Alexandra Morton
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Climate Scorecard Report #15 highlights the results of climate change public opinion surveys that have been conducted in leading greenhouse gas emitting countries over the last five years. Looking across countries we see the following trends:
The surveys also reveal the need for increased efforts in all countries to better inform citizens about the nature of climate change and the importance of both their governments and individuals taking stronger action to mitigate the impact of global warming.
Download Climate Scorecard Report 15
EarthAction is a founding partner of Climate Scorecard, an international project that monitors and reports on the status of efforts to implement the UN Paris Agreement among leading greenhouse gas emitting countries. This is Climate Scorecard’s 15th Report. Learn more at climatescorecard.org
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Since 2012, a series of agribusiness corporations have been at work to destroy 75,000 hectares of tropical rainforest in southwestern Cameroon. Their goal is to replace the forest with a palm oil plantation. This rainforest, situated between five protected areas, including world-renowned Korup National Park, is known for its rich biodiversity. It provides a wildlife corridor between the various preserves. Cutting down the rainforest and replacing it with palm oil trees is ripping the heart out of the forest. Many animal species are being pushed to extinction. And the homes, communities, and lives of humans are being destroyed. We have succeeded in cutting back the size of this project. Now, with your help, we want to end it all together.
Greenpeace, Cultural Survival, Save Wildlife, AFJN and EarthAction ask for your help now as part of a global campaign to protect this forest, its people and wildlife.
TAKE ACTION:
Click here to add your name to Greenpeace’s petition to stop this destruction in Cameroon.
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If our transition to renewable energy is successful, we will achieve savings in the ongoing energy expenditures needed for economic production. We will be rewarded with a quality of life that is acceptable—and, perhaps, preferable to our current one (even though, for most Americans, material consumption will be scaled back from its current unsustainable level). We will have a much more stable climate than would otherwise be the case. And we will see greatly reduced health and environmental impacts from energy production activities.
But the transition will entail costs—not just money and regulation, but also changes in our behavior and expectations. It will probably take at least three or four decades, and will fundamentally change the way we live.
Nobody knows how to accomplish the transition in detail, because this has never been done before. Most previous energy transitions were driven by opportunity, not policy. And they were usually additive, with new energy resources piling onto old ones (we still use firewood, even though we’ve added coal, hydro, oil, natural gas, and nuclear to the mix).
Since the renewable energy revolution will require trading our currently dominant energy sources (fossil fuels) for alternative ones (mostly wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biomass) that have different characteristics, there are likely to be some hefty challenges along the way.
Therefore, it makes sense to start with the low-hanging fruit and with a plan in place, then revise our plan frequently as we gain practical experience. Several organizations have already formulated plans for transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy. David Fridley, staff scientist of the energy analysis program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and I have been working for the past few months to analyze and assess those plans and have a book in the works titledOur Renewable Future. Here’s a very short summary, tailored mostly to the United States, of what we’ve found.
This piece first appeared in YES magazine
Continue reading "100% Renewable Energy: What We Can Do in 10 Years By Richard Heinberg" »
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Greenpeace's recent report reveals how Herakles Farms had illegally obtained a permit to export timber, most of which was illegally felled to establish a palm oil plantation in Cameroon. Their 'Licence to Launder' report demonstrates the persistent illegalities at the heart of the Herakles Farms project, indicative of a wider problem in the logging sector in Africa. If allowed to persist, this new development will also seriously undermine Cameroon’s Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with the EU aimed at stopping illegal logging. The forests and people of Africa will have no protection if companies such as Herakles Farms are allowed to contravene national laws and ignore the rights of local communities.
This is the second story EarthAction shares in a series of recent articles about the unfolding situation in Cameroon. Click here to subscribe to our RSS Feed so you won’t miss a post.
"The oil palm plantation being developed by Herakles Farms in the southwest region of Cameroon – an area of great biodiversity surrounded by five protected areas – illustrates what happens when irresponsible companies are not held accountable to local laws and processes. The company’s activities pose a serious threat to forested areas and the communities who rely upon the forest for their livelihoods." - Greenpeace
Click here to learn more or here to view the entire 'Licence to Launder' report.
For more on Herakles Farms and palm oil in Africa, click here.
TAKE ACTION Greenpeace has set up a quick and easy way for you to send a message to the Cameroon Minister of Forest and Wildlife and other important policymakers to save this forest.
