Bali Climate Initiative and Key Climate Resources

[DRAFT - to be revised]  The BBC World News Service is covering the Bali Conference as well as having assembled an impressive collection of resources for understanding the climate crisis, response opportunities, and tracking the response and prospects.

The overwhelming impression from reading the language of climate change is the degree to which effects are communicated with words, phrases, and concepts that do not effectively transmit real meaning, implications, and threat climate change poses to people and the human economy and society.  Not only is the full import not communicated, but the language creates a distance, a separateness of human society from the effects as if the effects, like species extinction of 20-30 percent by 2020 will somehow affect only nature, the environment, not human society.  This disconnect creates and eeriness to the reading.

For instance, the report by the International Panel on Climate Change says, "Some regions are likely to experience water shortages. Coupled with increasing demand, this is likely to result in large increases in the number of people at risk of water scarcity. It is likely to affect livelihoods. . . ."  How long can humans last without water?  How much water can be transported great distances as a continuous water supply?  How long could industry and agriculture production continue with greatly reduced or eliminated water?  When a few commonly known facts are added to these pronouncements of climate effects, the translation amounts to millions, if not tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people will die in short spans of time. 

Further, the report is virtually silent on the economic implications of the list of weather and ecological effects the report chronicles. For instance, dramatic reductions or disruptions in a local area's or region's water supply will do more than "likely affect livelihoods."  It will not only kill people, but it will destroy industries and economies, and relatively quickly.  The increasingly extreme weather events of climate change will not only quickly decapitalize existing human investments but will fatally compromise the capacity to recover, to recapitalize from such events.  Extreme weather events will quickly bankrupt the insurance industry and economies at whatever scale they occur.  Further, it will quickly create a new and expanding list of uninsurable events because of the certainty and unaffordability of insuring - recovering from -- extreme weather events. This will accelerate the decapitalization of human economy.

The following links provide access to a wealth of resources on climate change from the IPCC reports and world media services, even if the full import is not presented.

• Climate change by world region and economic sector:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/6528979.stm

• Climate change -- A Summary of The Evidence:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457037/html/default.stm

• Climate Change -- A Special Report:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/portal/climate_change/default.stm

• Understanding Climate Change (forecast, greenhouse effect, etc.):  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/greenhouse.stm

• UN Challenges States on Global Warming (plus right-hand column link to many links):  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7098902.stm  

• BBC Climate Portal:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/portal/climate_change/default.stm

• Hadley Center Climate Projections:  http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/models/modeldata.html

• Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC):  http://www.ipcc.ch/

Green Hotel Certification Research

A range of firms like www.greenhotelcertification.com have sprung up to offer consulting packages that combine the environmental management aspects of greening hotels with marketing. From a quick review, it looks like "greening the hotel industry is principally focused on using the field of environmental management, e.g., physical environmental factors (energy, pollution, carbon, toxics, etc.). A particularly useful website for basic orientation and in-depth learning of applying environmental management to the hotel industry from an independent science-based organization is the following: www.yourhomeplanet.com/ecolodgical/index_ems.php. I highly suggest reviewing it.The larger arena and practice of sustainability includes (click here to open the document for full text).

NEW AMSTERDAM PUBLIC LAUNCHES NYC WINTER MARKET 12-16-07

Recently launched New Amsterdam Public is a non-profit organization whose mission is to establish a year-round, indoor public market where butchers, grocers, fish and cheese mongers, and other purveyors will help create and foster a sustainable food system in the City of New York. This new, civic institution will emerge over time in Lower Manhattan's Seaport neighborhood, which has been a public market district since New York has been a city 1642.  See the Press Release:  http://www.newamsterdampublic.org/wm_pressrelease.htm and the Web Site:  http://www.newamsterdampublic.org/index.htm.

