Kate Sheppard, a some time contributor to Campus Progress and writer for Mother Jones, reported today that a group of anti-corporate activists known as the Yes Men tricked mainstream reporters from Reuters (republished on the Washington Post and the NYTimes) and the National Journal into writing stories that the Chamber of Commerce was endorsing the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. You can read Sheppard's whole account here.

The actual response from the Chamber of Commerce is here:

We oppose the Waxman-Markey bill because it is neither comprehensive nor international, and it falls short on moving renewable and alternative technologies into the marketplace and enabling our transition to a lower carbon future. It would also impose carbon tariffs on goods imported into the United States, a move that would almost certainly spur retaliation from global trading partners.
 
Some in the environmental movement claim that, because of our opposition to a specific bill or approach, we must be opposed to all efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, or that we deny the existence of any problem. They are dead wrong. The Chamber has in its public documents, Hill letters and testimony, as well as dozens of concrete policy recommendations, supported efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere while keeping our economy healthy. 

Defensive much? It seems also appropriate to point out that the Waxman-Markey bill doesn't cover international law because, um, Congress doesn't have power over international law. Congress' power, like many other national governments, is relegated to its own domestic laws.

"All across the world, in every kind of environment and region known to man, increasingly dangerous weather patterns and devastating storms are abruptly putting an end to the long-running debate over whether or not climate change is real. Not only is it real, it's here, and its effects are giving rise to a frighteningly new global phenomenon: the man-made natural disaster."

BARACK OBAMA, speech, Apr. 3, 2006

Students in Universities across the country (and world), are working for change. Many have realized that if we do not change our ways now, we will pay life-threatening consequences in the future.

I wanted to highlight the current waves of "activism in academia" because the two really go hand in hand. Learning about and becoming more aware of environmental issues ignites passion. The following sustainability digest was posted by the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley...please read on and share with others.

Want strengthen the progressive movement on your campus, bring engaging speakers and films to jumpstart dialogue, and engage in activism on local and national issues?

Then join the Campus Progress Student Network for 2008-2009! We’re currently still accepting applications to join the team of Student Representatives from the across the country who work with the staff of Campus Progress to advance progressive causes at the local level and make their voices heard on the issues they care most about.

***  New deadline! Applications are now due by Wednesday September 3rd, so click here to learn more and to apply. ***

1. Tell Congress how they can make a difference in the economic lives of young people - college affordability, health care, jobs, etc.

2. Press Congress to work for an end to global warming and toward a clean energy future!

9:00 AM - 2:00 PM
The Center for American Progress
1333 H Street NW, 10th floor
Washington D.C.

A new ad featuring Reverends Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson has been airing, with both men advocating for climate change. While there’s a great message behind it, it seems they make a bigger point in the ad to highlight their political difference. Maybe that’s needed when two opposing sides appear together to fight for a common issue. But does it work?

  For too many years previous generations have allowed our pollution economy to continue to exacerbate social, economic and environmental inequalities in the world. It is time for our generation to take a stance and protect our future from droughts, floods, stronger storms, spread of tropical diseases, and, yes, the death of the polar bear.

The Energy Action Coalition, of which Campus Progress is a partner, launched PowerVote, a campaign to build a 1,000,000 youth movement to stop the most pressing issue of our generation

Everyone’s favorite mustachioed New York Times columnist received a less-than-warm welcome at Brown University this Tuesday. According to Inside Higher Ed,

Brown University is condemning the actions of two people — at least one of whom is a student — who threw a pie-like substance Tuesday night at Thomas Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times who was speaking on the campus. Friedman took a few minutes to clean himself up, but continued his talk…The Providence Journal reported that the incident involved paper plates with shamrock-colored whipped cream.

Shamrock-colored pie-like substance, eh? Along with the pie, protestors threw fliers in the air to explain their pastry-based attack:

Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face because of his sickeningly cheery applause for free market capitalism’s conquest of the planet, for telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change. From carbon trading to biofuels, these distractions are dangerous in and of themselves, while encouraging inaction with respect to the true problems at hand.

