Why Fly When You Can Float?  Behemoths in the Air - A New Age for Dirigible.

ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik

for details please see:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/busine…

Groundbreaking Lawsuit Accuses Big Oil of Conspiracy to Deceive Public About Climate Change.  Now you see why the Bushies love “tort reform”…

Posted by Democracy Now!, www.Democracy Now!  on July 3, 2008.
Attorney Stephen Susman helped file a groundbreaking lawsuit earlier this year on behalf of 400 Inuit villagers in the Alaskan town of Kivalina who are being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by global warming. The suit accuses 20 oil, gas and electric companies–including ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and Peabody–of being responsible for emitting millions of tons of greenhouse gases causing the Arctic ice to melt.

I am joined here in Aspen, Colorado by the attorney Steve Susman. He is the founding partner of the law firm Susman Godfrey.

Earlier this year he helped file a groundbreaking lawsuit on behalf of 400 Inuit villagers in the Alaskan town of Kivalina who are being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by global warming.

The suit accuses 20 oil, gas and electric companies of being responsible for emitting millions of tons of greenhouse gases causing the Arctic ice to melt. Companies named in the suit include ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips and Peabody. The suit also accuses eight of the corporations of being involved in a conspiracy to mislead the public about the causes of global warming.

Susman and his legal team have adopted a legal strategy similar to that used by lawyers who fought Big Tobacco in the 1990s. Susman was also involved in that litigation – he was an attorney for the tobacco giant Philip Morris.

Steve Susman also recently represented the Texas Cities for Clear Air Coalition in their successful effort to block the energy company TXU from building 10 new coal-burning power plants. The case was featured in Robert Redford’s documentary, “Fighting Goliath—Texas Coal Wars.” Attorney Steve Susman joins me here in Aspen.

Steve Susman is founding partner of the law firm Susman Godfrey. He recently filed a pioneering global warming lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and 20 other oil, coal and electric companies on behalf of residents of the Alaskan Native coastal village of Kivalina.

On photo of rape-seed plants, it says “Biofuels are responsible for 75 percent of recent food price rises, according to a secret World Bank report.”

Food and fuel crises pushing world into ‘danger zone’, says World Bank’s Robert Zoellick.

LEIGH PHILLIPS, for the EUobserver, July 4, 2008.

As the head of the World Bank warns world leaders that the planet is entering the “danger zone” with millions thrown into extreme poverty by the twin food and fuel crises, a leaked report from his organisation shows that biofuels have pushed up global food prices by 75 percent - a much bigger role in the disaster than previously thought.

In a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, ahead of next week’s G8 summit, and copied to other G8 leaders, World Bank president Robert Zoellick has called on them to act immediately to address the “man-made catastrophe” of soaring food and oil prices.“What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster - a silent tsunami or a perfect storm. It is a man-made catastrophe and as such must be fixed by people,” he said in the letter.

There has been an 82 percent rise in food commodity prices since 2006, with the crisis worsening since April, Mr Zoellick warned.

This has pushed an additional 100 million people worldwide into extreme poverty, he said, noting that some 41 countries have lost three to ten percent of their GDP from rising food, fuel and commodity prices since January 2007. Over 30 countries have been hit by food riots, as the impact of the crisis reaches the household level, said Mr Zoellick.

He described the current situation as an “unprecedented test” for the international community and called on wealthy countries to stump up €6.4 billion ($10 billion) in immediate short-term emergency aid for the countries hardest hit by the crisis.

Over the medium term, an additional €2.2 billion ($3.5 billion) is needed for agricultural supports and social programmes for the poor in a further 50 countries, he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Zoellick’s organisation has produced a confidential report leaked to a UK newspaper that says that the rush for biofuels, particularly by the EU and US, is responsible for 75 percent of the rise in global food prices.

Until now, the US has claimed that biofuels policies have resulted in only three percent of the rise in food prices, while European Union officials have repeatedly claimed their policies have had a “negligable” impact, without attaching any percentage.

Other international institutions have assigned considerably more blame to such policies. The UN Food and Agriculture organisation says that biofuels explain 10 percent of recent price rises.

The International Monetary Fund puts this figure at 30, the same number reached in assessments from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

“Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate,” the report says.

EU and US leaders have argued that it is not biofuels, but rather higher demand from India and China as incomes there rise, alongside increased oil costs and droughts in parts of the world such as Australia.

