Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category
Criminalising Environmental Destruction: Ecocide
Posted in Movements, Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on August 17th, 2010
Source: The Ecologist
From “Ecocide: making environmental destruction a criminal offence” by David Hawkins:
Lawyer Polly Higgins is spearheading a campaign to have ‘ecocide’ recognised by the UN as an international crime against peace. But how will this work in practice?
Ecocide has always been a moral crime, but British lawyer Polly Higgins sees it differently: ‘until it is legally a crime it’s not going to be thought of as wrong. Banks are willing to put our money – public money – into some of the most destructive practices on the planet because they see nothing wrong with it.’ Higgins is leading a new campaign to have ecocide recognised by the United Nations as an international crime against peace. She defines ecocide as ‘the extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.’ With population growth and climate change, ecocide is increasingly likely to lead to resource wars. Hence, Higgins argues, it is a potential crime against peace and requires international action because of its capacity to be, in legalese, ‘trans-boundary and multi-jurisdictional’.
Among current examples of ecocide are the Alberta tar sands, Amazonian logging, oceanic plastic pollution, damage from oil extraction in the Niger Delta, the Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah and so on, along with more dispersed problems such as polluted waters, which Higgins claims ‘account for the death of more people than all forms of violence including war’. Ecocide is now going on all over the world on an unprecedented scale. Luckily, she says, many of the tools needed to prosecute such cases are already in existence. ‘The International Criminal Court (ICC) was formed in 2002 to prosecute individuals for breaches of four Crimes Against Peace. They are: Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and Crimes of Aggression.’ A case can begin from something as small as a letter from a community or individual.
If ecocide laws are passed by the UN there will be many ramifications. The complementarity principle means that ‘once something is put in as an international law, then each member state should put in their own national law to comply with it’. The ICC will step in if there is an inability or failure (individual countries may not want to challenge their extractive industries) to implement legislation on a national level. ‘This sends a strong message that you can’t lobby your way out of the situation,’ says Higgins. As well as the legal machinery, Higgins points to existing information-gathering networks in the form of NGOs, many of which are specialised to study and campaign on specific ecosystems. Working together they will be able to present comprehensive damage reports. Read the rest of this entry »
Converting from coal-fired to biomass?
Posted in Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on August 13th, 2010
Source: guardian.co.uk
Image: thewritingzone via flickr CC
From UK’s largest coal-fired power plant could switch to biomass within 10 years by Tim Webb:
Drax, Britain’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, could stop burning coal by the end of the decade. Finance director Tony Quinlan said the company was looking to convert all six units of the coal-fired power station so they only burn biomass, such as wood chip, within the next 10 years. “Drax is a viable business today as a coal plant,” he told the Guardian. “But the opportunity to turn it into a renewable power company is an exciting one and makes sense for the UK’s carbon targets and for our shareholders.”
The company will only go ahead if the government agrees to grant renewable subsidies to such converted coal plants. Currently only purpose-built biomass plants receive extra payouts to cover their higher costs. Drax hopes to convert the first unit – capable of generating 660MW of electricity – next year. It is thought that no coal plant of this size has been converted anywhere in the world. “It has not been done before because there hasn’t been the need,” Quinlan said.
[...]
Some environmentalists question how sustainable biomass can be – because growing energy crops can result in rainforests being destroyed or can compete for land with food production. Greenpeace energy campaigner Joss Garman said: “There’s a serious question about whether it’s sensible to use biomass in this way. While sustainable biomass is possible, the precious supplies available should be used in much smarter ways.”
Drax has biomass supply contracts in place but refuses to divulge where the material will come from, citing commercial confidentiality. Material such as wood chip pellets will be imported from North America and Africa, while UK-sourced biomass like tree stumps and corn stubble will also be used. Drax insists that all of it will be sustainably sourced.
Read the full article by Tim Webb.
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Grow Different, Not Bigger: Animation
Posted in Opinion, Research by Kate Archdeacon on August 12th, 2010
From the Drucker Institute:
Wegmans, a regional (US) grocery chain with just 75 stores in five states, earlier this year beat out its much bigger rivals—Kroger, Publix and Safeway—to be named tops in its industry in a major consumer survey. The recognition caused one marketing expert to note that “you don’t have to be the biggest to be the best.”
