Climate & Society – Page 5 – COP 20: Lima, Peru

October 15, 2014

Merchants of Doubt Stop Selling?

According to the Guardian’s article, “World’s to PR companies rule out working with climate deniers,” there has been a recent shift in the role PR companies have in creating climate change doubt. After reading Merchants of Doubt we all know the importance PR companies, along with several other actors, have had in making action on climate change difficult. The level of certainty within the scientific community has been high enough, in my opinion, to warrant wide-scale public fear and pressure to demand immediate and strong action to mitigate climate change for decades now. However, this level of certainty is still not reflected in the mainstream media or consciousness. This is in large part because of misinformation campaigns, driven by savvy PR firms, that slam real facts, and misinterpret reasonable amounts of uncertainty about the various aspects of climate change from the science to the economics of it.

Yet, we are perhaps witnessing a change in the willingness of these companies to partake in merchandizing doubt, even if marginal. The Guardian and the Climate Investigations Center (an organization that monitors and researches misinformation campaigns surrounding climate change) acquired data through surveys sent to these companies. According to the authors of the article, Suzanne Goldenberg and Nishad Karim, “Now a number of the top 25 global PR firms have told the Guardian they will not represent clients who deny man-made climate change, or take campaigns seeking to block regulations limiting carbon pollution. Companies include WPP, Waggener Edstrom (WE) Worldwide, Weber Shandwick, Text100, and Finn Partners” (Goldenberg). This moral and political switch is very exciting and hopeful to a certain extent.

However, the research collected should be taken with a fair amount of skepticism and a watchful eye of potential green washing by these companies. To begin the Guardian and Climate Investigations Center (CIC) did not appear to get the full picture of the “top PR Companies” as the title suggests; less than half responded to them including companies with a history of both environmental and climate change disinformation campaigns. Furthermore, it was a survey, not necessarily research into each individual firm’s internal policies, client list and current and past campaigns. This means the firms only offered what information they want the media and watchdogs to know. These are PR firms, they are experts in creating the appearance they want, while masking what they don’t want known or focused on. Kert Davies, the founder of CIC acknowledges this saying, “They pretend they are above the fray and they are not involved, and yet they are the ones designing ad campaigns, designing lobbying campaigns, and designing the messages their clients want to convey around climate change ” (Goldenberg).

So while this article can, and perhaps should, be taken with a healthy dose of cynicism it got me thinking about some hopeful outcomes. As we have learned in class one of the key roles of transnational networks is regulation. This is often taken in the form of an organization or network creating a certifiable standards, benchmarks or rules that encourage voluntary participation of companies. These certifications can be highly credible and a good way to motivate companies to take action and become accountable for their current actions. I think that if a transnational network of PR firms set a standard that committed them to only represent climate positive companies it has the potential to increase the momentum founding this article. While the CIC is a good start, from what I can tell, a more legitimate actor with similar goals, would be necessary for this type of regulation to succeed.

Work Cited:

Goldenberg, Suzanne , and Nishad Karim. “Environment Climate change World’s top PR companies rule out working with climate deniers.” The Guardian. N.p., 4 Aug. 2014. Web. 15 Oct. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/04/worlds-top-pr-companies-rule-out-working-with-climate-deniers>.

October 15, 2014

Trash Talk in America

from U.S. EPA and http://www.wec.ufl.edu/extension/gc/harmony/waste.htm

Tonight at Sociology Professor Barnum’s Soup and Bread discussion in Dickinson’s Treehouse: The Center for Sustainable Living, we covered a variety of issues, one of them being trash. In a consumer society where items are created to last no more than three years, trash has become a much bigger part of American society than most Americans realize. According to Forbes, the U.S. is responsible for producing ¼ of the world’s waste, meanwhile making up only 5% of the world’s population. That’s way too much trash, and too much trash too responsibly remove from society.

