Dickinson to Durban » Climate Change
The Corporations Speak
By: Anna McGinn ’14 Reading industries’ and corporations’ take on climate change policy is an interesting perspective to dissect especially after reading IPCC and scientific documents. Their focus is not to describe the science of climate change or to create international agreements on GHG emissions. Rather their report, “Assessing U.S. Climate Policy Options: A report summarizing work at RFF as part of the inter-industry U.S. Climate Policy Forum,” explains how corporations would like the United States to approach climate change regulations. From page one, they focus on regulating GHG emissions through various market approaches. In the realm of corporations, everything has a dollar value. Further, they are careful to use non-committal language and are vague in their explanations of solutions. Despite some drawbacks, it seems impressive that these 23 corporations came … Read entire article »
Filed under: Carbon Markets, Climate Change
U.S. Climate Policy-What Does it Take?
The United States is an incredibly difficult place when it comes to climate policy. Maybe it’s the divide down party lines over environmental topics, the lack of desire to change our habits or even just the nature of a democratic nation; regardless we Americans aren’t able to decide on how to deal with climate change. Part of the problem stems from the control industries have over decision making. The industries in the U.S. and across the globe hold huge amounts of money and thus hold huge amounts of power. In earlier posts the book Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway proved this point, showing how the tobacco industry blatantly lied and twisted information to confuse the public about the health effects of smoking. After reading Merchants of Doubt, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change
Baby Steps?
by Claire Tighe ’13 According to the UNFCCC website, the Cancún Agreement, resolved in Mexico at COP16 in 2010, accomplished quite a bit for the continued international efforts at mitigating and adapting to climate change. However, negotiations are by no means complete, and delegates at COP17 will have to continue these “baby” steps in the climate agreements. But are “baby steps” enough to solve climate change? As the online science resource Climate Action Tracker notes, “Emissions are at a historic high while actions are not.” The Cancún Agreements did manage to form “the largest collective effort the world has ever seen to reduce emisssions,” as well as “the most comprehensive package ever agree by Governments to help developing nations deal with climate change,” and a “timely schedule […] for keeping the global … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change, Key COP17 Issues, Summer Reading Responses
The College Environment
One question that keeps coming up in my mind as to my studies with this Africa Mosaic,is my own involvement in contributing to the GHG emissions of the world. While having the privilege to study international climate negotiations in-depth is not possible for a majority of the public with jobs and other full-time commitments, I realize that I am extremely priveged and fortunate in this sphere. I go to a good liberal arts college which affords me the opportunity and focus to do such a thing. However, merely studying the impacts of carbon emissions outside my privileged “scholarly bubble” feels, well, unfulfilling. So the question I wish to discuss is how and why this “bubble” shapes some of the environmental choices I am able to make in my four years at … Read entire article »
Filed under: Climate Change, Mosaic Action
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