California’s Governor Schwarzenegger has gone commando in leading the fight against climate change on a global level by signing an international pact to cut greenhouse emmisions.  Hopefully he won’t be the last hero to take action againt climate change, and that other states, provinces and countries will join the growing group.  Refusing to be a barbarian when it comes to pollution, Schwarzenegger intends to lay down the law by developing strategies to target high polluting industries.

The Los Angeles Times recalls:

“California is a little spot on the globe, but the influence we have on the rest of the world is enormous,” Schwarzenegger told the conference, touting the “green jobs” that the state would produce from solar and other clean-technology energy.

California has already taken the lead in the U.S. by developing higher renewable energy standards, efficiency incentives and stricter car emission controls.  Now the state has the opportunity show the attendees of next month’s climate talks in Poland, that our country is ready to assume a leadership position on climate change, which the outgoing administration avoided with dire costs.

takepart by putting some more muscle behind California’s efforts to combat climate change.

Related: Inconvenient Truth of the Day

Today we receive a new intelligence report from, let’s see here…the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which includes something new and different than past intelligence reports: climate change issues.

The report, seductively called “Global Trends 2025,” warns that as climate change wrecks havoc all over, it will decrease the influence the United States has across the globe, thus creating (for this country, at least) a destabilizing influence.

Within two decades, the report predicts, already sensitive areas from northern China to sub-Saharan Africa will have to deal with more droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water. At a briefing Tuesday ahead of the report’s release, [chairman of the NIC and deputy director of national intelligence Thomas] Fingar stressed that limited water and agricultural land could ‘add a kind of competition to the international system that we haven’t seen for a very long time.’[msnbc]

These reports (this is the fourth one) are designed to look at long-term about future global politics, but have never included climate change as a factor.  However Fingar has been adamantchange that this is an issue that is going to be extremely important.

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Millions of acres of pine forest from British Columbia down to New Mexico have been decimated by the tiny bark beetle, in what is considered the largest insect infestation in North American history.  And the devastating losses show no sign of slowing down, as the dying trees severely disrupt forest ecosystems, and increase risks of fires and mudslides.  Some argue that new construction in certain areas have contributed to the spread while foresters explained to the New York Times that:

Because fires have been suppressed for so long, all forests are roughly the same age, and the trees are big enough to be susceptible to beetles. A decade of drought has weakened the trees. And hard winters have softened, which allows the beetles to flourish and expand their range.

While some organizations are finding clever ways to utilize the fallen trees, the catastrophic losses are too overwhelming to balance out.  It’s frightening to consider what other destructive insects could join the ranks of the Bark Beetle, if conditions associated with climate change continue unabated.

takepart by learning how we address the problems of climate change and hopefully discourage the spread of invaders like the Bark Beetle.

Related: Inconvenient Truth of the Day

Photo: Anne Sherwood for The New York Times

President-elect Barack Obama opened up the Governors’ Global Climate Summit (see how they split the difference on what to call it) with a video address today. The speech kicks off California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s international climate change summit in grand style with soon to be President Obama saying all the right things regarding this undeniably enormous issue confronting our world. Check it out below:

The first thing that strikes me while watching this is the absolute relief of being on the verge of getting a President that actually gets it. We have gone so long in this country with such poor leadership on this matter (and many, many others) that I practically need to pinch myself to believe this guy is the for real next President, with real power, and not some commentator on Billy Moyers show on PBS. But for real it is, and man does it feel good .

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Although it’s twilight for the Bush Administration, the president and his cronies aren’t savoring their final hours by propping up their cowboy boots tipping back their gallon hats while they toast each other to all of the havoc their policies have wreaked on the world. No, they’re still busy and there’s a lot of dirty, ugly stuff the Bush Administration is ramming through in its final days. We can’t lose our focus on stopping some of their final nasty 11^th hour regulations and rollbacks that will be a final Bush imprint on our air, water, public lands, wildlife and consumer policies. The Administration is being extra clever by trying to get these regulations in place by November 22^nd, which would make it even more difficult for the Obama Administration to undo them. I’ve already written about a couple of these lovely proposals, but there are 90 total, so here are some highlights along with organizations fighting these new regulations. Takepart today with the organizations listed with each item to stop Bush’s final onslaught.

