EarthFirst.com is Getting It’s Party Groove On Tonight With The Sierra Club and Lightbulbs for Leadership

We’ve written about the Sierra Club’s Lightbulbs to Leadership campaign a couple of times but wanted to do something more tangible to help them bring awareness to the cause.

So we’re joining a few tens of thousands of people throwing a party tonight to bring people together to speak up about the necessary action we need to take to fight Global Warming. We’re so excited that we’re actually throwing two parties- the EarthFirst.com (mid)West crew will be throwing down the green groove in Chicago and I’ll be having an East Coast party in my backyard tipi here in Maine (as seen in a rave I recently threw in it in the photo above). Our friends at Ecorazzi are joining in on the fun with a party in Miami.

The premise of the Lightbulbs to Leadership campaign is that changing our lightbulbs is not enough. It’s a great small step that We The People are taking, but isn’t enough to really turn things around. For that we need our politicians and leaders to get in line and start getting some laws in place to drive change.

So we’ll be focusing on how people can take real action in prodding politicians to action. We’ll be talking about Global Warming, the need for higher fuel efficiency standards, investments in Green Jobs, cutting worldwide emissions, and then capping it all off with some good ol’ fashion letter writing. There will be a conference call with Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope and Green for All President (and EarthFirst.com’s #2 Hottest Guy in Green) Van Jones thrown in the middle for good measure.

Check out the video we shot earlier this week:

Find a House Party near you over at Lightbulbs to Leadership and get out tonight to help save the world from ourselves.

Link [Lightbulbs to Leadership]

Photo credit: Flickr user pokpok313

Danish Isle Runs Completely on Renewable Energy

Imagine going from gluttonous consumption of fossil fuels to completely running on renewable energy within a decade. Sounds great, but it simply can’t be done. I mean, that’s what we’ve been told for years.

Oh, wait. It can. Look at that. Huh.

From The New Yorker, via Gizmodo:

For the past decade or so, Samsø has been the site of an unlikely social movement. When it began, in the late nineteen-nineties, the island’s forty-three hundred inhabitants had what might be described as a conventional attitude toward energy: as long as it continued to arrive, they weren’t much interested in it. Most Samsingers heated their houses with oil, which was brought in on tankers. They used electricity imported from the mainland via cable, much of which was generated by burning coal. As a result, each Samsinger put into the atmosphere, on average, nearly eleven tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Then, quite deliberately, the residents of the island set about changing this. They formed energy coöperatives and organized seminars on wind power. They removed their furnaces and replaced them with heat pumps. By 2001, fossil-fuel use on Samsø had been cut in half. By 2003, instead of importing electricity, the island was exporting it, and by 2005 it was producing from renewable sources more energy than it was using.

This is a great example for the rest of the world – what can be done when a community decides to come together to change for the better. It CAN be done, and sooner than most people think. So many people view a shift from fossil fuels to alternative energies as such a huge change that it will be incredibly difficult and even painful to accomplish. It will be tough, sure, but isn’t it worth it? And looking at the beautiful pictures of Samsø, I don’t think anyone can say that the scenery has suffered.

Link [The New Yorker] via [Gizmodo]
Photo credit: Joachim Ladefoged

Living on 2,000 Watts of Energy Per Day

When you find out that the average American lives on 11,400 watts of energy per day, it makes living off 2,000 seem near impossible. But then again, Americans are incredibly creative at coming up with ways to waste energy, so maybe it’s not that hard after all. The 2,000 Watt Society is trying to prove that it’s not just possible, it can be done without sacrificing comfort and fun.

The Swiss Council of the Federal Institute of Technology wants Swiss citizens to improve the energy efficiency of all aspects of their lives to get them to the 2,000 watt goal. From the document ‘Smarter Living’, via World Changing:

In the envisioned 2000-watt society, the quality of life will not suffer at all. On the contrary, aspects such as safety and health, comfort and the development of the individual will in fact improve, and income is expected to rise by around 60 percent over the next fifty years. However, ambitious goals call for decisive action in a variety of areas, e.g. improving materials and increasing the level of energy efficiency; substituting fossil fuels with renewable forms of energy and reducing the CO2 intensity of other utilised fossil fuels; adopting a smarter way of life and rethinking current business practices, including increasing the level of professionalism in the areas of planning and investment and the operation of buildings and installations.

As seen in the graphic above, comparing a contemporary Swiss family of 4 with the 2000 Watt Society goal, most areas of life wouldn’t change too much. World Changing rightly points out that the area that would see the most change, ‘Living and Working’, is rather ambiguous. It would be interesting to see what kinds of scenarios the 2000 Watt Society proposes in order to meet these goals. Reductions in energy use without sacrificing ‘modern comforts’ is exactly what we need and there are undoubtedly lots of ways to get there.

