ExxonMobil gave millions to climate-denying lawmakers despite pledge

Image Credit: Michelle Christenson/AP

ExxonMobil gave more than $2.3m to members of Congress and a corporate lobbying group that deny climate change and block efforts to fight climate change – eight years after pledging to stop its funding of climate denial, the Guardian has learned.

Climate denial – from Republicans in Congress and lobby groups operating at the state level – is seen as a major obstacle to US and global efforts to fight climate change, closing off the possibility of federal and state regulations cutting greenhouse gas emissions and the ability to plan for a future of sea-level rise and extreme weather.

Exxon channeled about $30m to researchers and activist groups promoting disinformation about global warming over the years, according to a tally kept by the campaign group Greenpeace. But the oil company pledged to stop such funding in 2007, in response to pressure from shareholder activists.

“In 2008 we will discontinue contributions to several public policy groups whose position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner,” Exxon said in its 2007 Corporate Citizenship report.

But since 2007, the oil company has given $1.87m to Republicans in Congress who deny climate change and an additional $454,000 to the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), according to financial and tax records.

In a statement to the Guardian this week, Exxon spokesman Richard Keil reiterated: “ExxonMobil does not fund climate denial.”

Alec, an ultra-conservative lobby group, has hosted seminars promoting the long-discredited idea that rising carbon dioxide emissions are the “elixir of life”, and was behind legislation banning state planners in North Carolina from considering future sea-level rise.

Campaigners said Exxon’s support for members of Congress and lobby groups that deny climate change was at odds with the company’s public position that it is committed to acting on the threat posed by global warming.

“If they are going to be serious about what they say about believing in the science of climate change, they should actually take action and show they are genuine,” said David Turnbull, campaign director of Oil Change International, which compiled the data on Exxon contributions to members of Congress at the Guardian’s request.

A majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate deny climate change or oppose action to fight climate change, according to the Center for American Progress.

Exxon’s beneficiaries in Congress include the Oklahoma senator Jim Inhofe, who called global warming a hoax, and who has received $20,500 since 2007, according to the Dirty Energy Money database maintained by Oil Change International.

Exxon funded the Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, who cast the single no vote earlier this year against a symbolic “sense of the Senate” resolution that climate change was real and not a hoax. The resolution passed 98-1. Wicker, who received $14,000 from Exxon, voted no.

Exxon also gave a total of $868,150 to Republican senators who voted against another symbolic resolution that human activity was a significant driver of climate change.

Each of the 49 Republican senators who voted no received at least $5,000 from Exxon, according to Oil Change figures.

Exxon has also continued to fund Alec, which works to block climate legislation in state legislatures, according to figures compiled by the Climate Investigations Center from the oil company’s own disclosures in its annual Worldwide Giving Reports and foundation tax filings.

Alec has for decades worked to block action on climate change, by drafting bills for state legislatures aimed at dismantling environmental regulations. The lobby group hosted a summit last December featuring a speaker who called carbon dioxide emissions “the elixir of life”.

“The ongoing rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide should be welcomed with opened arms,” Craig Idso, founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, told about 100 state legislators and corporate executives at the summit, according to InsideClimate News. Such claims have been dismissed in their entirety by scientists. The ultra-conservative Alec claims to support “free market environmentalism” and on its website accuses campaign groups of conflating this with climate denial. However, the website refers to climate change as a “historical phenomenon”, and states – contrary to fact – that its causes are a matter of continued debate. When asked directly, an Alec spokesman declined to say whether the lobby group saw climate change as a threat, and declined to say whether it stood by Idso’s views.

“Alec is a forum for the exchange of ideas and continuing education of state legislators. All viewpoints are welcome. Indeed,” Wilhelm Meierling, an Alec spokesman, said in an email. “Today, legislators want to learn from as many viewpoints as possible in order to make the best possible decision for the people they represent.”

He said Exxon did not underwrite the “continuing education workshop” with Idso.

Alec suffered a string of defections over its position on climate change during the last year, with companies such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, BP America, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo resigning their memberships.

Google accused the lobbying group of lying about climate change.

Read Full Article: The Guardian

CO2 emissions threaten ocean crisis

Image Credit: NOAA

Scientists have warned that marine life will be irreversibly changed unless CO2 emissions are drastically cut.

