Rising Tide North America: Hoodwinked in the Hothouse

1. Rising Tide North America: Hoodwinked in the Hothouse A change in public perception of climate change has led to a change in the public rhetoric, particularly from those who do not want to end fossil fuel use.

2. What’s behind the rhetoric • The aspects pointed to by RTNA are also pointed to by Carson. We do not want to change. We believe technological solutions will solve every problem. • In addition “an entire generation has grown up in a world in where little has been possible without corporate assent.” (p. 472)

3. Bogus Climate Change Solutions? • CCS: Clean coal capture and storage/carbon sequestration: Turn the carbon in coal emissions into a solid and put it somewhere where it won’t create emissions. • Coal provides 20% of world’s GHG emissions. Coal is cheap but coal is also extremely dirty & carbon intensive. • 50% of US energy is from coal. • Increased energy needs will drastically increase coal use. • China’s new plants in 2006 alone will add about 500 million tons of carbon dioxide (Mt CO2) to China’s annual emissions. That’s about 13 percent of China’s current coal-fired emissions, and 5 percent of the world total. • *source: Pew Center

4. RTNA: CCS won’t work • Coal kills at least 24,000 people a year prematurely because of particulate matter released. • CCS won’t work until 2030, which is too late. • The infrastructure of CCS would be extraordinary—thousands of miles of pipelines. • Coal ‘cleaning’ now released into 600 earthen sludge dams, some of which breach (e.g., the TVA dam) • No way to repair damage of coal extraction. Mountain top removal can destroy up to 10 square miles of landscape. [Too dirty for global north but OK in global south.]

5. LNG: Liquified Natural Gas • LNG is natural gas super cooled to -20 F. • It is shipped which adds to its CO2 emissions. In some cases, can emit just as much as CO2 as other technologies.

6. Biofules/Agrofuels • Industrial scale agriculture deforests and so destroys carbon stores. • Increase in biofuel growth leaves less land for food growth, so food prices rise. Food consumers in poor countries have to compete with fuel consumers in rich countries. • Agrofuels are imported from global south. • Agrofuels are not carbon neutral. • The popularity of agrofuels is due to agro-business lobbying.

7. Other problems with biofuels • Workers are exploited • Weakens rural economies and increases poverty. • Human rights are violated—oil palm plantations have been imposed on communities in Indonesia. • Water is wasted through agrofuels. It takes nearly a 1,000 galloons of water in India to get 4 cups of sugarcane derived enthanol.

8. Nuclear energy • Nuclear energy involves mining that is very toxic. Uranium is removed through on site leaching with toxic substances pumped into seam and then pumped out again years later. • It takes 1,000 tons of rock to get 1 ton of fuel. • Take a long time to build and are very expensive. • Serious waste disposal issues. Taxpayers subsidize nuclear power.

9. Carbon Trading: Cap and Trade C&T was a major part of Kyoto. Carbon pollution is a marketable commodity. Horrible disaster in Europe. ETS: European Trading Scheme resulted in fraud, market manipulation and other disasters. Power plants issued permits for free but raise prices to compensate for ‘losses.’ There is inadquate oversight in monitoring emissions.

10. Carbon Trading II: Carbon Offsets • Use too much carbon, plant a tree to compensate. • This doesn’t work: Polluting activities happen now, but tree won’t grow for a while. When tree dies, it produces CO2. • Makes us think we can just pay to solve the problem but act as we please.

11. International OrganizationsNot Currently Effective • World Bank PCF (Prototype Carbon Fund): 80% of funds released gone to heavily polluting industries in oil, gas, cement, iron and steel sectors. • World Banks’s REDD: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degredation. • Invest in saving forests by paying in carbon credits (right to pollute for saving the forest) • Bank seems to fund environmental destruction and encourage social unrest. (E.g., megadams)

12. Geoengineering • “…rests on the assumption aht humans are masters of the universe and the natural world and have the ability to control and engineer its systems. Climate change shows humans do not and probably never will (?) understand the planet’s systems enough” …to artificially manipulate it… (p. 477-478)

13. Geoengineering • Sulfates: Would kill people. Sunshades would require 800,000 screens positioned every 5 minutes. • Genetically engineered trees and could harm the normal forest. • Plastic coated deserts would be fragile and lead to rapid warming effect if they fail. • Charcoal (burning trees—’biochar’…is simply nuts.

14. Climate Justice • What is climate justice? • “No justice will be found without an end to policies long-pursued by the wealth countries which treat communities…merely as resource colonies…”