Simon

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied this past Sunday in Washington DC, USA, to demand action on climate change. Organizers estimated that around 40,000 people took part in the demonstration, making it the largest climate rally in US history. The rally, intended as a show of force and unity for the environmental movement in the US, called on President Obama to move “Forward on Climate” and to stop the Keystone pipeline project. “For 25 years our government has basically ignored the climate crisis: now people in large numbers are finally demanding they get to work. We shouldn't have to be here - science should have decided our course long ago. But it takes a movement to stand up to all that money,” said 350.org founder Bill McKibben in a speech. Protests from environmentalists against the Keystone pipeline, and Obama’s inaction on the matter, project have been going on for over two years now. The Keystone XL pipeline will transport dirty crude oil from the tar sands fields of western Canada down through the Midwestern region of the US, often dubbed the breadbasket of America, and then processed and shipped overseas through the Gulf of Mexico. The production of tar sands crude releases two or three times as much carbon pollution as conventional produced crude oil. So if completed, the project would be a disaster for our climate. James Hansen, one of the world’s most prominent climate scientists, has said that if the Canadian tar sands would be exploited as projected it would be “game over for the climate”. So this fight is indeed worth fighting for. “Twenty years from now on President’s Day, people will want to know what the president did in the face of rising sea levels, record droughts and furious storms brought on by climate disruption,” said Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. “President Obama holds in his hand a pen and the power to deliver on his promise of hope for our children. Today, we are asking him to use that pen to to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and ensure that this dirty, dangerous, export pipeline will never be built.” The rally - which was organized by 350.org, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and many other organizations – also called on Obama to use his powers under the Clean Air Act to cut the amount of dangerous carbon pollution emitted from dirty power plants in the country. “This President has the power to achieve the single biggest carbon reduction ever, by holding our biggest carbon polluters – dirty power plants – accountable for what they dump into the air, said Van Jones, NRDC Trustee and President Rebuild the Dream. “Cleaning up this pollution and using more clean energy will provide jobs to thousands of Americans, save families real money when it comes to electricity bills and, most important, will make a real difference in our health and the health of our children”, Jones said. For more news coverage of the rally check out the Guardian, CNN, the Huffington Post and the New York Times.

2012, what a year! And in just a couple of hours it will have ran its course and we will rush into a new and exciting 2013. What will happen? I have no idea! But one thing I do know for certain is that a lot of things happened in 2012, both good and bad things. Well mostly bad things, more talking, more stalling, more death, more destruction, and a little blue planet that’s rushing faster and faster towards the cliff-edge of planetary catastrophe. Here are the most important, stupid and interesting stories - related to our climate and environment of course - that happened in 2012. It’s my own list so it will be fairly subjective and limited in its scope. You are more than welcome to add to the list below in the comment section. In 2012... Famous capitalist Donald Trump made the news when he bluntly demanded in front of Scotland's parliament that they needed to stop the plans for the construction of an offshore wind farm. Besides spoiling the view at his exclusive new $750-million-pound ($1.2-billion) golf resort, Trump claimed that the wind farm would be bad for the economy and the environment. Somehow he forgot how he had earlier ordered the bull-dozing of a rare bird habitat to make way for that very golf course. In an unprecedented feat of action against climate change, Hawaii decided to ban the use of plastic bags. North Carolina went in another direction and made it illegal to say that sea levels are rising. Rio+20, United Nations conference on sustainable development, which took place in June resulted in a disappointing flop. Sure, expectations were low. But people did hope that the summit would be able to begin a transition towards a more sustainable world economy which would merge economic and social goals, such as eradicating poverty, with environmental needs and concerns. The non-binding agreement which was signed at the end of the conference was met with strong criticism from environmental organizations. Greenpeace called the agreement “pathetic”, Oxfam said it was “a dead end”, and the WWF said the whole conference was “a colossal waste of time”. The Rio+20 agreement acknowledges the seriousness of the global environmental crisis as well as the importance of building a new and more sustainable economic model. But it's a non-binding agreement with no real plan or goals on how to do so. Most of the blame for the failure was directed against Canada, USA, Venezuela and Russia. The US experienced record heatwaves, catastrophic wildfires and droughts which left people dead and crops ruined. As a result, more Americans than ever started to realize the dangers of man-made climate change. Canada’s conservative government, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, continued its war on the environment. Bolivia on the other hand decided it would recognize nature as a living dynamic system, which grants it comprehensive legal rights that are comparable to human rights. Greenpeace issued a damaging report on Swedish nuclear safety – or rather the lack of. According to Greenpeace, the security problems at the aging nuclear reactors in Sweden are so urgent that they need to be shut down immediately. Only a week after the report was published, Greenpeace humiliated the nuclear industry and responsible ministers when more than 70 Greenpeace activists performed a peaceful stress test at two Swedish nuclear power plants. National elections took place in the USA. The election debates ignored the climate crisis, marking the first time a climate issue wasn't raised during the official debates since 1984. In the debates, Mitt Romney, the Republicans candidate, was busy attacking the President for not doing enough for the fossil fuel industry, and Obama proudly talked about how oil and gas production was at all-time highs and that he would "continue to open up new areas for drilling" and make natural gas "a priority". And Romney actually said he liked coal, and that if elected he would make sure that we continue burning dirty and climate-killing coal. Hurricane Sandy swept in and devastated regions in the Caribbean and America leaving hundreds of people dead in its trail and causing billions of dollars in damages. Shortly after hurricane Sandy, Bloomberg BusinessWeek issued this cover story: Its Global Warming, Stupid. Another round of UN talks was held, this time in Doha in Qatar. Expectations and hopes for the COP18 conference were at an all-time low. The media pretty much ignored the talks and most people had already lost their hopes for anything meaningful to come from these climate conferences back in 2009 when COP15 was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The climate summit in Doha was yet again characterized by obstruction, a complete lack of ambition and a severe inability from our world leaders to adhere to the warnings of climate scientists. But what really came out of COP18? Well, the Kyoto protocol got extended. But the protocol, the only legally-binding plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, failed to include the world's biggest emitters making it pretty meaningless. But the big thing coming out of the climate summit was the text on Loss and Damages. It’s basically an agreement in which vulnerable nations may receive funds from carbon polluters for loss and damages as a result of climate change. The text says that high emitting nations have both an ethical and financial obligation to pay for the damages caused by global warming in other regions of the world. Most people will probably remember this heartbreaking appeal by one of the delegates from the Philippines on how more obstruction and delays costs lives: This list is far from a complete summary of 2012, many other fascinating and thought-provoking stories from this year are obviously left out. So please, let me know which kind of headlines and stories from 2012 that you think were the most important ones?

