations by the administration prompted 33 environmental, health and community groups to warn that they had become “so ineffective and burdensome that they should be jettisoned altogether.” The groups accused the administration of putting the industry-friendly changes on a fast track before the inauguration of Jerry Brown, who may not be as business-friendly.

The changes so disturbed the author of the legislation creating the program, Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D- Los Angeles), that he no longer supports the regulations.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Environmentalists+deplore+Schwarzenegger%27s+corporate+turn+la+times&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-

The Sacramento News and Review pretty much agrees with the assessment of Swarzenegger’s performance as an environmental governor as mixed and often inconsistent:

[…]California’s Jolly Green Governor is an ardent champion of ratcheting down greenhouse gases, known worldwide for his championing of Assembly Bill 32 to lower California’s emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. But, in 2006, he was the chief cheerleader for a $20 billion bond measure to ease congestion on state roads and highways, making it easier for commuters to drive. And he has gutted funding for public transit—a key way to get solo commuters out of their vehicles and, thereby, improve air quality.

Schwarzenegger signed 2004 legislation creating the Sierra Nevada Conservancy—at 25 million acres stretching from Kern County to the Oregon border, by far the state’s largest—and inked a deal with the Tejon Ranch in Southern California preserving roughly 90 percent of the 270,000 acre property. But Schwarzenegger routinely put the state park system on the budget chopping block and declined to reappoint his brother-in-law Bobby Shriver and Clint Eastwood to the State Park & Recreation Commission after their opposition to the GOP governor’s plan to allow a six-lane toll road to cut through San Onofre State Beach. Budget cuts, albeit necessary to close the state’s massive cash shortage, have also curtailed the state’s ability to enforce environmental laws. California’s Department of Fish and Game wardens cover a larger area per warden than those in any other state. Schwarzenegger opposed drilling off California’s coast, then backed an expansion of it, saying that royalties paid by oil companies would help reduce the 2009 state budget shortfall. After the BP debacle in the Gulf of Mexico, he returned to opposing an expansion of drilling.

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1890583

Also in the mixed news category are reports coming out of the most recent global climate change conference in Cancun, Mexico. A year ago, the Copenhagen climate change conference disappointed just about everyone and fell well below expectations. Perhaps the publicists and politicians learned some lessons, for they were far less optimistic about the Cancun meeting and its possible outcomes, which, in our view, were quite small and certainly not enough to limit climate change. Nevertheless, most of the articles we reviewed were at least mildly positive. Here’s one from The Australian, published on December 27, an op-ed by Connie Hedgaard, European Commissioner for Climate Change, who says that Cancun puts climate change agreements “back on track”:

What’s in the[Cancun] package? [she asks rhetorically, and she answers,] Quite a bit. The key points of the agreement concluded in Cancun are based on the results we achieved in Copenhagen last year.

That includes the 2 centigrade target and the reduction pledges that countries took on in the run-up to Copenhagen. It includes the commitment of developed nations to provide finance for developing countries: $US30 billion in the short term (2010-12) and $US100bn annually by 2020. […] The package also includes agreement on the rules for transparency — how countries measure and report their emissions — which had proved to be a stumbling block in Copenhagen.

Besides tightened rules on transparency, the agreement contains detailed decisions for improved co-operation on technology between north and south, an agreement on climate adaptation in developing countries and a mechanism to reverse deforestation in the tropics.

 But, Commissioner Hegard also owns up to the obvious fact that:

Cancun did not solve everything. The reduction commitments are not enough to keep the temperature increase below 2 centigrade and there are other outstanding issues, such as the legal form of the agreement and how to provide the long-term finance.

But [, she continues,] Cancun proved the multilateral process can deliver results. Without an agreement the UN process would have been in imminent danger. Politicians and the public might well have lost faith in the process and discarded it, with nothing to put in its place.

Now we have a deal. But there is still much work ahead of us, both internationally, where we must still deal with the outstanding issues, and domestically, where we have to deliver on what has been decided. In Europe we are already working on it.

Like Copenhagen, the Cancun conference seems to be more of a future promise than a direct achievement, and Commissioner Hedgaard concludes her report in The Australian with a peroration that sounds to us a lot like corporate-speak. She says:

Next year we will present a road map for how we can create an intelligent, innovative low-carbon economy by 2050. We do this for the environment, but we also do it for the sake of competitiveness and energy security.

