Going Green

Green talk but no green walk?
Al Gore is the latest green campaigner to be accused of being a hypocrite. But would the world really be better off if he'd stayed home with the lights off, asks Mark Lynas Thursday March 1, 2007The Guardian
Hands up anyone who isn't a hypocrite. Come on, own up. Who out there actually lives by every one of the principles they profess to uphold? And why has it suddenly gone so quiet? When it comes to ourselves, it seems, we are quick to realise that life is full of grey areas and being pure and virtuous is never as easy - nor even as desirable - as it might appear. That does not stop us sitting in judgment of others, however, particularly those whose message we are unwilling to hear, and who, deep down, we would dearly love to see exposed as two-faced and, well, hypocritical.
Hence Al Gore's "exposure" yesterday. "As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use," complained Drew Johnson of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, highlighting that Gore's mansion in Nashville uses 20 times as much energy as the average American household. Yes, the TCPR is a right-wing anti-environmental lobby group. But even so, its barbs hit home.
The reason is simple: it is hard to trust someone who says one thing and does another. When I first saw Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, several people in the audience were muttering darkly about the irony of him taking so many flights to promote a message that would require people to, er, reduce their flights. As someone who writes books and gives talks on climate change myself (both of which occasionally require me to fly), I have noticed how people often delight in pointing to the contradictions inherent in my own lifestyle. "Still jetting around the world to save us from climate change?" asked an acquaintance snidely last week.
So why this obsession with hypocrisy? The motives of the rightwing campaign against Gore are obvious: if the accusers can smear the man, then they can also undermine his message. Similar campaigns have been run against London's mayor, Ken Livingstone - arguing that he uses too many taxis, for example - in order to undermine his effectiveness as one of the only political leaders in the world to show real vision and leadership on climate change. Likewise, the charges levelled against Prince Charles for flying to the US with a large entourage to pick up an environmental award, as well as knocking McDonald's while selling high-fat Duchy Originals pasties, foster the impression that the Prince - and his green obsessions - are all a bit ridiculous.
At a deeper level, the effects of this blame game can be even more damaging. There is perhaps a "chilling effect" to the hypocrisy witch-hunt, where prominent people who might support green causes keep their mouths shut for fear of having their energy bills fished out of their bins at night by some snooping tabloid hack. Each time a potential "green hero" is shot down in flames, we all feel that little bit more cynical about politicians, leaders and society in general. Cynicism breeds selfishness and a de facto acceptance of the status quo - no cynic ever led a movement for positive change. In this sense, charging someone with hypocrisy serves to reinforce denial: "You're a hypocrite, so why should I do what you tell me?" Or the more disempowering: "If even you can't do it, how can I?" The practical outcome is that lightbulbs go unchanged, lofts uninsulated and bicycles unridden. And greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar.
This denial response is also why, on the other hand, no one likes a greenie who is not a hypocrite. Climate activists I know who do walk the walk (eschewing all flights, for example) look prim and obsessive, as if they are out of touch with the concerns and pressures faced by ordinary people. It is fine for BBC Newsnight's "ethical man" to be a tongue-in-cheek reporter, but if it is the head of Greenpeace who is totally pure and virtuous, then that is seen as just annoying.
The charge of hypocrisy against environmentalists may also be illegitimate as well as irrelevant. In my view, Gore was right to rack up thousands of air miles in his campaign to raise awareness of climate change: the political shift he has helped to engineer, particularly in America, has been truly profound, and is one of the few real causes for optimism on climate change today. If he had stayed at home in Tennessee with the lights and heating off, wearing organic woolly jumpers and feeling generally good about himself, we would have a lot further to travel in terms of awareness-raising than we do now. Being a purist may be comforting, but it is unlikely to change the world.
· Mark Lynas's latest book, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, is published on March 19 by Fourth Estate, price £12.99
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Andrew Clark in New York and Phillip InmanMonday February 26, 2007The Guardian
A proposed $44bn (£22bn) buyout of Texas energy firm TXU, which is tipped to be the world's largest private equity takeover, will include an environmental commitment to scale back coal power stations and limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Texas Pacific are putting the finishing touches to a purchase of TXU - a power generator which has been described as "public enemy number one" by US green lobbyists because of its aggressive programme of building coal plants.
It emerged yesterday that the two private equity buyers have held talks with environmental groups to win support for the takeover. To the delight of green organisations, the buyers have offered a radical change in direction - including scrapping seven of 11 new coal power stations and implementing clean air initiatives
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I don't think this guy voted for Bush


This Is George W. Bush's America (1 comments )
READ MORE: George W. Bush
This tragedy is maddening. It is appalling. It is sickening.