At the Seaport, on the East River, stand two historic structures: the Tin Building and the New Market Building. Both market halls are owned by the public, and both have been empty since 2005, when the Fulton Fish Market was moved to the Bronx after two centuries of vibrant trade in this location.  The vision of New Amsterdam Public is the creation of a new public sustainability forum, bridging the past and illuminating the future with the restoration of both market halls  from public and philanthropic funds and dedicated as a new market for sustainably produced food, sold by purveyors and sourced regionally. This new civic institution will be a permanent venue to promote sustainable agriculture, strengthen our regional food system, drive rural and urban economic development, incubate small businesses, and teach all New Yorkers how to buy, eat and cook tastey good food.

HOMO SAPIENS READY FOR LISTING AS THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES - Ironically, Listing Could Be Regulatory Spur to Sustainabilty Success.

The conclusion of IPCC's work in 2007 finally provides the scientific basis for listing human beings (homo sapiens) as a threatened and endangered species.  In so doing, we could invoke the Endangered Species Act's (ESA's) protective powers to solve the climate crisis, reverse economic course, and launch humanity in a new economic direction promising durable prosperity and security.  Ironically, the basis for listing homo sapiens could also be used to list virtually all of the planet's species, thereby invoking the full force of the ESA in protecting the planet from the ecological ravages of climate change and the ensuing economic and social crises catastrophes.  Paradoxically, the ESA could become the basis for legally requiring a shift in economic direction to ecologically sustainable global economic and societal development. Of course, the UN and nations of the earth would all need to adopt ESAs on par with that of the US. 

However, for such a move to be successful in deed and word, it would need to be based on a more powerful understanding of environmentalism and sustainability than the old-school win-lose, owls vs jobs version.  We would need to use the current economy and technology as a bridge to creating an ecologically sustainable economy ASAP, and one that was more prosperous than the current economy (win-win).  The old-school  vision of sustainability that simply regulates cuts in current production and consumption to reduce carbon emissions without creating the economic capacity for higher wealth production, albeit ecologically sustainable, is not the sustainability scenario that will be successful politically or practically. Nor is it the most powerful and potent sustainability scenario latent in this historical moment and challenge.  It is not powerful enough to work and it simply replaces one bad (the catalyst for the climate crisis) with another (even more economic misery and poverty than already exists on the planet).  It is not the necessary and only option. 

Humanity needs to see and develop the larger incipient potential for durable prosperity and security that lies at the heart of the sustainability challenge and opportunity humanity now faces, and do it at lightening speed.  In that crucible and path of innovation lies the challenge that will bring out the best and highest qualities of humanity, and invent the new path needed to avoid the climate crisis and to thrive and prosper in enduring peace and security.  With that vision, that understanding, and that path, humanity can successfully dodge a very real bullet coming  straight at its collective head from a gun it already fired at itself.  In this way, and much to the chagrin of some environmentalists, economists, and businesspersons, ESA could begat sustainability in one of history's bigger strokes of unintended and unanticipated consequences.

IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Nobel Peace Prize-winning panel (Home Page) releases final synthesis report -- IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).  The set of four reports establishes the scientific basis and assessment of the climate situation (click).

BUCKMINSTER FULLER DESIGN SCIENCE CHALLENGE JURORS SELECTED

CROSS POSTING: For more information, visit: http://bfi.org/sites/bfi.org/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=133&qid=83199 Contact: Matt Barron, Tel: 718.290.9283, Email: challenge@bfi.org

