(C) The Dalai Lama argued that the political agenda should be sidelined for five to ten years and the international community should shift its focus to climate change on the Tibetan plateau. Melting glaciers, deforestation, and increasingly polluted water from mining projects were problems that “cannot wait.” The Dalai Lama criticized China’s energy policy, alleging that dam construction in Kham and Amdo have displaced thousands of Tibetans and left temples and monasteries underwater. He recommended the PRC compensate Tibetans for disrupting their nomadic lifestyle with vocational training, such as weaving.
WikiLeaks cables: Dalai Lama called for focus on climate, not politics, in Tibet
Exiled Buddhist leader told US ambassador to India that ‘political agenda should be sidelined’ in favour of climate issues
The Dalai Lama told US diplomats last year that the international community should focus on climate change rather than politics in Tibet because environmental problems were more urgent, secret American cables reveal.
The exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader told Timothy Roemer, the US ambassador to India, that the “political agenda should be sidelined for five to 10 years and the international community should shift its focus to climate change on the Tibetan plateau” during a meeting in Delhi last August.
“Melting glaciers, deforestation and increasingly polluted water from mining projects were problems that ‘cannot wait’, but the Tibetans could wait five to 10 years for a political solution,” he was reported as saying.
Though the Dalai Lama has frequently raised environmental issues, he has never publicly suggested that political questions take second place, nor spoken of any timescale with such precision.
Roemer speculated, in his cable to Washington reporting the meeting, that “the Dalai Lama’s message may signal a broader shift in strategy to reframe the Tibet issue as an environmental concern”.
In their meeting, the ambassador reported, the Dalai Lama criticised China‘s energy policy, saying dam construction in Tibet had displaced thousands of people and left temples and monasteries underwater.
He recommended that the Chinese authorities compensate Tibetans for disrupting their nomadic lifestyle with vocational training, such as weaving, and said there were “three poles” in danger of melting – the north pole, the south pole, and “the glaciers at the pole of Tibet”.
Obama administration unveils blueprint for solar energy development in West
The Obama administration issued proposed guidelines Thursday for solar development on public lands in the West, a move that could speed renewable energy projects that have been mired in environmental controversy.
The detailed analysis, known as a Draft Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, identifies 24 “solar energy zones” in six states that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said would be most suited “for environmentally sound, utility-scale solar energy production.”
“We think it provides a common-sense and flexible framework through which to grow our nation’s renewable energy economy,” Salazar told reporters in a conference call.
Under the 10,000-page plan, which is now subject to public comment for 90 days, developers would have a higher level of confidence that they could receive federal permits establishing solar ventures in specific areas in states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.
Solar reports say industry is booming, with falling prices and heavy Chinese manufacturing
As it waits for Congress to decide whether to extend a key government incentive program, the solar industry revealed several reports on industry performance so far this year — and the numbers are looking healthy.
The Solar Energy Industries Assn., a major trade group, said that commercial solar customers in the U.S. installed 103 megawatts in the third quarter, a 38% boom from the same period in 2009.
Overall, more than 27,000 homes and businesses set up solar systems, according to the group, which partnered with GTM research. The average cost fell to below $6 a watt for the first time.
By the end of the year, the U.S. industry might surpass one gigawatt of installtions, between photovoltaic, concentrating solar power, and solar heating and cooling projects, the group said. So far, California is leading the pack, followed by New Jersey, Florida, Arizona and Colorado.
Globally, demand for just photovoltaics grew 196% to 10.6 gigawatts in the first nine months of 2010, according to the SolarBuzz research and consulting firm. In the third quarter, the industry pulled in $17.9 billion — a 74% increase.
Records Show Concerns About Another BP Rig
Months before the BP disaster, some Congressional officials were pressing federal regulators behind the scenes about numerous safety concerns related to offshore drilling, potential oil spills and BP itself, but they complained that they were rebuffed, previously undisclosed documents show.
Congressional officials raised particular concerns about the safety of a second BP oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico and about regulators’ failure to spend millions of dollars approved for oil spill research, among other issues, according to e-mails between Congressional officials and regulators at the Minerals Management Service, as the agency was then known.
When officials at the agency told members of Congress in 2009 that they could not specifically respond to concerns about the potential for a “catastrophic” accident on a second BP rig off New Orleans, known as the Atlantis, some staff members were livid at what they viewed as stonewalling.