Writing in Science, experts say the oceans are heating, losing oxygen and becoming more acidic because of CO2.

They warn that the 2C maximum temperature rise for climate change agreed by governments will not prevent dramatic impacts on ocean systems.

And they say the range of options is dwindling as the cost of those options is skyrocketing.

Twenty-two world-leading marine scientists have collaborated in the synthesis report in a special section of Science journal. They say the oceans are at parlous risk from the combination of threats related to CO2.

They believe politicians trying to solve climate change have paid far too little attention to the impacts of climate change on the oceans.

It is clear, they say, that CO2 from burning fossil fuels is changing the chemistry of the seas faster than at any time since a cataclysmic natural event known as the Great Dying 250 million years ago.

They warn that the ocean has absorbed nearly 30% of the carbon dioxide we have produced since 1750 and, as CO2 is a mildly acidic gas, it is making seawater more acidic.

It has also buffered climate change by absorbing over 90% of the additional heat created by industrial society since 1970. The extra heat makes it harder for the ocean to hold oxygen.

‘Radical change’

Several recent experiments suggest that many organisms can withstand the future warming that CO2 is expected to bring, or the decrease in pH, or lower oxygen… but not all at once.

Jean-Pierre Gattuso, lead author of the study, said: “The ocean has been minimally considered at previous climate negotiations. Our study provides compelling arguments for a radical change at the UN conference (in Paris) on climate change”.

The oceans are at parlous risk from a combination of threats

They warn that the carbon we emit today may change the earth system irreversibly for many generations to come.

Carol Turley, of Plymouth Marine Laboratory, a co-author, said: “The ocean is at the frontline of climate change with its physics and chemistry being altered at an unprecedented rate so much so that ecosystems and organisms are already changing and will continue to do so as we emit more CO2.

“The ocean provides us with food, energy, minerals, drugs and half the oxygen in the atmosphere, and it regulates our climate and weather.

“We are asking policy makers to recognise the potential consequences of these dramatic changes and raise the profile of the ocean in international talks where, up to now, it has barely got a mention.”

The scientists say ocean acidification is likely to impact reproduction, larval survival and feeding, and growth rates of marine organisms – especially those with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons.

Dangerous path

The authors say when the multiple stressors work together they occasionally cancel each other out, but more often they multiply negative effects.

The experts say coastal protection, fisheries, aquaculture and human health and tourism will all be affected by the changes.

They warn: “Immediate and substantial reduction of CO2 emissions is required in order to prevent the massive and effectively irreversible impacts on ocean ecosystems and their services”.

Professor Manuel Barange, director of science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, said: “Climate change will continue to affect ocean ecosystems in very significant ways, and society needs to take notice and respond.

Read Full Article: BBC News

No joke: Emerson College in Boston to offer major in comedy

Image Credit: Emerson College

BOSTON (AP) — Emerson College in Boston will soon offer a degree in making people laugh.

The communications and arts school said Wednesday that starting in September 2016, it will become the first college to offer a four-year bachelor of fine arts in comedic arts degree. The degree will be grounded in the history and theory of comedy with practical learning and a focus on preparing students for careers in comedy performance, writing and production.

The degree is in response to what Emerson calls the “marked rise of comedy’s impact on American culture and its global influence.”

President Lee Pelton says “the new major will combine an academic focus with hands-on opportunities.”

Emerson’s alumni already famous in the comedy world include Jay Leno, Denis Leary, Steven Wright and producer Norman Lear.

Read Full Article: AP

Pope Francis encyclical calls for end to fossil fuels

The Pope has issued an encyclical, calling for fossil fuels to be “progressively replaced without delay”.

Pope Francis urges the richer world to make changes in lifestyle and energy consumption to avert the unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem.

Environmentalists hope the message will spur on nations ahead of the UN climate conference in Paris in December.

But parts of the document, leaked earlier this week, have already been criticised by some US conservatives.

It has been dismissed by two Republican presidential candidates.

Humans to blame

The encyclical, named “Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home”, aims to inspire everyone – not just Roman Catholics – to protect the Earth.

The 192-page letter, which is the highest level teaching document a pope can issue, lays much of the blame for global warming on human activities.

Pope Francis writes that: “We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will.

“The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life.”

