Nobel Prize Foundation urged to divest from fossil fuels

This week 14 Nobel Prize winners and scientists released an open letter urging the Nobel Foundation to divest its $420 million endowment from fossil fuels. Right now Divest Nobel activists are creatively protesting outside the prestigious Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm to make sure the message to divest is heard. After all, Chemist Alfred Nobel said in his will:

"Nobel prizes should be awarded to those who “shall have conferred the greatest benefit to [hu]mankind.”

In a prepared statement emailed today, a spokesperson for 350.org, the climate change activists, said: "The world is watching. Amplify the call to divest the Nobel Foundation right now: Tweet @NobelPrize or comment on their Facebook page.

World-changing physicists, chemists, journalists, lawyers and authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report all argue that Nobel "should not profit from the destruction of our planet’s climate," according to the statement.

Three fifity.org points out the irony that the Nobel Foundation, which was established to celebrate those benefitting humankind, should be partly funding its activities from companies doing harm - from BP to Shell to Lukoil. Laureates who are being conferred the great prize echo the sentiment in their letter: “As laureates and scientists embracing Alfred Nobel’s final words, it is our expectation that the Nobel Foundation also act in the interest of humankind which includes caring for the health of the planet which we all rely upon.”

You can add your own voice to the voices of the 14 Laureates and the Divest Nobel crew in Stockholm by tweeting here.

Photo: By Strakhov (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council releases 2016 plan update

NEW ORLEANS, LA – The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council has released an update to its 2013 Comprehensive Plan, the council shared in an emailed statement yesterday, Dec. 8.

The update provides additional "strategic guidance" for the council to follow as they make decisions on restoration funding projects in the Gulf of Mexico.

The group will meet to vote on the Comprehensive Plan Update and hear from restoration partners including representatives from the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustees and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund.

The meeting will be next Friday, December 16, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Celestin Ballroom Section E (3rd Floor), 601 Loyola Avenue in NOLA from 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. The public is invited to attend.

For additional information, and to register for this meeting please click here. Onsite registration will be available on the day of the meeting from 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. This meeting is also available via live webinar and may be posted on www.RestoreTheGulf.gov. You can register for the webinar here (link is external).

The Comprehensive Plan Update is intended to improve council decisions by reinforcing the council’s goals and objectives, setting forth an initial 10-year funding strategy, and establishing the council’s vision for Gulf restoration, among other goals.

The Council has updated its Initial Comprehensive Plan to include recent developments in Gulf restoration such as the resolution of civil claims against BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

With the recent announcement that President-Elect Trump's proposed EPA Administrator will be Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, citizens of the Gulf have reason for concern: a ramp up, not winding down, of deepwater drilling means more risk for spills such as occurred in April, 2010.

PHOTO: Oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill approaches the coast of Mobile, Ala., May 6, 2010. Image via Wiki Commons.

Environmentalists bristle at EPA nom of Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt

Environmental groups nationwide, from Natural Resources Defense Council to Friends of the Earth, have sent out press releases today warning that Donald Trump's proposed EPA chief, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, is anti-climate science and bad for the environment. The nomination will be reviewed during hearings held by the Environment and Public Works Committee, before moving to the Senate for a vote.

The National Audubon Society says they are "deeply concerned" and this climate denier "has no place leading the Environmental Protection Agency."

The Trump transition team announced the nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as a candidate for administrator of the agency today, prompting The National Audubon Society's response from its president and CEO, David Yarnold:

“Scott Pruitt’s nomination as the anti-EPA Administrator causes us deep concern. The Environmental Protection Agency's work has always been based on science, but Pruitt is a climate change denier who has worked to dismantle well-grounded protections for clean air and clean water.

"Those protections have benefited birds and kids for decades and the next administration’s EPA needs to base its work on scientific consensus, something Pruitt hasn't shown a willingness to do. We urge the Senate to hold an EPA administrator to those basic standards."

A cursory check of Pruitt's background reveals that the staunch Republican, a former Oklahoma state senator, is not only anti-climate science, but against gay marriage and the Affordable Care Act.

Friends of the Earth said in its press release today that the appointee is a "big polluter" who sued the EPA "multiple times to stop them from protecting air and water."

