Profits Before People: 7 of the World’s Most Irresponsible Companies

Money isn’t everything – or is it? To most corporations, making a profit is goal number one – but some of those companies take it way too far, sacrificing the health of the planet and its inhabitants for a bigger bank balance.  Far too many corporations turn a blind eye to the consequences of their destructive, exploitative practices. The worst of them are committing atrocities that go beyond the realm of objectionable into criminal, dumping toxic chemicals without regard to public health and employing child labor.

What makes these seven companies extra evil is the fact that they’ve committed crimes that are BOTH environmentally and socially irresponsible.

Nestle

Image via Blood in Your Coffee

More than 40% of the world’s chocolate comes from Côte d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) in Africa, where tens of thousands of children are estimated to be working in dangerous conditions on cocoa farms. Nestle uses cocoa harvested by slave labor, and only when Senator Thomas Harkin (D-Iowa) led an investigation and introduced legislation that would require chocolate sold in the US to be labeled “slave-free” did the company act. Nestle promised that by July 2005 they would find a way to certify chocolate as not having been produced by any underage, indentured, trafficked or coerced labor, but since then, they have achieved very little.

Nestle’s bottled water business is also a major cause for concern. Nestle controls one-third of the US market and sells 70 different brand names of bottled water including Arrowhead, Deer Park, Perrier and Poland Spring. The company buys up pristine springs in some of the most beautiful natural spaces in America and builds huge factories on the sites, releasing pollution into the air and drawing enormous amounts of water out of the springs.

And, while the company claims an environmentally friendly ethic, saying it would never harm an aquifer, that’s exactly what they have done in places like Mecosta County, Michigan, damaging the watershed with excessive withdrawals, reaping huge profits and leaving the locals to deal with the consequences.

Pfizer

Image via Daylife

Air and water pollution, disregard for safety standards and experimentation on Nigerian children: these are just a few of the environmental and human rights offenses perpetrated by the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. It’s hard to imagine how Pfizer officials can bear to look at themselves in the mirror every day after what they’ve done.

Pfizer is guilty of some of the most despicable price gouging in corporate history: it keeps its HIV/AIDS-related drugs out of the hands of the world’s poor, who need them the most. Pfizer has aggressively fought efforts to make these drugs more affordable, refusing to grant generic licenses for HIV/AIDS drugs to Brazil, South Africa and other countries in need of them.

In June 2008, Pfizer was forced to pay a $975,000 fine for violating the Clean Air Act at one of its manufacturing plants in Groton, Connecticut – a drop in the bucket for a company that makes upwards of $50 billion in profits every year. The Pfizer plant was emitting methanol, hydrogen chloride, methylene chloride, MTBE, hexane, toluene and other chemicals classified by the EPA as hazardous air pollutants. Pfizer had previously paid $430 million in 2004 to settle a large number of outstanding asbestos lawsuits from its acquisition of Quigley Company in 1968, which had sold contaminated insulation.

Worst of all, the company that has little regard for safety standards – having released a number of drugs that ended up being pulled off the market for unforeseen complications – decided to test one of its drugs on poor, critically ill Nigerian children. Masking the trial as a “humanitarian mission”, Pfizer tested an experimental antibiotic called Trovan on meningitis-infected Nigerian children without their knowledge or the knowledge of their families. 11 children died, and others developed brain damage and crippling arthritis.

Wal-Mart

Image via Brave New Films

“Save Money, Live Better”. That’s Wal-Mart’s slogan, but Wal-Mart workers themselves certainly wouldn’t say that they live better after beginning employment with the retail giant. A 2005 study found that Wal-Mart reduced the take-home pay of workers by an astounding $4.7 billion dollars annually, adding insult to injury considering that workers are often forced to work overtime for zero pay. Wal-Mart does everything it can to deny its workers basic rights, spending an enormous amount of time and money keeping unions out including $7,000 anti-union camera packages, $30,000 undercover spy vans, $100,000 24-hour anti-union hotlines and a $7,000,000 rapid response team with a corporate jet.

