As you may recall, a lively protest took place on the streets of Chicago’s financial district last November 30, on the 10th anniversary of the “Battle of Seattle” and a week ahead of the big UN climate summit in Copenhagen.  Several groups from across the city had come together to demand just, equitable, and effective solutions to the climate crisis, starting with the shut-down of the Crawford and Fisk coal plants in Chicago’s Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods.  The November 30th (N30) event also targeted “false solutions” to climate change like carbon trading, nukes and agrofuels, and was part of a national day of action for climate justice.

Now, the city has decided to charge these folks $8,340, with a deadline of mid-August to pay the fines.

Please help us raise the funds we need by donating what you can!

Following visits to several local “climate criminals,” including JP Morgan Chase (one of the leading funders of mountain top removal coal mining), Midwest Generation (the owner of Chicago’s two coal-fired power plants), and the Board of Trade (which trades in palm oil, one of the leading drivers of rainforest destruction), the N30 march arrived at the main target, the Chicago Climate Exchange.

The Chicago Climate Exchange is the first and largest carbon trading institution in North America.  Carbon Trading is a system of trading in carbon that intensifies social injustice, does not reduce emissions in a meaningful way, results in more pollution and more displacement for communities on the ground, and acts as a dangerous distraction from the real climate solutions we urgently need.  (It does succeed in making a bunch of money for big polluters and their cohorts.)  Unfortunately, participation in this fraudulent market has become the primary way that governments, corporations, and mainstream environmental groups have attempted to “solve” the climate crisis.

To draw attention to carbon trading as a false solution, 12 people locked their arms together in lockboxes, formed a large circle, and took over the intersection of Adams and LaSalle, outside the offices of the Chicago Climate Exchange, for several hours, encircling a banner that read, “Chicago Climate Exchange – the Air is Not for Sale!”  (Check out photos and video from the action at http://howgreenischicago.org.)

Now, the city has decided to charge these folks $8,340, with a deadline of mid-August to pay the fines.  We need your support!!  Please consider donating whatever you can to support the N30 defendants.  Throw a benefit party, pass a hat, sell some cupcakes — it all adds up!

You can donate online below,  or send a check payable to LVEJO with “N30 Legal Defense” in the memo line to:

LVEJO – Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

2856 S. Millard Ave.

Chicago, IL 60623

Thank you!  All donations are much appreciated!!!

Love,

The Climate Exchange 12

Please help us raise the funds we need by donating what you can!

From grassroots activists related to both Sierra Club and Climate SOS

“Governments will not put young people and nature above special financial
interests without great public pressure. Such pressure is not possible as
long as big environmental organizations provide cover. So the best hope is this - individuals must demand that the leaders change course or they will lose support.” - renowned climate scientist Dr. James Hansen

To Sierra Club grassroots activist,

The Sierra Club has experienced many victories in its long history. These real achievements in environmental protection are rightfully a source of pride. In recent years, the Club has provided inspiring leadership in halting the expansion of the coal industry. But the threat of runaway climate catastrophe is an issue that transcends all the rest. If this disaster is not prevented, all the other victories of the Club will ring hollow.

Having visited the websites of each Sierra Club chapter and group, we appreciate that the national Club owes its existence to your leadership and commitment.  Thus, we respectfully urge you to take the action we outline below to encourage the national Club to adopt a strong, principled, and environmentally sound position in the critical debate on climate policy, a position it has unfortunately failed thus far to adopt.

In 2008, the Sierra Club bestowed its highest honor – the John Muir Award – to climate scientist Dr. James Hansen. In presenting the award, Club President Allison Chin said: “He is truly a hero for preserving the environment”. But now this same “hero” is expressing grave concern about climate legislation that has become so riddled with giveaways to the fossil fuel industry that – in the name of the planet – it must be opposed. Though it is being presented as a “first step”, the reality is that a far-reaching financial structure would be put into place. This system would delay effective mechanisms to price carbon by entrenching powerful interests and thereby resist change for at least a decade.

It has been said that “politics is the art of compromise” and the Club is being urged to adopt a “flexible” stance on climate legislation. Such a perspective in the present situation, however, runs into two serious problems. One is that tremendous natural forces have already been triggered which are quite impervious to any process of political horsetrading. It is not possible to “negotiate” with the methane now dangerously thawing and venting from the Siberian seabed. Secondly, currently proposed climate legislation is not a “compromise”. It is nothing less than a complete capitulation to polluting industries and Wall St.

What Would John Muir Do?
In Ken Burns’ acclaimed PBS series “The National Parks”, Sierra Club founder John Muir is portrayed as a valiant hero for tirelessly resisting the corporate interests attempting to encroach upon the spectacular Yosemite valley. Nowhere in the long history of the organization he started has there been a moment that calls out more loudly for that original spirit to be maintained than right now when we are facing the greatest environmental threat in human history.

In Muir’s time, it would have been difficult to imagine a threat on the scale of a global climate catastrophe. Though the stakes are now incomparably higher, the battle is still basically the same. Those in the grassroots climate movement fighting to prevent the takeover of climate legislation by corporate interests are very much acting in the same spirit as Muir. The Club must become willing to recognize this parallel, acknowledge the tremendous degree to which this legislation has been manipulated, and find its voice to speak out before it is too late.

The tragic truth we face in this proposed legislation is that through the removal of EPA authority to regulate carbon dioxide and the establishment of a system of offsets and carbon trading which can be cynically manipulated, polluting industries would be able to circumvent the imperative need to physically reduce their carbon emissions and postpone such requirements for as much as 15 to 20 years. This lag in actual reductions could become monstrously destructive for the planet if it leads to the crossing of the tipping points leading to runaway de-stabilization, which could well occur within this span of time. 450 to 550 ppm was considered an “optimistic” target for Waxman-Markey, when science is saying that 350 ppm (or more likely 300 ppm) will be necessary to avoid catastrophe.

New executive director Michael Brune is to be complimented for strong statements to the L.A. Times on the need to end fossil fuel dependency in the wake of the terrible spill and also that Sierra may seriously consider opposing KGL if it strips EPA authority. But now is crunch time on the climate issue. Will Sierra continue to promote a KGL bill – where all the critical parameters have been defined by the fossil fuel industry – as a “solid foundation”?  Or will it recognize that this foundation is completely inadequate to the task at hand and undermines effective climate policy. Will it choose the principled position of a John Muir or will it turn its back on that legacy at this most critical moment of all ?

How KGL is Not a Bill to Protect the Planet, But Folds to Corporate Interests Instead
The Sierra Club must recognize who has shaped this climate bill.  In 2007, a coalition was formed between corporations and environmental organizations called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, or USCAP – whose purpose was to influence U.S. climate legislation. Two of the founding organizations were Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Other large groups that joined included the Nature Conservancy and National Wildlife Foundation. In January 2009, USCAP presented its proposals and these became the framework of the Waxman-Markey bill.

This legislation was built around two concepts that were immediate giveaways to corporate interests. The first was a claimed right to privatize the commons (our atmosphere) through the establishment of a “pollution rights” trading system. The second was to allow the industry to “buy” its way out of actual emission reductions through a vast system of shadowy, so-called “offsets” which have been exposed world-wide as riddled with scams and outright fraud. An already weak bill was made even weaker by giving away “pollution permits” that were supposed to be auctioned. And then in an act of complete capitulation, even the fallback of EPA regulation of carbon dioxide was stripped out.

The result was not a bill to protect the planet, but one to protect polluter profits. The policy of “corporate engagement” which groups like EDF and NRDC have participated in since the early 1990s has backfired and the environmental missions of these organizations have become seriously compromised. In forming USCAP, they essentially “invited the fox to guard the chicken coop” on the most important issue of our time and the fox simply took over.

The normally cautious National Science Foundation is saying that “methane is leaking from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf into the atmosphere at an alarming rate……Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.” The point of no return may be much closer than many think.

The role of the Sierra Club is to claim the moral high ground and stand up for what the planet needs. The Club must never allow corporate interests to define what positions are acceptable. In representing the interests of its grassroots members, Sierra national policy must set the standard high and not be drawn into a position that is tragically and fatally compromised. There is nothing “expedient” in a stance which could easily lead to runaway climate disruption, planetary chaos, and wide-spread suffering.

Our Request
We ask that you join with other grassroots activists and groups and support the following principles and specific policy points:

Basic Principles:
1)  Officially recognize that we are truly in a global emergency and that irreversible tipping points are likely to be crossed if humanity does not act in time;

2)  Officially recognize that this emergency is of such a magnitude that a war time level of  mobilization is needed in order to effectively deal with it;

3)  Stand squarely for the necessity that climate legislation be based on the setting of emission reduction targets and a time frame which are defined by the science;

4)  Due to the severe ecosystem damage that will ensue in response to a 2 degree (celsius) rise, an overall goal of no more than one degree (celsius) rise must be sought;

5)  Clearly renounce carbon trading, offsets, and nuclear power as false solutions that will squander precious time and resources;

6)  Stand squarely against any attempt in Congress to strip EPA of its authority to regulate carbon;

7)  Since developed nations like the US have contributed the bulk of past and present emissions, support must be provided for the urgent resources/technology transfer to enable ‘developing’ countries to achieve mitigation and a low carbon energy infrastructure;

8)  Support the protection of critical carbon sinks by working to forbid industrial logging in old growth forests and provide government funding for the restoration of ecosystems;

9)  Promote local, organic agriculture, eliminate Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs etc.), support mandated recycling and composting.

Specific Policy Points:
1)   Support a comprehensive approach to the crisis that combines elements of legislation, regulation, and public investment. Specifically, establish a sound financial framework for emission reductions through a combination of rule-based methods, mandated conservation and efficiency standards, and ramp up of investments in low-carbon, non-polluting energy infrastructure;

2)  Carbon pricing: Use the model of Dr. Hansen’s “Peoples Climate Stewardship Act” to establish a revenue-neutral, continually rising carbon fee coupled with a 100% distribution of the proceeds to the public, including equal dividend returns to protect low and medium income families. The amount of the fee determined by an emission reduction schedule driven by science.

3)  The “Cap and Dividend” or CLEAR Act sponsored by Sen. Cantwell (Democrat of Washington) and Sen. Collins (Republican of Maine) offers a carbon fee similar to #2 above, rules out carbon trading, and leaves EPA authority intact. However, it does contain weaknesses. Its targets, mechanisms, and schedule for emission reductions are still insufficient. Though it does not permit offsets (a positive), it still permits some “offset-like” projects. Friends of the Earth, 350.org , Center for Biological Diversity, and the regional group Chesapeake Climate Action Network all believe that CLEAR would be a much preferred alternative if these weaknesses can be corrected, and are working on it. If the Sierra Club would throw its considerable weight behind such correction, it might well be achieved.

We hope that dedicated grassroots members who resonate with these concerns will exercise the democratic process of the Club and contact those in leadership positions at both the national and state level, including Executive Director Michael Brune at:  Michael.Brune@sierraclub.org   The Sierra Climate Campaign team is headed by Fred Heutte (phred@sunlightdata.com). We have also listed below the links for several important resources which strongly support the points made in this Open Letter.

Signed,
Gary Houser (Sierra Club and Climate SOS)   Email: mountainmist4@yahoo.com
and Robert Jereski (Climate SOS member)  Email:  mutualaid@earthlink.net
(www.climatesos.org)

————————————————————————————————————–

RESOURCES: ( links provided )

Tipping points:
11 minute video from England  http://wakeupfreakout.org/film/tipping.html ;
National Science Foundation press release “Methane Releases From Arctic Shelf May Be Much Larger and Faster Than Anticipated“  http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116532&org=NSF&from=news

Allowing corporate interests to define parameters of climate legislation:
“WRONG KIND OF GREEN” by Johann Hari 
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/hari/single
“MAINSTREAM GREENS CAVE IN ON CLIMATE: Dangerously Allow Industry to Set Agenda” by Gary Houser and Cory Morningstar
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/20-1

Offsets:
“OFFSETS UNDERMINE CLIMATE LEGISLATION” (report by FoE, Friends Comm. and Internat’l Rivers)  http://www.fcnl.org/energy/pdfs/OffsetFlyer.pdf ;
Famous Greenpeace 2 minute video spoof on offsets (scroll to bottom of page)  http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/09/16/carbon-regulatory-offset-committee-launched/ ;
Greenpeace report on Bolivia forest scam  http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/carbon-scam ;
“MISCOUNTING CARBON” by Mark Schapiro on Frontline’s “Carbon Watch” http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/carbonwatch/2010/04/miscounting-carbon.html ;
Op-ed by Father Paul Mayer on the morality of offsets   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/father-paul-mayer/the-carbon-tax-a-moral-is_b_183823.html

Carbon trading:
“CONNING THE CLIMATE: Inside the Carbon Trading Shell Game” coverstory by Schapiro in Harper’s   link:  http://citizensclimatelobby.org/files/Conning-the-Climate.pdf ;
“OBAMA’S SECOND CHANCE ON THE PREDOMINANT MORAL ISSUE OF THIS CENTURY” by James Hansen on Huffington Post  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-hansen/obamas-second-chance-on-c_b_525567.html ;
“THE MORAL IMPERATIVE TO DROP CARBON TRADING:An Open Letter to Al Gore”  by Gary Houser   http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/01-10
Reuters story on massive $6.75 billion fraud perpetrated on European carbon trade market http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62T44K20100330

The Peoples Climate Stewardship Act:

by James Hansen and Carbon Tax Center   http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100425_PeoplesBill.pdf

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Note:  This commentary has been endorsed by renowned climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, who adds the following comment:

“Governments will not put young people and nature above special financial interests without great public pressure.  Such pressure is not possible as long as big environmental organizations provide cover.  So the best hope is this — individuals must demand that the leaders change course or they will lose support.”

——————————————————————————

MAINSTREAM  GREENS  CAVE  IN  ON  CLIMATE:
Dangerously Allow Industry to Set Agenda

“Our friends have become the planet’s worst enemies”                                                                                                    -  Dr. James Hansen

With climate scientists warning that we are in a global emergency and tipping points leading to runaway catastrophe will be crossed unless carbon pollution is rapidly reduced, one would expect groups identified as environmental defenders to be shifting into high gear. Instead, we are witnessing the unspeakably tragic spectacle of a mainstream environmental movement allowing itself to be seduced and co-opted by the very forces it should be vehemently opposing. At the very moment when moral leadership and courage are needed the most, what we see is a colossal failure of both – with potentially irreversible consequences for our civilization.

If Congress chooses an inadequate response to the crisis, policies can get “locked in” which virtually guarantee that these tipping points are crossed.  These organizations are using their significant financial resources to create a public impression that the “environmental community” has given its “stamp of approval” to this policy and to marginalize the voices of the genuine grassroots activists who represent the heart and soul of the climate movement. With nothing less than the future of the planet at stake, these groups must now be publicly challenged and held accountable for their actions.

The stage has been set for this necessary debate by publication of Johann Hari’s excellent commentary entitled “The Wrong Kind of Green” ( link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100322/hari/single ). In this piece, Hari provides important insight into some of the relevant history. He describes how in the 1980s and 1990s some of the larger environmental groups began to adopt a policy often called “corporate engagement”. The basic idea was that by participating in “partnerships” with corporations – some involving receipt of monetary contributions – there would be opportunity to exert positive influence.

It is not possible to look into the minds of those who promoted this shift. Perhaps there was a sincere hope that corporations would be moved toward more responsible behavior. Whatever the case, the critically important task at this time is not to evaluate possible motives but rather the real life consequences. To do so honestly, all self-interested blinders must be set aside.

The truth is that this policy has created a “slippery slope” leading to severely compromised stances – nowhere more apparent than in regard to the over-arching issue of  climate. In 2007, a coalition was formed between corporations and environmental organizations called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, or USCAP – whose purpose was to influence U.S. climate legislation. Some of the large groups that joined were Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF),  the Nature Conservancy, and National Wildlife Foundation. In January 2009, USCAP presented its proposals and these became the framework of the Waxman-Markey bill.

The physical context is that previously projected worst case scenarios are already being surpassed and humanity is running out of time. Ice is melting far more rapidly than expected, releasing the “albedo effect” where open water absorbs more heat and accelerates further melting. The normally quite cautious National Science Foundation is ringing alarm bells about the methane – a greenhouse gas over 30 times as powerful as CO2 – now venting from the Siberian seabeds (NSF press release: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116532&org=NSF&from=news ) . According to the NSF statement: “Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.”  These are only two examples of “reinforcing feedbacks” that can significantly move the process closer to tipping points.