Link [World Changing] via [Buzzfeed] + [Novatlantis]

Arnold’s Subtle Digs at McCain and Crist over Offshore Drilling

When you can’t legally run for President, it frees you up to say the darndest things. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared at the Florida Climate Change Summit in Miami last week, where he subtly blasted Florida governor Charlie Crist and Republican President-Wannabe John McCain for supporting offshore drilling.

From TampaBay.com:

But he appeared to issue a firm rebuke to politicians (including Senator John McCain and Crist) who have suggested ending a ban on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. “Anyone who tells you this will lower our gas prices anytime soon is blowing smoke,” he said.

Schwarzenegger’s press spokesman Aaron McLear called me a short while ago to stress that this comment was NOT directed at Crist or McCain, and instead was targeted specifically at the impact of offshore drilling on gas prices. “He was not referring to either one of them. Neither Crist nor McCain has said offshore drilling is going to immediately reduce gas prices,” McLear said.

However, the California Governor remained firmly opposed to offshore drilling, McLear added. “He doesn’t believe in offshore drilling. Her certainly doesn’t agree with McCain and Crist on that.”

I don’t know about Crist, but McCain has certainly hinted that offshore drilling will lower gas prices, an attempt to gain approval from voters desperate for some help. Seems like Arnold’s trying to get his point across without causing a rift.

Arnold, a self-proclaimed ‘green Republican’, has seen a lot of criticism himself for his attitude about how we can stop global warming – as Bill Walker of the Environmental Working Group put it, “He’s not sounding an alarm; he’s reassuring us that everything will be all right. We can have hot rods and clean air! Relax, have a cigar.” Arnold has also taken millions of dollars from oil companies over the years. Murky waters, indeed, but we’re glad to have Republicans who are at least headed in the right direction. It’s going to take both parties to effect real change.

Link [TampaBay.com]
Photo credit: Getty Images

Scientists Warn that the North Pole May Have No Ice this Summer

What’s the North Pole without ice? Can you even imagine it? When there’s no ice at the North Pole, something is very very wrong. And indeed, scientists are predicting that Arctic sea ice may disappear entirely from the area this year. The disappearance of North Pole ice would be one of the most dramatic and frightening examples of the impact of global warming thus far.

Santa is not happy.

From The Independent:

“From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water,” said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.

Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.

One-year ice is highly vulnerable to melting in the summer. So far this year, satellite data has shown that the ice is melting even faster than last year, when there was an all-time record loss of Arctic sea ice. The North Pole has never before been exposed, and it’s likely that we’ll see that happen over the next few months.

What’s that you say, global warming deniers? Oh, right, you have no argument aside from the same old tired idiotic ‘not caused by humans’ spiel. Get your heads out of the fucking sand. This is the point where intelligent people – even those who have been stubbornly wrong about global warming for whatever reasons – should be seeing the light.

Link [The Independent]
Photo credit: The Independent

Climate Change Could Spark Wars Worldwide

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that drastically changing weather patterns could promote instability around the world, especially in areas that are already dealing with conflict. Environmental groups have been saying so for years, and now U.S. spies are warning the government that global warming could lead to the collapse of governments and the creation of terrorist safe havens.

From Inside Defense, via Wired:

In addition to examining how weather could add stress to governments with a weak grip on power … the authors mulled a spectrum of second- and third-order consequences for Washington policymakers to consider — including indirect security concerns like impacts on economies, energy, social unrest and migration.

Foreign-policy concerns were also weighed, including how flooding, rising water levels or drought might create humanitarian crises. Also examined was how extreme weather events could challenge the response capabilities of governments around the world.

Though the Bush administration has done everything they could to suppress the knowledge that climate change is actually happening and will get worse, the nation’s military leaders have taken the strategic implications very seriously. Last Wednesday, leading spies testified on Capitol Hill about the report.

The panel who spoke to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Intelligence Community Management Subcommittee included retired army generals and ‘geoengineering’ proponents along with a global warming skeptic put in place by Republicans on the Intelligence Committee, who were opposed to the report in the first place.

That’s right, Republicans are still – even after all of the information and dire predictions that have come out – denying that climate change is real. Amazing.

Link [Wired]
Photo credit: Darfur Refugees, via Wikimedia Commons

Top Climatologist Wants Oil Company CEOs on Trial for Crimes Against Humanity

Climate scientist James E. Hansen called for putting oil companies on trial for crimes against humanity last Monday on Capitol Hill. Hansen stated that the heads of oil companies, who knowingly delayed action on greenhouse gas emissions, are guilty of crimes against humanity and nature and should be prosecuted thusly.

From Hansen’s speech, via Dot Earth:

CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.

Conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation, if we pass on a runaway climate to our children. Humanity would be impoverished by ravages of continually shifting shorelines and intensification of regional climate extremes. Loss of countless species would leave a more desolate planet.

If politicians remain at loggerheads, citizens must lead. We must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. We must block fossil fuel interests who aim to squeeze every last drop of oil from public lands, off-shore, and wilderness areas. Those last drops are no solution. They yield continued exorbitant profits for a short-sighted self-serving industry, but no alleviation of our addiction or long-term energy source.

Hell yeah! We’ll sign that petition. A commenter calling himself ‘blindjester’ on a related story at The Huffington Post Green sums it up nicely: “If you cause the injury of a few people, you get sued. You cause the death of someone, you go to jail. If you’re wealthy enough and powerful enough to contribute to disease and death worldwide, you get to live in a mansion.”

Link [Dot Earth] + [The Huffington Post]

Climatologist Renews Call to Act on Global Warming

20 years ago, climatologist James E. Hansen addressed the Senate with a dire warning about global warming: it was time to act. The climate was already changing, and the heat-trapping blanket of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere was accumulating fast.

Since then, little real action has been taken; if anything, things have gotten much worse. We’ve continued to release huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere as we stubbornly cling to an era of fossil fuels and free-flowing pollution. Now, Hansen says, it’s almost getting to be too late: we’re approaching the red line, and soon there will be no going back.

From The New York Times:

“If we don’t begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next several years, and really on a very different course, then we are in trouble,” Dr. Hansen said Friday at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, which he has directed since 1981. “Then the ice sheets are in trouble. Many species on the planet are in trouble.”

Dr. Hansen said the natural skepticism and debates embedded in the scientific process had distracted the public from the confidence experts have in a future with centuries of changing climate patterns and higher sea levels under rising carbon dioxide concentrations. The confusion has been amplified by industries that extract or rely on fossil fuels, he said, and this has given cover to politicians who rely on contributions from such industries.

Dr. Hansen said the United States must begin a sustained effort to exploit new energy sources and phase out unfettered burning of finite fossil fuels, starting with a moratorium on the construction of coal-burning power plants if they lack systems for capturing and burying carbon dioxide. Such systems exist but have not been tested at anywhere near the scale required to blunt emissions. Ultimately he is seeking a worldwide end to emissions from coal burning by 2030.

Since the time to act was decades ago, it makes it all the more urgent to make swift, far-reaching, dramatic changes to the way we live in order to preserve the planet – and the species that live upon it.

This makes me want to shake global warming skeptics. We’ve seen enough of them drop by EarthFirst and leave comments to the effect of, ‘it’s too expensive to change’, ‘I don’t want to give up my lifestyle’ or ‘I just don’t believe that global warming is caused by humans’. Are you really that selfish and naïve? Do you really believe that you’re so entitled to your current lifestyle of driving an SUV, living in a needlessly large house, profiting off of oil industry stock and whatever else it is that’s so precious to you, you refuse to give it up? What about your grandchildren – what kind of a world are they going to live in? You’re leaving behind a legacy of death and destruction because you’re set in your selfish ways.

Here’s the thing: deny that global warming is caused by humans all you want, or even that global warming isn’t real, as unbelievably stupid as that is. What it comes down to is our way of life is putting a huge strain on our planet. We’re using up precious resources at an alarming pace, removing mountaintops to get to coal, spewing pollution into the atmosphere, killing millions of species, dumping trash in the oceans, creating mountains upon mountains of toxic refuse. We’re poisoning our bodies, our soil, our air, our water, the animals around us – everything that we depend upon to survive. These actions will have consequences, whether you want to face it or not. It’s time to move forward into the 21st century, and take responsibility.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user ximenatapia

Grist Explains How to Smack Down Global Warming Deniers, Point by Point

If you’ve ever gotten into an argument about global warming with a skeptic, you know how frustrating it can be. Grist.org has a crazily comprehensive guide to smacking down climate change deniers and their tired, weak arguments as to why they think global warming is a hoax.

Grist guest author Coby Beck has created an entire outline that goes first through the ‘Stages of Denial’ – there’s nothing happening, we don’t know why it’s happening, climate change is natural, climate change is not bad and climate change can’t be stopped. Then it cycles through scientific topics, types of argument and level of sophistication. For example, under ‘Uninformed’ you’ll find the answer to the argument, ‘what’s wrong with warmer weather?’ and under ‘Naïve’ you can read the answer to ‘it’s the sun, stupid’.

Here’s a sample from one of my favorites, which you hear so often: ‘They predicted global cooling in the 1970s’.

Objection: The alarmists were predicting the onset of an ice age in the ’70s. Now it’s too much warming! Why should we believe them this time?

