http://gspp.berkeley.edu/calendar/event/climate-change-politics-and-the-economy-rhetoric-v.-reality Rapidly melting arctic ice, catastrophic hurricanes, devastating wildfires, and record-breaking drought—scientists agree that the climate is changing, that it’s human caused, and that it will undeniably be one of the most serious problems facing the world’s citizens for generations to come. At the same time, they acknowledge that technologies to combat climate change do exist. How can we come together to address this challenge which has become a partisan political issue in the United States in a way it has not elsewhere in the world?
Join UC Berkeley Professor Dan Kammen, an internationally recognized energy policy expert, the Hon. John Garamendi, US Representative, California’s 3rd District, and Mr. Tom Steyer, business leader and investor, for a lively and timely conversation to understand where we are now, the solutions at hand, the barriers we face, and what must happen to "overcome the partisan divide" to speed the transition to a sustainable planet. Moderated by Richard “Dick” Beahrs (’68).
Biosafety Alliance ask Non-GMO advocate individuals and organizations to support the Latino community by participating and attending the “Non-GMO Corn Day Celebration” on September 29th at 24th Street at Mission BART station in San Francisco from 11:00 AM -3:00 PM.
Non-GMO Corn Day Celebration is to bring awareness about the importance to protect native corn from biotech genetic contamination. We are in solidarity with the grassroots movement in Mexico: to protect Mexico as the CENTER OF ORIGIN of native corn therefor not allowing companies like Monsanto to plant GMO corn in Mexico because it will inevitably contaminate native corn through cross pollination.
Corn has been planted by the indigenous people through the Americas for 10,000 years. Corn is their staple food, good for the body and spirit. It is also an intricate part of their cultural and Identity. Corn is a gift to humanity not a patent for profit. We must keep our seeds pure and untainted for future generations.
The event will also be the beginning of a Latino campaign demanding the following:
·Demand to Latin Politicians to advocate for Non-GMO corn to be available in food markets in communities of color.
·Demand GMO Foods, in particular GMO Tortillas, to be labeled.
·Demand democracy in our food system, we have the right to know what is in the food we buy and feed our families.
We intend to gather during next 6 months 1000 000 signatures in support of GMO Tortilla labeling in California that we will bring to Sacramento in a massive mobilization, we need your help!
Come celebrate the food movement as we enjoy Non-GMO food including organic purple tortillas, music, art, speakers, and ceremony. There will be music, poetry and information. This is a family event and everyone is welcomed. The event will also take place in Los Angeles, Stockton, East Palo Alto and San Luis Obispo.
Amid rumors that the Obama administration might try to cut an emissions deal
with Canada in order to justify approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline,
leaders from 25 US environmental groups—backed by millions of members and at
least 75,000 individuals willing to engage incivil disobedience—warned the
president on Tuesday that such a deal would be considered nothing less than a
bitter betrayal.
In a tersely-worded
letter signed by 350.org, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, NRDC, Sierra Club,
and twenty other well-known green groups, the signers welcomed the idea of
Canada finding new ways to reduce its growing rate of carbon pollution, but were
direct in saying that making promises of future reductions the basis of a deal
on Keystone would ignite a serious backlash.
"On behalf of our millions of members and supporters nationwide," reads the
letter, "we oppose any deal-making in return for the Keystone XL tar sands
pipeline. Our rationale is simple. Building Keystone XL will expand production
in the tar sands, and that reality is not compatible with serious efforts to
battle climate change."
In an
interview with the Washington Post, president of the League of
Conservation Voters Gene Karpinski—whose group is not often associated with the
more activist-oriented groups like Greenpeace or Rainforest Action Network—said
that his organization's members are among the tens of thousands who have
expressed their willingness to engage in civil disobedience if Obama approves
the pipeline.
"The intensity out there has not diminished one bit," he said. "If anything,
the willingness of people to go to jail over this is expanding."
Karpinski's reference is to an online pledge of
resistance hosted by Credo Action, and supported by many of the groups who
signed Tuesday's letter, that asks people who are willing to pledge to "engage
in acts of dignified, peaceful civil disobedience that could result in arrest in
order to send the message to President Obama and his administration that they
must reject the Keystone XL pipeline." As of Tuesday, 75,709 people had signed
the pledge.
In a separate letter sent to the White House by the Sierra Club on Tuesday,
the group's president Michael Brune directly challenged the idea that the
emissions reduction plan reportedly offered by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen
Harper could offset the explosion of carbon pollution that would follow if tar
sands operations were allowed to expand.
In the letter, Brune begins by applauding Obama for recently announced EPA
rules designed to limit future pollution from yet-to-be built coal- and
gas-fired plants, but expressed his deep concern that any progress made on this
front would be "undermined by a backdoor bilateral agreement on the proposed
Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that would commit us to transporting the dirtiest
of fossil fuels for decades to come."
