The human impact on this Earth.

Conservation Groups File Lawsuit to Protect Struggling Walruses from Arctic Drilling | Earthjustice

Conservation Groups File Lawsuit to Protect Struggling Walruses from Arctic Drilling | Earthjustice Anchorage, AK — A coalition of conservation organizations filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today, challenging a rule that permits oil companies, like Shell Oil, to harm Pacific walruses during Arctic Ocean oil drilling beginning as early as next year in key walrus feeding areas. Approximately 35,000 walruses gather on the northwest coast of Alaska, near Point Lay, on Sept. 27, 2014. Approximately 35,000 walruses gather on the northwest coast of Alaska, near Point Lay, on Sept. 27, 2014. Corey Accardo / NOAA The Arctic Ocean’s sea ice is rapidly melting due to climate change, creating dire consequences for Chukchi Sea walruses which depend on the ice for resting, raising their young, feeding, and avoiding predators. As a result of this melting, the walruses have been forced ashore in recent years. This year it happened again as 35,000 walruses crowded together on the Alaskan Arctic coast just a few weeks ago. Walruses must swim distances up to 100 miles from these coastal haulout areas to reach Chukchi feeding grounds to find the clams and other bottom species they need to survive. They are vulnerable to stampedes and trampling when forced to use coastal resting areas. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife rule puts these already at risk mammals directly in harm’s way by allowing risky oil company operations in key walrus foraging areas in the Chukchi Sea. This rule is being challenged by Earthjustice on behalf of Alaska Wilderness League, Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands, Sierra Club and by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Fish and Wildlife Service adopted this regulation, which allows for “the incidental take of walruses in connection with oil and gas activities,” even though the agency acknowledged that walruses could be affected adversely in large numbers in crucial habitat areas like the Hanna Shoal. Shell Oil intends to drill under this government rule as early as 2015. The company was investigated and fined after multiple missteps and close calls during its efforts to drill in the Arctic Ocean in 2012, only to call its work in the region a success. Oil operations have the potential to chase walruses away from food-rich foraging areas, trigger stampedes, and harm the animals with deafeningly loud seismic blasts. Drilling risks catastrophic oil spills that could not be cleaned up in Arctic conditions. The September minimum sea-ice extent reached a new record low in 2012, encompassing only about half the area it covered on average from 1981–2010. In 2014, the sea ice shrank to 5.02 million square kilometers (1.94 million square miles), the sixth-lowest extent of the satellite record. “The Fish and Wildlife Service needs to do a much better job of protecting walrus mothers and calves struggling to survive in the dramatically changing Chukchi Sea,” said Earthjustice Attorney Erik Grafe. “Today’s challenge seeks to protect walruses from suffering potential serious harm and harassment at the hands of companies like Shell Oil, which crashed and burned during its Arctic Ocean drilling efforts in 2012. Walruses are already under tremendous stress from climate change—their sea ice home is literally melting away. Without adequate analysis, the challenged rules would add to walruses’ woes by allowing drilling and risking oil spills in the areas most important for food and resting. What’s more, drilling would accelerate the climate change already causing so much trouble for walruses.” “Walruses are the Arctic’s canary in a coal mine,” said Cindy Shogan, executive director for Alaska Wilderness League. “We can’t ignore the signs and impacts of climate change in the Arctic. The Interior Department must better protect walruses and the fragile Arctic Ocean with its disappearing shoreline from harm by big oil companies, like Shell. Adding drilling into this already dangerous mix is reckless and irresponsible.” “The last thing Arctic walruses need is dirty drilling in the middle of their most important habitat. It’s time for oil companies to stop sticking their drills where they don’t belong, and it’s up to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to lay down the law,” said Rebecca Noblin of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Shell is putting the Arctic walrus in double jeopardy. Their world is melting because of oil companies’ greedy thirst for more fossil fuels, and now their home will could be under imminent threat from a Shell spill. The Obama administration needs to put sane regulations in place that protect this sensitive species,” said Greenpeace Arctic Campaign Specialist John Deans. “The Fish and Wildlife Service wants to decide first, think later,” said Michael Jasny, director of Marine Mammal Protection at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Before it has all the facts, the agency is casting its lot with a few big oil corporations—instead of the tens of thousands of mother walruses who must swim massive distances before hauling up to rest and feed their young.” “Walruses already are under great stress from climate change. This rule would allow oil drillers to risk further harm to the species without proper analysis and mitigation. The risks are too great—if drilling resulted in an oil spill, there would be no way to clean or contain it, and the consequences could be catastrophic,” said Robert Thompson of REDOIL. "The danger to walrus is one more in a long list of serious risks posed by drilling in the Arctic Ocean," said Dan Ritzman, Alaska program director for the Sierra Club's Our Wild America campaign. "We should not sacrifice the Arctic's amazing wildlife, the subsistence culture that depends on it, or our climate to dirty drilling. The effects on walrus and other wildlife will only worsen if we don't begin keeping dirty fuels in the ground." Read the case complaint.

