Crime of the century

Interview with James Hoggan, author of Climate Cover-Up:

When will the climate change deniers be held to account for the damage they are inflicting on the poor and the planet?

FACT: No remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change.

It’s hard to believe that such a statement bears repeating at this late hour but, then again, if you relied only on the media in Canada or the U.S. for information on climate change, you would no doubt be left to conclude that the science of global warming is still unresolved and that the debate among scientists rages on. It doesn’t. And there is a concerted campaign underway to make us believe otherwise.

As James Hoggan points out in his excellent new book ‘Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming’ and as Rolling Stone magazine illustrated in their brilliant exposé in the latest issue, a vocal consortium of industry groups, politicians, lobbyists and media commentators have done their utmost to confuse the public into believing that a scientific controversy exists when in fact there is none.

But as James Hoggan explains in my interview with him for CKUT (click the audio player above), the climate change “debate” is not about science or truth at all. It is a PR battle, pure and simple, as was the tobacco PR campaign in years gone by. All those fighting against taking action on climate change or refusing to believe that a problem even exists are almost entirely non-scientists and even fewer are climate scientists. But that seems to matter little because in the war for public opinion, it seems the climate change deniers seem to be muddying the waters just enough to have the desired effect on public opinion – this despite all the overwhelming scientific evidence they are up against.

How do they do it? Listen to the interview to find out.

For the record, here are some points to keep in mind next time you hear media commentators or industry reps talking about the “inconclusive” science or the climate change “debate” in the scientific community:

• In 2004, Naomi Oreskes, a professor at the University of California, published a paper in the journal Science on a study in which she found that, of the 928 peer-reviewed journal articles written between 1993-2003 on global climate change, not a single one took exception with the idea that humans were causing climate change.
• Since 2001, 32 national science academies have issued declarations confirming anthropogenic global warming
• The national science academies of the G8 nations, plus Brazil, China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, signed a statement stressing that the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.
• In 2007, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts issued a formal declaration on climate change saying “Most of the climatic warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This development potentially has dramatic consequences for mankind’s future.
• In 2007, the Network of African Science Academies submitted a joint “statement on sustainability, energy efficiency, and climate change”: A consensus, based on current evidence, now exists within the global scientific community that human activities are the main source of climate change and that the burning of fossil fuels is largely responsible for driving this change.

The list goes on and it is too long to repeat here. Here are some other organizations that have issued statements in support of the consensus that climate change is happening and, through the emissions of greenhouse gases, humans are to blame:

• Royal Society of New Zealand
• Polish Academy of Sciences
• National Research Council (US)
• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• NASA
• American Chemical Society
• American Institute of Physics
• European Science Foundation
• American Geophysical Union
• Geological Society of America
• American Meteorological Society
• Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
• Royal Meteorological Society
• World Health Organization
• Academy of Sciences Malaysia
• Academy of Science of South Africa
• American Astronomical Society
• American Physical Society
• American Quaternary Association
• Australian Academy of Science
• Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
• Brazilian Academy of Sciences
• Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences
• Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
• Caribbean Academy of Sciences
• Chinese Academy of Sciences
• European Academy of Sciences and Arts
• European Geosciences Union
• French Academy of Sciences
• German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina
• Geological Society of London-Stratigraphy Commission
• Indian National Science Academy
• Indonesian Academy of Sciences
• InterAcademy Council
• International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
• International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
• International Union for Quaternary Research
• Mexican Academy of Sciences 
• Network of African Science Academies
• Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
• Royal Irish Academy
• Royal Society of Canada
• Royal Society of New Zealand
• Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
• Russian Academy of Sciences
• Science Council of Japan

It bears repeating: No remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate change.

Number of scientific bodies that dispute human-caused global climate change: Zero.

In 1999, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists issued a formal policy statement in which they disputed human-caused climate change. That position was retracted in 2007.

In the wake of the so-called ‘Climategate’ hacked email controversy (see post below) in which several climate scientists have been eviscerated for some admittedly dubious email exchanges, why are the deniers not being held to similar account for waging their spurious and unrelenting PR campaign of dishonesty and misinformation that has deliberately, and successfully, misled the public on an issue so critical to the future of humanity?

