Archibald is a student at The University of Chicago and participated in our recent Chicago Challenge.  In the Challenge students were asked to comment on the proposition: Agree or Disagree: The United States should end ALL fossil fuel subsidies. The entire question can be found at Citizen of the Week Special Contest and was posted by another one of our winners Kyle Gracey who is a teaching assistant to Professor Sabina Shaikh (one of our founders and authors).

Methane similar to CO2 can capture heat/energy as it is reflected from the earth back into space.  The problem with Methane is that its ability to soak up heat/energy is 30X (Thirty times) that of CO2.  This means that a large amount of Methane released into the atmosphere - when the catalyst of that event is man made and in a very condensed time frame could cause the type of rapid and uncontrollable change in global climate that many have been concerned about.

The following is an excellent article from NRDC Arctic Methane Emissions Sound Potential Climate Alarm 

A very worthwhile read.

Something to consider when looking at green-collar jobs, or looking for green-collar jobs, is that while the market is, frankly, rather over-inflated to sound like these jobs are being formed out of thin air. They’re not. Instead, what we’re seeing is a shift within the existing workforce, as more technologies – think energy, construction, etc. – are being phased out and updated with more environmentally conscious technologies. This is just the market moving with the tide of demand. In order to remain competitive, technical workers must begin to embrace green technology, or risk being phased out themselves.

I want to be sure to emphasize that green jobs are not limited to technical jobs. Anything that provides a social or environmental benefit, from the public, private or non-profit sector, can be defined as a green job. The term is rather flexible. As such, these jobs are less on display. Think about many of the Eco-businesses that have sprouted up over the past few years. Eco-entrepreneurs are in fact the real source of eco-job creation. Small businesses, start-ups, non-profit organizations are providing an amazing amount of movement within the field, though such jobs are less visible and less profitable (it’s likely that there is a correlation there).

The great, or horribly confusing, depending on your personal perspective, aspect of environmental issues is the interdisciplinary nature of the problems. This has a profound impact on the nature of green jobs. One person from only one background, experience, or perspective, won’t be able to attack an environmental problem with such a wicked, multi-disciplined nature. More and more, we are seeing a need for intricate and effective teamwork, teams of intelligent individuals from a variety of backgrounds, in order to really confront and solve today’s environmental concerns. There is a need for efficient communication and problem solving skills that may be a step above those which are needed within a single discipline. Just think of all the jargon and lingo an individual discipline requires fluency in. Now imagine a group of people from completely different educational or professional backgrounds getting together to solve a problem. It’s like a room full of people speaking completely different languages. Not even an interpreter or translator is enough to make a situation like that effective. There is a need to look beyond individual disciplines in order to best approach and provide solutions to issues that are only going to get worse.

While green jobs may not be replacing the current void within the market, there is a shift occurring. A phasing out of old tech as demand for clean, green energy is on the rise. More people are looking for jobs that are environmentally influential because more people are inspired to take action and work towards effective solutions. Environmental issues inspire passionate responses. Many people are striving to influence the global issues, or even their local issues, through green jobs. I feel this is encouraging. There has long been a need for this kind of paradigm shift. As the competition for green jobs increases, there will also be an increase in eco-entrepreneurship, more jobs will be created, and just think how many people that would leave with the job, literally, of solving environmental problems. That thought is impressive, and frankly, rather inspiring.

If you’re looking for a job in the green market, the following links are great places to start, but there are tons of resources online these days.

Green Collar Blog has a great tutorial on how and where to start your search.
Environmental Career, Eco Jobs, Eco.org, Eco Employ, Great Green Careers, and Green Job Search are just a few examples of the many environmentally focused job boards available.

For more information on environmental living and green jobs, read more articles by Rachel Tamigniaux at www.thechicecologist.com, or follow her on twitter, @rtamigniaux.

Rock on guys!

Read full article here.

If you have a few, spare moments in your day, please go and check out the website EducaPoles, and educate yourself on issues far deeper than what your Twitter feed tells you.

How you can get involved:

1. Join Earth Hour
Become part of the movement and encourage family and friends to do the same.

2. Show your support
Wherever you will be at 8:00pm on March 27th, ask your place of occupation, city, school, or household to turn off the lights.

3. Spread the word
With the growing age of technology, using social network devices, not only work wonders in your social life, but also for the planet. Use facebook, twitter, or add information to your own blog. If you can utilize twitter, tweet @earthhour. Secondly, rally your local council or community group to run an Earth Hour event for your community.

