give a damn

The people of low-lying islands around the world are being displaced by rising sea levels. Here’s a brief article about it from the Christian Science Monitor. No action alert is connected to it—let’s just keep the faith, keep working to reverse global climate change.

Photo is from the Maldives, whose first democratically elected president is considering using national funds to buy land in a neighboring country in case his people are flooded out.

There’s an exciting new campaign to help fight the climate crisis.

Here’s the deal: The United States has historically contributed the most to global warming, and over the past eight years it’s done the least to stop it. In fact, the U.S. has actively tried to block progress on a global climate deal.

Whoever takes office as U.S. president next year has a lot of work to get the U.S. back in the game—and his very first test on climate change will come even before either Obama or McCain takes office. That test will be the next UN Climate meeting coming up in December.

IF the next president goes and makes a strong statement about the U.S. rising to the challenge of the climate crisis, it could dramatically alter the course of the negotiations. But McCain and Obama will go only if they’re invited.

That’s where we come in. It’s crucial that citizens from around the globe (you don’t need to be from the U.S.!) put pressure on Obama and McCain to ensure they attend the meeting and play their part in getting the U.S. to be a leader on global warming.

Please visit www.350.org/invite to send your personal invitation to McCain and Obama today.

I just signed a petition urging world leaders to tackle the food crisis now gripping the world. This is important and I thought you might like to sign it too:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_food_crisis/tf.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK

Have you noticed food costing more when you shop? It’s happening all over the world, and it’s devastating poorer countries. Rocketing prices are squeezing billions and triggering food riots. In Sierra Leone alone the price of a bag of rice has doubled, now unaffordable for 90% of citizens.

I appreciate Avaaz’s perspective on this. It’s not just a matter of shipping loads of grain from the United States to other parts of the world. The biofuels craze & “free trade” policies are at the root of this & need to be addressed: “The prices of staple foods like wheat, corn and rice have almost doubled, and the crisis is slipping out of control—so we’re calling for immediate action on emergency food aid, speculation and biofuels policy, while asking forthcoming summits to tackle deeper problems of investment and trade.”

Let’s press our leaders to address the real issues.

I just sent a message to GWB urging the creation of international biofuels standards to ensure that the current expansion of the biofuels industry does not damage the environment or drive up food prices.

As developed countries push for biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels, increased demand for the crops that make biofuels is causing the destruction of rainforests (cleared to make way for plantations) and a rise in food prices, as farmers grow crops for fuel instead of food. Just last week, the UN World Food Program announced a massive budget deficit as a result of rising food prices, caused by a combination of biofuels growth, bad weather, and high oil prices.

Note from me: In Colombia, lots of land taken forcibly from Afro-Colombian communities in recent years has been planted in oil palm, which absolutely devastates the rainforest. And now other Afro communities are being told that if they want a share of new US-AID funds, they have to get on the oil palm bandwagon! It’s horrifying.

This Friday through Saturday, the G20 group of countries (the twenty biggest economies, responsible for more than 75% of the world’s carbon emissions) will meet in Chiba, Japan, to begin climate change discussions leading up to the G8 summit this summer. Before the summit, Avaaz.org is launching a global cry for sustainable biofuels. By sending a message to your leader urging biofuels standards, you can make a difference on this critical issue. Take action now:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/biofuel_standards_now/98.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK

Thanks!

1. In food production, penalizing farmers who grow fruits & vegetables for local consumption outside the states with huge agribusiness (California, Texas, Florida)
2. In subsidies to Big Oil rather than to innovators in sustainable energy

Sigh. Let’s keep pressing our senators & reps, U.S. folks.

I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but there’s a recent book available for free download that explores the possibility and feasibility of the United States’ becoming carbon & nuclear free in the foreseeable future. Here is the book’s central finding:

The overarching finding of this study is that a zero-CO2 U.S. economy can be achieved within the next thirty to fifty years without the use of nuclear power and without acquiring carbon credits from other countries. In other words, actual physical emissions of CO2 from the energy sector can be eliminated with technologies that are now available or freseeable. This can be done at reasonable cost while creating a much more secure energy supply than at present. Net U.S. oil imports can be eliminated in about 25 years. All three insecurities (severe climate disruption, oil supply and price insecurity, and nuclear proliferation via commercial nuclear energy) will thereby be addressed. In addition, there will be large ancillary health benefits from the elimination of most regional and local air pollution, such as high ozone and particulate levels in cities, which is due to fossil fuel combustion.

It’s focused on what would be possible for the U.S., but obviously the implications are similar for other countries & regions. The book is by Arjun Makhijani: Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy. Helen Caldicott raised money for its writing & publication. You can download it here.

From the NRDC:

Help give polar bears the gift of a future on our planet by signing this Holiday SOS Card to President Bush in support of their protection under the Endangered Species Act.

http://www.polarbearsos.org/holiday_card

Please add your name to the card right now—because the polar bear can’t wait. Within the next 30 days, the Bush Administration will either throw polar bears a lifeline or condemn them to extinction.

Without urgently needed protection, all of Alaska’s polar bears could be extinct in less than 50 years—along with two-thirds of the world’s entire polar bear population.

But there is still hope if the Bush Administration takes action now. That’s why we are asking you, and everyone who cares about polar bears , to help us add 100,000 names to this Polar Bear Holiday SOS Card.

Together, we must create a nationwide show of support for polar bears in the next 30 days—because a North Pole without polar bears is simply unthinkable.

