It's no secret that big polluting companies are going all out to try and destroy the chance of the US congress passing meaningful global warming legislation with significant emissions reduction targets. On big loop hole is the option of "offsetting" reductions abroad. The flawed nature of large scale carbon offsets has been exposed many times, recently by a Greenpeace investigation into offsets related to rainforest projects.

Big polluters love them because it's a cheap way of passing off their responsibility to someone else, somewhere else. Even though big polluters have already got the current draft US legislation filled with far too many loopholes, last week they wrote a letter asking for even more offsets, otherwise it would mean slightly lower multimillion profit margins. What was surprising was that joining such huge polluters such as Duke Energy, Dominion, Exelon and American Electric Power was Intel.

Yep Intel, one of the foundations of the IT industry that claims in can cut emissions by 15 percent by 2020 and generate billion of dollars of efficiency saving as well. Now Intel is firmly siding with the regressive, dirty companies and adding it's name to calls for US legislators to make even less effort to cut emissions in the US.

The full text of the letter and entertaining translation is in on our US blog but here's a flavour:

Re: The Importance of International Offsets for U.S. Climate Change Mitigation Efforts

We, the undersigned, are companies that employ hundreds of thousands of American workers, and serve hundreds of millions of American consumers. We expect that our companies would be affected significantly by any greenhouse gas regulatory program. We write today to communicate our firm belief that in order for any such program to be both environmentally effective and economically sound it should be market-based and incorporate both domestic and international offsets. To this end, we are concerned about the further restrictions on use of international offset credits in S. 1733, reported last week by the Environment and Public Works Committee.

TRANSLATION: We are some of the biggest, richest polluters in the world and we have a lot invested in dirty business. If you pass climate legislation without huge loopholes for us, we’re going to be very upset. One of the most important loopholes we want are carbon offsets – cheap vouchers that allow us to side-step cutting our pollution with the rationale that someone else, somewhere else, will cut pollution instead. Sure, the legislation in Congress already has massive subsidies for us and billions of tons of offsets in it, but we are still not happy. We always want more.

When IT companies need to be championing a strong deal in Copenhagen Intel is pushing in the wrong direction. It certainly won't help Intel's score in our Cool IT Challenge. Maybe Intel deserves a new slogan "Intel is working on the technologies of the future today" is more like "Intel is promoting excuses at the expense of the future today"

Posted by Tom at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So how do ICT companies size up when it comes to action over climate change? Are some companies really much greener than others? Beyond the leafy veneer of their environmental CSR pages, will their initiatives really have deep impact, or are they just flower arranging?

The Cool IT campaign tracks 14 top companies, rating them based on five criteria: public climate speeches; political advocacy; climate solutions; own emissions targets and renewable energy use. These are combined to give a total score out of 100. At the moment, by our reckoning, less than 50/100 is pretty lame. Anyone who knows what it's like to score 43 on a school assignment would probably agree.

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Posted by Melissa Wilson at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In several African languages we have the proverb “I am, because you are”. This means that your sense of being a human being is determined by the relationships you have with other people. This proverb has informed not only my thinking about human relationships, but also about nature and the environment. Unless we recognise that we must come together in communities, in rich and poor countries and cut across the range of divides that keep us apart, unless we recognise that we are all in this together, we will not be able to address the environmental challenges that we face and we certainly will not be able to address the problem of climate change.

Today we are at the cross roads. The future of our planet is at stake. The effects of climate change are being felt by millions of people across the world. We are at a time when civil society needs to be courageous and bold, peaceful and principled in coming together to ensure that we stop catastrophic climate change – the biggest challenge our planet has ever faced.

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Posted by Brian at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I have the privilege to be the assistant to Gerd Leipold, who this week steps down as Executive Director and Chief Troublemaker at Greenpeace International.

