Climate change: Dogs of law are off the leash
From being a marginal and even mocked issue, climate-change litigation is fast emerging as a new frontier of law where some believe hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake.
Compensation for losses inflicted by man-made global warming would be jaw-dropping, a payout that would make tobacco and asbestos damages look like pocket money.
Imagine: a country or an individual could get redress for a drought that destroyed farmland, for floods and storms that created an army of refugees, for rising seas that wiped a small island state off the map.
In the past three years, the number of climate-related lawsuits has ballooned, filling the void of political efforts in tackling greenhouse-gas emissions.
Eyeing the money-spinning potential, some major commercial law firms now place climate-change litigation in their Internet shop window.
Should cutting down forests increase a nation’s GDP?
Is the measure of a country’s wealth just its gross domestic product? Or should the definition be broadened to value a nation’s forests and fisheries or even its atmosphere?
In a major new publication, the World Bank makes a strong case for embracing a broader definition of wealth as it works to alleviate poverty around the globe. By including agricultural land, protected areas, minerals beneath the ground, energy and even laws and governing institutions as “assets,” economists say they can better spur green growth.
“The problem with GDP growth as an indicator … is that it treats both the production of goods and services and the value of asset liquidation as part of the product of the nation,” authors wrote in “The Changing Wealth of Nations.” “Thus, a country could grow its GDP by depleting its stocks of forests and minerals, for example, but this growth would not be sustainable.”
The book pegs the total economic value of worldwide natural assets at $44 trillion in 2005 and “intangible” capital — things like education or the capacity to innovate — at $540 trillion. Data for 1995, 2000 and 2005 show that as per capita wealth increases in lower- and middle-income countries, the share of natural capital declines.
California solar company acquires Maryland foothold
SolarCity, one of the nation’s largest solar energy installers, has acquired the solar division of Rockville-based Clean Currents as part of the company’s move to establish business on the East Coast.
The San Mateo, Calif.-based company leases solar energy panels to home and business owners, eliminating the upfront costs that executives said often price people out. The company also installs, monitors and finances the projects itself in an effort to simplify the process.
The private company, which would not disclose its finances, boasts a staff of 1,000 and counts 10,000 solar projects that have been completed or are underway in Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon and Texas, its current markets. Twelve employees in Clean Currents’ solar division will relocate to Silver Spring and be joined by 30 new hires to sell and install solar projects in the District and Maryland starting next month.
Clean Currents President Gary Skulnik said his company has “been dreaming for a long time of solar for the masses” and felt the leasing model presented by SolarCity could achieve that. He added that the sale’s undisclosed sum will allow the company’s remaining divisions to focus on “fun and new things,” the details of which will come in the months ahead.
Shrinking Snow and Ice Cover Intensify Global Warming
The decreases in Earth’s snow and ice cover over the past 30 years have exacerbated global warming more than models predict they should have, on average, new research from the University of Michigan shows.
To conduct this study, Mark Flanner, assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, analyzed satellite data showing snow and ice during the past three decades in the Northern Hemisphere, which holds the majority of the planet’s frozen surface area. The research is newly published online in Nature Geoscience.
Snow and ice reflect the sun’s light and heat back to space, causing an atmospheric cooling effect. But as the planet warms, more ice melts and in some cases, less snow falls, exposing additional ground and water that absorb more heat, amplifying the effects of warmer temperatures. This change in reflectance contributes to what’s called “albedo feedback,” one of the main positive feedback mechanisms adding fuel to the planet’s warming trend. The strongest positive feedback is from atmospheric water vapor, and cloud changes may also enhance warming.
BP Panel Allows Congress to Act on Comity Vow: Albert Hunt
Republicans and Democrats are planning to sit together during President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address tomorrow night. That might minimize the raucous high school-like cheering sections that have come to mark these sessions.
As a vehicle for finding common ground, this is mere symbolism. More telling moments may occur the next day in the less ornate hearing rooms of the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers will hear testimony from the co-chairmen of the commission investigating the BP disaster last year in the Gulf of Mexico, former Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida and Bill Reilly, a Republican who once headed the Environmental Protection Agency.
