Environment -- Peril In Poznan

December 5, 2008

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, Ryan Powers, and Brad Johnson

ENVIRONMENT

Peril In Poznan

Representatives from 190 countries are meeting in Poznan, Poland from Dec. 1-12 to work on the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the global warming treaty ratified by 180 nations since 1998 that the United States has refused to ratify. The Poznan summit, the "14th conference of parties to the climate convention," is the last full meeting before next December's conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where negotiations are set to conclude. The stakes could not be higher. Venice is under water, with climate change being "the main culprit." Global warming is creating refugees from Bangladesh to Brazil, and is expected to "become the main driver of refugee movements," creating at least 250 million climate refugees by 2050. In the United States, global warming is increasing drought along the Colorado River, stoking wildfires in California, and worsening floods in the Midwest. This is last conference at which the United States will be represented by the do-nothing Bush administration. "After eight years of obstruction and delay and denial," Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who is attending the conference on behalf of President-elect Obama, promised that "the United States is going to rejoin the world community in tackling this global challenge."

CLIMATE RESCUE: A group of 43 small island states, at imminent risk of disappearing below rising seas, are calling for a stronger response to the climate crisis. "We are not prepared to sign a suicide agreement that causes small island states to disappear," Selwin Hart of Barbados, a coordinator of the alliance of small island states, told Reuters. Developing nations like the island states are the hardest hit by the climate crisis, and the least to blame. On Tuesday, the least developed countries "said global warming should be limited to a maximum of 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times," by requiring concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, now at 387 parts per million, to be reduced to 350 ppm. Over 500 young people from fifty different countries are attending the Poznan conference as the International Youth Delegation, representing another constituency not responsible for the crisis but destined to bear the consequences. They too are calling for a "climate rescue plan" with the 350 ppm target, in order "to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted" and avoid "irreversible catastrophic effects."

EUROPEAN UPHEAVAL: Among industrialized nations, the European Union has been leading the way. In order to limit global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial times, it is "committed to reducing its overall emissions to at least 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, and is ready to scale up this reduction" if the United States and other developed nations make similar efforts. It has taken action to strongly reduce automotive emissions and has had a successful cap-and-trade system for power plants and other major pollution sources in place since 2005. But Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing government in Italy, joined by ex-communist nations of Eastern Europe, are fracturing the coalition by arguing that the global recession prevents action on the climate crisis. On Wednesday, "Italy blocked a deal on renewable energy development" and "is also threatening a veto" of the EU plan to phase out subsidies for industrial polluters. The global activist organization Avaaz warns, "Crucial European leadership on climate change is in jeopardy - putting the current global negotiations to avert the climate crisis at serious risk." Avaaz has a petition calling for "an immediate outcry targeting three critical countries: Italy, Germany, and Poland," to challenge Europe to regain a unified position by the close of the conference.

OBAMA'S CHALLENGE: The challenge facing President-elect Barack Obama next year will be immense. Leading conservatives still question the existence of man-made global warming, industries litigate against emissions regulations, and polluters spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to distort public opinion and public policy. Despite these forces of denial, Obama recognizes the severity of the climate crisis. Saying "delay is no longer an option," Obama promised the international community that "the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change." Obama has called for the United States to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a dramatic U-turn from Bush's planet-dooming opposition to mandatory emissions reductions. This comes not a moment too soon, as U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased by 1.4 percent from 2006 to 2007. As Indian official Dinesh Patnaik told Reuters, "It's not ambitious enough considering the Kyoto Protocol targets, but given the eight-year Bush administration it's progress." The triple crisis facing the new administration based on "our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels" -- global recession, violent turmoil, and climate change -- also represents opportunity. In the words of Sarah Wartell, acting CEO of the Center for American Progress, "Success for the 44th president means making a convincing case for the green economic revolution."

IRAQ -- BUSH'S 'COALITION OF THE WILLING' ON ITS LAST LEGS: Yesterday, the Pacific island nation of Tonga was the latest country in President Bush's "coalition of the willing" to head for Iraq's exit doors. Fifty-five members of the Royal Tongan Marines, who had spent the last four months guarding Camp Victory near Baghdad airport, "left with a song, their vowel-rich war choruses echoing in the marble halls of a palace built for Saddam Hussein but now occupied by the U.S. military." Originally composed of 45 countries, the "coalition of the willing" has dwindled down to just 18, most of which will be leaving Iraq before the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the month. U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Nicolas Matern, who is overseeing the overall drawdown, said, "All but six nations -- the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, El Salvador, Estonia and Romania -- will be gone by Jan. 1." In fact, just last month, historians caught the White House trying to rewrite history on the coalition's size. Academic researchers have found that three official lists of the coalition members that were posted on the White House website had been changed. "There were 45 coalition members on the eve of the Iraq invasion, but subsequent deletions of the earlier lists and revisions to critical documents made it seem that there were 49, the researchers found," the New York Times reported.

