Global Warming in the US Courts

Twelve states, including Massachusetts, and 13 environmental organizations are collectively suing the US Govt. to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

from the NYT article linked above:
"Garre [the lawyer for the Bush administration] also argued that EPA was right not to act given 'the substantial scientific uncertainty surrounding global climate change.'"

from the Earth Charter:
6. Prevent harm as the best method of environmental protection and, when knowledge is limited, apply a precautionary approach.
a. Take action to avoid the possibility of serious or irreversible environmental harm even when scientific knowledge is
incomplete or inconclusive.
b. Place the burden of proof on those who argue that a proposed activity will not cause significant harm, and make
the responsible parties liable for environmental harm.

It seems particularly applicable here, doesn't it?

Here, from a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, is a sobering reflection on the limitations of the Court:

"The tricky legal question is whether the states and environmental groups -- or anyone else, for that matter -- have standing to bring the case. To establish standing, one has to show both that an actual injury has occurred and that winning the case would redress that injury. The problem of climate change is so huge that it creates a paradoxical barrier to litigation: Regulating one relatively small component of the problem -- emissions by new vehicles in the United States -- probably wouldn't do much overall to stop global warming. Depending on how the justices treat this question, the case could peter out.

"That would be frustrating and unfortunate. Nowhere is this administration's resistance to action on global climate change more aggravating than in its persistent refusal to use the legal powers already at hand. What an irony it would be if its lawless inaction survived judicial review because the problem is too big."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500634.html

Zinatnes festivals, Science festival

As I mentioned in the post below, I was in Latvia for the country's first science festival. The idea behind a science festival is really easy - to bring science to the people and people to the science. They have been holding science festivals throughout the UK for a few years, and I think in Australia as well. There has not yet been one organized in the US, but I just read that the City of Cambridge and MIT are planning one for next year, so that sounds very promising. Much like a literary or other cultural festival, the science festivals are about celebrating achievements in the field and encouraging participation. The keynote speaker in Daugavpils had organized one of the first science festivals in the UK, and basically created the field of science communication with the purpose of bringing science back into the mainstream. His lecture was more of a workshop on advertising, with science as the product you want to sell. His general message made more of an impact: important public policy is being formed on issues from stem cell research to gmos to Darwinism and many people back away from science instead of embracing it. He was speaking as a scientist to (mostly) scientists, discussing the necessity of more clear communication from the researchers to the public, and how to do that without alienating people with all the jargon, etc. I also learned, in his lecture, that if you poke a balloon in the right spot, you can fully skewer it without it popping!

I was not in Daugavpils (cold, cold Daugavpils) specifically to learn how to impress 10 yr old boys, though. The Institute of Sustainable Education at Daugavpils University is about to become an Earth Charter affiliate organization, and I went to meet the faculty and get a better sense of what they do. The Institute co-sponsored the opening session of the festival with the national UNESCO committee, and I made a presentation on the Earth Charter and Youth Initiative that was filmed for Latvian tv. There I am:



The woman next to me, Dzintra, was translating. I’m holding the notebook I used to jot down notes for my presentation 20 minutes before, which is when I was told I would have to make one! But it went well, and I met students afterwards who wanted to learn more about the Earth Charter Youth Initiative (ECYI). So I made a second presentation to students the next day,



and then met with the group of students in picture to form Latvia’s first Earth Charter youth group.



The students are studying education with a focus on sustainable development and some presented their research in the festival. One of them was in a short play – a history of the world in ten minutes – about why we need sustainable development. It was something I really think they could take out to the community, maybe to local schools.

I ended up getting pretty sick my third (last) night in Latvia, which is a bad way to leave a new place. But I am really excited about all the people I met in Daugavpils and what they will be doing in the next few months. They’ve asked me to stay involved in helping them plan for the future, and I am more than happy to return – once the winter has passed.

