Eight years after the September 11th attacks, the House of Representatives today approved the “Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009,” (H.R. 2868) by a vote of 230 to 193. This is the first time either house of Congress has approved permanent and comprehensive chemical security legislation. 

“Although it’s a compromise, this bill represents a historic first step toward protecting the 100 million Americans living in the shadow of high-risk chemical plants,” said Rick Hind, legislative director of Greenpeace.  “It’s now time for the Senate to recognize the urgency of this issue and embrace common sense solutions that eliminate these risks once and for all,” said Hind.

Earlier this week, Clorox announced plans to convert all of their U.S. facilities from ultra-hazardous chlorine gas to liquid bleach to “strengthen our operations and add another layer of security,” according to their CEO Don Knauss. Clorox also indicated that these changes “won’t affect the size of the company’s workforce." 

Since 9/11 more than 200 chemical facilities have converted to safer chemical processes, eliminating poison gas risks to more than 30 million Americans. Yet 300 other chemical plants together put 110 million Americans at risk.

 “For the first time since the September 11th attacks Congress and the administration are in agreement on how to protect the millions of Americans at risk from chemical plants,” said Hind.

In addition, water utility groups and a coalition of more than 50 organizations are urging Congress to enact this legislation. They include: Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, the United Auto Workers, Steelworkers, Teamsters, Fire Fighters, Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace. 

The House passed bill (H.R. 2868) will:

• Conditionally require the highest risk plants to use safer chemical processes where feasible and cost-effective and requires the remaining high risk plants to “assess” safer chemical processes;
• Eliminate the current law's exemption of thousands of chemical facilities, such as waste water and drinking water plants and port facilities;
• Involve plant employees in the development of security plans and provides protections for whistleblowers and limit background check abuses;
• Preserve state’s authority to establish stronger security standards;
• Provide funding for conversion of plants, including drinking water facilities and wastewater facilities, and
• Allow citizen suits to enforce government implementation of the law. 

As the last day of climate talks before the Copenhagen summit drew to a close, Greenpeace activists attached a banner reading "Climate chaos: Who is to blame?" to Barcelona’s Columbus Monument, which points to America. The US delegation has emerged as one of the chief obstructions to progress at the talks that took place in Barcelona this week.




Images © Greenpeace/Pedro Armestre

Today's action was the final one of a series of actions Greenpeace did this week in Barcelona. Check out pics from our banner hang at Sagrada Família and the "extreme weather event" we created to show delegates what lies in store for the planet if global warming goes unchecked.

If the political courage of the developed world’s leaders remains missing in action, then we won’t have a deal in Copenhagen. And despite their best efforts to continue floating half-measures and make them stick, consensus is not forming around a deal with weak emissions targets. Developing countries are pushing back and fighting for their survival.
 
We singled out President Obama, however, because his actions fall so far short of his promises to “restore science to its proper place” and lead the world’s response to global warming. He has stood aside while Congress let the fossil fuel industry hijack its climate legislation. And on the international scene, he has been silent while his negotiators obstruct the progress on a treaty intended to deal with the most pressing environmental crisis of our time.

Write to President Obama now and tell him that it’s time to sign a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty.

One year ago President Obama was elected and my hopes for a clean energy future soared.  However, just two weeks ago, that hope began to be blown away in West Virginia when Massey Energy began dynamiting Coal River Mountain—the site of a proposed 328-megawatt wind farm—to prepare for a massive mountaintop removal coal mining operation.

 

But today, organizations from across the country are coming together to demand that President Obama’s Administration be a leader for both clean energy and communities and stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain. In fact, it’s the biggest online action to stop mountain top removal coal mining in history.

Can you take a moment right now to tell the Obama Administration to not blast away our clean energy future?

Here’s what’s at stake:

-The homes, healthy air, streams and ecosystems of the local residents of Coal River Mountain.

-A Coal River Mountain wind farm that would provide 85,000 households with electricity, 700 long-term green jobs, give back $1.7 million in annual county taxes and stand as a model for clean energy across the region.

-The health of the climate as when burning the coal pumps tons upon tons of carbon into the atmosphere of an already dangerously warming planet.

The EPA has the power to either protect the climate and the communities of Coal River Mountain, or it can allow the creation of a 6,000-acre dirty energy wasteland.

You can make a difference today by taking one minute right now to tell the Obama Administration to support clean energy and save Coal River Mountain.

With your help, we can make the clean energy revolution a reality. As my colleague from Rainforest Action Network, Scott Parkin, says

“Coal River Mountain must become our line in the sand. We can no longer allow fossil fuel interests to build more pipelines, belch out more pollution, and destroy more mountains that could become clean energy wind farms. If we can stop the blasting on Coal River Mountain we can stop talking about a clean energy future and start living in a clean energy present.”