Brune continued:
Several weeks ago, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reportedly sent you
a letter declaring his willingness to take any climate actions necessary to get
a presidential approval of Keystone XL, the $7-billion pipeline that would pump
Alberta tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries. While this may seem like a generous
offer, Canada simply cannot mitigate the carbon pollution from the pipeline;
those emissions would simply be too big. Keystone XL would be directly
responsible for the equivalent annual emissions of 51 coal-fired power plants or
37.7 million cars. As a point of comparison, Canada has about 26 million cars on
the road.
Along with the pipeline’s direct emissions, the pipeline would be responsible
for decades of future emissions from tar sands. The Pembina Institute estimates
that Keystone XL would increase tar sands development by 36 percent. The State
Department estimates that tar sands oil could be 22 percent more carbon
intensive than conventional crude used in the United States. And when the lost
carbon sequestration potential of Canada’s 1.2 billion acre boreal forest is
also taken into consideration, the climate implications of the pipeline become
staggering. The best way to “mitigate” tar sands development is to keep tar
sands in the ground.
Promises by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to reduce the
emissions from Canada’s tar sands should be judged against its failure to live
up to its climate commitments to date. The government of Canada has consistently
missed its own targets to regulate its oil and gas sector and reduce national
emissions, and has a history of weakening environmental regulations at the
request of the pipeline industry.
Both of Tuesday's letters to President Obama come on
the heals of a nationwide day of action organized by 350.org on Saturday in
which hundreds of local groups told the White House and State Department that
they were "drawing the
line" against Keystone XL, dirty tar sands, and other extreme forms of
fossil fuel energy.
The full
letter (pdf), including the twenty-five listed signatories, follows:
September 24, 2013 President Barack Obama 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue Washington, DC 20500
President Obama: We are pleased to hear reports that Canadian officials may be considering new
policies to mitigate global warming pollution from the oil and gas sectors.
Increased regulation of these sectors is long overdue in both Canada and the
U.S. in order to protect our communities and climate.
However, on behalf of our millions of members and supporters nationwide, we
oppose any deal-making in return for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Our
rationale is simple. Building Keystone XL will expand production in the tar
sands, and that reality is not compatible with serious efforts to battle climate
change.
While the tar sands industry makes claims of reducing the intensity of their
emissions profile, in fact the absolute carbon pollution from the tar sands is
rapidly increasing.
The Harper government previously promised to take action to cut pollution
across industry, but never followed through with its 2008 plan. Carbon pollution
from the tar sands is now projected to be twice as high in 2020 as envisioned
under that plan.
Simple arithmetic shows that the only way to reduce emissions from the tar
sands is to cap expansion where it is now and reduce production over the coming
years.
That means rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, a project that would
enable the expansion of tar sands production. The tar sands pipeline and the
carbon emissions it would generate are not in the national interest.
After yet another year of record temperatures, terrible drought, dangerous
wildfires and worsening storms, the solution must be to reduce consumption of
fossil fuels, not to double down on our dependence on the highest carbon
fuels.
Signed, Anna Galland, Executive Director, MoveOn.org Civic
Action Carroll Muffett, President & CEO, Center for International
Environmental Law Catherine Thomasson, MD, Executive Director, Physicians for
Social Responsibility Cindy Shogan, Executive Director, Alaska Wilderness
League Dan Apfel, Executive Director, Responsible Endowments
Coalition Daniel Souweine, Director, CEL Climate Lab Drew Hudson,
Executive Director, Environmental Action Erich Pica, Executive Director,
Friends of the Earth US Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources
Defense Council Gene Karpinski, President, League of Conservation
Voters Jane Kleeb, Executive Director, Bold Nebraska Joe Uehlein,
Executive Director, Labor Network for Sustainability John Sellers, Executive
Director, The Other 98% Kieran Suckling, Executive Director, Center for
Biological Diversity Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Executive Director, Hip Hop
Caucus Lindsey Allen, Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network Maura
Cowley, Executive Director, Energy Action Coalition May Boeve, Executive
Director, 350.org Michael Hall Kieschnick, CEO CREDO Phaedra
Ellis-Lamkins, Executive Director, Green For All Phil Radford, Executive
Director, Greenpeace Robert Weissman, President, Public Citizen Sarah
Shanley Hope, Executive Director, Alliance for Climate Education Stephen
Kretzmann, Executive Director, Oil Change International Tom B.K. Goldtooth,
Executive Director, Indigenous Environmental Network
And the separate
letter from Sierra Club president Michael Brune:
September 24, 2013 President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,
NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President,
I applaud your commitment to fighting climate change. Your administration’s
new carbon pollution limits for power plants are a giant step in the right
direction and demonstrate that America is ready to move forward on climate. In a
year of record-breaking wildfires, floods, and other symptoms of a disrupted
climate, your leadership on climate change is exactly what our country
needs.
