Wallerstein on the University

This short post by Immanuel Wallerstein looks at the history of the University in market economies. As members of an academic institution, it's important for us to reflect on its role in the world and the forces that shape the University. Furthermore, Wallerstein connects the University with it's role in facilitating a 'transition' to a less chaotic world system.

". . . the universities were supposed to play the role of one major locus (not of course the only one) of analysis of the realities of our world-system. It is such analyses that may make possible the successful navigation of the chaotic transition towards a new, and hopefully better, world order. At the moment, the turmoil within the universities seems no easier to resolve than the turmoil in the world-economy. And even less attention is being paid to it."

Higher education under attack

by Immanuel Wallerstein

For a very long time there were only a few universities in the world. The total student body in these institutions was very small. This small group of students was drawn largely from the upper classes. Attending the university conferred great prestige and reflected great privilege.

This picture began to change radically after 1945. The number of universities began to expand considerably, and the percentage of persons in the age range that attended universities began to expand. Furthermore, this was not merely a question of expansion in those countries that had already had universities of note. University education was launched in a large number of countries that had few or no university institutions before 1945. Higher education became worldwide.

The pressure for expansion came from above and below. From above, governments felt an important need for more university graduates to ensure their capacity to compete in the more complex technologies that were required in the exploding expansion of the world-economy. And from below, large numbers of the middle strata and even of the lower strata of the world's populations were insistent that they have access to higher education in order to improve considerably their economic and social prospects.

The expansion of the universities, which was remarkable in size, was made possible by the enormous upward expansion of the world-economy after 1945, the biggest in the history of the modern world-system. There was plenty of money available for the universities, and they were happy to make use of it.

Of course, this changed the university systems somewhat. Individual universities became much larger and began to lose the quality of intimacy that smaller structures provided. The class composition of the student body, and then of the professorate, evolved. In many countries, expansion not only meant a reduction in the monopoly of upper strata persons as students, professors, and administrators, but it often meant that "minority" groups and women began to have wider access, which had previously been totally or at least partially denied.

This rosy picture came into difficulty after about 1970. For one thing, the world-economy entered its long stagnation. And little by little, the amount of money that universities received, largely from the states, began to diminish. At the same time, the costs of university education continued to rise, and the pressures from below for continued expansion grew even stronger. The story ever since has been that of the two curves going in opposite directions - less money and increased expenses.

By the time we arrived at the twenty-first century, this situation became dire. How have universities coped? One major way was what we have come to call "privatization." Most universities before 1945, and even before 1970, were state institutions. The one significant exception was the United States, which had a large number of non-state institutions, most of which had evolved from religiously-based institutions. But even in these U.S. private institutions, the universities were run as non-profit structures.

What privatization began to mean throughout the world was several things: One, there began to be institutions of higher education that were established as businesses for profit. Two, public institutions began to seek and obtain money from corporate donors, which began to intrude in the internal governance of the universities. And three, universities began to seek patents for work that researchers at the university had discovered or invented, and thereupon entered as operators in the economy, that is, as businesses.

In a situation in which money was scarce, or at least seemed scarce, universities began to transform themselves into more business-like institutions. This could be seen in two major ways. The top administrative positions of universities and their faculties, which had traditionally been occupied by academics, now began to be occupied by persons whose background was in business and not university life. They raised the money, but they also began to set the criteria of allocation of the money.

There began to be evaluations of whole universities and of departments within universities in terms of their output for the money invested. This might be measured by how many students wished to pursue particular studies, or how esteemed was the research output of given universities or departments. Intellectual life was being judged by pseudo-market criteria. Even student recruitment was being measured by how much money was brought in via alternative methods of recruitment.

And, if this weren't enough, the universities began to come under attack from a basically anti-intellectual far right current that saw the universities as secular, anti-religious institutions. The university as a critical institution - critical of dominant groups and dominant ideologies - had always met with resistance and repression by the states and the elites. But their powers of survival had always been rooted in their relative financial autonomy based on the low real cost of operation. This was the university of yesteryear, not of today - and tomorrow.

One can write this off as simply one more aspect of the global chaos in which we are now living. Except that the universities were supposed to play the role of one major locus (not of course the only one) of analysis of the realities of our world-system. It is such analyses that may make possible the successful navigation of the chaotic transition towards a new, and hopefully better, world order. At the moment, the turmoil within the universities seems no easier to resolve than the turmoil in the world-economy. And even less attention is being paid to it.

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global]

Tea Party, Politics and Global Warming

A special report from the Yale Center for Climate Change Communication, Politics & Global Warming: Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and the Tea Party reports how the members of each political party respond to the issue of global warming. For people who have studied US attitudes toward climate change, most of the results are familiar. However, for the first time, this report separates the views of Tea Party members on global warming from the traditional political categories of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. So, that's where I'll focus.

As shown in the chart below, Tea Party members are both least likely to believe in global warming and most entrenched in their opinions (feeling that they are more informed and don't need additional information to form their opinion). 

Consistent with the strength of their views, they are less likely to change their view based on empirical experience (i.e., extreme weather; specifically, either the heat wave of the summer or the snowstorms of the winter).