How did Americans become so unaware of their waste habits? After all, according to Edward Humes, author of Garbology, per capita waste levels have doubled in the U.S. since 1960. Think of the phrase “out of sight, out of mind”. Once an American puts the garbage out on the side of the curb each week, the trash is no longer their problem and they can move on to collecting waste for the next week. The rest of the world, however, is not so ignorant toward the U.S.’s trash problem. Just take the floating trash island in the Pacific- an “island” made of plastic debris deposited into the ocean which will never fully decompose.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKBWNVNzaPo”]

When there were no municipal waste programs (granted there were, however, major health problems), people were reminded constantly of their trash- by its smell and its appearance. With American’s desire for homes to look pristine and neat, trash could definitely get in the way of this. If American’s were forced to deal with their trash for more than seven days at a time, actions and attitudes might be different. Disposable toothbrushes, Brillo Pads, and excessive paper handouts would feel more threatening once they needed to be stored for more than a week, making them no longer out of sight and so hopefully no longer out of mine. With a more “in your face” approach to America’s trash, the disgusting and greedy extent of its waste products could possibly decrease.

A good link to check out: www.zerowasteamerica.org.

October 8, 2014October 8, 2014

Perfect Chair: Goldilocks; as the Mixed Track Approach: COP20

Global Climate Change is a multi-faceted problem resulting in 20 years of relatively stagnant climate change negotiations. The past negotiations have failed to ratify a climate change agreement that involves all the nation- state actors. The involvement of all nation-states is necessary to achieve the goal of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which is closing the gap between the countries’ emission pledges and the actuality of countries ability to reach the global average temperature to be below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Hence to achieve global involvement and to attain the necessary mitigation goals, alternative negotiations from the “top-bottom” approach may offer a better solution. The “mixed-track” approach is the most effective method of achieving the post-2020 goals of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action for it incorporates successful aspects of the “top-bottom” and “bottom-up” approaches, but also resolves the issues that both approaches pose.

Neither the “top-down” nor the “bottom-up” approaches allow for completely successful climate change negotiations. One issue with the “top-down” approach is that it has led to a division between developed and developing nation-states, which has made negotiations tense. This divide has become a wall due to most climate policy’s constant incorporation of the CBDR principle (Kallbekken 2014). The CBDR policy and changed dynamics between the developed and developing countries should be altered because these nation-states situations have changed and climate change’s current state requires global participation. Another reason why the “top-down” approach has failed in the past is because nation-state’s participation is voluntary and also there is “no enforcement machinery” despite being “under international law” (Bodansky 2012). The Kyoto Protocol operated under these standards and its “failure” was highlighted due to the withdrawals of the United States, Canada, Russia and Japan. Although the Kyoto Protocol had its disadvantages, it was a major milestone for it provided a framework that was accepted around the globe. If the future negotiations can generate this same global participation, it could lead to the achievement of the Ad Hoc’s goals for 2020.

Similar to the “bottom-up” approach, the “top-down” approach has its strengths and weaknesses. Compared to the “top-down” approach, it has improved international relations for it acts across boarders and has found commonality among nation-states basis. Since private and public transnational networks play such a large role in the negotiations, they should be integrated into the decision-making process. Another strength is that it allows for flexibility and inclusivity for it does not require a protocol or international legal agreement (Bondansky 2012). An example of the “bottom-up” approach was the Copenhagen Accord and Cancún Agreements, which operate at a national level and are only partially committed, not legally binded. The flexibility of the agreement generates greater public approval of an agreement, since it does not necessarily have negative effects if the nation-state deviates from the agreement. However, this flexibility is also the downfall of this approach for it gives states too much freedom in which they could lessen their responsibilities towards climate change.