In a world with ever more people and fewer fossil energy resources, the winners will be the ones who are independent of oscillating oil prices and who can provide energy efficient and innovative solutions. […]

http://http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/cancun-deal-puts-climate-action-back-on-track/story-e6frg6zo-1225976418201

We could go on at length with the less-than-good news about environmental accomplishments in 2010. For example, Science Daily has reported new studies that show unexpectedly large hypoxic or “dead” zones in the Atlantic Ocean and, quite predictably, the Gulf of Mexico.
And the New Scientist has an appalling report that “A handful of Chinese and Indian chemicals companies seemingly have the world over a barrel – or rather a large number of barrels of a super-greenhouse gas called HFC-23, which is 14,800 times more potent than carbon dioxide.” These companies have been granted millions of carbon credits [for this stored gas, which they threatened to release into atmosphere if they didn’t get credits. They can then sell those same credits] to western companies that want to offset their obligations to cut emissions of other greenhouse gases, under a Kyoto scheme known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

http://http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/cancun-deal-puts-climate-action-back-on-track/story-e6frg6zo-1225976418201

http://http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19878-carbon-trading-tempts-firms-to-make-greenhouse-gas.html

The Mostly Better News

Late last year, we interviewed Alexander Ochs, Director of the Climate and Energy Program of Worldwatch, as he was on his way to the Copenhagen climate talks. Ochs explained that many countries were resisting the kinds of dramatic changes necessary to have an impact on climate change. Feeling discouraged about the prospects for the conference, we asked Ochs if he was similarly downcast. To our surprise, his answer was no. On the contrary, he was feeling optimistic, because he said, the will is there among the people. We’ll circumvent the government, he insisted, because people want change.

One strong piece of that evidence came from California in 2010, where we the people (including local activist Jessica Allen soundly trounced Proposition 23, the effort to roll back California’s pioneering climate control actions. Here’s an op-ed from the Seattle Times, published on December 23, holding up California and its voters for praise. Guest columnist K.C. Golden, policy director for Climate Solutions, a Northwest nonprofit, writes:

Gaping budget deficits. Record foreclosures. High unemployment. Surely, this would be the perfect time to choose jobs over the environment.

That’s what two Texas oil companies figured when they put Proposition 23 on the California ballot in November. The measure would have suspended California’s Global Warming Solutions Act until unemployment fell below 5.5 percent. But the oil companies miscalculated. California voters rejected Prop. 23 overwhelmingly.

Do you think Californians, with 12.4 percent unemployment, were saying, “We want climate solutions, not jobs”? Of course not. They were saying something much more positive: “Climate solutions are jobs, and we’ll have both.”

Difficult economic conditions are a signal to accelerate this clean-energy economy, not to go back to the old-think that created our economically and environmentally devastating fossil-fuel dependence. With a sputtering economy and a deepening climate crisis, we can’t afford to freeze in the headlights of the broken, polarized, special-interest politics that pits jobs against the environment.

The West Coast clean-energy economy is a bright spot on a cloudy economic horizon. Renewable energy is a powerful job driver. Energy-efficiency programs are putting people to work in their communities, while keeping energy dollars circulating through their local economies. Cleaner cars and better transportation choices are reducing our crippling dependence on oil.

California’s business community — from Silicon Valley to small-town chambers of commerce — united against Prop. 23 to protect the clean-energy job engine against the oil interests who see reduced fossil-fuel dependence as a threat to their profits. Oil companies tried to sing the tired old “jobs vs. environment” song, but they were way off key.[…]

An economic crunch is a time to advance together, not retreat into opposing camps whose lobbyists battle each other to a standstill to accomplish nothing — as they did when Congress failed to pass a national climate and energy policy this year. Let’s be clear: If we keep burning fossil fuels at our current rate, and ship what we don’t use to Asia, we’re toast. Our economy will decline and we’ll leave our kids a future of catastrophic climate disruption. (It’s considered risky for climate advocates to use scary words like “catastrophic.” But it’s riskier and scarier to avoid these words when they are true.)

This is not an “evironmental” thing; it’s not a political thing; it’s not cable-news partisan football. It’s a science thing, a reality thing, a moral crossroads — an epic human tragedy that we’re well on our way to creating. There’s no good future — for business, people, or the planet — if we keep stoking the climate crisis with more fossil fuels.

