State of the World 2011 Symposium in Washington DC and Live Streaming Online

by Border Jumpers

Today is the Worldwatch Institute’s 15th Annual State of the World Symposium, hosted at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. It is being live streamed on the Nourishing the Planet blog at 1:15PM (EST) for those unable to join the event in person. Bringing together leading thinkers in agricultural development, hunger, and poverty alleviation, the symposium takes place following the release of Worldwatch's flagship publication, State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet. Continued...

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US-China: Global Warming Work Ahead on Heels of Presidential Summit

by Jake Schmidt

President Obama with Hu Jintao

Chinese President Hu Jintao  is in D.C. for a State Dinner with President Obama and for a series of meetings over the next three days.  They have a lot on their plate (both literally and figuratively), so climate change won’t be the only thing that they discuss.  But you can sure bet that it will come up.  There are also many parallel energy/climate events occurring in DC while he is here.  Significant progress was made in Cancun on key issues that both countries outlined as critical components of their vision of success for that meeting.  The meetings between the two countries over the next three days are an important opportunity to continue to detail five key components of the international response to global warming.

1. Continuing to find solutions – not shouting, but negotiating

The US and China struck a different tone in Cancun compared to Copenhagen.  They sat down  and discussed in rationale ways the details of each other’s visions for certain issues.  They negotiated (you can bet that it wasn’t all agreement behind closed doors as both sides are tough negotiators).  And they found a way to meet both countries interests – to a large extent – while still beginning to build an international system for addressing global warming that will encourage countries to take action at home, ensure that countries are living up to their commitments, and deliver the needed assistance to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.  Continued...

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Tunisia's Riots: A warning to regimes in the Middle East

by Janet Ritz

If anyone doubts the connection between the economy, the climate and the risk to existing autocratic regimes, they need only look to the protests in Tunisia that began over unemployment, rising food prices and anger at oppression.

The unrest in Tunisia has exploded into a national crisis that is serving as a warning to autocratic regimes throughout the Middle East. The lack of resources have acted as a magnifying lens upon the lack of parity under these regimes. The paradigm, as a result, is changing. People are not so easily distracted toward foreign enemies when their own government turns on their starving population who cannot afford the rising cost of food.

That's what has been happening in Tunisia, where as many as 60 people have died in protests that have grown in their size and determination. Continued..

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Oil Spill Commission Assigns Blame for BP Disaster

by The Environmentalist Staff

The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill has released a chapter from their final report due on January 11, 2011. In the chapter, which is blunt in its assessment, they assign primary blame for the disaster to mismanagement by BP, Halliburton, Transocean, and the lack of proper regulatory oversight. 

The blowout was not the product of a series of aberrational decisions made by rogue industry or government officials that could not have been anticipated or expected to occur again. Rather, the root causes are systemic and, absent significant reform in both industry practices and government policies, might well recur.

The Root Causes: Failures in Industry and Government, Chapter Four from final report by The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

"My observation of the oil industry," stated Commission Co-Chair William K. Reilly in a press release that announced the chapter's conclusions, "indicates that there are several companies with exemplary safety and environment records. So a key question posed from the outset by this tragedy is, do we have a single company, BP, that blundered with fatal consequences, or a more pervasive problem of a complacent industry? Given the documented failings of both Transocean and Halliburton, both of which serve the off shore industry in virtually every ocean, I reluctantly conclude we have a system-wide problem." Continued...

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