From 350.Org
President-elect Obama just outsmarted us.

He found a way to accomplish the goal we set out for him, re-engaging the United States in the U.N. climate talks, without having to get on a plane.

Speaking via (low-carbon) video to a gathering of world leaders, Obama said that the continued existence of George Bush as president would prevent him from making the trip to Poland next month for the next round of international talks. But he'd clearly heard the call for his presence - - including the nearly 50,000 invitations you sent in from every corner of the world that came through the 350.org website.

Here's a key passage from Obama's video statement:

"Let me also say a special word to the delegates from around the world who will gather in Poland next month: your work is vital to the planet. While I won't be president at the time of your meeting and while the United States has only one president at a time, I've asked members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there. And once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change."

Although we wanted Obama to go to Poland in person, we're overjoyed by the words above - - and pleased to see that he's pioneering fossil-fuel free ways to communicate with the rest of the world!

Published on Monday, November 10, 2008 by the International Herald Tribune
The Climate for Change

by Al Gore

The inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he -- and we -- must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

The electrifying redemption of America's revolutionary declaration that all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of U.S. leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.

The world authority on the climate crisis, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after 20 years of detailed study and four unanimous reports, now says that the evidence is "unequivocal." To those who are still tempted to dismiss the increasingly urgent alarms from scientists around the world, ignore the melting of the north polar ice cap and all of the other apocalyptic warnings from the planet itself, and who roll their eyes at the very mention of this existential threat to the future of the human species, please wake up. Our children and grandchildren need you to recognize the truth, before it is too late.

Here is the good news: The bold steps that are needed to solve the climate crisis are exactly the same steps that ought to be taken in order to solve the economic crisis and the energy security crisis.

Published on Monday, October 27, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
Climate Deal May Be Too Late To Save Coral Reefs, Scientists Warn

by David Adam

A new global deal on climate change will come too late to save most of the world's coral reefs, according to a US study that suggests major ecological damage to the oceans is now inevitable.

[reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia could begin to break up within a few decades, research suggests. (Photograph: Cathie Page)]reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia could begin to break up within a few decades, research suggests. (Photograph: Cathie Page)
Emissions of carbon dioxide are making seawater so acidic that reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia could begin to break up within a few decades, research by the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California suggests. Even ambitious targets to stabilise greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, as championed by Britain and Europe to stave off dangerous climate change, still place more than 90% of coral reefs in jeopardy.

Oceanographers Long Cao and Ken Caldeira looked at how carbon dioxide dissolves in the sea as human emissions increase. About a third of carbon pollution is soaked up in this way, where it reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid. Experts say human activity over the last two centuries has produced enough acid to lower the average pH of global ocean surface waters by about 0.1 units.

Published on Thursday, September 25, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
UN: Tackling Climate Change Will Boost - Not Destroy - Jobs
A UN report is hailed as crucial to overcoming global resistance from the labour movement, which for many years opposed the Kyoto agreement amid fears that members would lose their jobs

by Juliette Jowit

[The latest report has been hailed as crucial to overcoming global resistance from the labour movement, which for many years opposed the Kyoto agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions amid fears that members would lose their jobs.]The latest report has been hailed as crucial to overcoming global resistance from the labour movement, which for many years opposed the Kyoto agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions amid fears that members would lose their jobs.
Far from destroying jobs, tackling climate change will boost employment, claims a major new report published today by the UN and the international labour movement.

The Green Jobs study goes even further than the British government's Stern report in 2006, which urged countries to invest money in reducing emissions and adapting to climate change to avoid much greater costs later.

The latest report has been hailed as crucial to overcoming global resistance from the labour movement, which for many years opposed the Kyoto agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions amid fears that members would lose their jobs.

Published on Saturday, September 13, 2008 by McClatchy Newspapers
Study Finds Recent Global Warming Unprecedented in 1,300 Years

by Renee Schoof

WASHINGTON - A new scientific study adds evidence that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere fluctuated a bit over time, but that the sharp increase during the past few decades is bigger than anything in at least 1,300 years.

[An undated handout photo from the Center for Northern Studies shows the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf disintegrating. (REUTERS/Denis Sarrazin/Center for Northern Studies/Handout)]An undated handout photo from the Center for Northern Studies shows the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf disintegrating. (REUTERS/Denis Sarrazin/Center for Northern Studies/Handout)
The report was published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Its conclusion is that temperature increased and decreased a little over the centuries, but the fluctuations were small enough that the line was roughly flat, like the shaft of a horizontal hockey stick. Then, from about 1980 to now, temperature increased sharply, more than any increase before - like the blade of the hockey stick.