Furthermore, Wal-Mart pushes its suppliers to go lower and lower on their wholesale prices, until they’re so squeezed that they barely have two pennies to rub together at the end of the day. Thanks to its focus on low, low prices, the retailer has repeatedly turned a blind eye to child slave labor in its manufacturing facilities abroad, particularly in China and Bangladesh.

And, despite all of their claims about ‘going green’, Wal-Mart has broken one environmental law after the other. Wal-Mart became the first company to be fined for violating new standards for stormwater runoff in 2001, and had to pay $5.5 million. In 2004, the company faced fines for violations in 9 states. That same year, it agreed to pay $400,000 to the government to settle claims that Sam’s Club had violated air pollution regulations in 11 states.

Last year, the company admitted as much – but that hasn’t stopped them from continuing the PR effort. Former CEO Lee Scott admitted of the company’s greenwashing efforts, “It has been positive from a PR standpoint, but one of the things we learned is that we are not sophisticated enough to spin a story — ultimately, we’d get hammered. We are not out saying we’re a green company. We are not green. We have an extraordinary distance to go.”

ExxonMobil

Image via Greenpeace

The Exxon-Valdez oil spill is by far ExxonMobil’s most well-known environmental offense, but it’s certainly not the only one. The oil giant was ranked sixth on the Toxic 100 list of US corporate air polluters, and has been accused by Greenpeace of sabotaging efforts to deal with climate change, manipulating peer-reviewed studies and misleading the public with junk science. Indeed, though they have since cut off funding, ExxonMobil once financially supported a number of global warming denial organizations.

Though ExxonMobil trumpeted its investment in renewable energy sources in a series of advertisements over the past few years, the fact is that the company has invested just $300 million in renewable energy sources over the next 10 years compared to the $47 billion they spent between 2003 and 2006 alone on dirty energy sources like oil and gas.

In 2001, ExxonMobil was the target of a lawsuit by a human rights group that accused the company of actively abetting human rights abuses including torture, rape and killings in Indonesia. The suit alleged that ExxonMobil had hired a local army to protect its natural gas fields in the Aceh province, providing them with equipment to dig mass graves as well as building interrogation and torture centers. The company denied all of the charges, but a motion it filed to have the case dismissed was denied in 2006. The case is still pending.

Chevron

Image via Treehugger

Chevron has launched a huge multimedia advertising blitz about its supposed commitment to smart energy use and renewable energy sources – all while destroying pristine forests in places like Ecuador and Bangladesh, and causing myriad health problems right here in the U.S. thanks to the toxic waste at its refineries.

Texaco (which has since been taken over by Chevron) caused a toxic “Rainforest Chernobyl” in Ecuador from 1964 to 1992, cutting through the Amazon in search of oil and leaving behind dead rivers, polluted air, scarred forests and over 600 unlined oil pits. They also dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic production water into the rivers where locals bathe. Living in close proximity to the oil fields has resulted in health effects ranging from high miscarriage rates to cancer.

In Richmond, California, toxic pollutants from Chevron’s refinery in the city have infiltrated people’s homes. Air samples from inside and outside Richmond homes in 2006 were found to contain particulate matter known to come from oil refining that exceeded California’s air quality standards. Unsurprisingly, local residents are feeling the effects in the form of lupus, cancer, athsma and a number of other health problems.

Dow Chemical

Image via Greenpeace

Dow Chemical (along with Monsanto) will never escape the shadow of Agent Orange, the chemical used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War during the ‘Herbicidal Warfare’ program, which lead to 400,000 deaths and disabilities and 500,000 children born with birth defects. But even with this evil legacy – and that of Napalm, which it also produced – Dow is not contrite. This corporation continues to pollute the earth without apology.

