Existential crises usually kick in mid-life, as one wakes and wonders: what is my purpose in life? Why am I here, and where am I going? Though still in its infancy, the Green Climate Fund, a new institution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is confronting such profound questions. As board members of the Green Climate Fund roll up their sleeves to begin critical preparatory work ahead of their first meeting in…
Last week it sounded a lot like the conservative think thank American Enterprise Institute cares more about addressing climate change then President Barack Obama. It certainly seems more willing to find solutions.
AEI hosted a symposium on a carbon tax co-sponsored by the Brookings Institute, International Monetary Fund, and Resources for the Future. This well-attended event added to the momentum building behind a carbon tax as a common sense solution…
Election night was a big night for progressive communities across the country. President Obama was re-elected, of course, and he finally called for action on climate change in his victory speech (which he has unfortunately already started to waffle on). Equally important were more local efforts including Maryland voting to legalize gay marriage , Elizabeth Warren’s victory in Massachusetts, the election of the first openly gay Senator, the beginning…
Friends of the Earth visits the Canadian Embassy to protest Pac Rim gold mine fiasco
On Monday, November 12, I joined representatives of several environmental and public interest groups gathered in front of the grandiose and distinctly odd Canadian Embassy, which occupies one of the most prominent sites in D.C. on Pennsylvania Avenue, just down the hill from the Capitol and across the street from the National Gallery of Art.
Our mission could not be…
This week, Hurricane Sandy fulfilled what many of us had been dreading as we watched it move up the coast: its landfall on the coast of New Jersey and a merger with a massive cold front left millions in the East without power, shelter, or worse. As we recover from the storm and begin to rebuild, Friends of the Earth extends its condolences to the millions affected.
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Hurricane Sandy tore through more than just the eastern states this past week; the power of the megastorm is also forcing the media and candidates to break their silence on climate change. Hurricane Sandy is the latest tragedy on the long list of 2012’s weather anomalies, and Bloomberg Businessweek put it best (on their cover) when they said, “It’s Global Warming, Stupid.”
Sandy is what you get when you put the climate on…
Protecting tropical forests is important in the fight against global climate change, but Indigenous Peoples are lining up against what they consider a false solution to the climate crisis.
As part of California’s commitment to reduce global warming, the state is exploring using rainforests in Central America, South America and elsewhere as “carbon sinks.” The state is studying whether to permit tropical forests to be used as carbon offsets, and allow California companies to …
In November, the EPA will make a decision that could mitigate the higher food prices and job losses we're seeing across the country and abroad right now thanks to our federal biofuels mandate–the Renewable Fuel Standard. In August, eight states and more that 150 members of Congress asked the EPA to lower the mandate because it diverts almost half the corn grown in the U.S. for ethanol—a fuel that the EPA’s own…
“These are the first international trade disputes which create the potential for conflict between a nation’s commitments under the WTO and its obligations under the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. It raises fundamental questions about whether the goals of trade liberalization can be reconciled with ecological imperatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and if not, which are to prevail.” -- Joint friend of the court legal brief from the…
When Congress established the Renewable Fuel Standard –our federal biofuels mandate – they probably weren’t hoping to incentivize invasive species, choke rivers, or increase wildfires. But, if the EPA approves giant reed (Arundo donax) as a so-called “advanced” biofuel that’s exactly what will happen. EPA will likely make a determination about giant reed in the next couple of weeks.
The EPA is currently in the final stages of approving giant reed for use under…