For the past 10 years, climate-change skeptics have been calling the hockey stick bogus. Now the scientists who studied the climate record and produced the original hockey-stick graph have done a new study using more data from more sources - and they got the same pattern.

Published on Thursday, September 11, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Cleared! Jury Decides That Threat of Global Warming Justifies Breaking The Law

by Michael McCarthy

The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.

[Huw Williams, Kevin Drake, Ben Stewart, Tim Hewke, Emily Hall and Will Rose (L-R) outside Maidstone Crown Court. (Photograph: Jiri Rezac/Greenpeace)]Huw Williams, Kevin Drake, Ben Stewart, Tim Hewke, Emily Hall and Will Rose (L-R) outside Maidstone Crown Court. (Photograph: Jiri Rezac/Greenpeace)
Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage - such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.

The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain's green agenda and could encourage further direct action.

Ike's path and oil: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26593439#26578718

This hurricane season: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26593439#26593444

Aloha, Brad

Next week, desperate due to accelerating sea level rise, a group of small islands' leaders plan to take the unprecedented step of putting a resolution before the United Nations calling upon the Security Council itself to address climate change. Stand with these threatened people:

Sign the petition now!
Imagine the sea rising around you as your country literally disappears beneath your feet, where the food you grow and the water you drink is being destroyed by salt, and your last chance is to seek refuge in other lands where climate refugees have no official status. This is not a dream, it's the fearful reality for millions of people who live on islands around the world, from the Maldives to Papua New Guinea.

That is why these small islands are planning the unprecedented step next week, ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting, of calling on the Security Council itself to address climate change as a pressing threat to international peace and security.

This is a creative move born of desperation, a challenge to global powers to end their complacency and tackle this lethal crisis with the urgency of wars. This effort could help shift the tenor of the world's debate -- from a far-off storm cloud to a life-threatening crisis here and how. But the island states' campaign will meet fierce opposition from the world’s biggest polluters, so they need our help. Sign the petition now to raise a worldwide chorus of support for this call -- our signatures will be presented to the UN by the islands' ambassadors as they introduce their resolution next week:

Published on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Schemes To Offset Carbon 'Overpriced and Unfair'

by Cahal Milmo

Britain's booming carbon offset industry is riddled with inconsistencies and clashes of interest that have caused a "crisis of legitimacy" which threatens to dissuade consumers from contributing to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions, leading academics claim today.

[The sun sets behind Isla refinery in Willemstad at the island of Curacao June 16, 2008. The rapid growth in the offsetting market, which last year more than doubled it global income to in excess of £165m from individuals and companies paying to reduce the impact of activities such as flying, has produced an unregulated and at times overpriced industry. (Jorge Silva/Reuters)]The sun sets behind Isla refinery in Willemstad at the island of Curacao June 16, 2008. The rapid growth in the offsetting market, which last year more than doubled it global income to in excess of £165m from individuals and companies paying to reduce the impact of activities such as flying, has produced an unregulated and at times overpriced industry. (Jorge Silva/Reuters)
The rapid growth in the offsetting market, which last year more than doubled it global income to in excess of £165m from individuals and companies paying to reduce the impact of activities such as flying, has produced an unregulated and at times overpriced industry. There are wide disparities in the way the amount of carbon dioxide produced is calculated and the charge demanded from consumers.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/27/10637/
Published on Sunday, July 27, 2008 by One World.net
Activists To Ratchet Up Climate Heat
by Haider Rizvi

NEW YORK - Teams of environmental activists are planning to take to the streets over the coming weeks to put the spotlight on policy makers who they say are prioritizing corporate interests in the coal and oil industries over the impending threat of global warming.0727 02“Climate change is here and more and more people are refusing to sit by waiting for governments to act and watching them fail,” said Alicia Ng, an activist associated with the international campaign called “Climate Convergence 2008.”

The Climate Convergence is part of a global campaign that calls for acts of civil disobedience to draw policy makers’ attention to the threat of climate change and its impact on the natural environment and indigenous communities across the world.

Apparently inspired by the success of British environmental protests against the expansion of Heathrow Airport in London last year, those who have launched the Climate Convergence campaign say they plan to stage direct actions in a similar way in several U.S. and European cities in the next two months.