The World Bank report, produced by Don Mitchell, a senior economist at the institution, argues that emerging economies are not to blame. “Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases,” reads the report, adding that droughts in Australia have had a marginal impact.

Higher energy and fertiliser prices were responsible for an increase of only 15 percent says Mr Mitchell, while biofuels have been responsible for 75 percent of the price rise of 140 percent between 2002 and February 2008.

This happened in three ways, the report explains: the diversion of grain from food to fuel; the encouragement of farmers to set aside land for biofuel production; and the speculation in grains.

The report also says that other estimates of the role of biofuels have come to smaller estimates because they analysed the crisis over a longer period. Mr Mitchell instead studied food price rises month by month.

Separately, international development NGO ActionAid on Tuesday (1 July) published a report that claims that the “biofuels juggernaut” is responsible for leaving some 290 million people hungry or at risk of chronic hunger.

Additionally, on Thursday at a Brussels conference hosted by the French EU presidency, John Holmes, UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, called on the EU to “look again” at its target that would see biofuels to fuel 10 percent of vehicles by 2020.

www.SustainabiliTank.info has argued for a long time that agricultural-land set-asides were invented to “support” prices of the commodities. The bio-fuels can thus safely be produced from putting back into production those already existing set-asides.

If the World Bank would like to do something for the world’s poor, it would start helping those poor directly with microcredit type of lending rather then seeking out large corporate-based government credit-seekers. Go out and study Malawi - learn how help comes only for those that are ready to help themselves - not their Mugabe kind of despots. Zoelick, Don Mitchell, and George Bush are doing disservice to humanity by not laying bare a reality study and instead talk of symptoms rather then the underlying cancer. US and EU agriculture have caused the destruction of autonomous production in places like Africa - first by underselling them, then by keeping them dependent of “benevolent” hand-outs when teaching to fish is much more important then shipping away free fish. NGOs’ help has also been misconstrued so it makes the philanthropists feel good by having around dependent poor - why in the world don’t you go to Malawi and learn how to make a whole country independent? Why don’t you not simply say to Africa - if you do not get rid of your Mugabes we will not dish food to you anymore. Without your Mugabes we are ready to come help you organize your self-help - and by god - we are really intent to help you this time.

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In total 15 EU states (out of 27) have nuclear power plants, accounting for nearly a third of electricity generated in the EU. So, 12 States do not have nuclear plants, but being part of the European grid get their electricity from such plants anyway.
Support for nuclear power in Europe growing, says commission survey
RENATA GOLDIROVA, from Brussels, for the EUobserver, July 3, 2008

Although nuclear energy continues to be a “strongly” divisive subject in the European Union, support for the controversial source of electricity generation has grown “significantly” over the last three years, a new European Commission survey suggests. A “permanent, safe solution” to managing radioactive waste seems to be the decisive factor when it comes to a possible shift in opinion about nuclear energy.

Should such a solution be found to safely storing the waste, some 39 percent of people say they would change their mind about nuclear energy, according to the poll released by the commission on Thursday (3 July). { What about the decommissioning of these plants when time has come for their closing? Do you have any solution for this problem ? }

Dutch, Belgians, Lithuanians, Britons, the French, Slovenians and Finns are the most open to new arguments. Half the opponents in these countries would change their view regarding nuclear energy should a solution to waste be developed.

However, 48 percent of Europeans - mainly in Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Portugal and Germany - would stick to a firm No irrespective of any solution to waste. Eight percent are convinced there is no solution to be found. The European Commission itself stopped short of saying what a permanent and safe solution should be, saying it instead is promoting expert discussion on the issue.

Brussels has recently set up a high-level group designed to establish common criteria on ways how radioactive waste should be treated. One of the possible methods discussed has been “geological storage facilities”, currently used in Finland, the commission spokesperson said.

He also referred to a piece of EU legislation on radioactive waste that “is still on the table of the council [representing EU capitals] and has not been addressed”.

According to the survey, 93 percent of Europeans say a solution for high level radioactive waste “should be developed now and not left for future generations”.

In general, some 44 percent of Europeans express support for nuclear energy, while a nearly identical number, 45 percent, oppose it. The figures represent quite a shift in views compared to 2005, when 37 percent of people were in favour and 55 percent were against nuclear power.

