Should forests be thinned to reduce fires, or should they be tended to store the maximum amount of carbon in their trees to prevent global warming?
It is not a simple question, as researchers at Oregon State University explain in a new study in Ecological Applications, a professional journal.
Stephen R. Mitchell, an OSU researcher now at Duke University, and other scientists studied the Coast Range and the west side of the Cascade Mountains and found that salvage logging, understory removal, prescribed fire and other techniques can reduce fire severity. But these same techniques will almost always reduce carbon storage even if the woody products that are removed are then used to produce electricity or make cellulosic ethanol, they found.
"It had been thought for some time that if you used biofuel treatments to produce energy, you could offset the carbon emissions from this process," said Mark Harmon, an OSU professor of forest ecosystems and society and a co-author of the study. "But when you actually go through the data, it doesn't work."Harmon said that policymakers should consider using forests on the west side of the Cascades, the wetter side, for carbon sequestration, and focus fuel-reduction efforts near people, towns and infrastructure.
However, the Oregon State findings may not be applicable to other forests. "It is a fertile debate," said Andrea Tuttle, former head of the California Department of Forestry and an authority on forest carbon regulation. "But be careful what forest type you are talking about." Studies of other forests have produced different results, she explained, citing a UC Berkeley study of warmer, drier Sierran forests that found that measures to increase fire resistance were also applicable to long-term carbon sequestration.
The study comes at a time when state governments and the U.S. Congress, as well as other nations, are looking to forests to offset emissions from automobiles, power plants and other sources of carbon dioxide, which, scientists say, is heating the planet to dangerous levels. Trees suck carbon out of the atmosphere and store it for long periods. California recently enacted strict rules to govern the use of offsets for carbon sequestration in forests.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Climate impasse at G-8 summit leaves nations mired
Developing nations led by China and India refused Wednesday to back lofty but long-term targets proposed by the Group of 8 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, balking at reluctance by leaders of the world's biggest economies to move more quickly on their own. Inability to bridge the gap between rising carbon-emitting countries such as China and the longtime polluters within the G-8 underscores the steep challenges involved in attempting to strike a comprehensive bargain to contain global warming.
The impasse comes down to the politically sensitive issue of who goes first.President Obama and his counterparts in the G-8, who are holding two days of meetings in the central Italian mountain town of L'Aquila, offered broad agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The statement pledged to slash global emissions by 50%, led by reductions of 80% by the G-8 countries.They also prepared to offer new financial incentives for developing nations to join the effort.
But the G-8 stopped well short of pledging to take aggressive action that could curb emissions more quickly -- at the cost of higher energy prices and a feared worsening of the global economy.And neither the broad promises of future action nor the relatively modest financial incentives were likely to break the standoff between the most advanced economies and the emerging powerhouses. Countries such as China, India and Brazil are unwilling to take the first steps to cut emissions that could choke off economic growth, instead demanding that wealthier nations take the lead."China's not going to do anything until the developed countries send a signal that they're going to do something," said Michael Oppenheimer, a geoscientist at Princeton University and a longtime participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.The standoff at the summit perpetuates a divide that must be bridged this year if there is to be a global agreement on curbing emissions.The United Nations is convening a meeting in Copenhagen in December aimed at forging a binding consensus on targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But unless China and other developing nations can be persuaded to sign on to an accord, Obama may find it difficult -- if not impossible -- to convince Congress to go along.The stalemate on the international stage mirrors Obama's problem at home. Though the House approved a major climate bill last month, Republicans and other critics have unleashed a hailstorm of criticism. They argue that emissions limits by the United States and other advanced economies alone would have relatively little effect on global warming, while potentially harming the domestic economy.Obama's climate bill, which narrowly passed the House, could send a strong signal if it becomes law, said Dirk Forrister, who was chairman of the White House climate change task force under President Clinton and now is managing director of the financial firm Natsource LLC.But, he said, "the U.S. Senate will not go along with anything unless it sees some pretty serious action from developing countries." That, analysts say, sums up Obama's conundrum as he tries to push for a meaningful climate agreement during formal treaty negotiations in Denmark this winter. "It looks like it's going to be a pretty tough fight [in Copenhagen], based on what happened in these meetings in Italy," Forrister said.U.S. leaders hinted that a broad coalition of developing and developed nations could announce agreement today to team up on research on renewable energy and technology to scrub and store greenhouse emissions from coal. Michael Froman, Obama's point man at the summit and lead staff negotiator, argued that the major industrial nations' joint statement favoring an 80% reduction in their emissions by 2050 represented "significant cooperation" -- even though it came up short of the draft language that the White House had supported.The G-8 targets roughly followed those in Obama's domestic climate bill.The G-8 countries also set a global goal of 50% emissions reductions by mid-century, and declared that they recognized "the broad scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above preindustrial levels ought not to exceed" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).They did not announce any specific plans to cut emissions or adopt any short- or mid-term reduction targets. The United States pushed, and failed, to get developing nations to join in the reduction pledge. "In any negotiation, you put in a number of points," Froman said
Sometimes they make it in and sometimes they don't." The statement that did not come -- the one that would have included China, Brazil and other developing countries -- is the one that matters, he acknowledged.