Within a context so dire that in reality a war-time level of mobilization is needed, what kind of legislation is being offered?  First of all, the emission reduction targets themselves - apart from the theoretical strategies for achieving them – categorically ignore the science. The goals do not even aim at stabilization at 350 ppm (let alone the lower figures more likely to be necessary) and the time frame for enacting meaningful reductions is not even remotely close to the speed needed to prevent disaster.

Beyond the issue of targets is that of reduction strategies.  USCAP would like to see a  trillion dollar carbon market put into place, where traders can claim “pollution rights” to the sky and seek profits from the exchange of such “rights”. Such a system – which would determine whether life-supporting ecosystems survive or collapse – would be placed into the same manipulative hands on Wall Street that brought on the financial meltdown. As this commentary goes to press, several traders in the European carbon market (the world’s prototype) have been arrested in connection with a massive fraud estimated at $6.75 billion. ( http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62T44K20100330 )  While some of us lay in the street in nonviolent civil disobedience to block this immoral atrocity  (including one of the authors, 5 minute video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHJOOiyZR_s ), NRDC and EDF are sending their own people to promote it at carbon trade conferences.

The next immoral concession is to allow the industry to “buy” its way out of actually reducing emissions by supporting so-called “offsets” – such as forest preservation projects in the developing world. Sounding plausible in theory, offsets are actually riddled with verification issues and defects such as loggers simply moving elsewhere. But the bottomline “wrong” here is that any form of offsetting should never be looked at as an alternative to reducing emissions. It should only be seen as an additional action to take.

Then there is the unbelievable capitulation represented by the removal of EPA authority to regulate coal-burning. Now that the EPA has finally been empowered by the Supreme Court to act against a carbon-fueled ecocide, this ability has been effectively stripped from the House bill without a murmur from the USCAP “greens”. The result of all these concessions is a pathetically weak bill that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will not even begin to reduce emissions until 2018. Other studies indicate that if all available offsets are used, reductions could actually be postponed an astonishing 19 years until 2029. [link: http://www.fcnl.org/energy/pdfs/OffsetFlyer.pdf ]

The USCAP “greens” proclaim that their positions are being driven by “political expediency”. But there is a stunning “disconnect” which these groups have been reticent to address.  How does one negotiate with a melting iceberg? Can the inexorable laws of physics be placed “on hold” while emission reductions are scuttled in a process of political “horse-trading”? What is the meaning of “expediency” when it leads to the collapse of society as we know it? John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Reseach, stated at the “4 Degrees and Beyond” conference at Oxford that “political reality must be grounded in physical reality or it is completely useless”.

The Sierra Club is experiencing what may be a positive change in leadership and to its credit has not adopted the policy of “corporate engagement” described, yet it has failed to truly mobilize its base against the dangerous shortcomings of the USCAP endorsed legislation. In 2008, the Sierra Club bestowed its highest honor – the John Muir Award – to climate scientist Dr. James Hansen. In presenting the award, Sierra Club President Allison Chin said: “He is truly a hero for preserving the environment”. How does the Sierra Club reconcile the honoring of this man for warning the world and then essentially ignore his core message that present climate legislation is based on false solutions that will waste precious time?

NRDC and EDF, on the other hand, have gone far beyond mere silence. While their websites claim a dedication to public service ( NRDC’s motto is “The Earth’s Best Defense”),  they have been actively promoting the USCAP accomodation. If they had not lost sight of their original missions, they would have sought out members of Congress willing to stand up to the fossil fuel industry and used their resources (in 2008, NRDC had an operational budget of 87 million dollars) to throw weight behind them. Instead of emboldening this kind of voice, they have done the exact opposite by allowing industry to define what is “feasible”.

The real climate movement – the one with its backbone intact and composed of grassroots activists and principled groups like Friends of the Earth and Center for Biological Diversity – is already in a “David versus Goliath” situation as it tries to confront the most powerful lobby in the country. But that task has been made infinitely more difficult by these big budget groups using their money to isolate and “box in” the smaller ones.

We close this commentary with the following direct appeal to both the leadership and the members of these groups that have chosen the path of accommodation:

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
The verdict is in. Your experiment in “corporate engagement” has resulted in a disastrous failure that now threatens the planet. We fully expected the massive campaign from the fossil fuel industry to strip any substance from this legislation. But you have blindsided those of us who are fighting with all our hearts for the future of the earth. Your coffers have grown and now you are using this money to drown us out.

Your stance does not represent those in the grassroots movement, many of whom are young and see the disasters that are looming within their own lifetimes. In your comfortable offices, you do not speak for those willing to put themselves on the line and engage in nonviolent civil disobedience against the very forces you seek to accomodate. The rationale for your corporate “partnerships” was the issue of exerting influence. But the question begging to be asked is who influenced whom?  Though your treasury is more full, what truly has been gained and what has been lost?

Your intentions may have been honorable, but the agenda of “defending earth” has been hijacked.  Along the way, your vision became blurred and you lost sight of this mission. In this “experiment’, you are the ones who have been “had”. It now appears to have been a terrible Faustian bargain, and we are all paying the price. At the very moment of greatest need for an empowered public advocacy in the face of the most overwhelming threat in human history, your leadership is not to be found.

Your accommodation and your defense of abominably weak Congressional legislation has already had a destructive global impact. It was this legislation that set the bar intolerably low in Copenhagen and instigated a “race to the bottom”. The entire world-wide movement for climate sanity has become blocked by the denial, blindness, and paralysis embodied in U.S. climate policy. When you take this stance in the name of “defending the earth”, you are actually creating an insidious and dangerous deception.

For the sake of the planet, we appeal to your organizations to reclaim the integrity of your original visions. The position you presently advocate will squander the precious little time we have to implement true reductions before the irreversible tipping points are crossed. The stakes could not be higher. We ask that you join hands with the grassroots activists and groups and support the following eight points:

1)  Officially recognize that we are truly in a global emergency and that irreversible tipping points are likely to be crossed if humanity does not act in time;

2)  Officially recognize that this emergency is of such a magnitude that a war time level of  mobilization is needed in order to effectively deal with it;

3)  Stand squarely for the necessity that climate legislation be based on the setting of emission reduction targets and a time frame which are defined by the science;

4)  Due to the severe ecosystem damage that will ensue in response to a 2 degree (celsius) rise, an overall goal of no more than one degree (celsius) rise must be sought;

5)  Clearly renounce cap and trade and offsets as false solutions that will squander precious time;

6)  Stand squarely against any attempt in Congress to strip EPA of its authority to regulate carbon;

7)   Support a comprehensive approach to the crisis that combines elements of legislation, regulation, and public investment;

8)   Support a legislative component based on a continually rising carbon fee with a 100% distribution of the proceeds to U.S. citizens, with the amount of the fee determined by an emission reduction schedule driven by science.

We also ask the members of these groups to withhold their organizational support until their leadership recognizes the necessity of these changes. On this defining issue of our time, may we strive to remove the barriers that divide us and work together.

-  Gary Houser and Cory Morningstar

————————————————————————

Gary Houser is a public interest writer, documentary producer, and activist with Climate SOS ( www.climatesos.org ) seeking to raise awareness within the religious community about the moral issues at stake (http://christianityandclimatecrisis.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/3/ ) and working to create a more empowered climate movement.

Cory Morningstar is an activist (and mom) with Canadians for Action on Climate Change ( http://canadianclimateaction.wordpress.com/about/ )  and has collated latest scientific findings at:   http://timetobebold.wordpress.com/category/why-we-need-to-call-for-a-global-emergency/

Of all the major advantages claimed by CLEAR’s proponents, only one, namely, that 100% of permits from the cap are auctioned instead of most of it given to polluters for free, is clearly uncontested.  Another reasonable claim is that the carbon market is more closely regulated and restricted under CLEAR, but there are some who worry that the carbon derivatives market can still have significant destabilizing effects, especially once the carbon price has significantly risen after the initial years.

CLEAR also has clearly made a positive contribution to the national debate by putting the option of ‘consumer rebate” of carbon revenues officially on the table.  It also points public attention to the huge problems of “carbon offsets” in the Waxman-Markey and the Kerry bills.