The public is notoriously bad at 'knowledge' questions. For example, the national average is identically split on the level of scientific consensus: 41% say most scientists think global warming is happening and 41% think there is 'a lot of disagreement among scientists'. This is, of course, an empirical issue. One can count up the views of the scientific community as Naomi Oreskes and others have done. No one did particularly well when asked "what proportion of climate scientists think that global warming
is happening?" Only 18% of Democrats and Independents got the right answer (81-100%) while 1% of Tea Party members gave that response. In contrast to all other groups, Tea Party members were more likely to understate the level of consensus (suggesting only 21-40% of climate scientists believed global warming was occurring).

There is a lot more in the report, but,  in general, three additional areas stand out:
1) Compared to the rest of the population, Tea Party members are more individualist and less egalitarian in their personal values.
2) Compared to the rest of the population, Tea Party members distrust social institutions and information sources of all types.
3) Despite these fundamental differences, there are some specific climate relevant policies that Tea Party members support in greater numbers than other groups (building more nuclear plants) or hold views generally similar to the rest of the population (funding research into renewable energy, creating bike paths/lanes, increasing availability of public transportation).

In sum, there is a strong and entrenched opposition to the way the climate debate has been framed in the US. The Tea Party members are, and will remain, able to block any 'big government' policy focused on 'global warming.' It is time to reframe the debate in terms of energy and other areas where progress is possible.

More Fracking News

A few days ago I noted the glee attending shale gas in the exploration community -- it's not just in North America, it's all over the world!!! To date, most of the controversy surrounding fracking -- the process used to release gas from shale formations -- has centered on water quality issues. No more.

A recent report by Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, concludes that the carbon footprint of unconventional gas production from shale is worse for the climate than burning coal. His analysis, to be published later this week in Climatic Change Letters, found that somewhere from 3.6 percent to 7.9 percent of methane, the chief component of natural gas and a potent greenhouse gas (72 times as potent as carbon dioxide according to IPCC), is leaking into the atmosphere at various points along the shale gas production life cycle. As the graph below shows, this makes natural gas from shale the least desirable fuel of the bunch, at least in terms of its impact on the climate.

Not surprisingly, given the stampede to shale gas in the industry, Howarth's report is being refuted in detail before it is even public. See, in particular, this discussion at Energy in Depth.

Additional information on the debate is available here.

Keith Kloor has also weighed in on the debate over at his Frontier Earth blog.

Global Warming and 'Over-Resonance'

11.16.2010 - Dire messages about global warming can backfire, new study shows

A study from UC Berkeley appears to prove the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann: that dire warnings about ecological disasters, such as global warming, can cause "over-resonance", i.e. a reactive state that actually backfires and undermines an adequate response to the crisis.

Luhmann's Ecological Communication (1989) proposes that social systems lack the capacity to accurately perceive environmental conditions. The usual response of society to environment is "under-resonance," i.e. the social system does not recognize problems in the environment, or just barely. However, when economic, political and scientific systems present information about ecological crisis in an alarming way, it causes social "over-resonance," an "effect-explosion" in which paradoxically, social systems become paralyzed and unable to respond effectively to the problem.

The study from U. C. Berkeley found that when facts about global warming were reported in an alarming way to subjects, they indicated that they doubted the veracity of the report, even among those whose ideals of a "just world" were fairly high. Furthermore, the overwhelmed subjects were less likely to take corrective action to address the problem.

Conversely, when subjects were presented with the same facts on global warming but provided with possible solutions, subjects were more likely to indicate that they believed in the veracity of the report and that they would modify their behaviour to address the problem.

Half the Oxygen We Breathe

We have been discussing the impact of global warming on the oceans. The recent report that 40% of the ocean's phytoplankton has disappeared since the 1950s is certainly alarming, but in a kind of distant, second-hand way. "Gee, isn't it too bad that so many ocean fish and plants are dying. Guess we'll have to get our food from some other source. It's a good thing we have salmon farming." Or some other such blasé response, like the disappearance phytoplankton is rather tragic but not something that will affect our immediate well-being.

Until you realize that ocean phytoplankton produce HALF THE OXYGEN WE BREATHE. Ok? Think about that next time you get in the car and switch on the ignition.

from the press release:

The findings contribute to a growing body of scientific evidence indicating that global warming is altering the fundamentals of marine ecosystems. Says co-author Marlon Lewis, "Climate-driven phytoplankton declines are another important dimension of global change in the oceans, which are already stressed by the effects of fishing and pollution. Better observational tools and scientific understanding are needed to enable accurate forecasts of the future health of the ocean." Explains co-author Boris Worm, "Phytoplankton are a critical part of our planetary life support system. They produce half of the oxygen we breathe, draw down surface CO₂, and ultimately support all of our fisheries. An ocean with less phytoplankton will function differently, and this has to be accounted for in our management efforts."

Climate Change is Happening Now

Climate change is real and it's happening now. In the early decade, climate change was presented as a phenomenon that was underway, but whose real effects wouldn't be noticeable by the general public for decades, perhaps even for a century or more. Predictions were often forecast for "2100" or "by the end of the century." It's nearly impossible for humans to imagine time on that scale. It's common to think in terms of generations, "my children, my grandchildren," but beyond that, humans care little about what might happen a century from now.

But not to worry, we will no longer have to strain to imagine a future world with an inhospitable climate. Climate change is already well underway and it's noticeable effects are happening now. Two recent stories from the world press highlight the immediate catastrophic effects of global climate change.