In a world in which high-growth companies such as Google tend to grab the headlines, it’s an easy lesson to forget. But it’s one that Peter Drucker promoted. In a 1979 essay, Drucker advised that “nothing can grow forever” and that “today every business needs . . . ways to distinguish healthy growth from fat and cancer.”
British author and social philosopher Charles Handy also echoed these ideas in a 2009 Drucker Centennial lecture. In this short cartoon (under 3 mins), the Drucker Institute has brought Handy’s words to life, illustrating the distinction between healthy growth and unchecked “growth for growth’s sake.”
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Community-Grounded Optimism Live from the Oil Spill
Posted in Movements, Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on August 9th, 2010
Source: Green Cross Australia
Green Cross CEO Mara Bun interviewed Beth Galante, Director of Global Green, to discuss the prospects for a sustainable recovery in America’s climate change impact hot spot – find out more about why community-grounded optimism persists through the nightmare of mega environmental disasters.
MB – How does the oil spill feel on the ground?
It’s been a punch in the gut – earth shattering at the community and personal level. Not a single person was untouched by Katrina. But after a few months, it was clear where the damage was done and people started to move back. Recovery began, first in discrete areas. There has been no shortage of setbacks over the past five years. But the community was truly inspired to put this magical place back together. And it’s come together so much better! With heart, with passion. There is so much to celebrate. But then came the spill.
MB – Let’s get back to the oil spill – but first can you share your reasons for celebrating the recovery?
Sure – some great things come to mind. New Orleans is becoming a model coastal city – resilient, designed to adjust to climate change. The community has embraced sustainability at every level. All levels of government encourage energy efficiency and renewable energy. Awareness about the need to withstand wind and water stresses is massive. We are building to prepare for future hurricanes, so sustainability goes hand in hand with resilience at the neighbourhood and policy level.
The next real accomplishment has been in the public education system. New Orleans had a very poorly performing education system when compared to other parts of the US or other developed nations. Our schools were rock bottom before Katrina. The storm destroyed the school system overnight. The rebirth has been awesome. We now have a decentralized, entrepreneurial school system with all kinds of new models emerging (some private, some traditional public, some supported by Universities). Student test scores have improved every year after Katrina.
Sustainability has been a big factor in this equation. Global Green has led a green school infrastructure project – funded by the Bush Clinton Katrina Fund – that has delivered six new LEED accredited schools [LEED accreditation is similar to Australia's Green Star Ratings]. One of these is Louisiana’s first LEED Gold school. We are really proud of that – and now green schools are embedded in the system. By legislation, all new schools and school renovations in New Orleans must reach at least “LEED Silver” standard. That’s a nation-leading accomplishment. And it’s no surprise that test scores have improved because worldwide studies show that students have better results if they study in places with better light, better air, and lower toxic and other environmental impacts.
The other cause for optimism is governance. Before Katrina, New Orleans and the State as a whole experienced a never-ending stream of corruption enquiries. Our new Mayor has an overwhelming mandate – from black, white, rich and poor residents. We are in a new era of transparent, good local government that has not been seen for generations. Much of this has been citizen-driven. New Orleans has some of the best local community groups in America, and now finally the government is following the community’s lead. For example, a task force including community and local business groups has out forward thirty recommendations for sustainability, and many of these wonderful citizen projects are being supported. But the best cause for optimism – for sure – was when the Saints won the Superbowl!
MB – So bearing all of that good news in mind – lets go back to the oil spill. How is the community responding?
The Positive Deviant: Sustainability Leadership in a Perverse World
Posted in Opinion, Research by Kate Archdeacon on August 6th, 2010
Source: Forum for the Future
Forum Founder Director Sara Parkin’s new book, The Positive Deviant: Sustainability Leadership in a Perverse World, is the first to bring together sustainability knowledge with the leadership skills and tools for leaders in the low-carbon economy of the future. It contains all you need to get started, and to continue growing your effectiveness, even in a world that remains perversely intent on the opposite. Whether you are new to the whole idea of sustainability, or reasonably well informed but not entirely confident about what to do for the best, this guide will help you ‘do’ sustainability. Free of checklists and policy recommendations, the focus is on you, and on developing your capacity to identify the right thing to do wherever you are and whatever your circumstances.