The “mixed track” approach adds upon “top-down”’ approach’s successful aspect, but also incorporates the “bottom-up”’ approach’s alternative mechanisms. The “mixed track” approach gives a role to both international and national regime, since they both have been effective in different mechanisms. The “mixed track” positive aspects consist of: legal agreement with some binding and non binding component, variable structure incorporating national and international regimes, multiple types of commitments and mixed mitigation process (Bodansky 2012). Hopefully, the “mixed track” approach would encourage the necessary qualities in decision making , which are “tringency, participation and compliance” .

Bodansky, D., 2012. The Durban Platform: Issues and Options for a 2015 Agreement.
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). Analysis of President Bush’s Climate Change Plan. February, 2002.

October 8, 2014

Leisure or Consumption?

In tonight’s Clarke Forum lecture with Mark Price, Ph.D. entitled, Fighting the Runaway Inequality: The Minimum Wage Controversy, a little light bulb went off.

When discussing the increased productivity of American workers occurring alongside the fall in the minimum wage adjusted for inflation. Thus, people are producing more while simultaneously making less money in wages. This extra time they have, Dr. Price pointed out, low-wage workers could either increase consumption or increase leisure time. As can be assumed in an American culture defined by consumerism, most chose more consumption and thus their activities in their free time require them to make even higher wages. This raises a predicament putting low-wage workers into further and further debt.

Going off of this, I started to think about what would happen if we consumed less? Our industrialized European peers got the message, pairing up industrialization and leisure, but America took the consumption road, leading to even more overworked members of society wanting more and more. To see what I mean, check out the “Story of Stuff” below.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM”]

So what does this have to do with global climate change? Imagine if Americans started to spend their free hours enjoying low-cost leisure time instead of consuming and working extra hours to fuel their consumption. First of all, if society really changes its ways from consumption, the amount of “low-quality” products requiring endless amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Secondly, most low-cost leisure activities involve the outdoors in some way, whether in the form of hiking, a free concert in the park, swimming, walking, running, playing pick-up games, having picnics, gardening, biking, and I could go on forever. As we talked with James Balog in the Treehouse the morning of his lecture, his and many others’ environmental ethic comes from their love for spending time outdoors. Thus not only could more leisure time lead to less greenhouse gas emissions, but it could boost people’s environmental ethics as well, making it more likely for them to take action against climate change and urge others to do the same.

The tricky part is figuring out how to change a key component of society in place for 200+ years. Any ideas? I know I will start by spending my free time doing things outside.

October 5, 2014October 12, 2014

The Miracle and the Horror of it

In the two weeks since seeing James Balog’s film Chasing Ice for the first time, and getting the special experience of interacting with him in class, I have been struggling with and mulling over his words and images. My aunt had suggested the documentary to me when it was first released but I was hesitant to watch it, to the point where I blatantly avoided the film. At one point in the film Balog said that in his work he finds, “the miracle and the horror of it.” Before watching his film, I could only find the horror of it. I refused to watch his film originally because I knew it would terrify me, I knew the possibility of his work creating hope for a “negligible” impact was none, and that it would force some realizations about my future I was not ready for.

Yet, in watching in and interacting with him, my experience was different than what I anticipated. His images were shocking, and alarming, but they also contained an unexpected beauty and emotion that is hard to place. At times the images were difficult to see but impossible not to be gripped by. Even now thinking back to it, or looking at the small exhibit in the library, I find it challenging to cope with both the miracle and the horror, as Balog aptly put words to. Fully understanding climate change as a concept, as well as its impacts are naturally hard to grapple with. However, Balog’s work provides important insight that would be impossible to get elsewhere. It shows the speed of the system, the desperate need for action and the role of the individual in coping with it.

In talking with Balog he said that before the Extreme Ice Survey he was a pessimist about climate change but since the experience his attitude has changed. I feel my perception on climate change as changing in a similar way. The magnitude of the problem is almost beyond a comprehensible scale but that does not mean nothing can be done. He said that in taking action on climate change each person has to do what they are capable of, for him it was his pictures, but each person is is something unique. For me, this means there are an unlimited number actions to be taken individually and collectively to confront climate change. The power locked within this, I am hopeful, has the potential to create a miracle.

