One of the most terrifying pieces of climate change denial which I see crop up from time to time is some form of “No problem, we’ll just use air conditioners.” This simple statement betrays so many levels and types of ignorance that I prefer the “It’s all a hoax” Deniers. At least their nonsense is easy to expose in one straightforward argument.

Let’s begin with the assumption that ‘everyone’ has air conditioning; privileged much? Needless to say the majority of the world’s population does not, nor are they going to be able to access them. Even within the Denier’s belief system, ie that the problem is heat waves, this betrays a staggering lack of awareness of who is human and what is possible. If you ever needed a blatant example about how climate change is really the oppression of the marginalized by the privileged, this is it.

Our next problem is the profound ignorance of the natural world and how humans depend on it. The author of this sort of statement is clearly unaware of how food is produced, and what it requires to be grown. One needn’t have been raised on a farm to have noticed how often “drought”, “heat wave”, and “crop failure” go together in the news.

The fact is that climate change affects crops both directly and indirectly. Heat waves do not need to actually kill the crops outright. A heat shock during vulnerable times such as germination, flowering, or seed set is enough to ensure no harvestable crop. This is true even if the rest of the season is/was perfect growing conditions.

A less direct effect is that climate change affects rainfall. Crudely speaking, dry areas will get drier and wet areas will get wetter. Neither is good for growing food. I won’t belabour the details, but suffice to say that on our current course we expect to lose significant proportions of our food production capabilty over the next few decades, after which it will get much worse. For those who wish to understand why climate change means global famine (including North America) see Greenfyre’s.

The quick version to understanding the impacts of climate change goes like this: Too often people relate to climate change on the warmer than average winter day – mistake. Right now we are tracking for a global average warming of at least 4C (7.2F) this century. Warming is twice as much over land, so make that 8C (14.3F) to understand what we will actually experience. Now add that to the worst heat waves and droughts that you experience every year.

Consider the less common events such as the heat wave in 2006 that destroyed 50 percent to 90 percent of many crops in the American West, or the 2003 one in Europe that killed over 50,000 people. How about the now annual fire season in California and other regions of the west coast? Add 8C (14.3F) to those. Then add more because 4C is just the prediction for this century, and not even the worst case one. That’s climate change.

Yet another level of ignorance is the belief that some form of technology will save us. Here again this topic deserves far more explanation than I am going to give here, but the short version is that technological “solutions” typically only address one symptom. Our air conditioning example addresses only the effect of heat waves on the privileged. Various schemes to reflect sunlight don’t address ocean acidification, etc.

Even where technological schemes try to address “the problem”, such as carbon capture, they merely shift the nature of the problem. If we were to actually capture all of the carbon successfully, what would we do with it? How safe is “storage”? Or are we setting ourselves up for a sudden release of many years of accumulated carbon dioxide? Where are the resources to come from to build all of these capture and storage facilities?

The wish for technological solutions is very much like the alcoholic’s fantasy that if they could find just the right drink it would solve their addiction problems. White wine instead of red, or straight up instead of mixed drinks; all the little games pretending to change while actually changing nothing.

None of which should be news to anyone who understands the most basic ecological facts, which in our society is almost no one. The sad truth is that far more people know who won the Super Bowl or who may win the Oscars then where their food comes from and what it needs to be plentiful. Needless to say the former are utterly trivial, whereas the latter is essential to survival.

Which begs any number of questions.

Broadly speaking democracy is not about counting votes so much as it is about universal participation in the decision making process. It is about informed decision making by those affected by those decisions. Is democracy even a relevant concept when the populace is so naïve about their basic survival needs?

Daniel Goleman’s book “Ecological Intelligence: Do Humans Have What it Takes to Survive?” explores aspects of this question, and while he seeks to be hopeful the prognosis is not good. The fact is that we don’t know what we need to know, and we generally don’t want to know.

Another question would be “why don’t we know?” How did we get a society where your social status increases if you are knowledgeable about the trivial, decreases if you know and understand what is important?

The “they control us” perspective of power in society is comforting in that it pardons us individually of any responsibility for the various messes we are in. That is about all it is good for. It is true that there are extreme power differences in our societies, and that the powerholders are actively working to ensure that the mass of society is ignorant about what is in it’s own self interest. That is a given.