1. Grand Canyon. Yes, one of our nation’s treasured goals is under assault as the current Administration has allowed uranium mining within three miles of the park. Takepart with Environmental Working Group
2. Mountaintop Mining Removal. If mining wasn’t already a highly polluting exercise to retrieve an energy source, the Bush Administration seems to want to up the ante to make it an even greater source of pollution by giving waivers to mining companies to directly dump their mountaintop waste directly into nearby rivers and streams. Takepart with the Sierra Club.
3. Power plants. Again, the Bush Administration seems to just love these pollution emitters and wants energy companies to dictate our air standards. Their proposals would allow for plants to be built near national parks and wilderness areas. And, they would like to establish a loophole so that older plants will not be required to add pollution-control technology if they increase their emissions (as currently required under the Clean Air Act). Takepart with NRDC.
4. Logging. As I already wrote, Bush and his cronies want to open up protected areas in western Oregon to logging. Takepart with the Wilderness Society.
5. Endangered Species Act. The Administration would remove the required approval by scientists about the impact of a policy or law on an endangered species. Takepart today with the National Wildlife Federation.
6. Truck Drivers. A dangerous new regulation would allow them to drive 10% more without a break, placing themselves and other vehicles on the road at increased risk. Takepart with OMB Watch.
7. Endangered Species Act. This historic Act could be weakened if the Administration allows for changes to the normal approval process by not requiring the executive branch to consult with an independent agency to determine whether a project could endanger a species. Takepart today with the National Wildlife Federation.
8. Individuals with Disabilities. Bush is proposing to water down the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act by weakening accessibility standards and reducing access enforcement. This would amount to discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Takepart with United Cerebal Palsy.
9. Medicaid benefits to be reduced. The amount of out-patient hospital services provided to low-income people through Medicaid’s would be cut. Takepart with OMB Watch.
10. Family Planning. The Administration is threatening to cut funding to health facilities and organizations that refuse to hire people who refuse to provide birth control. The proposal could define some types of birth control as abortion. takepart with the National Women’s Law Center.

(photo by Storm Crypt)

I recently got a call from my friend Safia—another transplant from Tallahassee, Florida—letting me know that our friend, Josh, was in the Los Angeles. He’s the drummer for the band, Look Mexico. “They’re playing at The Echo this weekend,” she said.
“Wow,” I said, “They drove all the way from Tallahassee with gas prices this high?”
“They bought a diesel bus and converted it to vegetable oil.”
That Saturday night, before their gig, Josh, along with other members of the band were kind enough to answer a few questions about their experience.
B: What made you decide to convert to vegetable oil?
Josh: We had some friends who were touring in a full sized bus—they had built and installed a system themselves and we were pretty impressed by that…since…the more we tour the more we go into debt!
(laughter from the band)
Josh: It’s just the nature of rock and roll these days. So we decided to bite the bullet and shell out the money.
B: How much did it cost to convert from diesel to vegetable oil?

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Here is the weekly roundup! Thanks Social Actions! (psst! Check out their new awesome design)

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Social Actions Roundup

This article is not in reference to the St. Patrick’s tradition of dying your beer green, but instead a round of applause for the New Belgium Brewing company for its efforts to make their beer as eco-friendly as possible. A Popular Mechanics article describes their energy recycling process,

In the brew house, heat typically released as steam preheats incoming water. Temperature sensors automatically open windows to cool the building. Methane gas from an on-site wastewater treatment facility is piped to a generator, which produces enough electricity to cover 10 percent of the brewery’s needs. New Belgium purchases the remainder of its electricity from wind farms, and offsets some of its CO2 emissions by purchasing renewable energy credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange. But according to New Belgium’s sustainability specialist, Nicolas Theisen, there is always room for improvement. “We’re a partner in developing a process to use the carbon dioxide byproduct from fermentation to feed fast-growing algae in silo-shaped bioreactors,” he says. “The oil in the algae can be pressed to make biodiesel, and the rest can go into our waste treatment ponds to make methane.

The New Belgium Brewing company produces the delicious Fat Tire Ale which proudly features a bicycle on the front of the bottle. In support of cyclists everywhere, the company launched two a social action campaigns to encourage the use of bicycles in the daily commute. These two campaigns are “Team Wonder Bike” which asks members to take a pledge to ride their bicycle whenever possible, as well as the “Tour De Fat” a nationwide community cycling campaign to raise money for local charities throughout the Western United States. So if you love the earth, and you love beer, takepart and choose a brewery that strives and inspires social change for the betterment of all of us.

Let’s say you’re the outgoing administration, and you’re pretty sure that the new guys coming in are going to try and undo everything you’ve done on environmental policy, in part by replacing the people that made these policies.  What do you do to try to cement your policy, keep these people in jobs, and make it slightly harder for the next administration to do their thing?  The Washington Post has one idea, and it’s called burrowing:

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department’s top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies — including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions — into senior civil service posts.

This means that some key jobs which were Bush appointments now are civil service jobs, which obviously do not roll over every new president.  Now, to be fair, this is certainly not new.  The Post states that, “In its last 12 months, the Clinton administration approved 47 such moves, including seven at the senior executive level.”

It’s interesting that so many of these shifts, though, are happening where environmental policy are made.  It seems that the Bush people think they’ve hit on some pretty good rules concerning taking care of nature.

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Seeking to find long-term solutions to the global climate crisis, The Financial Times has launched the Climate Change Challenge.  The contest, co-sponsored by Hewlett Packard and Forum for the Future, offers a $75,000 prize to the most innovative business idea that will help reduce carbon emissions and offer sustainable strategies for the future.  I’ve always believed that financial incentive will be the true motivator for industries to improve their ecological impact, and projects like these will help spur businesses into action.  Industry leaders need to step up to the plate and reduce their carbon-footprint drastically, because it will require large-scale priority shifts to improve our climate outlook.  While individual efforts to combat climate change are important, there are only so many compact-fluorescent bulbs I can install.

Got a bright idea for the Climate Change Challenge? takepart by entering the contest or learn more about what you can do to help solve the climate crisis.