And that this could happen in this country, while that portly pile of gelatinous goo known as our vice president rips Americans off millions with his reach-around friends at Haliburton, George W. Bush and his borderline retarded daughters never hold an honest job in their lives and the rest of the kleptocracy bleeds working people (see Bush's current threat to veto Homeland Security protections for all of us to prevent 43,000 TSA employees from regaining bargaining rights)...well I had better stop before I go searching in the streets for a random conservative to pummel.
Here is the story. A young boy in Maryland needed an $80 tooth extraction. His mother didn't have insurance, so he didn't get it. The bacteria spread to his brain. He DIED.
But hey, let's keep cutting taxes (and spiking pay) for spoiled-brat, meglomaniacal Republican officeholders who choke their girlfriends, try and molest children and invite gay prostitutes into the White House briefing room.
If this doesn't get you apoplectic, it should. This is not the America I was taught to believe in.
For more on this and other stories, go to cliffschecter.com.
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Changing course
The expansion of Panama's canal without a thorough impact assessment has led to fears of species migration and water shortages Matthew ParkerWednesday February 28, 2007The Guardian
Building the Panama Canal, completed in 1914, was described at the time as the "greatest liberty ever taken with nature". This month, work is under way on a massive expansion of the canal, with giant new locks being built at either end of the waterway, as well as huge new channels and a widening of the canal where it cuts through the mountainous Continental Divide. Construction, scheduled to last seven years, is costed at $5.2bn (£2.7bn).
But the fact that work has started without a comprehensive environmental impact study being carried out has worried Panamanians. They fear that although their country is among the wettest on the planet, the canal could mean that one day soon they will turn on their taps and out will come dirty, salty water - or even none at all. At the same time, environmental groups such as Greenpeace have warned of the project's "potentially catastrophic consequences" for the world's oceans.
The original canal, completed after more than 20 years' struggle, did not so much impact on the environment as change it forever. Mountains were moved, the land bridge between the north and south American continents was severed, and more than 150 sq miles of jungle was submerged under a new manmade lake. To defeat deadly mosquitoes, hundreds of square miles of what we would now call "vital wetlands" were drained and filled, and vast areas poisoned or smothered in thousands of gallons of crude oil.
At the time, no one gave it a second thought. Oscar Vallarino, head of the environment department of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), says: "When the canal was built, the environmental issues were not a concern." His words are echoed by Stanley Heckadon, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama: "The concept of progress was overwhelming. The canal itself is the product of generations of dreams of linking the oceans. The mentality was: 'We will do what we have to do.'"
Heckadon has been at the forefront of conservation in Panama for more than 20 years. Those efforts have focused on preserving the jungles that make up the watershed for the rivers that supply the canal - some of the most species-rich forests in the world. Flora and fauna historically endemic to South and North America have mixed and evolved in Panama, resulting in tremendous biodiversity. The country has identified more than 900 species of birds, 1,500 species of trees and 10,000 species of plants.
But deforestation threatens more than the tourist dollar or endangered species. Each time a ship passes through the canal, 52m gallons of fresh water - enough for a day's supply for a small city - is discharged from the locks into the ocean. This water comes from the canal's watershed, and if that is denuded of trees, it comes laden with silt and in unpredictable surges. The silt raises the bottom of the manmade lakes designed as storage for the canal, critically reducing their capacity.
Since the opening of the canal, development in the 1,000 sq mile watershed has often been haphazard and unplanned. By 1985, the proportion forested had fallen in 50 years from 85% to 30%, but it is now back up to nearly 50%, thanks to far-sighted policies to discourage cattle rearing and slash-and-burn agriculture, and to establish national parks.
But is this enough? The planned doubling of the canal's capacity means it will need a lot more water. There is the added complication that the manmade lakes also supply the hydroelectricity and drinking water for Panama City, the fast-growing capital, as well as other towns and cities.
Critics of the expansion scheme, such as University of Panama biologist Ariel Rodriguez and the former director of the National Environmental Authority Gonzalo Menendez, argue that Panama's government has not done enough to stop the development and urban sprawl that leads to soil erosion and water contamination in the watershed. They say water supply to Panama City is becoming tainted, and that it will worsen once construction, with extensive underwater blasting and dredging, gets into its stride. They also warn that the effects of climate change are making the vital supply of water to the canal's locks unpredictable.
Heckadon, a cautious optimist about the expansion plans, believes that water supply and quality - to the cities as well as to the canal - constitute "one of the most crucial questions Panama will face for the next decade, for a generation".
Loth to build new lakes, which would submerge pristine jungle and require the politically sensitive issue of relocating existing communities, the ACP has opted instead to deepen and expand the main water storage, Lake Gatun, while the new locks will use special adjacent basins to recycle water.
It seems a clever solution to an environmental and political problem. But it may backfire. Over the years, parts of the canal have become increasingly salty as the sea water mixes in the locks with the fresh water from the high lakes. The most immediate worry concerns the water supply to the population. The ACP talks down the salinisation threat, but is clearly concerned, and is planning ongoing studies