I was glad I got to see Daugavipils – it’s the second largest city in Latvia but really felt worlds away from Riga. The drive from Riga was about 3 ½ hours, all flat, sparsely populated, and somewhat rundown. When the USSR fell, most of the industry was destroyed and the unemployment rates are pretty high. Many young men and women end up leaving for Ireland and Britain to find work. The demographics at the university were quite interesting, too. The faculty of education, where the Institute of Sustainable Development is housed, is about 95% female, and one professor told me that men tend to look down on the teaching profession as below them. Is that a cultural issue, or one of teachers being terribly underpaid? Probably both.
The last picture is from Sweden – part of the ECI team! (me, Alan, and Lisa) I was really excited to get back to work in Stockholm, especially now that Dominic Stucker has joined us as the International Youth Coordinator. There is a lot of brainstorming and planning and energy in the office.



Vi ses.

Lettland, Latvia (part 1)

On very short notice, I ended up going to Latvia last week to represent Earth Charter at Latvia's first Science Festival, held at Daugavpils University. I flew out of Stockholm very early Sunday morning and was able to spend a few hours in Riga, the Latvian capital, before the long drive south to Daugavpils. The people at Daugavpils U. arranged for me to meet up with Maria, a faculty member's daughter studying in Riga. She graciously showed me around the city in the biting cold weather. We spent the two hours walking quickly and hopping in and out of coffee houses for warm drinks. Riga was charming and colorful, and would have been even more so in the summertime. The old town is pretty small, with cobblestones and narrow, winding streets. It was actually a bit of a culture shock coming from Stockholm, where everyone speaks English, to Latvia, where I needed to make a considerably greater effort to get by.

Maria pointed out a beautiful Anglican Church from the mid 19th c. It seemed to me a bit odd to find an old Anglican Church in a country that was under czarist Russia at the time, so I spent some time there checking it out. Apparently, Riga was (maybe still is?) quite an active port town on the Baltic, and so many British sailors had descended upon it that someone applied to the Czar for permission to build the church. And the Czar granted that permission to further stimulate trade. I wrote my very last college paper (for my historical construction of American manhood class) on Antebellum reformers in American cities who, during the same period this church was built, were busy constructing seamen's bethels up and down the American coasts. So, I definitely thought the Anglican Church was cooler than Maria did. I'm sure you do too.

As I swung back through Riga Wednesday, on my way home, I managed to get to the Museum of the Russian Occupation, 1940-1991 (how's that for a name?). I loved the building - it was designed to look like old communist block architecture with a contemporary edge. I never really studied the history of that period, so if you are like me, here is the long and the short of it: Latvia got screwed. Again and again. They finally received independence from Russia after WW1, built up their own state, and then Stalin marched back in, in 1940. Then the Nazis invaded. The Soviets counter-invaded. And they just kept sending people to the Gulag. The museum was great, though. I particularly enjoyed their recreation of a Gulag barracks.

Have you read "Everything is Illuminated"? You should. If not, here is the basic premise: a young American man returns to his grandparents' Eastern European homeland on a "heritage tour," guided by an older driver who speaks no English, and his 20something grandson, whose broken English provides for great comic relief. Their travels together create the effect of a comedy of errors, with miscommunications all around. The American means well, but his actions - like his vegetarianism and carsickness - are derided by the grandfather, whose comments are then mistranslated by the grandson. The American basically has no idea what is going on. I felt, to a very small extent, that I had been plopped down in the middle of this novel. I was picked up at the airport by a driver from Daugavpils who spoke no English, and his 14 yr old granddaughter, who had only taken a year or so at school. We spent almost the entire day together, except when I was with Maria, and for most of that time, I had no idea what was happening until it was over. I followed the direct commands the 14 yr old could give ("now we sit," "now we eat") and tried to act as friendly and undemanding as possible. At times, I thought the 14 yr old and I were really bonding, and at others, I wasn't sure she understood anything I said. Again, much more challenging than life in Sweden. A welcome change, for a few days.

What a week and a half can do...

Yesterday, as I was leaving my office around 5:30pm:




10 days ago: