Record heatwaves, droughts, bushfires, rainfall, coastal erosion can all be expected in Australia in the near-term, reports the country’s Climate Commission. According to this esteemed group of climate scientists, the increased extreme weather events are courtesy of man-made climate change.

I must admit what really stood out to me after reading the Climate Commission’s most comprehensive evaluation of climate change’s effects on Australia was the report’s use of the seemingly non-descript term energetic climate.

It’s not that the facts aren’t important. People need to know the number of record heat days has doubled since 1960; heavy rainfall is increasing globally, which led to Queensland experiencing record-breaking floods in 2010 and 2011; between 1997 and 2011 dam levels for Sydney and Melbourne dropped 40% causing serious water restrictions; between 1973 and 2010 the Forest Fire Danger Index increased significantly at 16 of Australia’s 38 weather stations with none reporting a decrease, a strong indicator of increased bushfires country-wide. Even more, all of these extreme weather events have cost the country billions of dollars.

Yes, the data presents a bleak picture, especially when the Commission states:

“There is a high risk that extreme weather events like heat waves, heavy rainfall, bushfires and cyclones will become even more intense in Australia over the coming decades.”

With concerted, strong action, we can gradually slow the effects of climate change that are growing in intensity, the group says. Yet, this is not a new story. For years, scientists across the world have come to the same conclusions. The only thing that seems to have changed is the urgency of their tone: we must act, now. This is what made the term energetic climate jump out for me.

It reframes climate change into a more accessible form for the public. It informs us that climate change is not just “global warming,” but actually encompasses much more. It is the over-arching way in which we describe the earth’s climate becoming exponentially more dynamic and active.

This activity shows up in many forms of extreme weather events not just warmer ones, but more pervasively: floods, hurricanes, cyclones, heavy rainfall, drought, cold snaps, and rising sea levels. The term climate change does not hold the same power. In order for climate action to take place, people must feel its effects in their own community and be able to see their relationship to similar events in different places. Then it becomes the shared story for everyone. Uncovering the facts is only part of the story; communicating and connecting them is the other. The facts have been laid out, study after study. Nevertheless, we still choose just to dip our toes into solving the problem.

And, in some cases, we move away from taking any action. Canada, my homeland, provides a remarkable example of climate ambivalence. After serving as a global example for environmental action, over the last decade, the Great White North has pulled a complete policy reversal.

The country has slowly morphed into a petro-state, eroding its environmental principles, including international agreements on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, along the way. Last week, Canada became the first nation to pull out of a United Nations convention to fight droughts across the world.

This comes just a year and half after the country walked away from the Kyoto Protocol, the most comprehensive global climate agreement to date. Every UN nation — 194 countries and the European Union — is currently part to this agreement. Canada is setting a shocking precedent of climate ambivalence at a time when strong leadership is what is needed the most.

All of us live in a world governed by a climate whose energy is becoming more dynamic and expressive by the year; if we really “got” that, I wonder if we’d stand for inaction or regressive actions such as Canada’s withdrawal from the UN drought convention?

The climate is becoming more energetic, while Canada looks to be taking some pretty strong sleeping pills.

Tar Sands protesters in Canada. Support for the pipeline and extraction of Tar Sands is dwindling in that country.

The Helmholtz Association of Research Centres, a major German scientific body with more than 30,000 researchers and US$4.4 billion in annual funding, has dropped out of a joint Alberta tar sands project over fears that the project was damaging the institution’s reputation.

In April 2011, the Province of Alberta invested $25 million to form the “Helmholtz-Alberta Initiative” that would study ways to deal with leakage from the toxic tailings ponds that are a by-product of tar sands mining operations. The HAI was also tasked with finding ways to upgrade the energy extracted from bitumen and lignite coal in order to reduce energy consumption, and a few other “sustainable solutions” to Canada’s ongoing environmental and energy challenges.

Speaking on behalf of the Helmholtz Association, Professor Frank Messner, told EU media that: 

“It was seen as a risk for our reputation.  As an environmental research centre we have an independent role as an honest broker and doing research in this constellation could have had reputational problems for us, especially after Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol.”

The Helmholtz Association has come under fire recently for their work on Alberta’s tar sands operations, most notably in 2012 when Germany’s Green Party (a very powerful political player) filed a query to the German government, asking why German taxpayers’ money was going into a project that contradicts Germany’s official climate policy agenda.