Answer: It is true that there were some predictions of an “imminent ice age” in the 1970s, but a cursory comparison of those warnings and today’s reveals a huge difference.

Today, you have a widespread scientific consensus, supported by national academies and all the major scientific institutions, solidly behind the warning that the temperature is rising, anthropogenic CO2 is the primary cause, and it will worsen unless we reduce emissions. (Read more)

This is the first time we’ve ever seen such an extensive reference of climate change information in one place, laid out in a way that’s so easy to navigate. Props to Grist! This is a great resource.

Link [Grist]
Photo credit: Flickr user Neubie

Bill Gates has 10,000 Times the Carbon Footprint of an Average American

Americans already have large carbon footprints: where the world average is 4 tons, the American average is 20. A study at MIT found that no matter what you do, if you live in America, you’re automatically going to have a large footprint – whether you’re homeless, a child or a Buddhist monk – because our public services and infrastructure create a ‘baseline’ of 8.5 tons, which no American can drop below. But, even though you won’t find someone with a tiny carbon footprint here, you will find people with huge ones – especially the richest man in the country, Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

EcoGeek has it:

Bill Gates, specifically chosen for the study, has a carbon footprint about 10,000 times the average. Of course, he also has produced a great deal of wealth and growth for the world. In general, the researchers found that as income rises, so do emissions. A homeless person, who ate at soup kitchens and slept in shelters, had an average carbon footprint of 8.5 tonnes, still twice as much as the world average. Even monks, who lived half the year in the forest, had carbon footprints of 10.5 tonnes.

Big shocker – the richest techie nerd in the world has a huge CO2 footprint. This guy has more giant, expensive, energy sucking toys than you can possibly imagine. He has a house with a 3-car garage – for his servants. At last count, old Bill was worth $56 billion.

Link [EcoGeek]
Photo credit: Mugshots.org

Cars Littering the Sides of the Road as They Run Out of Gas

$4 per gallon does suck. Don’t get me wrong, we’re happy that high gas prices are forcing people to cut back on driving, ditch their SUVs and invest in renewable energy. That’s the positive side of the coin. On the other side, people really are pinched and having a hard time coming up with the cash to fill their tanks up all the way. As a result, the streets are littered with cars as people are running out of gas more frequently.

From The Huffington Post:

Though national statistics on out-of-gas motorists don’t exist, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that drivers unwilling or unable to fill ‘er up are gambling by keeping their tanks extremely low on fuel.

In the Philadelphia area, where the average price for a gallon of regular broke $4 on Friday, calls from out-of-gas AAA members doubled between May 2007 and May 2008, from 81 to 161, the auto club reported.

“The number one reason is they can’t stretch their money out from week to week,” said Gary Siley, the AAA mobile technician who helped Saba.

“Some of them are embarrassed. … They say, ‘I was trying to make it till Friday,’ and they couldn’t do it,” said Siley, who has assisted numerous out-of-gas motorists.

No doubt, putting $30 worth of gas into your car only to see it barely creep out of ‘Low on Gas’ is unpleasant, and it’s a growing reality for many people in America. We’ve budgeted for driving personal vehicles to be fairly affordable, so now that it’s getting out of reach, we’re having a hard time adjusting.

It’s time to start putting pressure on our local and state governments to get better public transit programs going. Even if you can afford gas easily, or don’t personally deal with it because you don’t drive often, helping out those people who are truly hurt by gas prices is a great cause. Another option is to offer to share gas expenses with friends and family by carpooling as often as possible – to work, to the grocery store, to the movies. As cheesy and cliched as it may sound, coming together can really help as all through the transition from the age of oil into an age of sustainable forms of energy.

Link [Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Flickr user johntrainor

Dramatic Photos of Melting Glaciers Just a Hoax?

We’ve all heard it: proclamations that global warming is ‘the biggest hoax ever perpetuated on the people of the world, bar none.’ (That quote, of course, comes courtesy of the renowned village idiot Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Center). Global warming deniers think that the entire green movement is a conspiracy to take their money and, as we’ve mentioned several times, ‘end the American way of life’.

So, I guess these dramatic photos of a melting glacier in Norway are just one big trick – photoshopped, or set up. Perhaps Al Gore himself was there with a blowtorch, melting it back so he could claim it was an effect of global warming. Because, as Rush Limbaugh wants you to think, Al Gore is just getting rich off of all us stupid treehuggers that care about the environment. Ignore the man behind the curtain!

These photographs were taken over a period of eight years. The change is, indeed, mind boggling.

