That Development Lady

People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”

Lord Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank and now I. G. Patel Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, warned that British taxpayers would need to contribute about £3 billion a year by 2015 to help poor countries to cope with the inevitable impact of climate change.

He also issued a clear message to President Obama that he must attend the meeting in Copenhagen in person in order for an effective deal to be reached. US leadership, he said, was “desperately needed” to secure a deal.

He said that he was deeply concerned that popular opinion had so far failed to grasp the scale of the changes needed to address climate change, or of the importance of the UN meeting in Copenhagen from December 7 to December 18. “I am not sure that people fully understand what we are talking about or the kind of changes that will be necessary,” he added.

Up to 20,000 delegates from 192 countries are due to attend the UN conference in the Danish capital. Its aim is to forge a deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to prevent an increase in global temperatures of more than 2 degrees centigrade. Any increase above this level is expected to trigger runaway climate change, threatening the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Lord Stern said that Copenhagen presented a unique opportunity for the world to break free from its catastrophic current trajectory. He said that the world needed to agree to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to 25 gigatonnes a year from the current level of 50 gigatonnes.

UN figures suggest that meat production is responsible for about 18 per cent of global carbon emissions, including the destruction of forest land for cattle ranching and the production of animal feeds such as soy.

Lord Stern, who said that he was not a strict vegetarian himself, was speaking on the eve of an all-parliamentary debate on climate change. His remarks provoked anger from the meat industry.

Jonathan Scurlock, of the National Farmers Union, said: “Going vegetarian is not a worldwide solution. It’s not a view shared by the NFU. Farmers in this country are interested in evidence-based policymaking. We don’t have a methane-free cow or pig available to us.”

On average, a British person eats 50g of protein derived from meat each day — the equivalent of a chicken breast or a lamb chop. This is a relatively low level for a wealthy country but between 25 per cent and 50 per cent higher than the amount recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Su Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Vegetarian Society, welcomed Lord Stern’s remarks. “What we choose to eat is one of the biggest factors in our personal impact on the environment,” she said. “Meat uses up a lot of resources and a vegetarian diet consumes a lot less land and water. One of the best things you can do about climate change is reduce the amount of meat in your diet.”

The UN has warned that meat consumption is on course to double by the middle of the century.

Saturday’s International Day of Climate Action gave us overwhelming evidence of hope at a time of widespread despair on global warming.

Last month, scientists predicted a 6.3 degree rise in average temperatures — higher than previously estimated — by the end of this century, even if the strongest pollution-reduction targets proposed by the world’s leaders go into effect. (The most recent ice age, for context, was triggered by a 3 degree change in average temperatures.) The Obama administration, meanwhile, has been criticized for weakening its stance on the climate issue, and hopes are dimming for an international treaty at the December climate summit in Copenhagen. As Democrats struggle to pass a domestic cap-and-trade bill, partisan battles are increasingly shrill and contentious, casting doubt on the bill’s chance of passage anytime soon. Even if it were to pass, enviros have criticized the legislation as “woefully inadequate” and “less than worthless.”

Most of us are deaf to these laments. The more strident and dismal the climate battle becomes, the more the American public tunes out. We can’t ignore the science, but we’ve got to move past the partisan bickering, past the politics of doom and gloom, and focus on what’s going right. As Saturday’s event made clear, there’s a lot going right:

1. We are connected.

Online organizing and social media — Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, Skype, Facebook, blogs — are ushering in a new era of coalition-building and global climate outreach breathtaking in scope. These online tools “enable us to track the growing momentum on this issue,” 350.org organizer May Boeve told me. “That’s vital to movement building.” Daily twitters and blog posts on climate change number in the tens of millions — spreading information, rallying lobbyists, and stoking innovation. Al Gore, for one, has nearly two million followers on Twitter — more than Martha Stewart.

2. We have a target.

The most complex scientific problem humanity has ever faced has been distilled into a three-digit manifesto — 350. Transcending language and education barriers, this global target was spelled out on beaches, mountain tops, monuments, and town squares, in human bodies linked to human bodies.