It is also true that most of the relevant information is not only freely available, there are in fact large segments of society that pour heart and soul into trying to educate the rest. Our collective ignorance is due, at least in part, to a collective desire to be ignorant. The relationship with the powerholders is not so much Master/Servant as that of a subservient, but nonetheless enabling co-dependent.

Part of the solution has to begin with our individually taking responsibility for our participation in this process. Empowerment cannot be done to us or for us. Nor is it about seizing power. It is the process of recognizing and acknowledging the power we already have and wielding it responsibly. “Democracy Now!” is not a demand on the system, it is a demand we make on ourselves.

Editor’s Note: Please follow Mike Kaulbars on Twitter and The News Junkie Post for all of our updates.

12 January 2010. 7.0 magnitude earthquake strikes just outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 230,000 people die, 300,000 injured, 1,000,000 made homeless, 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings destroyed.

27 February 2010. 8.8 magnitude earthquake hits just off the coast of Concepcion, Chile. 279 people die, thousands injured, 1.5 million displaced.

04 March 2010. 6.4 magnitude earthquake rocks Taiwan. No death, scores injured.

Could these quakes be related? Does one Earthquake directly cause others to happen in different parts of the planet?

Ross Stein at the U.S. Geological Survey states. “The interesting thing is, any earthquake of let’s say magnitude six or larger, sends out its ripple of seismic waves, just like throwing a stone into a pond. And for a magnitude six or larger, those waves encircle the entire globe. And every single sand grain on the planet is dancing to that music.”

NPR asked this same question in October last year, after a series of quakes. They reported:

In Samoa, more than 100 people died after a magnitude 8 quake triggered a tsunami on Tuesday. Less than a day later, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake caused more than 400 deaths and widespread damage in Indonesia. A third earthquake struck in Peru, magnitude 5.9, on Wednesday.

According to Don Blakeman, a geophysicist with the USGS, “It’s coincidental. These quakes are not connected. We constantly have quakes going off. It takes one big damaging earthquake to get people’s attention and then they start noticing all the quakes.”

Kuo Kai-wen, director of the Seismology Center of Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau concurs. “the Taiwan, Chile, and Haiti quakes involved different tectonic plates. Globally, he says, there’s an average of one magnitude 8 or higher earthquake per year, some 17 magnitude 7 or higher quakes, and 170 to 180 of magnitude 6 or larger.”

He adds, “Because Haiti just happened, everyone’s paying more attention to earthquakes.”

In Haiti, by 24 January, there were a minimum of 52 additional aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater. According to NPR, there have been over 200 tremors over 5.0 on the Richter Scale that followed the massive 8.8 that struck off the coast of Chile on in the same fault zone. More aftershocks are expected in Taiwan. However, aftershocks are quite normal according to seismologists, and this doesn’t mean that strong shocks in one part of the world can trigger more in other parts.

Dr. Tom Parsons, a Seismologist with the US Geological Survey clarified the correlation of strong Earthquakes to their aftershocks: “Of course, in the Sumatra area is very active at the moment because of the giant earthquake that happened there back in 2004. So if you were going to blame this most recent event [from October 2009] on anything, I’d probably look at that big magnitude nine event that happened then as the root cause, more than the Samoa event.”

Thus, the world’s scientific experts tend to be in agreement that despite local aftershocks, there is no direct causation between large earthquakes in different parts of the world.

Editor’s Note: Please follow The News Junkie Post on Twitter.

Courtesy of Ronan_C

“Is the climate change movement splintering?” asks the Guardian headline.  Really it’s just a rhetorical device for reporting on the soul searching that has been going on within the movement as to how to move forward after Copenhagen. It is a much needed discussion given the disappointment of Copenhagen and the subsequent success of the right wing Denial machine. Even if it were not so, the discussion of strategy within the environmental movement, indeed the entire social justice movement, is fraught with challenges that may well be unique to our age.

First there is the subtle difference between the question of whether “they” are succeeding, or whether it is “we” who are failing. The two are not interchangeable in that two sides can both pursue effective strategies and yet only one will be the victor, at least at a given moment. For the movement the question is whether we are trying to do the right things and failing, or are we not on the right track at all? Do we need to try harder? Do better? Or try a different tack entirely?

It is a difficult question because so much of what the movement is able to do has been shaped by the same forces that have driven the entire social justice movement for several decades now. As society has become more mobile groups have been plagued by transience of their volunteers and membership. The tenure of both volunteers and staff has dropped from decades to years, to less than a year for most volunteers.