Unfortunately, some advantages of CLEAR that are claimed by its proponents are much less clear-cut or even incorrect, such as claims that it “does not rely on offsets”, or “75% of revenue returned to consumers”, or “targets can be relatively easily strengthened later given the good architecture”.  I will explain each of these below.

It is my hope that activists and citizens alike contact Senators Maria Cantwell’s (202-224-3441) and Susan Collins’ (202-224-2523) offices, and urge that the problems (some very serious) below be addressed, if the bill is truly to have a reasonable architecture, and is to be a good first step that could be improved upon in the future.

CLEAR is a cap and dividend bill, or more accurately, a cap and trade and dividend bill.  Let me first list its basic features:

• An upstream emissions cap is established to reduce fossil carbon entry into the US economy at gradually accelerating rate (the rate of reduction increases 0.25% each year over the previous year, starting 2015), such that emissions are 5% below 2012 levels by 2020.
• 100% of the permits under the cap are auctioned off, none is given to polluters for free.
• Only regulated entities who are producers or importers of fossil carbon (about 3,000) are eligible to participate in the auctions and subsequent trading of emissions permits.
• Secondary carbon market is allowed, but regulated entities (called “first sellers”) are not allowed to participate in the secondary market.
• Regulated entities can not buy (cheap) offset credits in lieu of emissions permits for every ton of their emissions, unlike in the Waxman-Markey or the Kerry bills.
• 75% of regular auctions revenue is directly returned to consumers in equal dividends, 25% goes into the CERT fund (Clean Energy Reinvestment Trust Fund).
• The CERT fund is used for a list of 16 goals/functions, including worker training/transition help, energy-intensive industries export compensation, mitigation and adaptation research, etc., as well as programs and initiatives to further reduce emissions, but no specifics are given regarding how much each type of program will get funded (- that is to be decided by the annual Congressional appropriations process), except for mandating that the entire program is supposed to not add to budget deficits.
• Many of the CERT programs aimed at reducing emissions are the same types of projects that would have generated “offset credits” under Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Kerry.
• With the CERT funded emission reduction programs providing the main stake, and the emissions “cap” being the supplemental, CLEAR claims an overall target of 20% emission reduction below 2005 levels by 2020, 42% by 2030, and 80% by 2050.  These targets are only slightly better than the cap and trade bills, and when compared to 1990 emissions, correspond to about 7-8% reduction by 2020, while the IPCC concluded 3 years ago that 25-40% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020 would be required just to have a 50-50 odds of staying below 2^oC catastrophic warming (and now it is becoming increasingly clear that even 1^oC is unacceptable warming that could trigger many dangerous and potentially irreversible feedback processes).
• Price volatility of the primary carbon market is controlled by a price “collar”, comprised of a price ceiling and a price floor, both of which rise very slowly every year.  If the ceiling price is reached in the course of any auction, all bids will be satisfied at that price, thus overshooting the “cap”.  Revenue from the sale of these extra permits above the “cap” is to go 100% into funding CERT programs that aim to reduce emissions.
• The president is given the authority to propose changes to the emissions cap (but not the carbon price collar, see below), in response to new scientific understanding, or technological changes (“clean coal” availability), US industry competitiveness, etc.  Such changes only require a simple majority approval (no filibuster allowed) in both Houses to pass the Congress.

Why the “No Offsets” Claim Is Incompatible with CLEAR’s Claim of Emission Targets

A key problem is that, when relying on the CERT funded projects to achieve the majority of reductions claimed by the national target, the nature of the offset-like projects funded by CERT means that they will still have the same problems of having to rely on a counter-factual, imaginary future emissions baseline (as in ‘I would have wanted to convert those forests into agri land if you don’t give me that funding’) and the associated (non)-additionality, as well as non-permanence, and grossly unreliable measurability (agri and forestry projects are prime examples), etc. These problems don’t go away simply by having the government administer the program instead of some third party certifiers.

In fact, by shifting most of the emission reduction targets out of the cap, and put them under the CERT funding, it can effectively be said that it is the US GOVERNMENT who will be using many offsets to achieve most of its committed reduction targets, even though individual polluters are not allowed to, nor do they need to given the weak cap, purchase offset credits to satisfy their permit requirements under the cap.

This, combined with the fact that the CERT fund, consisting only of 25% of the auction revenue, is expected to achieve far more reductions than the cap that generated 100% of the revenue was able to achieve in the first place, and that the fund is also charged with achieving a litany of other goals, and the fact that the entire program is mandated to remain deficit neutral, and the fact that since the fund is subject to the appropriations process, funding for these emission reduction projects may not even actually materialize, means that the amount of emission reductions achievable through the CERT fund can not be relied upon.  Therefore, if the bill is to claim “no offsets”, then only the cap should be claimed as the target (and even that is ignoring the overshoot problem), with the rest being “potential, additional emission reductions”.  But, that’s not how the bill is currently presented and promoted – see examples.[1,2]

It is very misleading to claim the bill allows “no offsets” and achieves “20% reduction by 2020″ at the same time.  It also forgoes the only way we could turn the tide against the current international “norm” of counting offsets towards a country’s reduction targets, which completely undermines true global reduction targets.

Why the “Revenue Returned to Consumers” Principle Is Currently Undermined In This Bill

As mentioned above, when the ceiling price is reached in the course of any auction, all bids will be satisfied at that price, thus overshooting the “cap”.  Revenue from the sale of these extra permits above the “cap” is to go 100% into funding CERT programs that aim to reduce emissions.  Depending on how often the price ceiling will be hit, (and especially often if the cap is later to be strengthened, see below), this could constitute a real burden to consumers since that portion of the revenue is not returned to them as dividends.

Using the overshoot revenue this way, the price ceiling essentially serves as a cost containment mechanism for polluters at the expense of consumers, especially the low income population.

Why Targets Can NOT Be Strengthened Under the Bill As Currently Written

The price collar currently seems to be hardwired into the bill, and only the emissions cap seems to be adjustable by the president (subject to approval by Congress).  The price collar, not the cap itself, determines how much reductions will actually result from the cap.  The floor and ceiling price starts at $7 and$21/ton CO2-eq, respectively, in 2012.  They then increase by the inflation rate plus capital investment return rate plus 0.5%, or minus 0.5%, respectively.  The rate of increase is very comfortable for polluters whose investments rise at the capital investment return rate anyway, and completely inadequate for any meaningful climate protection.

A hardwired price collar means that if the president later wishes to tighten the cap significantly without the ability to increase the price collar, the reduced availability of permits will lead to higher permit prices, so the price ceiling is virtually guaranteed to be hit all the time, which then triggers the release of as many permits as the market demands at that price, therefore leaving the cap unable to actually become any tighter than the price ceiling dictates.

Worse, since all revenue from permits auctioned after overshooting the cap will go 100% into CERT funded emission reduction projects, no dividends will be returned from that portion of revenue to consumers, therefore there will be strong opposition from the public (and strongly agitated by polluters no doubt) to such proposed tightening of the cap to begin with.  So, that makes any argument for “pass now, strengthen it later” a pie-in-the-sky.  Additionally, it makes the “strengthening of the cap” rely mostly on CERT funded projects, many of them are offset-like, instead of on reliable reductions directly from the smokestacks and tailpipes, where stronger reductions are needed.

In Addition, FREE Permits OUTSIDE OF THE CAP Are REWARDED to the Following:

• Carbon capture and storage (CCS) facilities, as long as the carbon is “verifiably sequestered”.  The bill has not a word on safety or permanence (Geological carbon storage is known to be prone to leakage over time, not only undoing any “sequestration”, but also causing soil and ground water contamination, even endangering people.  See Greenpeace report “False Hope”.  Deep ocean storage is even more moronic, as it dramatically worsens ocean acidification problem, dissolving the shells and skeletons of marine organisms, while it is also not permanent).  What’s more, even if the carbon is truly, permanently and safely sequestered (magically), rewarding extra permits that aren’t even from within the cap to these entities simply allows the equivalent quantity of extra carbon to be emitted, completely undoing any positive effect the sequestration might have caused in the first place, preventing such sequestration from helping to speed up emission reduction by tightening the cap, even though public funds were invested into the development of such expensive technology.
• Oil or gas reinjection projects, where compressed CO2 is routinely injected into the oil or gas well to extract the last drops of oil and gas.  This not only results in MORE fossil fuel being brought out of the ground, the injected CO2 is also likely to eventually leak out of the many holes drilled into these fields.  Again, regardless of leakage, they get extra permits, so they could emit an equal amount back out.
• “manufacturer that embeds fossil carbon in the products produced by the manufacturer in a manner that prevents the emission of the fossil carbon into the atmosphere for a period of time that is sufficient to prevent any negative impact on the climate”.  I am not sure which kinds of products in practice are classified as “embedding” the fossil carbon for a “sufficiently long time”, but it strikes me that the entire process of extracting fossil fuel out of the ground, then making it into things like plastic consumer goods (disposable or not), and other materials (many of them containing toxic chemicals that could leach into the environment) that nature does not know how to degrade so they can linger around forever, could simply end up being considered net carbon neutral as far as this bill is concerned, and some of the nasty end products that should be phased out will instead get rewarded for “embedding carbon” and have no incentive to be phased quickly out of production which would have potentially reduced demand for the fossil fuel raw material input.