Two rivers downstream of Dow’s plant in Midland, Michigan are polluted with chlorinated furans and dioxins from the company’s past operations. Despite the fact that these chemicals are linked to cancer and other health issues, Dow maintains that the contamination is not a public health threat and has been fighting with the EPA over cleanup for years. Many people in the area aren’t even aware of the extent of the dioxin contamination, and Dow has refused to put up warning signs. Just last weekend, Dow Chemical sponsored a fishing event in a waterway it polluted with dioxin, never even acknowledging the contamination and its possible effects.

Furthermore, following the purchase of Union Carbide – the company responsible for the Bhopal gas disaster which left nearly 20,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands disabled – Dow has refused to take responsibility for the health and environmental effects of the incident.

Monsanto

Image via Flickr user skasuga

Despite the inroads that Dow Chemical has been making lately on the evil corporation front, Monsanto still reigns supreme. It’s hard to overstate just how socially and environmentally irresponsible this company really is. Monsanto has manufactured herbicides (which, during manufacturing, create dioxin as a by-product), Agent Orange, plastics, fuel additives, saccharin, industrial fluids, fertilizers, pesticides and anti-freeze in the past. Some years ago they chose to focus on ‘life sciences’ and are now the world’s largest seed company. They’re also the creators of Recombitant Bovine Growth Hormone (rGBH) and the world’s largest producer of genetically modified food.

Monsanto is responsible for more than 50 Superfund sites including Anniston, Alabama, one of America’s worst man-made environmental disasters. For over 40 years, Monsanto routinely dumped toxic waste into West Anniston Creek while producing now-banned industrial coolants called PCBs. They also dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into open-pit landfills – and proceeded to spend decades covering it up even after confirming that fish submerged in the creek turned belly-up within seconds.

Monsanto knew exactly how dangerous the PCBs were, but chose to keep it secret, altering documents and forcing changes to study results to keep the secret. Though they were forced to pay $700 million in fines in 2003, they have not apologized or taken responsibility.

On top of that, after polluting waterways all over the world, Monsanto proceeded to buy up said waterways, filter the water and sell it back to the public, making a double profit.

Among Monsanto’s worst acts is its attempt to completely monopolize the world’s seed supply. The company has spent over $8 billion in recent years buying up seed companies – including organic seed companies – and making it illegal for farmers to retain the seeds from their crop for the following year’s planting. That means farmers are forced to pay Monsanto for new seeds, again and again. Many of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds produce plants that are reportedly dependent upon Monsanto herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers.

The people paying the biggest price for Monsanto’s greed are Indian farmers. Every day, at least three of them commit suicide by hanging themselves, drowning themselves in rivers or drinking Monsanto pesticides because they’ve hit rock bottom in desperation, hopelessness and debt. The death toll stands at thousands, with some estimates at over 16,000. The farmers had been promised unprecedented harvests and income if they switched to genetically modified Monsanto seeds in what was basically one big experiment on unwitting subjects. When the crops failed, the farmers felt they had no way out, and they certainly didn’t have money to buy more seeds.

Now, it’s been reported that Monsanto has found a way to profit from its own misdeeds once again. In the Southeast, a “superweed” known as Palmer amaranth pigweed is taking over soybean and cotton fields, often leaving them totally unfit for future cultivation. This particular strain of weed was created thanks to overuse of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and the attendant use of its patented Roundup-resistant GMOs. So, what will it take to wipe out this superweed? You guessed it – more Monsanto herbicides.

DeSmogBlog Smacks Down Global Warming-Denying National Post

The National Post, a conservative Canadian newspaper based in Toronto, has embarrassed itself once again. The paper routinely prints outrageously stupid things about global warming in a cheeky series of articles entitled ‘The Deniers’ and in regular columns by Lorne Gunter and Peter Foster.

DeSmogBlog regularly points out The National Post’s inaccuracies and outright lies about climate change, and now they’re taking issue with the paper’s so-called reporting from the climate deniers gathering in New York City.

From DeSmogBlog:

This latest dispatch by Foster “reporting” from the climate deniers gathering in New York further undermines the Post as a legitimate media outlet. So one-sided and erroneous is their editorial position on climate science that it is best described as journalistic malpractice.