But both Froman and chief Obama climate negotiator Todd Stern argued that there was plenty of room to work out an agreement before the Copenhagen summit."It's a negotiation. Countries may make concessions further down the road," Stern said in an interview. Obama will chair a meeting of the world's largest emitters, including both developing and developed nations, today in Italy.
Analysts said the Obama administration could strengthen its hand in future negotiations with another victory or two at home -- Senate approval of a climate bill and, even better, passage by Congress of a conference version of the bill that Obama could sign into law before the Copenhagen talks."His most powerful weapon is a piece of signed legislation," said Melinda L. Kimble, senior vice president of the United Nations Foundation and a former climate negotiator in the Clinton administration. "If he has that in his pocket," she added, "everything else he has is icing on the cake."
The impasse comes down to the politically sensitive issue of who goes first.President Obama and his counterparts in the G-8, who are holding two days of meetings in the central Italian mountain town of L'Aquila, offered broad agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The statement pledged to slash global emissions by 50%, led by reductions of 80% by the G-8 countries.They also prepared to offer new financial incentives for developing nations to join the effort.
But the G-8 stopped well short of pledging to take aggressive action that could curb emissions more quickly -- at the cost of higher energy prices and a feared worsening of the global economy.And neither the broad promises of future action nor the relatively modest financial incentives were likely to break the standoff between the most advanced economies and the emerging powerhouses. Countries such as China, India and Brazil are unwilling to take the first steps to cut emissions that could choke off economic growth, instead demanding that wealthier nations take the lead."China's not going to do anything until the developed countries send a signal that they're going to do something," said Michael Oppenheimer, a geoscientist at Princeton University and a longtime participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.The standoff at the summit perpetuates a divide that must be bridged this year if there is to be a global agreement on curbing emissions.The United Nations is convening a meeting in Copenhagen in December aimed at forging a binding consensus on targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But unless China and other developing nations can be persuaded to sign on to an accord, Obama may find it difficult -- if not impossible -- to convince Congress to go along.The stalemate on the international stage mirrors Obama's problem at home. Though the House approved a major climate bill last month, Republicans and other critics have unleashed a hailstorm of criticism. They argue that emissions limits by the United States and other advanced economies alone would have relatively little effect on global warming, while potentially harming the domestic economy.Obama's climate bill, which narrowly passed the House, could send a strong signal if it becomes law, said Dirk Forrister, who was chairman of the White House climate change task force under President Clinton and now is managing director of the financial firm Natsource LLC.But, he said, "the U.S. Senate will not go along with anything unless it sees some pretty serious action from developing countries." That, analysts say, sums up Obama's conundrum as he tries to push for a meaningful climate agreement during formal treaty negotiations in Denmark this winter. "It looks like it's going to be a pretty tough fight [in Copenhagen], based on what happened in these meetings in Italy," Forrister said.U.S. leaders hinted that a broad coalition of developing and developed nations could announce agreement today to team up on research on renewable energy and technology to scrub and store greenhouse emissions from coal. Michael Froman, Obama's point man at the summit and lead staff negotiator, argued that the major industrial nations' joint statement favoring an 80% reduction in their emissions by 2050 represented "significant cooperation" -- even though it came up short of the draft language that the White House had supported.The G-8 targets roughly followed those in Obama's domestic climate bill.The G-8 countries also set a global goal of 50% emissions reductions by mid-century, and declared that they recognized "the broad scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above preindustrial levels ought not to exceed" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).They did not announce any specific plans to cut emissions or adopt any short- or mid-term reduction targets. The United States pushed, and failed, to get developing nations to join in the reduction pledge. "In any negotiation, you put in a number of points," Froman said
Sometimes they make it in and sometimes they don't." The statement that did not come -- the one that would have included China, Brazil and other developing countries -- is the one that matters, he acknowledged.