What Changes Are Necessary To Make This Bill A Step In The Right Direction?

The first six of these changes I believe are essential to make CLEAR a good first step.

1. The price collar should be made adjustable by the president (subject to approval by Congress), just like the emissions cap.

2. When the bill is presented and promoted, as long as “no offsets” is claimed, only the emission reductions expected from the cap should be claimed (5% below 2012 by 2020), with the rest of the reductions hoped to be achieved by the CERT funded projects described only as “potential additional reductions”, but not lumped together as CLEAR’s emissions target, as it currently is frequent presented and promoted, both by advocates and by Sen. Cantwell’s website.[1,2]

3. Revenues from permits sold after overshooting the cap should not go 100% into CERT funded emission reduction projects as is currently set up, but instead still partitioned 75%:25% as the rest of auction revenues.  The overshoot of the cap should instead be compensated for by correspondingly reducing the following year’s cap by the same amount, and the bill should build in an automatic mechanism (i.e., not needing presidential request and Congressional approval) to adjust the price collar according to the overshoot amount.  This mechanism is only used to keep on track with the intended trajectory of the gradually decreasing cap, not used for strengthening the cap, therefore it should not need the additional authorizations from the president and Congress.

4. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) should be charged with advising the president and the EPA on the adequacy of the targets US is achieving through this bill and other measures, as compared to the physical reality according to the latest climate science.  Such evaluation should be done at least biannually, with the EPA being responsible for adjusting the carbon price collar annually to ensure that the actual emissions keep within the target that NAS set out in the most recent evaluation.

5. CCS as well as oil or gas reinjection projects should not be rewarded any free permits at all, unless permanence and safety of the sequestration can truly be demonstrated (which they can’t!).  Even if they can, the free permits should only come from within the cap, meaning that the total permits that will be auctioned off will be reduced by the numbers given out for free to these projects.  Otherwise these “sequestrations” don’t help with reducing emissions at all, even though the cap as currently proposed is already extremely, suicidally weak due to the (weak) argument that we HAVE TO rely on these coal fired power plants for some time, and they cannot reduce their emissions quickly enough.  In other words, the current cap is as weak as it is based on the assumption that sequestration is not available, so if sequestration did become available, the cap of course should be tightened by the corresponding amount.  As to products that “embed” fossil carbon, whether incentives are justified will have to depend on which products, but in any case, no free permits should be given since that simply leads to free emissions elsewhere.  Instead, other policy instruments could be used to provide incentives (tax break, etc), or, the CERT fund could provide some financial incentives to these manufacturers.

6. Burning biomass/biofuel for energy generation has been mistakenly codified as “carbon neutral” in Kyoto Protocol, and propagated into the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, as well as having found its way into the Waxman-Markey bill, the Kerry bills and state legislations.  This “critical accounting error” has been identified by many prominent scientists, and there is little doubt among the scientific community, over the need for immediate correction, before too much of the world’s precious forests and other ecosystems fall victim to this insidious error.  Therefore, it is important in a bill that places a cap on fossil fuel carbon entry into the US economy, that carbon emissions from the burning of biomass/biofuel also be capped or otherwise regulated to a comparable degree, in order to prevent strong leakage from fossil fuel combustion to biomass/biofuel combustion.

7. Currently the bill will give each legal resident regardless of age the same amount of carbon dividends.  This will provide a strong incentive for having more children, which is counter productive to reducing overall consumptions and emissions.  Given that a child generally needs less carbon emissions than an adult person, it would be more reasonable to make a child’s dividend a portion of that of an adult person (e.g., half).

8. Offset-like projects are far more difficult to verify when they are abroad than when they are domestic (even though domestic projects can be hard enough or sometimes even impossible to verify due to the future baseline problem, measurability, permanence, etc.).  Therefore, the bill should just restrict offset-like projects to the ones in the United States.  However, the vast majority of the US national emission reduction targets should be achieved by the cap itself in conjunction with direct rules and regulations, instead of relying on the offset-like projects as those are unreliable.

9. There is no built-in mechanism to address the very real situation (as we have witnessed in the European Trading Scheme) of what happens when there is a recession, after the implementation of CLEAR.  Instead of allowing emission reductions due to the recession to add to the reductions required by the cap, currently the cap will follow its preset trajectory, possibly leading to no additional reduction beyond the recession, unless the President tries to change it (but we have no guarantee that he/she will).  Instead, I believe it is important to build in an automatic adjustment to strengthen the cap by the amount of emission reductions estimated to result from slowed economic activity alone.

10. Shares purchased other than at ceiling price above the # of shares scheduled by the cap, will be valid for 10 years before expiring.  That is too long and must be shortened, especially considering that a first seller is allowed to accumulate as many shares as they are anticipated to consume for the duration in which the permits can be redeemed, even though the shares purchased in any given year may not significantly exceed anticipated quantity needed by the first seller.  Such “anticipation” is not only problematic when there is a recession, but also may provide some perverse incentive for increased emissions in the short term in order to gain the right to accumulate large quantities of initially very cheap carbon permits for later use.

11. When carbon shares are trading below the reserve (floor) price that would have been required in an auction, the bill should require that the administrator purchase back as many shares from the market as necessary to bring the market price up to the floor price, and then retire those shares purchased back.  This would be symmetrical to the release of unlimited number of permits when the price ceiling is reached, and is desirable since our overall goal is to reduce emissions as quickly as possible.  This will to some degree mitigate the problem of low price induced demand for the permits, that could arise due to a variety of reasons such as recession, the availability of new technological innovation that reduce emissions, emission reductions due to rule-based regulations, and voluntary reductions by some entities or individuals of the society.  The reason why this only partially mitigates the problem is because the price collar is quite wide, meaning that the trading price has to go rather low to hit the floor price for this mechanism to kick in.

12. That brings me to my last point, which is, why allow trading and market fluctuation to begin with? Price uncertainty has been found to inhibit investment in renewable energy and in efficiency projects.  A collar width of 0 would correspond to a simple carbon fee/tax, doing away with the need to create a carbon market at all, and all the operating and oversight mechanisms required for it, while ensuring a stable carbon price for the year (and predictably rising every year), which can then be adjusted from year to year based on whether the amount of reductions (excluding from offset-like projects) is meeting the planned trajectory of the cap.  It also completely eliminates the problem of additional demand induced by a lowered carbon permit price due to any external reason.

I advocate a “cap with fee and dividend”, or “cap with fee-based-dividend”, or “cap and dividend from fees”,  We could completely do away with the carbon market and trading of permits, yet keep the dividend return feature to protect the majority of consumers except for the very rich (to whom the cost from carbon fee wouldn’t matter to their quality of life anyway), and having a real cap by adjusting the following year’s carbon fee by the amount of overshoot each year (could do a two year cycle if logistically easier…).  Besides pricing carbon, direct, rule-based regulations must also be used in conjunction, to achieve rapid, reliable results.  A price signal alone has limited effects, especially at the low prices of starting years, judging from experiences in Europe and the oil price hike of recent memory.  Direct rule making emphasizing conservation, degrowth, protection and restoration of ecosystems and natural resources/sinks, as well as energy efficiency standards, renewable energy requirements (but only truly clean, renewable energy, not biomass/biofuel, not nuclear), and especially, rules that shift agricultural production away from the current, chemical and fossil fuel-intensive and soil-damaging industrial agriculture, and towards organic, sustainable agriculture, are extremely important, and we should not rely only on the “deficit neutral” CERT funding to achieve some of these goals, in a matter of life and death such as climate change.