As a result groups lack both the leadership and experience which makes every kind of project that is long term and/or complex pretty much impossible. Not surprisingly we have seen the movements’ array of actions shrink to become little more than speaker nights and protests. Compare that to the 198 types of action described by Sharpe in his Politics of Nonviolent Action.

If our tactics are limited, our strategy may be even more so. Not only is there the limitations mentioned above, there is the lack of experience and knowledge about what the complexities and stages of political organizing even are. How many activists are familiar with or have even heard of the Movement Action Plan?

Not that there are not experienced people around, but in a diffuse grassroots movement you need broad experience across the board, not just pockets of wisdom here and there.

Granted the internet has given us the ability to potentially reach many more people, but the evidence is that the potential is not being realised. For the most part the internet is a passive medium that depends on people to go to a particular website and act on what they find. Those not already onside are unlikely to even go to these websites in the first place, and even many of those who may be counted among the “converted” do not do so either.

As a consequence the internet as proven to be a generally more effective at disseminating disinformation than information. Because it works within existing networks it can strengthen and facilitate the actions of a healthy progressive movement, but not substitute for it, nor create it.

A less obvious consequence of public mobility is that people are not bonded to place. It is one thing to stand up for the forest or neighbourhood you have known all of your life, but one is less motivated to do so for one you have only known for a few years. Understandable, but nonetheless limiting in terms of the types of actions that a group can reasonably hope to undertake.

This phenomenon was predicted and discussed by Paul Virilio in his 1978 “Popular Defense and Ecological Struggles”. What Virilio was seeing was a militarization of society in the emphasis on movement and speed.

Movement in that people are always on the move and interchangeable. They do not bond to place or one another, but rather move between increasingly uniform jobs, neighbourhoods and social circles to which they feel no particular allegiance. Speed in that the value is placed on doing everything faster, more efficiently. Natural, human values are slow and take time. Sex can be done quickly and efficiently, love cannot.

For Virilio the danger lay in that these values made society vulnerable to de facto dominance by the military industrial complex. I would argue that the values themselves are the danger in that once society has embraced them, which we clearly have, there is an accelerating slide towards increasing disintegration of the natural and the human. Not that this is inevitable any more than any of the ongoing destruction is, but it is the default outcome if we do not work to oppose it.

All of which is to say that when we say that we are “discussing strategy” we can be referring to two very different things. The facile and most common practice is to talk about how we operate within the confines of the current narrative choosing from a very limited number of possible actions given our current situation. In it’s most simplistic form it is a discussion about whether to work within or outside “the system.”

While not without value this discussion cannot strike deeply enough to actually solve any of the problems we currently face. It pretends to be a radical discussion, but it is not. It is framed entirely within the language and ideas of the status quo even while claiming to seek it’s demise. As such it cannnot get us out of that system, but rather merely shift who plays what role within that system.

The second possibility is difficult even if we understand it, and for the most part we do not. In seeking solutions we usually look for culprits in the forms of institutions and individuals, when they are entirely interchangeable and the real culprit is the entire value set and our way of understanding how we can and should live.

It is not enough to pick from the tactics and strategies that we know. We need to educate ourselves about the possibilities that we have not even conceived and begin to build the structures and processes that will allow us to implement the broader range strategies and tactics that will get us where we want to go.

The former discussion may buy the time necessary for the latter, but without the latter we are not going to be able to deal with the core issues that brought us to this point in the first place. Indeed, they will keep us on this path until we do deal with them. To paraphrase Anshin Thomas, we cannot think our way to a new way of living, we must live our way to a new way of thinking.

An overwhelming number of scientists in countries around the planet believe the science behind anthropogenic climate change. Although this is not reflected in the attitudes of many in the non-scientific general public, there is consensus among the experts who study the Earths climate.

According to a Pew Poll in July 2009, there is a bit of a discrepancy in America between what the public believes and what scientists do. While only 49 percent of the public believe that man-mad activity is causing global warming, 84 percent of all scientists do.

This of course reflects an even wider variance when we look at natural evolution. Again, in America a mere 32 percent of the public believe that evolution is caused by natural processes, whereas in the scientific community, that number is 87 percent according to this Pew Poll.

In both categories of science, the numbers are even more bleak for Republicans and conservatives. A mere 30 percent of Republicans, and only 21 percent of conservative Republicans believe the science behind man-made global warming. Views on evolution similarly drop, with only 23 percent of Republicans and 9 percent of white evangelicals believing the science.