Link [Glacsweb]

The Collapse of the Arctic Ice Shelf Could Mean the End of Life As We Know It

Via the BBC: Satellite image of Ward Hunt Ice Shelf.
(Red lines: new cracks; yellow lines: cracks from 2002; blue lines: extent of the ice shelf)

In April of this year, scientists accompanied the Canadian military to remote areas of the Arctic ice shelf to evaluate any changes that may have occurred since the previous assessment in 2007. What the team found was shocking: a network of cracks in the largest remaining ice shelf, Ward Hunt, stretched more than 10 miles.

The Ward Hunt ice shelf is 433 square kilometers in size – over seven times as large as the Ayles ice shelf, which broke off in 2005 from Ellesmere Island’s western coast. The 3,000-year-old ice, which is 40 meters thick, was found to be fractured by dozens of deep cracks.

A single crack in the Arctic ice shelf was first noticed in 2002, and the deterioration that has occurred since then is astounding. The cracks seem to all but guarantee that yet another large landmark in the Arctic is destined to break up and disappear. Scientists theorize that, since the cracks are so dramatic and appeared so quickly, climate change in the area must have crossed some kind of threshold. Rapid changes in the Arctic are considered the main harbinger of climate change.

BBC News reporter David Shukman interviewed two of the scientists after the expedition, and their shock was apparent:

“I was astonished to see these new cracks. It means the ice shelf is disintegrating, the pieces are pinned together like a jigsaw but could float away,” Dr Mueller explained.

According to another scientist on the expedition, Dr Luke Copland of the University of Ottawa, the new cracks fit into a pattern of change in the Arctic.

“We’re seeing very dramatic changes; from the retreat of the glaciers, to the melting of the sea ice. We had 23% less (sea ice) last year than we’ve ever had, and what’s happening to the ice shelves is part of that picture.”

Some experts are painting an undeniably gloomy scenario: one in which the entire Arctic ice cap melts by the end of this summer. More conservative estimates place it happening sometime between 2013 and 2030. Scientists will be watching nervously to see if last year’s record melting will be matched or exceeded. Since so much ice melted so quickly last year, it seems feasible.

One effect of a large decrease in the arctic ice cap would be a corresponding decrease in sunlight being reflected away from the region, which would cause temperatures to rise. As the sunlight grew more intense, it could increase the rate of glacier loss in Greenland, which would raise sea levels – most notably in Asia, where a one meter rise would affect nearly 100 million people and cause nearly 400 billion U.S. dollars in damage.

The biggest threat to us as a result of the melting is changes in our weather patterns. It’s a sort of catch-22 that we’ve already perpetuated on ourselves, like it or not. Our bad habits have contributed greatly to global warming. Now, as the atmosphere gets warmer and Arctic summers get clearer and sunnier, the ice continues to melt. As it does, it will set changes in motion that will further change weather patterns all over the world.

NASA’s Earth Observatory explains it:

While these large shifts in temperature and ice cover appear to be tucked far away in the Arctic, our Earth’s processes are dynamic and interconnected. In other words, rapid loss of sea ice and a warming Arctic will undoubtedly have far-reaching and serious effects for everyone. “Societies have developed and gotten used to climate the way it is now, and changes will very likely be highly disruptive,” Rind says.

For starters, as sea ice melts, Arctic waters warm, greatly altering ocean processes, which in turn have an effect on Arctic and global climate, says Michael Steele, senior oceanographer at the University of Washington, Seattle. As the oceans warm and ice thins, more solar energy gets absorbed by the water, creating a positive feedback that leads to further melting and warming.

Such mechanisms can change the temperature of ocean layers and impact ocean circulation and salinity, Steele says. For example, the Arctic Ocean during winter is usually very cold and produces lots of sea ice, which creates cold, salty water that sinks to deep levels and drives ocean circulation. But if surface waters warm and ice does not form as well in winter, these processes involving salinity and circulation could be reduced or eliminated. “Then the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean will look very different,” Steele says.

As the Arctic continued to warm, the soil would begin to thaw, releasing frozen natural gases like methane and carbon dioxide, which would act as greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Additionally, many areas of the world depend upon Arctic air masses during the winter for many reasons, not the least of which is the vernalization of crops. Many plant species require low winter temperatures in order to produce flowers the following spring, and a difference of even a few degrees could be catastrophic. Humans and livestock depend upon these crops, and widespread famine could result. Imagine the chaos that would result in that scenario: absolute and utter panic over food shortages.

Those aren’t the only disastrous weather-related effects that could occur as a result of the Arctic ice caps melting. As illustrated in Al Gore’s celebrated documentary An Inconvenient Truth, abrupt climate changes could lead to a shut-off of the Gulf Stream current, increased insect infestations and tropical diseases and loss of coral reefs. Each of these scenarios would have very dangerous effects of their own.