Finally, I’ll repeat that it is my hope that activists and citizens alike contact Senators Maria Cantwell (202-224-3441) and Susan Collins (202-224-2523) offices, and urge that the problems (some very serious) discussed above be addressed, if the bill is truly to have a reasonable architecture, and is to be a good first step that could be improved upon in the future.

If they tell you that the political reality on the Senate floor doesn’t allow further improvements, please ask them to change that political landscape by talking on national media (especially mainstream TV and newspapers) about the real and devastating consequences of climate change – not just some droughts and floods here and there, but sea levels inexorably rising and claiming our coastal cities (and washing all their toxic chemicals into the ocean), permanent droughts and crop failures, massive ecosystem/nature die-offs, tropical diseases, global wars and conflicts which America cannot escape from, etc.  Ask them to speak up about the methane release confirmed recently by the NSF, the positive feedback loops, and how we are approaching (and we could only pray we have not yet gone beyond) the point of no-return.  These irreversible, non-linear changes are what American people need to understand, and that understanding is what will create the political feasibility of a stronger bill.  A politician who truly wants to pass as strong of a climate bill as possible must tell the American public about the truth – it is part of their duty as public servants.  Please tell the same to President Obama, Senator Kerry, Rep Markey and Waxman, and your own Congress persons.

Notes:

[1]  Here is an excerpt from the Q&A page on Cantwell’s website (emphasis mine): http://cantwell.senate.gov/issues/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions.pdf (downloaded Mar 14, 2010)
What are the near, medium and long-term greenhouse gas emission caps?
The greenhouse gas emissions reduction standards required by the CLEAR Act are to reduce (from 2005 levels):
20 percent by 2020·
30 percent by 2025·
42 percent by 2030·
80 percent by 2050·

[2]  Also, here is an excerpt from page 3 of an overview doc for CLEAR:
http://cantwell.senate.gov/issues/CLEAR%20Act%20Overview%20Memo.pdf (downloaded Mar 14, 2010)
“The CLEAR Act also achieves real and durable emissions reductions by relying strictly on the market incentives provided by the upstream cap, auction mechanisms, and a clear, stable price signal. The use of questionable international offsets, which feature prominently in cap-and-trade legislation such as the House-passed ACES Act, is prohibited in the CLEAR Act, which relies on actual emissions reductions within the United States to spur real transformation of the energy system (see Figure 2). Relative to 2005 greenhouse gas emission levels, the CLEAR Act will achieve a 20 percent reduction in CO2 equivalent emissions by 2020, 30 percent reduction in CO2 equivalent emissions by 2025, 42 percent reduction in CO2 equivalent emissions by 2030, and 83 percent reduction in CO2 equivalent emissions by 2050.”

(video by Freddy’s Brooklyn Roundhouse)

Calling carbon traders “climate traitors,” members of the Climate Crisis Coalition, Rising Tide North America, Climate SOS gathered outside the 2nd annual NYC Carbon Trading Summit to demand an end to the market-based trading of greenhouse gas emissions credits and called for just solutions to the climate crisis. The climate justice activists risked arrest to voice their opposition to the financial trading giants at the Summit, including JP Morgan Chase & Goldman Sachs, comparing their carbon trading plans to those that caused the current financial crisis.

Eight million people viewed Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff video since December 2007, and her new nine-minute Story of Cap and Trade (http://www.zcommunications.org/zvideo/3310) received 400,000 hits in the two weeks after its December 1 launch.

The film, produced by Free Range Studios, was developed in collaboration with the Durban Group for Climate Justice and Climate Justice Now! networks, which  joined Climate Justice Action and other networks to put tens of thousands of activists on the streets of Copenhagen, London and dozens of other cities in recent days, demanding large emissions cuts, the payment of ecological debt to climate victims, and the decommissioning of carbon markets.

But critics abound, so what trends can we discern from the sometimes venomous feedback to Story of Cap and Trade, and what do these tell us about US and global climate politics? Consider three categories:

• libertarian climate change denialists;
• Big Green groups and other carbon trading supporters; and
• self-interested green capitalists.

To start, rightwing extremists are easiest to dismiss because they deny that climate change is a product of human/economic activity – but there’s a schizophrenic double agenda. For although they’re pro-business, libertarians like Fox tv’s Glenn Beck oppose market-based cap-and-trade schemes.

The most dangerous, Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, denies ‘that we’re going to pass a cap-and-trade or we’re going to do something on emissions reduction,’ as he told the rightwing NewsMax agency on Sunday.

Australian climate denialists now control the official opposition party, having overthrown its leader last month due to his cap-and-trade endorsement, in the process halting the state’s proposed emissions trading scheme (http://agmates.ning.com/forum/topics/canberra-protest-rally-live?commentId=3535428%3AComment%3A9579).

Those of us fighting carbon markets certainly *don’t* want alliances with cretins like Inhofe or intrepid videoblogger Lee Doran. After a clumsy rebuttal to The Story of Stuff, Doran offered another zany video-attack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWjGZNDEH-A), in which he first agrees with the demolition of cap-and-trade, but then replies to Annie’s charge that rich-world overconsumption victimizes those least responsible for global warming:

Annie: ‘Did you know that in the next century, because of the changing climate, whole island nations could end up underwater?’

Lee: ‘Yes, and islands will emerge from the water too, it’s part of the natural cycle of the planet.’ (minute 6)

Enough said about flat-earth libertarian ideologues.

In the second group we find both pro-market ‘green’ ideologues – i.e., ‘always find a market solution for a market problem!’ – and well-meaning environmental advocates operating under conditions not of their own choosing within Washington’s adverse balance of forces.

From at least 1997, when Al Gore shoved cap-and-trade into the Kyoto Protocol with the soon-to-be-broken promise that Washington would then endorse the climate treaty, many greens who earlier criticized market solutions concluded that the market was the only game in town, due to prevailing power relations.

But instead of trying to change those power relations, most of Washington’s Big Green groups held their noses and went to work expanding carbon trading from London to the Chicago Climate Exchange, joined by like-minded academics and green policy wonks.

Along the way some turned eco-egotistical about their chosen trade. Eric de Place of Sightline Institute takes the policy critique personally: ‘All these years that tens of thousands (sic) of folks like me have worked long hours at low pay (or no pay) to hash out a workable and effective climate policy and it turns out that our purported allies like Leonard would rather paint us as duplicitous bankers in pin-striped suits.’

Notwithstanding the long underpaid hours hustling cap-and-trade – wasted, if judged by the subsequent evidence of carbon market failures – de Place’s injured tone is misplaced. As Annie did in fact acknowledge, ‘Some of my friends who really care about our future support cap and trade. A lot of environmental groups that I respect do too. They know it’s not a perfect solution and don’t love the idea of turning our planet’s future over to these guys, but they think that it is an important first step and that it’s better than nothing.’

However, as the film demonstrates, carbon trading is not better than nothing, it’s far worse than nothing. As the US’s top climate scientist, James Hansen, insisted in the New York Times last week, a Senate bill or Copenhagen deal based on cap-and-trade are indeed worse than no bill, no deal: carbon trading ‘actually perpetuates the pollution it is supposed to eliminate’ (www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07hansen.html).

Ideologically, the market environmentalists risk sliding down a dangerous slope. For instance, amongst conservationists in both Southern Africa (where I live) and Seattle (where de Place lives) this question has been posed: should markets be relied upon to preserve threatened wildlife, even endangered species?

In our case, the challenge involves rhinos and elephants whose ivory tusks attract murderous poachers seeking riches in the East Asian aphrodisiac markets. Poachers have reduced the big animals’ populations dramatically in recent decades. In the Pacific Northwest, instead of aphrodisiacs, macho trophy hunters seek coastal grizzly bears for their fireplace mantels.

Market-environmentalists react with a simple formula, which – to quote Robert Mugabe – reduces life to a commodity: ‘They must pay to stay’ (http://baraza.wildlifedirect.org/2008/03/10/illegal-wildlife-trade-is-fueling-wars-in-africa/). Mugabe and his allies seduce hunters to visit Zimbabwe in order to maintain a ’sustainable’ herd for the killing pleasure of rich tourists (not ordinary Zimbabweans’ viewing pleasure).

