04 May: Environmental Musings from the Guardian
Picked up the London Guardian this morning to read about the damage done in the Chelsea v Liverpool match the previous night, and read this editorial by Tristram Hunt ("Capitols of Smog") about how large cities need to remain at the forefront in the battle against global warming/climate change:

It hhas fallen to cities to lead the way. Tired of the intransigence of national and multinational government, civic leaders are starting to act unilaterally to counter the spectre of global warming. And so they should. Cities are the primary greenhouse gas contributors; just 11 of them produce 70% of global carbon dioxide emissions. London itself emits over 40m tons of CO2 each year -- more than Portugal or Greece. Cities are also starting to feel the effects of climate change. Thanks to greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, the earth is now "committed" to 30-40 years of rising temperatures, and the concentration of asphalt and air pollution in built-up areas makes them especially vulnerable. The August 2003 heatwave that cause the average daily death rate in Paris to rise from 59 to 315 was just a taste of things to come. [...] And the situation looks set to worsen amid another great wave of urbanisation: 50% of the global population now live in cities; by 2030 that is expected to reach 60%, as the rural poor of India, Asia, and Africa move to filthy megacities such as Mumbai, Jakarta, and Lagos. The good news is that the world's developed cities are coming under increasing pressure from citizens to mitigate their environmental impact -- and contain the technical and innovative capacity to do so. Berlin has cut its carbon emmisions by 15% aned Toronto by 40% over the last 15 years. In London the congestion charge has led to a 19% drop in CO2 emmisions from traffic inside the zone, and plans to reform building regulations, energy supply and public transport will further slash emissions. The failure of the Kyoto accord, the global inability to tax aeroplane fuel and the nefarious power of teh US to undermine any realistic climate change policy means it's now time for cities to work together and bypass national government. The future of the world is in their hands.

For the US audience, the States have the real power to create more sane/sensible environmental laws (witness the Pacific states, especially California going toe to toe with automakers, and the Northeast). If the US government won't do anything--and with BushCo at the helm, there will be absolutely no movement--we need to keep the pressure up on both our larger cities and our state governments to deliver effective environmental policy.

The Guardian also had a couple of stories on the passing of Bob Hunter, one of the founders of Greenpeace. As I don't have access to the net in our apartment, I'll simply implore you to go to the Guardian web site and check them out (one entitled "The Original Mr Green"--a very good read--and the other a republishing of a the dispatch from the first protest voyage that included many of the founders of the then yet-to-be-formed Greenpeace). But here's the final paragraph with a quote to munch on:

And well before anyone had understood the potential of global warming to affect all life, he (Bob Hunter) warned thhe world what was at stake: "An eco-shitstorm is coming...everything rests upon whetehr or not we come to terms with the politics of earth and sky, evolution and transformation. Otherwise, in our lifetimes, we shall suffer...the fall of nature itself.