When we examine another poll on the subject, this one from Gallup, the number of scientists who believe in anthropogenic climate change even greater. Their poll taken in January 2009 found a total of non-publishing, non-climatological Earth Scientists believe in the science at a rate of 77 percent, with an overwhelming 97 percent of publishing Climatologists believing in it.

Why the discrepancy? There are obvious gaps in education between upper level scientists and the general public, which would account for a large share of the difference. An additional portion could be attributed to the deliberate campaign of confusion brought forth by the fossil fuel industry and conservative politicians who are more inclined to believe that the Earth was created 6000 years ago.

These groups try to dispute consensus using thoroughly debunked pseudo-science like the Inhofe 400 list and the Oregon Petition. Despite this, there polls above demonstrate that the vast majority of our climatological experts and scientists in general tell us that anthropogenic climate change is a reality. There is huge compilation of endorsements if you want further proof, or you can investigate the huge number of organizations that have endorsed the IPCC Third Assessment Report.

Regardless, one has to ask who they believe about the science behind climate change: the scientific experts or someone else?

Editor’s Note: Please follow The News Junkie Post on Twitter.

The popular wisdom currently is that “Al Gore’s climate change theory” is in big trouble due to scandals, bad science, tampered data, the coldest winter ever, and so on. Not a word of it is true of course. It’s just more of the standard climate change Denier misrepresentation and outright lies. However, it does underscore three critical challenges in the politics of climate change.

In the first place, however certain one may be that the Denier crowd is up to their usual tricks, the average person has no idea where to begin to look to to show why this or that Denier claim is a fraud. This excellent site “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming” covers most of the Denier claims and if you preserve just that one bookmark you will be able to respond to just about every climate change Denier claim you will ever hear.

However, this leads us to the next challenge, which is that ultimately just about everything we know is taken on faith. Oh sure we think the Sun is a star that the Earth revolves around, that electricity is moving electrons, etc, but really it’s all taken on faith. Has anyone seen gravity? We see events that we believe are caused by something called gravity, but that’s as close as it comes.

So although all of the climate change Denier claims can be shown to be nonsense, at some point it boils down to what sources you find credible and/or trustworthy. This is not unique to climate change as an issue. From gun control to a woman’s right to chose every one is citing different “facts.”  The average person does not have the time to look into everything and will make decisions based on faith in the sources.

Climate change is an odd issue for progressives in three regards. First, it does not rest on a foundation of any sort of moral or ethical truth such as “equality” or “justice”, although these are significant with regard to it’s implications. It is simply a matter of pure science, and while the basics are easy enough to understand the particulars are complex. Second, it is the mainstream, institutionalized science that is on our side vs industry and many popular media. Third, and perhaps most importantly, we are part of the oppressor class.

That last point is a significant one. If you are reading this it is because you have access to a computer, and that means privilege. No matter how hard you are trying it is unlikely that any of you have a carbon footprint that is not at least 3 to 4 times what you have a right to, and in most cases it is likely to be much, much higher.

As someone of privilege with respect to this issue the fact is that you are very inclined to be defensive about your lifestyle. In practice this manifests as progressives finding climate change Denial more “credible” even though it comes from the same sources as so many lies about other issues. I am referring to places like the American Enterprise Institute, Heartland Foundation, etc. Names that many of you will recognize as thinly disguised lobbying firms working to undermine just about every aspect of the progressive agenda.

As such, when confronted with climate change Denial in the public sphere the average progressive is at something of a loss. They don’t know the facts as such, there is no underlying moral argument that can be made, and on the whole at least part of them is hopeful that it’s all some huge mistake and we may go on living our comfortable Western lifestyles.

This does not make for a convincing advocate. However, our times demand that we be convincing advocates, so how can that be done without becoming full time climate change advocates?

First, get the issue resolved for yourself. If you are a progressive who chooses to be a so-called “skeptic”, at least be skeptical enough to explore why on this one issue you find yourself in agreement with Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. If that doesn’t sound alarm bells for you then nothing will.

Second, be thoughtful about why you believe what you believe. I think you will find that for the average dinner conversation a rational articulation of your own reasoning is more accessible and convincing than the scientific facts would be. A simple example is their claims of a global conspiracy of scientists. Yeah, right. Milllions of scientists from over a hundred nations are in on a conspiracy; they meet Thursdays, it’s potluck, so bring something. The premise is too absurd for words.