 

Greenpeace activists staged an extreme weather event today for delegates at the UN climate talks in Barcelona, Spain to give them a taste of what the future will look like if they don’t create the right conditions for a fair, ambitious and binding climate deal in Copenhagen next month.

Amidst a mock storm of thunder, lightning, rain and wind outside the Barcelona conference center, the Greenpeace activists deployed a banner that read “Our climate, your decision”.



© Pedro Armestre/Greenpeace


© Pedro Armestre/Greenpeace


© Pedro Armestre/Greenpeace

The really bad news is that, according to reports coming out of Barcelona, it is the US that is the biggest threat to the deal the world needs in Copenhagen. Rolf has all the dirt on the excuses the US delegation is making in his post, "Call to Action: US obstructing Barcelona talks." There's also a sample script and numbers you can use to call Secretary of State Hilary Clinton or US climate envoy Todd Stern to let them know that you expect the US to lead the world's response to climate change, not obstruct those efforts.

If you haven't made a call, please make one now. If you have made a call, consider calling again. The Obama Adminstration needs to hear from us that we expect the leadership that then-candidate Obama promised on global warming.

This semester, I’ve worked with student activists who have coal plants on campus — you know, those antiquated, decades-old, polluting machines that fill the air with toxins like mercury, arsenic, and millions of tons of global warming pollution. At Iowa State University, a monster coal plant looms in the center of campus. The plant consumes over 150,000 tons of coal a year — that's one half the weight of the Empire State Building!

Iowa State had been dumping fly ash from the coal plant into unlined storage ponds, which is incredibly dangerous due to the risk of contaminating ground water supplies (our drinking water) with numerous deadly toxins. Upon learning about this, Greenpeace campus coordinator Graham Jordison organized a protest on the first day of school. The protest generated several media hits and started a conversation on campus about the plant. A nervous university administration quickly issued a public statement vowing to address the issue.

Weeks later, all 3 of the main public universities in Iowa, including Iowa State, announced that they would begin a ground-water monitoring program for the fly ash disposal. Talk about power of the people!

One week after this announcement, Graham and his team met with the university president to thank him, and ask him to shut down the coal plant and replace it with clean, renewable sources like wind power. Although the students didn't get a commitment to close the plant, the President and his administration are definitely listening as the students continue to demand clean energy on campus. Graham said it best when quoted in a newspaper article: “We’re not afraid to step it up, get our activists together and do some non-violent actions. Whatever it takes to get the school to wake up and realize students want this to change.”

Photo: Iowa State student activists protesting at the campus coal plant.

The story is unfinished at Iowa State or at your school, but there is only one ending in which we all win. This ending has 100% clean, renewable energy, where coal is no longer part of our vocabulary. To make this happen, we need leaders to fight for the environment. Join Graham, Iowa State, and the Student Network as we fight for the only planet we’ve got.

Let’s make sure President Obama transitions our country to clean, renewable energy. Send a message to President Obama right now!

For more information about the Student Network, visit our website and friend us on Facebook!

Send me an email right now and I’ll get you started organizing for climate action at your school.

For the climate,

David

One of the weird consequences of overfishing is the very real possibility that jellyfish will replace the niche left by fish species. It makes for nice scary pieces of news, like this bit out of Japan. A ten-ton fishing boat was capsized after dozens of giant jellyfish were caught in their net. As the crew tried to haul the net onboard, the boat started to capsize and they were thrown into the sea.

The three men are safe. Thankfully, another trawler in the area was able to rescue them.

If we are about to be taken over by jellyfish, let's try to look on the bright side. Maybe they taste good? Maybe they're healthy for us to eat. I really can’t say, but perhaps we should be open-minded.

British cartoonist Steven Appleby tried to find a way we could cook jellyfish. And, at the rate our oceans are being overfished, you'll want to watch this video, just to be sure you're well-prepared.

 

Most people here in Barcelona I think would say 'slow progress' is an exaggerated description of the state of climate negotations. For a recent issue of Eco, the daily newsletter of Climate Action Network-International, I wrote this article which goes over a couple elements that may be mucking up negotations as well as confusing domestic discussion of climate legislation.

Many voices are complaining that the US delegation has put no numbers on the table, but there is one number that just keeps popping up. That number is 2005, the base year for the Kerry-Boxer climate legislation.

Even though it was four years ago, 2005 just happens to be the year of the highest US emissions in history. Obviously, reducing 20% of emissions from a higher pool means less reductions. Kerry-Boxer aims to reduce 7% below 1990. Using 2005 base year allows for a more ambitious sounding target.

In Barcelona this proposed base year of 2005 distorts an important discussion on 'comparability' and has become a red herring in assessment of the adequacy of the scale of mitigation targets.

