ENVIRONMENTAL LEGAL BLOGS

International environmental justice court needed, summit participants say

 

 

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia (AlertNet) - A "people's agreement" reached at an alternative climate change summit this week calls for the creation of an international "climate and environmental justice" court with binding legal power to sanction those who contribute in unwarranted ways to climate change.

Such a body is needed in the short term to fight again the impunity enjoyed by major emitters of climate-changing gases, said experts and activists at the People's World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights, held this week in Cochabamba.

"I think this court is completely feasible. Not only that, it is urgent and indispensable," said Miguel D'Escoto, a former president of the United Nations.  

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Yes, this is just what we need--the "People's World Conference" (elected by no one) on "Mother Earth Rights". 

You can read the whole article at http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/60167/2010/03/23-103255-1.htm.

Global Warming Panic Attack - The Week (another excuse for government control)

Media personalities and Freakonomicists claim that the planet has recently experienced global cooling. But according to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, we have just experienced the hottest twelve-month period in at least a thousand years. If global temperatures continue rising at the rate they have risen for the past generation, then the world of 2100 will be 2.3 degrees Celsius – that’s 4.1 degrees Farenheit -- hotter than the world of the 1970s. If global warming accelerates, however, as industrializing China, India and other countries pour more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and as Indonesia, Brazil, and others cut and burn their forests, the world in 2100 will be 5 Celsius -- 9 Farenheit -- degrees hotter than the world of the 1970s. In a more hopeful vein, if we are lucky, we might discover powerful carbon-sink processes that absorb carbon dioxide or reflective-cooling technology that reduces warming. Or we might discover magical new  non-greenhouse-gas emitting technologies that can be deployed more cheaply than current carbon-based technologies. In any of these scenarios, we may wind up with a world in 2100 that is little warmer than the world of the 1970s. At least we can hope. But hope is not a plan. The world was supposed to plan at Kyoto. It did not. Subsequently, it was supposed to plan at Copenhagen. Again it did not. So right now I am panicking. And in my panicked state, I become shrill and unrealistic. So I am calling for four actions--at least one of which, in particular, is robustly unappealing. 1. Beg the rulers of China and India to properly understand their long-term interests; 2. Nationalize the energy industry in the United States; 3. Pour money into research on closed-carbon and non-carbon energy technologies in order to maximize the chance that we will get lucky on energy technologies if not on climate sensitivity. 4. Restrict future climate negotiations to a group of seven -- the U.S., the E.U., Japan, China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil -- and enforce agreement by substantial and painful trade sanctions on countries that do not accept the demands of the resulting negotiated system. In a later column, I will address points (3) and (4). Meantime, let me just talk about (1) and (2). First, I want us to beg the rulers of China and India to understand their own situation. Unless the North Atlantic Conveyor shuts down and Europe returns to the climate of the Younger Dryas Era (the big freeze of more than 10,000 years ago), global warming will not be hugely problematic for the North Atlantic economies -- at least not for a century. We’ll mourn the loss of our glaciers and snow packs. We’ll lament the extinction of polar bears, the coral reefs, and the giant sequoias. But we’ll welcome extra sunny days to go to the beach. We’ll move a few miles north, relocate economic activity to get out of the paths of hurricanes and droughts, turn down our heaters, turn up our air conditioners, and live our lives. It would be expensive for us to adapt to warming -- more expensive, I believe, than dealing with the problem -- but we could do so. But China, India and their neighbors in the great river valleys of Asia will soon be home to three billion farming peasants. These farmers depend on the regular monsoon rains and the river flows of the Indus, the Ganges, the Mekong, the Yangtze, and the Yellow Rivers. Global warming means their climate will change. There will either be much more precipitation in the valleys feeding the rivers, or much less. If there is much less, hundreds of millions will face drought and famine. If there is much more, millions will likely die in floods and the dwelling and working places of hundreds of millions will be washed away. Unlike North Americans, Asia’s peasant-farming populations are not rich enough simply to adapt. So we need to beg the rulers of China and India to understand their long-term interests. The welfare of their countries over the next four generations depends on gaining rapid control of global warming. Their own personal survival — unless they want mobs descending on their homes, dragging them and their descendants into the streets — depends on it. And because either China or India is going to be the globe’s dominant superpower in a century, even if they are clobbered by climate change, pleasing that future superpower now is in every country’s interest. So we need to beg the rulers of China and India to recognize their own long-term interest, and to help us get this climate-control party started. Allow me to make the first entreaty. Rulers of China and India: I beg you. Get on board. Please. Second, I want us to nationalize the open-carbon-cycle energy industry in the United States. In the 1960s it became clear that the price of oil in the United States should be higher. Because of powerful congestion and pollution externalities, we were over-investing in the automobile civilization. A larger tax on oil would have nudged the economy closer to the social optimum. In the 1970s it became very clear that the price of oil in the United States needed to be even higher. Because of instability in the Middle East, our dependence on that region as a major source of energy created unacceptable geopolitical risks. A larger tax on oil would have nudged the economy into a new configuration, mitigating the danger.