The letter highlights the loss of biodiversity in Amazonian rainforests and the melting of polar glaciers

He criticises what he calls a “collective selfishness”, but says that there is still time to stop the damage, calling for an end to consumerism and greed.

‘Moral approach’

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi launched the pontiff’s second encyclical at a news conference on Thursday.

The teaching is more evidence of a pontiff determined to act as a catalyst for change, and a powerful diplomatic player on the world stage, says the BBC’s religious affairs correspondent Caroline Wyatt.

The release comes six months before international leaders gather in Paris to try to seal a deal to reduce carbon emissions.

Metropolitan of Pergamon Joannis Zizioulas (left) became the first high-ranking Orthodox Church official to present a papal document

It has been widely welcomed by environmental groups, with WWF president Yolanda Kakabadse saying it “adds a much-needed moral approach” to the debate on climate change.

Greenpeace leader Kumi Naidoo highlighted passages calling for policies that reduce carbon emissions, including by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.

But a leak of the document, published by Italy’s L’Espresso magazine on Tuesday, got a frosty response from sceptical conservatives in America, including two Roman Catholic presidential candidates.

Jeb Bush said he did not get his economic policy from his bishops, cardinals or pope – so why his policy on the environment?

Meanwhile Rick Santorum questioned whether the Pope was credible on the issue of climate science.

However, many academics have welcomed the pontiff’s input.

Prof Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science at the University of Oxford in the UK, said: “If Pope Francis can’t speak up for our unborn grandchildren, then God help us all.”

Read Full Article: BBC News

Secretive donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over three years

Image Credit: Michael Williamson/Getty Images

The secretive funders behind America’s conservative movement directed around $125m (£82m) over three years to groups spreading disinformation about climate science and committed to wrecking Barack Obama’s climate change plan, according to an analysis of tax records.

The amount is close to half of the anonymous funding disbursed to rightwing groups, underlining the importance of the climate issue to US conservatives.

The anonymous cash flow came from two secretive organisations – the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund – that have been called the “Dark Money ATM” of the conservative movement.

The funds, which when channelled through the two organisations cannot be traced to individual donors, helped build a network of thinktanks and activist groups. These worked to defeat climate bills in Congress and are mobilising against Environmental Protection Agency rules to reduce carbon pollution from power plants which are due to be finalised this summer. In many cases, the anonymous cash makes up the vast majority of funding received by beneficiaries – more than comes openly from the fossil fuel industry.

“The conservative thinktanks are really the spearhead of the conservative assault on climate change,” said Riley Dunlap, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma who studies environmental politics. “They write books, put out briefings and open editorials, bring in contrarian scientists … They are an immense megaphone that amplifies very, very minority voices.”

Organisations funded through the secretive donors operations are also working to roll back measures promoting wind and solar power and block planning for future sea-level rise in state capitals.

To trace how the money was spent, the Guardian obtained annual tax filings made to the US Internal Revenue Service by the Donor’s Trust and Donor’s Capital Fund and cross-checked grantees with organisations associated with the climate change counter-movement.

In 2011, 42% of funding, or $35.7m, went to groups promoting climate denial and opposed to environmental regulations, according to the tax filings.

In the last presidential elections in 2012, when Obama fended off a challenge from Mitt Romney, that figure jumped to 51% of the funds directed through Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund – a total of just over $49m.

A coal miner holds a sign during a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, in Craig, Colorado in May 2012. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In 2013, the last year for which tax records are available, 46% of anonymous funding to conservative groups through the two Donors channels, or just over $41 million was spent that way.

Robert Brulle, a professor at Drexel University who first exposed the conservative network of think tanks and activist groups of the climate change counter-movement, said those funds helped hone opposition to regulations.

“It is a well-oiled, complicated, cultural and political machine of the right wing of the conservative movement,” he said.

In 2013, the two organisations took in just over $152m, distributing $90m to a constellation of groups. However, the ultimate sources of those funds were untraceable, an important consideration for companies or individuals wanting to avoid bad publicity for rejecting the scientific consensus on climate change.

“All these corporations that were getting bad press realised they can still fund conservative thinktanks,” Dunlap said. “Exxon or BP can still fund one of these things while doing all these great things on climate change to reduce emissions etc.”