[…]We have a long way to go, but we have begun to demonstrate that a new, sustainable prosperity is possible. We know it’s necessary. A tough economy means it’s time to rise to that challenge, not duck it.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2013753270_guest26golden.html#loop

 But we in the Northstate don’t have to look to Seattle for inspiration. There’s plenty right here in town. We were delighted to see Chris LaPrado’s article in this week’s Chico News and Review describing an award granted to Sierra Nevada brewery and its CEO Ken Grossman:

In honor of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 40th anniversary, the agency held an awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Dec. 2 recognizing a dozen environmental leaders in the EPA’s Pacific Southwest region. Of the 12 people and businesses presented with the prestigious awards, nine were from California, including outgoing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who won the Climate Change Champion award for his groundbreaking efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and promote solar power, including signing the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32).

 Also weighing in for California was Chico’s own Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., which was named Green Business of the Year for its “environmental leadership in the brewing industry,” as an EPA press release put it. Among other stellar green feats aiming for zero waste, the brewery keeps 99.5 percent of its solid waste out of the landfill through such means as recycling and composting, and 85 percent of Sierra Nevada’s electricity comes from renewable power (you’ve seen SNB’s many solar panels, no doubt). The brewery also was recently recognized by the Platinum Sacramento Area Sustainable Business program for its green transportation policies.

Grossman took [Christine Laprado] on a tour of his business’ newest green innovations, [and said modestly] “It’s nice to be acknowledged [by the EPA]. We appreciate it. We’ve always had the feeling that we try to do the right thing.”

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=1894307

We are constantly amazed and impressed by the Butte Environmental Council’s many, positive actions on behalf of the environment and our northstate ecosystem. The most recent issue of BEC’s Environmental News reports on a range of activities:

• a project at Creekside 6 Academy in Paradise, with Carol Perkins helping kids understand the endangered ecology if Little Dry Creek.
• the ongoing BEC lawsuit concerning drought watewr usage in Butte County.
• advocacy after the General Plan update, with a focus on a legal challenge based on water and zoning ordinances.
• and for the historically minded, a review of BEC’s 35 years of environmental protection projects.

Check them out at becnet.org

Another group doing great work locally is Aqualliance, which continues to defend the northstate and California water supply while advocating for comprehensive, systematic, ecological sound, area wide water and natural resources plan. Check out therir website: http://www.aqualliance.net/

Jumping to national and global good news, we found encouraging words on the Environmental News Network’s site including stories about:

• A BBC celebration of the Wright Brothers’ first flight that emphasized the incredible flying abilities of birds, way advanced over human flight.
• Successful ooperative international efforts to control the flow of hazardous wastes across borders.
• Discovery of a new nesting ground in Belize for the Harpy Eagle, which is now a bit less endangered than thought.
• A new Walgreen’s in Oak Park, Illinois based on geothermal powers.

The Environmental News Network is at www.enn.com/

And we were heartened to read about the international Goldman Awards, that give prizes and support for grassroots community environmental efforts. The 2010 awards included:

• A lawsuit in Swaziland, Africa, to challenge forced evictions and violence perpetrated against poverty-stricken communities living on the edges of conservation areas.
• A Cambodian project to to mitigate human/elephant conflict by empowering local communities to cooperatively participate in endangered Asian elephant conservation.
• A Polish effort to preserve one of Europe’s last true wilderness areas from a highway project that would have destroyed the region’s sensitive ecosystems.
• A Cuban program to promote sustainable agriculture by working with farmers to increase crop diversity and develop low-input agricultural systems that greatly reduce the need for pesticide and fertilizer.
• And the efforts of Lynn Henning, a Michigan farmer, to challenge the pollution practices of concentrated animal feeding operations , prompting state regulators to issue hundreds of citations for water quality violations.

Read more of this good news at www.goldmanfund.org

The Prospects for 2011

 We’ll wrap up this show by reading from an article that appeared in the International Herald Tribune on December 27, where Kate Galbraith speculates on what is likely to happen on the global front in the coming year. She writes that the year 2010:

[…] began with gloom, after the collapse of the Copenhagen climate meetings in December 2009. The mood darkened further as it became clear that cap-and-trade legislation to combat greenhouse gas emissions would not pass the U.S. Congress.

[Editorially, we have to add that we are not personally convinced that cap-and-trade carbon trading is a solution to emissions problems.] 

A sliver of hope came from a modest agreement at climate meetings in Cancún, Mexico, earlier this month, on a more solid multinational commitment to finding ways to cut emissions. Another development, bringing perhaps more relief than hope, was the rejection by California voters of an effort, backed by oil companies, to suspend the state’s landmark law to combat global warming.  