Thinking through your own reasoning will give you all of the points you need to make to undermine the Denier claims with the average person, at least those willing to listen. What is usually lacking is the forethought to have organized your own thoughts. If you take the minimal time it takes to do so I think you will find that your reasoning is reasonable and rational, and that many others will think so to. This will make you a convincing and effective advocate without having to become an authority on climate science.

Which leaves only one missing factor, speaking out. Don’t let your silence be consent. At every opportunity fight the injustice of climate change by calmly and rationally articulating your perspective. Nothing more is needed, but that much is critical.

Editor’s Note: Please follow Mike Kaulbars on Twitter and The News Junkie Post.

There are many topics in Astronomy that are fascinating, but one of the most intriguing is the Bootstrap Hypothesis. This cosmological idea contends that as we examine the larger and larger things in the universe, they are ultimately microscopic parts of a far larger universe, one that merges with the very small. In essence, it contends that we are all living in a universe inside ourselves.

“Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins”
-Victor Hugo

The scientific process is anchored in cold, hard facts, but some of the most tantalizing elements of it for me have always involved what is commonly (and improperly) known as ‘theoretical science.’ This is actually great leaps of postulation from minor pieces of evidence, the far fringe of speculation that can sometimes turn out to lead to the truth. For instance, in ancient times careful observers could infer that the Earth is round, and not flat due to the shape cast on the moon during a lunar eclipse. Though this likely defied the common beliefs at the time, it turned out to be true.

The aptly titled Bootstrap Hypothesis is the perfect example of speculative notions that are brilliant mind candy. This was the brain child of Theoretical Physicist Geoffrey F. Chew in the 1960s, and states that the macrocosm and microcosm literally meet, forming a sort of loop in our universe. Instead of thinking about the universe in size as linear (infinitely small to infinitely large), it is all self contained within itself.

The Macrocosm

The large scale universe is known in cosmology as the macrocosm. If we start with man, we move up with increasing size from planets to stars to solar systems to galaxies to clusters of galaxies to superclusters of galactic clusters and beyond. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes have a hard time truly visualizing how big a city like Los Angeles is, much less the true scope of the Milky Way.

To give you an idea about how astronomically large things can be, refer to the video below. It is a size comparison of the physical bodies in our galaxy.

These video above merely displays things up to the size of the largest known SuperGiant Stars, but the scale goes far beyond this.

The Microcosm

Now that we have examined the increasingly large scales in the cosmos, we will go the other direction. The small scale universe is known as the microcosm. Just as immense (inversely speaking), it is extremely difficult to wrap ones mind around the scope of it.

For an excellent way to explore the first part of the microcosm, check out the University of Utah’s Cell Size and Scale page with a handy slider to zoom in and out from things the size of a coffee bean to a carbon atom.

Genetic Science Learning Center (2010, February 18) Cell Size and Scale. Learn.Genetics. Retrieved February 18, 2010, from http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

Our understanding of the microcosm in the subatomic realm is not on the most solid foundation at the moment, although it is growing every year, and with the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, our knowledge of it can only expand.

Another aspect of the similarities between the very big and very small (other than their immense scales and infinite scopes) is the patterns that emerge. In particular, we find the sphere and the disc.

According to Wikipedia, “Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek Neo-Platonic schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level) all the way down to the smallest scale (microcosm or sub-sub-atomic or even metaphysical-level). In the system the mid-point is Man.”

The Bootstrap Hypothesis may merge the infinitely big and small into a nice, contained package, but there is no actual evidence that it reflects reality. Never the less, it is delicious mind candy.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge”
-Albert Einstein

Editor’s Note: Please follow The News Junkie Post on Twitter.

by Mike Kaulbars

To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing” -Raymond Williams

Many years ago I attended a talk by a Native Elder with a long time friend who was a passionate Native Rights advocate. Our discussion going in to the talk was what it so often was, with her responding to me that while she supported environmental issues in the general sense, she “needed” her car, and air conditioning, etc. A discussion I have had too often with too many progressives.

I have always found this attitude particularly frustrating because it was easy to imagine the response I would get if I ever dared reply with a similar argument with regard to their focus issue. “Hey, I sympathize with (insert issue) but I like/need (insert behaviour).” Can you imagine? I persisted, she resisted, and somehow we remained friends.