While the Post felt it important to send Foster to cover the Heartland denier’s conference, they of course neglected to send any reporters to cover the UN climate conference last year in Poland, or the current gathering of 2,000 leading climate scientists in Denmark.

I suppose it is simpler to avoid mixing ideology with any actual information.

DeSmogBlog’s Mitchell Anderson goes on to point out all of the newsworthy information – and actual facts – being revealed at the real climate conference in Copenhagen, including the doubling of the projected rise in sea level by 2100, thanks to ballooning emissions, which the National Post failed to cover. Here’s a snippet:

There is also growing evidence that oceans are losing their ability to mop up our emissions mess. A study in 2007 revealed that marine absorption of carbon in the Atlantic had halved in only ten years. Similar results were reported recently in Sea of Japan.

“It is a tremendous surprise and very worrying because there were grounds for believing that in time the ocean might become ’saturated’ with our emissions – unable to soak up any more, ” reported the BBC. If true, that would “leave all our emissions to warm the atmosphere”.

But what the hay? I’m sure those folks at the National Post and Heartland Institute have it all figured out. After all, who are you going to believe – a bunch of egghead scientists, or courageous skeptics like Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley?

Of course, global warming deniers barely even try to support their viewpoint with facts anymore. All of their energy is spent twisting actual climate science around, hatching conspiracy theories,  ignoring the mounting evidence that proves them wrong and pointing fingers at Al Gore, the biggest target of their irrational ire. The fact that Vaclav Klaus is the Heartland Institute’s Leading International Figure for the second year in a row speaks louder than words.

Link [DeSmogBlog]

Al Gore Calls for 350 Target at UN Climate Talks

Al Gore endorsed the 350 parts per million target at a speech in Poznan, Poland at the UN climate talks this month. 350 is the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.

Meanwhile, thousands of 350.org members from around the world lent their voices in support of small island states and the poorest countries in the world to safeguard their survival. Check out 350.org for more information.

The Maldives Threatened By Global Climate Change

The Maldives is one of the lowest lying countries in the world and is threatened by sea level rise and other climate change impacts like increased sea temperatures. It was the first country to sign the Kyoto protocol in 1997 and is closely following the climate negotiations in Poznan, Poland.

Symptoms of Global Warming Cropping Up Across the Globe

Global warming is already impacting countries across the globe, from Brazil to Bangladesh, wreaking havoc on the environment and putting millions of people at risk of extreme poverty. It’s the poor countries that are seeing the most dramatic effects thus far, and they’re in desperate need of resources, technology and money to adapt their economies to climate change and preserve their ecosystems.

From The Guardian:

North-east Brazil has always known droughts, but they are becoming longer and more frequent, say scientists and farmers. “Climate change is biting. It is much hotter than it used to be and it stays hotter for longer. The rain has become more sporadic. It comes at different times of the year now and farmers cannot tell when to plant,” says Lindon Carlos, an agronomist with Brazilian group Acev.

On the other side of the world, the changing climate is wreaking havoc in a different way on low-lying and populous Bangladesh. There, government meteorologists this year reported a 10% increase in intensity and frequency in major cyclones hitting the country – two of the most powerful cyclones ever recorded have hit the country in the last three years.

The balmy Caribbean is also being churned up with increasing frequency and ferocity. This year, the region experienced eight hurricanes and five major hurricanes, the second highest ever, and the hurricane season lasted a record five months.

Across the Atlantic, in Africa, the theme unfolds further: climate change turning already bad situations in poor countries into potential catastrophe, and driving people to absolute poverty. Alexandre Tique, at Mozambique’s national meteorological institute, says: “Analysis of the temperature data gathered in our provincial capitals, where we have meteorological stations that have kept continuous data over the years, shows a clear increase in temperature. Extreme events are becoming more frequent. We now see many more tropical cyclones that bring flooding, destruction and loss of lives.”

Right now, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland – which we’ve been covering extensively here on EarthFirst – representatives of developing nations are arguing that rich countries should help them pay to adapt to climate change, especially since they are experiencing effects of something they didn’t even cause.

