Category Archives: Climate change

Insurers suing for lack of preparation for record floods

What if, in addition to the record floods of 2009 and 2013 and 2014
apparently caused by local lack of planning in our watersheds,
what if we got 15 inches of rain in one 24 hour period like
Pensacola did a few weeks ago?


Local governments might get sued by insurers for lack of planning,
like 200 communities in the Chicago area already got sued.
Maybe we should plan ahead for greater weather variability
caused by climate change.

Eric Holthaus wrote for Future Tense on Slate 30 April 2014,

The Calamitous Climate Responsible for Florida’s Record Rainfall, Continue reading →

ICLEI and sustainability

Have you heard there’s a U.N. agency going around getting
local governments to sign “Agenda 21” into ordinances that
will take away your private property through eminent domain?
If not, you’ve avoided the propaganda put out by
fossil fuel companies to subvert sustainability.
If you have, here’s why it’s bunk.

There is an organization that promotes measures for
sustainability to local governments.
Sustainability as in arranging for local resources to
be available for us and our children and grandchildren.
Clean air, clean water, forests, education, and private property
rights including not letting developers or big corporations
damage your private property.
Are you against any of those things?

An organization promoting sustainability with local governments is called

ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability.
ICLEI says it is:


the leading global network devoted to local governments engaged in
sustainability, climate protection, and clean energy initiatives. The
organization was formerly known as the International Council for Local
Environmental Initiatives.

ICLEI has heard about the conspiracy theories and has written up

a rebuttal. Continue reading →

Stanford beats Harvard; divests from coal



In the first big win for

the fossil fuel divestment campaign,
Stanford just did what campaign-founder Harvard has not yet:
announced it would divest from coal-mining companies.

Here’s Stanford’s PR dated today, 7 May 2014,

Stanford to divest from coal companies,



Acting on a recommendation of Stanford’s Advisory Panel on Investment
Responsibility and Licensing, the Board of Trustees announced that
Stanford will not make direct investments in coal mining companies. The
move reflects the availability of alternate energy sources with lower
greenhouse gas emissions than coal.

Who is this Advisory Panel? Continue reading →

VSU up there with Harvard about fossil fuel divestment



VSU is with the big schools, leading the stigmatization of fossil fuel
companies and the exodus from those stranded assets.
Students are leading on that and related issues,
more than our local elected bodies, but there’s an election going on.

Mary Schellentrager posted for PowerShift 29 April 2014,

NATIONAL PHOTO ROUND-UP: BOLD ACTION FOR #BEYONDEARTHDAY: Continue reading →

VSU new special committee on sustainability to investigate fossil fuel divestment

PR from Students Against Violating the Environment (S.A.V.E.) today. -jsq

Hi everyone,



I’m very glad to announce that under the direction of President
McKinney, there will soon be a new special committee on
sustainability. One of the goals of it will be to investigate fossil
fuel divestment and create a report that will be presented to the
Board of Trustees. The description is as follows:

“The Valdosta State University President’s Special Committee on
Sustainability is charged with Continue reading →

100% sun, wind, and water can power each U.S. state and the world –Stanford study



We have all the technology right now that we need to power
the U.S. state by state and the world with solar, wind, and water power.
No burning coal or oil or fracked natural gas and no nukes.
No need for any new destructive and hazardous methane pipelines.
No waiting for batteries.
All we have to do is get on with it.


100% RENEWABLE ENERGY IS FEASIBLE AND AFFORDABLE, ACCORDING TO STANFORD PROPOSAL,


Stanford University researchers led by civil engineer Mark Jacobson
have developed detailed plans for each state in the union that to
move to 100 percent wind, water and solar power by 2050 using only
technology that’s already available. The plan, presented recently at
the

AAAS conference in Chicago, also forms the basis for

The Solutions Project nonprofit.

“The conclusion is that it’s technically and economically
feasible,” Jacobson told Singularity Hub.

The plan doesn’t rely, like many others, on dramatic energy
efficiency regimes. Nor does it include biofuels or nuclear power,
whose green credentials are the source of much debate.

The proposal is straightforward: eliminate combustion as a source of
energy, because it’s dirty and inefficient. All vehicles would be
powered by electric batteries or by hydrogen, where the hydrogen is
produced through electrolysis rather than natural gas.
High-temperature industrial processes would also use electricity or
hydrogen combustion.

The rest would simply be a question of allowing existing fossil-fuel
plants to age out and using renewable sources to power any new
plants that come online….

“The greatest barriers to a conversion are neither technical
nor economic. They are social and political,” the AAAS paper
concludes.