I am concerned that this progress may be undermined by a backdoor bilateral
agreement on the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that would commit us to
transporting the dirtiest of fossil fuels for decades to come. Several weeks
ago, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reportedly sent you a letter
declaring his willingness to take any climate actions necessary to get a
presidential approval of Keystone XL, the $7-billion pipeline that would pump
Alberta tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries. While this may seem like a generous
offer, Canada simply cannot mitigate the carbon pollution from the pipeline;
those emissions would simply be too big. Keystone XL would be directly
responsible for the equivalent annual emissions of 51 coal-fired power plants or
37.7 million cars. As a point of comparison, Canada has about 26 million cars on
the road.
Along with the pipeline’s direct emissions, the pipeline would be responsible
for decades of future emissions from tar sands. The Pembina Institute estimates
that Keystone XL would increase tar sands development by 36 percent. The State
Department estimates that tar sands oil could be 22 percent more carbon
intensive than conventional crude used in the United States. And when the lost
carbon sequestration potential of Canada’s 1.2 billion acre boreal forest is
also taken into consideration, the climate implications of the pipeline become
staggering. The best way to “mitigate” tar sands development is to keep tar
sands in the ground.
Promises by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to reduce the
emissions from Canada’s tar sands should be judged against its failure to live
up to its climate commitments to date. The government of Canada has consistently
missed its own targets to regulate its oil and gas sector and reduce national
emissions, and has a history of weakening environmental regulations at the
request of the pipeline industry. The Canadian government eliminated the budget
for its National Roundtable on Energy and the Environment after it advocated a
carbon tax. In addition, the government of Canada is silencing its scientists,
as highlighted in last weekend’s New York Times when the paper noted, “There was
trouble of this kind here in the George W. Bush years… But nothing came close to
what is being done in Canada.” Even if mitigating carbon pollution from the tar
sands pipeline were possible, the Harper administration has shown no signs that
it would be willing to do it.
The fact is, tar sands are Canada’s fastest-growing source of carbon
pollution. In 2011, the Canadian government’s own peer-reviewed reports
forecasted that emissions from tar sands would be triple 2005 levels by 2030.
The Canadian government’s promises to offset tar sands carbon pollution are
nothing more than a rubber check written against an empty account. That check
would bounce, just like all of the Harper government’s other climate promises.
The one thing climate scientists and energy experts say we can be sure of, is
that the Keystone XL pipeline would deliver a massive new source of carbon
pollution.
Mr. President, a national interest determination decision on the Keystone XL
pipeline must not be premised on the government of Canada’s mitigation promises.
We urge you to reject the pipeline and continue to help build a clean energy
future.
Sincerely, Michael Brune Executive Director Sierra Club
____________________________________________
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Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Today the House could pass a Continuing Resolution (H.J.RES.59) that contains the same Monsanto Protection Act that it passed last spring! While the previous continuing resolution was scheduled to expire on September 30th, the new resolution contains the exact same language that offers Monsanto and their GMO crops protection from judicial oversight and forces the USDA to allow the planting of untested GMO crops without proper scientific or regulatory review.
If allowed to pass again this dangerous provision could eventually become permanent, allowing Monsanto to succeed in stripping judges of their constitutional mandate to protect consumer rights and the environment, while opening up the floodgates for the planting of new untested GMO crops.
At the same time, Congressman Fred Upton (R-MI) and others are working to introduce a langauge that would make it illegal for states to pass laws to label GMOs by preempting state's rights and forcing the issue to be decided at the federal level.
Climate justice is a phrase which eludes a neat definition.
Morally laden and politically controversial, it is used interchangeably to discuss the law, politics and ethics of climate change. Even the most seasoned negotiators may find themselves promoting one of its many meanings over another.
For Mary Robinson, these various meanings are not disconnected concepts, but a jigsaw of related ideas that together create a comprehensive picture of how best to tackle one of the world’s greatest problems: “When we’re talking about climate change, the issue of justice starts with injustice,” she says.
A barrister, a politician, and a top official in the UN, Robinson, now 69, remains best known as the first female president of Ireland – a largely ceremonial role she occupied between 1990 and 1997 through which she strove to influence through the “moral authority” it bestowed on her.
She admits that moral leadership continues to fascinate her, and is something she continues to exercise since became a member of the Elders in 2007, a group of global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who work together to provide guidance on peace making and human rights.
She was led to the climate debate, she says, not as a scientist or even as an environmentalist, but through her campaign work on human rights.
“I was very struck by the fact that the impacts of climate change are undermining a whole range of human rights: rights to food, safe water and health and education,” she says.