October 5, 2014

Should Men be More Concerned about Climate Change?

By Maeve Hogel

There are many aspects of life that can seem gender discriminatory, but could climate change be one of them? According to a CBS News article on Friday, a recent study in Japan found a connection between the increase in the number of deaths of males fetuses in comparison to the deaths of female fetuses and the increases in temperature.

The cause of why males may be affected more than females is still unknown and the study only found a connection and doesn’t prove causation, as there are many other environmental factors, such as pollution, that could be a fault. The data certainly isn’t all in yet about this subject matter, but its a interesting concept to think about. Maybe it will be true that females have it easier when it comes to climate change. I guess we will have to wait and see what future research shows.

October 5, 2014October 7, 2014

Ditch the 2°C limit? A costly detour

David Victor and Charles Kennel write in a recent commentary published by Nature “Politically and scientifically, the 2 °C goal is wrong-headed.” Their commentary has prompted a number of responses – see article in The Guardian by Adam Vaughan and rebuttals by Gavin Schmidt, Bill Hare and others, and Joe Romm.

Victor and Kennel argue that the 2 °C limit suffers from two political problems. First, they assert, keeping below 2 °C is unachievable without “heroic assumptions” about immediate global cooperation and widespread availability of technologies that have not been demonstrated at scale. Second, the 2 °C threshold does not translate into a specific and certain quantity of emissions, and therefore “does not tell particular governments and people what to do.”

Scientifically, the basis for the 2 °C limit, according to Victor and Kennel, is tenuous, in part because changes in average global surface temperature does not track in lock step with climate forcing and climate risks on short time scales. They take the position that a single index of climate change risk is not possible given the complexities of how changes in carbon dioxide concentrations alter climate and other earth systems, and the consequent risks to ecological systems and humans. They advocate for development of a set of indicators, or “planetary vital signs,” to be used by policy makers and the UNFCCC to gauge climate stresses and possible impacts that are “better rooted in the scientific understanding of climate drivers and risks.”

Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote an excellent rejoinder in Realclimate. He also posted a comment to an article in The Guardian about the Victor-Kennel commentary that nicely matches my take: “If you are driving in completely the wrong direction, arguing about where you’ll park if you arrive isn’t your highest priority.” I have significant doubts about the viability of reaching a comprehensive, top-down, legally binding agreement at COP21 in Paris. But urging parties to the UNFCCC to revisit the hard-won agreement to try to limit warming to < 2 °C, and consider replacing it with targets for an array of planetary vital signs, is an invitation to inaction that would have dangerous repercussions.

Do read Gavin Schmidt’s more detailed assessment of why the 2 °C limit should not be ditched. He makes a good case for the scientific validity for using average global temperature as a reasonable indicator of climate risk, and counters the assertion that the 2 °C limit is technically or economically unachievable.

October 4, 2014

WANTED: Adaption at Home and Abroad… NOW

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNcUC1xUB5c”]

A basic principle of the UNFCCC agreement is CBDR, or Common but Differentiated Responsibilities. This stems from the idea that based on historical emissions, developing countries should not have their development taxed because of harm to the environment caused by already developed countries’ development 100 years ago. Because of this, developed countries are held responsible for funding any climate change efforts developing countries decide to embark on. Furthermore, developed countries are to share information and technology to help developing countries develop in a “greener” way than developed countries had in the past.

My question is, how can we do this if we still haven’t gotten the hang of smart development in our own country? I’m not suggesting the U.S. should help itself before it helps others, but instead should be taking a bilateral approach to both change domestic ways and provide support internationally for cleaner development.