Swifthackers, deniers and flat-earthers

Explanations for the failure of the recent Copenhagen climate summit are many (see post below). Blame has been placed at the feet of the usual suspects (impossibly unworkable negotiations, conflicting national interests, oil and gas industry lobbyists, etc.), but it is unclear what role, if any, the propaganda of climate change deniers and the hacked emails of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit may have played in undermining public confidence in the science of global warming (and consequently the urgency to reach a deal at Copenhagen). If you haven’t yet heard about it, the email accounts of a very small number of prominent climate scientists were hacked recently, revealing correspondence not befitting the considerable esteem of the researchers involved.   

This blog is primarily about discussing alternatives to a damn-the-torpedoes economic system that has not brought us anywhere close to achieving either environmental sustainability or economic justice for the majority of the world’s population. I will therefore not be discussing the hacked email controversy (call it ‘Climategate’ or ‘Swifthack’ if you must) at any considerable length. This has been aptly addressed elsewhere. (I am providing links below to some of the more level-headed responses to the controversy that are worth reading.)

Since the hacked emails became public, the conservative blogosphere has been in nothing short of a hysterical, frothing-at-the-mouth frenzy with claims that the emails prove that climate change is a fraud and that climate scientists the world over (thousands of them, that is) are involved in a vast conspiracy to conceal the truth from an unsuspecting public. As George Monbiot has pointed out, this conspiracy would also necessitate the acquiescence of all of the world’s governments, all national academies of science, as well as the climate itself (e.g. melting Arctic sea ice would have to be in on the hoax), which has been shown unequivocally to be warming at rates faster than scientists had predicted only a few years ago.

Climate justice and Copenhagen

If not Copenhagen, if not a political solution, then what?

Political leaders at the recently concluded Copenhagen climate summit failed to reach a legally-binding, fair and ambitious agreement to reduce global  greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, the leaders of four countries (out of the 192 represented at Copenhagen) negotiated what is being called the Copenhagen Accord, which is at best a face-saving effort that commits countries to nothing but further negotiations and some general platitudes about the importance of climate change.

For all intents and purposes, Copenhagen has failed and the finger-pointing will begin. Was it a lack of political will? The interference of vested, special interests (i.e. big oil)? Or was it perhaps the impossibly unworkable negotiation process itself, in which 192 countries with different, often conflicting interests tried in vain to reach a mutual agreement?

“Canada now threatens the well-being of the world”

With this line in his article last week, George Monbiot certainly had tongues wagging across our fair country. His point? Essentially, he feels that Canada is not the friendly, peace-keeping nation that many of its citizens like to think it is. In fact, Canada’s government has become so obstructionist on international efforts to combat climate change that it is almost single-handedly preventing other nations from striking a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. Not only did the current and previous Canadian governments fail to even try to meet its emissions reductions commitments at Kyoto, the governing Conservatives have indicated that they have no intention of being sanctioned for abandoning its legal obligations. What message does this send to other countries currently negotiating new targets in Copenhagen? Set any target you like because, as Canada has shown so aptly, if you don’t meet it, there are no consequences.

But as the lead climate negotiator of the G77 group of developing countries points out in this recent article from The Guardian, the Kyoto Protocol (which Canada ratified in Parliament) is a legally binding document.  “Here they are bound. It’s law!” says Bernarditas de Castro Muller. “Why do they now want to kill Kyoto? A new agreement means we will have to go through ratification all over again. How long will that take? What if you do not ratify? What are we left with? If you throw this away…? Every word in it means something important because it binds us to legal obligations.”

So why would Canada act in such a cavalier manner? Shannon Walsh might have some idea. She is the director of the new film H2Oil and in my interview with her for CKUT radio, she has a strong suspicion that all this obfuscation and delay on the part of the Canadian government might have something to do with the rapidly expanding Alberta tar sands. 