The US delegation often seems to insinuate that 1990 was just an arbitrary base year. Of course, 1990 was not selected at random: it was the year of the IPCC’s First Assessment Report; the year when the world began negotiating what became the Convention.  

But arbitrary or not, shifting to a different base year like 2005 allows the US to imply that the EU proposed mitigation target of 20% by 2020 relative to 1990 is about as ambitious as that in the US legislation. In effect, this amounts to suggesting that emissions reductions elsewhere between 1990 and 2005 are irrelevant to negotiations today.  The comparison we really should be making is the distance between the proposals on the table and what the science is saying we have to do.   

Countries may find it domestically convenient to use a different baseline year, but this presents several problems. Converting reporting data from one country to another appears to be simple enough in theory. But in practice, measurement, reporting and verification requires comparing apples to apples. Converting multiple data points across multiple countries using a variety of different baselines is a convenient recipe for confusion and avoiding the big picture (remember? 'compare the targets to what the science demands').  So even if the experts can provide conversion formulas for differing baselines, there is still a question of public transparency and accountability.

And finally, if the baseline changes, so must the targets. Were we to use a 2005 baseline, the IPCC says global emissions should come down 35-50% by 2020 (as opposed to 25-40% with a 1990 baseline). In the context of history and science, using 1990 is not at all arbitrary. 

Yesterday I reported on a Greenpeace banner hang at the UN climate talks in Barcelona, as well as the fact that several African nations had walked out of the negotiations in protest of the weak emissions reductions targets commitments made by developed nations.

I mentioned in that post that the talks were to resume today, but also noted that I didn't know what resolution had been reached to allow talks to resume. Today, via The Associated Press, we have our answer:

BARCELONA, Spain — African countries ended a boycott of meetings at U.N. climate negotiations on Tuesday, after winning promises for more in-depth talks on how much rich nations need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Due to the Africans' demands, most of the rest of this week's talks in Barcelona will be devoted to discussing carbon-cutting pledges rather than other issues including carbon offsets and action by developing countries, said John Ash, chairman of the negotiations on emissions.

The Africans, supported by about 70 other developing countries, said industrial nations were making weak commitments to stave off dramatic temperature rises while Africa was being devastated by droughts and floods blamed on global warming.

Scientists say industrial countries should reduce emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, but targets announced so far amount to far less.

...

"It's really good that the Africans have finally been able to stand up together," said Fiona Musana of Johannesburg-based Greenpeace Africa. "That sends a strong signal."

Of course, low emissions targets aren't the only ways the leaders of the developed world are attempting to shirk their responsibility to solve the climate crisis. Jess, blogging on Greenpeace International's Climate Rescue Weblog, reports that negotiators for developed countries are now arguing for a "politically binding" agreement as opposed to a "legally binding" agreement:

The climate negotiations have arrived at yet another war over words that might prove detrimental to a deal in Copenhagen this December. Check this one out - developing countries are demanding that negotiators stick to the commitment of a legally binding treaty while developed countries seem to be pleased with showboating their new idea of a politically binding agreement. Sound like just semantics to you? May sound like it but consider this: When was the last time you trusted a promise that a politician made to you before they took steps to make good on it?

...

“I do not know anything called a politically binding agreement. They are worth very little. Tell me of any politician that delivered on their (election) manifesto,” Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, a delegate with Sudan.

OK, so maybe it sounds like a whole lot of unwarranted distrust to you, so let’s use President Obama as an example. I campaigned and voted for President Obama based on the promises he made. As someone that cares about the environment, I was inspired by his statements about leading the world in the fight against climate change. After he was elected, he talked about returning science to its rightful place and leading the world in a solution to the climate crisis. But just 32 days out, where is the leadership and return to science that my President Obama promised? How much longer do I trust in promises without any accountability?

Where is the accountability, indeed. We now learn that, far from providing the leadership that was promised by Obama, the US is actually doing its best to undermine negotiations in Barcelona. If you're as fed up with this lack of leadership as I am, you can call Obama's Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, right now — click here for the number and a suggested script.

I had the pleasure of spending the last two weeks with a terrific crew of Greenpeace activists, our GOT students, and volunteers from around Vermont.  We organized events in Montpelier, Rutland and Burlington with our One World hot-air balloon.  We had state representatives, business leaders, other environmental groups and community members come out to the events to address the crowds.  The best quote came from State Representative Paul Poirier who said something like: “I’m no nuclear engineer, just a regular guy, but know that we can’t have Vermont Yankee around any longer.”

The balloon tour highlighted the fact that Vermont doesn't need nuclear power.  We have local renewable companies that could replace the plant's energy, which would put our money into the hands of our friends and neighbors rather than in Entergy's pockets.  Vermonters are standing up across the state to call for a clean energy future, and we hope you are too.

No nukes in Vermont!
-Jarred