Fair enough.

UPDATE: Via Matt Yglesias, check out this video of the dastardly pastry incident.

It's less funny than the anonymous pie-from-the-audience scenario I pictured in my head, and decidedly less fulfilling than publicly besting Friedman's arguments.

    The other day a friend from school asked me to help her find a climate change article for a class she is teaching. After looking around for a short while, I recalled reading one titled "Beyond the point of no return" by Ross Gelbspan, one of the most exciting authors on global warming. This is not the traditional "We can do it!!" article because Ross, along with most other climate gurus, recognizes that we are past that point. This article is a sobering reminder about the situation that we are in and our moral imperative to do something about it.

    The first time I read this I was deeply touched and sent it to everyone I know. I feel that now is a good time to bring it back and urge all of you to read it.

      If you had to read one and only one article on climate change, make it this one.

Via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 

Eight Seattle-area students, aged 10 to 18, are finishing up their three-week bicycle trip to raise awareness of climate change today, Earth Day.

The trip began March 31 in Washington, D.C. and will end in Seattle today, after logging over 5,400 miles, for the Global to Local celebration. 

The students rode bicycles across the country for the project, called An Inconvenient Ride, stopping in cities that had signed on to Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols' Climate Protection Initiative.  

Check out their Web site, produced by the students, at An Inconvenient Ride.  There you can see cyclist bios, photos from the trip and read daily blogs.

Yesterday I went out to Sushi with my progressive co-workers and, as a good environmentalist, I sent them information about which fish are sustainable to eat along with a friendly message about how 90% of our fisheries are depleted. I didn't want to guilt trip, just educate, cause I don't think that people will change their habits because of gloom and doom heckling. Problem is, more I read about our fishy troubles, more I realize what a dire situation we are in and that however we can get people to change their ways, it needs to happen fast. 

Once again, today's youth loudly proclaimed that the answer to our problems lies in efficiency, not ethanol.

A group of High Schoolers beat out over 250 college students in a Shell competition to build the most efficient car. 

This competition is yet another example that we already have all the technologies we need to fix much of our little 'carbon problem'. If a bunch of high schoolers can build a 2,843 mpg car, I'm pretty sure giant corporate car manufacturers can figure out how to reach 30 mpg by 2020 (our current fuel efficiency goal and Europe's present standard). 

 The government needs to stop lavishing Archer Daniel Midland, Cargill, Peabody, Massey, Ford, GM, Chrysler and other traditional corporate overlords with research money for ethanol, advanced coal, and nuclear waste disposal. It is time that the government invest in technology deployment and forcing corporations to stop wining and adopt the most recent efficient technologies. 

 This switch from R&D to technology deployment will have widespread effects, from drastically and quickly reducing our Greenhouse Gasses to reducing the financial burden on low income families due to increases in energy prices.

 So-called "Generation Q" is leading, will our predecessors follow our leadership and enthusiasm or will they continue in their own path leading to our doom?

The archaic and medieval practice of selling indulgences whereby sinners were assured that they would escape or evade purgatory was abolished by the Christian church in 1563.

When applied to the practice of selling carbon permits for the purpose of curbing carbon emission, it seems ludicrous. Yes, the environment is not ours to sell. And yes, allowing the indulgence of some but not all does not seem quite the "moral" practice. Although, this conceptual adaptation requires the action of environmentally destructive pollution to be "sinning," which is contentious, but I can accept. Where I do disagree, is in the labeling of the exercise of regulating carbon emission, (through a gradual, innovative and cost-effective method of cap-and-trade) as the allowance, through monetary payment, of monitored "sinning."