They may well be  the most destructive industrial project on earth but they are also the source of enormous profits, huge tax revenue and many jobs. Tar sands production may consume almost incomprehensible amounts of water and energy; their toxic waste tailing ponds may well be so big they can be seen from space; and the local indigenous populations may indeed be experiencing inexplicably high cancer rates. But the development and frenetic growth of the tar sands continues unabated, at a rate of expansion over the last decade that has almost single-handedly ensured that Canada had no chance of meeting its legally-binding Kyoto obligations.

Click on the audio player to hear my interview with Shannon Walsh, director of H2Oil. 

The Indigenous Environmental Network’s campaign to stop the Alberta tar sands

Click the audio player above to hear my interview with Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Environmental Network and click the player below to listen to his speech at the PowerShift conference in Ottawa.

With the Copenhagen Climate Summit looming large on the horizon, Canada’s position on greenhouse gas reductions is being severely compromised by the frenzied and voracious expansion of the Alberta tar sands, the world’s biggest industrial source of carbon emissions. In the interview, Clayton discusses the IEN campaign to raise awareness and combat the destructive impacts of tar sands developments on Aboriginal communties in the region. He also talks about the ongoing international anti-tar sands campaign, why he feels the tar sands is a human rights and aboriginal treaty rights issue, and he lays out some of the actions people can take to support the IEN campaign.

Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathais Colomb Cree Nation (Pukatawagan) in Northern Manitoba is an activist for indigenous self-determination and environmental justice, and is the tar sands campaign organizer for the IEN.

In his many years of organizing in Aboriginal communities, Clayton has gained vast experience in grassroots movement building, organizational development (fund raising), strategic campaign planning and policy development. With his roots in the inner city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Clayton’s began his activist career fighting against disparities in the Aboriginal community as a result of poverty and Winnipeg’s youth gang epidemic.

Until recently, he served as the Native Energy organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. Clayton has been on the front lines of stopping industrial society’s assault on Indigenous Peoples lands to extract resources and to dump toxic wastes. He has worked across Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states with grassroots indigenous communities to defend their Inherit, Treaty and environmental rights against unsustainable energy policies and transnational energy corporations.

Clayton Thomas-Muller speech to PowerShift conference in Ottawa (Oct 2009):

Interview with Majora Carter

It was an honour to speak with Majora Carter last month following her speech at the PowerShift climate change event in Ottawa. Click the audio player above to hear my interview for CKUT radio.

Majora Carter is a visionary voice in city planning who views urban renewal through an environmental lens. The South Bronx native draws a direct connection between ecological, economic and social degradation. Hence her motto: “Green the ghetto!”

In 2001, Majora Carter founded a vanguard non-profit environmental justice solutions corp: Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx); serving as Executive Director until mid 2008. With a focus on goals over ideology, Majora Carter then built one of the nation’s first and most successful urban green-collar job training and placement systems within 2 years of founding the corp. With her inspired ideas and fierce persistence, Carter managed to bring the South Bronx its first open-waterfront park in 60 years, Hunts Point Riverside Park. Then she scored $1.25 million in federal funds for a greenway along the South Bronx waterfront, bringing the neighborhood open space, pedestrian and bike paths, and space for mixed-use economic development. In 2006, Majora was awarded the MacArthur “genius” grant.

Her success is no surprise to anyone who’s seen her speak; Carter exudes confidence, energy and an intensely emotional delivery. Working from the belief that no one should have to move out of their neighborhood to live in a better one, Carter decided in 2008 to broaden her horizons in 2008 by founding the consultancy, The Majora Carter Group LLC – aiming to bring the same values, leadership, and talent to cities, organizations, businesses and regions across the nation.

Truly an inspirational individual, Carter shows how one person can make a significant impact in their community and she gives us a glimpse of what a more socially and environmentally just world could look like.

“We could not fail to be inspired by Majora Carter’s efforts to bring green space for exercise to the South Bronx. We need more ideas like these to bring solutions to minority communities.” Time

Interview with Wade Davis

I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to talk with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis when he was in Montreal recently to deliver the fourth of his five Massey lectures, the most prestigious and anticipated Canadian lecture series of the year. These lectures, which are being broadcast from Nov. 2-6 for the CBC Radio program Ideas, are based on his new book ‘The Wayfinders: Why ancient wisdom matters in the modern world‘.