Chevron to Spend $4 Billion on U.S. Gulf Discovery
Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. oil company, plans to spend $4 billion to get crude and natural gas from its Big Foot discovery in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
The field, which contains the equivalent of 200 million barrels of crude, is scheduled to come online in 2014, the San Ramon, California-based company said in a statement today. It will be capable of producing 75,000 barrels of oil and 25 million cubic feet of gas a day, the company said.
The discovery is about 225 miles (360 kilometers) south of New Orleans in waters 5,200 feet deep. This is Chevron’s second deep-water investment since an April explosion at BP Plc’s Macondo well off the Louisiana coast that caused the biggest U.S. offshore oil spill.
Markey chosen as top Democrat on Natural Resources Committee
Representative Edward J. Markey this morning was chosen to be the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, providing the Malden Democrat with a key role that he says will allow him to block the Republican agenda.
The committee deals with issues involving the environment, energy, and public land.
“In the next Congress, Republicans will attempt to short-circuit the laws that keep our water clean, our air clear and our public lands pristine, while giving short shrift to emerging clean energy technologies that can create jobs and clean up our environment,” Markey said this morning in a statement. “With my fellow Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee, I believe we can chart a course that will continue the progress we’ve made on creating energy jobs here in America, without sacrificing our nation’s natural heritage.”
A litmus test of energy lobby’s power
Energy-themed trade groups can measure their level of influence with the next Congress to some degree by the amount of work they did over the past two years to pass global warming legislation.
Some lobby shops actively supported the Obama administration and its Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, sensing a golden opportunity to reshape the nation’s energy policy. Others played along, figuring it made sense to be at the bargaining table to shape a cap-and-trade bill as best they could.
But now that the proposal is dead, groups like the American Wind Energy Association and Solar Energy Industries Association must deal with the awkwardness of trying to work with the same Republicans who opposed their efforts to put a lid on greenhouse gases.
“They’ve been so associated with the environmental community and the Democrats,” said Mark McIntosh, counsel at Boyden Gray & Associates and a White House official from the George W. Bush administration. “From a strategy standpoint, it made sense prior to Nov. 2. As a result, though, they may find the atmospherics more challenging moving forward.”
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Blueprint For Solar:
“Under the 10,000-page plan, which is now subject to public comment for 90 days,”
Live, from New York, with just one “plan” from the feds requiring over one hundred pages of review for the next three months, it’s Saturday Night.
Maybe they meant 10,000 words. Not a chance.
New type of solar power:
A new breed of electronic solar cells that harvests power from heat could double the output of conventional panels
SOLAR cells that work at night. It sounds like an oxymoron, but a new breed of nanoscale light-sensitive antennas could soon make this possible, heralding a novel form of renewable energy that avoids many of the problems that beset solar cells.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827915.000-is-night-falling-on-classic-solar-panels.html
I suggest the Dalai, who seems well informed and rational at least, concentrates on criticising his paymasters, the USA, rather than the Chinese, who are doing more than any others to ameliorate our climate predicament. Of course, at the same time they are one of the current biggest contributors to the disaster, if certainly not one of the historical villains.
Evacuations ordered as storm saturates California
AP) – 7 hours ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A storm pounding California with record rain forced authorities in the San Joaquin Valley to order 2,000 residents to evacuate the farming community of McFarland due to major flooding.
An estimated 400 to 500 homes were in danger, Kern County Fire Department spokesman Sean Collins said.
A eucalyptus tree fell onto a home in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles, and a 40-foot tree toppled onto an apartment building in suburban Glendale.
In the San Bernardino Mountains, a 100-foot tree fell between two businesses in downtown Big Bear but only damaged a gazebo.
“It couldn’t have landed more perfectly if we’d planned it,” said Tiffany Swantek, a spokeswoman for the local sheriff’s station. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h2Q_fxHsMDH1tfIbXKYGCcPJJoaQ?docId=607328877058467c8556b86e1197d41e
People overlook that flooding causes trees to collapse.
Last Potential Barrier to Implementation of EPA Climate Rules Falls http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/12/20/20climatewire-last-potential-barrier-to-implementation-of-44939.html
Again more than projected …
Global Rivers Emit Three Times IPCC Estimates of Greenhouse Gas Nitrous Oxide
Waterways receiving nitrogen from human activities are significant source
December 20, 2010
What goes in must come out, a truism that now may be applied to global river networks.