But both Froman and chief Obama climate negotiator Todd Stern argued that there was plenty of room to work out an agreement before the Copenhagen summit."It's a negotiation. Countries may make concessions further down the road," Stern said in an interview. Obama will chair a meeting of the world's largest emitters, including both developing and developed nations, today in Italy.
Analysts said the Obama administration could strengthen its hand in future negotiations with another victory or two at home -- Senate approval of a climate bill and, even better, passage by Congress of a conference version of the bill that Obama could sign into law before the Copenhagen talks."His most powerful weapon is a piece of signed legislation," said Melinda L. Kimble, senior vice president of the United Nations Foundation and a former climate negotiator in the Clinton administration. "If he has that in his pocket," she added, "everything else he has is icing on the cake."
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Akshay Kumar brand ambassador of IIFA's 'green movement'
Bollywood star Akshay Kumar has been named the brand ambassador of International Indian Film Academy's (IIFA) Green Global Foundation, which champions the issue of global warming through various international events.
'Being the brand ambassador for the Green Globe Foundation is a great honour for me as it gives me an opportunity to highlight the fight against global warming,' the actor said in Mumbai Monday.
In an attempt to strengthen its commitment towards fighting the issue of climate change, IIFA launched the Green Global Foundation this year.
The foundation is the initiative of IIFA and Wizcraft International Entertainment.
United Nations Environmental Programme and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), headed by R.K. Pachauri, are the partners of the foundation.
In a symbolic gesture towards the climate change issue, instead of the usual red carpet reception to the celebrities, the IIFA had a green carpet reception at the IIFA Weekend in Bangkok this year.
As a symbol of their support to the movement against global warming, IIFA brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan and Thailand Minister for Tourism and Sports Khun Weerasak Kowsurat planted a sapling at the inauguration venue of the event.
'Being the brand ambassador for the Green Globe Foundation is a great honour for me as it gives me an opportunity to highlight the fight against global warming,' the actor said in Mumbai Monday.
In an attempt to strengthen its commitment towards fighting the issue of climate change, IIFA launched the Green Global Foundation this year.
The foundation is the initiative of IIFA and Wizcraft International Entertainment.
United Nations Environmental Programme and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), headed by R.K. Pachauri, are the partners of the foundation.
In a symbolic gesture towards the climate change issue, instead of the usual red carpet reception to the celebrities, the IIFA had a green carpet reception at the IIFA Weekend in Bangkok this year.
As a symbol of their support to the movement against global warming, IIFA brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan and Thailand Minister for Tourism and Sports Khun Weerasak Kowsurat planted a sapling at the inauguration venue of the event.
25 years of Appiko, a green movement to save trees in Karnataka
The 25 years of Appiko or, hug the tree Green Movement on the Sahyadri Mountain ranges in the western ghats of Karnataka has created a tremendous impact here.This movement started in Gubbi Gadde, a small village near Sirsi in the (north) Uttara Kannada district, has forced the forest department to change the forest policy on felling of trees.Besides affecting the forest policy, it also spread to other parts and saved forests.On Sep.8, 1983, Pandurang Hegde, the fiery activist, started the Appiko (to hug) movement. He derived inspiration from Sunderlal Bahuganas Chipko movement in Uttar Pradesh, in which villagers used to hug trees to save them from being felled by the State, which then had no laws against felling of timber inside protected areas.Appiko movement was started against monoculture (the agricultural practice of producing or growing one single crop over a wide area) in the western ghats. Today, it has become a part of the lives of people. Their non-violent protest movement has compelled the forest department to amend the policy against felling of forests in eco-sensitive region. There has been a silent revolution in the Western Ghats.