Because of the worldwide recession, analysts predict that rich countries will resist paying more than what they’ve already contributed to aid funds. But since the money to help poor countries with climate change adaptation is coming straight out of existing aid funds, that means every dollar used for climate change effects takes away from money those countries need for things like health and education.

What a mess. Total lack of foresight during the rapid development and industrialization of the 20th century is largely the cause of this problem, and it amazes me that some people still believe that we can continue doing the same things – burning dirty coal, driving in millions of dirty automobiles, destroying forests at alarming rates.

Link [The Guardian]
Photo credit: Greenpeace

Youth Demonstrate in Support of Survival of All Countries and Peoples

An update from SustainUS delegates at the UN climate talks in Poland:

I have to say, I’m pretty disgusted with many of the developed countries speaking. They are more than willing to talk about progress and how much they care – and then block text necessary for the survival of entire countries. Countries are essentially trying to decide if the most vulnerable countries are worth saving at this point. For some countries, such as Australia, Canada, Japan, and the US, Christmas bonuses for multi-millionaires and bailing large corporations out of debt seem to be more important.

As one minister from a small island put it this morning, we are talking about mass murder here. Mass murder of nations, peoples, and cultures. Again, as another minister put it, we are asking small island states to sign onto a suicide pact with the way negotiations are currently proceeding. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to put everything I have into reshaping the political landscape over the next year so that we leave no one behind in this process. Survival is non-negotiable.

Negotiations are moving slow here, which is bad. We have less than a year at this point to get an incredibly strong international climate agreement – that is not a very long time. Especially with the level of ambition many developed countries have. But there is hope!

As negotiators hide behind technicalities and acronyms, youth are uniting around a strong shared vision for an equitable climate treaty. We need to make sure Poznan and the year leading up to Copenhagen are both successful. We need leadership and a commitment by parties to the survival of all countries and peoples.

Yesterday, international youth launched a new campaign – the Survival Campaign. The international youth delegation is asking all countries to commit to ’safeguard the future of all countries and peoples’. Committing countries to negotiating based on this principle means they have to do more, faster. That would mean, for example, taking responsibility to prevent small island nations, sovereign under the UN process but weak politically and economically, from slipping beneath the waves.

This is especially important for developed countries who must reduce emissions at least 40% by 2020 compared to 1990, with an overall global goal of reducing CO2-e concentrations below 350ppm. Developed countries must also massively increase financial and technological support for both adaptation and mitigation to help achieve this global goal in an equitable manner. Young people have laid out a clear challenge to these countries: take immediate action to safeguard the survival of all countries and peoples.
To ensure the principle is formalized we are meeting with a number of countries and asking them to support our message. We are asking countries to support this text:

I, the undersigned, commit my delegation to a global climate treaty that: safeguards the survival of all countries and peoples.

Climate change threatens the very survival of island nations and other impacted communities.

Join international youth to ensure that a global climate treaty includes the principle of safeguarding the survival of all countries and peoples.

We need a successful outcome from Poznan. Reassure the world you are committed to a climate agreement that protects the most vulnerable among us.

Ninety countries (and counting!) have committed. We also printed out placards that read “Survival” on one side and “safeguards the future for all countries and peoples” on the other for delegates to have with them at their tables during the ministerial high level segment. Unfortunately the UNFCCC doesn’t allow delegates to have unapproved things on their tables, so security took some away. Despite this, Uganda, Sweden, and Iceland placed the sign prominently in front of them during their speeches. Solomon Islands, Venezuela, Djibouti, Madagascar, Maldives, Costa Rica, and Papa New Guinea also displayed their Solidarity placards next to their own, displaying solidarity in the commitment to the survival of all countries and peoples. While not all countries have signed on (countries like the US, for example), we have received incredible support from almost every delegation.

The youth movement here is absolutely inspirational. That’s the only way to describe it. We are transcending our national boarders and working together for our common future. We are determined to remove the brackets that have been placed around our planet. We are uniting to safeguard the survival of all countries and peoples. We need all of your help. That means telling everybody we know about the issue and doing everything we can in terms of lifestyle, as well as political action, to stop catastrophic climate change.