Whitney Ball, the chief executive of Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, said the funds were set up to “promote liberty and help like-minded donors preserve their charitable intent”. She said that grants were made at the request of account holders, not the Donors Trust or Donors Capital Fund. “Our role is to ensure that recommended grants are to IRS-approved public charities, and we require that the charities do not rely on significant amounts of revenue from government sources,” she said.

Almost all of the thinktanks and activist groups on the Donors rolls work on a broad range of topics – and in most cases there was no way of tracking what portion of funding went to climate change related work.

But all of the groups have a record of rejecting climate science and fighting environmental regulations.

“You don’t have to be an outright science denier to try to prevent action on climate change,” Brulle said.

Read Full Article: The Guardian

University Of Hawaii To Divest From Fossil Fuel Holdings By 2018

Image Credit: Wikipedia

The University of Hawaii plans to divest all fossil fuel holdings from its $66 million endowment, its Board of Regents announced.

The board unanimously voted this month to divest from companies that produce coal, oil and gas by 2018. Such holdings currently make up 5 percent to 7 percent of the endowment. The board cited economic motivations and “a moral and leadership rationale” as principal reasons in a final report.

The regents said they recognized that “the result of the burning of fossil fuels is causing the temperature of the earth to rise.”

“If we need to reduce our footprint to prevent humanity from significant damage, we shouldn’t invest in companies that continue to benefit from [carbon dioxide]. We shouldn’t bet against ourselves,” Chair Randolph Moore told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, calling fossil fuels “generally bad investments.”

With 10 campuses and more than 57,000 students, the University of Hawaii is the state’s largest school. It is the largest U.S. higher education institution to join the growing divestment movement, which began when Unity College in Maine divested from fossil fuels in 2012.

More than 200 institutions nationwide have announced plans to divest from fossil fuel producers, according to the environmental project Fossil Free.

Michelle Tigchelaar, a graduate student at UH, started the campaign in Hawaii, called Divest UH. Tigchelaar and her team collected more than 1,300 petition signatures. The regents formed a task group in January made up of faculty, students, staff and regents to investigate the potential for divesting.

The task group acknowledged that the regents’ vote to divest won’t directly result in reduced carbon emissions. But the group said it hopes the university’s decision will inspire further ecologically focused sentiment and legislation.

“This was the perfect model of climate activism,” faculty task force member and marine biologist Joe Mobley said in a press release. “Regents, faculty and students alike came together, shared their concerns over the scope and speed of climate change, particularly as it affects the Hawaiian Islands, then did something about it.”

Read Full Article: The Huffington Post

French bill seeks to boost renewable energy, cut nuclear use

Image Credit: France

PARIS (AP) — France’s lower house of parliament has approved a bill aimed at boosting renewable energy and reducing the country’s reliance on nuclear power, among other environment-friendly measures.

The French government wants to be exemplary this year in environmental matters, since Paris is hosting a U.N.-backed conference in December where 196 countries aim to limit greenhouse gas emissions to fight global warming.

The bill pushed by Ecology Minister Segolene Royal was approved Tuesday by the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, with 308 votes for and 217 against. It will then go to the Senate for further discussions. At the end of the process —probably over summer— the assembly will have the final say.

Among the more significant changes are the following measures:

___

GAS EMISSIONS

The bill sets a target of lowering greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below the 1990 level by 2030, in line with the European Union official target.

___

NUCLEAR POWER

The bill aims to reduce France’s dependency on nuclear power to 50 percent by 2025. Today, France relies more on nuclear power — 75 percent of its energy — than any other nation in the world. At the same time, the new bill fixes the goal of increasing the proportion of renewable energy France uses in power production to reach 40 percent by 2030.

___

FIGHTING FOOD WASTE

One measure would forbid big supermarkets from destroying unsold food, part of a national campaign against food waste. The bill would require big supermarket chains to donate goods no longer fit for sale to charities or to farms for use as animal feed or compost.

___

BANNING PLASTIC BAGS

The new law would ban plastic bags in all supermarkets and stores on January 1, 2016.

___

GREEN PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Under this bill, the state, local and city councils would be required to buy at least 50 percent of low emission vehicles when they renew their fleets of buses, starting in 2020.

___

ENERGY SAVINGS

This measure would force all private owners of houses and apartments to renovate their properties if they consume a high amount of energy, one that exceeds a defined threshold.