No more debates on climate science, over to leaders

GLAND, Switzerland) – Today in Copenhagen, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the final volume of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). The report represents seven years of work by more than a thousand scientists globally from 160 countries. Commenting on the report, Samantha Smith, leader of WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative says: The world’s best climate scientists have given us a solid, thorough and conservative measuring stick for the global effort on climate change. This report has been approved by all 195 IPCC member governments as well as scientists. It represents an extremely broad and global scientific consensus on climate change. It tells us that climate change is already affecting people and nature everywhere. Ocean acidification, sea level rise, extreme heat events, and profound changes in the Arctic show that climate change is already a fact. It tells us that we are the cause, and that our addiction to fossil fuels is the overwhelming source of the pollution that is changing our climate. But while the report details the dire effects of an unstable climate, it also spells out a clear path to a cleaner, safer future. Its key findings are: 1) The world can afford to fight climate change. This will neither cripple economies nor stop development – to the contrary. What is clear is that inaction will be much more costly, even when considering conservative estimates. 2) It is not too late to avoid catastrophic climate change. Rapid, decisive action to get out of fossil fuels in particular can keep global temperature increases under 2º Celsius, which is the threshold indicated by science to avoid dangerous climate change, and agreed by governments. 3) There is a carbon budget – a limit on how much we can emit - and we have already used most of it. Globally, emissions must go down quickly, with emissions peaking this decade and going to zero mid-century if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. Governments, businesses and indeed all of us must move beyond small steps, and move into phasing out fossil fuels completely. 4) Adaptation to climate change is critical, but there are sharp limits to it. Without immediate action on emissions and limiting impacts, adaptation will not be sufficient to protect lives, livelihoods and the natural world on which people depend. 5) Whether we act to cut emissions and adapt raises issues of equity, justice and fairness. If we fail to act, we jeopardise efforts to reduce poverty and endanger food, water and livelihoods for many of the world’s poor. We also leave today’s youth and future generations with a nearly insurmountable challenge. In New York in September, people from all parts of society marched to demand action. Faith leaders, business, trade unions, students, grassroots organisations, civil society groups and individual citizens have called on governments to act swiftly and with ambition. Now, it is their turn – to use their broad mandate, provide the billions needed for this transition, and agree on the way forward for a global climate deal in Lima. © IPCC Enlarge Related links More on WWF's work on climate and energy