De Place, too, defends the trophy industry: ‘I’m not sure that hunting is bad for the species being hunted’ (http://www.grist.org/article/to-save-a-species-shoot-here – and for a rebuttal by the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, see http://www.grist.org/article/raincoast-responds-to-eric-de-place ).

David Roberts of Grist (http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-01-annie-leonard-misses-the-mark-her-new-video-story-cap-and-trade/) also suffers pro-trading panic, calling the film ‘the perfect representation of all the confusion and misplaced focus that plagues the green left right now.’ In contrast, he confesses, ‘I’m generally viewed among greens as a defender of cap-and-trade-or, in the less charitable version, a defender of the “party line,” a shill for the administration, a sell-out “insider,” whatever.’

Quite. Roberts cannot defend the US and EU cap-and-trade systems’ free pollution allowances and billions of tons of offsets, rebutting that we should criticize not carbon markets, simply prevailing legislation. But the dreadful Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer carbon-trading bills were complemented in mid-December by Senator Joe Lieberman – ‘This is the market-based system for punishing polluters previously known as “cap and trade”‘ – to now include offshore drilling for oil and natural gas, nuclear energy and ‘clean coal’ scamming.

Another new bill offered by Senators Maria Cantwell and Sue Collins last week was endorsed by de Place and his colleague Alan Durning even though it has only a 4% emissions reduction target for 2020 from 1990 levels. Go figure, the author of the great 1992 anti-consumption book How Much is Enough?, Durning, now calls this irresponsibly low target ’solid’ (http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-11-cantwells-cap-and-trade-bill-almost-genius/).

Ideally Kerry, Lieberman et al will be punished by Washington’s grid-lock, as the bills suffocate in Capitol Hill’s corporate pollution – a good thing, since their death would at least preserve the existing Clean Air Act, which all the main legislators except Cantwell-Collins threaten to gut.

Roberts grows yet more defensive on matters of principle: ‘I don’t know why the green left has decided that markets are bad, in and of themselves, but it seems both politically unwise and substantively thin.’ He *doesn’t know why*? Only a year after the world’s worst market failure in recorded history, with global trade and financial indicators far lower after eighteen months than a similar period in 1929-31?!

Aside from concern about the self-destructive tendency of financial markets which host carbon trading (witness the EU Emissions Trading Scheme collapses in April 2006 and October 2008), the green left offers many substantively thick arguments why business environmentalism is flawed, and why commodifying natural resources – like the air, in carbon trading – generates systemic market failures.

For example, Africa’s greatest political economist, Samir Amin, has just penned a damning attack on environmental markets (http://seminario10anosdepois.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/the-battlefields-chosen-by-contemporary-imperialism/#more-37), as has University of Oregon professor John Bellamy Foster (http://sociology.uoregon.edu/faculty/foster.php): The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet (http://www.monthlyreview.org/books/ecologicalrevolution.php). Either can assist Roberts to plug the gaping holes in his pro-market consciousness.

Roberts doesn’t seem to understand the severe dangers associated with an anticipated $3 trillion in carbon trades by 2020, which will become the basis for further trade in financial derivatives, for he derides the film’s warning about Wall Street speculation: ‘Leonard et al. seem instead to have decided that “market Goldman Sachs derivatives bugga bugga!” suffices.’

But Roberts, de Place and NRDC policy director David Doniger (http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ddoniger/the_rest_of_the_story_of_cap_a.html) dare not trash the film’s proposed solutions, such as stronger EPA regulatory enforcement and citizen activism (e.g. West Virginia mountaintop defense). There is greater potential to push the EPA into action – in spite of misgivings by NewEnergyNews’ Herman Trabish (http://newenergynews.blogspot.com/2009/12/oversimple-story-of-cap-and-facts.html) – than to win legislation regulating carbon within ill-functioning, untransparent financial markets, in which ‘too big to fail’ deregulatory freedom was amplified by Bush-Obama’s 2008-09 bailouts.

The third critical group includes green technocrats with financial self-interest. That may explain why at least one of them – Adam Stein from TerraPass – is so very cross, absurdly entitling his attack on the film, ‘Why does Annie Leonard hate the environment?’ (http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/why-does-annie-leonard-hate-the-environment, and another is carbon consultant Gay Harley,http://carboncommentary.blogspot.com/2009/12/no-rest-in-copenhagen.html).

Stein claims, ‘cap and trade and carbon taxes are functionally equivalent policies’ – but they’re not. As Hansen points out, carbon fees would easily withstand the scamming and price volatility so notorious in the carbon markets.

Ultimately, for Stein, ‘one criterion clearly stands above all others: which policy actually stands a chance of passage in the US Congress?’ Unmentioned, for obvious reasons (the Congress being a wholly-owned subsidiary of big business) is that a carbon trading policy only enjoys the ’strong support’ of a meager 2% of the US voting population, who ‘favor a carbon tax over cap-and-trade by nearly two-to-one,’ according to a Hart Research survey (http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/19351).

But given Washington’s adverse power relations, a genuine climate policy must avoid the corporate-ruled Congress for now, and instead focus on command/control by the EPA. (To be sure, a stronger EPA would also rule many of TerraPass’s own projects – especially those methane-electricity landfill conversions that undermine zero-waste strategies – as unworthy of green investment.)

Of all the film’s supposed errors, says Stein, ‘my favorite for sheer chutzpah, if not for actual importance, is when Leonard dings Kyoto because “energy costs jumped for consumers.”‘

But Stein may want to look at what European consumers now see: no net emissions reductions on the one hand, and on the other, massive criminality in the EU’s carbon trading scheme (Europol estimates five billion euros have been stolen in tax fraud, as just one example), alongside regressive energy price increases (the poorest suffer a much higher burden of expenses than the wealthy, and are least able to make the transition to the post-carbon economy).

So when the film refers to higher EU energy costs, this is not chutzpah, it’s critical realism. No one more than Annie is committed to raising consumption costs appropriately so as to deter waste; Story of Stuff’s viewers learned of unaccounted-for eco-social externalities that should be internalized in her $4.99 radio, for instance.

Actually, the most telling contribution to the critiques of our cap-and-trade critique comes from an unlikely source: Charles Krauthammer (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/10/AR2009121003163.html). The despicable neocon columnist fused all three hostile narratives when he wrote, last Friday, against the EPA: ‘Congress should not just resist this executive overreaching, but trump it: Amend clean-air laws and restore their original intent by excluding CO2 from EPA control and reserving that power for Congress and future legislation. Do it now. Do it soon. Because Big Brother isn’t lurking in CIA cloak. He’s knocking on your door, smiling under an EPA cap.’

Sorry, the big brother who so frightens Krauthammer is far bigger than a beleaguered Washington environmental agency and far more dangerous to corporate profits than pro-market ‘green’ critics of The Story of Cap and Trade actually comprehend: simply, a new global movement known as Climate Justice.

(Patrick Bond, a content advisor to The Story of Cap and Trade, has written widely on the climate crisis:http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2,68,3,1887.)

http://www.actforclimatejustice.org/n30-day-of-action/reportbacks-day-of-action/

Contacts:

Brian Tokar, 802-229-0087 briant@pshift.com

Rachel Smolker, 802-482-2848 rsmolker@riseup.net

A controversial article posted last week on a popular environmental website has inadvertently highlighted environmentalists’ skepticism toward the cap-and-trade provisions of climate legislation now before the US Congress. The article, posted on the environmental news site Grist.org on October 1st, was titled “‘No compromise’ faction attacks climate bill,” and attempted to dismiss the activities of Climate SOS (climatesos.org) and other groups highly critical of the legislation, as far outside the environmental mainstream. A review of comments posted in response to the article tells a very different story, according to members of the Climate SOS network.

Out of 55 original, non-duplicate comments posted to the Grist.org site by mid-day October 6th, 34 were critical of the article and of the “cap-and-trade” approach to limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Fourteen comments defended the legislation and/or supported the article’s point of view, and five others were ambiguous or uncertain in their position. While far from a scientific poll, comments on mainstream environmental websites such as Grist are seen as a useful indicator of the views of environmentally concerned readers.

