Environmental Developments

The much-publicized but little-watched Senate "all-nighter" to raise awareness on the environment has come and gone.  Let's face it.  No non-local election is going to be decided on a candidate's position on global warming or any other environmental issue.  But elections definitely are decided by money, and, as reported in the New York Times on Monday, "Among the biggest recent changes is the injection of hundreds of millions of dollars to support candidates who make climate change a priority. The California hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer has pledged to spend up to $100 million in this year’s midterm elections to help elect candidates who support strengthened climate policy." 

So in preparation for Earth Day, here are some environmental actions, study results, and recommendations from the last six months or so. 

• In September, the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development issued a report on the link between climate change and food security, "Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before It's Too Late".  "The report links global security and escalating conflicts with the urgent need to transform agriculture toward what it calls “ecological intensification" and concludes that what is needed is "a rapid and significant shift from conventional...industrial production toward ...sustainable, regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale farmers.” [Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy blog, Sep 20]
• Stymied by a Republican-controlled House and -filibustered Senate, President Obama promised, in his State of the Union address, executive actions on the environment and other issues. A week prior to the SOTU, Colorado State's Center for the New Energy Economy listed over 200 executive actions for his consideration.  Among the items suggested by the report are energy-saving performance contracts (ESPCs) for greener federal buildings, new efficiency standards for appliances, tougher greenhouse gas emissions standards for power plants, increased oversight of "fracking", and offering incentives for companies and individuals to bring new energy ideas to the market.  [New Republic, January 21]
• Some executive actions already in place include ordering "the development of tough new fuel standards for the nation’s fleet of heavy-duty trucks,... creation of seven regional 'climate hubs' to help farmers adapt to the impact of climate change, like drought and increased pests,...E.P.A... rules requiring automakers to double average fleet economy standards for passenger cars to 50.4 miles per gallon by 2025,... new rules cutting carbon pollution from future coal-fired power plants, a move that has effectively frozen construction of new coal plants." [New York Times, Feb.18]
• Apple CEO Tim Cook was questioned at a shareholders meeting by a spokesman for the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research on Apple's declared intent to use renewable energy sources for 100 percent of its buildings.  Brian Chaffin writes at The MacObserver website about the exchange: "In an emotional response to the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), Apple CEO Tim Cook soundly rejected the politics of the group and suggested it stop investing in Apple if it doesn't like his approach to sustainability and other issues....What ensued was the only time I can recall seeing Tim Cook angry, and he categorically rejected the worldview behind the NCPPR's advocacy. He said that there are many things Apple does because they are right and just, and that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues.  'When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,' he said, 'I don't consider the bloody ROI.'  He said the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader."

• Mother Jones in a Climate Desk collaboration with The Guardian reported on an Oxford University study "enlisting citizen researchers to help study the role of global warming in the United Kingdom’s record-breaking wet winter."  The study "will determine in the next month or so whether global warming made this winter's extreme deluge more likely to occur, or not....The weather@home project allows you to donate your spare computer time in return for helping turn speculation over the role of climate change in extreme weather into statistical fact."  The so-called "attribution debate" has been reignited by the devastating winter weather and the flooding and storm damage it wrought...The research that links global warming to particular extreme weather events...has already notched up notable successes." The Oxford team has previously proven the case for the 2000 flooding in England, the killer heat waves in Europe in 2003 and 2010, and Hurricane Katrina.

Images
Earth from Space is from NASA.
Car driving through floodwater on the Somerset Levels appeared in The Guardian.  Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images