The response at the time from government was very evasive and concluded that the project had only just started and that it was too early to say anything more substantial.

This recent news is the latest in a string of stories about the Alberta tar sands and climate policy damaging Canada’s reputation abroad.

Earlier this year, former BC Premier Gordon Campbell, and current High Commissioner to the UK, stated in a meeting that Canada’s tar sands are  “a totemic issue, hitting directly on Brand Canada.”

Republished with permission from DeSmog Canada

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The climate change site, DeSmogBlog has found that Environmental Resources Management, the consulting firm behind the Keystone XL Pipeline environmental impact assessment, has been at the center of controversial pipeline projects in the past.

Activists working against the 2002 planned construction of British Petroleum’s Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in Turkey, singled out Environmental Resources Management (ERM) for what they saw as ERM “grooming” the BP pipeline for construction. Like the Keystone XL pipeline assessment, ERM’s assessment of the Turkish pipeline was seen as flawed and drafted in a way that gave all but the green light for the pipeline to be constructed.

Environmental and human rights group London Rising Tide went as far as occupying ERM’s offices in London, handing out pamphlets to employees stating that:

Your employer [ERM] plays a crucial role if low-key, in grooming BP’s Baku Ceyhan pipeline for construction.

In recent days, similar concerns have been raised after the website InsideClimate News revealed that: 

The State Department’s recent conclusion that the Keystone XL pipeline “is unlikely to have a substantial impact” on the rate of Canada’s oil sands development was based on analysis provided by two consulting firms with ties to oil and pipeline companies that could benefit from the proposed project.

Researcher Brad Johnson writing on Grist then made the link to Environmental Resources Management, finding that,

The “sustainability consultancy” Environmental Resources Management (ERM) was paid an undisclosed amount under contract to TransCanada to write the statement, which is now an official government document.

The construction and operation of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline has impacted the livelihoods of local fishermen, as seen in this video:

Tom Borelli, a former science director at Philip Morris who fought claims that secondhand tobacco causes lung cancer and respiratory illness in children, is now touted on Fox News as an expert on the cleanliness of the coal industry. Borelli was busy this election season fighting Obama’s “war on coal” on behalf of his new employer, FreedomWorks.

Borelli has a long history of attacking the EPA on behalf of Big Tobacco. Serving in his role as Philip Morris’ Director of Corporate Scientific Affairs, Borelli appeared in a notorious 1992 film produced by Philip Morris attacking the Environmental Protection Agency for declaring secondhand tobacco smoke a known cancer causing agent. Borelli states that:

“Based on careful review of the science we believe that environmental tobacco smoke has not been shown to be a risk factor in the development of lung cancer, respiratory disease in children or heart disease.”

Watch it:

Borelli has come a long way since then, including a short stint as a professional climate change denier. He is now working at the right-wing think tank FreedomWorks as a Senior Fellow and a self-styled “expert” on the coal industry.

Here’s Borelli on Fox News Business in July 2012 talking about the widely-debunked Obama ‘war on coal’:

Is their no dirty product that Tom Borelli won’t defend for the right price?

In his acceptance speech last Tuesday, President Obama stated that: “We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.”

The President’s words will be put to the test very shortly.

As Glenn Hurowitz points out on Grist, a bill is about to land on the President’s desk that will allow US airlines to ignore a European Union climate law.

Hurrowitz writes:

“If he signs the bill, Obama will not only be failing to take sufficient action to address climate change, but actively going out of his way to stop another country from doing so – a pretty extreme act at the worst possible time.”

This is a line in the sand and a really big deal. We will soon know if President Obama plans to stay true to his word on his commitment to curb the emissions of climate change pollution by industry in the United States.

Hurrowitz’s piece is well worth the read, as it goes into a lot of detail on the issue of transnational aviation and climate change policy.

So what do you think? Will he keep the President remain true to his word?

This is a chilling video of a voicemail from a Hurricane Sandy victim in the Long Island neighborhood of Rockaway Peninsula. With scientists telling us that climate change is raising sea levels, storm surges and the intensity of hurricanes there is only one way to describe these folks: they are among the first North American climate refugees.

