One of the LA Green Corps guys was murdered last week. Check out his eulogy http://all4energy.org/news/remembering-jacquian-charles. We remember him from the Green Building Conference. He was one of the good guys and his involvement shows that Green Job training in New Orleans is working and is changing lives for the better. These efforts will continue despite this tragic event. Our sympathy goes out to friends and family of Jacquian.
Woody
View from the chair:
December 9, 2009
The climate battle rages hot and heavy these days with the world’s attention drawn to the meetings in Copenhagen, and the pages of our own state capital newspaper, The Baton Rouge Advocate advancing one side or the other (and sometimes both). Tensions have been raised by the “Climategate” controversy and news about other leaked documents and dissension between groups attending the conference. I would not be surprised if it turns out that there are hostile infiltrators at the conference who are sowing dissension and false rumors just to make it more difficult to reach a consensus.
This is a time honored disruptive tactic that was used against the peace and civil rights movements for years. There seems to be no end to the lengths to which the forces of resistance will go in order to try and stop the changes that must sooner or later come in the world’s huge consumption of energy from combustion of fossil fuels. Sierra Club Delta Chapter member Rachel Guillory is there in Copenhagen to report on the meetings and to represent the community of people in Louisiana who want action to turn around the rate of increase in human caused global warming. You can see her postings by going to http://sscinternational.org/ and clicking on Rachel’s name on the right side.
The Delta Chapter is looking for an individual to serve as its Conservation
Program Coordinator. This is a paid position that will serve under the
direction of the Chapter Chair. The Conservation Program Coordinator
organizes and implements conservation programs, campaigns or initiatives,
using such activities to increase club member and volunteer involvement.
Program activities may include clean energy, green jobs, air/water quality,
wetlands preservation, forest conservation, endangered species and educational
outings.
See the job announcement and description here. (PDF file 14 KB.)
Title: Managing Risks and Opportunities in a Changing Climate.
Location: LSU Campus (Dalton Woods Auditorium; Energy, Coast &
Environment Bldg)
Date: Tuesday, October 20
Time: 7:00pm
Lecture Synopsis
No change to a complex system like the coupled human-natural system we live in could be all good or all bad. In other words there are both risks and opportunities. Unfortunately these are not uniformly distributed around the globe, and the negatives often congregate in inequitable ways, such as particular vulnerability to poor people in hot countries, those in the high Arctic, species already endangered or threatened, people living in drought and fire prone areas, small islands, indigenous groups, and residents of "hurricane alley", among others. Although carbon dioxide increases can improve crop yields, it threatens to increase the acidity of the oceans threatening the bottom of the food chain and to intensify hurricanes and raise sea levels. How to weigh these incommensurate entities raises doubts about the general applicability of technical analytic methods like cost/benefit analysis.
A range of trade offs in non-monetizable metrics is created by climate change and climate policies, and these will be highlighted, stressing factors relevant to the Gulf Coast region. Ultimately policy is determined by how the political system adjudicates the different values different constituencies place on different amenities.
About Stephen Schneider
Stephen H. Schneider is the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Professor of Biology, and a Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. He served as an NCAR scientist from 1973-1996, where he co-founded the Climate Project. He focuses on climate change science, integrated assessment of ecological and economic impacts of human-induced climate change, and identifying viable climate policies and technological solutions. He has consulted for federal agencies and White House staff in six administrations. Involved with the IPCC since 1988, he was Coordinating Lead Author, WG II, Chapter 19, "Assessing Key Vulnerabilities and the Risk from Climate Change" and a core writer for the Fourth Assessment Synthesis Report. He along with four generations of IPCC authors received a collective Nobel Peace Prize for their joint efforts in 2007. Elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2002, Dr. Schneider received the American Association for the Advancement of Science/ Westinghouse Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology and a MacArthur Fellowship for integrating and interpreting the results of global climate research. Founder/ editor of Climatic Change, he has authored or co-authored over 500 books, scientific papers, proceedings, legislative testimonies, edited books and chapters, reviews and editorials. Dr. Schneider counsels policy makers, corporate executives, and non-profit stakeholders about using risk management strategies in climate-policy decision-making, given the uncertainties in future projections of global climate change and related impacts. He is actively engaged in improving public understanding of science and the environment through extensive media communication and public outreach.