For
Georgia,
that’s 40% solar PV plants, 35% offshore wind, 13% rooftop PV (6% residential and 7% commercial), 5% concentrating solar plants, 5% onshore wind, and 1% each wind, tide, and conventional hydro power.
Plus 210,200 construction jobs and 101,000 operation jobs.
And saving $14.3 billion per year Continue reading →

Massive vote for SAVE’s fossil fuel divestment by VSU Student Government Association



When

at first they didn’t succeed, SAVE tried again and won.
Next: VSU Foundation again. -jsq


RESOLUTION #14432

Support of S.AV.E. Fossil Free Divestment Campaign

Date: March 4, 2014

Authored by:

Senator Candicee Childs, Freshman Senator, Public Relations Chairman & Student Representative of

Faculty Senate Environmental Issues Committee

Senator Tamera Dunn, Graduate Senator



Be it enacted by the Senate of Valdosta State University (VSU) here
assembled, that:

WHEREAS, the Students Against Violating the Environment (S.A.V.E.)
organization has presented

a divestment campaign for the VSU
Foundation to the Student Government Association

in October 2013,
resulting in the request for additional clarity and information to
be gathered regarding their campaign, and

WHEREAS, the SAVE organization has obtained support from

the Faculty Senate Environmental Issues Committee
for
their divestment campaign
for

the VSU Foundation in November 2013, and

WHEREAS, the SAVE organization has also obtained unanimous support Continue reading →

Humans are the cause, and it’s time for people to become the solution –Danielle Jordan for SAVE



LTE in the VSU newspaper, The Spectator, today. -jsq

To the Editor,

Climate change is the defining issue of our time.

Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree that
humans are the cause. S.A.V.E.
believes that it’s time for people to become the solution.
Globally,
we are feeling the impacts of record-setting temperatures, most
notably in the extreme weather patterns and rising sea levels.


Recent

chemical (W.VA) and

coal ash spills (N.C.) add to the urgency
of moving beyond fossil fuel. Yet here on our campus there’s a
remarkable disconnect between the classroom and the board room.
Shockingly, the VSU Board of Trustees includes science deniers,
oblivious to the threat of climate change—and to the academic
integrity of this institution of higher learning.



Recently,

the Board dismissed S.A.V.E.’s

request that VSU rid its portfolio of fossil fuel holdings.
Board Chairman,
Wayne Edwards,

a financial analyst, cast doubt on



the study that accompanied our request.
But we ask you, who knows more about climate, a team of
2,000 scientists from 154 countries who have compiled data from more
than 9,000 studies, or a stock broker? Our point is that serious
decisions at this institution are being taken by people who lack the
proper credentials.

Chairman Edwards

dismissed socially responsible investing as Continue reading →

EU could cut 40% emissions with little cost: and we can, too



If Europe can do it, the U.S. can do it.
And we know

Georgia can get a third of its power from wind,
and even Spain is north of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida,
which have a lot more sun for solar power than anywhere in Europe.
Solar power

is already winning, even in Georgia.
Let’s help it win even faster, plus wind.

PR from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) 16 January 2014,

EU could cut emissions by 40 percent at moderate cost,



The costs of achieving a more ambitious EU climate target are
estimated to be moderate. Upscaling greenhouse-gas emissions
reduction from the current 20 percent by 2020 to 40 percent by 2030
would be likely to cost less than an additional 0.7 percent of
economic activity.

And that apparently doesn’t count the additional economic activity
that would be produced by all those wind and solar deployments,
not to mention related activities like electric cars.
This is actually a pessimistic study, because it doesn’t account
for such likely positive corollaries.


Many options to choose from—wind power could expand sevenfold

Continue reading →

Deep divisions between U.S. and Asian nations in TPP –Wikileaks

Do you want foreign corporations to be able to sue the U.S.
because your county has implemented restrictions of pipelines
feeding liquid natural gas exports?
Or because your country hasn’t locked up enough people
for unintentional infringement of copyright?
Or because your state has implemented a GMO-labeling law?
Then you oppose the TPP.

After the November
release of
the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter,
in December Wikileaks released
two documents from the secret
closed Salt Lake City TPP chief negotiators’ meeting
of the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
showing deep divisions between the negotiating countries that have
already caused a U.S.-imposed TPP deadline to be missed.


These documents add potential international treaty enforcement of
“mandates” against restrictions on trade to protect national products
or environment or labor to all the reasons

EFF gives for opposing this corporate-power-grab treaty
and the

LNG export pressures for TPP that would drive up the price of fracked
“natural” gas and push pipelines through numerous states for the profit
of a few fossil fuel and utility executives and investors.

The deep divisions among the negotiating countries
exposed Continue reading →