There is a clear link between the level of citizens’ support and whether their home country operates nuclear power plants. The Czechs, Lithuanians and Hungarians are most in favour.

Currently, 15 EU states have nuclear power plants - something that accounts for nearly a third of the electricity generated in the EU.

The current European Commission, under the leadership of Jose Manuel Barroso, has not shied away from supporting the nuclear path, a controversial option in many parts of Europe. Brussels says that nuclear energy has a role to play in meeting the EU’s growing concerns about security of supply and CO2 emission reductions.

From:    jeh1 at columbia.edu
Subject: Dear Prime Minister Fukuda
Letter sent to Prime Minister Fukuda before the G8 meeting is at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2…

makes some very interesting points about relative parts of coal, oil, and gas in 2007 emissions and their historic part in the present composition of the air, and the various sources of these emissions.

He makes suggestions and asks for Fukuda’s leadership. Please open the above link in order to read Jim Hansen’s intervention to the G8.

 From:    organizers at 350.org
Subject: Tell the G8: The World is Waking Up

Pincas,
I’m writing this from Japan, and I’ve got news to share: the world is waking up to the climate crisis.

Next week, the leaders of the 8 richest countries in the world will meet here in Japan for the annual “G8 Summit.”  This year, the climate crisis is at the top of the agenda-and we have a rare opportunity to hold our world leaders accountable.

Help us send a message to the G8 that it’s time to lead on climate change.

 http://www.350.org/g8petition

The 2008 G8 negotiations can just be another round of empty climate promises-or they can be the first steps on the road to a safe global future.  When it comes to setting the world on a path to 350 and  a safe climate, we want the smartest, the fairest, and the fastest ways to get us there. We can’t allow our leaders to drag their feet — we have to tell them to start right now.

I came to Japan two weeks ago to see if 350.org could make some allies to build a global movement.  What I discovered is that this movement already exists — here in Japan there are teachers, politicians, grassroots organizations, artists, families, and activists of every kind who are doing everything they can to tackle the climate crisis.

There is a global movement building-now we need to unite to make our voices heard.

 http://www.350.org/g8petition

Unity. That’s why we’re linking up with some of our close partners — Oxfam and Avaaz — to send our message to the G8.  Together, we can send a strong call that the G8 must begin negotiating a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that will lead to 350.   Avaaz and Oxfam will help us make sure your message reaches Prime Minister Fukuda and the G8 leaders next week.

Please join us by signing the petition and sending it on to family and friends.  With your help, we can grow this movement and send a powerful call at the same time.  Forward this e-mail to 10 friends today.

After the G8, we’re looking forward to creating ever bigger and bolder actions with you all-this movement is just getting started.

Onwards,
Jamie Henn and The 350.org team: Bill, Jeremy, Jon, Judit, Kelly, May, Phil, Will

Wal-Mart to source more fruits and veggies locally.
Tuesday Jul 1, 2008. From New York, by Nicole Maestri of Reuters.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc is sourcing more produce sold in its U.S. supercenters and Neighborhood Market stores from local farmers as it tries to offset the soaring transportation costs that are driving up food prices.

The world’s largest retailer said on Tuesday it had increased the number of local U.S. farmers that it works with by 50 percent in the past two years, and it would like to continue expanding that figure at a double-digit rate.

While Wal-Mart declined to provide an exact figure, it said it now works with “hundreds” of individual farmers, and this year it expects to source about $400 million in locally grown fruits and vegetables from farmers across the United States.

“When we’re buying local, there are less trucks on the road, less miles that that produce is traveling and therefore less fuel,” said Pam Kohn, Wal-Mart’s general merchandise manager for grocery.

Wal-Mart defines “local” as buying from farmers in a state and selling the produce at stores in the same state. Over the summer months, it said locally sourced fruits and vegetables make up a fifth of the produce available in Wal-Mart stores.

Grocery is a big business for the company, accounting for 41 percent of sales in its U.S. Wal-Mart stores for its fiscal year ended January 31. As food prices rise, shoppers have been flocking to its stores in search of cheaper groceries.

But soaring fuel costs mean the cost of transporting food to its 2,555 supercenters — a full grocery store combined with a discount store — and 138 Neighborhood Market grocery stores is more expensive, making it tougher to keep prices low.