Panduranga Hegde, the founder of Appiko Movement says that this movement has become a part of the culture in the western ghats and has saved the very sensitive eco sphere.This movement, started to protest against felling of trees, monoculture, forest policy and deforestation, has succeeded in changing the forest policy. This first ever peoples green movement in south India to save our natural resources has become a model of sustainable development, said Panduranga Hedge, the founder of Appiko movement.The activists used local folklore to reach out to the masses. Another activist and farmer Mahabaleshwara Hegde of Gubbi gadde village finds this movement a part of the lives of people in this area. The Gandhi of environmental movement, Sundarlal Bahuguna, has not only inspired the movement but visits here regularly to guide the people, Hedge added.Mahabaleshwara Hegde, said: The river Kali meanders through the valley linking the past and the present. The song of Apppiko reverberates in the hills. The 25-year-old movement, reminds the people of the need to conserve sensitive eco sphere. In 1983, the villagers in Sirsi taluka of North Kanara district launched an embrace the trees campaign.In 1950, forests covered more than 81 percent of the geographical area in Uttara Kannada (or North Kanara) district. But being declared a backward district, the area was selected for major industries– a pulp and paper mill, a plywood factory and a chain of hydroelectric dams constructed to harness the rivers. By 1980, forest in the district was believed to have shrunk to 25 per cent.Locals, especially the poor, were displaced by dams.
Environmentalists blamed monoculture for drying up water sources, affecting forest-dwellers.Started in Sirsi.The Appiko movement spread across the western Ghats, including in places outside Karnataka. By linking up, campaigners managed to build awareness to conserve the sensitive environment in this region.Appiko is seen by some as a kind of echo of the more prominent Chipko movement of north India.The western Ghat biodiversity include 120,000 living species, 4,500 flowering plants, 500 species of birds, 120 species of mammals, 160 species of reptiles, 70 species of frogs, 800 species of fish and 1493 species of medicinal plants
Panduranga Hegde, the founder of Appiko Movement says that this movement has become a part of the culture in the western ghats and has saved the very sensitive eco sphere.This movement, started to protest against felling of trees, monoculture, forest policy and deforestation, has succeeded in changing the forest policy. This first ever peoples green movement in south India to save our natural resources has become a model of sustainable development, said Panduranga Hedge, the founder of Appiko movement.The activists used local folklore to reach out to the masses. Another activist and farmer Mahabaleshwara Hegde of Gubbi gadde village finds this movement a part of the lives of people in this area. The Gandhi of environmental movement, Sundarlal Bahuguna, has not only inspired the movement but visits here regularly to guide the people, Hedge added.Mahabaleshwara Hegde, said: The river Kali meanders through the valley linking the past and the present. The song of Apppiko reverberates in the hills. The 25-year-old movement, reminds the people of the need to conserve sensitive eco sphere. In 1983, the villagers in Sirsi taluka of North Kanara district launched an embrace the trees campaign.In 1950, forests covered more than 81 percent of the geographical area in Uttara Kannada (or North Kanara) district. But being declared a backward district, the area was selected for major industries– a pulp and paper mill, a plywood factory and a chain of hydroelectric dams constructed to harness the rivers. By 1980, forest in the district was believed to have shrunk to 25 per cent.Locals, especially the poor, were displaced by dams.