Top Four Reasons the American Bison Makes a Great Mascot | Earthjustice

Top Four Reasons the American Bison Makes a Great Mascot | Earthjustice We get some interesting mail at Earthjustice, but one letter we received this week was too good not to share. It came from Detective Christopher Derry of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Fraud & Cyber Crimes Bureau, which immediately got our attention and had us on the verge of changing all our passwords. But Detective Derry wasn’t warning us of some imminent threat of identity theft. Addressing the letter to attorney Tim Preso, who leads much of our wildlife protection work out of Bozeman, Montana, Detective Derry explained that the bureau voted to make the American Bison its mascot, and he wanted to thank Earthjustice for our efforts to protect the species and restore it to its native lands. Detective Derry listed the following reasons for why the bureau chose the American Bison to represent the work of its team: “In Native American folklore, the American Bison is traditionally associated with endurance and protection. These are character traits to which all of us aspire.” “The American Bison is not afraid to turn into, and walk directly toward an oncoming storm. While other animals panic and look for a place to hide, the Bison forges ahead, fearlessly, into the storm. Some researchers believe that Bison instinctively know a storm will pass quicker if they turn and walk toward it. In our bureau, many of our cases are like 'storms' with thousands of pages of documents and mind boggling complexity. Every day, we endeavor to face the 'storm' with courage and resolve.” “The Bison is a majestic creature with imperturbable demeanor.” “Both the male and female Bison have horns.” Sometimes we struggle to explain why protection of wildlife is so important to people, but this letter is a great example of the inherent value of these vital species. Protection of wildlife is about preserving what remains special and mysterious about the world in which we live. The return of the American Bison to the Great Plains is a victory for preserving our American heritage. We thank the Los Angeles Fraud and Cyber Crimes Bureau for the work it does and for honoring this majestic creature. Maggie Caldwell is an award-winning newspaper reporter and magazine journalist. She works at Headquarters in San Francisco, CA. Her passion for protecting the earth stems from a childhood running around in the woods of Connecticut. Outside of providing good press for the planet, she is an avid soccer player, a highly competitive lawn sports athlete, and a lover of long hikes, hidden rivers, and reasonably priced wines.

United Nations News Centre - UN refines Ebola response amid efforts to bring outbreak under control by 1 December

>head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Anthony Banbury, visits a site for safe and dignified burials for Ebola victims in the Sierra Leonean city of Kenema. Photo: UNMEER 7 November 2014 – The United Nations health agency today announced a new burial protocol for Ebola victims aimed at reducing the risk of exposure to the disease for family members as they bury their loved ones in accordance with religious rites amid Organization-wide efforts to control the deadly outbreak by a 1 December deadline.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 20 per cent of new Ebola infections occur during burials of diseased Ebola patients when family and community members perform religious rites that require directly touching or washing the highly infectious body.
“By building trust and respect between burial teams, bereaved families and religious groups, we are building trust and safety in the response itself,” Dr. Pierre Formenty, one of WHO’s leading Ebola experts, said in a press release.
The new protocol was developed by an interdisciplinary WHO team in tandem with faith-based organizations and encourages the inclusion of family and local clergy in the planning and preparation of the burial, as well as the burial itself. It falls in line with a UN-wide directive aimed at managing and treating 70 per cent of Ebola cases and making safe 70 per cent of burials by 1 December.
In addition, the protocol provides sensitivity guidelines for when Ebola burial teams first meet victims’ families, including abstaining from wearing personal protective equipment and asking the family if there are specific requests for managing the burial and personal effects of the deceased.
“Introducing components such as inviting the family to be involved in digging the grave and offering options for dry ablution and shrouding will make a significant difference in curbing Ebola transmission,” Dr. Formenty continued.
Meanwhile, in a press briefing from Geneva, the UN children’s agency (UNICEF), stated that its “massive” Ebola operation in the most-affected countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, would see a doubling of supplies for frontline health workers, including a newly developed coverall impermeable to the Ebola virus.
Based on the agency’s planned scale-up, UNICEF would need at least 1 million of the new coveralls by 1 December, in addition to supplies of other protective gear, chlorine and essential medicines.
Moreover, the agency said, the number of UNICEF staff on the ground would double from 300 to 600, with a particular focus on being with the communities to support social mobilization and to help service delivery.
“This is the most complex emergency to which we have ever had to respond, and it has required agility in the provision of products, supply chains and service delivery,” said Shanelle Hall, Director of UNICEF’s global supply and logistics operations.
“Supply chains have had to be flexible, and meet extremely high standards of quality,” she continued.
“UNICEF is working with governments, industry and partners to establish whole new supply chains so that we are able to deliver dozens of new products to new service delivery locations.”
The UN’s refined efforts aimed at controlling the Ebola outbreak will be dealt a substantial assist when an experimental vaccine, currently undergoing laboratory testing, is issued to the affected West African nations. The vaccine could be dispatched as early as January 2015.

Posted Nov. 6, 2014 / Posted by: Lukas Ross

Last Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry took the release of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report as a chance to do a little pre-midterm electioneering. Drawing an implicit contrast between the Obama administration and Congressional skeptics, he said that the “hard science” on climate change could no longer be ignored for the sake of “politics and ideology.”