NOVEMBER 19th, 2007, NEW YORK CITY — The Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI) is delighted to announce the selection of the final two jurors for the first BUCKMINSTER FULLER CHALLENGE, an international design science challenge which seeks to confer a prize of $100,000 to a single winning solution. JANINE BENYUS and HUNTER LOVINS will join the five distinguished members of the 2007/2008 Challenge jury introduced previously. The full panel of jurors for the 2007/2008 Challenge is as follows: JANINE BENYUS, celebrated natural sciences writer, innovation consultant and author of six books including The New York Times bestseller Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Co-Founder of The Biomimicry Institute; SIR NICHOLAS GRIMSHAW, renowned architect and President of the Royal Academy of Arts, London; HAZEL HENDERSON, futurist, author and consultant on sustainable human development and socially responsible business and investment; founder, Ethical Markets Media, llc; DANNY HILLIS visionary inventor, computer scientist, author, engineer; Chairman and CTO of Applied Minds, Inc., co-chairman of The Long Now Foundation; HUNTER LOVINS, President and founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions and co-author of nine books and hundreds of papers, including the 1999 bestseller Natural Capitalism; WILLIAM MCDONOUGH, sustainable design visionary, bestselling author, and founder of William McDonough + Partners, a leading architecture firm practicing cradle to cradle design; and VANDANA SHIVA, renowned physicist, author, and environmental activist, founder and Director, Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi. The sixth and seventh jurors will be announced shortly.

UN Challenge - Final IPCC Report on Climate Catastrophe

BBC Report (click link) is summary of other three reports.  [Rough Draft notes on future entry - to be edited further.]  Week-long discussion  indicates that many of humanity's political leaders are still in denial about the irrevocable effects of climate change.  These effects will accelerate and amplify with each passing moment of humanity's inaction on reducing C02.  Curiously, the list of "irrevocable" effects are really only the direct and immediate meterological, climatic, and physical geographic effects.  The implications, or second, third-, and subsequent-order ecological, economic and associated social are unstated, potentially undeveloped, and the dangerous heart of the matter that need illumination and real attention.  (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7098902.stm)

The good news is that reacting quickly and in alignment an effective response will not only blunt the worst aspects of the best case scenario, it will avoid worst-case scenarios.  Better still, successs will launch humanity's bid for sustainability - regenerative- success in creating an ecologicall sustainable global economy and society that is humanity's only basis for solving the climate catastrophy and creating a highly prosperous and secure future.  It can be done.  Success is possible. We need to act now in highly creative, innovative, ways that leverage the power of transformative change, not simple incremental change. 

Stay tuned to S-2030 for results and resources for an effective response.

Design Science News - Buckminster Fuller Institute

Buckminster Fuller, during his 50-year experiment in what type of contribution a lone individual could make on behalf of all humanity, pioneered the concept of comprehensive anticipatory design science that would produce livingry, the "weapons" for life instead of war, in order to support all the planet's people in a dignified and regenerative condition that would allow the unique talents of human beings to flower.

The Buckminster Fuller Institute is carrying on his legacy through initiatives and making the resources he pioneered widely accessible to the world's people. 

Design Science News, in their words, "brings you news from around the world related to humanity’s option for success and comprehensive design science. It also features updates from BFI and periodic special offers for our members."

Check it out, support the Institute (www.bfi.org), for provocative ideas, useful resources, pioneering initiatives from the legacy of the grandfather of sustainability from a whole systems understanding and critical path approach.

Contents of Design Science News Vol. 8 No. 10 include:

1.  The Buckminster Fuller Challenge - Catalyzing the vanguard of a design science revolution - they have received 250 entries to first international design science competition for $100,000 to a single winning solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems in the shortest possible time while enhancing the Earth’s ecological integrity.  ease, please visit the Challenge website.

2.  Best of Friends: Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi on view at The Henry Ford Museum (For more information, visit the Henry Ford Museum website)

3.  Trenda & Perspectives - Power polymer fuel solar cell advances.  Source: Design News)

4. Pollution-busting plants - (Source: Scientific American)

5. Putting smart design where it is needed most - an interview with Cameron Sinclair - Co-founder of the charitable organization Architecture for Humanity, re-building broken communities by promoting innovative and sustainable architecture and design. With the signature line “Design like you give a damn,” Architecture for Humanity creates opportunities for architects around the world to make a difference. Winner of last year’s esteemed TED prize, which honors visionaries who inspire others to do great things for the world.  Check out this video interview with Sinclair, from PBS’s Wired Science.