3. We have youth.

Kids and students were a highlight of the 350 event — reflecting the youth climate movement that has been growing globally in recent years. In the US, the Energy Action Coalition has convened hundreds of thousands of students who are greening their campuses, lobbying state legislatures and Congress, and partnering with activists worldwide — members of the China Youth Climate Action Network, Khmer Youth Association, Accion Climatica Colombia, the Indian Youth Climate Network, among other groups. In place of the panda, they’ve have chosen for their symbol the green hard hat, representing a new era of green jobs.

4. We have diversity.

Saturday’s event produced the world’s first grand-scale portrait of the global climate movement-and most of them looked nothing like Al Gore. The images of activists across all economic strata in Mumbai, Instanbul, Cairo, Dhakam, Gaborone and well beyond made it clear that environmentalism is no longer the domain of the white, privileged Prius-and-polar-bear set.

5. We have a movement.

As the global climate movement diversifies, D.C.-based environmental groups have been joining forces with labor, veterans and religious groups in a broad coalition dubbed Clean Energy Works. The group is mobilizing organizers in 28 states and spending handsomely on television ads to promote climate policies that will transition America to a green economy and create millions of clean jobs.

6. We have action.

In the months leading up to the 350 event, governmental leaders of the Maldives Islands held a cabinet meeting underwater in scuba gear to expose the global warming threat. Greenpeace activists scaled the Houses of Parliament in London carrying “Change the Politics — Save the Climate” signs. Student activists blockaded the entrance to a coal plant in downtown Washington D.C. This is activism with a wow-factor — reminiscent of the 60s-era outreach that helped trigger a sea change in environmental policy.

7. We have faith.

Churches in the Presbyterians of America alliance tolled their bells 350 times. The target was also spelled out in signs draped across synagogues and mosques. Faith-based climate activism has been gaining ground in recent years, in particular the “creation care” movement spearheaded by evangelicals. With a membership of 45,000 churches and 7,000 megachurches, National Association of Evangelicals, for instance, is supporting mandatory carbon caps.

8. We have profit motive.

General Electric, Google, and Duke Energy are among a multitude of big-brand businesses positioning themselves to profit from a 350 ppm target —innovating climate solutions from electric cars to smart-grid components. We need these climate profiteers. To borrow and reinterpret a line from Thomas Edison: Corporate innovators are finally discovering what the world needs — and they’re proceeding to invent.

In a 1979 presidential address Jimmy Carter quoted an activist friend who said, “We’ve got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying.” These words resonate today as we face so much despair and political paralysis on climate change. The good news is that the sweating, walking and praying has begun.

Amanda Little is the author of Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells, Our Ride to the Renewal Future (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers).

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-little/eight-reasons-for-hope-on_b_336046.html

Fabien Cousteau says the oceans can recover, but policies need to be enforced. He also cautiously favors aquaculture.

All he asks is 10 percent.

In order to help revive the world’s oceans, one of the initial steps should be to make around 10 percent of them zones free from human activity, according to aquatic environmentalist Fabien Cousteau.

“We need to make 10 percent of our oceans no-take zones, places akin to national parks,” he said in an interview. “If you give nature a chance to recuperate, it will.”

Cousteau, grandson of the famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, will speak tomorrow at the Water Innovations Alliance taking place this week in Chicago. Other speakers include University of Illinois professor Mark Shannon, who will discuss a device he wants to make that will convert sewage into re-useable water, methane, and minerals that can be sold on the open market. (Other interesting water ideas – check out IBM’s concept for electricity from osmotic pressure gradients.)

One of the chief problems facing the oceans is a lack of stewardship. Approximately 70 percent of our daily food intake comes from aquatic environments. That includes fish, but also additives like the kelp in ice cream. At the same time, these environments are simply being over-exploited. Fisheries have decimated the populations of large fin fish like tuna and cod. Many have shifted to the once-dubbed trash fish, but even these populations are shrinking. Pollution levels continue to rise.

