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Seattle climate activist KC Golden in Copenhagen to push for ambitious global climate treaty

Dec. 10, 2009
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By Alexander Kelly and Blair Kelly

InvestigateWest caught up with KC Golden, policy director for Seattle-based Climate Solutions, who is in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate talks. He is attempting to let foreign delegates and world leaders know that the United States is getting serious about climate change. Hear more:

Counting the ways we could be screwed by abrupt climate swings. Avoiding them? It's not all about CO2

Dec. 9, 2009
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We interrupt Dateline Earth's relentless search for the 100 one-percent solutions to global warming for a special report on a sweeping new look at how we can give ourselves a lot more time to find those solutions.

rm iwest mugA collection of papers just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights a series of steps that would forestall the worst effects of climate change by years or even decades. That gives us a lot more time to develop the technology it's going to take to get us out of this mess. (Although, as we've pointed out before, we already have the know-how to cut emissions 80 percent by 2020.)

The research is aimed at avoiding the "tipping points" that scientists fear could make the fight unwinnable -- abrupt, irreversible climate change. You know, stuff like permafrost melting, changes in the African winds that bring nutrients to the Amazon and methane bubbling up from the ocean bottom in world-changing quantities. (See the summary.)

Most of this series of scientific papers is devoted to this laundry list of Things That Could Go Really Wrong Really Fast. But there's hope! Read on. 

Now, the funny thing about this collections of papers is the proposed solutions, the ones to forfend sudden and dramatic climate change, do not target the most prolific greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.

Video explains ice sculpture outside Copenhagen climate meeting -- notice how it's melting?

Dec. 8, 2009
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Earlier today I posted a photo by InvestigateWest photographer Mark Malijan of an ice sculpture of Copenhagen's most famous landmark, the Little Mermaid statue in the harbor.  It's melting. In December. In Copenhagen. Outside the global negotiations on what to do about global warming, Antje Von Broock of Friends of the Earth Germany talks with InvestigateWest videographer Blair Kelly and correspondent Alex Kelly about the significance of the ice sculpture:

-- Robert McClure

Activists shine light on issues getting short shrift inside Copenhagen climate negotiations

Dec. 8, 2009
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The scene outside the global climate talks in Copenhagen is a cornucopia of innovative artwork, inspiring panel discussions and provocative characters with fascinating stories to tell, the InvestigateWest team reports.

In fact, there were so many interesting events and people that the sheer number made it hard to focus on any one today, InvestigateWest correspondent Alexander Kelly told me by Skype just now.

But he’s focused enough to know that he will be doing a piece on the critique of cap-and-trade, which many economists and politicians promote but which many environmentalists in Copenhagen this week oppose.

[caption id="attachment_6879" align="alignleft" width="226" caption="In this panel discussion at a symposium known as KlimatForum09, Hanne Marstrand Strong, president of the Manitou Foundation, based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado speaks of her group, which provides land grants and financial support to religious organizations and environmental groups. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan."]In this panel discussion at a symposium known as KlimatForum09, Hanne Marstrand Strong, president of the Manitou Foundation, based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado speaks of her group, which provides land grants and financial support to religious organizations and environmental groups. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan.[/caption]

And he’s considering writing about ocean acidification, which is a big concern to the maritime community of the Pacific Northwest.

Folks -- are there climate-related topics you’d like to hear about that probably are being discussed in Copenhagen?

Images of the Copenhagen climate conference

Dec. 8, 2009
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The fact that the United Nations barred InvestigateWest journalists from covering the actual meetings on climate change in Copenhagen didn't prevent InvestigateWest photographers Mark Malijan and Christopher Crow from capturing some interesting images outside the gates of the Bella Center:

[caption id="attachment_6860" align="aligncenter" width="226" caption="Chris Keene, of Wales, used a variety of self-propelled vehicles to make his way more than 900 miles to Copenhagen for the talks. InvestigateWest photo by Christopher Crow."]Chris Keene, of Wales, used a variety of self-propelled vehicles to make his way more than 900 miles to Copenhagen for the talks. InvestigateWest photo by Christopher Crow.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_6861" align="aligncenter" width="226" caption="One of the bazillion phone calls made by meeting participants. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan."]One of the bazillion phone calls made by meeting participants. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_6863" align="aligncenter" width="226" caption="Delegates and others emerge from the Bella Center, where the negotiations are conducted, at day's end. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan."]Delegates and others emerge from the Bella Center, where the negotiations are conducted, at day's end.</p /> </p> </div> <ul class=

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    • Ice replica of Copenhagen's most famous statue melts

    Dec. 8, 2009
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    Ice melting in Copenhagen in December -- a statement by Friends of the Earth International on the condition of the melting  polar caps and glaciers worldwide. Read our latest on the climate talks.

    [caption id="attachment_6837" align="aligncenter" width="240" caption="Ice sculpture melts just outside the Bella Center, site of the climate talks in Copenhagen. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan."]Ice sculpture melts just outside the Bella Center, site of the climate talks in Copenhagen. InvestigateWest photo by Mark Malijan.[/caption]

     Update 9:48 a.m.: Oops. Guess I should have said this is a replica of the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen's harbor.

    10 years after WTO, InvestigateWest to tell a story of “Seattle grown up” – in Copenhagen

    Nov. 30, 2009
    in

    As the orderly column of peaceful protest marchers rounded a corner in downtown Seattle, the scene changed suddenly. And dramatically. People were running every which way. Smoke billowed from dumpsters set afire. A young man ran past me clutching the silver “N” he had just snatched from above the entrance to the Niketown store. A voice behind me boomed into a megaphone: 

    Everybody go down this alley – we think we’ve found a back way into the hotel!

    I turned around to see that the guy with the megaphone was Michael Moore – the filmmaker, not the guy by the same name in charge of the World Trade Organization. It was the WTO’s presence in Seattle that sparked this scene 10 years ago today, as 40,000 or more protesters descended on the city.

    robert Iwest mugI’m not big on anniversary journalism, but that protest known as N30  remains the largest anti-globalization protest in North American history. And, 10 years on, this week marks the start of what will no doubt be another series of globally significant protests.

    Tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected a week from today in Copenhagen, where negotiators from around the globe are traveling to supposedly try to reach a global accord limiting green-house gas emissions. Will the negotiators succeed?

    InvestigateWest will be covering climate talks in Copenhagen; WTO-style street protests expected

    Nov. 30, 2009
    in
     By Alexander Kelly

    Ten years after Seattle witnessed the largest anti-corporate globalization action the United States has seen, protesters will take to the streets of Copenhagen in a week to oppose the global capitalization of the struggle against climate change.

    The delegates attending the upcoming high-stakes negotiations are expected to entertain mostly market-based solutions to climate change, which critics say improperly treat carbon as a commodity to be traded among the world’s largest polluters.

    Plenty of activists aren’t buying it, and like their predecessors at the WTO rallies in ‘99, they’re ready to let world leaders know.

    Nor are they buying the rhetoric spouted at Singapore’s recent international economic summit, where the official goal of the Copenhagen meetings was reduced from the development of a “legally binding treaty” to a “political” one. The announcement has activist groups like Bill McKibben’s 350.org and members of the Climate Justice Action network in an uproar, with street-side frustrations on the rise as the will to tackle climate change seemingly takes a political nosedive.

    As tens of thousands of protesters from the world over converge on December’s climate talks, so will InvestigateWest.

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