What's the opposite of global progress? US Congress

I used to think that it would take a major environmental disaster to kick the country into gear and get serious about climate change, but after three months of the BP Gulf oil disaster and record breaking heat waves across the country the Senate has given up on passing a comprehensive climate bill. While official statements suggest that the bill will be up for debate again after the August recess, it is doubtful that the Democrats will try to push hard on a controversial bill with the midterm elections approaching.

This will ultimately be more devastating to the UN climate negotiations than the failure to produce anything meaningful from the Copenhagen talks last December. Prospects for a legally-binding climate treaty were already nonexistent for COP-16 this December in Cancun and slim for COP-17 next year, but if the US fails to act by then the negotiations could completely fall apart. China and India are dumbfounded by this latest US development as they make serious headway in their climate efforts, and if the US continues to show up to the table empty-handed they may just walk away, having no incentive to stay involved.

I see a great parallel here between the financial crisis and the climate crisis. During the financial crisis, the government didn't get involved until Lehman Brothers failed, bailing out the rest of the banks. Will the US stay uninvolved in the climate crisis until the oil runs out or islands start disappearing? I certainly hope not, but there's not much giving me hope otherwise.

Th!nking about it some more

(Originally written March 25, 2010, but never published)

Earlier this week I traveled to Brussels to participate in the kick-off event of the third round of the Th!nk About It blogging competition, sponsored by the European Commission and the European Journalism Centre. The topic for this round is sustainable development and global cooperation, and specifically how the Millennium Development Goals can be met by the target year of 2015.

One of the most amazing things I found was that Europeans and others from around the globe overwhelmingly like Americans, even though they may dislike our foreign policy just as much. One speaker during the conference remarked “Americans are among the nicest, most generous people you will meet” even as he expressed his disbelief that we could support such outrageous foreign policy initiatives as those implemented by Bush (to be fair, Obama has continued many of these policies, so he's not off the hook either).

In particular, the War on Drugs has been devastating for American relations with developing countries such as Columbia, Bolivia, Peru, and Afghanistan that cultivate the crops used to produce narcotic drugs such as cocaine and heroin. In addition to providing a large source of income for these countries, these crops are an important part of the native culture. Among the Andean Indians of South America, chewing cocoa leaves to get relief from hunger and fatigue while working in the fields is the equivalent of coffee and cigarette breaks in our society. Who are we to say that people around the world can only enjoy the drugs our society deems acceptable?

Instead of oppressing these people's culture and livelihood, we should find a way to work together to combat our drug problems. One incentive for growing these crops is that prohibition makes the price of drugs artificially high, so if we were to legalize and regulate drugs we could reduce price and therefore supply and at the same time reduce outrageous spending by our government on drug control policies that not only have failed to reduce the supply and demand of drugs, but actually resulted in increased rates of drug use and availability.

In Afghanistan, Al-Queda understood that the people depended on the poppy harvest for their livelihood, and they were able to gain so much support because they chose to work with the population instead of destroying their source of income and an important part of their culture. We have the ability to solve so many global problems such as drug use and terrorism, but it can only be done if we choose to work with the rest of the world, not against them.

On Juarez, Afghanistan, and Wal-Mart: The Overwhelming Case Against Prohibition

I found it extremely ironic to read about this weekend's Ciudad Juarez shootings ("Two Americans killed in Mexico shootings") and the Afghan poppy harvest ("Afghan poppy harvest is next US challenge") side by side in this Wednesday's edition of the Collegiate Times (available here, page 4). All around us are signs of the immense failure of the War on Drugs, and yet prohibitionists continue to vouch for the efficacy of their approach. Drug use is indeed a problem, but it is one that should be addressed without causing brutal violence and massive unemployment. Unfortunately, prohibition does exactly that.

Making drugs illegal does not cause demand to disappear, so users are forced to turn to the black market to obtain their drug of choice, regardless of whether it is Adderall, painkillers, marijuana, or heroin. In this black market, suppliers face more risk, resulting in higher drug prices, but these prices create the potential for huge profits. Profits so large that they become worth killing for, which is what happens not only in Mexican border towns but also in our own inner cities. And in order to keep these profits, no one is off limits from killing, not even diplomats or police officers.

Now contrast this system to one in which drugs are regulated in the same manner as alcohol or tobacco. The primary distribution method for these two substances is not the black market, but the legal, regulated market, and because of this no one kills anyone in the regular course of business. In addition, the sales of these products are taxed, generating additional revenue for the state, and the people in charge of distributing these products are gainfully employed and presumably paying income taxes. The prohibitionist alternatives are imprisoning drug offenders and paying farmers not to grow anything, which both come at great cost to the state.