Earlier this month, the commission, appointed last May after the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, called for an end to the cozy relationship between government regulators and the oil industry via the creation of an independent agency that would be more shielded from political pressure. If regulators and London-based BP Plc had done their job right and put safety first, the spill wouldn’t have occurred, the Graham-Reilly panel concluded.
At the same time, however, it said the U.S. needs the oil from offshore drilling, and that while the liability cap on companies for accidents should be raised from the unrealistically low $75 million, it shouldn’t be unlimited.
Mobilising the ‘home front’ to fight climate change: When it comes to tackling climate change, there are many lessons we can learn from the wartime generation
The Imperial War Museum in London may seem like a strange place to launch a report on climate change. But that’s where I am this morning, along with speakers from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research, the Women’s Institute and the museum itself.
Why? Two reasons. First, climate change is one of the greatest threats to our country since the last world war. It’s not only environmentalists who are saying this. Business leaders, prime ministers, major charities and generals have all recognised the level of risk.
Second, if we are to overcome this threat – and the alternative is simply too awful to contemplate – then we need to mobilise as a nation in a way we haven’t seen since 1945.
The new report – entitled The New Home Front – looks at the wartime experience of those on the “home front” in Britain and the lessons we can learn in facing today’s threats from climate change and the looming energy and resources crisis.
What struck me most about the report was how many positive – and at times inspiring – lessons we could learn from the wartime generation. People put up with so much disruption and deprivation because they knew there was no alternative, and because they believed society would emerge stronger at the end of the war.
For example, evidence suggests that the vast majority households supported rationing, because it was fairer than the alternative of restricting food consumption through prices. Small individual action added up to a massive contribution: collecting food scraps – which due to rationing were nothing like the amount of food waste Britain produces today – was enough to feed over 200,000 pigs. And while people had to forgo some pleasures, such as country drives, attendances at theatres and other amusements rose.
Meanwhile, despite rationing, nutrition improved and infant mortality fell sharply. The social change that wartime impositions such as rationing and billeting of evacuees brought about laid the foundations for reform of education, the welfare state and the creation of the National Health Service.
It would be wrong to glamorise the second world war. But it would also be wrong to ignore the experiences and wisdom of those who lived through it. That’s why, as a follow-up to this report, we’re launching a national campaign to bring the generations together and see how their insights can be applied here and now. Over the coming months, we’ll be finding ways to bring this wisdom into one place and make it available in a new report.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
The rain refuses to stop falling from the sky….
South Africa flood death toll rises as government declares 33 disaster zones
Warnings of humanitarian crises after flooding claims more than 100 lives and threatens rest of southern Africa
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/24/south-africa-flood-death-toll
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/lists/whos-to-blame-12-politicians-and-execs-blocking-progress-on-global-warming-20110119
What are the downsides to desalination?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/24/china-water-crisis
Rolling Stone: Who’s to blame – 12 politicians and execs blocking progress on global warming
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/lists/whos-to-blame-12-politicians-and-execs-blocking-progress-on-global-warming-20110119/sarah-palin-retired-half-term-governor-alaska-19691231
Modern economics, unlike traditional societies, places the value of forests and topsoil at zero. This is absurd, and has to change.
Most parts of South Africa had more than double their normal rainfall in the first 10 days of January, according to preliminary data from the South African Weather Service. Some parts have had more than three times their normal rainfall, the organization’s website shows.
Grain SA, South Africa’s largest group of corn and grain farmers, is “sincerely concerned about the impact of the recent floods,” the Bothaville-based group said in an e-mailed statement today.
South African farmers may have incurred losses of about 1 billion rand as a result of flooding that damaged grape, corn and sunflower crops, Agri SA has said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-24/oranjerivier-cellars-gauging-south-african-flooding-damage-to-grape-vines.html
SAO PAULO — Brazilian authorities say heavy overnight storms have caused new flooding in Sao Paulo, killing at least one man, toppling cars into buildings, downing power lines and halting traffic.