The Arctic region’s ecosystems are already incredibly fragile. Exactly how the ecosystems would respond to dramatic weather changes is unpredictable. One thing that’s for certain is that these changes could wipe out hundreds or even thousands of species, which would, beyond the shadow of a doubt, have a major effect on the ecology of the entire world in a sort of ‘butterfly effect’.

Also ominous is the fact that as the sea ice melts, numerous superpowers in the world are eyeing the territory for its untapped resources. The Northwest Passage could become more navigable, providing a quick and easy route through the Arctic Ocean connecting the Pacific and Atlantic. Sea journeys would be reduced by thousands of miles.

Russia drew the ire of other Arctic countries last year when it planted its flag on the seabed under the North Pole, which as of now cannot be claimed by any governing entity. The nation’s lead explorer, Artur Chilingarov, claimed the 460,000 miles of ocean floor as belonging to Russia. Greenland, Denmark, Canada and the United States responded by increasing military presence in the region. Canada flies their flag on snowmobiles lined up around Ayles Ice Island as a display of control.

Last week, Greenland hosted a meeting to resolve the dispute, and the five countries involved agreed to follow the 1982 Law of the Sea as they seek resources like oil and natural gas. Under this law, countries only own the seabed 200 miles out from their respective coasts if it’s part of their continental shelf. Naturally, each country decided to interpret the law in their own special way, making sure that it worked out to their advantage – so, the United Nations has a battle ahead of them in maintaining peace.

So, what exactly is the root of this deepening conflict? Mostly, oil. Las Vegas-based company Arctic Oil & Gas has stated that according to new geological data, the Arctic might contain up to 400 billion barrels of it. That’s over twice as much as the largest known oil field in the world, located in Saudi Arabia.

It hasn’t been confirmed, but it’s got an awful lot of people panting like dogs. Politicians and corporate businessmen alike are chomping at the bit to get in there and drill. As you may have guessed, they’re not overly concerned about what the melting ice means to the fate of the world, or how drilling could worsen the situation. It’s all about greed, power and the status quo. People just can’t seem to let go of oil, regardless of what it might mean to the future of the planet. Environmentalist groups are pushing to keep the Arctic protected from drilling, but with the current energy crisis, that seems highly unlikely.

What does the possibility of oil drilling in the Arctic mean to us? It’s obvious to many that such news will be greeted by the average consumer with relief. If there’s more oil, it will be assumed that prices will go back down and they can go on living their normal every day oil-consuming lives. The movement toward sustainable energy will be slowed down considerably. It would create a false sense of security that would lull people into wasting more time continuing the bad habits that have helped get us into this jam in the first place. At least, until we really ran out of oil and were forced to deal with the situation, ready or not.

Why, when we practically have neon warning signs flashing in our faces, are we not changing faster? To survive, we must adapt. We’re facing dramatic changes at this point, no matter what we do – but that doesn’t mean we should just give up and continue living the selfish, wasteful lifestyle that helped cause all of these problems. We are evolved beings with a conscience and an understanding of the concept of the future, and we’re wasting it, ensuring that the generations that come after us – those who will really have to deal with the worst of all of this – will have it even harder.

It almost seems as though the current situation in the Arctic, and what it illustrates about how we’ve treated the planet over the past few generations, is a test. A test to see if we as a species can learn an important lesson for the sake of our own kind’s survival as well as that of so many other species that still have a delicate grip on existence. Where are the instincts that should be pushing us toward action? So many of us go through life as if in a dream state, thinking only of the plots of our favorite television shows and what we’ll have for dinner instead of the big picture. Evidently, whether our current lifestyle affects the future of the planet isn’t as important as what designer Sarah Jessica Parker wears to a movie premiere, or whether we get that job promotion.

Though we currently lord over the earth, serving as the top predators in the food chain, we can’t assume that we’ll remain that way forever. We’re dooming ourselves with the arrogant belief that no matter what we do to our surroundings, we will not just survive, but continue to thrive and dominate. That’s a very dangerous assumption, and one that may well be the end of us. Once climate change takes over, life will go on. Planet Earth will survive. But we may not be there to see it happen.

Eco Fail: Hybrid SUVs Just Aren’t Selling

Welcome HuffPo Readers! If you haven’t been here before, welcome to our little neck of the net. We cover the world of green with a fun, smarky smartass point of view. Visit our home page to see the other stories we’ve done and/or grab our RSS Feed.

Ah, sweet justice for the SUV. Detroit auto makers aren’t seeing the demand for hybrid SUVs that they thought would come this year as models like the Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon were released. Only 1,100 have been sold since January, and the sales goal was 12,000 for the year, putting them pretty far behind.

The New York Times has it:

Giving a four-wheel drive Tahoe a gas-electric hybrid engine raises fuel economy for city driving to 20 miles a gallon from 14.