Had we allowed any of the seven deadly sins to become this destructive, would we simply dismiss the method of reducing their destructiveness because those of questionable (environmental) moral standing foolishly partisan the environmentalist community? (You can argue for the destructiveness of the other deadly sins if you like, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that the socioeconomic ramifications of climate change will be life-changing, to the point of resource war, mass famine, global instability).

Two "non-indulgent" alternatives:  

Voluntary market-mechanisms (VMMs) may propose "win-win" solutions at not cost to the social or economic infrastructure. It may bring previously uninvolved participants onto the environmental platform and it does increase peer influenced decision-making, which isn't always so bad. The major problems, which rule out VMMs as a pragmatic policy decision are: 

Foremost, the performance of "least-cost" upgrades. Corporations, Governments, or individuals who participate in these voluntary environmental programs make upgrades based on social status and market benefit. There is not fear of punishment or reparation.

Its ineffective targeting of affected areas does not create any incentive for major carbon-emitters to improve local conditions, leaving local communities to argue it's idiocy.

The other solution, command-and-control regulation, is far less practical in terms of creativity and progressive qualities. Yes command-and-control regulations establish a cap, is quick and effective, relatively unambiguous, and produces stable rule-enforcements. However, the problems should be obvious.

-Command-and-control regulations provide no incentive to advance green technologies, placing all the responsibility on government subsidies and private donors. 

-it relies solely on the power of the state and the accuracy of a newly established carbon register.

-It creates new, heedless bureaucracy. Not to mention, it would be very costly. 

Ok, so cap-and-trade:

C-and-T would be flexible. It would not conflict with capitalism or conflict with the way the state and global free-market economy have progressed (more appropriate- regressed) over the past decade. It would thrive on capitalism, and as we can already see evolving, create a global competition to develop renewable technologies. It would also install a cap on emissions, the same as command-and-control, but create incentive for polluting institutions to lower their emissions, as to increase profit revenues and punish those to pollute too much. Yes, it would create new bureaucracy, but far less than would be established under command-and-control, and through the punishment polluting institutions and the auction of carbon permits, a new source of revenue would be created. It can also target specific locales more effectively than voluntary market-mechanisms and would allow for marketed PR in specific polluting-institution locations. 

I would not consider this to be a purchase and sale of indulgences. If it is the most immediate and economically congruent method to save the planet, don't we have to adopt it?

We believe that a child born tonight should have the same chances whether she arrives in the barrios of San Antonio or the suburbs of St. Louis, on the streets of Chicago or the hills of Appalachia.

             The beginning of the presidential race was extremely exciting for climate change fanatics, with all the democratic contenders trying to one-up each other and McCain taking back the Republican lead despite his calls for higher fuel efficiency and climate protection.

             But my enthusiasm gave way to frustration as I looked into each candidate's platforms. Edwards was the only candidate calling for moratorium on coal and no nuclear. Barrack Obama and Hillary continue touting the 'clean coal' bandwagon while McCain claims that nuclear, and nuclear alone, will solve the climate crisis. Just in case you have been giving in to the brainwashing by the cutzie 'clean coal' commercials on CNN, or McCain's rhetoric on nuclear, let me explain why, as youth, we should be up in arms about these solutions... that are not.

It’s Getting Hot in Here has a great post on how little global warming has been mentioned in the presidential debates. Apparently, out of 2,769 questions, only 3 were about global warming – the same number as were asked about UFOs.

Personally, I find the priorities of the US media are much more frightening than alien abduction.

China is often pointed to as ready to overtake the United States as the biggest polluter in the world, but news today suggests that China seeks to avoid that reputation. China has announced that they're outlawing the distribution of free plastic bags in stores and restaurants as well as banning the production of thin plastic bags. Instead, customers will be asked to use reusable cloth bags or baskets when shopping.

What's interesting about this is such a simple law that could really make sense in the United States has never gained momentum. What's holding us back? The thin plastic bag lobby? There are a lot of labor unions and businesses afraid of China cutting to the front of the line in the business world, but now, environmentalists may have to fear they're getting shown up by China as well.