He also, FOE point out, has deep ties to the oil and gas industry. Natural gas mogul Harold Hamm was the chair of his latest re-election campaign, while in an official role Pruitt has delivered letters to the EPA that were drafted for him by the oil and gas industry, say Friends of the Earth.

Friends of the Earth Climate and Energy Program Director Benjamin Schreiber issued the following statement:

"By appointing Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Donald Trump has made it clear that he intends to wage war on clean air and clean water. Trump has also put our climate in peril and shown he is out of step with the American people.

As the Attorney General, Scott Pruitt did the bidding of the oil and gas industry and fought many of the laws he will now be tasked to enforce. He helped Big Oil turn Oklahoma into an earthquake zone. With this EPA pick, Donald Trump is putting all Americans at risk. Friends of the Earth is committed to stop Trump and Pruitt from undermining environmental protections."

The Natural Resources Defense Council is equally alarmed by the nomination. Rhea Suh, president of the NRDC, said in a statement:

“The mission of the EPA and its administrator requires an absolute commitment to safeguard public health and protect our air, land, water and planet. That’s the litmus test. By naming Pruitt, President-elect Trump has flunked. The American people did not vote to return to the country to the dirty old days or to turn a blind eye on dangerous climate change. If confirmed, Pruitt seems destined for the environmental hall of shame, joining the likes of Anne Gorsuch Burford and James Watt, two disastrous cabinet officials in the 1980s.”

The move today by Trump would seem to run counter to chatter that his daughter, Ivanka Trump, is influencing his views on climate change. The soon-to-be-elder First Daughter is said to have been influenced by a Leonardo DiCaprio documentary on climate change, and she held a widely publicized meet-and-greet with Al Gore at Trump Tower recently. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons Images: Scott Pruitt speaking at CPAC 2016 in National Harbor, Maryland. Mar 5, 2016, by Gage Skidmore.

The Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division today, Dec. 1, announced that Carnival Corporation’s Princess Cruise Lines will plead guilty to dumping oil-contaminated waste into the sea and covering it up. In a press release issued today, Friends of the Earth shared the news that illegal discharges have been occurring by the Caribbean Princess since 2005, which will result in seven felony charges and a $40 million penalty. This is the largest fine in the history of criminal cases involving deliberate vessel pollution. Friends of the Earth gave Princess Cruises a C grade overall, with an F for transparency, in its 2016 Cruise Ship Report Card.

John Kaltenstein, senior policy analyst for Friends of the Earth, issued the following response:

"Princess Cruise Lines’ offense is all too reminiscent of cases in the 1990s when the cruise industry was exposed by the US federal government for dumping oily waste and bypassing their treatment systems to save money. Deliberate pollution is completely unacceptable and we continue to call on the cruise industry to be transparent and clean up its act. The entire industry needs to be investigated, and the ships violating the law should be banned from U.S. waters for at least one year. This egregious case of wrongdoing shows just how critically we need federal agency and congressional oversight of cruise industry pollution practices.

Princess’s behavior also shows that we cannot take this polluting industry’s claims of environmental responsibility at face value even when they install the most current pollution control technologies, as systems can be avoided or deactivated so that untreated waste flows right into the sea. The discharge of oil into our oceans is extremely harmful to marine life and can have long-lasting environmental and economic repercussions. The corporate culture that gave rise to these deceptive and illegal acts ought to be scrutinized, both within Princess and at the other cruise line brands comprising the Carnival group. For years Friends of the Earth has been saying that this sector is not as green as it claims to be. Today’s announcement of Princess’s guilty plea is proof that talk is cheap and that the cruise ship industry still has a long way to go until its practices match its rhetoric." To view the results of the 2016 and past years’ Cruise Ship Report Card grading pollution and transparency, visit http://www.foe.org/cruise-report-card

PHOTO: Another oil spill (not from Carnival); via Wikimedia Commons Images; Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57829

Obama Administration Closes Arctic and Atlantic Coasts to New Offshore Drilling

Five-year plan keeps crucial bird habitat safe from new oil and gas leases. Yesterday, Nov. 18, National Audubon Society issued a press release announcing that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will remove the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans from offshore leasing for the next five years, through 2022. This move protects areas with critical wildlife habitat.