Environmentalists blamed monoculture for drying up water sources, affecting forest-dwellers.Started in Sirsi.The Appiko movement spread across the western Ghats, including in places outside Karnataka. By linking up, campaigners managed to build awareness to conserve the sensitive environment in this region.Appiko is seen by some as a kind of echo of the more prominent Chipko movement of north India.The western Ghat biodiversity include 120,000 living species, 4,500 flowering plants, 500 species of birds, 120 species of mammals, 160 species of reptiles, 70 species of frogs, 800 species of fish and 1493 species of medicinal plants
Tech Firms Tap Into the 'Green' Movement
Being ''green'' is all the rage with technology companies these days, but what's not clear is whether or not the environment-friendly approach is bringing in more greenbacks.Tech buyers say they desire devices that are kind to the environment, but they haven't shown a strong predisposition to buy them - except when it saves them money.''There's high-level awareness and low-level activity,'' said Christopher Mines, an analyst at Forrester Research. ''The goal is to feed into it ... and try to take advantage of the growing concern.''Among those able to successfully tap into those concerns are computer hardware companies like Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel Corp., Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard Co., Armonk, N.Y.-based International Business Machines Corp. and Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which have all been churning out servers or server components that require less power - and thus less money to operate.However, other green initiatives by technology companies, such as running environmentally oriented contests or planting trees, don't have a direct line to the pocketbooks of client companies' chief investment officers, making those initiatives ring a bit hollow.''By and large, the vendors are, of course, trying to differentiate and trying to win goodwill to enhance their brand,'' Mines said. But, he added, ''there's real, legitimate hard-dollar cost-saving to be had.''The hype surrounding being green has even spawned a new word - greenwashing - harkening back to the days when the buzzword was ''dot-com.'' Just like those days, the environment presents an opportunity for technology companies, either by selling into it or using it as a marketing tool.The proselytizing seems to be resonating. Chief investment officers polled by Forrester said they were concerned about the impact their company was having on the environment, although few were doing much about it.The machines with the most success so far have been ones that provide a clear return on the investment, such as energy-efficient servers.With big data centers running out of space and burdened with big energy bills, servers that draw less power have been in demand. For example, Intel and H-P promise to save companies money with lower-powered servers while IBM can make sure everything works together thanks to its services arm.H-P has seen a 120 percent increase worldwide in the number of inquiries connected to the environment since the last half of 2006. In 2005, the company saw $6 billion in requests for proposals that had some environmental element.Pat Tiernan, vice president for corporate social environmental responsibility, said that number continues to climb. Most of the inquiries are about energy conservation, with recycling a close second, Tiernan said.IBM launched its ''Project Big Green'' program in early May, committing $1 billion per year to increase the level of energy efficiency in the information technologies markets, and since then has been bombarded by customer request.While most of the activity is happening on the corporate side, consumers are starting to become a driving force in the green push. So are shareholders of public companies who want to make sure environmental polices are in place. All of these different constituencies give technology companies an opportunity to sell products and services, experts said.''Our consumer research shows that, on both coasts, 7 percent to 11 percent of Americans consider themselves to be green,'' said Richard Doherty, research director at Envisoneering Group. ''Of the consumers we've interviewed, they say one or more purchases is influenced by the more-green company.''In recent months, most technology companies also have been crowing about their green initiatives. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Inc. will plant trees for customers who buy a computer, while Sunnyvale-based Yahoo Corp. recently launched a contest to find the greenest city in America. (The winner: Hastings, Neb.)While it's nice to plant a tree, is it a reason to run out and buy a company's products?''If the computer is up to snuff and the price is about the same, it helps'' to be green, says Howard Anderson, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Business, noting that technology companies seem to have different shades of green. ''If Nokia and Motorola are green, then why haven't they invented phones that use less battery-charging?''
Green movement 'hijacked' by politics
Parts of the green movement have become hijacked by a political agenda and now operate like multinational corporations, according to two senior scientists and members of the House of Lords.
The peers, who were speaking at an event in parliament on science policy, said they felt that in some areas green campaign groups were a hindrance to environmental causes.
"Much of the green movement isn't a green movement at all, it's a political movement," said Lord May, who is a former government chief scientific adviser and president of the Royal Society. He singled out Greenpeace as an environmental campaign group that had "transmogrified" into one with primarily an anti-globalisation stance.
"Maybe they are right, but I wish they would wear the uniform of the army they are fighting [under]," said May, adding that he used to be involved with Greenpeace in the 1970s.