With Special Thanks to these LSU programs:
-- Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program
-- Southern Regional Climate Center
-- Department of Geography and Anthropology
-- Coastal Sustainability Agenda
-- Office of Research and Economic Development
-- School of the Coast and Environment
The Sierra Club (and partners!!) is making a commitment to bringing back curbside recycling to New Orleans!! The upcoming election (February 6, 2010) is the way to do this. We need to make recycling a FRONT AND CENTER visible issue for the election and the next administration, whoever it is. We think we will succeed, because the time is right—there is support. A steering committee has been formed to guide this effort. We met earlier this week and brainstormed like crazy. Lots of great ideas! Now we need to make it happen.
There will be open meetings on the 4th Monday of each month (time and place to be announced) for community input.
PLEASE post your ideas on how to make it happen to this blog. I will post updates here also. Spread the word.
The song quoted in the title, Louisiana 1927, by the great songwriter and musician Randy Newman, was originally written about the great Mississippi River flood of 1927 and was trotted out again after the engineering disaster that was Hurricane Katrina, seems to be more prophetic than ever.
New Orleans' daily newspaper, The Times-Picayune recently ran a three-day series that explains in painful detail the potentially dire consequences for South Louisiana if global warming, sea level rise and land subsidence are allowed to continue unabated. We go under. Water that is. A 3 foot rise in sea level means that most of Southern Louisiana goes under and if all the ice on the planet melts, sea levels rise 328 feet and most of the Southern United States goes under along with many other places around the world.
The series offers up some hope for our future as well. Read it here:
http://www.nola.com/coastal/
Don't think that the Times Picayune has the truth about one very possible future for our state locked up. The excellent blog badastronomy.com at (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/) reports that "scientists have just announced they have found strong evidence to support..." the link between global warming and stronger storms.
Read more here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/12/19/linking-global-warming-and-severe-storms/
The only consolation for us is that the worst case scenario might not happen for another 100 years or more. Then again it might happen sooner. Let's hope we still have time to do something about this.
The three groups that sued the EPA include the Sierra Club, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) and Mossville Environmental Action Now, which is based in Mossville, La., a predominantly African-American town near several chemical plants.
Read the full story here:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6073560.html
We wanted to remind and inform our members that Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) is having it's 22nd Annual People's Conference this month. If you have never gone this is the year to go!
Featured Speaker - Ed Begley Jr.
Please visit the LEAN Website for more information and/or to register for the conference online.
http://leanweb.org/2008-lean-conference/2008-lean-conference-details/2008-lean-conference-featuring-ed-begley-jr.html
Date and Time:
Saturday, October 18, 2008
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
It is really an amazing experience.
This high-definition Louisiana Public Broadcasting documentary premieres
Tuesday, September 23 at
8:00 PM on LPB and LPB-HD
Well it's new to us anyway. It is the Green News section of The Huffington Post, that bastion of progressive thought and opinion. The Huffington Post is usually a good read when you are looking for the best in progressive opinion and the Green News section is sure to be just as good in the green arena.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/green/
"Travel's most endangered destinations"
"Put these special wonders on your must-visit list before they disappear"
Those are the headlines of an article in the Travel/Destinations section on MSNBC's Website. The article lists ten of the world's most endangered travel destinations and recommends that you see them before they cease to exist. The destinations range from the Alpine glaciers of Europe to the Taj Mahal. Destination number 9 on the list is Louisiana's coastal salt marshes of the Atchafalaya Basin. While the coastal salt marshes are mostly the final interface between land and sea, the article does get the details mostly right.
When the article gives readers an option to learn more about the Atchafalaya Basin, it cites a page on your very own Delta Chapter Website. The page it refers to is the "Introduction to the Atchafalaya Basin" page written by our very own Atchafalaya Basin expert, Charlie Fryling.
The original article came from the concierge.com Website but you can be sure that it enjoyed a much larger audience on the MSNBC site. It is certain that the widest possible exposure of the problem of coastal erosion can only help us fight it before it truly is too late.
