News — climate change

A Public Trust article claims that government has a duty to protect "life, liberty, and property". "Under the “public trust doctrine,” governments must manage the vital natural resources on which human well-being depends for the benefit of all present and future generations. Governments have no right to authorize their destruction to the detriment of constitutional rights to life, liberty and property. These legal rights can serve as an important frame for the public messaging and legal strategy of climate-protecting civil disobedience." Groups of young people are suing federal and state governments. This is a way to frame the governments, oil, coal, and gas companies as the bad criminals and to frame the protesters against global warming as the good law enforcers. link to youth group. RYSE group.

InsideClimate News LA Times LA times in Dec Attorneys- General investgate Exxon.

Film maker will show and discuss 2 short films about renewables here in Boulder at the Boulder Public Library on Monday, 4-25-16, from 6 to 7:45 pm. Refreshments at 5:45. Films you can watch online.

SP 7: From Paris to New York

Very few states in the U.S. have started to transform their economy in a way that would keep climate change at bay, and in a way that matches the Paris climate agreement. In the seventh episode of the series, Sustainability Pioneers visits New York, one of the states taking bold climate action. The goal of New York state’s new energy policy, Reforming the Energy Vision, is to get half of the state’s energy from clean sources by 2030. Sustainability Pioneers also visits Eco Village At Ithaca and Hunt Country Vineyards in the Finger Lakes to see how the energy transition is unfolding at the grassroots level.

SP 5: Becoming Energy Independent

One of Germany’s “green pockets”, Climate Community Saerbeck, shows a model to the world of how to become energy independent in a sustainable way. A town of about 7,000 people started its climate protection and adaptation work in 2009, and in just five years the town was producing more renewable energy than it consumes. Saerbeck now produces 300 percent more renewable energy than the town consumes. Sustainability Pioneers also interviews Ralf Fuecks, the president of Heinrich Böll Foundation, and climate scientist Neil Donahue from Carnegie Mellon University. Neil Donahue explains how we need to reduce our carbon footprint, and Ralf Fuechs offers his view if this is feasible in the U.S.

I think that the Saerbeck story might be of interest to people in Boulder - one of the first things Saerbeck did when they started their climate adaptation and mitigation project was to municipalize its utility. - film maker Kirsi Jansa.

On Saturday 4-23-16 from 9 to 5, fascinating speakers will be at CU Math 100 from 9 am to 5 pm. Antonia Juhasz (live) wrote books about oil and Bush. Cornell professor Ingrafffea found that natural gas wells and pipelines leak at a high rate. TEACH IN: Featuring (live via skype) Professor Anthony Ingraffea, one of the world's leading experts on fracking technology. He wrote a paper on the methane ``leak rate'' of fracking wells/distribution which was denounced by President Obama's Dept. of Energy, and subsequently some years after the same folks apologized to Ingraffea. Ingraffea has also attracted attempts to, shall we say, intimidate him -- but he has not backed down and sticks with solid science/engineering. In person, we will have two exceptional investigative journalist/authors: Antonia Juhasz, San Francisco, (``Tyranny of Oil'' and other books) and Andrew Nikiforuk, Alberta, Canada (``Slickwater: Fracking and One Insider's Stand Against the World's Most Powerful Industry,'' and ``Tar Sands'', and other books), They will present talks and do a book-signing in conjuction with the Boulder Bookstore. We will also have local talent from NCAR (Dan Ziskin, on global warming scenarios that don't get press coverage) and others. Lunch available, but not free :)) Link

There is a free showing at 6 pm Friday April 22 in Math 110 on the CU campus tonight. Merchants of Doubt shows how oil companies paid PR people and thinktanks to lie and say that it wasn't happening, and if it was, then they didn't cause it, and if they did cause it, then there was no solution and if there was a solution, then it would be too expensive, and if it was not too expensive, then we should not solve it because that would threaten our way of life and jobs, and if it would not threaten our way of life and jobs, then we should not solve it because we should not trust our government and because we should seek a solution through the invisible hand of capitalism, and if we find that we can trust government regulations instead of self-interested capitalist polluters, then we should not regulate because we need "freedom" and to trust those elites who know what is best for the world ( and for their own power and profit). Greenpeace wrote that Exxon gave over $ 30 million to climate denial groups. Exxon scientists internally admitted that burning fossil fuels caused greenhouse gases and that "addressing the greenhouse effect ' would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion' and that without the reductions ' there are some potentially catastrophic events that must be considered.' Yet while they researched and admitted internally that climate change was happening, they funded thinktanks and PR firms to deny it.  

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