But to get the better mileage, consumers pay a high price: $53,000, at least $4,000 more than a conventional Tahoe.

Environmentalists see the jumbo hybrids as a small step forward in the effort to reduce America’s fuel consumption.

“Is this a green vehicle? I think it could be a lot greener,” said David Friedman, research director of the vehicles program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group in Washington that focuses on the environment. “The question is whether the improvement in fuel economy is worth the cost.”

Hybrid or not, large S.U.V.’s are fading fast in a market that is shifting quickly to smaller cars and crossovers, S.U.V.-like vehicles built on a car chassis.

While the hybrid 20/21 MPG is certainly an improvement over the 14/20 the non-hybrid SUVs typically get, the fact is that the Toyota Prius gets 46 MPG currently, and a new model set to be released next year will get over 100. That makes paying the extra money for the hybrid SUV seem like a pretty big waste. Consumers aren’t willing to pony up the extra cash, and with SUVs losing popularity in general, hybrid SUVs are looking to go the way of New Coke.

Hybrid SUVs may be a tiny bit better for the environment than regular SUVs, but that doesn’t make them an eco-friendly option. We were a bit afraid that hybrid SUVs would make people think they could have their cake and eat it too, using the ‘hybrid’ angle to defend dumb shit like suburban housewives with 2 kids driving behemoth vehicles to the grocery store. So, we’re happy that hybrid SUVs are an ECO FAIL. Down with SUVs!

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Mark Graham for the New York Times

Adults in Britain Should Have to Carry Carbon Ration Cards, Say MPs

MPs are pushing for a controversial new program in Great Britain: carbon ration cards. Every adult would have to carry one and would need to use it when filling up at the pump, buying airline tickets and using energy to power their homes. Britain has been trying to find a way to cut CO2 emissions without penalizing the poor, and the Environmental Audit Committee sees it as the fairest way.

From Mail Online:

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

Anyone who exceeds their entitlement would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven’t used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces and the deal done through a specialist company.

MPs, led by Tory Tim Yeo, say the scheme could be more effective at cutting greenhouse gas emissions than green taxes.

B For the scheme to work, the Government would need to give out 45million carbon cards - each one linked to a personal carbon account. Every year, the account would be credited with a notional amount of CO2 in kilograms.

Every time someone makes a purchase of petrol, energy or airline tickets, they would use up credits. A return flight from London to Rome would, for instance, use up 900kg of CO2 credits, while 10 litres of petrol would use up 23kg.

Mr Yeo, chairman of the committee said personal carbon trading rewarded those with a low carbon footprint with cash.

I have no idea whether something like this would actually work, but I like this line of thinking. Making people personally responsible for how much energy they consume would be a great way to control CO2 emissions. Undoubtedly, though, citizens would be angry about it – it’s definitely an idea ahead of its time. The system would have to be fairly complicated in order to account for those who live in the country and depend upon their vehicles for transportation, are housebound and need to heat their homes during the day and those who work at night when little public transportation is available. I’d like to see them work on the idea further, though.

Link [Mail Online]
Photo credit: Flickr user futureatlas.com

We Can’t Offshore Our Pollution to China Anymore – It’s Coming For Us

A common refrain among conservatives regarding pollution produced by American companies is, “Let China deal with it”. Apparently, the prevailing opinion is that if Chinese people need work and Americans are giving it to them, they should be grateful for it regardless of the fact that we’re only adding to the air quality problem in this heavily populated country. A staggering 300,000 to 400,000 Chinese die prematurely each and every year due to the effects of outdoor air pollution, but that doesn’t change the minds of global warming deniers who refuse to take any culpability for the problem. The thing is, folks, that pollution isn’t going to stay in China: it’s starting to march toward the skylines of Californians.

From The New York Times:

In short, roughly as many Chinese die every two months from the air as were killed in the earthquake. And the problem is becoming international: just as Californians can find Chinese-made shoes in their stores, they can now find Chinese-made haze in their skies.

This summer’s Beijing Olympics will showcase the most remarkable economic explosion in history, and also some of the world’s thickest pollution in both air and water. So I’ve returned to the Yellow River in western China’s Gansu Province to an isolated village that has haunted me since I saw it a decade ago.

Badui is known locally as the “village of dunces.” That’s because of the large number of mentally retarded people here — as well as the profusion of birth defects, skin rashes and physical deformities. Residents are sure that the problems result from a nearby fertilizer factory dumping effluent that taints their drinking water.

None of this is surprising: rural China is full of “cancer villages” caused by pollution from factories. Beijing’s air sometimes has a particulate concentration that is four times the level considered safe by the World Health Organization.