Over the years, I have followed the writings and various exploits of Wade Davis with considerable interest and some envy. A National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Wade Davis travels the globe to live alongside indigenous people, and document their cultural practices in books, photographs, and film. He has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet, and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.”

Born in Montreal, raised in B.C. and educated at Harvard, Wade Davis is perhaps the most articulate and influential western advocate for the world’s indigenous cultures. His writing evokes a passionate concern over the rate at which cultures and languages are disappearing — 50 percent of the world’s 7,000 languages, he says, are no longer taught to children. He argues that language isn’t just a collection of vocabulary and grammatical rules. In fact, “Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind.”

He is the bestselling author of several books, including The Serpent and the Rainbow, Light at the Edge of the World, and The Clouded Leopard. He is an award-winning anthropologist, ethnobotanist, filmmaker and photographer, and his writing and photographs have been widely published.

In this interview I did for CKUT radio, Wade explains why we should be gravely concerned about the disappearance of indigenous languages and cultures around the world, what we can learn from ancient wisdom and how cultural diversity can provide us with alternative models and solutions in confronting some of the most serious challenges facing humanity today.

CLICK HERE to download the interview (To download, right click and select “save link as…”)

And on to Copenhagen…

Interview with Elizabeth May on the International Day of Action on Climate Change

And so it’s come and gone. After 18 months of planning and preparation, over 4000 events took place in over 180 countries all over the world this past weekend to push the number 350 into the global consciousness. Why? Because many scientists (most prominently James Hansen of NASA) now feel that 350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere should be the upper limit in order to avert potentially catastrophic climate change. As we’re already at 387 ppm and still can’t seem to agree on how (or whether) to reduce emissions, this is no small task. Nonetheless, organizers of and participants in the Oct. 24 international day of action on climate change are hoping that the events around the world this past weekend will lead to a groundswell of public opinion that will help push leaders towards a new, stronger international climate treaty at negotiations in Copenhagen this coming December.

So will it work? This is the question I am asking myself having returned from the ‘Fill the Hill’ event on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, has been making the point that advocates for action on climate change constitute a “movement without a movement” in the sense that there has never really been any coordinated mass action on the part of citizens around the world.

I have to admit to being a little disappointed to have seen only about 1000 people turn out on Parliament Hill in Ottawa for what was billed for months as an event that would “fill the Hill’. If the possibility of a catastrophic climate crisis isn’t enough to spur Canadians into action, one wonders what is? On the other hand, perhaps the impacts just seem too far off in the distance, too uncertain, too slow to become manifest. Or maybe it was the rain on Saturday that kept people away.

Whatever the case, I couldn’t help but be reminded of an article from last fall by Eric Pooley called ‘How Much Would You Pay to Save the Planet?’ The author argues that a deadly meteor hurtling toward the earth would surely result in a herculean and coordinated effort to avert catastrophe, regardless of the economic cost. Yet in the case of climate change, no such mobilization has occurred despite the best efforts of scientists to warn of the severe to catastrophic consequences of inaction.

So where will we go from here and just how will the world manage to forge a new agreement in Copenhagen in December? For some thoughts on this, I caught up with Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, who was at the rally on Parliament Hill. Click on the audio player to hear the interview I did with her for CKUT radio.

October 24 is the International Day of Action on Climate Change

Click here to read my interview with Bill McKibben for the journal Alternatives, which was recently published on their web site. Bill talks about his organization 350.org and the huge international day of action on climate change, which is happening on October 24 all over the world, including a massive rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

In Review: Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy

Read my review of ‘Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy‘ in the Aug 2009 issue of Alternatives Journal. Here is an excerpt:

Perhaps it is the economic crisis. Maybe it is climate change, soaring extinction rates or the ever-widening gap between the rich and poor. Or then again, it could simply be the nagging sense among more and more people that the human project has somehow gone awry. Whatever the case, in recent years, we have witnessed an explosion of popular interest in books that question, even excoriate, the most fundamental assumptions of our current, growth-at-all-costs economic system. …