via theweek.com

Talk about over the top-- this columnist isn't happy with the federal government having just taken over 1/6 of the US economy, he wants more. As Rahm Emanuel said, never let a good crisis go to waste.  See the whole column at the link above.

Budget crisis puts LA court system at risk - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES – The nation's largest court system is in the midst of a painful budget crisis that has shut down courtrooms and disrupted everything from divorce and custody proceedings to traffic ticket disputes.

via news.yahoo.com

While not strictly an environmental matter, this situation puts all cases--including environmental ones--at risk. FYI.

Killer fungus seen in Pacific Northwest - CNN.com

A rare but life-threatening tropical fungus that causes lung infections in both people and animals has been seen in the Pacific Northwest and could spread, researchers are reporting.

The fungus, known as Cryptococcus gattii (or C. gattii), has infected dozens of humans and animals--including cats, dogs, and dolphins--in Washington and Oregon in the past five years. While rare, the fungus has been lethal in about 25 percent of the people in the U.S. who have developed infections, according to Edmond Byrnes III, a doctoral student in molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke University and one of the lead authors of a new study about the fungus.

via www.cnn.com

allAfrica.com: Africa: Volcanic Ash - Airlines Loss Rises to $1.7 Billion - Iata

Lagos — Director General, International Air Transport Association (IATA), Giovanni Bisignani, said the Icelandic volcano crisis cost airlines more than $1.7 billion in lost revenue for the past six days, just as he disclosed that airlines lost $400 million per day between April 17 and 19, April 2010, when disruptions were greatest.

The latest figure is contrary to $200 million loss per day earlier released by the aviation international body.

via allafrica.com

Too much green? Millions spent on recycling | Washington Examiner

Governments across the Washington region spend millions of dollars on recycling each year, but national recycling experts say a lot of that taxpayer cash is going to waste.

Maryland, Virginia and the District require residents and businesses to recycle, and localities pay millions of dollars to enforce those laws and hit recycling targets.

But some national recycling experts have begun calling for government restraint in trash recycling, which can be more costly and environmentally damaging than dumping.

via www.washingtonexaminer.com

Bill would widen Clean Water Act - Washington Times

House Democrats pushed forward Wednesday with an effort to delete the word "navigable" from the Clean Water Act - a change that would give the government greater ability to enforce clean-water rules but that opponents said amounts to a federal power grab.

via www.washingtontimes.com

Today's Quakes Deadlier Than In Past... Because Of Global Warming

"Increase in the annual energy of earthquakes is the strongest symptom yet of planetary overheating.

"NASA measurements from space confirm that Earth as a whole absorbs at least 0.85 Megawatt per square kilometer more energy from the Sun than it is able to radiate back to space. This 'thermal imbalance' means that heat generated in the planetary interior cannot escape and that the planetary interior must overheat. Increase in seismic, tectonic and volcanic activities is an unavoidable consequence of the observed thermal imbalance of the planet," said Dr. Chalko.

via www.freerepublic.com

Dr. Chalko is an Australian scientist.

Just shows us-EVERYTHING is caused by global warming.

Energy Update - Rasmussen Reports™

Forty-eight percent (48%) of voters say global warming is caused by long-term planetary trends, while only 33% blame human activity. These results are identical to those found last month.

Belief that human activity is the primary cause of global warming has declined significantly. In April 2008, the numbers were nearly the mirror image of the current findings. At that time, 47% blamed human activity, while only 34% named long-term planetary trends as the reason for climate change.

via www.rasmussenreports.com

FOXNews.com - Threat of New, Larger Icelandic Eruption Looms

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — For all the worldwide chaos that Iceland's volcano has already created, it may just be the opening act.

Scientists fear tremors at the Eyjafjallajokull volcano could trigger an even more dangerous eruption at the nearby Katla volcano — creating a worst-case scenario for the airline industry and travelers around the globe.

A Katla eruption would be 10 times stronger and shoot higher and larger plumes of ash into the air than its smaller neighbor, which has already brought European air travel to a standstill for five days and promises severe travel delays for days more.

via www.foxnews.com