If you’re truly naïve enough to think that this problem is never going to reach America, you’ve got some growing up to do – or perhaps you just need a reality check to shake you out of your greed-induced fog. There is no hiding from this problem. America is not protected by a magic bubble put there by Jesus to protect bible-thumping conservatives who believe the world owes them something. You shake your fists at realists who can see these problems coming, literally, from miles away and yet your precious ‘American lifestyle’ is going to be the undoing of us all. We can’t offshore our pollution to China anymore. It’s coming for us.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: ABC News/Reuters

Americans, Quit Your Bitchin’: Gas in Sierra Leone Costs Over $18 a Gallon

Americans are whining and complaining about gas prices like never before. Gas hitting $4 per gallon is considered absolutely crazy – an all but insurmountable obstacle to going about our daily lives. We here at EarthFirst have professed our beliefs about gas prices and the need for Americans to start thinking differently about transportation before. Now we bring you the reality of gas prices throughout the world: Hello, Americans! We’ve been enjoying artificially low gas prices for decades!

The average in many other countries, including the Netherlands, Greece, New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland and England is around $7/gallon. In Denmark, Eritrea, France, Finland, Germany and Iceland, it’s close to $10. People in Sierra Leone, Africa undoubtedly find other ways to get around considering that gas costs a whopping $18.43 per gallon there.  People in these countries actually (gasp!) take public transportation! The horrors!

Want to pay less for gas? Perhaps you should consider moving to Venezuela, where it costs just 17 cents a gallon. Venezuela is known for its highly polarized political climate, evil overlord dictator and ever-rising violent crime, though you will likely enjoy the food and the view from the plane as you fly in and out. Some of the other oil-rich countries with low gas prices include Egypt, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.  I’m sure they’ll welcome you with open arms. Good luck, and send us a postcard.

Link [Wikipedia]
Photo credit: Flickr user Payton Chung

Welcome to the Black Hole of Despair: High Oil Prices Cause Resurgence in Coal Mining

Sigh. This is not good, people. Just when you think the high price of oil will force people to turn to greener sources of energy, they turn back to the tried and true. As if afraid to give new forms of energy a shot, demand is back up for dirty, dirty coal. This is not going to be easy.

The New York Times has it:

But after decades of seemingly terminal decline, Japan’s coal country is stirring again. With energy prices reaching record highs — oil settled above $135 a barrel on Thursday — Japan’s high-cost mines are suddenly competitive again, and demand for their coal is booming. Production has jumped to its highest in nearly four decades, creating a sensation rarely felt in these mining communities: hope.

Soaring commodity prices have had distorting effects across the global economy, driving up food prices and prompting fears of future energy shortages. But they have been an unanticipated boon to the coal producing regions of countries like Japan that had written off coal mining as a relic of the Industrial Revolution.

Please, Oh Flying Spaghetti Monster, don’t let this turn into a worldwide trend. This would send us backward in our progress toward a greener planet. Where high oil prices could have spurred increased funding and interest in wind energy, solar power and other renewable forms of energy, we’re increasing carbon output. How incredibly stupid. Perhaps the human race is hell-bent on destroying itself, after all.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user mangpages

T. Boone Pickens Says Jump, Investors Act Like Crazed Kids on Pogo Sticks

T. Boone Pickens has gained a lot of clout lately. Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that he is one scary guy, and might become one of the people responsible for putting us into a very frightening situation with our water supply. He’s also known as being a billionaire oil tycoon and recently purchased a huge number of wind turbines. When he predicted that oil would hit $100 a barrel, investors laughed because it seemed so improbable – and then it happened. That’s why they’re now listening up to everything this guy has to say.

From Forbes:

Wall Street decided to treat T. Boone Pickens as the smartest guy in the room.

Light sweet crude prices soared 1.5%, or $1.88, to $128.93 a barrel, after the billionaire oilman said he expects it’ll hit $150 a barrel this year.

“There’s a feeling that some of these forecasts of $150 oil might be right, so why not buy it now rather than later,” Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover, told Reuters.

Pickens gave more than a number though. According to TradeTheNews.com, Pickens also said that speculators have nothing to do with high energy prices, and that oil costs are not a bubble. He that he is investing long on natural gas. This kind of support from a name that holds such credibility gave other investors a renewed sense of confidence in how they played the commodity.

Pickens is positioning himself as an energy expert, and a powerful one at that (cue ‘impending doom’ music). While we’re glad that he has made some good choices in renewable energy, this guy doesn’t have the scruples to be trustworthy – it’s all about the money for him, so if he sees big bucks in an industry that could still harm the planet, he’ll likely jump on it. We’re crossing our fingers that he sticks to renewable energy and drops the creepy water privatization plans.

Link [Forbes]
Photo credit: Flickr user sfslim

« Previous Page — Next Page »