That Atlantic waters would not be in the lease plan is not a surprise, Audubon says on its website: "The Obama administration announced in March of this year that it would not pursue leases there after an outcry from environmental and business groups and, more surprisingly, the Pentagon, which claimed that oil rigs would impede offshore training exercises critical to protecting the East Coast."

But until this most recent announcement, three leases in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and 10 sales in the Gulf, were still under consideration. It is those three Arctic sites that have been pulled from the latest lease plan.

"Hitting the pause button on offshore drilling in the Arctic is exactly the right thing to do,” said David Yarnold, president and CEO of the National Audubon Society. “Offshore drilling is a dirty and dangerous business, and removing the Arctic Ocean from the offshore leasing plan gives everyone time to think hard about how well water and oil mix. The Obama administration understands that the productivity of our oceans is jeopardized when we drill in the wrong places. We should be thinking first about protecting ocean life and quickly moving to cleaner sources of energy."

According to the National Audubon Society, there are 10 "globally-significant Important Bird Areas" that support millions of birds in the Arctic Ocean and along its shoreline in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. The Chukchi and Beaufort seas also tout polar bears, walruses, four species of ice seals, and several species of whales.

“The Arctic Ocean contains vital ecological areas that are critical for the survival of many birds and wildlife species,” said Nils Warnock, Executive Director for Audubon Alaska. “This prudent five-year program prevents new leasing in this crucial habitat at a time of unprecedented ecological change in the Arctic.”

Audubon stresses that offshore from Barrow, the farthest north community in the US, lies a a hot spot of biodiversity. The seafloor drops dramatically and creates an underwater canyon there. When the cold Arctic current encounters this barrier, it rises to create a fertile upwelling of foods consumed by many types of larger marine animals, such as bowhead and beluga whales.

Then in the shallower waters of Harrison Bay, millions of birds congregate to tap rich aquatic foods. The Colville River is Alaska’s largest Arctic river, and the nutrient supply from the Colville combines with water from Harrison Bay. The sheltered waters support diverse bird species of concern, from Artic terns to Yellow-billed loons, from Surf scoters to King eiders. The Proposed Final Program now goes to Congress for a 60-day period, before BOEM registers the final Record of Decision.

Donald J. Trump takes office January 20, and the Republicans will control both the House and the Senate. There is grave concern in environmental quarters about what the president-elect and his administration will or won't do concerning wildlife protection and climate change. Theoretically or practically, any actions Obama has taken could be reversed under President Trump. FOR MORE INFORMATION: The Vital Arctic Ocean Areas Storymap highlights ecologically important areas, told through articles written by Arctic field biologists and researchers. The National Audubon Society saves birds and their habitats throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education and on-the-ground conservation.

PHOTO: An Arctic tern; Wikimedia Commons Image, Andreas Weith, Aug. 3, 2015: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AWeith

$370 Million Win for Gulf Restoration Announced Today

Today, Nov. 15, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) approved a nearly $370 million investment in 24 new Gulf Coast restoration projects. The sum includes $245 million dedicated specifically to five Louisiana coastal restoration projects, and $100 million to be set aside for engineering and designing what they say are "two key restoration projects" in the state, the Mid-Barataria and Mid-Breton Sediment Diversions. Louisiana bore the brunt of the 2010 BP oil spill and Corexit damage, with the environmental catastrophe occurring off its shores; and even now, nearly six years later, is experiencing eco-system and wildlife degradation in the marshes and environs. "NFWF will ultimately dedicate $2.5 billion from BP’s criminal fines towards restoring the habitats of the Gulf Coast that were impacted by the spill," NFWF said in a statement.

Restore the Mississippi River Delta – which includes Environmental Defense Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation – released the following statement:

“Today’s announcement signals progress on two vitally important coastal restoration projects in Louisiana. The Mid-Barataria and Mid-Breton Sediment Diversions are key to reversing Louisiana’s land loss trend, by mimicking the natural land-building processes of the Mississippi River and carrying water and sediment into degraded wetlands to build new land.

“Diversions are a critical component of a comprehensive restoration and protection strategy for Louisiana. They can help revive Louisiana’s coastal wetlands – part of America’s largest delta – to a productive, functioning state, which provides important ecological and economic opportunities and benefits for people and wildlife.