Read Full Article: AP

Saudi Arabia’s solar-for-oil plan is a ray of hope

Image Credit: Fahad Shadeed/Reuters

So what to make of the statement by Saudi Arabia’s oil minister that the world’s biggest oil exporter could stop using fossil fuels as soon as 2040 and become a “global power” in solar and wind energy?

Ali Al-Naimi’s statement is striking as Saudi Arabia’s wealth and influence is entirely founded on its huge oil wealth and the nation has been one of the strongest voices against climate change action at UN summits.

“In Saudi Arabia, we recognise that eventually, one of these days, we’re not going to need fossil fuels,” said Naimi at a business and climate conference in Paris on Thursday. “I don’t know when – 2040, 2050 or thereafter. So we have embarked on a program to develop solar energy,” he said in comments reported by the Guardian, Bloomberg and the Financial Times. “Hopefully, one of these days, instead of exporting fossil fuels, we will be exporting gigawatts of electric power.”

Naimi also said he did not think that continuing low crude oil prices would make solar power uneconomic: “I believe solar will be even more economic than fossil fuels.”

Paris is the venue for a crunch UN climate change summit in December and Thursday’s conference was part of the French government’s preparations. The Saudi signal provides a ray of sunlight for those hoping for a strong deal to tackle global warming.

“Saudi Arabia is sending a strong signal to all oil producers and companies they must plan for an energy transition,” said Mark Fulton, former head of research at Deutsche Bank and advisor to the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI).

“If Saudi Arabia is starting to hedge its bets by developing solar capacity, this could change the fundamentals of the oil market,” said James Leaton, CTI head of research.

But Naimi also said that the idea of keeping most fossil fuels in the ground, as scientists say is necessary to tame climate change, “may be a great objective but it is going to take a long time” and needed to be put “in the back of our heads for a while”. He said fossil fuels will still dominate the world’s energy supply up to 2050.

Saudi Arabia had already said in 2012 it aimed to be powered by 100% renewable energy and later that year announced a $109bn solar plan. In January, that plan was delayed by eight years.

So Ali Al-Naimi’s comments on Thursday need to be treated with a degree of scepticism. Furthermore, making the kingdom itself fossil-fuel free doesn’t rule out continuing to export oil for many years. And in the past, Saudi Arabia has suggested it should be compensated for keeping any of its oil in the ground.

Read Full Article: The Guardian

Jeb Bush: climate is changing but human role is ‘convoluted’

Image Credit: Jim Cole/AP

Jeb Bush said on Wednesday that the Earth’s climate is changing but that scientific research does not clearly show how much of the change is due to humans and how much is from natural causes.

Bush delved into climate politics during a campaign-style house party in New Hampshire at which he took questions from voters on his viewpoints as he considers whether to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

Although the US president, Barack Obama, and most climate scientists say humans are ‘unequivocally’ to blame for climate change, Bush said the degree of human responsibility is uncertain.

“Look, first of all, the climate is changing,” he said. “I don’t think the science is clear what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted. And for the people to say the science is decided on, this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you.

“It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t even have a conversation about it. The climate is changing, and we need to adapt to that reality.”

The former Florida governor’s views on climate change are dramatically at odds with national science academies, and the world’s most authoritative experts on the science, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The IPCC said in a 2013 landmark report that it was extremely likely, or 95% certain, that more than half of the warming observed between 1951 and 2010 was manmade. A study found that of 4,000-plus papers published in academic journals that took a position on the causes of climate change, 97% said it was a a result of human activity.

Bush also challenged Obama’s determination earlier in the day that climate change was a threat to US national security.

“As a small part of US foreign policy,” Bush said, the US should encourage states that have had an increase in carbon emissions to take on the challenge.

But the overall country has had a reduction in carbon emissions due to new technologies, conservation measures, higher gas mileage in vehicles and a shift toward natural gas, he said.

Read Full Article: The Guardian

Dirty air and disease: why we must end the subsidy of fossil fuels

Image Credit: Michael Bowles/Rex

The world is starting to realise that fossil fuels are not cheap. It is increasingly clear that oil, coal and gas have huge hidden costs that are omitted from prices, and they are therefore heavily subsidised.