(1) The first report, that global average temperatures have gone up every decade since the 1980s, is a searing set of facts that counteracts a recent notion, propagated by some climate change skeptics, that there has been no additional warming since 1998. The report on global average temperature rise over the last 40 years is not a prediction, its a fact. It has already happened. And it's not based on climate change prediction models, it's based on direct observation. From CBC News:

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/07/29/climate-change-study-noaa.html

A new report by 300 scientists has flagged the past decade as the hottest on record and compiled 10 "unmistakable" indicators that the world is getting warmer.

But the scientists mostly stayed away from discussions about the cause.

The 2009 State of the Climate report released Wednesday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration combines data on temperatures, humidity, sea levels, sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover going back to 1940 or 1850, depending on the type of data.

Results of the study

The study found recent decades have seen increases in:

Air temperature over land.
Sea-surface temperature.
Air temperature over oceans.
Sea level.
Ocean heat.
Humidity.
Temperature in the troposphere, the "active-weather" layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth's surface

At the same time, there has been a decrease in:
Arctic sea ice.
Glaciers.
Spring snow cover in the northern hemisphere.

In addition, the calendar decade of 2000-09 was the warmest of the last five decades, and that each of the last three decades was warmer than the one before. Overall, the temperature has gone up a little over 0.5 C over the past 50 years.

Deke Arnt, co-editor of the report and chief of the NOAA Climatic Data Centre's Climate Monitoring Branch said that while this doesn't seem like a lot, it has "already altered our planet."

The report cites recent extreme weather events in different parts of the world, including heavy rains and flooding, record heat waves and severe droughts, along with melting glaciers and sea ice.

"When we follow decade-to-decade trends using multiple data sets and independent analyses from around the world, we see clear and unmistakable signs of a warming world," said Peter Stott, one of the report's 300 contributors, in a statement.

Stott is head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution for the Met Office Hadley Centre in the U.K., one 160 research groups in 48 countries, including Canada, that contributed to the report. CBC News was unable to reach any of the Canadian co-authors.

The report, published annually in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society since 1990, does not include climate model projections.


(2) The second report Is even more chilling: that 40% of the phytoplankton of the ocean has disappeared over the past century, especially since the 1950s, and can be directly attributed to warming ocean surface temperatures and ocean acidification. From the Independent, UK:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-dead-sea-global-warming-blamed-for-40-per-cent-decline-in-the-oceans-phytoplankton-2038074.html#

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Thursday, 29 July 2010S
NASA

The dead sea: Global warming blamed for 40 per cent decline in the ocean's phytoplankton
Microscopic life crucial to the marine food chain is dying out. The consequences could be catastrophic

The microscopic plants that support all life in the oceans are dying off at a dramatic rate, according to a study that has documented for the first time a disturbing and unprecedented change at the base of the marine food web.

Scientists have discovered that the phytoplankton of the oceans has declined by about 40 per cent over the past century, with much of the loss occurring since the 1950s. They believe the change is linked with rising sea temperatures and global warming.

If the findings are confirmed by further studies it will represent the single biggest change to the global biosphere in modern times, even bigger than the destruction of the tropical rainforests and coral reefs, the scientists said yesterday.

Cochabamba People's Conference on Climate Change

World People’s Conference on Climate Change

and the Rights of Mother Earth

April 22nd, Cochabamba, Bolivia

PEOPLES AGREEMENT

Today, our Mother Earth is wounded and the future of humanity is in danger.

If global warming increases by more than 2 degrees Celsius, a situation that the “Copenhagen Accord” could lead to, there is a 50% probability that the damages caused to our Mother Earth will be completely irreversible. Between 20% and 30% of species would be in danger of disappearing. Large extensions of forest would be affected, droughts and floods would affect different regions of the planet, deserts would expand, and the melting of the polar ice caps and the glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas would worsen. Many island states would disappear, and Africa would suffer an increase in temperature of more than 3 degrees Celsius. Likewise, the production of food would diminish in the world, causing catastrophic impact on the survival of inhabitants from vast regions in the planet, and the number of people in the world suffering from hunger would increase dramatically, a figure that already exceeds 1.02 billion people.The corporations and governments of the so-called “developed” countries, in complicity with a segment of the scientific community, have led us to discuss climate change as a problem limited to the rise in temperature without questioning the cause, which is the capitalist system.

We confront the terminal crisis of a civilizing model that is patriarchal and based on the submission and destruction of human beings and nature that accelerated since the industrial revolution.

The capitalist system has imposed on us a logic of competition, progress and limitless growth. This regime of production and consumption seeks profit without limits, separating human beings from nature and imposing a logic of domination upon nature, transforming everything into commodities: water, earth, the human genome, ancestral cultures, biodiversity, justice, ethics, the rights of peoples, and life itself.

Under capitalism, Mother Earth is converted into a source of raw materials, and human beings into consumers and a means of production, into people that are seen as valuable only for what they own, and not for what they are.

Capitalism requires a powerful military industry for its processes of accumulation and imposition of control over territories and natural resources, suppressing the resistance of the peoples. It is an imperialist system of colonization of the planet.

Humanity confronts a great dilemma: to continue on the path of capitalism, depredation, and death, or to choose the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.

It is imperative that we forge a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings. And in order for there to be balance with nature, there must first be equity among human beings. We propose to the peoples of the world the recovery, revalorization, and strengthening of the knowledge, wisdom, and ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples, which are affirmed in the thought and practices of “Living Well,” recognizing Mother Earth as a living being with which we have an indivisible, interdependent, complementary and spiritual relationship. To face climate change, we must recognize Mother Earth as the source of life and forge a new system based on the principles of:

• harmony and balance among all and with all things;
• complementarity, solidarity, and equality;
• collective well-being and the satisfaction of the basic necessities of all;
• people in harmony with nature;
• recognition of human beings for what they are, not what they own;
• elimination of all forms of colonialism, imperialism and interventionism;
• peace among the peoples and with Mother Earth;

The model we support is not a model of limitless and destructive development. All countries need to produce the goods and services necessary to satisfy the fundamental needs of their populations, but by no means can they continue to follow the path of development that has led the richest countries to have an ecological footprint five times bigger than what the planet is able to support. Currently, the regenerative capacity of the planet has been already exceeded by more than 30 percent. If this pace of over-exploitation of our Mother Earth continues, we will need two planets by the year 2030. In an interdependent system in which human beings are only one component, it is not possible to recognize rights only to the human part without provoking an imbalance in the system as a whole. To guarantee human rights and to restore harmony with nature, it is necessary to effectively recognize and apply the rights of Mother Earth. For this purpose, we propose the attached project for the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, in which it’s recorded that:

• The right to live and to exist;
• The right to be respected;
• The right to regenerate its bio-capacity and to continue it’s vital cycles and processes free of human alteration;
• The right to maintain their identity and integrity as differentiated beings, self-regulated and interrelated;
• The right to water as the source of life;
• The right to clean air;
• The right to comprehensive health;
• The right to be free of contamination and pollution, free of toxic and radioactive waste;
• The right to be free of alterations or modifications of it’s genetic structure in a manner that threatens it’s integrity or vital and healthy functioning;
• The right to prompt and full restoration for violations to the rights acknowledged in this Declaration caused by human activities.

The “shared vision” seeks to stabilize the concentrations of greenhouse gases to make effective the Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which states that “the stabilization of greenhouse gases concentrations in the atmosphere to a level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic inferences for the climate system.” Our vision is based on the principle of historical common but differentiated responsibilities, to demand the developed countries to commit with quantifiable goals of emission reduction that will allow to return the concentrations of greenhouse gases to 300 ppm, therefore the increase in the average world temperature to a maximum of one degree Celsius.

Emphasizing the need for urgent action to achieve this vision, and with the support of peoples, movements and countries, developed countries should commit to ambitious targets for reducing emissions that permit the achievement of short-term objectives, while maintaining our vision in favor of balance in the Earth’s climate system, in agreement with the ultimate objective of the Convention.

The “shared vision for long-term cooperative action” in climate change negotiations should not be reduced to defining the limit on temperature increases and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but must also incorporate in a balanced and integral manner measures regarding capacity building, production and consumption patterns, and other essential factors such as the acknowledging of the Rights of Mother Earth to establish harmony with nature.

Developed countries, as the main cause of climate change, in assuming their historical responsibility, must recognize and honor their climate debt in all of its dimensions as the basis for a just, effective, and scientific solution to climate change. In this context, we demand that developed countries:

• Restore to developing countries the atmospheric space that is occupied by their greenhouse gas emissions. This implies the decolonization of the atmosphere through the reduction and absorption of their emissions;

• Assume the costs and technology transfer needs of developing countries arising from the loss of development opportunities due to living in a restricted atmospheric space;

• Assume responsibility for the hundreds of millions of people that will be forced to migrate due to the climate change caused by these countries, and eliminate their restrictive immigration policies, offering migrants a decent life with full human rights guarantees in their countries;

• Assume adaptation debt related to the impacts of climate change on developing countries by providing the means to prevent, minimize, and deal with damages arising from their excessive emissions;

• Honor these debts as part of a broader debt to Mother Earth by adopting and implementing the United Nations Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.

The focus must not be only on financial compensation, but also on restorative justice, understood as the restitution of integrity to our Mother Earth and all its beings.

We deplore attempts by countries to annul the Kyoto Protocol, which is the sole legally binding instrument specific to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by developed countries.

We inform the world that, despite their obligation to reduce emissions, developed countries have increased their emissions by 11.2% in the period from 1990 to 2007.

During that same period, due to unbridled consumption, the United States of America has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 16.8%, reaching an average of 20 to 23 tons of CO2 per-person. This represents 9 times more than that of the average inhabitant of the “Third World,” and 20 times more than that of the average inhabitant of Sub-Saharan Africa.

We categorically reject the illegitimate “Copenhagen Accord” that allows developed countries to offer insufficient reductions in greenhouse gases based in voluntary and individual commitments, violating the environmental integrity of Mother Earth and leading us toward an increase in global temperatures of around 4°C.

The next Conference on Climate Change to be held at the end of 2010 in Mexico should approve an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period from 2013 to 2017 under which developed countries must agree to significant domestic emissions reductions of at least 50% based on 1990 levels, excluding carbon markets or other offset mechanisms that mask the failure of actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

We require first of all the establishment of a goal for the group of developed countries to achieve the assignment of individual commitments for each developed country under the framework of complementary efforts among each one, maintaining in this way Kyoto Protocol as the route to emissions reductions.