Yesterday, the story “With Dry Taps and Toilets, California Drought Turns Desperate” made the front page of the NYTimes. Households in California, and especially those in Tulare County, a rural county with especially impoverished residents and barely any water. With three years of drought and still going strong, the California drought, although as a single event it cannot be attributed to climate change, calls for more caution when dealing with the climate. Even in one of the richest country in the world, the U.S. still doesn’t seem to be able to come up with even effective adaptation plans, never mind mitigation. One family the article focuses on hasn’t had running water for more than five months. How is the U.S. caring for these Californians? They aren’t. When families call the state and local governments for advice, they are told there are no public agencies set up to help them. Water is provided through bottled water from residents’ pockets and local charities. Even the counting of households without water is spotty, with an estimate of 700 households, overlooking households in rural areas with dried-up wells. One volunteer is quoted describing the drought as “it’s a slow-moving disaster that nobody knows how to handle” (Medina 18).

The U.S. is obviously having trouble preparing for and dealing with the “slow-moving” crises brought on by climate change, so how can it be expected to help others? The solution is not, as I said before, to focus on itself first before it helps others. There is no time to wait; climate change does not wait for domestic pilots, it comes when it wants, where it wants, and countries must be as ready as best they can. This means focusing on security threats from more than just other states but from the earth itself. The U.S. needs to take the terrible lessons it’s learning in California to realize that a much more though-out, cross-sector, and multi-level approach must be employed in adapting to climate change domestically and globally.

Medina, Jennifer. 2014. “With Dry Taps and Toilets, California Drought Turns Desperate.” The New York Times, October 3, p. 1, A18.

October 4, 2014October 4, 2014

More Carbon Than I Previously Thought

Some time ago I posted about the carbon emissions that would be resulting from the mosaic’s travels to Peru. I was recently contacted by a professor at Dickinson, who informed me that my calculations were drastically off. I promptly investigated the claim and found that he was right. So, after several checks and some reworking of my excel document I present the new information. It is a stunning shift (and not in a good way).

CO2 emitted per gallon of kerosene consumed by plane.

Eight pounds of coal heaped onto a dinner plate.

So, here is the sad part of the mosaic. Our trip involves six flights. Two flights to get to Lima, two to get back to the states, and two flights while in Peru (to Cusco and back). During this, we will be emitting about 7000 pounds of one of our favorite greenhouse gasses. That is equivalent to burning 3410 pounds of coal (EPA). If any of my past readers will recall I posted a photo of 8 pounds of coal on a plate. It would take just over 426 of those plates to account for that much coal, or the biggest dinner party you have ever been to. In my mind, things have changed as I have corrected the numbers. Instead of 3 of those plates of coal, it is 426. This is a big investment. We need to make it worth it.

October 3, 2014

Star Gazing Glacier

James Balog, recipient of the 2014 Sam Rose ’58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism is an American nature photographer and scientist who has been following rapid glacier melt due to climate change. Founded in 2007, his project, the Extreme Ice Survey, was as a method of educating those on the immediate impact of climate change and showing them how humans play a role in climate change. He enjoys nature and he had a hard time figuring out what is an effective way to make the public understand that climate change is occurring on a day-to day basis. He wanted to make skeptics of climate change question their views and that is just what he did.

He was sent to take a picture of ice for the National Geographic magazine that he thought he couldn’t complete. That mission soon led him to think about how ice is melting at a rapid pace due to climate change, which in turn made him pursue his project, the Extreme Ice Survey. By traveling to multiple locations where there are glaciers, he monitored the rate at which they were melting. The footage he captured was just amazing.

His pictures speak more than a thousand words. There was a free showing of his documentary, “Chasing Ice” at the Carlisle Theater and hundreds of people showed up to the screening. As the documentary was playing, you can hear the sounds of concern the audience was making. Having had the privilege of being able to speak to him multiple times one-to-one (and getting a picture with him!), I can say that he is truly invested in his work and his passion burns inside in out. Despite injuring his knee quite too many times, he still perseveres and completes his ongoing, never-ending mission. Balog’s next project deals with forrest fires…let’s hope he makes another documentary leaving people awe-struck and that too without melting his equipment!