While reporting first-quarter results in May, Wal-Mart said transportation costs would remain a “potential headwind” for the rest of the year, and Chief Financial Officer Tom Schoewe said he was worried about the ongoing jump in fuel prices.

Wal-Mart said that in the United States, produce travels an average 1,500 miles from farms to consumers’ homes, and it should be able to save millions of “food miles” — the distance food travels from farm to plate — through local sourcing, better packing of its trucks and improved logistics.

In an example, Wal-Mart said that by sourcing peaches in 18 states instead of just two, as it did before, it saves 672,000 food miles and 112,000 gallons of diesel fuel — or more than $1.4 million dollars in transportation costs per season.

Kohn said while the organic food trend continues, customer demand for local produce “is a very big trend, a very big trend.”

IGES White Paper - Climate Change Policies in the Asia-Pacific:
Re-uniting Climate Change and Sustainable Development.

July 2, 2008
The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Hayama, Japan, is pleased to announce the publication of its second white paper Climate Change Policies in the Asia-Pacific: Re-uniting Climate Change and Sustainable Development.

This White Paper is a summary of current climate change policies in the Asia-Pacific region and new recommendations, based on strategic research carried out at IGES so far.

The Asia-Pacific is experiencing rapid economic development and, as well as being a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it is feared that the region will suffer the worst impact. Climate change is the most urgent problem facing the international community and in pursuing a post-2012 framework, attention is focused on ways to deal with climate change in Asia Pacific countries.

This White Paper proposes climate strategies that fully take into account the needs of developing countries in Asia and the Pacific. It looks at the impact of climate change in the Asia-Pacific region and current policies from various aspects such as international framework, market mechanisms, forestry, biofuels, waste, water and business, and sets out policy recommendations that integrate climate change policies and sustainable development and shows the way for new development towards the realisation of a low-carbon society.

To download, please visit:
 http://www.iges.or.jp/en/pub/whitepaper….

Contact:
———————————————————————————–
Ms. Kitamura, Publication officer
The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES)
2108-11 Kamiyamaguchi, Hayama, Kanagawa, 240-0115 Japan
Tel: +81-46-855-3720 Fax: +81-46-855-3709
 pub-iges at iges.or.jp

World Bank Approves Climate Funds Before G8 Summit
Wednesday July 2, 2008.

by: Lesley Wroughton, Reuters

The World Bank agrees to finance the Clean Technology Fund and Strategic Climate Fund as a response to climate change challenges.
Washington - The World Bank on Tuesday agreed to establish two investment funds to help developing economies switch to clean-energy technologies to curb carbon emissions and help poor countries adapt to climate change.
The approval of the Clean Technology Fund and Strategic Climate Fund comes days before a summit of Group of Eight leaders from industrial countries in Hokkaido, Japan, on July 8 where climate change issues are on the agenda.
“The G8 is likely to broadly support the establishment of the climate investment funds,” Warren Evans, director of the World Bank’s environment department, told reporters.
He said the World Bank was counting on an initial $4 billion to $5 billion in donations by G8 nations for the Clean Technology Fund, adding that media reports that $10 billion would be raised for the fund “are on the high side”.
Britain, Japan and the United States have already said they will contribute to the fund, while more countries are likely to climb aboard now that the funds have been approved.

No specific funding or donor commitments have been discussed for the adaptation fund, although Evans said he was confident the World Bank will be able to raise $500 million for programs.
“We would hope the funds are fully operational by the fourth quarter of this year, and that some projects are being approved by the end of the year,” he said.
Evans said he was not overly concerned with the timing of the first contributions because it takes some time to put the projects together.
He said the design of the funds was agreed in negotiations between “a large number of stakeholders” and financing for projects would be decided by a committee made up of eight donor nations and eight developing countries. Decisions would be made by consensus, he added.
“It recognizes the need to scale up rapidly the investments in low-carbon technologies and adaptation to climate change,” Evans said, adding that the investments would be funded through either low-interest loans or grants, or both.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the funds are part the Bank’s response to climate change challenges.
“We think the (funds) will have a significant impact in generating even more financing for climate action,” Zoellick said, “but also in demonstrating new approaches to address the current and future effects of climate change.
“These approaches will range from agriculture to water management, from transport to urban development, and from biodiversity to energy access,” he said.
U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs David McCormick welcomed the establishment of the funds.
“We have been working closely with the Bank’s leadership, potential donor and recipient countries, as well as the environmental and business communities, to develop a fund that effectively addresses the dual challenges of poverty and climate change,” he added.
Evans said the Bank would ensure that work on the climate investment funds does not interfere or influence current U.N.-led negotiations among developing and developed countries to replace the Kyoto pact on climate change.