“We’ve taken out over 50 percent of our total fish stocks compared to 50 years ago,” he said. “We use the ocean as an endless resource and a garbage can.”

So what can be done besides establishing no-go zones? First, information about the problem has to be brought to greater attention to the public, he said. Governments and others also have to dedicate more research funding. Ocean research gets about 1/100thof the amount of money that space exploration gets.

“We have maybe explored 2 to 3 percent of the ocean and I guarantee you that there is a much higher chance that we will find interesting forms of life in the ocean,” said Cousteau.

Industrialized aquaculture will also likely need to expand. Fifty percent of humanity’s fish intake already comes from aquaculture.

“I tend to think it is going to be necessary to continue that and probably increase it,” he said. “If it is tailored to the specific fish and environment, it can be done properly… The reality is that there isn’t enough wild stock left to feed the world’s population.”

Still, fish farms will have to avoid releasing pollutants into the natural environment. The economics and energy transfer of fish farming also need to be scrutinized.

“It makes absolutely no sense to feed 2 pounds to a cod to make 1 pound of fish,” he said.

And, of course, human societies have to figure out a way through its own water crisis.

“Without fresh water, there is no life on this planet,” Cousteau said. “Water is the most valuable resource on this planet, bar none. You can’t drink oil and you can’t drink gold.”

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Two networks of faith-based humanitarian and development groups will be sending a delegation to this month’s high-level U.N. event on climate change to ask world leaders to give the highest political priority to a new climate deal.

Related
• Christian Leaders Urged to Speak Out for Climate Change Victims

Alongside representatives from CIDSE and Caritas Internationalis, church leaders and climate experts from the developed and developing world will personally urge world leaders to think about the world’s poorest people as they believe “bold action is needed to protect them from the devastating impacts of climate change.”

“Wealthy countries have an unequivocal moral duty to reduce their own emissions and help developing countries who are already suffering the consequences of our profligate use of fossil fuels for economic gain,” commented delegation head Keith O’Brien, a cardinal from the United Kingdom.

On Sept. 22, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will host an all-day high-level event on climate change for heads of state and government, one day before the opening of the general debate of the 64th session of the U.N. General Assembly.

According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2009 is a crucial year in the international effort to address climate change.

In December, national government delegations who agreed to shape an ambitious international response to climate change in 2007 will be meeting for the end-of-the-year summit in Copenhagen to finalize the details of a new climate change agreement that will replace the current one, which runs until 2012.

Under the current Kyoto Protocol, 37 industrial countries are required to cut emissions a total 5 percent from 1990 by 2012.

According to some scientists, industrialized nations must cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 to prevent climate disasters, such as coastal flooding from rising sea levels, severe weather events, and variations in rainfall and temperatures that will affect agriculture and wipe out species of plants and animals.

The World Wildlife Fund for Nature calculated that the current declarations from wealthy countries amount to a total emissions cut of just 10 percent by 2020.

Though not all people believe that climate change is a strictly man-made phenomenon, those who do have been urging world leaders to take decisive action to secure an ambitious and fair climate deal this year in Copenhagen.

Delegates who CIDSE and Caritas will be sending to the high-level U.N. event on Sept. 22 include, among others, John Onaiyekan, the Catholic archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria; Theotonius Gomes, the Catholic bishop of San Marcos, Guatemala; Janet Mangera, the executive secretary of Caritas Kenya; Bernd Nilles, CIDSE’s secretary general; and Jim Hug, the president of Center of Concern.

Caritas Internationalis, the largest network of Catholic charities in the world, works through its 164 national members to combat poverty and injustice, directly helping around 24 million people each year in 200 countries and territories.

CIDSE, meanwhile, is a network of 16 member organizations in Europe and North America that share a common strategy in their efforts to eradicate poverty and establish global justice. CIDSE’s advocacy work covers global governance, resources for development, climate change, trade and food security, EU development policy and business, and human rights.

I like this article a lot because it shows that science and religion do not have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, if you’re doing religion right, you should care about everyone on the planet, not just those who beleive in the same deity as you, and science is showing that a lot of those people are in serious danger.