As the Elder’s talk progressed she sank lower and lower into her chair as he talked about the hypocrisy of waving a sign for native rights while wantonly consuming power, thereby creating the very demand that was driving the destruction of the Native people and their land. This happy coincidence made the point for her that is so often missed by most. It is not that we should support one another’s progressive issues, but rather that there is only one issue with many facets and aspects. We are the proverbial seven blind men and it the elephant that we imagine to exist as separate entities.

Our “issues” are all part of a vast interconnected web. We cannot affect one part of it without affecting all of it, and all the rest affects our particular focus area. This reality has both positive and negative elements to it; let’s begin with the negative so we can get them out of the way.

Take the example of climate change. We know that the impacts of climate change are going to be catastrophic, and that they will affect the marginalized first and worst. This includes women, the elderly, people of colour, all of those with less power. It is also going to drive wars, cause wide spread poverty, and so on. Anyone who devotes themselves to one of these issues while leading a lifestyle that worsens climate change is just fooling themselves. They are undermining the very thing they care most about with their other actions.

The reverse is equally true. We will not be able to really deal with climate change unless we also address the various other inequities and injustices. There will be no real solutions until women, First Nations etc are empowered. The desperately poor will do whatever they have to in order to survive today regardless of the consequences for tomorrow. A world at war is not going to address environmental issues, and so on.

I could have chosen any of the “issues” as an example because they really are simply one issue with many facets. Unfortunately this makes the already huge challenges we face seem all the more vast, monolithic and insurmountable. Most of us are running full out trying to deal with issue that we focus on, we cannot possibly take on more. The good news is you don’t have to.

In the first place the interconnectedness means that by working for labour you are working for peace, by working for peace you are working for First Nations, and so on. The caveat is that your work on one issue promotes the advancement of all issues only if you are not undermining yourself with behaviours that presume the issues are separate. If you do that, then you are doing those issues and your own no good to speak of. Do you lead a life that all of your progressive allies would approve of? Or do you hear yourself making the same kinds of excuses that others give to you?

Granted this requires taking a certain amount on faith since we don’t have the time to know every issue as completely as we know our own. While we may feel the connection between women’s empowerment and food security is obvious, it may not be so clear how gay rights and a healthy environment is connected, or vica a versa.

Sometimes that faith will be misplaced and we will get it wrong, just as we are sometimes wrong about aspects of our own issue despite the considerable knowledge we have of it. That being said, we are wrong far more often when we fail to acknowledge that our fellow activists are just as knowledgeable and informed about their issue as we are about ours.

We can’t do everything, but we can behave in ways that acknowledge how our one issue manifests itself in all forms. Our environmental group office can and should have gender equality, be gay positive and use union made materials. We can take public transit to the peace rally, and to everywhere else. We can and should become largely vegetarian, support affirmative action, etc.

If that is how you lead your life, then your are fighting for your issue on all fronts. Your work at the shelter is helping women in crisis in your neighbourhood, but equally your purchase of fair trade helps women in developing countries, your low energy life style is protecting women in those same countries, your choice of union made goods promotes women’s rights in the workplace.

We could quibble about whether the core issue is about violence, or power, or fear, but I don’t think it matters that we agree on the label. As long as we understand our own issue, do our work well, and lead lead lives that are truly coherent and consistent with the values we are trying to promote, then we cannot help but be working for all of the issues.

Equally, if we attempt to compartmentalize and pretend that the other progressive issues are somehow unrelated to ours, and that it is possible to be progressive in one sphere and not the other, then we cannot help but undermine our own efforts. The question is not so much whether the movement is fragmented, but how fragmented we are personally.

Which is to say that the call for unity and solidarity is not a threat of being torn apart by being pulled in too many directions, but rather an invitation to become whole personally. The challenge may seem a large one in some respects, but it is also an opportunity to show the world what we struggle for by living it. Our unity is hollow and unachievable if it is based only on statements of solidarity and attending the occasional rally. When we are able to confront the monolith with our personal coherence and integrity we become resistance movement itself; vast, multifaceted, unimaginably powerful and undefeatable.

“The way chose you and you must be grateful.”