Even in our own country, the prohibitionist mentality is putting hard-working, law-abiding citizens out of work. Take the case of Joseph Casias, a dedicated employee of the Wal-Mart in Battle Creek, Michigan, whose hard work won him the award of Associate of the Year in 2008. Joseph also suffers from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor, and to treat the severe pain caused by the affliction he uses medical marijuana, which is legal in the state of Michigan. Yet when he tested positive for marijuana in a drug screening following a work-related accident, the company decide to fire him last November. Furthermore, earlier this week it was reported that Wal-Mart was challenging his eligibility for unemployment benefits, although they have since changed their position, most likely due to the high volume of negative publicity they received in the media. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Joseph will be able to find another job to support his two children and pay for his medical bills in Michigan, which has the highest unemployment rate in the country.

All of this illustrates the high cost of prohibition, but it should also be noted that it is ineffective. In Portugal, the Netherlands, and other places that have decriminalized drugs, drug use has actually gone down in response to decriminalization, as more people are willing to seek treatment, among other reasons. And over the past 30 years in the US smoking rates, particularly among teenagers, have gone down, not because of making cigarettes illegal and using scare tactics, but because of honest education and open dialogue on the subject. In our great country that was founded, above all else, on the principle of liberty, it is time to end the fascist policy of prohibition.

My Vision for Our Decade

Although I don't know where yet, in the fall I will head off to law school to learn about resolving environmental disputes. I see the Senate and U.N. eventually passing climate legislation that's good but not great, and it will be up to the youth to make it so. Faced with new restrictions, business and industry will have two choices: to become our allies, working together toward compromises that can benefit the interests of everyone involved, or continue to be our enemies in an increasingly costly battle over regulation. In the midst of all this I see myself working to bring everyone to the table, business leaders, environmentalists, and government agents alike. Through this work we can create communities that provide their own energy, grow their own food, and take care of their own waste - communities that care about themselves and their future.

For Science!

Due to the highly political nature of the subject of its research, the IPCC is constantly under attack from critics and those opposed to climate change action, who hope to use anything that can be regarded as a mistake on behalf of the panel to turn public opinion against taking action on climate change. The most recent “scandal” concerns the panel's assessment of economic losses from catastrophe and their relation to observed global temperature increase.

The story, published by the Times Online on January 24, accused the IPCC of cherry-picking data from a then-unpublished study on the increasing costs of hazard loss since 1950. The study, which has since been published, compared the costs incurred by natural disasters to growth in population and infrastructure and found no increase in the impact of disasters, after accounting for growth, between 1950 and 2005, and a slight 2% increase in the impact of disasters between 1970 and 2005, when strong rises in global average temperature began.

However, the published study also included caveats on technical factors, such as strong hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005 and currency exchange rates, that could produce bias in the result, and so the author added a caution that there was “insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses”.

While revelations such as this reflect poorly on the IPCC (as they are designed to do), more scrutiny should also be given to the sources of these “scandals”, as it would appear that the Times Online is itself cherry-picking information to discredit the panel. The IPCC assessments are based on the entire body of climate change research, and one study that stands out would be insufficient to sway the conclusions reached by the entire panel.

The reality of the situation is exactly that. Although AR4 references the study that found the 2% increase in catastrophe losses since 1970, it also mentions that no other study has been able to detect a similar trend. The report offers a balanced view not only on this particular issue but on all of the research available at the time it was written. In fact, many have called the reports and processes of the IPCC conservative in that they require the agreement of hundreds of scientists before anything can be published.

In contrast, the Science and Environment Editor for the Times Online needs the approval of only a handful of managing editors (if that) for a story to be published, and while we hope that all journalists are proud enough of their profession to maintain their integrity, the truth is that the profit motive plays a much bigger role in the decision-making process of the editorial board for one newspaper than it does for a diverse group of hundreds of scientists – the amount of advertising on each group's respective website speaks clearly to this fact.

Thoughts on Election Day

So I wasn't planning on writing a blog today, even though it has been a little while, mainly due to the level of exhaustion I expected, but I did want to get a few thoughts down while they were fresh.

First of all, and I hope I'm not announcing this to anyone, but I'm disappointed Bryce lost. All told, he did an amazing job for himself and I can only anticipate what we'll see next from him. But much congratulations goes to the council-members-elect, particularly Cecile Newcomb, for earning their spots on the Blacksburg Town Council.

The statewide elections were an unsurprising let-down, and that's about all the space I'll waste on that.

