In a January 27 vote – split three-to-two along party lines – SEC Commissioners approved interpretive guidance on rules requiring companies to disclose potential impacts of climate change on their bottom lines. The move was prompted by a petition filed in September 2007 by Environmental Defense Fund – Finding the Ways That Work and Ceres. The petition was backed by institutional investors with $1.5 trillion in assets, including treasurers from California, Florida, and New York, among others.
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Sea Change Radio surveys a broad spectrum of opinions and outcomes of the UN Climate Conference (COP15). We hear excerpts from a press conference there featuring a Republican contingent from the US House of Representatives, a speech by Tuvalu Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia, and an exclusive interview of European Commission Deputy Director-general of Environment Karl Falkenberg by Sea Change Climate Correspondent Cimbria Badenhausen, who covered all 2 weeks of the conference on the ground. Click to continue reading and listen to the show…
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Sea Change Climate Correspondent Cimbria Badenhausen covers the International Day of Climate Action by talking beforehand with 350.org Director Bill McKibben. The Bioneers by the Bay Conference celebrated Climate Action Day with a 350 event MC’ed by rapper Tem Blessed, featuring talks by Callum Grieve of the Climate Group and Marty Driggs, a member of the Youth Initiative Planning Committee for the Bioneers by the Bay Conference. Also at Bioneers, Cimbria caught up with sustainability guru Paul Hawken, who told Cimbria of the Arctic trip that Scandinavian royalty invited him to attend, to witness and study the impacts of climate change. And finally, ZipCar Founder Robin Chase describes the controversial “Supermodels Strip for Climate Action” video her daughter conceived and produced.
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What does our future on this warming globe hold? We explore this question today with Stephan Faris, who talks about his new book, FORECAST: The Consequences of Climate Change
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Last week on Sea Change Radio, we featured the pros and cons of the climate bill now set to wend its way through the halls of Congress. Today, we take a look at two proposals from the grassroots that have some important bearing on climate policy. We talk with Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists about the group’s National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy, Climate 2030 and with David Goldberg about Transportation for America’s Route to Reform.
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Peaceful protesters gathered at the Mount Tom Power Plant in Holyoke, Massachusetts, on March 1, a chilly Sunday. They were demonstrating against coal, the fossil fuel that spews global warming carbon dioxide and toxins such as mercury into the air. They were piggy-backing on the Capitol Climate Action coal protests happening the next day in Washington, DC. Sea Change Radio spoke last week with that event’s organizer Bill McKibben. Click to continue reading and listen to the show…
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Alex Bowen, a Principal Research Fellow at The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment of the London School of Economics, discusses An Outline of the Case for a ‘Green’ Stimulus, a report he co-authored with Lord Nicholas Stern, the man behind the 2006 Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. And in the ViewPoint, Donald Bartlett of the investigative journalism team Bartlett and Steele advances the idea of a Federal Reserve for health care. Click to continue reading and listen to the show…
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Jim Motavalli
Jim Motavalli blogs on green matters for The Daily Green and Mother Nature Network and he blogs about cars in the New York Times “Automobiles” section. He was also a long-time editor for E–the Environmental Magazine, where he continues as a contributing writer. Motavalli combines his passion for autos and environment in his book, FORWARD DRIVE: The Race To Build Clean Cars for the Future
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Barack Obama has said time and again that change comes from the bottom up at least as much as from policy directives from on high. He’s right–and he seems to be giving signs that pressure from below is going to be needed to keep him true to his own campaign promises. Click to continue reading and listen to the show…
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At the G-20 Summit addressing the global financial crisis this weekend, the government leaders of the world’s largest economies essentially twiddled their thumbs, punting on setting ambitious goals until April 2009 — when the Barack Obama Administration, which is dedicated to addressing the financial crisis and the climate crisis, is in office. Before the Summit, Worldwatch Institute Senior Researchers Michael Renner and Gary Gardner proposed that the G-20 enact a Global Green Deal, evocative of FDR’s new deal but more audacious in scope and vision. CWR co-hosts Francesca Rheannon and Bill Baue speak with Renner about the proposal’s 5 strategies, including transitioning to a renewable energy economy, launching an efficiency revolution, and investing in green infrastructure.
And speaking of green infrastructure, Deutsche Asset Management issued a report calling for the establishment of a “green” National Infrastructure Bank. Bill Baue speaks with Deutsche Climate Change Investment Research Director Bruce Kahn about the report, a followup on the Investing in Climate Change 2009: Necessity and Opportunity in Turbulent Times report CWR covered recently.
“Building a Green Economy: It’s Time for the G20 to Focus on a Global Green Deal”
Report: Green Jobs: Towards decent work in a sustainable, low-carbon world
CWR News Analysis: Listen
News Sources:
–Pew Research Center on the People and the Environment “A Deeper Partisan Divide Over Global Warming”
–Schwarzenegger Blames Global Warming for Elongated Fire Season
–BBC: “Emissions up in developed nations”
–NY Times: “Pollution Has Leveled Off, but the Figures Have Holes”
–Pam Solo: “Saving Detroit from itself”
–Marketplace: “Obama meant it about C02″
CWR ViewPoint: Listen
The Top BENNY Award for 2008, given to activist campaigns holding corporations accountable by the Business Ethics Network (BEN), went to the Clean Up Ecuador campaign for bringing Chevron to justice for decades of pollution in the Amazon. The campaign is led by the Amazon Defense Coalition and Amazon Watch. Mitch Anderson of Amazon Watch has our commentary today, produced in partnership with BEN.
