This is an eco-political blog written for the sole purpose of participating in the conversation. It is a place to talk about most politics with a concentration on sustainability news and issues, state and local politics and progressive issues.
Nearly 200 countries from all over the world have done something groundbreaking. In an effort that has taken two decades since the original “Berlin Mandate” in 1995, the United Nations Conferences of Parties have come to an agreement that some are hailing as “a globally historic moment.”
Even if there are those who wish that this agreement had more teeth, the fact remains that this is the first time in the 20 years that these annual meetings have been taking place that a real, international agreement on limiting our carbon out-put has been made. The agreement boils down to four main points:
The overall goal is to limit our global temperature rise to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels and continuing that push towards 1.5 degree increase over pre-industrial levels.
A fund of at least $100 Billion a year from the developed world to help with the transition to green technologies.
To reach a “global peaking” in climate emissions “as soon as possible and that countries would follow a “framework for those reductions to begin in 2020.”
A reevaluation of each country’s reduction targets every five years.
While the conference of over 50,000 attendees from governments and NGOs around the world convened in Paris to try and create this lasting, meaningful agreement for actions on climate change, the GOP leadership in Congress kicked into motion their efforts to block this agreement from taking hold.
In what can only really be called a kangaroo Congressional Hearing, Senator Ted Cruz took a break from his Presidential run to create a series of events that would allow the GOP infrastructure to try and stymie any real action on adopting this agreement.
Titled: “ Data or Dogma? Promoting Open Inquiry in the Debate over the Magnitude of Human Impact on Earth’s Climate,” the hearing was a farce created in full collaboration by the Koch Brothers and fossil fuel industry funded group, the Heritage Foundation. For those not in the know, the Heritage Foundation is an organization who has tried to vocalize and centralize the anti-climate change narrative since its founding in 1973. It is made up of “experts” who have been proven time and again to be paid directly by the fossil fuel industryand the same campaigners the tobacco industry paid to tell us that their product wasn’t cancerous.
In a press release from his office, Cruz portrays himself as “fighting the dogma of Climate Alarmism," but, is this really about Ted Cruz trying to take on a cabal of corrupt scientists? Is this Ted Cruz trying to stand up for Americans against a world government coalescing power at COP21? The answer seems to really be more mundane and trite than this. The real purpose of this “political theater” is to set up the Republican leadership of Congress with the perfect misinformation to try and kill any efforts of adopting the COP21 agreement. Or so they think.
In a deft political move by the COP21 negotiators, the agreement at COP21 was carefully crafted with some legally binding and some non-binding elements, precisely so it couldn't be interpreted as a treaty in the US and need the Senate's approval. While this weakens the agreement, and whomever wins the 2016 election has the opportunity to undo all of this, the Republicans in Congress will have difficulty in obstructing the COP21 accord.
SXSW Eco has kicked off again in the balmy city of Austin. Leaders and learners from renewable energy, eco politics, sustainable design and even the green fashion world have once again fallen upon the city's convention center to learn and network.
This year's beginning instantly divided the attendees. The keynote by Chris Lewicki of Planetary Resources split those who believed that humanity must first concentrate on the problems at home before investing in space from those who believe that, to "get off rock" we have to start now.
Twitter between participants went back and forth from lavishing nerd-riddled love to the concept of space mining instead of striping our own planet to flat out declaring that an extraction introduction keynote had no place in the sustainability conference.
The rest of the day proved just as interesting.
One major highlight featured Janine Benyus a leader and charismatic speaker in the Biomimicry movement. The room was packed to the point where there were people turned away from actually attending her talk. She began her presentation with a quick jab at the introductory keynote, regarding concentrating on the problems of Earth "...way before asteroids."
Her talk was an overview of the biomimicry movement, a scientific exploration of learning valuable lessons in design and processes from those already in nature. A good example is creating swimming suits that mimic the skin pattern on sharks or creating a microscopic "net" to capture antibiotics in water modeled after naturally occurring cells. The entire room erupted with laughter at her jokes, "oohed" and "awed" at some of the discoveries and advances she highlighted and gave a standing ovation when she was finished.
Monday's sessions actually including at least one biomimicry themed panel or presentation each session, because the Biomimicry Institute not only was a key sponsor of SXSW Eco this year, but also had just finished the most latest round of their "Design by Nature" challenge. Most of the finalists where in attendance and featured in a session of the same name as the challenge. Each of the finalists that had a chance to go over their project was interesting and amazing in their own way.