If we wait any longer, it will be too late. Join us: http://www.350.org/survival

[compiled from a number of blogs from the international youth movement and edited by Casie Reed]

International Youth Call Out to Merkel and Tusk in Warsaw

Young Climate Activists Take to the Streets in Poland

The quiet streets of downtown Poznan were flooded with people over the weekend for the International Day of Climate Action. With banners held high, hundreds of people marched through the city center to the site of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, demanding action on climate change through chants in multiple languages.

“What do we want? Climate Justice! When do we want it? NOW!”

The youth presence in the event was particularly strong. Dozens of young people, covered in face paint and bearing colorful costumes, dressed as clowns to represent world leaders who are “clowning around” while the planet warms. Others danced to the beats of a drumming contingent that joined the procession.

In contrast to the tone of the conference, the march was energetic, loud, and fueled by – in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – the “fierce urgency of now.” Rather than getting bogged down in the minutia of daily negotiations, young people remain above the fray, never losing sight of the grander vision of this conference – the establishment of a strong, ambitious, and equitable international climate change treaty. While listening to countries intensely bicker over the placement of brackets in a draft document when the larger question of financing adaptation in developing countries is on the table, I can’t help but worry that delegates to this convention have not internalized the urgency of the challenge in front of us.

The International Day of Climate Action presented a welcome opportunity to demonstrate just that.

By Jeff Gustafson, SustainUS Delegate and Director of the D.C. Youth Environmental Alliance in Washington, D.C.

Protests at UN Climate Talks in Poland

On Saturday December 6th, Greenpeace took action in Poznan, Poland where the United Nations climate talks are taking place. To mark the International Day of Climate Action, they joined activists in locations all around the world to call on world leaders to take urgent action on climate change. This is definitely a great cause but what’s with the clown outfits guys?

Submit Your Photo for International Day of Climate Action

Out With the Old, In With the Youth

By John Doyle, SustainUS Delegation Grassroots Coordinator

More than just being the lame duck, the US State Department has become a dead duck at this year’s UN Climate Negotiations in Poland. Contrary to past years, this year the US delegation has become the de facto outcasts of the conference: pleas are not directed to them, their statements are not repudiated, and even the press is ignoring them and focusing instead on the EU.

After the deplorable statement made Wednesday by an American negotiator encouraging 20% emissions cuts by 2050, far below what scientists say are necessary, the US youth have decided that we can not sit aside any longer. The American people did not vote in record numbers to be the laughing stock at some of the most important negotiations in the history of the world. We Power Voted for a new government that will engage with the international community on finding real solutions. Since our leaders are falling short, US youth are happy to fill their shoes.

This Friday, delegates from SustainUS, 350.org, EJCC, RAN, and Greenpeace will be extending invitations to government delegations from dozens of countries, developing and developed, to meet with us. We want to assure them that ‘the real US’ is ready to seek a bold, binding, equitable, and science-based agreement next year in Copenhagen. We will be extending this global engagement invitation to Senators John Kerry, Ben Cardin, and Amy Klobuchar, who will all be arriving in Poland next week. We have a long year ahead of us and there is no time to delay.

But, we need your help! SustainUS is launching a massive photo petition in honor of the International Day of Climate Action, December 6th, that will let international delegations know that the U.S. youth will be pressuring President-elect Obama and Congress for climate action NOW! In the next 24 hours:

1) Grab a camera, your friends and family (or just yourself)

2) Make a sign that says “bold, equitable, binding, and science-based” to select the type of climate agreement you are ready for

3) Feel free to draw a globe (or hold one) or do something that will give your picture an international vibe.

4) Send your photo to climatephotopetition@gmail.com

5) Get ready for a huge year in the run-up to Copenhagen!

When everyone sends their pictures in, we’ll be able to show other countries and our own that there is plenty of support for climate action. Once all of your faces arrive in Poland, the U.S. will finally be properly represented!

