Class Research Resources and Assignments

Video of Lectures
24 July - Support Page for Recorded Lecture
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Part I. Social Impact of Climate Change:

Addressing Climate Outside the "Climate Regime"

What are the possibilities for NGOs, corporations and other institutions of civil society for addressing climate change in the absence of national governmental leadership and official diplomacy on a global "climate regime?"

When the leadership of the nation-state fails and international diplomacy reaches a stalemate, what else can be and is being accomplished?

 

     "Addressing global climate change will require a sustained effort, over many generations. My approach recognizes that sustained economic growth is the solution, not the problem – because a nation that grows its economy is a nation that can afford investments in efficiency, new technologies, and a cleaner environment."

President George W. Bush
Global Climate Change Policy Book

 

Resources to explore in depth for Civil Society and Climate Change

Climate Action Initiatives

Clean Air Cool Planet

Native Energy


The Climate Group

Climate Summit - New York City 2007, C-40 Cities + Clinton Global Initiative

Tony Blair's initiatives
  - "Scenes on the impact of climate change," BBC News Online, (15 March 2008).
  - "Tony Blair on climate role," BBC News Online, (15 March 2008).
  - teaching at Yale

The Tufts University Climate Initiative (TCI)
     Reporting on Nature's Deadline

Business Week
  2005 Special Report: Battling Global Warming - Business Gets Serious About Emissions, Business Week, 12 December 2005.

 

 

Business Week
  2005 The Race Against Climate Change: How top companies are reducing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, Business Week, 12 December 2005.

 

 

PBS - NOW
  2008 "Save Energy, Money and the Planet," PBS - NOW, (28 March 2008).

 

 

The New York Times
  2008 "Thinking Green While Sifting Through the Sand," The New York Times, (22 March 2008).

 

 

"City Mayors Act on Climate Change," BBC - One Planet, (20 March 2008).

"Obama says Gore Will Be At The Table and on his team," YouTube, (2 April 2008).

 

Note: It is quite possible that none of these initiatives would have begun were it not for the Kyoto targets and the current American administration's seemingly intransigent opposition to them.

In some sense, the tragic absence of national leadership on the most pressing issue facing humankind in our age has stimulated a newly outraged, self-conscious global citzenry to emerge and make the case for human survival against what they see as the suicidal policy
of business as usual.

It remains to be seen whether this movement will prevail both in America and around the world in the time we have remaining to address the mounting crises.

 

 

 

Further Readings:

Stephen H. Schneider (Editor), John O. Niles (Editor), Armin Rosencranz (Editor)
  2002 Climate Change Policy: A Survey (Washington, D. C., Island Press, 2002), Chapters 7-11, pp. 221-304.
Jeremy K. Leggett
  2001 The Carbon War: Global Warming and the End of the Oil Era (N.Y., Routeledge, 2001), pp. 1-150.

Supplementary Material on
Addressing Climate Outside the "Climate Regime"
 

What has happened -- since Bill's lecture last wek on
"Addressing Climate Outside the 'Climate Regime?"'
   
  Gardner, Timothy
2008 "Governors to plot climate fight at Yale meeting," Reuters, (15 April 2008 5:40pm EDT).

Governors to plot climate fight at Yale meeting
Tue Apr 15, 2008 5:40pm EDT
By Timothy Gardner
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Governors from across the United States who bypassed the Bush administration by introducing laws to cut greenhouse emissions are slated to meet this week to broaden their fight against climate change.

At least five governors including Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger from California and Democrats Rod Blagojevich from Illinois and Jon Corzine from New Jersey will meet at Yale University on Friday to discuss uniting the developing markets for trading of credits representing carbon emission reductions.

"The reality is that the states are designing the true U.S. climate policy," Terry Tamminen, an environment and energy adviser to Schwarzenegger, said about the meeting.

About 28 U.S. states have formed, or are about to create, mandatory greenhouse emission limits in the absence of federal regulations.

The states hope to fight output of planet-warming gases by creating markets for credits representing emissions reductions to encourage investment in power-saving technologies and low-carbon energy sources. They aim to ultimately combine those with international carbon markets.

U.S. President George W. Bush has long opposed mandatory greenhouse gas emission limits. But his climate policy has evolved from skepticism that car engines, power plants and development cause climate change to trying to work with other heavy-emitting countries to set greenhouse gas goals.

The White House said on Tuesday Bush plans to announce on Wednesday an intermediate goal to limit greenhouse emissions, but will not make specific proposals.

   

Bush to pitch climate change strategy in Rose Garden speech
By DEB RIECHMANN – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush plans to outline on Wednesday the way he thinks the United States can stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and issue a challenge to lawmakers on climate change legislation.


 
In a Rose Garden speech, Bush will lay out a strategy rather than a specific proposal for "long-term" and "realistic" goals for curbing emissions, White House press secretary Dana Perino said Tuesday. She did not disclose details of his announcement and would not say whether the president would propose any kind of mandatory cap on greenhouse gases. 


Part II. Social Impact of Climate Change

Is the American public making progress in understanding either:
            1) the rapidly evolving climate science? or
            2) the climate-induced social crises that are now emerging on all fronts around the world?


Assigned Reading

James Lovelock
2006
The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity (Basic Books, 2006).

Suggested Reading
Fred Pearce
  With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change (Boston, Beacon Press, 2007)

...for reflection and discussion...

With all the emphasis on "consensus science," some voices have been "marginalized" and essentially ignored. What are we not hearing because of the syndrome of polarization and dismissal?
Fred Pearce, "With Speed and Violence: Tipping Points and Climate Change," Cambridge Forum - WGBH Forum Network, (2 May 2007).