On Tuesday this week more than 70 Greenpeace activists took action in what they said was “a peaceful stress test” of two Swedish nuclear power plants. The stress test took place shortly a week after a safety report was released by Greenpeace highlighting severe security problems, shortcomings and weaknesses at the aging nuclear reactors in Sweden. The action lasted for two days and revealed the unacceptable lax security at Swedish nuclear plants. At 7:30 on Tuesday morning around 20 Greenpeace activists wearing lab coats managed to enter the Ringhals nuclear power plant on bicycles. At the same time about 50 other activists used ladders to climb into the Forsmark nuclear power plant. “Today Greenpeace activists stress test the Swedish nuclear power plants to alert the public, the nuclear industry and minister Lena Ek on the serious safety deficiencies”, said Annika Jacobson, programme manager of Greenpeace in Sweden. “The stress tests are conducted in a peaceful and responsible manner and show that nuclear expose people to unacceptable risks.” This is not the first time that Greenpeace activists managed to enter a nuclear power plant in Sweden. Two years ago several activists managed to enter Forsmark. That action caused a great deal of uproar and new security measures were implemented. But apparently those measurements were far from enough. “We hope that the issue of security in the Swedish nuclear power plants from now on will be taken very seriously. Environment minister Lena Ek must ensure that the dangerous reactors are immediately removed from service, so that people and the environment are not exposed to the risks that the Swedish nuclear power present,” said Jacobson in a statement. It took police 40 minutes to get to Ringhals and 15 minutes to get to Forsmark, mostly thanks to the fact that they had a training session not far from the Forsmark plant. The police and security staff initially arrested around 40 activists at Forsmark and around 15 at Ringhals thinking they had found all the intruders at the nuclear plants. In light of this, Vattenfall, one of the owners of the two nuclear plants, proudly said in a press statement that the security had worked “exactly as intended." But only hours later police found a couple of more activists hiding inside the nuclear plant area. "As police searched the area two or three more activists were found hiding in a container in the area where the nuclear reactors are located," said Claes Inge Andersson, spokesperson at the Forsmark plant. "The hiding activists were found when the police searched the area, so security has worked as intended as far as we can judge, but we will of course conduct a thorough review of today's events," Andersson said. But the next morning Greenpeace announced that they still had activists hiding inside one of the two nuclear power plants. “They evaded security all night, and were only discovered when Greenpeace Sweden phoned the media early this morning to reveal their presence at the plants. This is despite the fact the operator Vattenfall said yesterday that “security had worked exactly as intended”.” One of the activists tweeted this from inside the Ringhals nuclear plant: But wait, the humiliation continues. Shortly after the police had arrested the remaining activists at Ringhals, Greenpeace again announced that they still had activists located at the Forsmark nuclear plant. All in all, four activists at Ringhals and two at Forsmark had managed to hide from both the police and the plant’s security personnel for more than 28 hours. The police and security personnel was unable to find the remaining two activists who were hiding somewhere inside the Forsmark nuclear plant. So after 38 hours the two last activists decided that they’ve had enough and announced themselves to the security staff. They had been hiding inside one of the electrical substations at the plant, where electricity from Forsmark goes in and out. Greenpeace sure knows what they’re doing. First, they tell us about the security problems at Swedish nuclear plants. Then they prove it by completely humiliating the nuclear industry and responsible ministers.