Download the introduction from Earthscan.
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Low-Income Nations: Becoming Climate Resilient
Posted in Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on August 3rd, 2010
Source: Worldchanging
From “Leapfrogging into a Carbon-Light Future: The End of High-Carbon Prosperity and How Low-Income Nations Are Becoming Climate Resilient” by Martin Wright:
The idea that Africa could somehow leap to a boom economy will strike some as hopelessly wishful thinking. But the seeds of this possible future already exist. The combination of solar power, mobile phones and IT, for example, is already transforming the economic prospects for villagers across the continent. A simple piece of software enabling the transfer of small amounts of money instantly and cheaply by mobile is plugging remote rural backwaters into the global economy as never before. Millions are saving money, time and their health by switching to clean, efficient sources of energy – from solar to biogas, biomass to hydro. Agricultural innovations, too, are mushrooming, from water harvesting and hydroponics to the precise application of fertilizer and irrigation via GPS.
All such breakthroughs have one common characteristic: they are low-carbon technologies. The phrase has a rather worthy feel – especially when applied to developing countries. But it masks an intriguing possibility: that low-income nations could outflank the industrialized world, skipping the heavyweight, fossil fuel-dependent economic model and leapfrogging into a carbon-light future.
The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century’s Sustainability Crises
Posted in Movements, Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on July 6th, 2010
How do population, water, energy, food, and climate issues impact one another? What can we do to address one problem without making the others worse? The Post Carbon Reader features essays by some of the world’s most provocative thinkers on the key issues shaping our new century, from renewable energy and urban agriculture to social justice and community resilience. This insightful collection takes a hard-nosed look at the interconnected threats of our global sustainability quandary and presents some of the most promising responses.
In 2009, Post Carbon Institute recruited 29 of the world’s leading sustainability thinkers to answer one fundamental question: How do we manage the transition to a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable world?
Like us, our Fellows see five key truths:
* We have hit the “limits to growth.” This is not a moral question (or not only one); nor is it merely a question about the fate of our children and grandchildren. The truth is that we have no choice but to adapt to a world of resource constraints, economic contraction, and climate upheaval. And thus the only question that remains is this: How will we manage that transition?
* No issue can be addressed in isolation. Thankfully, recognition of these crises has grown in recent years. However, all too often they are viewed in isolation. We must connect the dots in order to get to their source — not just their symptoms — and to maximize what little time and resources we have to address the enormous challenges they pose.
* We must focus on responses, not just solutions. As John Michael Greer says, we face a predicament, not a problem. “The difference is that a problem calls for a solution; the only question is whether a solution can be found and made to work and, once this is done, the problem is solved. A predicament, by contrast, has no solution. Faced with a predicament, people come up with responses.”
* We must prepare for uncertainty. While the general trends are clear, it’s simply impossible to predict, specifically, how world events will unfold. Therefore, it’s critically important that we aim to build resilience on the individual and community scales. Resilient people and resilient communities are characterised by their ability to manage unforeseen shocks while maintaining their essential identity.
* We can do something. The bad news is that we simply cannot avoid hardship or suffering in the journey from a fossil fuel- and growth-dependent world to communities that live within ecological bounds. The good news is that we can prepare and make positive changes in almost any area of our lives and the lives of our communities. How much and how successful those efforts are all depends upon the thought and effort we invest.
The first step, as we saw it, was to aggregate the most current, systems-oriented thinking about these interconnected threats, as well as the most promising responses. The outcome of this effort — The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century’s Sustainability Crises — will hit bookstores and classrooms in October 2010.
The Reader includes 35 essays by 28 Post Carbon Institute Fellows, including Bill McKibben, Richard Heinberg, Stephanie Mills, David Orr, Sandra Postel, Michael Shuman, Wes Jackson, Erika Allen, Bill Ryerson, Gloria Flora, and many other leading sustainability thinkers.