Considering that the “politics and ideology” of climate denial just expanded its majority in the House and took control of the Senate, this is a hard point to ignore. But just because Congress is about to get much worse doesn’t mean the Obama administration automatically gets better. Two years into Kerry’s tenure as secretary of state, and six years into the Obama presidency, it is fair to ask how well the executive branch is doing when it comes to letting science drive policy on climate change.

Pretty badly, it turns out. There have been a few high profile efforts to curb emissions, like the new Environmental Protection Agency rules regulating power plants. But on the whole the Obama administration is still ignoring the single most important thing the science is telling us: fossil fuels need to stay in the ground.

To be precise, two-thirds of all proven reserves need to never see the surface, and that will only avoid the worst effects of climate disruption. There are a lot of policy mechanisms that could help achieve this -- a ban on drilling, a tax on carbon -- but at the end of the day, if we aren’t talking about how to keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground, we aren’t taking the science seriously.

This is the litmus test the Obama administration keeps on failing whenever it touts an “all-of-the-above” energy policy. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and tokenistic support for wind and solar doesn’t make it okay to double-down on extreme energy.

Although “all-of-the-above” may mean slightly more investment in renewables, it is also means full speed ahead for ultra deepwater drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and giveaway federal coal leases. Taking this logic as an approach to climate change is like putting on lead shoes before learning how to swim.

This is what happens when you take policy cues from polluters. You have to remember that before it was claimed by the Obama administration, “all of the above” was pioneered by the oil lobby, the same folks who have spent millions promoting phony science to try to hide awareness of climate disruption.

From his perch at Foggy Bottom, Secretary Kerry himself has some of the same problems acting on science. For starters, the State Department is pushing a bunch of initiatives specifically designed to export the US fracking revolution around the world, a dubious environmental legacy considering shale gas is a threat to air and water, and often just as dirty as coal.

Then there’s Keystone XL, possibly the highest profile climate issue of the Obama presidency. Instead of clinging to the idea that tar sands development is going to continue regardless, Secretary Kerry should say in public what he probably already knows: that the project fails the “climate test” President Obama’s laid out and would aggravate emissions considerably.

The fact remains that building Keystone XL would be a lifeline for the now struggling Canadian tar sands industry. The slowing of investment into tar sands, alongside several major project cancellations, proves that blocking infrastructure can block development. Stopping the pipeline in its tracks would be start to keeping one of the dirtiest, least economical fuels in our energy mix in the ground.

Besides blocking the pipeline, strengthening the clean power plan to encourage more renewables and stopping the approval of export facilities for coal and natural gas are two areas where executive authority could make a huge difference to keeping fossil fuels where they belong.

So when it comes to listening to the “hard science” on climate, it turns out there is more than one species of denial. As frothing-at-the-mouth climate skepticism continues to lose credibility, President Obama and Secretary Kerry are on deck to show that the soft denial of inaction has exactly the same effect.
- See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/blog/2014-11-the-midterms-are-no-excuse-why-obama-still-needs-to#sthash.OctDUGrb.dpuf

Climate activists march 3,000 miles to demand action on climate

Posted Nov. 1, 2014 / Posted by: Kate Colwell

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Dozens of climate activists participating in the Great March for Climate Action from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., arrived today at the White House, having walked over 3,000 miles. Their arrival kicks off a “Beyond Extreme Energy” week of actions in the nation’s capital to call on America’s leaders to take bolder action on climate change.

Luísa Abbott Galvão, Friends of the Earth’s Climate and energy associate, made the following comment :

We don’t have time for more empty promises or half-measures on climate. The Great March for Climate Action demonstrates how all conscientious people can make a difference: by mobilizing their communities to march the streets, and then march to the ballot boxes to vote climate fools out of office.

The United States has the capacity to forge a path towards a clean and renewable energy future, but continues to be held back by political obstructionism and myopia. The people refuse to be held hostage by the interests of exploitive, profit-mongering corporations and their outdated and destructive modes of operation.

President Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy is not a pathway: It defies science, and is irresponsible and unjust. The President must move our country forward by telling the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to stop rubber-stamping senseless projects that tie our future to harmful fossil fuel infrastructure, crippling any real hope of change.
- See more at: http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2014-10-climate-activists-march-3000-miles-to-demand-action-on-climate#sthash.JvSrxHZh.dpuf