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Crisis And Opportunity In The Environmental Century: Inspiring A Generation To Greatness In The Classroom By Climate Guest Blogger on Aug 30, 2012 at 9:11 am by Stephen Mulkey, via Climate Access As an ecologist, I know that we have precious little time to prepare a generation to respond to the ecological crisis of our planet in peril. As the president of Unity College, I am alarmed by how little progress has been made in focusing higher learning on what is undoubtedly the most important challenge facing humankind. Given the overwhelming scientific evidence of imminent climate disruption, failure to make climate literacy a requisite part of any undergraduate curriculum is inexcusable. Recent papers in the journal Nature show that we have transgressed the boundaries of a safe operating space for humanity with respect to several key environmental factors. Chief among these is climate change, which amplifies the effects of all other critical factors such as freshwater depletion, nitrogen pollution, biodiversity loss, ozone depletion, and changes in land use. There is now mounting evidence that sometime during this century we will reach a state shift in the planet’s ability to support us. Climate change will affect every facet of the academy and change the practice of essentially all fields of study.

Pipeline Fight Lifts Environmental Movement

‘To Those Influencing Environmental Policy But Opposed to Nuclear Power’

Why Canadian Tar Sands are the Most Environmentally Destructive Project on Earth

New York City. Dedicated to social, cultural and environmental sustainability, Thoreau Centers are named after the American writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau. As American’s first notable naturalist, Thoreau believed in the importance of democracy and advocated living in harmony with nature. Tides provides an array of services that amplifies the efforts of forward-thinking philanthropists, foundations, activists and organizations to make the world a better place. Tides helps create environmentally and financially sustainable workspaces for nonprofits and communities to come together.

MUST SEE FILM: White Water, Black Gold A+A-1 02-09-2013Share Specialty Studios Most Americans know little about the source of oil for the proposed Keystone Pipeline—the tar sands of Northern Alberta. The tar sands are not a traditional oil field. The oil is extracted and processed from the sands at a significant and devastating environmental and health cost to the land and people, and the process itself is a major contributor to climate change.

are the Native Peoples of the Western Hemi

el environmental policies of the Inca, the managed sub-climax forest successions in the Eastern Woodlands and the Three Sisters method of high-output low-soil-loss agriculture exemplified in the Finger Lakes area by the Haudenosaunee people. The European conquerors and immigrants paid little attention to the land management skills of their victims and it was only in the 1980s that modern science began seriously investigating the Native achievements and their relevance for the wider society.

Clinton’s Environmental Failure Dec 9, 2012 4:45 AM EST Hillary isn't winning many friends among environmentalists with her support of the Keystone Pipeline--and it will be the purest test of whether Obama's second term will be greener than his first.

Last week the UK Guardian published a bombshell piece on the origins of the fatefully dreadful decision to try to sell the climate bill without talking about the climate The story describes a March 2009 meeting at the Old Executive Office Building, the White House informed the leading environmental groups that it had decided climate change was not a winning message. The blunt headline: Revealed: the day Obama chose a strategy of silence on climate change

Keystone XL: The pipeline to disaster If Obama OKs the Keystone XL, it will exacerbate global warming and put the U.S. on the hook for spills and environmental degradation, all in service to one of the planet's dirtiest fuels.

Part I: How the Media Help the Koch Brothers and ExxonMobil Spread Climate Doubt

Matt Damon brings the fracking fight to the big screen By Daniel Penner Focus FeaturesAlternate title: We Bought a Gas Farm. Been jonesin’ for a Hollywood movie about a hot-button environmental issue? One without animation, penguins, or Al Gore?

Hawai’i Leads the Way with Cutting-Edge Solar Energy Policy

Senate Approves Kerry for Secretary of State

In just the last two months of the campaign, outside groups linked to dirty energy sources or the promotion of a dirty energy agenda spent more than $270 million on TV ads in the presidential, House, and Senate races and industry ads promoting oil, gas, and coal interest, and more than $31 million was spent on energy-related ads, according to a Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis of data from Kantar Media’s CMAG. This includes more than $109 million spent in congressional races with $21.7 million on energy-specific ads. During that time, more than 59,600 spots ran on energy and environmental issues in the presidential race and key House and Senate races.

By Monday night, the debate about "climate silence" was in full voice. Al Gore weighed in, tweeting during the course of the debate: "Where is global warming in this debate? Climate change is an urgent foreign policy issue."The Green party's presidential candidate, Jill Stein, who went so far as to label Obama a climate change denier in an interview with the Guardian for his failure to discuss the issue on the campaign trail.Other commentators argued allowances should be made for Obama's failure to discuss climate on the campaign trail, and his middling support for environmental concerns while in the White House.Since the rise of the Tea Party conservatives in 2010, energy and climate change have emerged as among the most contentious issues dividing Republicans and Democrats.

Climate and Security 101: Why the U.S. National Security Establishment Takes Climate Change Seriously April 25, 2012 by Francesco Femia & Caitlin Werrell In a 2007 report by the CNA Military Advisory Board, General Gordon R. Sullivan stated: “People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections…But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.” The national security establishment in the United States, including the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence community, understand that climate change is a national security threat, and that we cannot wait for 100% certainty before acting to mitigate and adapt to its effects. But not only do they understand it, they plan for it – considering it’s implications in strategic documents like the Quadrennial Defense Review, and setting up an office within the CIA called the Center for Climate Change and National Security. But why? Why do those organs of government that the public normally associates with fighting wars, devote time and effort to an issue that is branded as hogwash by many on the right of the political spectrum, and the exclusive domain of environmental activists on the left? The simple answer: climate change is, actually, a national security threat.

I see climate silence as a failure of the mainstream media; a politico-media complex too enthralled by the story lines pitched to them by the campaigns to force either to address an infinitely pressing issue that falls outside its comfort zone. There were no efforts at all to examine the candidates' positions on climate policy in light of the record drought and heat temps, to press either for substantive answers. Climate silence is a product of failed leadership, to be sure, but also of our professional information gatherers and storytellers.

To our great shame, America now has • the highest poverty rate, both generally and for children; • the greatest inequality of incomes; • the lowest social mobility; • the lowest score on the UN’s index of “material well-being of children”; • the worst score on the UN’s Gender Inequality Index; • the highest expenditure on health care as a percentage of GDP, yet all this money accompanied by the highest infant mortality rate, the highest prevalence of mental health problems, the highest obesity rate, the highest percentage of people going without health care due to cost, the highest consumption of antidepressants per capita, and the shortest life expectancy at birth; • the next-to-lowest score for student performance in math and middling performance in science and reading; • the highest homicide rate; • the largest prison population in absolute terms and per capita; • the highest carbon dioxide emissions and the highest water consumption per capita; • the lowest score on Yale’s Environmental Performance Index (except for Belgium) and the largest ecological footprint per capita (except for Denmark); • the lowest spending on international development and humanitarian assistance as a percentage of national income (except for Japan and Italy); • the highest military spending both in total and as a percentage of GDP; and • the largest international arms sales.