The United States, as the only Annex 1 country on Earth that did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, has a significant responsibility toward all peoples of the world to ratify this document and commit itself to respecting and complying with emissions reduction targets on a scale appropriate to the total size of its economy.

We the peoples have the equal right to be protected from the adverse effects of climate change and reject the notion of adaptation to climate change as understood as a resignation to impacts provoked by the historical emissions of developed countries, which themselves must adapt their modes of life and consumption in the face of this global emergency. We see it as imperative to confront the adverse effects of climate change, and consider adaptation to be a process rather than an imposition, as well as a tool that can serve to help offset those effects, demonstrating that it is possible to achieve harmony with nature under a different model for living.

It is necessary to construct an Adaptation Fund exclusively for addressing climate change as part of a financial mechanism that is managed in a sovereign, transparent, and equitable manner for all States. This Fund should assess the impacts and costs of climate change in developing countries and needs deriving from these impacts, and monitor support on the part of developed countries. It should also include a mechanism for compensation for current and future damages, loss of opportunities due to extreme and gradual climactic events, and additional costs that could present themselves if our planet surpasses ecological thresholds, such as those impacts that present obstacles to “Living Well.”

The “Copenhagen Accord” imposed on developing countries by a few States, beyond simply offering insufficient resources, attempts as well to divide and create confrontation between peoples and to extort developing countries by placing conditions on access to adaptation and mitigation resources. We also assert as unacceptable the attempt in processes of international negotiation to classify developing countries for their vulnerability to climate change, generating disputes, inequalities and segregation among them.

The immense challenge humanity faces of stopping global warming and cooling the planet can only be achieved through a profound shift in agricultural practices toward the sustainable model of production used by indigenous and rural farming peoples, as well as other ancestral models and practices that contribute to solving the problem of agriculture and food sovereignty. This is understood as the right of peoples to control their own seeds, lands, water, and food production, thereby guaranteeing, through forms of production that are in harmony with Mother Earth and appropriate to local cultural contexts, access to sufficient, varied and nutritious foods in complementarity with Mother Earth and deepening the autonomous (participatory, communal and shared) production of every nation and people.

Climate change is now producing profound impacts on agriculture and the ways of life of indigenous peoples and farmers throughout the world, and these impacts will worsen in the future.

Agribusiness, through its social, economic, and cultural model of global capitalist production and its logic of producing food for the market and not to fulfill the right to proper nutrition, is one of the principal causes of climate change. Its technological, commercial, and political approach only serves to deepen the climate change crisis and increase hunger in the world. For this reason, we reject Free Trade Agreements and Association Agreements and all forms of the application of Intellectual Property Rights to life, current technological packages (agrochemicals, genetic modification) and those that offer false solutions (biofuels, geo-engineering, nanotechnology, etc.) that only exacerbate the current crisis.

We similarly denounce the way in which the capitalist model imposes mega-infrastructure projects and invades territories with extractive projects, water privatization, and militarized territories, expelling indigenous peoples from their lands, inhibiting food sovereignty and deepening socio-environmental crisis.

We demand recognition of the right of all peoples, living beings, and Mother Earth to have access to water, and we support the proposal of the Government of Bolivia to recognize water as a Fundamental Human Right.

The definition of forests used in the negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which includes plantations, is unacceptable. Monoculture plantations are not forests. Therefore, we require a definition for negotiation purposes that recognizes the native forests, jungles and the diverse ecosystems on Earth.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be fully recognized, implemented and integrated in climate change negotiations. The best strategy and action to avoid deforestation and degradation and protect native forests and jungles is to recognize and guarantee collective rights to lands and territories, especially considering that most of the forests are located within the territories of indigenous peoples and nations and other traditional communities.

We condemn market mechanisms such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and its versions + and + +, which are violating the sovereignty of peoples and their right to prior free and informed consent as well as the sovereignty of national States, the customs of Peoples, and the Rights of Nature.

Polluting countries have an obligation to carry out direct transfers of the economic and technological resources needed to pay for the restoration and maintenance of forests in favor of the peoples and indigenous ancestral organic structures. Compensation must be direct and in addition to the sources of funding promised by developed countries outside of the carbon market, and never serve as carbon offsets. We demand that countries stop actions on local forests based on market mechanisms and propose non-existent and conditional results. We call on governments to create a global program to restore native forests and jungles, managed and administered by the peoples, implementing forest seeds, fruit trees, and native flora. Governments should eliminate forest concessions and support the conservation of petroleum deposits in the ground and urgently stop the exploitation of hydrocarbons in forestlands.

We call upon States to recognize, respect and guarantee the effective implementation of international human rights standards and the rights of indigenous peoples, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples under ILO Convention 169, among other relevant instruments in the negotiations, policies and measures used to meet the challenges posed by climate change. In particular, we call upon States to give legal recognition to claims over territories, lands and natural resources to enable and strengthen our traditional ways of life and contribute effectively to solving climate change.

We demand the full and effective implementation of the right to consultation, participation and prior, free and informed consent of indigenous peoples in all negotiation processes, and in the design and implementation of measures related to climate change.

Environmental degradation and climate change are currently reaching critical levels, and one of the main consequences of this is domestic and international migration. According to projections, there were already about 25 million climate migrants by 1995. Current estimates are around 50 million, and projections suggest that between 200 million and 1 billion people will become displaced by situations resulting from climate change by the year 2050.

