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Wednesday 18 November 2009

by: Brendan Smith and Jeremy Brecher, t r u t h o u t

One great fear is blocking public support for climate protection: The fear that protecting the planet will destroy millions of jobs.

Without a bold program to protect workers from the effects of climate protection, the struggle against global warming can all too easily come to be perceived as a struggle against American workers.

Climate protection advocates have often addressed the threat of possible job losses by pointing out that a transition to green energy would create far more jobs than it would eliminate. While that may be true, it also misses the point. The fact that some people get new jobs provides little solace for the individuals and communities who have lost theirs. They must be protected.

The Great Fear

Fear of job loss is the centerpiece of the campaign against climate protection legislation.

According to the Web site of the anti-climate protection coalition Energy Citizens, "This legislation will cost more than 2 million American jobs - hurting millions of Americans who work in or depend on trucking, farming, manufacturing, mining, small business and energy production - or use their cars to commute to work." The US Chamber of Commerce, Senator Sam Brownback and local "tea party" protests have similarly made job loss the central argument against climate legislation.

Unless climate protection advocates effectively address these fears, both they and the legislation they support risk a devastating backlash from Americans afraid of losing their jobs.

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Tuesday 17 November 2009

by: Jacqui Patterson

Fall 2009 Issue

The effects of climate change threaten everyone, but they do not threaten all people equally. Women are disproportionately affected by natural disasters, which are on the increase, as they experience higher rates of mortality, morbidity and post-disaster diminishment in their livelihoods.

This pattern of disproportionate impact is echoed the world over, and it is where race, gender, class and climate change intersect.

In the U.S., the women affected come in a wide swath -- every color, every ethnicity, every part of the country. In Michigan, a Latina is suffering from a rare form of cancer because of exposure to toxins from a coal burning plant. In Louisiana, an African American woman is being uprooted from the only home she knows because of the shrinking shoreline, while an Inuit woman in Alaska is being forced to move herself and her family to the mainland from her home of 20 years, also due to disappearing lands. In California, an Asian nail salon worker faces exposure to toxins from her livelihood, and in Arizona, a Native American woman struggles with her sacred land being defiled by those extracting water because of diminishing supply. And the faces of the women displaced during Hurricane Katrina are etched into memory, matched by those who are still recovering from violence in the Superdome and loss of homes, families, property and pets. The stories of women of color affected in the U.S. are being posted online by Women of Color United.

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Monday 02 November 2009

by: Hervé Kempf

And what if India were a model of energy efficiency? Received wisdom has it that developing countries waste their energy in the absence of adequate technologies, while developed countries supposedly use energy more efficiently. A study by the Indian firm Prayas, presented during the conference of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (FIJE) in Delhi on October 28, shows that's not the case at all.

Entitled, "An Overview of Indian Energy Trends," it reveals that between 1990 and 2005 the country's GDP increased 2.3 times, but its energy consumption rose 1.9 times. Moreover, energy intensity (energy consumption related to production) is much less than China's, but also less than the United States' and comes close to the European level.

A good part of this performance may be explained by the price of electricity to industry - among the highest in the world. In transportation also, India demonstrates great efficiency: India's totalconsumption of gas and diesel in 2005 was less than the simple increase in consumption in China and the United States between 1990 and 2005. The high price of fuel plays a significant role, but so does the density of Indian cities, which limits the length of trips.

Vegetarian Diet

For domestic energy uses, there is better energy intensity by income level than in the United States. That may be explained by the significant use of biomass, but also by the very widespread vegetarian diet, which limits cooking needs: on average, an Indian consumes one twenty-fifth as much meat as an American.

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Saturday 31 October 2009

by: Hervé Kempf

Capitalist ideology - according to which the market can resolve all problems - has, in these last few days, reached the apex of the absurd. We have learned, thanks to Green Euro-deputy Claude Turmes, that European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has been blocking a proposed energy-efficiency action plan. This text is supposed to compel member states to reduce their energy consumption by 20 percent and to propose specific measures to attain that objective. Reducing energy consumption is the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The reason for this obstruction by the Commission? The implementation of energy efficiency would bear on carbon market prices. Consequently, there would be fewer "emission rights" on the market. Consequently, their price would drop. Now the European Commission - with Member State approval - has based its fights against climate change on the emissions market.

So they have just rejected the most efficient solution in favor of ... a method that has not yet really proven itself. Implemented since 2005, it moves painfully forward, given the drop in prices evading VAT. At this time, the price for a ton of CO2 is 15 Euros - below the energy tax French consumers are going to pay. In fact, the rules of the emissions market's operation, the result of a compromise with the industries it affects, are too lax: in consequence, the price that develops remains too low to stimulate a rapid reduction in emissions.