“But it is also displacing people, which is very likely to cause not just human distress but potentially conflict. So for me it’s a very, very serious issue of human rights.”
Mary Robinson with Desmond Tutu, an honorary member of the Elders (Pic: Flickr / Oxfam International)
Throughout her career, Robinson taken many approaches to the fight against injustice. Not satisfied to rely on the influence she wields through the UN, she has also sought to encourage leadership at a grassroots level, and established the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, through which she promotes action on a more direct scale than is possible through her other roles.
“There’s good grassroots leadership if only we’d listen to it,” she says. “They are the resilient experts on how to cope with the increasing negative impacts of climate change.
“I’m very struck by the resilience of local communities and the local knowledge that is used, but they don’t have insurance, and the unpredictability is really hurting.”
As a lawyer, trained in her teens and early twenties at Trinity College Dublin and Harvard Law School, she is now advocating for a strong legal framework through which climate policy can be enforced.
The Mary Robinson Foundation has joined forces with the World Resources Institute to put together a declaration on climate change to be published during the week of the United National General Assembly, highlighting issues that need to be addressed to bring about climate justice.
One aspect of the declaration that she says she is particularly pleased about is that it highlights the importance of rule of law.
“There is a need for a strong legal framework to ensure transparency, credibility and effective enforcement of climate and related policy. We firmly believe that legal systems need to protect the most vulnerable,” she says.
As former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Robinson has learnt from experience how to work the system at an international level, and is hopeful that this declaration, put together by former heads of state, climate experts and also representatives of social communities and academia, will prevent the issue of climate justice being drowned out by other concerns.
Equity
She is passionate about the overtly political issue of equity, which is becoming ever more prominent at high level negotiations.
Discussions of equity, or the issue of who should foot the bill for climate change, are particularly prone to slipping into emotive debate, with the wrangling over how the developed countries can best make amends for their historical responsibility for climate change having held up concrete action for years.
But enshrining principles of justice into mutually satisfying financial arrangements is always going to be a troublesome task, and it doesn’t help that the dryly worded UNFCCC definition – “common but differentiated responsibilities and and respective capabilities” – is frustratingly vague, leaving open for interpretation some of the most controversial decisions about what ‘justice’ actually means.
Mary Robinson speaks with a healthcare worker in Somalia (Pic: Flickr / Trocaire)
The difficulties embedded in this definition makes talking about the equity issue problematic, says Robinson.
Developed countries, for instance, who are looking to avoid donating vast sums to other countries, can promote the ‘capability’ aspect of equity over their own ‘responsibility’, suggesting that any country with the ability to do so should take the flak for reducing their own emissions regardless of their historical responsibility for the problem.
Developing economies such as China, on the other hand, will focus on their right to use fossil fuels to develop in the present as the UK and the US have done in the past, and that it is therefore up to these countries to enable them to do so.
Meanwhile, in places such as Gambia, where emissions remain low but climate impacts are already severe, the endless quarrelling over equity can seem little more than a frustrating failure to act.
A practical approach
Despite her concern for the damage already being done to the most vulnerable countries, Robinson is unwilling to let the emotional nature of the problem interfere with her pursuit of the most effective solution. Indeed, she says that her response to climate change in general stems more from “emotional intelligence” than emotion itself.
In the clipped tones of a veteran politician, she says: “Now the emerging countries are responsible for a greater part of the emissions, and developing countries generally emit more than the developed world, so we’ve got a new kind of responsibility, and that’s why I think you can get locked in to the historic responsibility in an unrealistic way.”
But, she adds: “There has to be an acknowledgement of the historic responsibility before people fully appreciate it.”
“It has to be acknowledged, and it has to be addressed in particular by greater commitments by those countries that benefitted in their economic development from fossil fuels – that’s the reality.
“Therefore they have to commit to more serious reductions of emissions because they’re in a position to move more rapidly towards renewable energy.”
The only time when her pragmatic breed of stoicism slips is when the subject of climate deniers arises. It is “hard to be patient” with sceptics, she says, because of the corrupt way in which much of it is funded by fossil fuel lobbies.
“That makes me angry because they’re playing with the future of people in the world, and it’s an injustice that it’s hurting the poorest already and will hurt them most,” she says.
“So I do feel quite angry – not just frustrated, quite angry – at lobbying against the reality. Climate justice keeps faith with science and is based on acknowledging the importance of the true science on this.”
Human rights
She left the UN as High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2002, but has since taken up the role of Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa, which encompasses the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda – countries where conflict and climate stresses are putting human rights on the top of the agenda – on the particular request of Ban Ki-moon
In every country in the Great Lakes, she says, climate shocks are undermining food security, while the population just keeps on rising. But, she adds, the thought processes surrounding the two issues are still not as connected as they could be.