One in particular, Team Penthouse Protozoa, is trying to solve, among other issues, the problem of Nitrogen and nutrient runoff for farmers. Traditionally farmers will irrigate their crops with pipes that lead excess water off their fields carrying with it the fertilizer that isn't absorbed by the earth. This eventually makes its way into the oceans and causes a horrific effect in the ocean known as "dead zones." To tackle this issue the team has taken lessons from a wide variety of sources in nature including human gut bacteria to create a semi-permeable tube which allows the water to be drained off but will leave the nutrients in the soil.
Another interesting panel highlighted cities resilience to climate change, especially drought and flooding through design. Hosted by the Natural Resource Defense Council the panel was educational on a number of factors including the fact that every time there is a major storm event in Chicago, 1 billion gallons of "poop" enter the local water ways. The conversation also covered whether it was economically feasible to try and stem the rising tide and one participant in particular seemed very interested in protecting Wall Street from being underwater.
While the entire day was filled with events including an overview of the continuing work on the hyperloop and the Department of Energy's future energy efforts (all that can be gleaned from checking out the hashtag #SXSWEco on twitter), the other major highlight was seeing the XPrize show off the winner of their latest prize, the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health prize. This challenge was surrounding measuring pH levels in the ocean at various depths in order to keep tabs on ocean acidification. The team that won the grand prize had never done an ocean test on their product before the trails in Hawaii, namely because they are based out of Missoula, Montana.
As the conference moves along, the participants can continue to look forward to interesting panels and some rousing discussion on hot-button issues. Hopefully, the SXSW Eco will get a little extra room for the Biomimicry panels.
Pope Francis has been making sweeping changes for the Catholic Church and its followers. He has taken on corruption, the mafia and even started to warm his flock towards homosexual equality. One of the Pontiff's biggest efforts has been surrounding how humanity treats the world, pushing for a greener and more sustainable lifestyle. He has even called for a new global day of prayer for Catholics to celebrate and respect the environment. If the Pope wants to continue to push for peace, prosperity, and the planet then there is one issue that the church will have to readdress; contraception.
A recent report came out detailing that the world's population is continuing to rise and at an alarming rate. New estimates are surfacing where, by the end of the century, global population could reach over 11 billion with some researchers pushing that number to 13 billion. With population directly relating to air pollution, consumption levels and other horrible ecological effects, it is the forefront issue for many environmentalists. There is a huge a question of whether our planet, which is already seeing massive changes directly related to the human population, can handle this future burden.
The most unfortunate aspect of this situation is that the same populations that are most at risk when it comes to climate change; the poorer and developing countries, are the same groups that are seeing exploding population growth. Overpopulation will continue to be a looming problem, especially in Sub Saharan Africa and India, unless practices change.
In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his own encyclical letter reemphasizing the Church’s stance that it "is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence." Contraception is wrong, as close to a sin as one can get without actually declaring it. This hard-line stance has been held by the church since before the church was officially founded. In the beginning of 2015, Pope Francis took an interesting step away from this mentality. In a small discussion with reporters during a flight from the Philippines to Rome Francis reportedly said, "God gives you methods to be responsible,.. Some think that — excuse the word — that in order to be good Catholics we have to be like rabbits. No."
While Pope Francis walked back this statement a day later, it is still an interesting move. Eventually there will have to be a reconciliation between the Vatican's new environmental push and the need to curtail our species' explosive growth. Until that day, we can only hope that people stop breeding like rabbits.
While America and most of the world was concentrating on the Academy Awards and the speeches of famous actors, the star of the documentary the Island President was arrested under terrorism charges. The arrest of former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed came as a shock but not as a surprise to the climate activism community and to those who have been following the political birth pangs of the island nation off the tip of India.
Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected president of the Maldives following more than 30 years of despotic totalitarianism was a climate change advocate and one of the loudest voices in the UN climate talks at Copenhagen. His fervor and urgency came from concern for his people, citing the fact that with long-term sea level rise the Maldives is set to disappear from the face of the Earth.