While nobody is surprised that Greenpeace's leader is an activist --Gerd has been arrested in Germany and the Pacific and a few places in between -- not many people realise he is also a scientist. He studied physics, meteorology and oceanography in Munich and Hamburg, then worked at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and modeled ocean currents as part of the Institute's climate research.

Gerd was destined to be a man of action, not an academic. In 1980 he joined Greenpeace. For the next decade he played a key role at Greenpeace Germany. Under his management, our office there developed from a small pool of volunteers to the largest environmental organization in Germany.

And while many would have been content to shape an Executive Director role along traditional bureaucratic lines, Gerd continued to participate in spectacular Greenpeace actions, invent campaigns, and repurpose existing ones.

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Posted by Brian at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last month, Sasha informed us about the alarming state of the grizzly and black bears as their main food, salmon, are diminishing.
This week, another type of bear is threatened by climate change – the koala bear.

AFP reports that the cute cuddly creatures could be extinct in 30 years. The Australian Koala Foundation indicated in a recent survey that numbers have plunged by more than half in the past six years due to climate change, disease and over-development.

"We're saying (numbers) could be as low as 43,000 and as high as 80,000” Foundation chief Deborah Tabart told public broadcaster ABC Radio.

Large numbers have been killed by disease while others have been affected by loss of habitat due to deforestation and climate change. Hotter, drier conditions have reduced the nutritional value of their staple food, eucalyptus leaves, leading to fatal malnutrition, Tabart said.

Conservationists are calling for the iconic creatures to be declared an endangered species.

Posted by Anne-Marije at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From Wired:

The worms, found in a gray whale skeleton off the coast of California, prompted scientists to designate them as representatives of an entirely new genus, dubbed Osedax. They belonged to a taxonomic family of marine worms that lack mouths and anuses, and rely entirely on bacteria to absorb and excrete nutrients. But Osedax was unique: Adult males were extremely small, and lived in colonies inside the females. Even more strikingly, they occupied an evolutionary niche comprised entirely of fallen whales.

“Picture the bottom of the ocean. Anything below 1000 meters is fed entirely by ‘marine snow’ — the things that are supported by photosynthesis at the top of the ocean, and the things that eat them, and eventually fall to the ocean floor,” said Robert Vrijenhoek, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. “When a whale drops into your neighborhood, it’s roughly equivalent to 2000 years of marine snow falling in a millisecond.”

Ah, the diversity of life on our freaky planet.

Posted by Andrew at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Amchitka is the rock concert that launched Greenpeace. It's also the concert that launched a ship: the Phyllis McCormack, which sailed out into the first Greenpeace action protesting US nuclear testing in the Aleutian Islands.

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Posted by Laura at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two weeks ago we posted this gentle call-to-action on our Eric Schmidt webpage in the Cool IT ranking of top IT executives:

GetSatisfaction is a website where people leave feedback for companies - questions, problems, praise even. 21 Google employees are registered with the website, and they often respond to feedback there. Every climate-related inquiry or comment there helps keep the pressure on Google...

Well, lots of people have taken up the challenge, and Google employee Neil Fraser is posting replies to the green IT questions as they come in. The questions regarding Copenhagen however -- like this one -- are unanswered.

Eric Schmidt has significant pull with the White House, not just on technology issues but climate change policy too. Google's CEO would earn a lot of respect internationally if he would just call on Obama to go to Copenhagen.

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Posted by Eoin at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, in the heart of the Pacific ocean, we have witnessed one of the titanic struggles of our age, an issue that can divide communities and and often times dare not be spoken.

I am of course talking vegemite or marmite?

If we can resolve the politics of that thorny issue, we could save the tuna!

Okay, that's not true - but it make you look. Take a look at this too: Channel 7 News from Australia was on board the Espy during our recent Defending the Pacific tour. They saw for themselves the overfishing of the tuna stocks and have now made sure that most of Australia has seen it too.....you can check out their news report here.

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Posted by Brian at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is a follow up to Brian's post, "They said we were crazy",

The New York Times has an editorial today calling on the Senate to pass a strong chemical security bill:

The requirements are reasonable, vital and long overdue. If terrorists were to attack a chemical plant near an American city or large town, they could unleash a toxic cloud that could endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Environmental groups, most notably Greenpeace, and organized labor have been pushing Congress to enact tough chemical plant security legislation, but the chemical industry — concerned about the cost — has long resisted.

...

While the House was considering the issue, the Clorox Company announced earlier this month that it was choosing to convert all of its factories that use chlorine gas — a lethal substance — to safer chemical processes. Greenpeace estimates that that will eliminate the risk to the more than 13 million Americans who live in range of Clorox’s facilities.

Do you hear me politicians in Washington? Listen up: Lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way.

Posted by Andrew at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You most probably have heard of them once or twice before. They appear here and there, suddenly out of nowhere. They are loud, they are convincing and they are very persistent in their messaging - Climate skeptics!

A recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, found that only 57 percent of Americans believe there is strong scientific evidence for global warming, down from 77 percent in 2006.

It would appear that climate skeptics did a great job in confusing the public about the real issues at stake.

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Posted by Muriel at 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In 2007, Aussie musician Missy Higgins and her band toured the US in a Prius, participated in Live Earth and helped PETA campaign against animal abuse. That same year, KT Tunstall also jumped on the green bandwagon, touring in a biodiesel-fuelled bus and supporting the "carbon diet" campaign by Global Cool. And Moby is currently participating in the Play4Climate campaign co-created by the EU and MTV to educate people about climate change with a musical backdrop.
In today’s Irish Times, Jim Carroll takes a look at 10 green musicians and their eco-friendly ways, asking the question, “how green is your rock star?”
Among the eco-minded stars on his list are artists like Jack Johnson, Neil Young, Feist, Radiohead, and Damien Rice.

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Posted by Anne-Marije at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How realistic is this video? Well, people do bring their kids to protests. (And why not? It can be a nice day out for a bit of a walk. Get away from the game console and learn a bit about free speech.) Reminds me of the kids in this climate camp video.

What if we all started bringing kids to climate protests? After all, they're going to have to live with our decisions.

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Posted by Andrew at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mike is back on dry land after the Defending Our Pacific tour wrapped up in the Cook Islands last month. At the end of the tour, an “open boat” was held, where a couple hundred locals and tourists got the chance to tour the Esperanza.
Below, Mike gives you a chance to tour the ship, as well - inside and out.

Mike is a Web Editor for GP USA and was onboard the Esperanza serving as a webbie for the Defending Our Oceans campaign. On his blog he writes, "the tour was a really amazing experience for me and seeing as I’m still trying to process all of it, I thought I’d share just a few more videos about life onboard a Greenpeace ship."

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Posted by Anne-Marije at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a major victory for Greenpeace, chemical giant Clorox announced yesterday that they are phasing out the use and transport of Chlorine gas in the US.

One of our Greenpeace elders, Bob Hunter, once said that the thing about demanding big change is that it looks impossible when you start, and inevitable after you've finished.

Stop the use and transport of Chlorine? What are you CRAZY? Our campaign to stop chlorine transports in the US met with industry resistance, lobbyist counter-attacks, smear campaigns and cries of anti-american anti-capitalist luddite fear-mongering.

This despite the fact that both the General Accounting Office had agreed with our concerns that an accident or attack on one of these transports would be a massive safety risk. The GAO warned the Bush administration that "123 chemical facilities located throughout the nation have toxic 'worst-case' scenarios where more than a million people in the surrounding area could be at risk of exposure to a cloud of toxic gas if a release occurred."

Under Bush, the EPA had responded to those concerns by announcing an investigation into Chlorine transport safety post 9/11, but then a funny think happened on the way to the capitol.