Human-caused nitrogen loading to river networks is a potentially important source of nitrous oxide emission to the atmosphere. Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change and stratospheric ozone destruction.
It happens via a microbial process called denitrification, which converts nitrogen to nitrous oxide and an inert gas called dinitrogen.
When summed across the globe, scientists report this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), river and stream networks are the source of at least 10 percent of human-caused nitrous oxide emissions to the atmosphere.
That’s three times the amount estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Rates of nitrous oxide production via denitrification in small streams increase with nitrate concentrations.
“Human activities, including fossil fuel combustion and intensive agriculture, have increased the availability of nitrogen in the environment,” says Jake Beaulieu of the University of Notre Dame and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Cincinnati, Ohio, and lead author of the PNAS paper.
“Much of this nitrogen is transported into river and stream networks,” he says, “where it may be converted to nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, via the activity of microbes.”
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=118234&org=NSF&from=news
“Under the 10,000-page plan, which is now subject to public comment for 90 days”
lol, i guess your done reading in 90 days.
The Dalai Lama is correct, because nothing else is more important, than the future of the human race. Who cares about borders, if the habitat becomes inhabitable.
uninhabitable
Catastrophic floods after catastrophic drought in Western Australia:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/21/3098255.htm
Ocean acidification may disrupt the marine nitrogen cycle
Ocean acidification, the result of roughly a third of global CO2 emissions dissolving into the seawater and lowering its pH, has complicated and poorly understood consequences for ocean ecosystems. Scientists already know that a drop in ocean pH affects the carbon cycle, reducing the carbonate ions that organisms like corals, mollusks and crustaceans use to build shells and external skeletons. Now, a new study shows that a CO2-induced increase in acidity also appears to disrupt the marine nitrogen cycle. The finding, to be published December 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could have ramifications for the entire ocean food web.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=ocean-acidification-may-disrupt-the-2010-12-20
Pricing Carbon Conference – James Hansen Dinner Talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKT1rAiACSs&feature=related
Tesla small toy wireless electric car http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoBDy84wgw
Pricing Carbon Conference – Dr. James Hansen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EX4v5vvlAk&feature=related
Pricing Carbon Conference – Bill McKibben
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY6sL8At6Ug&feature=related
Crazy Scene In Spokane, Washington As Cars Lose Control On The Ice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRaX4Q0K6LA
# 3 Mulga Mumblebrain
The Dalai Lama has a long history of demonstrating concern for the environment – see for example his 1984 publication “A human approach to world peace” http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/humpeace.htm
excerpt ” I am sure that many people share my concern about the
present worldwide moral crisis and will join in my appeal to
all humanitarians and religious practitioners who also share
this concern to help make our societies more compassionate,
just, and equitable. I do not speak as a Buddhist or even as a
Tibetan. Nor do I speak as an expert on international politics
(though I unavoidably comment on these matters). Rather, I
speak simply as a human being, as an upholder of the
humanitarian values that are the bedrock not only of Mahayana
Buddhism but of all the great world religions. From this
perspective I share with you my personal outlook-that
1 universal humanitarianism is essential to solve global
problems;
2 compassion is the pillar of world peace;
3 all world religions are already for world peace in this way,
as are all humanitarians of whatever ideology;
4 each individual has a universal responsibility to shape
institutions to serve human needs.”
see also http://www.ecobuddhism.org for the Buddhist response to the climate emergency.
From a scientific viewpoint China and Indian water supplies are under huge threat (already happening)because of retreating glaciers originating in the 3rd pole – Tibet. Therefore from a self-interest point of view one might expect these nations to be strongly supporting dramatic carbon emission reductions independently of whether any other countries do or not.
#3 Manga and for general interest
The Dalai Lama has a long history of concern about the violence we are wreaking on each other and the planet. Below is an excerpt from a 1984 booklet “A Human Approach to World Peace”
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/humpeace.htm
(he also comments on science and technology) See also http://www.ecobuddhism.org for the Buddhist response to the climate emergency.