A reformer, religious moderate and charismatic leader, Mohamed Nasheed was subject of the 2011 documentary the Island President. The film depicted the heartbreaking efforts of the President to fight on the international level for action on climate change, being blocked by the United States and China. Five month's after the movie's release, internal forces caused Nasheed to withdraw from office, under dubious circumstances that some have claimed a coup.
Superficially, the spark that ignited the political unrest that ended Nasheed's Presidency surrounds the arrest and detainment of a Judge who was being investigated on corruption charges and had suspended officers investigating corruption in the government. The arrest was called illegal by the opposition party and became the impetus for protests by local police and religious hardliners in the country who were uncomfortable with some of Nasheed's interactions with non Muslims.
The country seems divided on the issue of the arrest, with calls on Twitter to #FreeNasheed and from those that say #ISupportNasheedArrest. For the outside observer, this appears to be a domestic dispute that holds no bearing over our daily lives. To truly understand the situation, and why it is important, we need to dive into the full details.
History of the Maldives
The nation of 350,000 is made up of over 500 islands surrounded by coral in the Indian Ocean. It is destination spot of approximately 100,000 tourists a month who come for the fishing, diving, snorkeling and exotic hotel hot spots.
The island nation also boasts a tumultuous political history. The country has been briefly dominated by foreign powers in three separate occasions including the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. In 1965 the Maldives gained independence from the British Empire and in 1968 became a republic ruled by an authoritarian government through a presidency and a "Constitutional Shari'ah" law which is still in place. These laws include Hudud punishments (ranging from exile to public lashing and death) for crimes like adultery, fornication, homosexuality, apostasy, and consuming intoxicants.
For example, in February of 2013, the judiciary sentenced a fifteen-year-old girl to 100 lashes and house arrest for 8 months for premarital sex after her stepfather had raped her and killed their baby. He is still to face trial. After international attention was put on the situation, the High Courts overturned the ruling but it is just one example of the current status of law in the Islamic country.
In 1978, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom took power and over the next 30 years created a booming tourist economy (see above) at the expense of the freedoms and the equality of the Maldivians. During his three decades in power, President Gayoom systematically replaced leadership rolls throughout the government with family and friends. During that time he has been accused of being a "dictator" and authoritarian with policies including suppression, torture, and unlawful detainment. In 1997 the Special Majlis, a selected group of parliamentarians, produced a new constitution that vastly expanded powers of the executive. According to an Amnesty International report from 2003 "...there were severe restrictions on freedom of the press, and political parties were unable to function."
It has also been reported that Gayoom misappropriated government funds and received kickbacks from local resort and tourism owners.
During Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's regime, Mohamed "Anni" Nasheed set up a magazine and published articles critical of the regime, reporting of corruption and brutality. Nasheed was promptly arrested. His imprisonment included torture and solitary confinement. This was just one of 16 separate times he was jailed and has spent a total of 6 years in work camps or prison. Amnesty International listed him as a "Prisoner of Conscience", before he fled into exile in 2003.
In 2005, Nasheed returned to the Maldives and was promptly arrested that August, causing a civil uproar. In June of 2005 "Anni" was able to official register with political party, the MDP in the Maldives.
After declaring a state of emergency, and attempting to deal with local civil unrest, President Gayoom buckled to international pressure to hold open elections, a divisive race was run where Gayoom's party accused Nasheed of spreading Christianity, a serious allegation in the Islamic nation via his links with foreign countries. His message of change coupled with a call for social and economic liberalism drew support behind him and he became the first democratically elected leader of the island nation.
During Nasheed's tenure, the country found itself in the center of democratic reforms including moving away from strict sharia laws, efforts to ban female genital mutilation and climate activism including being linked with the international organization 350.org. Nasheed gave an especially stirring speech on the subject stating;
But physics isn't politics. On climate change there are things on which we cannot negotiate…The most important number in the world. The most important number you'll ever hear. The most important number you'll ever say. These three words: Three-five-oh.
In October of 2009, then President Nasheed drew international attention to sea level rise by holding a cabinet meeting underwater. The video of the scuba-clad colleagues deliberating the works of the state rang poignantly throughout the world and sounded a clarion call for action.