Dag Hammarskjöld Markings

This is the first article in a new daily series on NewsJunkiePost known as the Progressive Unity Project. Each day, there will be a new article published from the perspective of the environment, labor, LGBT, immigration, science, legalization, or secularity. About the weekly contributor on EcoMonday:

Mike Kaulbars is an environmental activist and writer on the science behind global climate change. He trained as a research biologist (entomology, systematics, ecology) and now directs a small NGO active on environmental and social justice issues. Climate Change was one of the big reasons he left research to get involved in public education and activism. He also teaches political action. He is the main author of Greenfyre’s, a rich resource with excellent documentation.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced a compromise regarding one mountain top coal mine in West Virginia.  The mine will receive its permit to operate but must decrease its pollution of surrounding streams by half.

The Hobet 45 mine in West Virginia encompasses 25 square miles in the southern part of the state.

It was one of 79 sites the EPA decided to take a closer look at in September because of environmental concern.

Negotiation and compromise between the mining company and the Environmental Protection Agency has cleared the way for the surface mine’s operation because they EPA says it now meets Clean Water Act standards.

The mining company has promised to reduce the number of streams it will fill with the debris during the mountain top removal process – from 6 miles of streams to 3 miles. The company, Patriot Coal, will also have to monitor and contain its pollution.

In a statement, Patriot Coal, said it is “pleased” with the decision and that it will still be able to produce 91% of the coal from the site. The company thanked local and congressional politicians for their help.

West Virginia Robert Byrd told the West Virginia Gazette that this is a good deal between regulation and industry.

But environmentalists are disappointed in EPA’s decision. They want a complete halt to all mountain top removal mining.

“It looks like EPA and the industry are rearranging deck chairs on the titanic,” said Janet Keating, Executive Director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition in West Virginia.

“It’s more business as usual. The coal industry seems to have undue influence over our decision makers and are trading people’s health, community and water for profit,” Keating said.

Keating points to the fact that the EPA failed to conduct and environmental impact study of the mine. In an email exchange, the EPA said the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers completed a less formal Environmental Assessment and determined “the Corps determined the project would result in less than significant environmental impacts.”

The union, the United Mine Workers of America, is bucking the environmentalists and applauding the decision.

The proposed Hobet 45 mine site employs about 450 members of the United Mine Workers.

Less than half of the mines in West Virginia are unionized. The union is fighting to ensure their workers retain their jobs.

Phil Smith is Communications Director for the United Mine Workers of America. He says “this will help preserve their jobs and their ability to earn income to take care of their families.”

Smith says the United Mine Workers communicated extensively with the EPA about the impact of closing the mine.

Mountain Top Removal, also called surface mining, is controversial because of the water pollution, deforestation, and destruction of the  mountain and the health impacts on the surrounding community.

Environmentalists say their next step will be to ensure the pollution levels from the mine are in compliance with the law.

For an audio version of this story visit, FSRN.org

This is the latest draft of the so called “Copenhagen Accord”, a shameful absolutely non-binding agreement likely to go down in history as one of the biggest global failure of world leaders in tackling an unprecedented crisis. The accord is a toothless cop out which only “recognizes” the scientific case for keeping temperature rise to no more than 2 degree Celsius, but do not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

The Obama administration immediately spun the deal as a “meaningful agreement”. The statement provoked the outrage of both representatives of poor developing countries and of environmental groups. The chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, Lunumba Di-Aping was quick to react and condemned the deal with strong language.

“This deal will definitely result in massive devastation in Africa and small island states. It has the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It is nothing short of climate change scepticism in action. It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush,” said Lunumba Di-Aping.

For his part, Greenpeace UK’s executive director, John Sauven, did not specifically singled out President Obama but blamed all of the leaders for their collective failure to reach a real deal.

“The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame. There are no targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a legally binding treaty. It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen,” said Greenpeace’s John Sauven.

Greenpeace put the accent on the fact that the Copenhagen accord is an empty deal “full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through”. The organization added that today’s biggest crisis is a lack of leadership, and mentioned that “the US failed to take any real leadership and dragged the talks down”.

“Civil society, the bulk of which was locked out of the final days of the climate summit, now needs to redouble its efforts. Each and everyone of us must hold our leaders accountable. We must take the struggle to avert climate catastrophe into every level of politics, local, regional, national and international. We also need to take it into the board rooms and onto the high streets,” said Greenpeace’s executive director Kumi Naidoo.

I am not quite sure what Mr. Naidoo means by “high streets,” but the climate change movement should definitely take onto the streets, worldwide, and in massive global protests for it to be fully heard. We cannot change the reality of the science which is saying that we have only a few years left to address climate change, so instead we will have to change the politics; and in order to do that, we may have to change the politicians.