To get even more inspired with climactic music, (follow the link below):
Earth Hour 2010

As of the past week or so several Coal State members of Congress have introduced legislation that would prevent the EPA from moving forward with limits on emissions - which it currently has the legal right to do under The Clean Air Act.

According to Democratic Congressman from Virgina  Rick Boucher “EPA regulation of greenhouse gases would be the worst outcome for the coal industry and coal-related jobs,” (YES - that is the point!) 

Who ever said that bipartisanship in Washington DC was dead - should get a load of this project - Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (Democrat) of West Virginia - in total over 40 members of the Senate who so far appear to be jumping on board this effort to gut EPA and save King Coal.

A recent article Coal-State Dems Unveil Bills Stalling EPA Emission Curbs from The New York Times covers the matter well.

Presidential Vetoes - In the United States a President can Veto (meaning “ I forbid”!) a piece of legislation.  If the President should veto a bill the Congress still has the opportunity to pass then bill into law with two thirds vote.  I would hope that President Obama - with current commanding majorities in the House and Senate would not see his veto over ridden - especially on a topic that is or was among his top priorities upon entering  office.  All modern Presidents have used their Veto power (including President Obama - once to date…)

Thus far this so called bill is not near the Presidents desk - but if it should move there - we must demand that President Obama be clear - he has the power to Veto and he will use it.  The congress of the United States has absolutely dropped the ball on climate legislation.  We have a President who is willing to work within the framework of the Executive Branch to move toward a better world, he must be clear that it his intention to do so - with or without the help of the members of the Coal lobby.

Consider the causalities of each to determine which is more dangerous. As expected there is a fair amount of difficulty in calculating how many people die from either terrorism or climate change. The data is far from perfect, but is important to compare the threats each pose. Unfortunately, both suffer from ambiguous definitions and each is riddled with disagreements of their effects. For instance, some figures include fatalities in the war zone of Iraq when considering terrorism. Others might consider deaths from hunger as circumstance of climate change.  Conversely, terrorism might occur in a war zone while malnutrition can be a result of climate change.

The Body Count:

In the Anatomy of a Silent Crisis, released by the Global Humanitarian Forum, it is estimated that 300,000 people die per year due to climate change. This is a conservative estimate that mainly accounts for weather-related disasters such as drought, floods, heat waves, desertification, and rises in sea levels.

The Worldwide Incidents Tracking System, a counter terrorism database, recorded about 11,400 deaths as a result of terrorism in 2009 and 15,800 in 2008. The National Counterterrorism Center that operates the database defines terrorism when “groups or individuals acting on political motivation deliberately or recklessly attack civilians/non-combatants”.

The Problem:

If climate change is predicted to kill almost 25 times more people than terrorism, why does the US spend upwards of 15 times more money on combating terrorism than researching climate change? ($55 billion projected in 2011 on counter-terrorism versus a yearly average of $3.4 billion spent on climate change research and technologies). The fact is 99% of causalities relating to climate change occur in developing nations. It is an absolute tragedy that 50 of the least developed nations emit less than 1% of the world’s carbon (Anatomy of a Silent Crisis). The media and our government share some responsibility for the perception of these problems. Regardless, as global citizens we have a duty to be informed about the consequences of our actions.

It is expected that the US would dedicate more money to counter-terrorism. The United States has an obligation to protect its citizens and the immediacy of terrorism is a grave threat. However, if the numbers tell us anything about climate change, it is that we need to dedicate more resources to its solution. Domestically we might not experience the adverse effects of climate change for a few decades. This is all the more reason to start addressing the problem immediately.

The Solution:

The unpredictable nature of climate change and terrorism make them difficult to prepare and anticipate. In addressing these issues one would hope for better data and analysis because both are linked much more closely than previously thought. The Pew Charitable Trust recently created a separate institute to discover the intersection of terrorism and climate change; I previously posted the video they released, Climate Patriots. This is at the crux of solving these global issues. No matter what your political views or how you previously felt about “global warming”, climate change has a direct link to terrorism. The fact is that climate change creates disasters; disasters create civil unrest, and civil unrest breeds terrorism.

Terrorism and climate change are not so far removed from our daily lives. It boils down to how we as a community view and address these issues. You do play a role in their solutions. We, as citizens of the greatest country in the world, have an obligation to demand the truth and be informed of the causes and consequences of both climate change and terrorism. Try to step back from your preconceived notions of each and search out different points of view, weight conflicting statistics, and always consider the source of your information. The more these issues are discussed, argued, and challenged the more transparent they become and progress is made.

This post was originally appeared on PineMark.com.

-Joe @PineMark

Climate legislation is returning to the Senate’s docket, and leaders on Capitol Hill are hoping that this version, a compromise bill spearheaded by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), can pass without getting caught in the morass of money and politics that has delayed action so far.

A long, long time ago…

Remember, there was a time when Congress was going to pass climate legislation before the international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. President Barack Obama was going to show up with a bill in hand and lead the world towards a better climate future. After the House passed its climate bill in June 2009, the Senate began discussing climate change, and a first stab by Sen. Kerry and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) went nowhere. Now, Kerry has turned to less liberal colleagues to draft an alternative that would appeal to moderates and even Republicans.

Now the Massachusetts senator is promising that climate change isn’t dead. A new bill is coming—more information may be in the offing as early as today, as Kate Sheppard reports at Mother Jones.

Third time’s the charm

Sen. Kerry is trying a new tactic to pass climate legislation. He’s waiting to release his plan until he knows the bill has the 60 supporters it needs to circumvent a filibuster. The details have not been hammered out yet, and even the Senators who’ve been in talks with Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman don’t seem to have a clear sense of what will be in the version that will emerge.

In the House, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, released an ambitious draft of the legislation, let lobbyists and members of Congress fight over it, and passed a much-changed edition months later. Sen. Kerry tried a similar plan on his side of Capitol Hill (that was the Kerry-Boxer bill), but it did not work.

With this piece of legislature, Sens. Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman are working out the compromises before they release the legislation. Both reporting and speculation about their bill say that it will abandon the cap-and-trade system passed in the House. Cap-and-trade restricts carbon emissions across the economy; a variation on that policy that the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill may favor will limit the system to a few sectors.

Will it work?

Kerry’s expected bill may be a much weaker plan than any proposed so far, yet it is still not certain that the Senate will support it. The lead authors of the bill have been meeting with conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans, as Sheppard reports, but those targets have not promised support yet. Coming out of a meeting, Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) told reporters: “There were some interesting things that were discussed in there and like everything else in the United States Senate, the devil is in the details.”

From a distance, banner-day climate legislation still seems possible. Environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Foundation, and the National Resources Defense Council believe that they will see a bill this year that caps carbon. These green groups would be able to live with the incentives handed to industry groups so far, according to Campus Progress’ Tristan Fowler.

“There are compromises [that can go] too far. Fortunately, I don’t think we’re getting near that territory at the moment,” Josh Dorner, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, told Fowler.

Sickly green

Before getting too excited about stamping a green seal of approval on Congress’ legislation, consider Johann Hari’s testimony in The Nation about the relationships between environmental groups and the industries that they oppose.

Hari has reported on climate change issues for years, and at first, he “imagined that American green groups were on these people’s side in the corridors of Capitol Hill, trying to stop the Weather of Mass Destruction. But it is now clear that many were on a different path—one that began in the 1980s, with a financial donation.”

Hari argues that as environmental groups began to reach out to polluters, handing them awards for green behavior and accepting support from their deep pockets, they learned to compromise too readily and accept political excuses for delaying action on climate change. While in other realms these compromises might fly, when the stakes are as high as they are on environmental issues, that behavior turns the stomach.

“You can’t stand at the edge of a rising sea and say, ‘Sorry, the swing states don’t want you to happen today. Come back in fifty years,’” Hari writes.

The green future

When Kerry, Lieberman and Graham do release the compromised bill, watch for a tsunami of money and influence that could pack the bill with prizes for specific industries—or derail it altogether. Just this week, the natural gas industry’s lobbyists told The Hill, a D.C.-based newspaper, that they were ready to fight with the coal industry over incentives in the Senate bill. At AlterNet, Harvey Wasserman writes that the nuclear industry spent $645 million in the past decade to get back into the energy game, according to a new report from American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop. (Hint: that $645 million is working in their favor.)

In the Senate, the influence of oil companies will play an important role, according to David Roberts at Grist.

“While coal has a lot of power in the House, oil has enormous power in the Senate, particularly over the conservadems and Republicans needed to put the bill over the top,” Roberts explains.

No matter what legislation passes and what incentives it contains, environmentalists need to continue putting pressure on their representatives in Congress and on national environmental groups to push back against polluting industries and work to fix the world’s climate.

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