The latest evidence about how expensive fossil fuels really are has been provided this week by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an organisation that monitors the progress of the world’s economy. It estimates that oil, coal and gas will receive US$5.3tn in subsidies this year around the world. That is the equivalent of 6.3% of global GDP. The IMF correctly argues that the damages and costs caused by fossil fuels, through impacts such as air pollution, congestion, traffic accidents and climate change, should be treated as subsidies if they are not included in the prices paid for oil, coal and gas.

The increase from previous estimates is due to a number of factors, particularly a deepening understanding of the immense costs of air pollution. The unpriced costs of fossil fuels are in addition to, and much greater than, the direct financial support for fossil fuels through, for instance, tax breaks for oil and gas exploration and subsidies for consumers. The IMF points out that coal receives the biggest subsidies worldwide, and has the largest negative impact on human health through the pollution that it causes.

While the IMF’s figures are eyewateringly large, they are, if anything, conservative because they are based on low estimates of the costs of climate change from the US government, which tends to omit many of the largest risks. While the IMF offers a regional breakdown, there are no figures for individual countries. However, there is much evidence that the subsidies in the UK are large, as air pollution from use of fossil fuels has an enormous impact.

In its ruling last month that the UK government must submit new air quality plans to the European Commission by the end of the year, the supreme court recognised that microscopic particles produced by the burning of diesel and other sources are responsible for the equivalent of 29,000 premature deaths each year in Britain, more than 10 times the number of fatalities from road accidents.

So the costs of fossil fuels are paid through the death and illness of present and future generations. That is why it is so important to create a level playing field for alternative energy sources and help to propel our economies away from their dependence on dirty and expensive fossil fuels.

To achieve this, direct subsidies for the production and consumption of oil, coal and gas must end, as the G20 group of countries with the largest economies have made clear at their last few annual summits. But governments must also start to implement policies that properly price in the hidden costs of fossil fuels.

With oil prices currently at a low level, now would be the ideal time to introduce levies that remove the implicit subsidy for pollution from petrol and diesel. The revenue from these levies could more than compensate the poorer members of the community for the price increases, give a boost to research and innovation, and contribute to the cleaner and more attractive investments that we need.

Read Full Article: The Guardian

Museums must take a stand and cut ties to fossil fuels

Image Credit: NHM

What is the purpose of a museum? Merely to transmit knowledge or to help shape the world for the common good? That is the crux of a live debate among museum professionals that burst into the open earlier this year. In an open letter that was picked up by news sites around the world (including the Guardian) dozens of top scientists, including several Nobel laureates and senior government officials, made a plea for science museums to cut all ties to the fossil fuel industry.

They wrote:

When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions in museums of science and natural history, they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge. This corporate philanthropy comes at too high a cost.

The letter was coordinated by our organisation, The Natural History Museum (not the one in London but a US-based institution launched in 2014) and within days, more than 100 members of the scientific community reached out to add their support. Together with this growing list of signatories, we are asking museums of science and natural history to drop climate science deniers from their boards, cancel sponsorships from the fossil fuel industry, and divest financial portfolios from fossil fuels.

We believe that this stance flows directly from the American Alliance of Museums’ Code of Ethics, which states:

“It is incumbent on museums to be resources for humankind and in all their activities to foster an informed appreciation of the rich and diverse world we have inherited. It is also incumbent upon them to preserve that inheritance for posterity.”

Many of our colleagues in the museum sector have noted that institutional policy protects sponsors from influencing either administration or programming. We are told that funding is only accepted on the condition that there are no strings attached. Strings, however, need not be visible to make an impact, and self-censorship – however invisible or unquantifiable – is a major factor in every institutional decision. Nobel laureate Eric Chivian recently put it this way: “It is just human nature not to bite the hand that feeds you.”

Sponsorships do have an effect at every level, and when a sponsor is known for his anti-science practices, that sponsor circumscribes the very horizon of the possible, not through coercion, but through the invisible threat of withdrawal.

Imagine a major natural history museum that organizes an exhibition about the full range of causes and impacts of climate change, obstacles to action, and solutions/responses – one that directly and forcefully critiques the anti-science practices of its largest sponsor. That might be a corporation such as BP or a private benefactor such as David Koch, whose businesses are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and historical funders of groups that have fostered climate denial. Would this exhibition offer a scientifically accurate educational experience about anthropogenic climate change? Yes. Would it risk jeopardizing the museum’s relationship with its sponsor? We believe that it would. Is the risk worth taking? It is imperative.