Developed countries should assume responsibility for climate migrants, welcoming them into their territories and recognizing their fundamental rights through the signing of international conventions that provide for the definition of climate migrant and require all States to abide by abide by determinations.

Establish an International Tribunal of Conscience to denounce, make visible, document, judge and punish violations of the rights of migrants, refugees and displaced persons within countries of origin, transit and destination, clearly identifying the responsibilities of States, companies and other agents.

Current funding directed toward developing countries for climate change and the proposal of the Copenhagen Accord are insignificant. In addition to Official Development Assistance and public sources, developed countries must commit to a new annual funding of at least 6% of GDP to tackle climate change in developing countries. This is viable considering that a similar amount is spent on national defense, and that 5 times more have been put forth to rescue failing banks and speculators, which raises serious questions about global priorities and political will. This funding should be direct and free of conditions, and should not interfere with the national sovereignty or self-determination of the most affected communities and groups.

In view of the inefficiency of the current mechanism, a new funding mechanism should be established at the 2010 Climate Change Conference in Mexico, functioning under the authority of the Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and held accountable to it, with significant representation of developing countries, to ensure compliance with the funding commitments of Annex 1 countries.

It has been stated that developed countries significantly increased their emissions in the period from 1990 to 2007, despite having stated that the reduction would be substantially supported by market mechanisms.

The carbon market has become a lucrative business, commodifying our Mother Earth. It is therefore not an alternative for tackle climate change, as it loots and ravages the land, water, and even life itself.

The recent financial crisis has demonstrated that the market is incapable of regulating the financial system, which is fragile and uncertain due to speculation and the emergence of intermediary brokers. Therefore, it would be totally irresponsible to leave in their hands the care and protection of human existence and of our Mother Earth.

We consider inadmissible that current negotiations propose the creation of new mechanisms that extend and promote the carbon market, for existing mechanisms have not resolved the problem of climate change nor led to real and direct actions to reduce greenhouse gases. It is necessary to demand fulfillment of the commitments assumed by developed countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change regarding development and technology transfer, and to reject the “technology showcase” proposed by developed countries that only markets technology. It is essential to establish guidelines in order to create a multilateral and multidisciplinary mechanism for participatory control, management, and evaluation of the exchange of technologies. These technologies must be useful, clean and socially sound. Likewise, it is fundamental to establish a fund for the financing and inventory of technologies that are appropriate and free of intellectual property rights. Patents, in particular, should move from the hands of private monopolies to the public domain in order to promote accessibility and low costs.

Knowledge is universal, and should for no reason be the object of private property or private use, nor should its application in the form of technology. Developed countries have a responsibility to share their technology with developing countries, to build research centers in developing countries for the creation of technologies and innovations, and defend and promote their development and application for “living well.” The world must recover and re-learn ancestral principles and approaches from native peoples to stop the destruction of the planet, as well as promote ancestral practices, knowledge and spirituality to recuperate the capacity for “living well” in harmony with Mother Earth.

Considering the lack of political will on the part of developed countries to effectively comply with commitments and obligations assumed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, and given the lack of a legal international organism to guard against and sanction climate and environmental crimes that violate the Rights of Mother Earth and humanity, we demand the creation of an International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal that has the legal capacity to prevent, judge and penalize States, industries and people that by commission or omission contaminate and provoke climate change.

Supporting States that present claims at the International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal against developed countries that fail to comply with commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol including commitments to reduce greenhouse gases.

We urge peoples to propose and promote deep reform within the United Nations, so that all member States comply with the decisions of the International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal.

The future of humanity is in danger, and we cannot allow a group of leaders from developed countries to decide for all countries as they tried unsuccessfully to do at the Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen. This decision concerns us all. Thus, it is essential to carry out a global referendum or popular consultation on climate change in which all are consulted regarding the following issues; the level of emission reductions on the part of developed countries and transnational corporations, financing to be offered by developed countries, the creation of an International Climate Justice Tribunal, the need for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and the need to change the current capitalist system. The process of a global referendum or popular consultation will depend on process of preparation that ensures the successful development of the same.

In order to coordinate our international action and implement the results of this “Accord of the Peoples,” we call for the building of a Global People’s Movement for Mother Earth, which should be based on the principles of complementarity and respect for the diversity of origin and visions among its members, constituting a broad and democratic space for coordination and joint worldwide actions.

To this end, we adopt the attached global plan of action so that in Mexico, the developed countries listed in Annex 1 respect the existing legal framework and reduce their greenhouse gases emissions by 50%, and that the different proposals contained in this Agreement are adopted.

Finally, we agree to undertake a Second World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in 2011 as part of this process of building the Global People’s Movement for Mother Earth and reacting to the outcomes of the Climate Change Conference to be held at the end of this year in Cancun, Mexico.

Will the Real #1 Driver of Climate Change Please Stand Up?

As I study energy and climate, statistics fly at me from every direction and it gets really hard to sort things out. Everything, it seems, is "the largest single producer of carbon emissions" and there is no way to sort out which really is the largest.

NASA recently conducted a study of all the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and their net effects on climate change.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51744

Clearly, electric power production is the largest single source of C02, but it is offset by aerosol-cloud effects and sulfates that actually cause global cooling, thus the net global warming effect of electricity production is about the same as the Industry sector.