“We feel tremendously vindicated by Grist readers’ response to this article,” said Brian Tokar, director of the Institute for Social Ecology, a founding member of the Climate SOS network. “People seeking real solutions to the climate crisis know that creating a carbon market in the US is not an effective way to reduce emissions. It hasn’t worked in Europe or elsewhere where it has been tried. It is no accident that many of the most polluting companies support cap-and-trade, and worked actively with corporate-friendly environmental groups such as NRDC and Environmental Defense in helping craft the current legislation.”

Since the Waxman-Markey climate bill passed the US House in June, several hundred national and regional environmental groups have signed letters and statements strongly critical of the bill. Letters were initiated by groups such as Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity, as well as the Climate SOS network. They argued that the House version of the bill falls far short of scientifically valid targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, removes the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act, and incorporates massive, unjustifiable corporate giveaways into its cap-and-trade program. Corporations would be able to defer needed emissions reductions for decades under the bill’s generous offset provisions.

Dr. Rachel Smolker, representing Biofuelwatch and Climate SOS, said, “The Senate bill released last week by Sens. Kerry and Boxer can hardly be considered an improvement. The article in Grist attempted to marginalize our ‘no-compromise’ approach, but many knowledgeable environmentalists recognize that the time for compromise is long past. We were pleased to see the support that people expressed, and hope they will join us in actively demanding real solutions to climate change. The US continues to avoid taking meaningful action and is obstructing international negotiations. If we do not demand the changes that are necessary, who will?”

“The Senate bill claims slightly stronger emission reduction targets by doctoring the numbers, but its targets are still far below what scientists agree is needed,” said Dr. Maggie Zhou of the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities. “The current bill would partially reinstate some of EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, which many recognize would be much more effective than a carbon market at regulating emissions, but it turns out that the EPA authority is simply a bargaining chip.” Senator Kerry was quoted last week saying that EPA authority over greenhouse gases was retained largely to provide “some negotiating room as we proceed forward” with the bill.

In contrast to the current legislation, Climate SOS network members support alternative approaches such as direct, revenue-neutral carbon charges coupled with equal dividend distribution, aggressive energy efficiency and renewable energy standards, and an end to subsidies for fossil fuels, nuclear power, biomass incineration and other false climate solutions.

Jonathan Hiskes, 

GRIST; Oct 1 2009

The article is interesting sort of, but most interesting is the reaction. See comments following the article (as well as pics and link to video) at Grist website here:

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-01-climate-bill-attacked-from-the-far-left/

Briefly:

Activists handed out fake $2 trillion bills at a rally for climate legislation in New York last week, criticizing the size of the global-warming emissions market they oppose. ($2 trillion is their estimate for the size of the emissions market they oppose.) The bills depict Al Gore holding a wrench and a compact-fluorescent light bulb and the words “Corporate Giveaways! Carbon Ponzi Schemes! FALSE SOLUTIONS!”

Others hung a 14-foot banner of the same bill from the Manhattan headquarters of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

“Cap’n Trade,” an actor in a pirate costume, unfurled a similar banner at a presentation by Connie Hedegaard, chairperson of the Dec. 2009 UN Climate Summit and Denmark’s minister for climate and energy.

Still others blocked a motorcade of UN delegates to drop a banner with the message “Cap + Trade is a Dead End.”

At least three groups worked together on last week’s events—Climate SOS, Rising Tide North America, and “Greenwash Guerrillas,” which pied Thomas Friedman last year. They all hold a “no compromise” philosophy on climate-change action, opposing carbon markets that allow polluters to buy and sell pollution credits and arguing that larger environmental groups such as NRDC have compromised too much in working with businesses and Democratic lawmakers.

“It’s an awkward position to be environmentalists working on climate change but opposing a climate bill,” said Climate SOS organizer Rachel Smolker, a Vermont ecologist and author. “Especially with a new administration that we want to support. But we felt we need to take a really strong position because this [bill] is so inadequate.”

The campaign is awkward for “establishment” green groups too. They’ve been preparing to battle fossil-fuel interests over the energy bill introduced in the Senate this week. Now they must figure out if and how to respond to this attack from the far left.

“It’s troubling,” said Daniel J. Weiss, director for climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, a center-left think tank with close ties to the Obama administration. “No one believes that the clean energy bill that will come out of Congress will address the threat of global warming in a single step. But we have to start.”

“The real enemies are Big Oil and Big Coal and the right wing attack machine,” he said. “For them to mock [Gore] in the way they did shows that they don’t understand you need to attack your enemies and not your allies.”

Hansen’s involvement is especially troublesome. The director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies wasn’t involved in the New York stunts, but he endorsed Climate SOS’s recent tour against a climate bill. The $2 trillion bill includes his statement that a cap-and-trade program “would be worse for the environment than doing nothing.”

The opposition by Hansen and Climate SOS is unlikely to influence Washington policymakers, in Weiss’s opinion, but it’s got the potential to make everyday Americans think the situation is hopeless.

“If they hear from such a respected scientist as James Hansen that what Congress is doing won’t matter, then why would they bother to call their senators to say ‘Act on this’?” he said.

What does that even mean?

Aside from the stunts last week, other moves by the “no-compromise” camp are downright perplexing. Last week Greenwash Guerrillas launched a website in response to Cleanenergyworks.us, a three-month-old diverse coalition supporting a comprehensive energy bill. The similar-sounding Cleanenergyworks.biz was a replica of the real Clean Energy Works site, with two notable changes: The phone number and email address for spokesperson Josh Dorner had been changed. His name was left the same. The site changed to a more innocuous version over the weekend and is currently down. (Have a screen grab? Send it in and we’ll post.)

Dorner had no interest in speaking about the site that took his name. “I don’t send too much of my day worrying about a website,” he said Thursday. “There are considerably more important tasks before us to get this bill across the Senate floor.”

NRDC spokesperson Michael Oko shared Dorner’s reluctance to give attention to the stunts. “There are a lot of different groups out there,” he said in regard to the banner hung at NRDC’s office. “Everybody has the right to express themselves.”

About the replica website Oko said, “Frankly, I was a little confused about what their intention was.”

Smolker of Climate SOS said the idea was “to provide a spoof, to reveal the emptiness of the claims Clean Energy Works provides. For them, it’s green jobs and clean energy and everything’s a smiley-face, you know? Our goal is to tell people to look deeper and take the smiley faces off.”

She said she contributed ideas for the mock site, but individuals from Greenwash Guerrillas, who did not want to be identified, created the idea.

The 51-year-old Smolker has seen firsthand how environmental groups can evolve, professionalize, and grow in wealth and influence. Her father was one of the founders of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), another group targeted by Climate SOS last week. EDF met in her childhood home when it was still a “ragtag group,” as Climate SOS is now, she said. (Smolker, who works for Biofuel Watch, declined to give funding information for Climate SOS but said all members were volunteers.)

“We’ve played that compromise game for a long time,” she said. “There’s too much at stake right now.”

The old saw

The compromise question—whether to sacrifice what is ecologically necessary for what seems politically possible—has been around as long as the green movement itself. The naturalist-and-mystic John Muir and the politician-and-forester Gifford Pinchot clashed over the same tensions in the early 20th century.

As for Hansen’s “worse than nothing” remark, there has been plenty written about the failings of the House climate and energy bill—it gives away too much to dirty-energy backers, it even protects coal-plant pollution from further regulation. But there is historical precedent of legislation that is deeply flawed at first evolving into something effective and durable. The original Clean Air Act did not address the acid rain crisis, an omission not corrected until 1990. The original Social Security Act did not include domestic or agricultural workers, effectively excluding many Hispanic, black, and immigrant workers, as Democratic strategist Paul Begala notes.

“If that version of Social Security were introduced today, progressives like me would call it cramped, parsimonious, mean-spirited and even racist,” writes Begala. “Perhaps it was all those things. But it was also a start. And for 74 years we have built on that start.”

Most progressives, including many major green groups, would gladly embrace an imperfect climate bill as a start.

“Those who see the House clean energy bill as somehow tainted by deals, and therefore want a carbon tax, have to understand that no tax proposal would ever emerge from Congress as we know it without similar or worse deals being made,” said Weiss. “Unfortunately the moral high ground of ‘we must act for our children’ is necessary but not sufficient for our political process.”

Smolker said Climate SOS would continue on a different tack, insisting on an acceptable bill from the get-go. She expected the group would pause to take stock of the bill released in the Senate this week, then regroup.