Spotlight on Russia's Role in Climate Control. By Tom Zeller, Jr., NYTimes, July 27, 2009. "Russia is one of the planet's most prodigious suppliers of fossil fuels and an intense consumer of energy. Its energy intensity -- the amount of energy a country burns through to achieve a unit of gross domestic product - is double that of the United States... And yet, for all that, Russia has remained rather out of view amid the furious global hunt for an agreement -- any agreement -- on just how to fairly distribute the economic burden of greenhouse gas reduction and, perhaps, curb the steady march of global warming. Developing countries like China and India, whose blossoming economies are expected to spew ever-larger amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, take top billing in the endless wrangle with rich countries over who should cut what and by how much. But as the clock ticks toward the climate talks this December in Copenhagen, where a successor to the Kyoto protocol will be hammered out or lost to discord, Russia's role as a wild card -- both as a signatory to any treaty and as a looming emitter in its own right -- is often overlooked."
Russia Looks Ahead to Benefits from Global Warming. By Peter Savodnik, Abu Dhabi Media, June 19, 2009. "All across Russia, the prospect of global warming appears to present new opportunities: exploration of oil and gas fields in Siberia and construction of pipelines linking those fields with Europe and China would be cheaper; agriculture would pick up from Karelia, north of St Petersburg, to Chukotka, in the far east; more tourists would come; more timber would be harvested; deaths from exposure to cold would fall; and the quality of life of vast swathes of the country - 60 per cent of Russia is covered in permafrost - would (quite possibly) rise. It might seem impolitic to embrace what many regard as a looming global catastrophe. But this has not stopped the Russians. In September 2003, none other than Vladimir Putin signaled his approval, noting that global warming would help Russians 'save on fur coats and other warm things.' More recently, Rinat Gizatullin, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Ministry, told the BBC: 'We are not panicking. Global warming is not as catastrophic for us as it might be for some other countries. If anything, we'll be even better off. As the climate warms, more of Russia's territory will be freed up for agriculture and industry.'"
Uranium Contamination Haunts Navajo Nation. By Dan Frosch, NYTimes, July 27, 2009. "The legacy wrought from decades of uranium mining is long and painful here on the expansive reservation. Over the years, Navajo miners extracted some four million tons of uranium ore from the ground, much of it used by the United States government to make weapons. Many miners died from radiation-related illnesses; some, unaware of harmful health effects, hauled contaminated rocks and tailings from local mines and mills to build homes for their families. Now, those homes are being demolished and rebuilt under a new government program that seeks to identify what are very likely dozens of uranium-contaminated structures still standing on Navajo land and to temporarily relocate people living in them until the homes can be torn down and rebuilt. Stephen B. Etsitty, executive director of the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, and other tribal officials have been grappling for years with the environmental fallout from uranium mining. 'There were a lot of things people weren't told about the plight of Navajos and uranium mining,' Mr. Etsitty said. 'These legacy issues are impacting generations.'"
Denial about Climate Change vs. Denial about Ineffectiveness of Current Approaches to Problem. By Gideon Rachman, FT, July 27, 2009. "The state of international negotiations presents a huge dilemma for climate change activists. Most genuinely believe that a failure to achieve an international agreement in Copenhagen would be catastrophic. But they also know that, even if a deal is reached, it is likely to be feeble and ineffective. If they admit this publicly, they risk creating a climate of despair and inaction. But if they press ahead, they are putting all their energy into an approach that they must know is highly unlikely to deliver. It is a horrible dilemma. But, in difficult situations, it is best to start by facing facts. The trouble is that -- in different ways -- both sides of the climate change debate are in denial."
Looks Like No Senate Vote on Climate and Clean Energy Bill at Least Until November - Thank Goodness! Commentary by Joseph Romm, ClimateProgress,July 27, 2009. "Since tortoise-like Senate floor debates are a lot longer than hare-like House debates, it is all but impossible to imagine the Senate vote on a climate bill before November. And I'd say it's at least 50-50 the vote isn't until December or January, which would put a final bill, conferenced and passed again by both House and Senate, on Obama's desk maybe in March... No hurry. Right now, the House bill starts its first cap in 2012, but in any case the cap doesn't actually start to bite for several more years after that, so it is far more important that the one shot we get in the Senate is our best shot. And we need time for several reasons:... Senators just won't vote for a bill written by House members. Not invented here... bill capable of getting 60 votes currently exists and won't until late September at the earliest... Obama needs some sort of serious announcement from China that it is going sharply change its business as usual emissions path... The next stage of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen the first two weeks in December is very unlikely to result in a final deal, but it is likely to move the ball forward. If so, it might be better to have the Senate vote afterwards... Some genuine progress at the international level could give Senators the kind of pivotal and historical role they see themselves as asserting."
Utility PACs Generous to Key Lawmakers in Climate Debate. By Anne C. Mulkern, Greenwire, July 27, 2009. "Large electric utilities that rely heavily on coal poured money into re-election campaigns as the House shaped and passed landmark climate legislation, a bill that helps those businesses partly sidestep its toughest provisions. Employee-run committees for American Electric Power Co. Inc., Duke Energy Corp. and Southern Co. gave $165,000 to 70 House members in April, May and June. They sprinkled money among senators, too, contributing $46,500 to 18 Senate re-election campaigns. The money went heavily to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that amended and voted on the bill before the final floor vote. Contributions also went to lawmakers from states where the utilities have plants. Both the companies and lawmakers insisted there is no correlation between campaign contributions and votes. Watchdog groups believe the money buys influence and made the legislation friendlier to power companies. 'Companies give campaign contributions to gain access that they otherwise wouldn't have,' said Erich Pica, spokesman for environmental group Friends of the Earth. 'If you look at the provisions in the bill for coal, they got a pretty sweet deal.'"
Level of Funding in Stimulus Package for Green Projects Must be Maintained, Agues New Report. By Kate Sheppard, Grist, July 28, 2009. "With climate change among the world's biggest security challenges, the Obama administration should be pumping much more money into addressing the problem, argues a new report [not yet released] from the Institute for Policy Studies. In fiscal year 2008, the United States invested 20 times more money in developing military technology than in developing clean energy technology. The U.S. also spent 50 times as much arming the rest of the world as it did helping other countries transition to clean energy. Altogether, in FY 2008, the U.S. government spent $88 on funding the military for every $1 spent on projects to stabilize the climate. Compared to the Bush administration, the Obama administration has already increased climate spending, particularly via the economic stimulus package passed earlier this year. But climate change demands much more significant investment, according to report author Miriam Pemberton, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies... The Obama administration should make its investment in curbing climate change a clear priority in the budget, explicitly calling out the funds for the public to see, said Pemberton. Right now, the funding is scattered throughout various parts of the budget, and Pemberton had to do a lot of digging to even find out the total amount being spent on climate. '[Climate change] is the huge challenge of our time,' she said. 'We ought to be able to know what the government is really investing in it.' Pemberton recommends that the Obama administration maintain the levels of climate spending from this year's stimulus package. Military spending is still far larger, but there is at least more balance between the two, she said. 'The administration takes so much more seriously this climate change challenge than its predecessor,' said Pemberton, 'but they're really going to have to sustain this investment in the regular budget.'"
Rating the 'Greenness' of Colleges. The Princeton Review, July 2009. "[Our] new Green Rating evaluates colleges and universities on their environmentally-related policies, practices and academic offerings. The result is a numerical score on a scale of 60-99. You will find each college's (697 of them) Green Rating on the Campus Life / Facilities tab of their profile. We salute 15 schools for their commitment to sustainability. These schools received our highest Green Rating of 99 and a place on The Princeton Review's Green Honor Roll."
Working 10-Hour Days 4 Times a Week to Save Energy. By Lynne Peeples, SciAmerica, July 24, 2009. "As government agencies and corporations scramble to cut expenses, one idea gaining widespread attention involves cutting something most employees wouldn't mind losing: work on Fridays... Local governments in particular have had their eyes on Utah over the last year; the state redefined the workday for more than 17,000 of its employees last August. For those workplaces, there's no longer a need to turn on the lights, elevators or computers on Fridays -- nor do janitors need to clean vacant buildings. Electric bills have dropped even further during the summer, thanks to less air-conditioning: Friday's midday hours have been replaced by cooler mornings and evenings on Monday through Thursday. As of May, the state had saved $1.8 million... 'People just love it,' says Lori Wadsworth, a professor of public management at Brigham Young University in Provo. She helped survey those on the new Working 4 Utah schedule this May and found 82 percent would prefer to stick with it."
'Eco-Therapy,' a Growing Movement. By Bryan Walsh, Time, July 28, 2009. "A new and growing group of psychologists believes that many of our modern-day mental problems, including depression, stress and anxiety, can be traced in part to society's increasing alienation from nature. The solution? Get outside and enjoy it... Eco-therapists point out that human beings have evolved in synchrony with nature for millions of years and that we are hard-wired to interact with our environment -- with the air, water, plants, other animals... 'We began to get the impression that we were somehow above and separate from nature,' says Craig Chalquist, an instructor at John F. Kennedy University in San Francisco and co-editor with Buzzell-Saltzman of the new book Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind... Getting it back doesn't have to be difficult, according to eco-therapists, most of whom, unsurprisingly, practice in California. Patients' treatment typically begins with starting a nature journal, in which they record how much time they spend outside. The results can often be shocking, says Buzzell-Saltzman. 'Some patients find they spend less than 15 to 30 minutes a day outside, other than walking to and from their cars,' she says. Eco-therapists counsel patients to slow down and reconnect with nature by hiking, gardening or simply taking walks outdoors... It may be that eco-therapy is less a practical psychological treatment than a timely philosophy that connects common feelings of isolation and stress with the fact that the world in which we live is slowly becoming something it shouldn't be. And with worsening climate change and a relentless drumbeat of bad news about our endangered environment, it seems our eco-anxiety may be far from being cured. 'Ultimately, what we need to do is change human behavior,' says Buzzell-Saltzman."