Likewise, the road transportation sector produces less C02 than the Industry and power sectors, but road transportation does not have the aerosol offsets that would reduce it's impact on global warming. Thus, while the road transportation sector produces less C02, it actually contributes more to global warming than Industry and Power—today.

However, if you look at the title of the article, it says "Road Transportation Emerges as Key Driver of Warming." While is this is true in a qualified sense (it is "a" key driver), that statement doesn't make as much sense when you look at the first graph. Electric power production produces the most C02, and in fact, the NASA data shows that in the future, assuming BAU, electric power production will continue to be the largest driver of global warming, with road transportation second. As we build cleaner power plants that produce fewer aerosols, the warming effect of power production will increase dramatically. Road Transportation as "the" key driver only appears when you look at the second graph, which is an estimate of emissions for 2020.

What the article doesn't consider is the behavioral effects of car use. Driving increases casual consumption exponentially. The reason why we shop more, eat out at restaurants more, live, work and play at greater distances, is because of the power and convenience of the automobile to get us to every destination cheaply and efficiently. Cars exponentially increase the speed and amount that we are able to consume. This increased consumption creates a demand for more products and services, which in turn creates a demand for more electric energy production and more industrial production, which also leads to an increase in road transportation. So in that sense, road transportation is indeed a KEY driver in global warming. Ecologists call this effect a "positive feedback loop."

Major Conservation Groups Accept Big Money from Big Polluters

Democracy Now featured Johann Hari who wrote an article in The Nation about the practice of major conservation groups accepting large donations from the largest polluters in the world. In turn, these conservation groups, including Conservation International, the Sierra Club, and the National Wildlife Federation, back the polluters' position on climate change and actually enhance their ability to increase emissions. The conservation groups set up PR outfits that portray their polluting donors as "green". But there are large environmental justice groups that don't accept corporate donations, including Greenpeace.

Interestingly, Hari argues that the grassroots environmental movement in Britain has refused to play this political game and has used direct action to stop the building or expansion of new coal-fired power plants and airports. Climate Camp UK is one such group that has successfully used direct action to stop new coal-fired power plants.

Forests and Carbon in Canada

Deforestation, estimated to be responsible for up to 20 percent of global human generated emissions contributing to climate change, has long been a major focus of climate change policy. Most of the emphasis, however, has been on tropical deforestation. The reasons for this are fairly straightforward: 1) tropical forests are much more effective carbon sinks than are temperate forests (they grow faster and, hence, remove carbon at a more rapid rate) and 2 the volume of forest being cut is larger in the tropics than in temperate regions.

However, recent work by Werner Kurz and others in the Canadian Forestry Service has shifted attention to the forests of British Columbia and surrounding areas which are being devastated by an outbreak of the pine beetle.




According to the Montana Department of Environment, the mountain pine bark beetle (a species native to the region) has benefited from a variety of climate related changes:

1) Prolonged periods of cold weather in the -20 to -40 F range kill pine bark beetle larvae embedded in the thin bark of Lodgepole trees. However, winter weather over recent decades has afforded very few of these extended cold snaps. ... 2)Recent late summer drought conditions have stressed Lodgepole forests. Weakened individual trees have long been known to issue a biological invitation to beetle attack. During its adult mating phase in late summer, adult scout beetles identify weakened trees and issue an aggregating pheromone to other beetles to key-in and attack the tree. The apparent combination of large numbers of drought-weakened trees and the growing population of beetles perpetuates the infestations.

As a result BC's forests, which have traditionally been viewed as a carbon sink, have become a major source of CO2 emissions. As shown in the diagram below, Canadian Forestry estimates now identify the pine beetle infestation as the single largest cause of CO2 emissions in Canada, exceeding by a significant amount the substantially more criticized emissions from the oil sands.



As a result, BC is now embroiled in a policy debate about how to proceed: harvest and burn the wood rapidly (which implies a big hit in short-medium term C02 emissions from the burning in order to get the forest back acting as a carbon sink through active reforestation) versus letting it decay slowly (and, hence, having a lower rate of emissions over a longer period coupled with a longer wait for the forest to return to its role as a carbon sink). The details of these, and other related debates, are nicely summarized in a recent article in the January 9, Globe and Mail, From Green Hero to Carbon Villain.

At a more fundamental level, these developments underscore the uncertainties inherent in attempting to devise a carbon accounting system for a planet that is in the process of profound transformation due to climate change. A few short years of warm winters and dry summers and a whole region goes from being a major carbon sink to a major source of emissions.

Green House Gas: China, US and the World

COP 15: Let's all follow along

The 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (bureaucratically known as COP -- for Conference of the Parties -- in recognition of the countries that were 'parties' to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) started today in Copenhagen. While most of the delegates spent the day cooling their heels in line (4 hours to register!), a variety of developments took place that were of interest.

1) Greenpeace activists scaled the roof of Canada's Parliament and unfurled banners. Shots of the event are here, videos here. They are posted in chronological order with the last footage being the first you encounter -- so be sure and go to the last page to view the earliest (and most interesting) footage from the beginning of the action.

2) Canada got noticed in the 'Fossil of the Day' award.

3) The US Environmental Protection Agency issued an 'endangerment finding' that greenhouse gases are a health issue and, hence, the EPA can regulate them administratively -- that is without congressional approval. This is the big club that the Obama administration hopes will spur Congress into action.