Finally, this idea promoted by Wellstone Action about election day registration is starting to grow on me. That, and hearing about how easy it is to vote in other democratic countries such as Germany, really makes me consider the capitalistic slant towards those with more "freedom" present in our supposedly fair democratic process. Then again, the continued existence of the electoral college system serves as a certain truth about that notion.

Virginia Powershift 2009 Recap

Virginia Powershift 09 wrapped up a couple of hours ago, and after some good food (Chipotle!) and digesting (no pun intended) everything that happened, I wanted to share some of my thoughts. I'll start with some of the activities of the conference, then move to general observations.

The Petrol-Free Gypsy Carnival Tour: this was incredible! Thanks so much to Nick and Rachel. Over 11 days this past summer, they biked from Harrisonburg to Virginia Beach while making stops along the way to play shows and spread the good word about touring with people power instead of oil power. Oil funds war and other social injustices, as well as contributes to climate change, and so by opting out of oil they chose to support a more noble cause. I have no clue how to pull it off, but don't be surprised to see Dubnium biking around Virginia next summer.

Probably the most surprising thing I learned this weekend was that campaign contributions in Virginia are unlimited. Of course, a quick trip over to the Virginia Public Access Project makes that quite apparent: the largest contribution by an individual to McDonnell's campaign was $125,000, while for Deeds it was $175,000, and both campaigns had multiple organizations which had contributed over $1 million.

But by far the best workshop I attended was the social media workshop hosted by Tom Dawkins, currently of Ashoka. Tom is their "social media guy" and had a lot to say about the strategies and pitfalls of using social media and how it is well suited to activism. One of the best lessons I took away from this workshop was only doing as much as you can be good at; focus on your strengths, yes, but also focus them in a way that's truly effective. Climate change is only one of many issues I care deeply about, so this made me evaluate how effective I was working on multiple issues and projects as opposed to focusing on one or two, but I think that sort of evaluation leaves out the value of community and coalition-building that results (partially) from what I do. And, ultimately, those are two things that can always be added to; after all, "the market for belief is infinite".

Saturday was October 24th, the 350.org international day of action. Ours was one of over 5,300 actions that took place that day, and with participation in over 180 countries, this can be considered the first ever global day of action for anything.

Then, of course, came the keynotes. Mike Tidwell was brilliant as always, vividly describing the shocking effects of climate change already happening while passionately telling us why he fights on every day, and why we should too. Rachel Butler of SustainUS added another number to the mix: 43, as in 43 days (42 now) till the Copenhagen climate conference, 43 days left to get our members of Congress to pass as strong a climate bill as possible, and 43 days left to ensure that Obama will be in Copenhagen, leading the way as the world prepares to deal with the greatest threat to mankind ever known. Jessy Tolkan was very much herself and brought the fire and passion to us straight from Times Square, which 350 had taken over as part of the day of action, and couldn't have done more to get everyone there excited. She brought up one really important point during her speech, one again of numbers, which I'll elaborate on with the rest of this post.

At one point Jessy made a reference to the "60 or 70" people in the room, but in reality at the time there were probably less than 50 people. And that's embarrassing. This event should have easily had a couple hundred people, if not a thousand, but for various reasons didn't. And while I can't speak specifically to the organizing effort by George Mason students or recruiting efforts by other schools, I do have a couple observations to make as to why Virginia Tech, one of the top schools in recruiting for both national Powershifts, showed up with only 6 students.

Quite simply, the problem was us, the experienced Hokie climate activists. We (and I use this term loosely, as I personally did not have much to do with planning) may have thrown a somewhat successful Virginia Powershift last year, but it was our collective attitude that helped kill Powershift this year. We didn't think it was worth our time, we lacked faith in the ability of those organizing, perhaps because of our inflated egos from the long summer months we spent planning as opposed to five short weeks, and overall we didn't care. We didn't care if Powershift succeeded, and maybe even wanted it to fail because we'd be proven right, better, superior to those organizing this one.

Well, sorry guys, but by every standard other than numbers I consider this Powershift a success. Every workshop I attended gave me quality information and networking contacts that I know will continue to help me from this point forward. The small numbers might even have turned out to be a plus for networking because of the informal environment created.

Another point brought up to me at the post-Powershift party last night was that some people felt that they didn't need to attend because they already knew everything. This is the pinnacle of folly, one because you can never know everything, and two because Powershift is about more than just learning. It's about putting that knowledge to work and creating change in our communities and around the world. I know most of us know this already, but it's easy to forget; Powershift is a good reminder of why we're doing what we're doing, how important this is, and how many others are there right alongside us.

So what to do now? I'll reiterate what Rachel Butler said: we have 42 days till Copenhagen to get our political leaders on board. Are you up to the challenge?