The Arctic in Crisis -- Global Warming Reverses Long-Term Cooling Trend

A recent study published in the September 4 issue of Science magazine is yet another indicator that the Arctic is in crisis.  A team of scientists found that temperatures in the Earth’s vast northernmost region – which includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of Alaska, Canada, Russia, Greenland, and the Scandinavian countries in Northern Europe – have reversed a long-term cooling trend and are now the warmest they’ve been in at least 2,000 years.

The study’s authors include the renowned Darrell S. Kaufman, of the School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability at Northern Arizona University, and David Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado.

The Arctic cooling period had lasted for 2,000 years and was reversed during the 20th century, with four of the five warmest decades in the region occurring between 1950 and 2000.

Federal Agencies Roll Out Greenhouse Gas Regulations, Initiatives

The 1990s was a lost decade on the climate change issue in the U.S., mostly thanks to the hidebound U.S. Senate.  In 1993 it defeated President Clinton’s BTU tax proposal, in 1997 it repudiated the Kyoto Protocol (which at that time still technically was only a draft, not a final accord) with its 95-0 vote in favor of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, and in 1998 it defeated  “America’s Climate Security Act of 2007,” also known as the Lieberman-Warner bill. 

EPA Administrator Carol Browner, in choosing to be MIA, also served as an obstacle, albeit a quiet and passive one.  So President Clinton and Vice President Gore essentially limited the administration’s remaining climate change efforts to signing up corporate partners to its voluntary Climate Change Action Plan, supporting research, and launching an earnest but low-level public awareness effort that made a point to avoid the media, in which this writer participated.  Of course, the U.S. and the world community then lost another precious eight years under Dubyah and his administration, no need to elaborate. 

Today, 16 years after the U.S. Government should have started mobilizing the country to address global warming, we finally have a White House, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and a Department of Energy (DOE) moving forward with meaningful measures to curb U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. 

Republicans Sneer, Democrats Fidget, Copenhagen Looms

Three cheers for Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry.  In September they introduced S. 1733, “The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,” the Senate’s legislative vehicle to realize President Obama’s climate change ambitions, and on November 5 it passed Boxer’s Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.  So much for the good news. 

The 959-page bill passed the Democratic wing of the committee by 11-1, with Democrat and Finance Committee chair Max Baucus opposing and Republicans unanimously boycotting.  Baucus is not the only Democrat loath to address global warming, and in the U.S. Senate, with its labyrinth of arcane rules and procedures, having just a tiny handful of your own party’s members opposed while the other party is united against can signify imminent defeat. 

It’s the same woebegone domestic politics bedeviling the climate change issue as before, with Democrats fearful and divided about responding and Republicans united in their intransigence.  President Obama’s original game plan – to have a robust, new climate change law in hand to show global climate negotiators at Copenhagen that the U.S. finally means business – is looking like yesterday’s news and today’s fish wrap.

California Carbon Label Bill Left Face Down in the Dark

For all intents and purposes, California Assembly Bill 19, the  Carbon Labeling Act of 2009, was quietly eliminated in the State Senate.  A fair number of corporations and business associations, including the California Chamber of Commerce, the Consumer Electronics Association, and the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, publicly opposed the bill, and it would be surprising if that opposition didn’t play a substantial role in the bill’s demise.  

AB 19 called for a State-authorized vvoluntary carbon footprint label for products bought or sold in California.  Sponsored by Democrat Ira Ruskin, the bill was first approved by the full Assembly and then by the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.  Since it carried a program cost, however nominal, it subsequently was sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is chaired by Democrat Christine Kehoe and co-chaired by Republican Dave Cox.  The bill was assigned to the “suspense file,” a normal legislative procedure.  But there it was left to languish as the State’s legislative session ended rather than being removed, effectively killing it.

How Many Climate Change or Sustainability Events is a Good Thing?

There are so many climate change and/or sustainability conferences taking place in California that it is impossible to keep track of all of them.  In just a two-month period I had the good fortune to attend the recent Bioneers and Tides Momentum conferences, as well as the inaugural Next Agenda climate change event, and, most recently, a sustainability tour event in Berkeley hosted by East Bay Green Tours.  Other recent prominent events that I happened to miss included San Francisco’s annual West Coast Green and the October 19 Social Media for Sustainability Conference. 

A day or even half a day to attend an event is an enormous investment of valuable time.  Is every event really worth it?  
A simple answer would be “no,” but that’s not completely true.  It depends on what knowledge and motivation you bring to the event and what you wish to get out of it.  It brings to mind a favorite axiom of market economists:  The question goes “What is (product X) really worth?”  And the answer is, “Whatever price someone is willing to pay for it.” 

The Bioneers conference in October was rich in thought-provoking speakers and panel discussions, and I wished I had more time to spend there.  On the one day that I attended, I was deeply impressed with the visionary knowledge evidenced by Bioneers CEO and founder Kenny Ausubel and the amazing expertise and sharp mind of watershed expert Brock Dolman.  I was privileged to see a presentation by world-famous food expert Michael Pollan, and I also learned some interesting ideas large and small about breakthrough sustainability practices, trends, and obstacles for businesses during an afternoon panel discussion.  However, three other speakers during the morning plenary, while engaging, were essentially a waste of time if one was hoping to learn hard new facts.

The Next Agenda climate change event, "Clean Energy Challenge," hosted in September by the charismatic and articulate Peter Leyden, featured impressively accomplished speakers and was moving, inspiring, and potentially groundbreaking.  Not one to reach for melodrama, I nonetheless found myself at day’s end standing up and speaking about my love for my two small children and my genuine fear for the safety of their generation.  Other fathers, eyes moist, came up to me afterward to thank me for my heartfelt words.  My life normally isn’t so emotionally charged.  But conference participants with whom I spoke afterward all agreed that, good as it felt, the Next Agenda event was much ado about nothing within the context of the great climate change debate if Leyden and his team couldn’t deliver on their planned next steps for collective action.  The jury is out.

The October 28 Berkeley Green Corridor Tour, hosted by East Bay Green Tours, was an intimate, informal and less evocative event.  I also sense that it represented an interaction with others that ultimately will mean far more to me and my life than the more highly produced conferences mentioned above.  Marissa LaMagna, founding director of East Bay Green Tours, is a native of New York City and has a background in environmental activism.  She’s also smart, articulate, good-humored and efficient.  Marissa’s tour, low-key though it may be, provides myriad benefits, education and inspiration for most anyone – whether for officials from other municipalities interested in program models, business owners seeking best practices, social entrepreneurs looking for collaborative opportunities, values-driven consumers looking for businesses to patronize, building owners looking for money-saving energy efficiency measures, CSR organizations looking for partnerships, and yet more.  The list of inspiring and hard-working people and organizations that this one-day tour offers is far too long to list here.  This well-thought and well-organized tour is a gem.