6.  Video from 2005 "Synergetics in the Arts Symposium" now online.  Watch the video (10mb)

AURP's Eco-City Experiment - Dongtan China

Peter Head, SustainAbility: http://www.sustainability.com/network/global-influencer.asp?id=438 John Elkington interviews Peter Head of Arup on how he is involved in shaping a better China. And now the most challenging test of Arup's ability to shape better megacities is slated to take place alongside the mudflats and wetlands of China's third largest island, cheek-by-jowl with the boom city of Shanghai. If you haven't yet heard of Dongtan, you will. If the world of sustainability had its own moon shots, this would be one of them. (read on at the link above). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- Scott T. Edmondson, MAAURP, AICP Sustainability 2030 CEQA/NEPA Environmental Review / Critical-Path Sustainability Research & Planning Phone: (415) 992-6473 E-mail: scott-e22@earthlink.net Web Site: www.sustainability2030.com Skype UserName: ScottSS2030

SustainAbility Think Tank: Trends & Waves Defining the Debate

Trends & Waves From Silent Spring to Seattle, the events & themes that have defined the debate Trends & Waves SustainAbility has grown to think of the evolution of the sustainability movement in terms of a series of waves, with peaks and troughs of activity, all contributing to the momentum we see today. Our research aims to explore the business implications and what will happen next. Broadly, we see three sets of waves to date, each building to a peak or crest of activity where a new set of issues is hot and shapes the forward agenda. Each peak is then followed by a lull or downwave, typically a period when the issues are less in the media spotlight, but where processes of consolidation embed the new priorities in law, management standards or governance systems. We describe the three waves to date as having had the following characteristics: 1. The 1960s and 70s saw the first wave, characterised by the rise of an NGO and an embryonic 'green' movement seeking to change government approaches to the agenda. This at a time when the world order was characterised by the Cold War status quo. 2. The second wave peaked late in the 1980s and through the early 1990s. This period saw the end of the Cold War, coupled with a series of environmental and social catastrophes that put markets, big business and their brands firmly in the NGO and media spotlight. 3. We are currently in the post-millennial third wave, or more particularly in the third downwave period, following an intense era of globalisation - and of anti-globalisation. The focus is now increasingly on responsible globalisation, on the changes in global and corporate governance that this will require and on new forms of innovation and enterprise. SustainAbility http://www.sustainability.com/insight/trends-and-waves.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- Scott T. Edmondson, MAAURP, AICP Sustainability 2030 CEQA/NEPA Environmental Review / Critical-Path Sustainability Research & Planning Phone: (415) 992-6473 E-mail: scott-e22@earthlink.net Web Site: www.sustainability2030.com Skype UserName: ScottSS2030

Northwest Earth Institute - Choices for Sustainable Living Course

Northwest Earth Institute "Sustainability, not better weapons or struggles for power or material accumulation, is the ultimate challenge to the energy and creativity of the human race" Meadows, Meadows and Sanders The Northwest Earth Institute is recognized as a national leader in the development of innovative programs that empower individuals and organizations to protect the Earth. http://www.nwei.org/NWEI/Home.html - Choices for Sustainable Living Course http://www.nwei.org/pages/sustainable2.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- Scott T. Edmondson, MAAURP, AICP Sustainability 2030 CEQA/NEPA Environmental Review / Critical-Path Sustainability Research & Planning Phone: (415) 992-6473 E-mail: scott-e22@earthlink.net Web Site: www.sustainability2030.com Skype UserName: ScottSS2030

Sustainable Future Society

About Sustainable Future Society (SFS) Mission Statement The Sustainable Futures Society (SFS) promotes an understanding and adoption of the principles, policies, and practices of sustainable development. We achieve these goals through applied research, education, publications, videos, community capacity building, and the creation of strategic partnerships. We work with individuals, business, schools, universities, nonprofit organizations, coalitions, communities, and governments. http://www.sustainablecolorado.org/about/mission.shtml ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- Scott T. Edmondson, MAAURP, AICP Sustainability 2030 CEQA/NEPA Environmental Review / Critical-Path Sustainability Research & Planning Phone: (415) 992-6473 E-mail: scott-e22@earthlink.net Web Site: www.sustainability2030.com Skype UserName: ScottSS2030

