New Greenpeace chief: "civil disobedience appears to be the only way"

Watch Kumi Naidoo, the new executive director for Greenpeace International, address climate change in his "inauguration YouTube video":

"After several years in the anti-poverty movement I came to see how the struggles against poverty and the struggle to reverse catastrophic climate change are two sides of the same coin. All our different struggles are linked together."

That reminded me of my Blog Action Day 2008 post: Pollution, poverty, war, lights, camera... action!

"If we are able to understand the moment we live in and respond with the courage to create a green economy, to push for an energy revolution and to fundamentally ensure that we can share this planet in a more equitable way we can reverse the dangerous path that humanity has started on. [...] at a time where civil disobedience appears to be the only way we can actually push our governments Greenpeace's methodology offers us the most promise."

Found via Lara Smallman's Put Humans First at TH!NK.

Holy Water War continues

I have largely given up covering the Israel-Palestine strife over water. But I keep bookmarking stories at my Water of The Holy Land Diigo list. However, Al Jazeera just released this video:

"This policy is not a new policy, there are lots of examples of Israel trying to force Palestinians to leave their land so settlements can expand easily [...] This is an organised Israeli policy designed to prevent the development of the Palestinian economy - knowing that agriculture is a major sector within the economy."
- Nader al-Khateeb, Friends of the Earth in the Middle East

"This scarcity has affected every walk of life for Palestinians [...] A greater amount of water has to be granted to them."
- Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International

Sources: Palestinian farmers denied access to water in disputed West Bank, Amnesty: Israel withholds water from Palestinians.

I'm TH!NKing about climate change

As duly advertised I'm spending my time blogging about climate change and COP15 in a European Journalism Centre project called "TH!NK ABOUT IT". Thus, not a lot of updates here lately.

But ironically, this has caused some bookmarked stories to go nowhere as I haven't addressed conflict at TH!NK yet. Here is a couple. Later I'll round up some Ecowar at TH!NK, stay tuned.

Climate change could kill 250,000 children
Ouch! That's the kind of headline that makes even hardened bloggers like me ask for some less pathos. Dead children, very well.

over 900 million children in the next generation will be affected by water shortages and 160 million more children will be at risk of catching malaria – one of the biggest killers of children under five – as it spreads to new parts of the world.

Not that controversial. It's just a bit of math and the obvious observation that climate change will aggravate existing issues. But I don't know about the "spin value" of this story.

Fix climate change or else, say military top brass

"Environmental security and climate change in particular are now issues which threaten world security and peace," says Brigadier General Wendell King of the US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Remind me to get my hands on the latest print of New Scientist.

International Alert Report: Climate change and conflict

The impact of climate change will make the poorest communities across the world poorer. Many of them are already affected by conflict and instability and thus face a dual risk. International Alert’s new research finds that the consequences of climate change will fuel violent conflict, which itself hinders the ability of governments and local communities to adapt to the pressures of climate change. We’ve identified 46 countries at risk of violent conflict and a further 56 facing a high risk of instability as a result of climate change.

Just sharing a handful of recent links. Will post much more at TH!NK soon, I promise.

Video: NATO chief on security challenge from climate change

Climate change will have a significant impact on our overall security environment both in the south and in the north.

All of his examples have been detailed here at Ecowar. But he says two things: One, the solutions should be political, not military; and two, the military can contribute by lowering CO₂ emissions.

Bloody Blog Action Day 2009

I did an Ecowar post for Blog Action Day 2008 on poverty but for the 2009 topic on climate change I ended up with a rant on the Danish (COP15 host) government: Something is rotten in the state of COP15 at TH!NK ABOUT IT. Perhaps I "should" have summed up the previous Ecowar and climate change stuff and cross posted. In stead I have scavenged the thousands of "BAD09" posts for something bloody.

The Ugly

First check out AgWired / Climate Change is BAD Topic - an agriculture news site proposed a boycott of BAD09 because of what they say is misinformation, quoting this:

Agricultural production around the world is responsible for nearly as much greenhouse gas emissions as all forms of transportation put together, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the food choices we make have a big impact on the climate

Misinformation? I don't know exactly about the transportation, but from my own recent Food and climate change - save or doom the world while eating:

Current trends in food choices point toward increased environmental effects [...] agriculture is the main source of the increase in atmospheric methane (~50%) and nitrous oxide (~60%)

The Bad

The boycott did not seem to be very effective anyway. In fact, a blog called "Farming First" eagerly posted Research Linking Climate-induced Conflict and Farming, basically a couple of selective quotes from The Economist / Climate change and warfare: Cool heads or heated conflicts?. Very interesting indeed.

a newly published study analysing the historical connection between war and climate throws into question the assumption that rising temperatures and violence go hand in hand [...] in the more remote past the effects of cold weather on harvests led to supply shortages, and that these increased the likelihood of people fighting over food and the land needed to produce it [...] the reason the relationship between warfare and cold vanishes in the mid-18th century is that this is the moment when the industrial revolution began.

So far, so good. Reminds me of the good old Zhang paper on historical Chinese data (see Climate change and conflict frequency). Their conclusion:

The lesson, rather, is that the way to minimise the likelihood of climate-induced conflict in the future is to continue the process of crop improvement (for example, by taking advantage of the potential of genetic engineering) so that heat- and drought-tolerant varieties are available; to make farmers aware of these new crops and encourage their use; and to promote free trade and non-agricultural economic development.

I'm sorry but that's a bit naive for me. Although not the type to entirely write off GMOs as part of the solution a couple of questions immediately comes to mind that The Economist fail to address. Such as: given the history of GMOs so far - mainly developed for high tech intensive farming - how do they see it improve to reach the 3rd world where the problems are? If industrialization caused climate change how exactly should more of it solve another problem caused by climate change in turn? Etc. Perhaps The Economist should read this BAD09 conrtibution: Food, famine and climate change – India’s scorched earth (about our various good ideas for India's agriculture).

The Good

BAD09 was hosted by Change.org (which also angered AgWired above, go figure). At least two of their regular blogs addressed conflict on BAD09: Humanitarian Relief / How Climate Change Causes Conflict and Stop Genocide / Conflict in the Age of Climate Change. They got a video an lots of links, check them out.

On for some real blogging: 100 Effects of Global Warming. Appears to be our "normal guy" copy/pasting a bit? Anyway...

People Are Dying
150,000: Number of people the World Health Organization estimates are killed by climate-change-related issues every year.
U.N.: As Dangerous As War
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said this year that global warming poses as much of a threat to the world as war.
Genocide in Sudan
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon charges, “Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.

The Best

By far the best Blog Action Day contribution is Energy, climate change, and the indignant desert birds of willful self-destruction. Proof: It has an image of an army of marching penguins with machine guns. Oh, and it's also an original, analytical and well written article.

We cannot separate the energy crisis from the climate change crisis. In economic and environmental terms, both are two sides of the same coin. [...] global climate change is more than merely a technical or structural problem. It has deep historical and cultural roots and a system of unspoken values instilled from the beginning of civilization and passed from generation to generation.

Excellent but apart from mentioning the "wars for oil" this is what we get on conflict:

Vulnerable regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the island nations of the Pacific will face food and water shortages, catastrophic flooding, unprecedented refugee crises, religious conflict, and the spread of contagious diseases. These will demand massive humanitarian aid efforts and/or a military response

Of course I linked to that story here at Ecowar already in August ;-)