The charismatic and obviously driven Nasheed found himself the center of international attention and the subject of a widely distributed and respected documentary. The Island President tells the story of his fight for climate action during the international climate talks in Copenhagen and the anguishing process of international negotiation. In the film the Chinese delegation make it entirely clearn that they are against international monitoring of their emissions, arguing that it compromises their sovereignty. "It's simply madness of China and India not to take it up," says Nasheed in the film. "Just because the West has pumped so much poisonous gas into the atmosphere, that doesn't mean we have to do it again."
Eventually in the film Nasheed compromises his efforts and his moral high ground, even posing with the Chinese delegation. Leaving Copenhagen, there is an agreement with nice language, but no enforcement and the audience is left grief-stricken the driven hero looks so dismayed.
Little did the film makers know that they were documenting the end of the President's time in office. In fact, the moment that the film was shown at the 2012 BLUE Ocean film festival in Monterey, the attendees and shocked audience were informed that Nasheed had been forcibly removed from office.
In 2013, new elections were held where Nasheed actually won, but the results were thrown out by the sitting Supreme Court, including the Judge which had been being examined for corruption. A few months later, in a new election Nasheed won the most votes, which should have triggered a run-off, but was again interfered with by the courts under pressure from candidate Abdulla Yameen Gayoom, the former President Gayoom's younger brother.
Eventually Abdulla Yameen Gayoom was elected and the legal status of Nasheed has been in question ever since.
Internationally, especially in the climate, human rights and ocean communities. Nasheed has been seen as a hero and friend. Over the years he has been a featured speaker at conferences and has received an incredible number of awards for his work. At the BLUE Ocean Film Festival this year he won the Mission Blue award for his work on ocean issues, presented by Dr. Sylvia Earle.
Just a few months later, when he returned to his home, he was once again arrested.
The Arresting Issue
In 2012 a leading member of the opposition Dhivehi Qaumee Party, Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, was arrested on charges of hate-speech. Jameel was said to have accused Nasheed of acting under the influence of Jews and "Christian priests" to undermine Islam in the Maldives. As one can imagine, under an Islamic nation that follows Sharia law, this is a incendiary charge.
As the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission in Britain wrote in an op-ed:
The rising influence of the Islamists is equally troubling. There is growing intolerance of non-Muslims, anti-Western sentiment is being whipped up and there is talk of fully implementing Shariah law. A prominent blogger, Ismail Rasheed, who dared to speak for religious freedom, was nearly killed in a knife attack, and later fled the country.
Supreme Court Judge Abdulla Mohamed, a remnant from the previous 30 year administration, ordered Ahmed's release and was detained by the Maldive's military for approximately 23 days. The detainment was surrounding the Judge's14 cases of obstruction of police duty including the suspension of two police lawyers who were investigating corruption in parliament and the courts on “ethical grounds” and the release of a wide range of detainees including murderers and Mohamed Jameel Ahmed.
The Vice President under Nasheed called to suspend Judge Abdulla Mohamed for his alleged corruption and other actions and the Home Minister Hassan Afeef requested military assistance for "fear of loss of public order and safety and national security" because of the Judge who, according to the minister had "taken the entire criminal justice system in his fist."
Maldivian law requires that any arrested suspect must be released if not brought to trial within 15 days, though the President may extend pretrial detention for an additional 30 days. This is well within the limits of the 23 days that the Judge was detained.
"I didn't like arresting a judge, and as a long and dedicated Amnesty member I must say yes, Amnesty's point was that I must try and find a procedure within the system to deal with this another way. And I was asking everyone, can you spot that procedure? But I just couldn't let him sit on the bench. There is a huge lack of confidence in the judiciary, and I had to do something and the constitution calls upon me to do that. It's not a nice thing to do. And it's not a thing that I would want to do. And it's not a thing that I liked doing. But it had to be done."
On February 22nd, the current administration arrested Nasheed on the charge of Terrorism, has barred press entry to the proceedings and have even refused bail for the former president.
A Country Divided.
The news broke on twitter that Mohamed Nasheed had been arrested and detained. Soon the country seemed divided on twitter with some vocal posters lauding the arrest using the phrase "no one is above the law" while others pushed for Nasheed's immediate release.
While being taken to court Nasheed attempted to talk to some members of the press before his closed proceedings occurred to make a statement. The police grabbed him and an altercation occurred causing the former president to fall to the ground and be grappled by the police.