UN Climate Talks Update: Why We’re Here: YOU!

Here’s another exciting update from SustainUS Delegate Eric Pollard at the The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland.

Tonight at COP-14 the International Youth Delegation will have its first official UNFCCC side event. The event will be used to highlight some actions international youth are taking at home. So in the spirit of that I’d like to talk about how where I’m from has much to do about why I’m in Poznan.

On my first conference call with SustainUS, I was pretty intimidated by the international experience and incredible work of my fellow Agents of Change in SustainUS, especially considering this is my first time out of the states. This is only to highlight how world-class my fellow organizers are and how global their reach.

I’m from Oklahoma. Which as of November 4^th, is the reddest, most conservative state in the US (take that Utah!). It’s the home of Senator James Inhofe who has called climate change “the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people” and has likened a re energized environmental movement to the Third Reich. Like other areas in the US, organizing in Oklahoma at times feels like a very lonely island.

But it’s also home to one of the only (if not THE only, correct me if I’m wrong) successful US campaigns to stop a nuclear power plant (Blackfoot Nuclear Power Plant outside Inola, OK) and a recent successful campaign to stop a coal-fired power plant that resulted in a decision by OG&E to quadruple their wind development in the state. It boasts a food co-op that has become a national model and a sustainability network involving communities from over 10 of Oklahoma’s largest communities (founded by Emily McCauley former leader in the Sierra Student Coalition).

Building a youth movement and network in Oklahoma is underway. In November, over 40 high school students gathered for ReEnergize Oklahoma to start this process. In addition, planning is underway for major lobbying efforts during the legislative session. An energetic and inspiring base of students is leading the charge.

The hope, energy, positive actions and solidarity that can be found in Oklahoma and other incredible local, state, regional and national networks is with us here in Poznan. I realize how much of an opportunity it is to be here and I feel responsible to all of the amazing people I’ve met through organizing to represent a re-energized America at COP-14. SustianUS is working diligently to ensure that the REAL US domestic position on climate change and clean energy is felt by the world in Poland. The election in November showed the power of youth in America and our ability to create real change. Know that your US youth delegation is here in Poznan working proudly and tirelessly to represent your efforts to create a just, equitable, and sustainable world to this beautiful global community. Thanks for this opportunity!

Eric Pollard is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma where he received a B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Environment.   As an undergraduate he was a campus organizer and leader in various student organizations including the environmental student organization OurEarth. Since last fall Eric has been working for the Oklahoma Wind Power Initiative supporting Oklahoma school districts and communities in developing renewable energy projects. Eric is also a community organizer at both state and local levels working on issues of sustainability and prairie smart growth.

Dispatch from UN Climate Talks in Poland

This December, SustainUS sent a delegation of 23 young people ages 19-26 to the UN Climate Negotiations in Poznań, Poland. Over the next two weeks, delegates will be sending us updates about their experiences at this important global event.

To start us off, David Sievers has a dispatch about day one of the convention. David Sievers is Training Director for the United States Student Association. He graduated in 2007 from the College of William and Mary. Take it away David!

Day one of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has come and gone. Badged delegates have filled the halls of the largest Convention Center in Poznan, Poland, they have rejoiced in inaugural festivities and a smorgasbord of free junk, and they have partied down in a hanger-turned-ballroom on the dime of the wonderful citizens of Poland. But it has not taken long for the honeymoon period to fade and for the weight of the task incumbent upon these negotiators to bear upon them.

This conference marks the midway point in the two year window developed at last year’s COP in Bali, Indonesia, to come up with an international climate agreement to build on the Kyoto Protocol’s previsions sunset in 2012. Since a global solution is required of a global problem on this scale, this process is our only existing good shot at pulling in all players to reign in carbon emissions by measures demanded by the scientific community.