“Governments have agreed in the context of the Human Rights Council that climate change is eroding and undermining the protection of human rights, but this has not been joined up to thinking in the context of the environmental and energy ministers who go to the climate conference,” she says.
“I believe we have to join that up more. That’s where climate justice is helpful, because it’s a link between climate change, development and human rights. We will be working strongly with the Human Rights Council over the coming year to make sure that voice is heard and that we have joined up thinking at government level.”
United Nations
Is it possible to spend so many years in the UN and not be disillusioned by the system, which has so far failed to put a satisfying proposal on the table on how to cut global carbon emissions? “It’s always frustrating,” she says, “and yet the UN has the value that all countries are involved in it, so I have to be patient with a very bureaucratic and sometimes unwieldy system and try to get results.”
Plus, she adds, despite her emphasis on the virtues of grassroots leadership, she still firmly believes that the UN is key to getting the world back on track.
“We can come together under the UN system if we are intelligent about what we want to do, that we want a fair robust climate agreement,” she says, “because we must have an agreement which commits countries to bring us below the 2C warming, which will mean a safe world for generations to come.
“That’s a huge responsibility and we cannot avoid it. We do need the climate agreement to reach that.”
And the 21st Conference of Parties in Paris in 2015 – an event which many look towards as the final deadline for putting a framework in place to reduce global carbon emissions – is an unparalleled opportunity to should this responsibility, she says.
“It’s very rare to have a year like 2015, where the world faces two huge complementary agendas,” she says, referring to the paradigm-shifting replacement of the Millennium Development Goals with a set of Sustainable Development Goals, along with the global commitment to come up with a legally binding agreement that will keep the world below 2C of warming, the temperature considered ‘safe’ by scientists.
“I borrow the words of Desmond Tutu: I’m not an optimist, I’m a prisoner of hope,” she says.
“I’m a grandmother. I think a lot about my four grandchildren. They’ll be in their forties by 2050 and they’ll share the world with nine billion others. I want it to be a safer world than we’re predicting at the moment. I want it to be a world where they can say at least when they got round to it in 2015 they took their responsibilities.
“I don’t want them to say how could they have been so selfish and so stupid that they didn’t see the impacts on us and our children and grandchildren in the future? That’s a preoccupation of mine.
“If by the end of 2015 we have really accepted and understood our responsibilities then I think our grandchildren and their grandchildren will acknowledge that we helped them.”
Women in Northern California farm towns gave birth to smaller babies if they lived within three miles of strawberry fields and other crops treated with the pesticide methyl bromide, according to researchers. The soil fumigant, which is injected into the soil before planting, can volatize into the air, exposing nearby neighborhoods. Use of methyl bromide has been declining over the past decade under an international treaty that phases out chemicals that deplete the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Strawberries and a few other crops are exempt under the ban because they are deemed “critical uses.”
Strawberries are the major crop treated with the fumigant methyl bromide, which is injected into the soil before planting.
By Lindsey Konkel Staff Writer Environmental Health News September 19, 2013
Women in Northern California farm towns gave birth to smaller babies if they lived within three miles of strawberry fields and other crops treated with the pesticide methyl bromide, according to researchers.
Methyl bromide is one of many pesticides used in the Salinas Valley, which has been dubbed the nation's "salad bowl."
“There’s been very little research on residential exposure to methyl bromide. Our study is the first to look at methyl bromide and birth outcomes,” said Kim Harley, study author and associate director of the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health at the University of California, Berkeley.
The soil fumigant, which is injected into the soil before planting, can volatize into the air, exposing nearby neighborhoods.
Use of methyl bromide has been declining over the past decade under an international treaty that phases out chemicals that deplete the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Strawberries and a few other crops are exempt under the ban because they are deemed “critical uses.”
The researchers studied babies born to 442 pregnant women, mostly Latinas from Mexico, living in the Salinas Valley in 1999 and 2000, when methyl bromide was widely used. Its use near each woman’s home was based on data from the state’s Pesticide Use Reporting system.
Methyl bromide, which is injected into the soil of strawberry fields and other crops before planting, can volatize into the air, exposing nearby neighborhoods.Use of the pesticide within three miles of the home during the second trimester of pregnancy was associated with an average birth weight about 4 ounces less than babies from areas with no methyl bromide use.
That 4-ounce difference is about half the birth weight decrease linked to smoking during pregnancy, the researchers said.
The significance of the slightly smaller babies when it comes to their health is unknown because they are within normal ranges. Only 4 percent of the babies were born at what is considered a low birth weight, less than 5.5 pounds. Low birth weight babies may be at risk for developmental delays and learning problems.
The UC-Berkeley researchers have been investigating the health of hundreds of Salinas Valley children since they were born in 1999-2000.
“This data would be more meaningful if it demonstrated that exposure led to abnormality,” wrote Giffe Johnson, a toxicologist at the University of Southern Florida who studies pesticide levels in agricultural workers.