“I am sure that many people share my concern about the
present worldwide moral crisis and will join in my appeal to
all humanitarians and religious practitioners who also share
this concern to help make our societies more compassionate,
just, and equitable. I do not speak as a Buddhist or even as a
Tibetan. Nor do I speak as an expert on international politics
(though I unavoidably comment on these matters). Rather, I
speak simply as a human being, as an upholder of the
humanitarian values that are the bedrock not only of Mahayana
Buddhism but of all the great world religions. From this
perspective I share with you my personal outlook-that
1 universal humanitarianism is essential to solve global
problems;
2 compassion is the pillar of world peace;
3 all world religions are already for world peace in this way,
as are all humanitarians of whatever ideology;
4 each individual has a universal responsibility to shape
institutions to serve human needs.”
“Environmentally sound, utility-scale solar energy production.” Excuse me? What’s environmentally sound about a project that bulldozes thousands of acres of desert, requires a half-billion gallons of water a year (in the desert!), needs hundred of miles of new roads and new giant power lines and involves the building and maintenance of a small city of workers (in the desert!)? And that’s for each of thousands of planned projects.
Renewable’s not sustainable if it’s industrial. For an alternative, see http://www.dailyimpact.net/2010/11/28/389/
And the correlation between extreme weather and so called natural diseaster?
Natural Disasters Killed 250K in 2010
Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides, and droughts killed at least a quarter million people in 2010 — the deadliest year in more than a generation. http://www.newslook.com/videos/276827-natural-disasters-killed-250k-in-2010?autoplay=true
#18 tom’ nice point.
East coast Canada getting hammered again big time. 3rd time in a month.
Storm surge hits Maritime coastlines
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2010/12/21/nb-weather-warnings-617.html
Point in note. Eastern Canada has recently had a recharged economy due to the development of offshore oil discovered there relatively recently.
Now they dilemma of global warming is catching up with them.
Welcome to Planet Eaarth series.
Constant disruption to travel will put business and people out of pocket relentlessly….
Marine Atlantic cancellations cause upheaval
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/12/21/marine-atlantic-travellers-121.html
“[It's my] first Christmas ever without my children,” Carol Mulrooney told CBC News from Port aux Basques, in southwestern Newfoundland, where she was unable to board a Marine Atlantic ferry Monday for Nova Scotia.
‘I’m heartbroken. Lonely, empty, sad, broke.’
—Carol Mulrooney
High winds and forecasts of nine-metre waves prompted Marine Atlantic to keep its vessels in port, with no crossings expected before late Thursday.
Mulrooney, who had been driving from St. John’s to Halifax, headed for a hotel Monday night but said she does not have the money to stay there any longer. Instead, she said she will probably have to spend a few nights in her car.
“I’m heartbroken. Lonely, empty, sad, broke,” Mulrooney said.
Mulrooney asked Marine Atlantic for help, but there was nothing the Crown-owned company could do.
Great article…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/dec/21/bolivia-oppose-cancun-climate-agreement
Diplomacy is traditionally a game of alliance and compromise. Yet in the early hours of Saturday 11 December, Bolivia found itself alone against the world: the only nation to oppose the outcome of the United Nations climate change summit in Cancún. We were accused of being obstructionist, obstinate and unrealistic. Yet in truth we did not feel alone, nor are we offended by the attacks. Instead, we feel an enormous obligation to set aside diplomacy and tell the truth.
In addition to having science on our side, another reason we did not feel alone in opposing an unbalanced text at Cancún is that we received thousands of messages of support from the women, men, and young people of the social movements that have stood by us and have helped inform our position. It is out of respect for them, and humanity as a whole, that we feel a deep responsibility not to sign off on any paper that threatens millions of lives.
Studies indicate that our capital city of La Paz could become a desert within 30 years.
[palm: if a realization like this, and there must be some for the US, isn't enough to implement a state of emergency to address our warming climate then we are truly suicidal, brainless frogs]
#19 dbm, there might not be a big link to geology and climate change, but it looks like there is one. And it many be bigger than we think. A few points….
. Warming in the past has been linked to increased volcanism and earthquake activity.
. Earthquakes are influenced by the tides and weather system.
. The world is warming and we are observing increased activity in this area.
. Climate calamity aggravates and amplifies the chaos and impact of natural disasters.
We can look forward to a severely diminished dysfunctional future before this decade is out to put it mildly.
RE: Dalai Lama said climate concerns should supersede Tibetan politics
Wisdom rules despite normal business-as-usual where the more petty something is the more people spend time on it.
(Though Tibetan politics is not petty)