The year 2011 may not bring too much improvement, from environmentalists’ perspective. Budget deficits and a still-sluggish economy in the United States and elsewhere may complicate investments in clean-energy technologies. And international negotiators have plenty of tough work ahead, the progress at Cancún notwithstanding.

“I’m pessimistic about this international process,” said Jürgen Weiss, a principal at Brattle Group, a consulting firm based in Massachusetts. The Cancún agreement was not legally binding, so while vows to limit the planet’s warming to a modest amount are all very well, Mr. Weiss said, it would be “utterly shocking if these things remain more than just words.”

Next year, some big milestones are set to be reached. The United States is to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions for the first time in January. The rules at first will be mild and will apply only to new or expanding big plants. But last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a timetable for issuing rules to control greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and refineries — two major sources of the heat-trapping gases — in 2012. (The E.P.A. also declared last week that it would take over the issuing of greenhouse gas permits for big plants in the one state, Texas, that has made clear its unwillingness to carry out the regulations.)

Among other 2011 developments, international climate talks are scheduled to take place in South Africa late in the year. They are intended to build on the Cancún accords, which spanned a range of good intentions, including assistance from wealthy countries to poorer ones.

Indeed, two of the major players in Cancún — China and the United States — will have an opportunity for further discussion on climate, as the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, is scheduled to visit the United States next month.  

Much of the focus for 2011, however, is likely to remain on the race to develop a clean-energy economy. The European Union is to begin work on a new “energy savings directive” to help with financing and other issues related to energy efficiency. A proposal from the European Commission is likely to be released in the third quarter of 2011, with additional negotiations and discussions to follow, according to Bendt Bendtsen, a Danish member of the European Parliament and a draftsman of the Parliament’s position on energy efficiency.

China, too, is likely to focus on its burgeoning wind and solar sectors.

“With or without international agreements, Asian countries are taking action to promote renewable energy,” Yotam Ariel, an independent solar consultant based in Shanghai, said in an e-mail.

 However, the promotion of renewable energy by China in particular is likely to be a big issue next year in Washington, as U.S. officials continue to scrutinize Chinese clean-energy exports and potentially complain to the World Trade Organization about trade practices.

Earlier this month, the administration of President Barack Obama brought a case to the trade group alleging that the Chinese government had illegally subsidized production of wind-turbine equipment; that case was strongly backed by the United Steelworkers, a U.S. labor union. The Chinese have defended their policies.

The United States is still investigating other aspects of Chinese green technology practices, so further action by Washington could be coming.  

How strongly the United States moves forward next year to support clean energy on the home front remains to be seen. The White House says it is committed to doing more. The press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said in a Twitter question and answer session last week, “We have to focus on dealing with our lack of energy independence — continue to push for renewable standards and more.” […]

However, given states’ budget concerns, renewable energy development could experience some resistance, according to Mr. Weiss of Brattle Group. He said it would be interesting “to see whether the United States — primarily the states — can maintain momentum on the renewables side.”

“My observation is that there is increasing resistance to the payments that are necessary to build the renewable projects” to meet the clean-energy requirements now in place in many of the states, he added.

Clean energy aside, efforts to combat climate change legislatively in the United States next year are likely to stall. The new Congress, which will include many more conservatives, will almost certainly be disinclined to take action on global warming and may even hold hearings to question the Environmental Protection Agency and international climate science.

For the next two years, and perhaps longer, it will be “utterly impossible” to pass national cap-and-trade policies, Mr. Weiss said — although he noted that California, the country’s most populous state, would spend the next year readying for a cap-and-trade system of its own. It is scheduled to begin in 2012. (Northeastern states also have an emissions trading system in operation to counter greenhouse gases.)

Meanwhile, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. As Justin Gillis reported last week in The New York Times, measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii showed carbon dioxide levels at 390 parts per million — a number that has risen dramatically in recent decades and shows no sign of stopping.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/27/business/energy-environment/27green.html

Playlist for Ecotopia #116

1. Auld Lang Syne 2:36 Straight No Chaser Holiday Spirits (Bonus Track

Version)

2. Supernova 4:42 Liquid Blue Supernova

3. Black Moon (Album Version) 6:59 Emerson, Lake & Palmer Black Moon

4. Clear Blue Skies (LP Version) 3:07 Crosby, Still, Nash & Young

American Dream

5. Life Uncommon 4:57 Jewel Spirit

6. Weave Me the Sunshine 4:28 Peter, Paul And Mary The Very Best of

Peter, Paul and Mary

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