In a time of profound environmental disruption, it is not enough for museums to accept the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. We need museums of science and natural history to take a stand, to call out the biggest polluters and obstructionists to action on climate change. Faced with pervasive attempts by the fossil fuel lobby to muzzle scientific research and spread disinformation, countless scientists have stood together to declare that the time for neutrality has long since passed.

Museums, like scientists, have historically maintained a position characterized by museologist Robert Janes as authoritative neutrality. This widely held position affirms that “we must protect our neutrality, lest we fall prey to bias, trendiness or special interest groups.” But as Janes points out, as museums increasingly depend on private-sector sponsorship, their claims to neutrality take on an ideological bent. After all, what are corporations if not special interest groups?

Neutrality is a political category, one that hides from view the alternatives against which it is defined. And the claim to authoritative neutrality is dangerous, precisely because it prevents institutions from seriously re-evaluating their roles in a time of climate crisis. At a time when powerful lobbies representing the interests of the fossil fuel industry seek not only to influence public policy but also buy the next election, we can only see neutrality as another word for resignation. And as the overwhelming majority of climate scientists predict, without taking action, there will be no future, let alone a future for museums.

An activist holds a painting of the Deepwater Horizon disaster outside the Tate Britain in protest over sponsorship of the Tate museums by BP, April 2011. Photograph: Alex Milan Tracy/Corbis

Museums of science and natural history are indispensable public spaces for the transmission of knowledge about the world we live in. They are among the most trusted sources of information. But when these institutions have significant ties to the world’s biggest polluters, or ignore the massive impact of the fossil fuel industry on the continuity of the earth’s many species, we are forced to question whose interests they serve. When museums cozy up to climate deniers and fossil fuel companies, they risk undermining the faith and trust they’ve earned through years of dedicated service.

Read Full Article: The Guardian

Want to Save Thousands of American Lives Each Year? Cut Power Plant Pollution

Image Credit: The Columbian

A new study, published in the journalNature Climate Change today, calculates that the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan will save thousands of lives every year.

The study, by researchers at Harvard, Syracuse and Boston Universities and Resources for the Future, finds that a strategy to meet the proposed Clean Power Plan targets that emphasizes energy efficiency and renewable power could save 3,500 lives each year.

That’s the scientists’ estimate of life-saving that will flow from cutting carbon pollution much as the EPA has proposed. Cutting carbon pollution also cuts emissions of other pollutants that cause soot and smog – toxic quantities of fine particles and ozone – that directly harm the health of our kids, our seniors, and friends and neighbors throughout the population.

We can likely save even more than 3,500 lives if the EPA strengthens the final Clean Power Plan rule, expected out this summer. NRDC’s analysis shows that we can economically cut power plants’ carbon pollution by 50 percent more than the EPA proposed, and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. “There’s definitely room for additional benefits,” says lead researcher Dr. Charles Driscoll, a professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Syracuse University. “You can push further.”

The lives saved will come from cutting the hundreds of thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen that pour out of our nation’s power-plant smokestacks along with carbon dioxide. These pollutants form dangerous soot and smog as they float downwind and cook in the atmosphere. These pollutants increase our risk of heart attacks, asthma attacks, respiratory diseases like emphysema, and even lung cancer.

When the green eyeshade types assign dollar numbers to these health benefits, you get “a very good benefit-cost ratio,” says Syracuse’s Dr. Driscoll.

Ironically, the most life-saving will take place in the very states where many elected officials and political candidates most adamantly oppose the Clean Power Plan: Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Texas, West Virginia. It’s the very states where coal use is highest, that public health benefits most. (Mitch McConnell, please take note.)

The Harvard-Syracuse-Boston numbers are above and beyond the lives saved by other Clean Air Act standards (such as the federal Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, theClean Air Interstate Rule) and state renewable energy and energy efficiency policies. (The MATS rule alone will save 7,600 lives a year and prevent 4,700 non-fatal heart attacks.) These lives saved by the Clean Power Plan will be additional to those.

Even more health benefits come from curbing power plants’ carbon dioxide and mitigating climate change. Climate change is already causing heat-related deaths and deaths from other extreme weather events. Hurricane Sandy, for instance, caused at least 117 deaths, 45 percent from drowning.

Read Full Article: The Huffington Post