According to The Progressive,

"We heard from industry," says a former EPA official who declines to be named. The chemical lobby insisted that the agency did not have authority to go after companies that did not adequately safeguard their plants, the official says.

Among the lobby groups who vehemently opposed the EPA having regulatory power over the chlorine inudstry? The American Petroleum Institute, of course.

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Posted by Brian at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today we launched our popular Guide to Greener Electronics in Japanese, for the very first time, as part of a week of activities to mark the 20th Anniversary of Greenpeace in Japan.

Regular readers will know Greenpeace in Japan has not had an easy ride, especially lately with the Tokyo Two case. We decided to launch the Guide in Japanese for two simple reasons:

The Guide includes Japanese companies such as Toshiba, Sharp, Sony, Panasonic, Fujitsu and Nintendo. These companies have large markets in Japan that our English version of the Guide doesn’t reach normally.

Greenpeace is often incorrectly portrayed in Japan as being only about whaling and being anti Japanese. Greenpeace’s work in other areas is not known and the fact that Greenpeace has helped drive progressive environmental change from some of the biggest companies in Japan (OK not so much from Nintendo!) is a fact that could help change important perceptions of Greenpeace in Japan.

Zeina journeyed from Amsterdam to Tokyo to be our international spokesperson, the office put in sterling work to translate 37 pages of dense company information into, apparently, 137 pages of Japanese text – obviously complex terms like precautionary principle and Individual producer responsibility must be really long in Japanese.

Zeina phoned today to report that the launch press conference went really well with lots of important Japanese media there and asking detailed questions about how we rated Japanese companies environmental performance. We’ll have to wait and see what’s written in the media but as one journalist from the Asahi Shimbun (second biggest daily paper in Japan) told Zeina:

“You’ve change my whole perception of Greenpeace”

Now if we get media stories even half as positive as this quote it will be mission accomplished.

Posted by Tom at 5:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Job well done by the Sierra Club, which has been following the scam. Now there's Congress is investigating. From the Sierra Club blog...

Oh for shame, lobbyists. An investigation has found that a lobbying firm forged letters from the NAACP and a Hispanic community organization in Charlottesville, Virginia, saying that the organizations opposed the American Clean Energy and Security Act. The forged letters went to Congressman Tom Perriello (D-VA 5th) and as expected, the community groups are incensed (as are the rest of us).

Neither of the groups oppose the bill.

UPDATE: Groups Impersonated by Big Coal Testify Before Congress

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Posted by Andrew at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Where Monsanto is concerned, it isn’t a good idea to assume good intentions – just ask Percy and Louise Schmeiser in Canada, who spent years locked in legal battles.

The Genetic Engeneering Approval Committee (GEAC) in India should probably have thought about this a bit before approving Bt Brinjal last week – a type of eggplant that produces a pesticide (Bacillus thuringiensis) that is normally sprayed on fields. To say the least, the approval process was botched up:

- The data regarding the effects on human health - received directly from Monsanto’s Indian branch - was insufficiently tested. Three scientists in the GEAC voted against the approval for Bt Brinjal precisely for this reason.

- The only other study on Bt Brinjal (the only one not produced by the company trying to get approval) showed concerns for potential negative effects on human health.

- Civil society and farmers have been increasingly vocal against the lack of transparency of the entire process and pointing out the risks.

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Posted by Juliette at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nice to see people all across the country getting out there. Big diversity of events. Some civil disobedience (apparently you can get arrested in the US just for putting a sign on someone's fence), and lots of fun stuff too.

Posted by Andrew at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One of the weird consequences of overfishing is the very real possibility that the niche left by fish species will be replaced by jellyfish. It makes for nice scary pieces of news ("Jellyfish invasion! They have stings, and they're dumb!"), pretty photos, but the real question for all seafood lovers out there is: does jellyfish and chips taste any good?

British cartoonist Steven Appleby tried to find a way we could cook it at how we could cook it:

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Posted by Juliette at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)