Train Tracks Washed Away by Hurricane Sandy - (Photo: Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York / Flickr)

Andrea Saul currently serves as Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s press secretary, but in 2006 she was heavily involved in the attack against the scientific evidence showing that climate change was happening, humans were to blame and the result would be extreme disruption of weather patterns.

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina leveled New Orleans Saul had this to say in a press release:

Coming off one of the most devastating hurricane seasons in recent memory, many are quick to blame the strength and frequency of these storms on global warming. Leading climate scientists, however, say there is no link between increased storm activity and a massive change in global climate.

No coincidence that Saul was at the time working for the PR firm DCI Group who was paid millions by oil giant ExxonMobil to downplay concerns about climate change.

Saul is well-versed in the role of climate science spindoctor and showed that in July, 2011 when she told Politico that:

“Gov. Romney does not think greenhouse gases are pollutants within the meaning of the Clean Air Act, and he does not believe that the EPA should be regulating them,” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul. “CO2 is a naturally occurring gas. Humans emit it every time they exhale.”

Yes, CO2 is natural, but so is water and it is perfectly safe until you are drowning in it.

So what is Saul going to say on behalf of Romney in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the latest and most extreme example of how our climate is changing for the worse? There is very little wiggle room this time around.

If voters weren’t looking for leaders and long term solutions on the issue of extreme weather and climate change before Hurricane Sandy, they sure are now.

Last year, the US broke the record for the most billion-dollar weather disasters in a year, which was 14 events costing a total of $47 billion. Just the other day the insurance giant Munich Re released a new report finding that the number of weather-related loss events each in year in the United States has grown 500% over the last 30 years, costing Americans over one trillion dollars.

And, of course if the trends continue, extreme weather is only going to destroy more homes, more roads, more buildings… not to mention more lives.

This is as much an issue related to the economy as it is a human rights and environmental degradation and people like Andrea Saul and her boss Mitt Romney need to stop spinning and start taking climate change and extreme weather seriously.

Guess we will see what happens. Any predictions?

Cato Institute, the right wing think tank co-founded by the Koch brothers, plans to release a document this week that has all the appearances of being a government report on the impacts of climate change in the United States – but of course it is not.

The Cato report, titled: “Addendum: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” uses the same cover design, title and fonts as a report issued in 2009 by the US government’s Global Change Research Program titled: Global Climate Change Impacts in the US.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the Cato fake report and the US government climate impacts report.

As John Abraham, a professor at the University of St. Thomas, puts it best,

“It’s not an addendum. It’s counterfeit. It’s a continued effort to kick the can down the road: a steady drip, drip, drip of false reports by false scientists to create a false sense of debate.”

Let’s see if any media fall for this obvious ploy to create the appearance of officialdom and real science by the Cato Institute.

Enjoy

When people do the right thing for the right reason they should be rewarded.

That’s especially true when it comes to politicians because if they aren’t rewarded by voters for good behaviour they’ll likely end up being rewarded by big oil, coal and health insurance companies for not-so-good behaviour.

Both “clean coal” Obama and “climate science questionable” Romney have decided to ignore the massive wildfires that hit the midwest only a few months ago and the unprecedented droughts that have left US farmers without crops to sell.

Both the men running for the Oval Office have ignored climate change during this election and with that ignore what science is telling us is a disaster already unfolding on a global scale. With more per-capita emissions of global warming pollution than any other country we need real leadership on the issue of climate change – we need climate heroes.

Fortunately, outside of the two presidential candidates there are people running for office in 2012 that are brave enough to stand up and say they will lead on the issue of climate change. 

These candidates needs to be sent a message by their supporters. These climate heroes need to know that their courage to stand up and lead against the big oil and coal companies that are using our atmosphere as a free dumping ground is not going unnoticed.

That’s why today, Tuesday, Oct. 16th, is the Climate Heroes Money Bomb, supporting politicians like Jay Inslee running for Governor in Washington state and Tammy Baldwin running for Senate in Wisconsin.

You can see all the candidates this money bomb will be going to here and as you can see many of them are in very tight races. The time is now. Join the Climate Heroes Money Bomb.

And if you don’t have money to give then give some time by sharing this post or the Climate Heroes Moneybomb page with everyone you know – email them, Facebook them, tweet it, blog it — send up a bat signal. Whatever!

It all helps tell these great candidates that we have their backs.