Greenpeace's chairman John Sauven said he did not recognise the characterisation. "I don't know who he is talking about," he said, "As far as I know, no mainstream environmental organisation has been anti-globalisation per se...Frankly that does not represent what we are about."
He said that Greenpeace did, however, campaign against examples of unsustainable trade, such as transporting bottled water between continents. "There are a million and one examples of the madness of globalisation that are having a detrimental effect on the environment," he added.
May also criticised green groups who campaign against initiatives such as wind farms and the Severn tidal barrage scheme, while also proclaiming the need to tackle climate change. He said such groups were "failing to recognise the landscape is human-created".
As an example of how attitudes can change, he cited the poet John Ruskin's angry condemnation of the Monsal Dale railway. The line, built in the 1860s, runs through beautiful countryside between Matlock and Buxton. At the time, Ruskin raged: "The valley is gone and the Gods with it, and now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour." The railway is now regarded fondly by many people as an integral part of the landscape, May said.
Lord Krebs, the former chairman of the Food Standards Agency and current principal of Jesus College Oxford also criticised Greenpeace, saying that it had been set up to peddle fear on environmental issues. "Greenpeace is a multinational corporation just like Monsanto or Tesco. They have very effective marketing departments... Their product is worry because worry is what recruits members," he said.
He added that in some areas, such as warning about the effects of climate change, such an approach was justified, but that Greenpeace sometimes chose the wrong issues – for example, nuclear power and GM crops.
Sauven said Greenpeace's resources are a "tiny fraction" of those of Monsanto or Tesco's. "With very few resources, we are a very effective campaigning organisation," he said, adding that he would prefer to take the comments as a compliment. "I can live with that one."
May and Krebs were speaking at a meeting – Science, Policy and Ethics: Potential future flashpoints, for peers and journalists in parliament – which was chaired by the leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Hayman. It was attended by several peers including Lord Cunningham, former agriculture minister and minister for the Cabinet Office in Tony Blair's cabinet, and the broadcaster Lord Bragg.
May said parliamentarians had not done enough to prepare the public for the effect climate change would have on their lives in terms of efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to climate changes.
"I think there has been a problem of communication," he said. "For some, I think it's the desire not to confront the issue." But, he said, the smoking ban had showed, for example, that public attitudes could change rapidly.
The peers, who were speaking at an event in parliament on science policy, said they felt that in some areas green campaign groups were a hindrance to environmental causes.
"Much of the green movement isn't a green movement at all, it's a political movement," said Lord May, who is a former government chief scientific adviser and president of the Royal Society. He singled out Greenpeace as an environmental campaign group that had "transmogrified" into one with primarily an anti-globalisation stance.
"Maybe they are right, but I wish they would wear the uniform of the army they are fighting [under]," said May, adding that he used to be involved with Greenpeace in the 1970s.
Greenpeace's chairman John Sauven said he did not recognise the characterisation. "I don't know who he is talking about," he said, "As far as I know, no mainstream environmental organisation has been anti-globalisation per se...Frankly that does not represent what we are about."
He said that Greenpeace did, however, campaign against examples of unsustainable trade, such as transporting bottled water between continents. "There are a million and one examples of the madness of globalisation that are having a detrimental effect on the environment," he added.
May also criticised green groups who campaign against initiatives such as wind farms and the Severn tidal barrage scheme, while also proclaiming the need to tackle climate change. He said such groups were "failing to recognise the landscape is human-created".
As an example of how attitudes can change, he cited the poet John Ruskin's angry condemnation of the Monsal Dale railway. The line, built in the 1860s, runs through beautiful countryside between Matlock and Buxton. At the time, Ruskin raged: "The valley is gone and the Gods with it, and now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour." The railway is now regarded fondly by many people as an integral part of the landscape, May said.
Lord Krebs, the former chairman of the Food Standards Agency and current principal of Jesus College Oxford also criticised Greenpeace, saying that it had been set up to peddle fear on environmental issues. "Greenpeace is a multinational corporation just like Monsanto or Tesco. They have very effective marketing departments... Their product is worry because worry is what recruits members," he said.
He added that in some areas, such as warning about the effects of climate change, such an approach was justified, but that Greenpeace sometimes chose the wrong issues – for example, nuclear power and GM crops.