For those of you wishing to follow along on the two week journey that the negotiations will involve, Time has a listing of the 5 things to watch for at the conference. There are a number of options for following along and determining whether or not they occur -- from the traditional to the virtual:

A) Real-time updates on Twitter are available here.
B) Lots of the events are being webcast. Check out the list here.
C) The Climate Action Network puts out a daily newsletter.

Social and Natural Systems in the Decline of North America's Megafauna

One of the most striking characteristics of humans is that we are adaptive generalists. Unlike most species, which are adapted to specific ecological niches, humans have radiated out to populate virtually every land-based ecosystem on the planet. We can do this because we build shelters, transport food and otherwise make arrangements for the necessities of life in those parts of the globe that would otherwise be inhospitable.

It is this capacity, the ability to transform situations to meet our needs, that lies at the root of the interconnection between social and natural systems. The most obvious example of this interconnection is climate change, where humans are pumping the carbon stored in the ground as fossil fuels into the atmosphere and, hence, fundamentally altering both atmospheric chemistry and the global climate.

But what lies at the root of this human capacity? The standard answer is technology. Through technology we transcend the limitations and constraints placed on other species. But a recent article by Christopher Johnson in Science (Science 20 November 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5956, pp. 1072 - 1073) detailing the process of magafaunal decline in North America casts doubt on this account. Here is the story in brief:

Twenty thousand years ago, North America had a more impressive array of big mammals than Africa does today; by 10,000 years ago, 34 genera of these mammals were gone, including the 10 species that weighed more than a ton. Many other drastic changes occurred in this interval, all of which have been advocated as possible causes of megafaunal extinction. The climate flipped from cold to warm, then back to cold in a 1000-year chill (the Younger Dryas), before rapidly rewarming. There were more, larger fires, and the structure and species composition of vegetation changed drastically. People arrived, and the Clovis culture—with a characteristic style of beautifully crafted stone spear points—flourished for less than 1000 years. Some scientists have argued that an extraterrestrial object struck Earth ~13,000 years ago, triggering the Younger Dryas, starting fires, killing the megafauna, and putting an end to the Clovis culture. ....

What about people? It has long been argued that Clovis artifacts signal the first arrival of people in North America south of the boreal ice sheets and that the Clovis people were specialized big-mammal hunters who caused a crash of megafaunal populations from prehuman abundance to extinction within a few hundred years. This “blitzkrieg” scenario is supported by the fact that terminal dates on megafaunal fossils range from 13,300 to 12,900 years ago, which coincides almost exactly with the Clovis period. But the new data show that the megafaunal decline had begun more than a thousand years earlier. If people were responsible for that decline, they must have been pre-Clovis settlers. The existence of such people has been controversial, but archaeological evidence is slowly coming to light and is consistent with their arrival around the beginning of the megafaunal decline. It is beginning to look as if the greater part of that decline was driven by hunters who were neither numerous nor highly specialized for big-game hunting. Clovis technology may have been a feature of the endgame, possibly reflecting an intensified hunting strategy that developed once megafauna had become rare, possibly wary, and harder to hunt. ...

Before 14,800 years ago, the environment around the site studied by Gill et al. was an open savanna or parkland, probably with scattered spruce and rare broad-leaved trees growing over a short grass-dominated pasture, and almost no fi re. As the megafauna declined, woody biomass increased, mainly by growth of broad-leaved trees that had presumably been suppressed by the large herbivores. The result was a transitory spruce/broadleaf woodland, the like of which does not exist today. Big fires broke out ~14,000 years ago, and for the next few thousand years, major fires returned every few centuries. These changes were widespread: Fire increased throughout North America ~14,000 years ago, and the transitory “no-analog” woodland extended over a vast area.

In short, we begin with an ecosystem dominated by open savanna and numerous species of megafauna. Humans arrive, and apparently without the aid of significant technology, kill off the majority of the megafauna thus setting loose a cascade of ecological changes that ultimately result in the replacement of the savanna by a "no-analog" woodland. Thus we have a clear, early example of the interconnection of social and natural systems, but one that seems not to implicate technology as the fundamental driver.

What Global Warming?

We sure had a cold summer here in New Brunswick. I didn't even go swimming until the heat finally hit in August. Summer was unusually cold not only in this Province, but all over the United States. Isn't that proof that we're moving toward a cooling period?



Right . . . If you were in North America this year, you were in the spot with the most abnormally cool temperatures on the planet. Nonetheless, NASA reported 2009 as the hottest June to October temperatures on record, tied only with 2005.

"What makes these record temps especially impressive is that we’re at “the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century,” according to NASA."

But it was in the Arctic that temperatures were above normal by up to 5 degrees Celsius. Most of the surface warming is happening at the Poles, especially in the Arctic Circle, where Alaskan and Siberian permafrost, and Greenland's glaciers, are melting at ever increasing rates.

The problem is that temperatures in the temperate zone (like the US) have such a wide range of natural variability that it becomes difficult to sense--from every day experience--that the planet is warming.

But aside from increasing surface heat, the greatest global temperature rise comes from a warming of the ocean.

Still, it's easy to understand why people get confused. It also makes it hard to get the planet's largest carbon emitter, the United States, to do something about climate change when people are wearing sweaters on summer evenings in July.