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Changing Models: Labour-Intensive Farming
Posted in Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on April 27th, 2010
Source: Worldchanging
From Out of the Demographic Trap: Hope for Feeding the World, by Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360
In Africa and elsewhere, burgeoning population growth threatens to overwhelm already over-stretched food supply systems. But the next agricultural revolution needs to get local — and must start to see rising populations as potentially part of the solution.
“I bring good news from Machakos, a rural district of Kenya, a couple of hours drive from Nairobi. Seventy years ago, British colonial scientists dismissed the treeless eroding hillsides of Machakos as “an appalling example” of environmental degradation that they blamed on the “multiplication” of the “natives.” The Akamba had exceeded the carrying capacity of their land and were “rapidly drifting to a state of hopeless and miserable poverty and their land to a parched desert of rocks, stones and sand.”
Since independence in 1963, the Akamba’s population has more than doubled. Meanwhile, farm output has risen tenfold. Yet there are also more trees, and soil erosion is much reduced. The Akamba still use simple farming techniques on their small family plots. But today they are producing so much food that when I visited, they were selling vegetables and milk in Nairobi, mangoes and oranges to the Middle East, avocados to France, and green beans to Britain.
What made the difference? People. They made this transformation by utilizing their growing population to dig terraces, capture rainwater, plant trees, raise animals that provide manure, and introduce more labor-intensive but higher-value crops like vegetables. For them, “multiplication” of their numbers has been the solution rather than the problem. They have sprung the demographic trap.
UK Solar Feed-In Tariff (FiT): Ongoing Debate
Posted in Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on March 17th, 2010
Source: Environmental Research Web
FiT for purpose? by Dave Elliott:
The debate on the UK’s new Feed-In Tariff (FiT) has been quite lively, with the Guardian’s George Monbiot arguing that, with solar PV being still very expensive, the way the FiT provided the support needed was economically regressive.
It does look that way at first glance – those that could afford to invest say £10,000 in PV might get £1000 p.a. back for the electricity they generated and used, paid for by all the other consumers, who would be charged extra via their electricity bills. It’s been suggested that this would lead to a £11 p.a. surcharge on bills by 2020. However, in a rebuttal to Monbiot’s analysis, Jeremy Leggett from Solar Century said “the average household levy in 2013, when tariff rates are all up for review, is likely to be less than £3” and he added “this is far less than the average saving from the government’s various domestic energy efficiency measures over the same period. So there is no net subsidy. The levy is not ‘regressive’ at all”.
The extra cost is certainly small, since the expected size of the FiT scheme is small, only maybe leading to 2% of UK electricity by 2020, so maybe this is not a major issue. But it is good to see that the government has now announced a “green-energy loan” scheme (part of its new “Warm Homes, Green Homes” strategy) under which energy-supply companies and others (e.g. the Co-op) may offer consumers zero or low interest loans for installing new energy systems, to be paid back out of the resultant energy savings. Details have yet to be agreed, but up to £7 bn may be made available over the next decade in this way – although it seems it will start off slowly, from 2012 onwards.
Local Food Systems: Not Only Farmers
Posted in Opinion by Kate Archdeacon on January 13th, 2010
Source: Grist
Image: metro centric via flickr CC
From “It takes a community to sustain a small farm” by Steph Larsen
These days it seems the most popular person to be in the food system is the “local farmer.” Farmers markets are popping up everywhere, and their size and popularity grow all the time. Local food is trendy—even the First Family is in on it. But as anyone who has ever raised grain or livestock can tell you, the farmer is not the only person in the chain of players from her farm to your fork. In addition to producers, your food chain includes processors, distributors or transporters, and retailers. In other words, to have a truly local food system, we also need local butchers, bakers and millers, local truck drivers, local grocers, and a community that supports them in all their efforts.
In the world of farm and food policy, we’ve paid a lot of attention to production end of the food system… …But most products aren’t made to eat directly out of the field. Even salad greens or apples, things we typically eat raw and straight from the field, must be washed and sorted before your local farmer will sell them.
As Tom Philpott pointed out in early November, the infrastructure for small-scale processing is woefully inadequate, having suffered decades of atrophy and consolidation—to the point where an otherwise profitable farmer can be driven out of business because she has no where to take her pigs for slaughter, her grain to be milled, or her tomatoes to be “sauced.”