Sauven said Greenpeace's resources are a "tiny fraction" of those of Monsanto or Tesco's. "With very few resources, we are a very effective campaigning organisation," he said, adding that he would prefer to take the comments as a compliment. "I can live with that one."
May and Krebs were speaking at a meeting – Science, Policy and Ethics: Potential future flashpoints, for peers and journalists in parliament – which was chaired by the leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Hayman. It was attended by several peers including Lord Cunningham, former agriculture minister and minister for the Cabinet Office in Tony Blair's cabinet, and the broadcaster Lord Bragg.
May said parliamentarians had not done enough to prepare the public for the effect climate change would have on their lives in terms of efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to climate changes.
"I think there has been a problem of communication," he said. "For some, I think it's the desire not to confront the issue." But, he said, the smoking ban had showed, for example, that public attitudes could change rapidly.
In Confronting Its Biggest Foe, Green Movement Also Fights Itself
The modern environmental movement is having an identity crisis. Staring down its biggest enemy yet, it's fiercely divided over how to beat it.
The global challenge of climate change is tougher than the localized problems the green movement has spent decades fighting. To some environmentalists, it requires chucking old orthodoxies and getting practical. To others, it demands an old-style moral crusade.
The pragmatists have the upper hand. One sign is that the movement is moving beyond small-scale backyard wind turbines and rooftop solar panels. It's calling for technological change at industrial speed and scale -- sometimes to the detriment of local ecologies
In Europe, environmental groups are backing proposals for massive collections of wind turbines off the continent's Atlantic coast that would amount to seaborne power plants. In California, they're endorsing huge solar-panel installations on farmland and in the desert. In Washington, they're lobbying for more spending to develop "clean coal," resigned to the conclusion that scrubbing coal is more plausible than killing it.
"There's a kind of reality check," says Stephan Singer, the Brussels-based director of global energy policy for WWF, an environmental group also called the World Wildlife Fund. The only clean-energy options likely to matter are "large, centralized solutions," he says. "That's the way it is."
Karen Douglas feels the pressure from both sides of the divide. She has spent her career as a green activist in California, and her success has helped move her from outside agitator to inside policy maker. After California passed a law curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tapped Ms. Douglas early last year to join the California Energy Commission, which has to help figure out how to comply with the law. Recently, she was named chairman.
The commission is trying to figure out where big new solar-energy installations and electric-transmission lines should go. The process is pitting locally oriented environmentalists, whose priority still is to protect California's wilderness, against globally oriented environmentalists whose focus is to get big renewable-energy projects built. "I am in an interesting spot," she says. "It's hard."
Mr. Singer of the WWF is in a similar fix. In Europe, the prospect of large-scale renewable energy means the construction of hundreds of wind turbines off the coast. His organization "strongly supports" that move, he says, despite opposition from some local environmentalists who contend such installations might harm birds or fish.
"We all grew up with this kind of mantra that small is beautiful," he says. But that "is not a model for a highly modernized, global world."
Nothing underscores the green movement's soul-searching more than its conflicted view of coal, which provides about half the world's electricity. Should society pour billions of dollars into trying to perfect a way to turn coal into electricity without emitting greenhouse gases? Or should it reject coal as inalterably dirty and try to replace it entirely with renewable sources like the wind and sun?
Late last year, the influential Natural Resources Defense Council helped sponsor ads ridiculing coal-industry ads boasting about progress toward cleaning up coal. "In reality, there's no such thing as clean coal," said a print version of the ad.
But last month, the NRDC, along with the Environmental Defense Fund, another prominent group, hosted workshops advocating more spending on clean-coal research. The rationale: Coal will remain a crucial fuel for decades, so it makes sense to try to clean it up.
"If NRDC had written all the ads by itself, we probably would have had a more nuanced ad," says NRDC climate expert David Hawkins. "But it probably would have been a nuanced ad that doesn't get noticed."
Industry claims that coal already is clean are "misleading," says Mr. Hawkins. Still, the technology to generate electricity from coal and capture the carbon-dioxide emissions "is both needed and feasible," he says. That was the point of the workshops, he says: that government should implement policies to deploy the technology.
Now, a backlash is building within the movement. Rather than push certain technological fixes, critics say, environmentalists should simply push government to slap industry with a tough cap on greenhouse gases -- and let industry figure out how to meet the mandate.
"It's like we're pushing to invent a better cotton gin as a way to reduce slaveholding instead of just banning slaveholding," says the Environmental Defense Fund's John DeCicco. "The environmental movement has become insiders. Is that actually to our benefit now? Or is that to our detriment?"
The global challenge of climate change is tougher than the localized problems the green movement has spent decades fighting. To some environmentalists, it requires chucking old orthodoxies and getting practical. To others, it demands an old-style moral crusade.
The pragmatists have the upper hand. One sign is that the movement is moving beyond small-scale backyard wind turbines and rooftop solar panels. It's calling for technological change at industrial speed and scale -- sometimes to the detriment of local ecologies
In Europe, environmental groups are backing proposals for massive collections of wind turbines off the continent's Atlantic coast that would amount to seaborne power plants. In California, they're endorsing huge solar-panel installations on farmland and in the desert. In Washington, they're lobbying for more spending to develop "clean coal," resigned to the conclusion that scrubbing coal is more plausible than killing it.
"There's a kind of reality check," says Stephan Singer, the Brussels-based director of global energy policy for WWF, an environmental group also called the World Wildlife Fund. The only clean-energy options likely to matter are "large, centralized solutions," he says. "That's the way it is."
Karen Douglas feels the pressure from both sides of the divide. She has spent her career as a green activist in California, and her success has helped move her from outside agitator to inside policy maker. After California passed a law curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tapped Ms. Douglas early last year to join the California Energy Commission, which has to help figure out how to comply with the law. Recently, she was named chairman.
The commission is trying to figure out where big new solar-energy installations and electric-transmission lines should go. The process is pitting locally oriented environmentalists, whose priority still is to protect California's wilderness, against globally oriented environmentalists whose focus is to get big renewable-energy projects built. "I am in an interesting spot," she says. "It's hard."
Mr. Singer of the WWF is in a similar fix. In Europe, the prospect of large-scale renewable energy means the construction of hundreds of wind turbines off the coast. His organization "strongly supports" that move, he says, despite opposition from some local environmentalists who contend such installations might harm birds or fish.
"We all grew up with this kind of mantra that small is beautiful," he says. But that "is not a model for a highly modernized, global world."
Nothing underscores the green movement's soul-searching more than its conflicted view of coal, which provides about half the world's electricity. Should society pour billions of dollars into trying to perfect a way to turn coal into electricity without emitting greenhouse gases? Or should it reject coal as inalterably dirty and try to replace it entirely with renewable sources like the wind and sun?
Late last year, the influential Natural Resources Defense Council helped sponsor ads ridiculing coal-industry ads boasting about progress toward cleaning up coal. "In reality, there's no such thing as clean coal," said a print version of the ad.
But last month, the NRDC, along with the Environmental Defense Fund, another prominent group, hosted workshops advocating more spending on clean-coal research. The rationale: Coal will remain a crucial fuel for decades, so it makes sense to try to clean it up.
"If NRDC had written all the ads by itself, we probably would have had a more nuanced ad," says NRDC climate expert David Hawkins. "But it probably would have been a nuanced ad that doesn't get noticed."
Industry claims that coal already is clean are "misleading," says Mr. Hawkins. Still, the technology to generate electricity from coal and capture the carbon-dioxide emissions "is both needed and feasible," he says. That was the point of the workshops, he says: that government should implement policies to deploy the technology.
Now, a backlash is building within the movement. Rather than push certain technological fixes, critics say, environmentalists should simply push government to slap industry with a tough cap on greenhouse gases -- and let industry figure out how to meet the mandate.
"It's like we're pushing to invent a better cotton gin as a way to reduce slaveholding instead of just banning slaveholding," says the Environmental Defense Fund's John DeCicco. "The environmental movement has become insiders. Is that actually to our benefit now? Or is that to our detriment?"
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