South America’s biggest city has seen a month of heavy rains and repeated flooding.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5h_SWHBfUCb17SMHBsldNBrWudg9A?docId=5742526
As odd as it seems, insurance companies may become a major force for climate change action. Their job is to insure against future risk, often far into the future — exactly what climate change threatens. They are most at risk in industrial nations for the ravages of extreme weather, sea level rise, etc. As they become more savvy about the immediate and coming effects of climate change, they will no doubt recognize their huge risks and begin making changes such as hugely raising certain rates and/or refusing to insure both projects most at risk and that contribute to the collective risk. Uninsurable projects don’t get financing. A focus on financing is already making a mark, as it has rightly become harder and harder to get money for coal-fired power plants in the U.S. due to banks worried about future carbon limits, if nothing else. Maybe we should target Lloyds of London in a friendly but persuasive way, as they could sway the industry, thereby taking most all other large industries along (unfortunately, oil companies probably have so much money that they can self-insure all their new projects).
Colorado Bob – loved your taxes comment over at the LA Times.
For other CP readers:
Taxes and Climate Change -
In Colombia, heavy rains in December left 300 people dead and 2 million homeless, injured or whose property was damaged. Hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and coffee-growing lands were destroyed, causing millions of dollars in damage, and the excessive humidity caused the appearance of a fungus that attacks coffee plants.
http://lapress.org/articles.asp?art=6289
If you think this isn’t gonna cost you money wake-up and smell the coffee , at a new all time record price.
Thanks CU ………
A prolonged dry spell in parts of northern, central and eastern China is threatening both crops and water supplies, Chinese state media says.
Shandong province is experiencing its driest weather for 60 years.
Half the wheat-growing land there is affected, while almost a quarter of a million people face drinking water shortages, the China Daily said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12266435
Our wheat belt isn’t in much better shape.
http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html
Ron Gremban
Looking at Australian and American floods, I suspect that when next year’s insurance premiums arrive in the mailbox a few people will start to think. People can ignore or dismiss floods and fires in remote Pakistan or Russia. It’s a bit harder when it’s folks you know or recognise. And you know that such events in developed countries are much more relevant to our own private and public budgets.
For activists the public issue will be “What’s the point of arguing about possible taxes or carbon prices when insurance costs will be even higher for no real benefit?” Will we have the money for mitigation if we spend public monies on repairing flood damage to roads, bridges and housing, and private money on higher insurance premiums against further damages?
What’s in a number?
Talk about Gross Domestic Product (really gross) and the commons. Most citizens would count health costs as costs rather than product. If the $2.5 trillion spent on treating disease, injury and other ailments were a negative instead of the positive economists give it, then our $14 trillion GDP would be $14 – 2.5 – 2.5 = $9 trillion. Then take away other costs such as militarism (and environmental degradation) and that ephemeral accounting number of “the economy” starts looking sick itself. Not to mention the recently reported figure of over one quadrillion dollars net present value of climate debt from (carbonic acid gas) contamination of the ecosphere.
Anyone have a very large calculator with self illumination for use in a very deep hole?
Cost of the recent (still ongoing) flooding in Australia ~3 billion.
Cost of switching Australia’s electricity generation to 100% renewables ~360 billion.
I fear Australia’s government would need to experience a catastrophe roughly 50 to100 times bigger than the current floods before they would willingly switch to 100% renewables.
Yet if USA got serious about climate change this afternoon, Australia would be serious about it this evening.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110123131014.htm
World’s Biggest Extinction Event: Massive Volcanic Eruption, Burning Coal and Accelerated Greenhouse Gas Choked out Life
ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2011) — About 250 million years about 95 per cent of life was wiped out in the sea and 70 per cent on land. Researchers at the University of Calgary believe they have discovered evidence to support massive volcanic eruptions burnt significant volumes of coal, producing ash clouds that had broad impact on global oceans.