Image: Greenpeace
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Image source: Andre Penner, CTV news
RIGHT NOW, the world’s remaining rainforests are being cut down and replaced with palm oil and soybean plantations, and cattle ranches. Here’s an Action Alert from Friends of the Amazon. Please take the action they suggest to send a message to the President of Peru.
“Currently, scammers are cheating native Amazonians out of their land under the pretext of creating REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) projects. These unscrupulous businessmen have been termed "Carbon Cowboys." While they say that they want to protect the forest, what they really want is to get the land for free and cut down the forest and replace it with palm oil plantations. They lie and say that they are representatives of the United Nations and the World Bank and promise the communities "billions of dollars" from carbon offset credits. Using these tactics, they trick vulnerable and trusting people into signing unfair contracts with hidden clauses giving the scammers a power of attorney that essentially gives these conmen the forest for free, allowing them to harvest the timber and replace the native forest with monocultures of palm oil trees.”
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Week of action to support Evgenij Vitishko starts on February 28, 2014.
#FREEVITISHKO
International campaign to support Evgenij Vitishko starts on February, 28. In several
European cities and in 26 cities in Russia activists organize demonstrations and flash
mobs to attract attention to his politically motivated and injust imprisonment.
If you want to support Mr. Vitishko in your city, please contact:
On December 2013, Evgenij Vitishko was sentenced to 3 years in prison. The
sentence was based on his misconduct during 3 years of probation, to which he had been
sentenced in June 2012 because he had written "Alex is a thief" on the illegally placed
fence for the countryhouse of the Krasnodar Kray Governor Alexander Tkachev.
Evgenij Vitishko together with his fellow activists from the Environmental Watch on
North Caucasus (EWNC) actively opposed logging and illicit constructions on the territory of protected forests of the Krasnodar region. He is also one of the authors of the report on the environmental impact of the Olympic constructions. Prior to the Olympic Games, authorities started to oppress members of the EWNC: many of them have been arrested, interrogated, and frisked.
Amnesty International called Mr. Vitishko the prisoner of conscience.
Photograph by: Mikhail Mordasov
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The Peruvian government is pushing ahead with plans to expand gas operations in a supposedly protected reserve in the Amazon despite calls by the United Nations to suspend them.
The company leading the operations, Pluspetrol, moved one step closer to proceeding with the expansion of the Camisea gas project - Peru's biggest ever energy development - following a report by the vice-ministry of inter-culturality (VMI) last week.
Pluspetrol's plans include drilling 18 wells and conducting seismic tests in an 'intangible' reserve for indigenous peoples living in 'voluntary isolation' and 'initial contact'.
The reserve is also part of the buffer zone for the Manu national park, where Unesco says the biological diversity "exceeds that of any other place on Earth."
Pilar Cameno, from Peruvian NGO DAR, told the Guardian that the expansion could lead to "violent encounters" between gas project workers and indigenous peoples, "increased mortality rates", the loss of land and access to resources, and environmental contamination.
"The Peruvian state must heed the UN rapporteur's recommendations and implement them", Cameno says. "What's at stake here is the survival of the indigenous peoples in isolation and initial contact - not just as individuals, but as whole cultures."
Here's how you can help:
Article courtesy of The Guardian. Learn more here.
Images from Zoom's Edible Plants
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Thanks to Sir David Attenborough for bringing us "What a Wonderful World." Your support of EarthAction will help keep it that way.
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The world is facing a huge climate issue as the earth continues to overheat. And along with this overheating planet comes the question of the survival of animals and plants. Many will have to adapt to global warming and based on how quickly climate change is evolving, the possibility for some of these species to adapt in the same amount of time is nearly impossible.
It would be false to believe that there is not a species that has adapted to past climate fluctuations, yet the rate of adaptation is extremely slow. With the rate that climate change is evolving now, it is expected to be dramatically warmer by the end of the century.
“Global temperatures are going to rise by about four degrees over the next 100 years as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” states Professor John Wiens, University of Arizona (The Guardian).
Most land animals will not be able to evolve so quickly to adapt to this dramatic change, thus: many species face extinction. For many species, simply evolving to match the new conditions of global warming may not be an option. Moving habitat for many of these species is also not an option.
Though many seem to believe that climate change is not an issue for much of the planet’s wildlife, there is a lot at stake for these creatures. Not only is there are melting icecaps, rising sea levels, and extremely drastic temperatures at stake, the speed at which these are occurring is inconceivable. This transformation is not so far away as we may think and we are the ones creating this transformation.
Let’s keep in mind what is at stake: much of today’s wildlife.
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