Public Policy

Environmentalism, It’s Just Good Business

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Solar panels at the Googleplex, headquarters of Google in Mountain View, Calif. Its data centers worldwide will run entirely on renewable energy by the end of this year, the technology giant announced in December. Credit Smith Collection/Gado, via Getty Images

Although the current administration may be cloaking themselves in a fog of denial, we’re happy to read that much of corporate America is staying the course of their own emissions goals.

Nearly half of the Fortune 500 biggest companies in the United States have now set targets to shrink their carbon footprints, according to a report published Tuesday by environmental organizations that monitor corporate emissions pledges. Twenty-five more companies adopted climate targets over the last two years, the groups said.

Almost two dozen companies, including Google, Walmart and Bank of America, have pledged to power their operations with 100 percent renewable energy, with varying deadlines, compared with just a handful in 2015. Google’s data centers worldwide will run entirely on renewable energy by the end of this year, the technology giant announced in December.

“We believe that climate change is real, and it’s a severe crisis,” said Gary Demasi, who directs Google’s energy strategy. “We’re not deviating from our goals.” Continue reading →

Model Mad, Down Under

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John Church in Hobart in September 2010. He is known internationally for helping to bring statistical and analytical rigor to longstanding questions about sea level rise. Credit Peter Boyer

We continue to keep our eyes open for stories that offer inspiration even in the face of apparent adversity.

A Parable From Down Under for U.S. Climate Scientists

HOBART, TASMANIA — John A. Church, a climate scientist, did not look or sound like a man who had recently been shoved out of a job.

Speaking softly and downing coffee at an outdoor cafe in this old port city, he sounded more like a fellow fresh off a jousting match. “I think we had a win — a bigger win than I ever anticipated,” Dr. Church said in an interview last month.

Australian climate science went through an upheaval last year, one that engaged the press and the public in defending the importance of basic research. In the end, Dr. Church did indeed lose his job, but scores of his colleagues who had been marked for layoffs did not. Some of them view him as having sacrificed his career to save theirs.

What happened in Australia shows the power of an informed citizenry keeping watch on its government. And it may turn out to be a precursor to an attack on fundamental climate research in the United States.

Continue reading →

Welcome News From Brazil

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Thanks to Anthropocene for a moment of relief:

In Brazil, signs that a soy moratorium is slowing down deforestation

by Emma Bryce | May 5, 2017

For such a tiny bean, soy has done a huge amount of damage, destroying untold hectares of South American rainforest over the decades. Continue reading →

Ranching, Recovery & Reason

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If you missed this post, it is worth a read for perspective either before or after the story below, and even if you do not read the story below that one should not be missed. Thanks to Cool Green Science:

Ridding the West of cattle remains a priority for some organizations and individuals. “Ranching,” the director of one prominent group told High Country News, is among “the most nihilistic lifestyles this planet has ever seen. Ranching should end. Good riddance.” Another group charges that ranching causes “desertification.” Another proclaims that “grazing spreads weeds.” Still another cites as a “myth” that “profitable livestock production and ecological preservation can coexist.” Continue reading →

Why Net Neutrality Matters To All Of Us

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Tim Wu has shown up on these pages exactly once in the past. Today marks #2 with a link to his op-ed The ‘Fix’ for Net Neutrality That Consumers Don’t Need, which helps strengthen the case we tried to make in the first post about him. He is a gifted explainer. This seemingly innocuous policy issue, which might otherwise get ignored and thereby also allow another gain of the wrong type to the wrong people, is suddenly clearly a very big deal thanks to Mr. Wu:

Netflix and Amazon have been nominated for hundreds of Emmys and Golden Globe awards in recent years, and that is a testament to both the quality of those companies and the transformation of television. But some of the credit is also due to “net neutrality,” the legal regime that nurtured and protected the open internet and streaming TV in the first place. Continue reading →

The Honeymoon Is Over

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‘But when it comes to the defining issue of our day, climate change, he’s a brother to the fat old guy in DC.’ Photograph: Sean Kilpatrick/AP

Bill McKibben, tireless fighter for causes we believe in, editorializes with no affection for the man who not long ago seemed to be the embodiment of all that was better about the North American neighbor of the country that elected a man who effectively campaigned against environmental protection. We thought this one was different; we were wrong. We avoid political news, but we do not hide from, nor hide, a clear argument calling out horrific policy:

Stop swooning over Justin Trudeau. The man is a disaster for the planet

Donald Trump is a creep and unpleasant to look at, but at least he’s not a stunning hypocrite when it comes to climate change Continue reading →

Dismantling Protection, Effectively & Efficiently

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How is it that an Administration as disorganized as Donald Trump’s has been so methodical when it comes to attacking the environment? PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE RAEDLE / GETTY

I committed myself to not name the name, because it adds fuel to a flame that is already out of control. But if you have read any of the posts in our model mad series the name is clearly implied.  Plenty of others name so well that it is best just to link their work. One of the best namer of names when it comes to our environment, and failure to protect it, is Elizabeth Kolbert. She occasionally points out that we do not simply fail to protect, but willingly allow the named to dismantle critical protections. We are sadly impressed that Dame Doomsday doesn’t disappoint with her latest contribution:

Next week, millions of Americans will celebrate Earth Day, even though, three months into Donald Trump’s Presidency, there sure isn’t much to celebrate. A White House characterized by flaming incompetence has nevertheless managed to do one thing effectively: it has trashed years’ worth of work to protect the planet. As David Horsey put it recently, in the Los Angeles Times, “Donald Trump’s foreign policy and legislative agenda may be a confused mess,” but “his administration’s attack on the environment is operating with the focus and zeal of the Spanish Inquisition.” Continue reading →

Wolf Wars Waning

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Thanks to Brandon Keim for his summary of the findings of Stone et al, “Adaptive use of nonlethal strategies for minimizing wolf–sheep conflict in Idaho” in the current Journal of Mammalogy:

In 2007, a family of wolves in Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest killed nine sheep. Ranchers who owned the sheep asked government wildlife managers to kill the wolves; but local wolf supporters and conservationists protested, asking instead for a non-lethal solution. So began what became the Wood River Wolf Project, a landscape-scale, multi-year experiment in how ranchers, livestock, and wolves can live together peacefully. Continue reading →

Model Mad, Mayor

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Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor, said she was “convinced that together, cities, businesses and citizens will save the planet. Their alliance is critical.” Scout Tufankjian/C40

We started this model mad series of links to share stories of people, and of public institutions, and of private enterprises among others finding creative outlets for expressing resistance to powerful interests determined to undermine environmental responsibility. This governor was a favorite among our readers, so we expect this mayor will join the upper ranks of appreciation:

Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, is also chairwoman of C40, a network of the world’s biggest cities committed to addressing climate change. As mayor, despite strong opposition, she has closed parts of the city — including along the bank of the Seine River — to traffic. Recently, I asked Ms. Hidalgo about her interest in environmental issues and why women are important to the solutions. Continue reading →

Model Mad, Whitehouse

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captured_finalWe have been suggesting that the model mad behavior in these particularly odd times is not to fight fire with fire, but to fight it with effective extinguishers. There are plenty of creative, as well as otherwise enlightened approaches you should consider. Here’s another. If what you hear out of the White House is infuriating you, consider what this Whitehouse has to say:

Sheldon Whitehouse is a politician with a great name, a bad haircut, and a pissed-off attitude. The second-term Democratic junior senator from Rhode Island has built his career around two seemingly unrelated issues—climate change and money in politics—and he’s just written a book to demonstrate how intimately connected they turn out to be. Continue reading →

Rare Birds, Climate Change & Dialogue

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Jerry Taylor, founder of the Niskanen Center, a libertarian think tank.

We like birds. We like rare birds. Jerry Taylor sounds worthy of attention. Thanks to Marc Gunther and Yale 360 for Climate Converts: The Conservatives Who Are Switching Sides on Warming:

It’s hardly being noticed, given the current political atmosphere in Washington. But a small yet growing number of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians are starting to push for action on climate.

As liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans pull farther apart in the long-running, increasingly polarized debate over climate change, Jerry Taylor is a rare bird — Continue reading →

Model Mad, Markets

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Leigh Wells

On a day often reserved for gags and laughs, we instead repeat, without much cheer but plenty of conviction, two of our favorite words: entrepreneurial conservation. Two opinion pieces today highlight the role of both government and market forces as vehicles of environmental protection. When government must take action, as John D. Leshy and Mark Squillace point out, there is a law that allows the President of the United States to protect nature in the public interest. That law is endangered, and it is not okay, these model mad legal scholars remind us. They also point out that markets have tended to follow and reward the actions Presidents have taken to protect natural monuments in the last 111 years since that law was enacted.

A former Mayor of New York City, who also has credibility when it comes to market forces, reminds us in another editorial that with or without a President’s leadership we can still make progress on our environmental commitments. But only if all the rest of us are fully on board, and ready to shake things up when needed, providing all the more reason for each of us to keep all these model mad examples fresh in mind. If you only have time for one quick read at the moment, make this the one:

Climate Progress, With or Without Trump

By MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG

President Trump’s unfortunate and misguided rollback of environmental protections has led to a depressing and widespread belief that the United States can no longer meet its commitment under the Paris climate change agreement. But here’s the good news: It’s wrong. Continue reading →

Model Mad, Jane

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British scientist Jane Goodall: ‘ I have seen the result of climate change and we know, science has shown, that global temperatures are warming.’ Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

Thanks to David Smith, reporting in Washington for the Guardian, for this story that keeps us on the lookout for those model mad institutions and people expressing their resistance in creative, powerful ways. In this case, it is the graceful presence of an accomplished primatologist whose soft words are wielded like a big stick:

Leading conservationist Jane Goodall has condemned Donald Trump’s bid to rip up America’s climate change policies as “immensely depressing” and flying in the face of scientific evidence. Continue reading →

Climate Change, Economic Growth, Santa Claus & Sanity Clause

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America led the world in reducing carbon pollution in 2016, with a decline of three per cent. But the Trump Administration’s plans suggest that current trends are about to shift. PHOTOGRAPH BY KAYANA SZYMCZAK / THE NEW YORK TIMES / REDUX

Thanks to J. B. MacKinnon for this post on the New Yorker website about the relationship between things we know to be true, things we want to be true, and things which may seem like wishful thinking (for which Santa Claus might be the only hope if we cannot adhere to the sanity clause of our compact with the planet):

CAN WE SLOW GLOBAL WARMING AND STILL GROW?