“As the state of Louisiana engages in the 2017 Coastal Master Plan process, we must ensure the plan covers a suite of coastal restoration and protection projects, including these keystone diversions."

Pres. and CEO of the NFWF, Collin O’Mara, said in his statement:

“Several of these projects are critical efforts to restore more natural water flows in degraded areas. Today’s announcement includes $100 million for the engineering and design of two key projects in Louisiana that will mimic natural river processes by allowing fresh water and sediment to reach rapidly-eroding wetlands. Similarly, the construction of two freshwater siphons in Texas’ Salt Bayou watershed will help recreate natural flows to 18,000 acres of wetlands damaged by saltwater intrusion.

“There are three main streams of Gulf restoration funding and we appreciate NFWF’s efforts to create synergies with projects from other sources. For example, today’s announcement of $16 million to benefit sea turtles and marine mammals will amplify ongoing efforts to reduce sea turtle by-catch and monitor their nesting success.

“Finally, this money will secure key ecosystems on the Alabama and Mississippi coasts, enlarging protected habitats in rapidly developing coastal areas. All of these efforts will improve the health and resiliency of the Gulf and benefit people and wildlife.”

PHOTO: The Brown Pelican, the Louisiana State Bird. Via Wikimedia Commons Images: By Terry Foote [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Upcoming climate conference COP22 previewed by State Department today

Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S Department of State Dr. Jonathan Pershing and Director for Energy and Climate Change for the National Security Council John Morton previewed the upcoming COP 22 Climate Conference for reporters this morning. The call began at 10:30 a.m. ET and included an opportunity for questions from reporters from Bloomberg, The New York Times, NPR, and Wall Street Journal, among others. Of the questions, a notable theme emerged: would the progress made following the Paris Agreement be for naught should Donald J. Trump become President? The conference kicks off in Marrakech, Morocco Nov. 7 and lasts through the 18th. Representatives and heads of state from all over the world will attend. Simultaneously, the 12th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 12) will be held there. Morton introduced the call to cheer work being done on the part of the Obama Administration. "We’re coming into this year’s COP with a tremendous amount of positive momentum. Reaching the Paris Agreement in December of last year was clearly a watershed moment for the international community and one that was appropriately reported in that way," adding that by all measures, 2016 has been a "truly historic year for international climate action." Morton said in the last two months alone there has been a "rapid entry into force of the Paris Agreement" which has occurred, he claimed, "much, much faster, years faster, than most people expected. And with that entry into force, that puts us on a much accelerated path toward implementation of the goals that we laid out in Paris a year ago." On October 5 of this year, as noted on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change website, "the threshold for entry into force of the Paris Agreement was achieved." The Paris Agreement will enter into force tomorrow, November 4. Thus, this will be the very first session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. However, as the reporters' line of questioning today reveals, Americans and in turn the world, have much to fear should Hillary Clinton not win the Oval Office. Donald J. Trump does not believe climate change is real. Or if he does, he's hiding it behind the kind of inane and vitriolic nonsense that would be shameful in a fifth grade science class. Climate change is not a "hoax", as Trump alleges, and this conference is key. Pershing and Morton today expressed the importance of adaptive technologies and procedures, for example, which can help communities deal with the effects of flood, drought, and sea level rise on the heels of the warmest year on record. Morton said, "In many cases the focus is on adapting, but at the same time local and state governments have a lot to do and are doing a lot already on the mitigation side – [be they] policies, plans, codes, or zoning requirements," for example. These are often heavily as focused on mitigation as they are on adaptation "and we will have some adaptation-related announcements about this during COP." Pershing said three takeaways of the conference should be: 1. "To make the world aware we [meaning Americans and the global community, one assumes] are continuing to prioritize this issue"; 2 "To work to develop rules and guidelnes to put more flesh on the framework developed in Paris"; and 3 To work on implementing and putting into action what was drawn out in Paris, manfiesting from "both the US and a variety of people around the world" as there is an accelerated move toward emissions reductions.

READ the transcript of today's call here. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons: By Wolf Gang - On global warming, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48067856.