For the two days preceding the COP, two hundred youth from around the world met at the Conference of Youth (COY). As at COP-14, COY-4 was all about taking stock of our progress and laying plans on the road through Copenhagen. But contrary to the basement-dwelling expectations being propagated by the largest emitters leading up to COP, the tone of COY was confidently ambitious. Where government delegates are taking a step back by debating decisions they have already made in the Bali Roadmap (eg. contact groups on Long-term Cooperative Action), youth delegates are leaping forward with cooperative strategy to build an international movement strong enough to demand attention from our representatives.

I am attending my first COP along with twenty other youth delegates with SustainUS, a non-profit that connects young Americans to international environmental negotiations. Delegations like ours, comprising 500 young people, have converged from fifty countries to hold our leaders to a safe climate future.

And the gap between the US youth and delegates is particularly pronounced. The US government delegation got out in front in making clear its intention to advocate half-solutions and construct roadblocks to science-based targets less than four hours into the COP. In an opening press conference, Harlan Watson, lead negotiator for the US, essentially put forth nuclear energy and (heretofore non-existent) Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as the items that the US has to offer to the negotiation.

This reckless position threatens to burst the Obama bubble around the world. In interviews with international press, I was prodded about my faith in the promises of the new administration to positively reengage with the global community and to address climate change with resolve matching the scale of the crisis. While I am excited about these prospects, my primary aim in Poznan is to insure that the outgoing administration doesn’t derail any chance that Obama might have to make good on these promises through the UNFCCC and Bali Roadmap. So stay tuned for the next two weeks of action-packed updates from the US flank of the international youth climate movement at Cop-14.

-David Sievers

You can follow the SustainUS group in Poland on Twitter @SustainUSAgents.

What now? Invite Obama to Poland

Now that we’ve recovered from our collective Election Day hangovers, it’s time to get to work. 350.org is asking President elect Barack Obama to go to the United Nations Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Poznan, Poland this December.

From their website:

For seven years now the United States delegation at the UNFCCC meetings has been an obstructionist force stalling and blocking progress while the rest of the world has attempted to tackle the climate crisis. It would send a remarkable signal and a new wave of energy if the next US President took the initiative to re-engage with the international community on this most pressing issue. We need to remind the US Presidential candidates that there’s an even bigger meltdown than the one on Wall Street, and that the world is counting on them to be part of the international solution to climate change.

Send your own invitation to Obama at http://www.350.org/invite/.

Wildlife Group Presses Poor Nations on Carbon Emissions

Third world countries’ carbon emissions are rising fast, but they’re insistent that they have a right to continue expanding their economies via cheap but dirty fossil fuels as long as their emissions don’t reach the higher per-capita emission rates of industrialized nations.  But, by some reports, countries like China and India may already be surpassing the world’s industrialized powers in terms of CO2 emissions.  Valli Moosa, president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told delegates at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona that poorer nations need to take responsibility.

From Dot Earth:

“It is not good enough for big developing countries to take absolutely no responsibility just because the biggest contributors to climate change are the developed countries,” Mr. Moosa said at the opening ceremony of the congress, held every four years under the auspices of the IUCN.

“America and industrialized nations must lead the way,” he said. “Developing countries like my own must become part of, and abide by, the same set of transparent and enforceable rules,” he said. Mr. Moosa’s comments came ahead of climate-treaty talks in December in Poznań, Poland, that are aimed at pushing forward negotiations on a new global agreement on cutting emissions – and where concerns about allowing emerging economic superpowers like China and India to pollute as much as Western countries is almost certain to be a key stumbling block.

It’s understandable that nations like China and India are putting concerns about carbon emissions on the back burner, since they’re simply trying to improve their economies and by extension, the lives of their citizens.  And, cheap fossil fuels probably seem like the only option for them – after all, that’s how industrialized nations like the U.S. got to where we are today.  But, Moosa is right – developing nations can’t go on as they are without doing major damage to the earth, and we’ve got to give them a better example. It’s definitely time to start showing developing nations that they can be prosperous without harming the environment, and we can only do that by aggressively implementing green energy technology in our own countries.

Link [Dot Earth]
Photo credit: Flickr user Wolfiewolf