The images of this altercation came to be a rallying cry for both the pro-Nasheed and pro-arrest camps. On one side saying he was being brutalized and beaten, on the other claiming that Nasheed orchestrated the altercation and was a "drama queen." But the images of Nasheed in anguish has spread throughout the British and Indianan news like wild fire.
One main undertone that has been running through the political struggle has been that of moderate Islamists in the nation, and those who take a more hard-line view. One video that has been circulating shows Nasheed speaking on the need for a reformation and modernized Islam.
As one Maldivian stated in a post, "this is enough" for his arrest. One source who requested to remain anonymous told me;
You should keep in mind that Maldives is an Islamic nation. Mohamed Nasheed was probably the best politician Maldives have ever seen. He fought against the dictatorship, against corruption and more. Nasheed is a moderate, but he failed to recognize the moderate people out from the extremists. He gave number is speeches which he should not have being the President of the Maldives. That's his weakness. For example the one in Denmark. He asked Jesuits to come and assist Maldives to fight against extremism. As a politician of an Islamic nation he shouldn't have reached out to the Jesuits. It's all politics. The current government can easily trap him for what happened during his term.
In fact, recently, thousands of Maldivians took to the streets to rally against Nasheed's detention in Male. This is an impressive view from above as witnesses were eager to share the news of the demonstrations.
Twitter user @nazeee took some amazing shots on the ground as well.
Free President Nasheed
Protester engulfed in the Maldivian flags at the MDP JP rally calling for the release of President Nasheed and all political detainees.
Friends and family of the detained MP Ali Azim near his family home
30 of the thousands of protesters were arrested and the demonstrations were brushed off by the current administration with one Minister stating the government, "can't be overthrown in the streets" seemingly counter to the Maldives recent history.
This is not very surprising as Nasheed was China's enemy number one during the Copenhagen climate talks. The country has been eyeing the island nation for a military base location. There are even those who theorize the arrest and coup was a push from this foreign, non-interfering government. The relationship between the Maldives and the Chinese is a strangely close one.
China, like India, has been with us for a very long time. During my time [as President] also they provided a lot of assistance. China has been with us for 40 years. It is natural for a country with such huge resources to come and help us…This is not a case of us preferring China and dislodging India
While the relationship is an interesting one, any further analysis of China's involvement in the ousting and subsequent trial of the climate activist, moderate Islamic reformer president is just speculation.
The rest of the world can only watch on and continue to put pressure for this process to be open and fair while the Island President faces on uncertain future. My thoughts are with you Anni.
There is something fundamentally broken about the way our government operates. Ignoring how ridiculous the incumbent win rate is, or the fact that we are now in an oligarchy represented by those with more wealth than many in our country can even imagine, the real concern is in our legislative committees.
Congress oversees so many bills and pieces of our national government that they attempt to delegate those responsibilities and lighten the load. Covering issues like agriculture, economy and veterans affairs, these committees not only are responsible for legislation in these areas but on hearings and even the budgets of government agencies.
The ideal is that those with expertise or grounding in the subject matter of these committees would serve as members. The reality is far from the ideal. How our system currently works is that the leadership of the parties in control decide who gets placed into these committees and who chairs them. Yesterday, as part of the transition of our Senate to Republican Control, Senator Ted Cruz was appointed chair of the Space, Science and Competitiveness committee. Senator Cruz's appointment is the sign of a broken system.
One may think that being faced with the findings of NASA's carbon project, or witnessing the ice-caps receding from NASA's Operation: Ice-Bridge could change the denier into a believer, but his historic denial of facts and his long standing on this same committee makes most doubt such an effect will occur.
This leadership shift should come as no surprise, the high likelihood of Cruz becoming a "Lead Senator on science" was reported after November elections caused the political shakeup. Added to that is the fact that currently 72% of Republican Senators deny that humans have a role in climate change - or that it is happening at all. That number is getting higher with the new power shift.
What is shocking is that the American people, besides the power to vote for elected officials, have no control over committees or who is in charge of them. There are no checks and balances over these committee assignments. These type of odd assignments happen all the time. In fact the majority of the science committee members on conservative side have been climate deniers since the 1970s.
The thought comes to mind that those who should be making decisions on science legislation and budget should be Scientists. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointed out eloquently, there is a lack of scientists in congress.
What we as members of the public can do is voice our concerns and make sure that scientists have a say in our legislature's science work.