Harley said that while the clinical significance of the findings remains unclear, “for a baby on the low end of normal birth weight, 4 ounces could make a big difference.”
Harley also noted that while this group of agricultural workers, and Mexican immigrants in general, tend to have healthy birth weight babies, “across the board, we saw a shift toward slightly lighter babies.”
One major limitation is that no one knows how much methyl bromide the women were actually exposed to. Their exposures were estimated based on their addresses, with no actual measurements.
“A woman could work 12-hour shifts 40 miles from home or spend little time outdoors near her own home. It’s impossible to say whether these estimates represent an accurate picture of exposure,” said Myles Cockburn, an epidemiologist at the University of Southern California who studies pesticides.
One major limitation of the research is that the scientists do not know how much methyl bromide the women were actually exposed to.About 41 percent of the women did some field work while pregnant, although few worked in fields that had been treated with methyl bromide.
A California farmworker demonstrates proper protective clothing.
The link to birth weight was reported only for exposures in the second trimester, not for the first or third trimesters. “The second and third trimesters are major periods for fetal growth. The second trimester may be a critical period for exposure to the pesticide,” Harley said.
Previously, animal studies have suggested that methyl bromide may harm fetal development.
While strawberry growers have been trying to replace methyl bromide for several years, no suitable alternatives have been found to work on a large scale.
Methyl bromide use has been cut nearly in half in California since 2002, but growers there still used almost 4 million pounds in 2011, according to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.
Despite the decline in usage, “the findings remain very relevant for the farm worker population, especially those living in agricultural areas where strawberries are grown,” Harley said.
The methyl bromide study is part of a 14-year, ongoing project by the scientists to investigate potential health effects of environmental exposures on children born in the Salinas Valley, one of the nation's most productive agricultural regions.
The California Strawberry Commission and CropLife America, a trade group representing pesticide manufacturers, were unavailable for comment on the new study.
Governments aren't doing much to halt global warming, but there is hope in the business world. Here are the companies that are facing up to the challenge--and the 50 corporations that have the largest carbon emissions.
After high-profile flops like the U.N.'s Copenhagen Climate Summit, it has become apparent that governments have little hope of ever ameliorating climate change. Corporations, on the other hand, still have a chance, especially since lowering emissions could save them money in the short- and long-term (the World Wildlife Fund estimates that if the U.S. corporate sector reduced emissions by 3% annually between 2010 and 2020, it could save $780 billion).
This week, CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project) released its 2013 Global 500 Climate Change Report, a look at what hundreds of big corporations around the world are doing to combat climate change--and how well they're doing it.
More than 80% of CDP's Global 500--a list of the largest global companies by market capitalization--responded to the organization's climate survey, which asked for details about carbon emissions, climate strategy, governance, and stakeholder engagement in everything from business travel to employee commuting. These were the biggest greenhouse gas emissions drivers overall: Some sectors perform significantly worse than others. They're the usual suspects: The energy sector is responsible for 28.3% of all emissions from the Global 500. The materials sector (i.e. mining) also performs poorly, representing over 26% of all emissions in the list. Sectors with a smaller physical impact, like the financial sector, are low emitters. But that doesn't mean they deserve to get high scores in all areas--in finance, for example, companies often fail to keep in mind the climate impact of their investments. Here's the full breakdown: The heart of CDP's report is the Climate Disclosure Leadership Index, a list of every company that scores in the top 10% among the Global 500 in disclosure and receives a score above 85 (out of 100) in climate performance. CDP believes these two measurements can be "used by investors as a proxy of good climate change management or climate change performance of companies."
These are the top 12 performing companies overall: WIthin each sector, certain industries perform far better than others. In the consumer discretionary sector, for example, the three highest-scoring companies--BMW, Daimler, and GM--are all in the auto industry. The top 50 corporate carbon emitters. Click to enlarge. Just a small number of companies are responsible for the majority of the world's carbon emissions. According to CDP, the top 50 biggest listed companies in the world generate 73% of all greenhouse gases--companies like Walmart and Exxon. These 50 big emitters aren't getting any better. Their greenhouse gas emissions climbed an average of 1.7% annually over the past four years.
And some of the most prominent big tech companies in the world, like Apple, Amazon, and Facebook, refused to respond to CDP's survey at all. Even many of the companies that did respond didn't report indirect emissions, which come from things like transportation, electricity purchases, and products used by clients. There is, in other words, still a lot of work to do.
I dropped in on a presentation by Linda Rudolph, M.D., M.P.H. at the monthly BAAQMD advisory council meeting. Dr. Rudolph is from Climate Health Connect and the Public Health Institute. While Monsatan & unsustainable ag systems are a major threat to global food security, climate change is a clear and present danger to all life systems on earth, including those that feed us. We need immediate and drastic changes to all sectors in every country, and I implore whoever reads this pathetic excuse for a blog to make time to help change the tide. It's not radical - It's called survival instinct. Most species protect their young. The corporate polluters are powerful, but together, we average citizens can be a force of change. We need all hands on deck! - Please contact your local 350.org chapter and get involved. - Betty - Here is what I learned yesterday: - Climate change is the greatest public health challenge of the 21st Century. - We can create climate for health: Reducing, Ready, Resilient - There are many win-win opportunities to simultaneously improve health and address climate change - We need faster and more aggressive action to avert catastrophic impacts on our children and grandchildren
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Climate Change is Happening Now - Warming is unequivocal; most of the warming of the past 50 years is very likely (90%) due to increases in greenhouse gases. - Warming, plus heat waves, wind patterns, drought, & more - Physical and biological systems on all continents and in most oceans are already affected by recent climate change. - Greenhouse gases at unprecedented levels, forcing the climate to change.
- Already committed to more warming (next few decades); choices about emissions effect the longer term more and more. (IPCC2007)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century... The impacts will be felt all around the world - and not just in some distant future but in our lifetimes and those of our children." -- The Lancet ---------------------------------------------------------- - More extreme temps means heat stress and cardiovascular failure
- Sea level rise and saline intrusion will bring forced migrations (mental health impact... anxiety, despair, depression, PTSD)
- Stronger hurricanes & storm surges = fatalities and injuries, mental health issues
- Increased pollen & natural air pollutants = increased allergens. (pollen production and concentrations to TRIPLE by 2040) - More dust = more Valley Fever in California
- Increased precipitation and flooding in some areas = more water, food, and vector-born diseases like malaria, dengue fever, encephalitis, cholera, diarrhea, salmonella, shigella, camphylobacter cryptosporidoiosis.
- Increased droughts and water scarcity, water contamination = threats to water and food security, migration, mental health issues, civil conflict. (Locally, California is drying. We are already seeing less snowpack and earlier snowmelt in the Sierras, which is a huge threat to the state's agriculture sector and our overall economy.)
- Ocean acidification = food insecurity, collapse of whole ecosystems on land as well.
- More frequent wildfires.
- New range of disease vectors.
- Increase in harmful algal blooms = hypoxic dead zones
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THREATS TO SURVIVAL Climate change threatens the systems on which humans depend for survival. - Air - Water - Food - Shelter - Peace/Security/Social Stability
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE Vulnerability: - Susceptibility to harm - Exposure to, sensitivity to, ability to cope with or adapt - Character, magnitude, and rate of climate change
Resilience: - The capacity to survive, recover from, and even thrive in changing climatic conditions.
NUMBER OF EXTREME HEAT DAYS WILL INCREASE FOR CALIFONIA Current and projected temperature extremes for southern California (annual days exceeding 95 degrees F)
(Hall, 2013, UCLA LARC) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 2003 heat waves in Europe: 70,000 - 80,000 excess deaths The 2006 California heat wave: 655 excess deaths
---------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEAT ADAPTATION & RESILIENCE: Promote community resilience to reduce vulnerability to climate change.
Reduce health inequities: - Identify populations vulnerable to urban heat islands - Map heat vulnerability locally (temp, tree cover, surfaces, ozone, fuel poverty. - Implement policies to protect vulnerable populations - Cal OSHA Heat Standard - household energy assistance
Urban heat island mitigation: - Urban greening - SGC grants - Built environment (cool pavement cool roofs, energy efficiency, building codes, incentives)
Reduce baseline exposures: - Air pollution (expand clean technologies/fuels in ports, rail yards, transportation corridors - Address cumulative burdens in policies to address GHG emissions
Build Stronger Social Support Networks - Community-based strategies, resilience groups, transition towns - Participatory and inclusive climate action planning, integrate into health equity
Need more research on heat acclimatization.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HIGHER TEMPERATURES WORSEN AIR POLLUTION ---------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CLIMATE PENALTY - Warmer temps will increase frequency of days with unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone.
- May push O3 concentrations beyond current year-to-year variability; may lengthen the O3 season.
- Possible increase in biogenic emissions of O3 precursors, (eg VOCs); possible increases in lightening NOx production may also be a factor in future O3 changes.
- Bay Area: The sensitivity of ozone to increases in temperature is relatively large compared to other regions in the state, suggesting the Bay Area may be particularly sensitive to climate change (Steiner, Tonse et al. 2006).
- Human activities biggest factor in ignition risk.