James Lovelock & the "'Climate crisis' debate opinions," BBC (4 July 2006)

2006
 
James Lovelock & Andrew Revkin
2006
"Making the Case for Nuclear Power," The New York Times, (12 September 2006).
IPCC-Working Group I
2 February 2007
Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis: Summary for Policymakers [Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (This Summary for Policymakers was formally approved at the 10th Session of Working Group I of the IPCC, Paris, February 2007.)], (Geneva, Switzerland, IPCC, 2 February 2007).
Andrew Revkin
  "[Backstory on] IPCC Fourth Assessment Report," The New York Times, (2 February 2007).


To Review: What has happened over the last year,
...... since the 4th Assessment Report of Working Group I ?

IPCC- Working Group II
6 April 2007
Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability: Summary for Policymakers: Working Group II Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report Climate Change 2007 [ IPCC WGII Fourth Assessment Report ], (Geneva, Switzerland, Brussles, Belgium, 6 April 2006).
IPCC- Working Group III
4 May 2007
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group III — Summary for Policymakers, (Bangkok, Thailand, 4 May 2007),
IPCC- Synthesis Report
17 November 2007
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report—Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report— Summary for Policymakers. UNFCCC. (17 November 2007)
NPR News
  "U.N. Report: Climate Change Poses Bleak Future," NPR - Morning Edition, (6 April 2007).
NPR News
  "U.N. Climate Report Predicts Droughts, Flooding," NPR - All Things Considered, (6 April 2007).
Juliet Eilperin
  "U.S., China Got Climate Warnings Toned Down," The Washington Post, (7 April 2007).
NPR - Living on Earth
  "International Climate Report Reveals World Vulnerabilities," NPR - Living on Earth, (6 April 2007).
PBS Newshour
  "Climate Change Will Hit Poor Hardest, U.N. Panel Says," PBS - Newshour Online, (6 April 2007).
CNN
  "New, Grim Global Warming Study," CNN News Online, (7 April 2007).
BBC
  What is happening in the mountains of Peru? (5 April 2007)
BBC
  What, according to the IPCC 4th Assessment Report is happeing globally? (5 April 2007)
BBC
  What is the world community beginning to do about it? (5 April 2007)

All the while in the United States, the effort to discredit the science of climate change continues. This is "growing industry," but a sad and potentially tragic distraction.

Democracy Now
  "Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming," Democracy Now, (21 March 2008).

European perspectives are evolving in a different direction -- relatively rapidly.
Now in Europe leaders are receiving increasingly urgent briefings, spelling out
the implications of climate change in stark terms, and spurring them on to reach
new levels of cooperation in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

"EU climate change warning," BBC News Online, (10 March 2008).
    Solana Report to EU Commissioners.
"Calls for EU 'green' VAT cuts," BBC News Online, (15 March 2008).

 

In fact, this recent European Solana report follows two previous American reports which remain largely unknown to the American public:

  a Pentagon 2003 simulation [see: "Abrupt Climate Change," NPR - WBUR - On Point, 3 March 2004)].
          and a more recent
Report of Retired Admirals and Generals in November 2007 (See: "General Zinni: Global warming a serious security threat," YouTube - TheRealNews, (27 December 2007).


But for the most part American leaders have chosen to ignore these reports and the U.S. public remains largely unengaged by them. We would rather not hear what they would rather not tell us. See:

 
T.C. Weiskel
2005
“From Sidekick to Sideshow—Celebrity, Entertainment, and the Politics of Distraction Why Americans Are ‘Sleepwalking Toward the End of the Earth,’” American Behavioral Scientist, 49, 3, (November 2005), pp. 393-409.
   
Once again -- as with the science of climate change, so, too, it is with the projected impact of climate change -- America seems to ignore its own prophets in search of its own profits.
 
Consider, for example, those who have taken an integrated view of the climate problem for a long time:
 
Lester Brown,  "Climate Change and Agriculture," Human Health and Global Environmental Change (Center for Health and the Global Environment - Harvard Medical School), (1 March 2005).
 
Lester Brown,  Cambridge Forum - Lester Brown, (5 April 2006).
 
"How can the planet continue to produce enough to feed a growing population?," BBC - Have Your Say, (16 December 2007).
 
"UN warns of food aid rationing," BBC News Online, (25 February 2008).
 
"Blue Covenant: Maude Barlow on the Global Movement for Water Justice," Democracy Now, (27 February 2008).
 
The ensuing pattern of events are not encouraging::
 
"Record glacier meltdown rates," BBC News Online, (16 March 2008).
 
"Australia's grain shortage," BBC News Online, (11 March 2008).
 
"UN voices food price fears," BBC News Online, (11 March 2008).
 
"Egyptian battle for bread," BBC News Online, (11 March 2008).
 
"Global temperatures to drop," BBC News Online, (3 April 2008).
"Thai farmers guard rice harvests," YouTube - Al Jazeera TV, (6 April 2008).
 
"Fears over climate health risk," BBC News Online, (7 April 2008).
 
"Emerging Global Food Shortages," Democracy Now, (7 April 2008).
 
"Rising food prices cause riots," BBC News Online, (8 April 2007).
 
"Stuffed and Starved: As Food Riots Break Out Across the Globe, Raj Patel Details “The Hidden Battle for the World Food System”," Democracy Now, (8 April 2008).
 
Remeber this voice, "...crying in the wilderness"? [ three years ago. ]
 
  [excerpt from] Lester Brown,  "Climate Change and Agriculture," Human Health and Global Environmental Change (Center for Health and the Global Environment - Harvard Medical School), (1 March 2005).

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