My addition: I believe one sticking point is that putting polar bears on the Endangered Species List implies taking global warming seriously, & of course more than pollution cleanup would be involved. The polar bears are very important in themselves, & they are also of high symbolic importance in tackling climate change.

Today (World Communion Sunday) at my church, we were considering the alternative economy God provided for the Israelites as they fled from slavery in Egypt. Every morning a breadlike substance would fall in their camp, & they would go out & gather it as their staple food. If they gathered more than they needed for a day, it would rot & fill with maggots on the second day! So they were to gather just enough for their family each day, with the exception of “Friday,” when they would gather two days’ worth so as to have enough for the Sabbath, the day of rest.

Sally, our pastor, was talking about implications for us globally & locally. A couple of buildings across the street from our meetinghouse have recently “gone condo,” a dynamic that is increasing throughout our neighborhood. We are all concerned that church members & our neighbors face a diminishing availability of affordable rental housing as well as high prices for those who’d like to buy. So there’s a group of church folks who are looking seriously into buying both buildings & keeping them affordable.

Sally talked about other possibilities for sharing as well. And it suddenly struck me that my car sits unused in its garage most of the week (I commute to work by train). It’s a great little 1995 Honda Civic hatchback, gets great gas mileage, almost never needs repairs. We use it for major grocery-shopping trips & very occasionally to do other errands or attend social events that aren’t easily accessible by public transport.

A group of folks in the church have already been looking to organize a car-sharing group! So if my husband agrees that it’s a good idea, I’m going to make our car available. I’ve already talked to one of the car-sharing organizers, & I’m confident that they’ll come up with a good plan for insuring each car properly & having a maintenance fund. I may even end up saving money by making my car available! But the point is not to hoard it.

We are talking about also coming up with a list of other items that we can borrow from each other instead of each buying one individually: lawnmowers, camping equipment, tools . . .

from the NRDC.

We need your urgent action to make sure that Congress stands firm against taxpayer subsidies for destroying America’s greatest temperate rainforest.

Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/tongass/takeaction right now and tell your senators and representative to protect the Tongass, a thriving habitat for grizzly bears, salmon runs, bald eagles and the elusive Alexander Archipelago wolf.

Thanks to pressure from you and other online activists, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in June to halt taxpayer subsidies for destructive new logging roads in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

But Alaska’s senior senator, Ted Stevens, is now working feverishly behind closed doors to make sure that this long-overdue legislation never sees the light of day. And he’s drafting his own, underhanded, amendment to restrict sharply the public’s ability to halt wasteful and devastating Tongass logging in court.

Over the last 25 years, more than 1 billion taxpayer dollars have been spent to clearcut and build roads through this irreplaceable BioGem.

NRDC activists like you have spoken out again and again against these wasteful handouts, which have enabled timber companies to expand their reach into the unspoiled heart of America’s rainforest.

Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/tongass/takeaction and demand that House and Senate negotiators stand up to Senator Stevens and his destructive logging-road subsidies in the Tongass!

Thank you for helping to defend this priceless rainforest refuge for imperiled Alaskan wildlife.

Fishers in developing countries are catching fewer and fewer fish—because of massive overfishing by industrialized fishing fleets from rich countries, fleets subsidized with tens of billions of euros every year. As a result, fish populations are now collapsing around the globe, and could soon be pushed beyond recovery.

But our oceans don’t have to die. This September, the World Trade Organization will release a new proposal for global fishing rules, and right now, trade ministers are deciding what those rules should be. If enough of us urge our trade ministers to support a better system, we preserve our oceans for future generations—and for the one billion humans who rely on fish for protein today.

A recent study found that 90% of the ocean’s big fish (tuna, swordfish, and marlin) are already gone. But it’s not the countries with the greatest need that are catching too many of these fish; it’s the subsidized fishing fleets from the rich countries. These fleets don’t just trawl the open ocean; they fish off the coasts of developing countries, robbing local fishers and their communities of desperately needed food supplies. And as technology has developed, the crisis has accelerated.

Last week, Dr. Francis K. E. Nunoo, a Ghanaian scientist who studies fisheries ecology, interviewed a local fisherman for this campaign. the fisherman told him: “Ten years ago, during the peak fishing season of the year, my boat is filled with a single throw of the net. In recent times, we throw the gear about 7 times before filling the same boat. And the situation is even worse this year.”

And here’s what Sall Samba, an octopus fisherman in Mauritania and father of six, told a reporter: “You used to be able to fish right in the port. Now, the only thing you can catch here is water.”

A group of 125 scientists wrote a letter to the director-general of the WTO, urging him to take action on fishing subsidies. Their argument:

There are only decades left before the damage we have inflicted on the oceans becomes permanent. We are at a crossroads. One road leads to a world with tremendously diminished marine life. The other leads to one with oceans again teeming with abundance, where the world can rely on the oceans for protein, and enjoy its wildlife. The choices we make today will determine our path for the future.

The next few weeks, as the WTO works on its new plan, are critical. The plan is to send messages, thousands of them, to our countries’ trade ministers, urging a strong decision by the WTO to change the rules that underly the unfair and unsustainable fishing trade.

Experts say that 29% of commercial fisheries might already be beyond repair. But most of the world’s marine ecosystems can recover, if we get our policies right. The very fact that so few people are paying attention to this issue means that our actions will have more power. Please click here to contact your trade minister now:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/make_fishing_fair/c.php/?cl=16059596

Thanks, friend!