Strategic Sustainabilty Consulting

Strategic Sustainability Consulting You've made the commitment to being a good corporate citizen-but now what? Strategic Sustainability Consulting provides organizations with the tools and expertise they need to actively manage their social and environmental impacts. We specialize in helping under-resourced organizations implement sustainable solutions usually reserved for large, multinational companies. Our products and services can help you: * capture the financial benefits of corporate social responsibility * make your policies meaningful with monitoring programs * determine your core social and environmental impacts * decide what non-financial information to disclose to the public * manage your supply chain according to your values and vision If your organization has dedicated staff working on sustainability issues, then we probably aren't the right partner for you. But if you are struggling to understand the complex world of corporate citizenship, wondering how you can translate your values into actions, and unsure how to prioritize your social and environmental initiatives, then contacting Strategic Sustainability Consulting is a great place to begin. http://www.sustainabilityconsulting.com/ http://sustainabilityconsulting.blogspot.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- Scott T. Edmondson, MAAURP, AICP Sustainability 2030 CEQA/NEPA Environmental Review / Critical-Path Sustainability Research & Planning Phone: (415) 992-6473 E-mail: scott-e22@earthlink.net Web Site: www.sustainability2030.com Skype UserName: ScottSS2030

SustainAbility - 20 Year-Old Consultancy & Think Tank

SustainAbility: Tomorrow's Value Established in 1987, SustainAbility advises clients on the risks and opportunities associated with corporate responsibility and sustainable development. Working at the interface between market forces and societal expectations, we seek solutions to social and environmental challenges that deliver long term value. We understand business and what society expects of it.

Brundtland and Sustainability: history's balance-sheet - Shaping Idea 20 Years Old

Brundtland and Sustainability: History's Balance-Sheet, by John Elkington.  A shaping idea of our time is twenty years old. John Elkington tracks the epic journey of "sustainable development", assesses its record, and looks forward. 12 - 04 - 2007 http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-institutions_government/sustainability_4521.jsp.

The City Summit -- Leveraging Business Ingenuity to Meet the Climate Challenge

[draft 9-12). The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce hosted and co-sponsored the City Summit -- Leveraging Business Ingenuity to Meet the Climate Challenge, on Monday morning (9-10-07) at the new UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center.  Other co-hosts included the Climate Group and the McKinsey & Company, co-presenters included PG&E and Bank of America, Catholic Health Care West was a Champion Cosponsor. 

Robert Carrigan, San Francisco State University President and Chair of the SF Chamber of Commerce, introduced the Summit by pointing out the relatively untapped potential for linking the business challenge of sustainability to the resources of the University. As a move in that direction, SFSU's College of Business in its new downtown campus recently launched a MBA program emphasis in Sustainable Management. To complement the summit, the San Francisco Business Times included a 20-page pull-out section on San Francisco's recent acceleration of green building in concert with that of the industry.

The summit Agenda was jam packed, including an opening presentation by Lt. Governor John Garamendi, who emphasized that the transition to an ecologically sustainable economy powered by renewable energy is a huge real-wealth production opportunity and direction of economic security and prosperity that business and government need to seize.  Other presentations included Mary Nichols (CARB) on the challenge and progress in implementing AB32; Diana Farrell (McKinsey Global Institute) on understanding the components of forecast global energy demand and illuminating the consumer end-use sector as an invisible arena where large CO2 reductions can be made; Nancy McFadden (PG&E-Public Affairs) on the power of "we" and the need to continue developing and exporting sustainability leadership models that have kept California's energy use flat in the face of demand growth through conservation compared to the 50% growth in national energy use; and Janet Lamkin (BofA) on the need for, and two examples of, innovation in financial tools for underwriting the new conditions faced in the shift to sustainability practices.  A panel discussion of best practices followed with Jim Davis (moderator, Chevron), Joe Pettus (Safeway), Jeffrey Land (Catholic Healthcare West), Darren Boulton (PG&E), and Stefan Muhle (Orchard Garden Hotel).  Mayor Gavin Newsom summarized the City's accomplishments, noting that after picking the "low-hanging fruit" there will be much more to do, including the City's on-going efforts to incubate business innovation for sustainability success and address issues of social justice.