- Increases in the number of large fires statewide, ranging from 58% to 128% by 2085 - Estimated burned area will increase by 57% to 169% (CEC California Third Climate Assessment 2012) ---------------------------------------------------------------- RIM FIRE 2013 In Carson City and Douglas County, air quality was so bad that even the healthiest of individuals could be in danger if they spent too much time outdoors.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLLEN AND ALLERGIES Increases in Co2 and temperature can result in increases in pollen and atmospheric pollen concentrations. - Likely increase in average U.S. pollen counts from 8,455 grains/m3 (2000) to 21,735 grains/m3 (2040). - Possible doubling of ragweed pollen production by 2100 (CDPH March, 2011)
Stephen Chu (Secretary, Dept of Energy) "...you're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California. When you lose 70% of your water in the mountains, I don't see how agriculture can continue. California produces 20% of the agriculture in the United States. I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ HEALTH CARE COSTS OF CLIMATE EVENTS(2011? CA?)
(Knowlton, Health Affairs 2011) --------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ AB32 and AIR POLLUTION - The net effect of all AB 32 measures reduced statewide primarily NOx emissions by 1% and 15% respectively. - These emissions reductions lower population weighted PM2.5 (particulate matter) concentrations by 6% for California (esp in South Coast Air Basin)
(ZapataC., Climatic Change 2013)
-------------------------------------------------------------- ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION HEALTH & CLIMATE CO-BENEFITS
Reduced: - GHG emissions - Air pollution - Noise - Infrastructure costs - Community severance - Respiratory disease - Cardiovascular disease - Diabetes - Depression - Osteoporosis - Cancer Stress
Increases: - Physical Activity - Social capital
Avoidable Increases: - Bike/ped injuries (avoidable with better bike lanes, corridors, etc...)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION AND HEALTH
A shift in active transport from <5 to 22 minutes/day (2% to 15% mode share) in Bay Area =
- 14% reduction in heart disease, stroke, diabetes - 6-7% reduction in depression and dementia - 5% reduction in breast and colon cancer - Added 9.5 months to life expectancy - 19% increase in bike/ped injuries - $1.4 to $22 billion annual Bay Area health cost savings - >14% reduction in GHG emissions
(Neil Maizlish, AJPH 2011)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CLIMATE AND HEALTH CO-BENEFITS OF SUSTAINABLE, LOCAL FOOD SYSTEMS Reductions: - GHG emissions - Pesticide use - Synthetic fertilizer use - Food miles (air pollution) - Antibiotic use - Water pollution - Soil erosion - Biodiversity loss - Meat consumption - Unsustainable H2o consumption
Reductions: - Obesity - Cardiovascular disease - Cancer (breast, prostate, colorectal) - Type II diabetes - Antibiotic resistance - Pesticide illness
Increases: - Access to affordable healthy food - Rural community strength - Agricultural land preservation
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CLIMATE AND HEALTH CO-BENEFITS OF URBAN GREENING Increases: - Places to be active (physical activity) - Urban food growing (access to healthy foods) - Neighborhood aesthetics (reduce crime) - Social networks (support, disaster resilience)
Reductions: - Heat Island effect - Energy consumption (lower fuel costs) - Air pollution - Storm water run-off (decrease flood & sewage risks)
(Bellows J and Rudolph L. 2007) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CLIMATE READY AND RESILIENT FOR HEAT AND HEALTH Buildings: - Update green building and building energy efficiency standards
Surfaces: - Expand the use of porous pavements
Urban Greening: - Trees - Green/living roofs - Open space - Urban streams
Extreme Heat Events: - Improve Heat-Health Warnings - Identify vulnerable populations - Protect the energy grid - Protect outdoor workers
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ACTION IS URGENT: THE CRITICAL DECADE "...we have at most 10yrs - not 10 years to decide upon action, but 10 years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions." "There is still time but just barely." -- James Hansen, NASA
"If we don't take action regarding climate change, our future generation will be roasted, toasted, fried, and grilled." -- Christine Lagarde, Chief IMF
"If there is not action soon, the future will become bleak... My wife and I have two sons... when they grow old, this could be the future they inherit. -- Dr. Jim Young Kim, President World Bank
ONCE AGAIN.... - CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING NOW, FASTER THAN EXPECTED AND AT UPPER END OF IPCC SCENARIOS - IMPACTS HEALTH IN MANY WAYS, DIRECTLY AND INDIRECTLY - WILL AFFECT LIFE SYSTEMS ON WHICH WE DEPEND: AIR, WATER, FOOD, SHELTER - VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES MOST AT RISK (CLIMATE GAP) - IF WE ACT URGENTLY AND AGGRESSIVELY WE CAN: * PREVENT THE MOST CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE SCENARIOS * PROMOTE MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION STRATEGIES WITH HEALTH CO-BENEFITS * BUILD RESILIENT COMMUNITIES TO ADAPT BETTER
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Linda Rudolph, M.D., M.P.H.
By Sophie Yeo
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