On March 17th, the International Energy Agency announced that 2016 marked the third year in a row that global carbon emissions had stayed at the same level while the world’s economy grew. This three-time repeat has put to rest any lingering suspicions of gremlins in the data. Something new is happening. The global economy has now grown nearly ten per cent without any increase in the annual CO2 emissions that are the principal human contribution to climate change. In the parlance of sustainability, growth and emissions appear to have “decoupled.” Continue reading →

Get Your Copy Of The 2017 World Happiness Report

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Not to overgeneralize or stereotype, but what is it with Scandinavians? We have barely noted, certainly not enough in these pages, how remarkably adept they are at navigating in the right direction. They seem to know something about how to live life, with very happy outcomes, that the rest of us might well learn from. And with all the unhappy news, from time to time we must ponder happiness itself. HR17_3_cover_small-232x300.pngClick the image of the report to the right to get a copy of the report, summarized on the website of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) as follows:

The first World Happiness Report was published in April, 2012, in support of the UN High Level Meeting on happiness and well-being. Since then the world has come a long way. Increasingly, happiness is considered to be the proper measure of social progress and the goal of public policy. In June 2016 the OECD committed itself “to redefine the growth narrative to put people’s well-being at the center of governments’ efforts”. Continue reading →

Preparing Enough Food For 2050

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Thanks to Anthropocene for this summary of news explaining why We don’t really need to double food production by 2050, provided by Emma Bryce:

It sounds daunting: by 2050 we’ll have to double our food production in order to satisfy the appetite of the planet’s rapidly expanding population. This statistic has become so deeply-ingrained, in fact, that it’s being used to shape future agricultural policy. But a group of researchers, publishing in the journal BioScience, have challenged that influential estimate, arguing that it’s due for a significant upgrade to bring it in line with recent data. Continue reading →

Please Support Sierra Club On This Initiative

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Photo credit: B. Bartel/USFWS

We know that most of our readers on this platform, and most guests we serve at the various properties we have developed and managed over the years, care deeply about primary forests and the ecosystems they support. Here is a chance to vocalize together with one of the influential organizers of vocalization:

Help Protect Tongass National Forest: Stop the Clearcutting

They’re about to start their chainsaws. Timber companies are trying to clearcut one of the most primeval wild places — and this is our last chance to stop them.

Alaska’s Tongass National Forest is nothing short of magical: it contains centuries-old trees and one-of-a-kind wilderness, home to animals like Alexander Archipelago wolves and bald eagles. Your voice is needed to pressure Congress to bring an end to old growth logging and save the Tongass for our children and grandchildren.

Take action today to save the Tongass National Forest.

Carbon, Climate, Concern & Confusion

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Americans love clean energy and climate policies. Photograph: Alamy

 Odd, but noteworthy (thanks to the Guardian for this article its environment section):

There’s broad support for climate policies in every state and county, but Americans view global warming as a distant problem

The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication published the findings of its 2016 survey on American public opinion about climate change. The results are interesting – in some ways confusing – and yet they reveal surprisingly broad support for action to address climate change. The Yale team created a tool with which the results can be broken down by state, congressional district, or county to drill down into the geographic differences in Americans’ climate beliefs. Continue reading →

Energy Incubator, Alive And Well, For Now

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STEVE PROEHL/GETTY IMAGES

Thanks to Wired for a story whose title starts The Government’s Green Energy Incubator Fights for Survival and is worth the read:

LIKE MANY FEDERAL employees, Eric Rohlfing will be watching President Trump on Tuesday night as he addresses a joint session of Congress. Specifically, the chemist will be listening carefully for clues to his future employment status. Rohlfing is the leader of a unique science and technology start-up agency tucked inside the Department of Energy, and he and his staff have been trying to convince the new administration to keep it alive. Continue reading →

What To Expect When You Are Expecting An EPA

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“For some environmental problems that are truly localized, there is little argument against a state approach,” said Stavins. “However, for environmental problems that are interstate … and for a global commons problem, such as climate change, the federal government really should take the lead.” File photo by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

We are thankful to the Harvard Gazette for this summary of Professor Stavins by Alvin Powell:

The Senate’s confirmation of former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has alarmed environmentalists.

In Oklahoma, Pruitt prided himself on fighting the agency he will now run, with his website describing him as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.” He sued the agency to fight regulation and expressed doubt about the human causes of climate change, though he moderated those views in his confirmation hearings.

Robert Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, and a past member of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board. The Gazette asked him about the EPA’s future under Pruitt. Continue reading →