ETHICS -- KBR GAVE TROOPS ICE TAINTED WITH 'BODY FLUIDS AND PUTREFIED REMAINS': A former technician who worked in Iraq for scandal-ridden contracting company KBR in Iraq has filed a class-action lawsuit saying the company "exposed everyone at Joint Base Balad in Iraq to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from the burn pit there." Joshua Eller's suit includes particularly disturbing charges about KBR's indifference to proper sanitization and the disposal of human remain. "The lawsuit also accuses KBR of shipping ice in mortuary trucks that 'still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them when they were loaded with ice. This ice was served to U.S. forces,'" the Army Times reported. Eller also accused KBR of failing to maintain a medical incinerator, meaning that "medical waste, such as needles, amputated body parts and bloody bandages were burned" in an open-air pit. Earlier this week, several Indiana National Guard soldiers also filed suit against KBR saying they were "exposed to a carcinogen while protecting an Iraqi water pumping plant shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2003."

WOMEN'S RIGHTS -- REPORT: ABORTION DOES NOT LEAD TO LONG-TERM DEPRESSION: A team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has shown that there is no scientific support to claims that "an abortion causes psychological distress, or a 'post-abortion syndrome.'" The team reviewed 21 studies involving more than 150,000 women and found that there are "no significant differences in long-term mental health between women who choose to abort a pregnancy and others." "The best research does not support the existence of a 'post-abortion syndrome' similar to post-traumatic stress disorder," Dr. Robert Blum, who led the study published in the journal Contraception, said in a statement. Researchers found that only "studies with the most flawed methodology consistently found negative mental health consequences of abortion." Despite the lack of scientific support for the abortion-depression link, conservatives on the Supreme Court cited it when they ruled against late-term abortions, saying that "it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained."

The Labor Department reported this morning that 533,000 jobs were lost last month, and unemployment surged to 6.7 percent. The job losses are much higher than the 300,000 losses that analysts predicted. This is the 11th straight month of job losses and the largest monthly decline since 1974. Nearly 2 million jobs have been lost this year.

Yesterday, the Interior Department "unveiled a new rule that challenges Congress’s authority to prevent mining planned on public lands." Congress has "emergency power to stop mineral development, and has used it six times in the last 32 years" but Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne "has ignored that Congressional directive, saying it was procedurally flawed."

New financial disclosures show that the RNC spent "a total of about $180,000 for clothes and various accessories for the family of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin," including expenses at outlets like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Toys R Us and Victoria's Secret. The McCain campaign paid Palin's traveling makeup artist $68,400, "and her hair stylist received more than $42,000 for roughly two months of work."

55 percent: The share of Americans who back President-elect Barack Obama's plan to move U.S. troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey. Sixty-three percent oppose the war in Iraq, whereas 52 percent "favor" efforts in Afghanistan. More »

The Supreme Court plans to meet today to decide whether to hear a case challenging President-elect Barack Obama's right to be president based on his citizenship at birth. Justice Clarence Thomas picked up the petition to hear the lawsuit "after it was denied by Justice David H. Souter." Thomas "referred it to the full court, which decided to distribute the case for the judges' conference."

Between 2004 and 2007, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) steered $79,560 in campaign cash to an Internet company run by his son, Steven Rangel, for a pair of "poorly designed" political Web sites. "This is probably legal but is definitely wrong," said Meredith McGehee of the Campaign Legal Center.

The Blackwater Worldwide guards who shot and killed 17 Baghdad civilians in 2007 could face a mandatory 30-year prison sentence. Prosecutors, who could issue charges as early as Monday, might use a 1988 drug law that "calls for 30-year prison terms for using machine guns to commit violent crimes of any kind, whether drug-related or not."

Reps. John Conyers (D-MI) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to clarify statements he made suggesting that Bush administration officials who authorized torture were within the law because they were acting in good faith. "Conyers and Nadler said they were 'troubled' by the 'breadth' of the statement, especially because there was significant opposition at many levels of the federal government.'"

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz is being rumored as a possible nominee for Obama's cabinet. But he is coming under fire from a coalition of labor and activist groups who argue he has not done enough for working people. "Manny Diaz's track record is he’s ignored the middle class," said Fred Frost, president of the South Florida AFL-CIO.

And finally: Lately, Barack Obama has been reaching out to congressional Republicans, sometimes with hilarious results. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) also recently heard from the President-elect, although he was shopping with his wife and four-year-old grandson when he received the voicemail. King was uncomfortable talking to Obama from the toy department, so he went outside to a police car and asked if he could call him from there. "'The guy in the car looked at me like he got the first psycho of the night,' King said. But there were other police on the scene as well and King even offered to play the message. They let him in the vehicle to make the call and he reached a voice-mail."

"For the first time in history, the entire National Mall will be open to the public for an inauguration, the Presidential Inaugural Committee announced," in order to make the "inauguration as accessible as possible."

THINK PROGRESS: White House finally admits the U.S. economy is in a recession.

WONK ROOM: 1994 all over again: Bob Dole downplays health crisis.

YGLESIAS: Financial literacy and literacy.

MICHIGAN MESSENGER: Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee downplays violence against gays: Christians are gaving their crosses taken from them, too.

MAINE: Maine swears in women as Senate president and House speaker and elects its first female attorney general.

ARIZONA: A record 37,000 Arizonans were laid off or fired last month.

TEXAS: Report ranks state 46th in terms of overall health of the population, down nine places from 2007.

"We've incarcerated Muslims in America without trial? ... Nonsense."
-- Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, 12/2/08

VERSUS

"A federal jury convicted former 'enemy combatant' Jose Padilla on Thursday of terrorism conspiracy charges, handing a courthouse victory to the Bush administration, which had originally sought to imprison him without a criminal trial."
-- Washington Post, 8/17/07, on Muslim-American Jose Padilla

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