The event was a good "bench-marking" of business and sustainability now:  tremendous acceleration, picking the low-hanging fruit, focus on energy (efficiency, management, renewables), building systems, and on (clean) technology.  There was little discussion of the larger power and potential of sustainability as a new engine of innovation for economic growth, security, and prosperity, or the transformational nature of the challenge, nor how to harness, stimulate, and manage that creative aspect.   

The City Summit was an interesting counterpoint to one of the first business and sustainability conferences I attended almost 10 years ago (9-15-1998) in San Francisco, featuring Paul Hawkins, Ray Anderson (Interface Corporation), and Peter Senge, and co-hosted by SEED systems and Pegasus Communications.  There, the focus was on a wider range of technological innovation, (also) picking the low hanging fruit as the best way to begin, but focusing more on the implications and need for organizational transformation to jump-start, harness, and harvest the creativity and innovation involved in sustainability success.  That conference ten years ago felt like it was held in a tiny dark corner of a room, whereas The City Summit felt like it was held outside in full day light! 

My "take-away" from the Summit is that sustainability is quickly moving into the mainstream through the foresight and innovation of early business adopters and government action because it pays back big rewards in cost savings, economic security, and mission effectiveness, and because it is the right thing to do; but that business needs to move even more quickly to accelerate the required system-wide transformation.  Governments have a partnership role in creating the system conditions through laws, policy, and collaboration that nurture and accelerate the economic transformation underlying sustainability success.

Lenny Mendonca, Chair of the McKinsey Global Institute, provided a parting comment on the "DNA" of large scale social change -- denial, negotiation, action -- noting that we are nearing the tipping point between negotiation and action in general, but that San Francisco and the Bay Area are already in action mode.

EARTH POLICY NEWS -- EPI President Lester Brown Testifies Before Congress on 6-13-07

EARTH POLICY INSTITUTE NEWS FLASH - - -

Earth Policy News – Lester Brown on Capitol Hill on biofuels, 6/13/07  (S2030 CROSS POST).  Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute president and author of Plan B 2.0 will brief the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works tomorrow, Wednesday, June 13, at 10 am.  The briefing will focus on biofuels. Other presenters include:  Vinod Khosla, VeraSun Energy Corporation Bob Dineen, Renewable Fuels Association Jason Hill, University of Minnesota Dan Lashoff, Natural Resources Defense Council.  The meeting, open to the public, will be held in Room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.  Lester Brown will be available for comment before and after the briefing. You may also call Earth Policy Institute at 202-496-9290 or see www.earthpolicy.org for more information.  The paper Lester Brown is submitting to the Committee can be viewed on-line at http://www.earthpolicy.org/Transcripts/SenateEPW07.hML

PREVIEW:  The escalating share of the U.S. grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide. Investment in fuel ethanol distilleries has soared since gasoline prices jumped at the end of 2005. Once completed, distilleries now under construction could double U.S. ethanol output, turning nearly 30 percent of next year’s U.S. grain harvest into fuel for automobiles. This unprecedented diversion of the world’s leading grain crop to the production of fuel will affect food prices everywhere, risking political instability. To read more see http://www.earthpolicy.org/Transcripts/SenateEPW07.htm.

MEDIA CONTACT:   Reah Janise Kauffman, Tel: (202) 496-9290 x 12, E-mail: rjk (at) earthpolicy.org.  RESEARCH CONTACT:  Janet Larsen, Tel: (202) 496-9290 x 14, E-mail: jlarsen (at) earthpolicy.org, Earth Policy Institute, 1350 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 403, Washington, DC 20036 Web: Web: www.earthpolicy.org