United Nations climate experts want the new treaty to go beyond Kyoto by getting all countries to agree to curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases. Under Kyoto, only 37 countries are bound to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

G8 COUNTDOWN: Academics talk going green in light of G8.

SAPPORO (Kyodo), July 1, 2008 - The G8 University Summit began Monday discussing ways universities can help achieve eco-friendly and sustainable global development.

The two-day gathering at a Sapporo hotel, drawing officials of 34 universities from 14 countries, including the Group of Eight major powers plus Tokyo-based United Nations University, marks the first time such representatives from various countries have held talks to coincide with the regular G8 summit.

The outcome of the discussions will be presented as the Sapporo Sustainability Declaration to next week’s G8 summit.

The university summit aims for academia to contribute to international efforts to address global environmental problems and to promote education for sustainable global development in plenary and sectional sessions.

“Global environment problems will not be solved by fields of expertise alone. It is necessary to combine advanced specialization and comprehensive education,” Hiroshi Saeki, president of Hokkaido University, said in a plenary session Monday.

Yuichiro Anzai, president of Keio University in Tokyo, stressed the importance of fostering leaders who are able to forge the future of the world.

The 14 countries include the G8 nations — the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia — as well as China and South Korea plus Australia, Brazil, India, South Africa, and the Tokyo-based UN University. Of the 34 universities, 14 are from Japan.

From the 14 countries listed we see that Indonesia and Mexico are missing from this year’s G8 larger circle of 16 countries.

At the G8 summit, a post-Kyoto Protocol framework to curb global warming will be among the top agenda items. The academics thus also stressed topics with application to the general theme.

as of May 21, 2008 - the participants:
Country Name of the universities URL
Canada The University of British Columbia  http://www.ubc.ca/
University of Alberta  http://www.ualberta.ca/

France Ecole Polytechnique  http://www.polytechnique.edu/
Université Paris - Sorbonne (Paris IV)  http://www.paris-sorbonne.fr/

Germany LMU Munich  http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/
RWTH Aachen University  http://www.rwth-aachen.de/

Italy Politecnico di Torino  http://www.polito.it/
Università degli Studi di Firenze  http://www.unifi.it/

Russia Far Eastern National University  http://www.fenu.ru/
Lomonosov Moscow State University  http://www.msu.ru/en/

U.K. Imperial College London  http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/
The University of Cambridge  http://www.cam.ac.uk/

U.S.A. University of California, Los Angeles  http://www.ucla.edu/
Yale University  http://www.yale.edu/

Australia The Australian National University  http://www.anu.edu.au/

Brazil University of São Paulo  http://www4.usp.br/

China Peking University  http://www.pku.edu.cn/ehomepage.htm
Tsinghua University  http://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/eng/

India Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur  http://www.iitk.ac.in/
University of Delhi  http://www.du.ac.in/

Korea (Rep. of) Seoul National University  http://www.useoul.edu/

South Africa University of Johannesburg  http://www.uj.ac.za/

United Nations University  http://www.unu.edu/

The remaining 13 Japanese Universities are:

Hokkaido University  http://www.hokudai.ac.jp/en/
Tohoku University  http://www.tohoku.ac.jp/english/
The University of Tokyo  http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index_e.html
Tokyo Institute of Technology  http://www.titech.ac.jp/home.html
Hitotsubashi University  http://www.hit-u.ac.jp/index-e.html
Nagoya University  http://www.nagoya-u.ac.jp/en/
Kyoto University  http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/index-e.html
Osaka University  http://www.osaka-u.ac.jp/eng/
Kyushu University  http://www.kyushu-u.ac.jp/english/
Tokyo Metropolitan University  http://www.tmu.ac.jp/
Keio University  http://www.keio.ac.jp/index-en.html
Waseda University  http://www.waseda.jp/top/index-e.html
Doshisha University  http://www.doshisha.ac.jp/english/
Ritsumeikan University  http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/eng/

The program outlines for the June 30 - July 1, 2008 meetings can be found at: