Unlike humans, nature does not have a voice. It cannot voice its concerns for being mistreated, overused and abused and it cannot stop the harm it often undergoes; however, this may change soon. In April 2010, Polly Higgins proposed a law on ecocide to the UN Law Commission to stand alongside genocide as an international crime against peace.

Since then, Polly and her team have founded the Wish20 Global Citizens initiative to catalyze global momentum for an international ecocide law. Already the initiative has united governments, faith leaders and businesses with the common aim of holding those responsible for deliberate environmental destruction accountable to the law.

This is an urgent issue, particularly in the extractive sector where  several countries are suffering from the disastrous consequences of ecocide, including severe human rights violations and wide spread poverty.

The Wiwa vs Shell case in Nigeria, comes to mind. A twenty year legal battle which in 2009 was deemed a triumph for the winning plaintiffs but has not resolved the consequences of Shell’s actions. There is still endemic poverty for the Ogoni people and complete environmental destruction in the Niger delta.

Another case is Chevron in Ecuador, where unparalleled evidence of environmental destruction matched by severe human rights implications to the indigenous Amazonians stand as witness to the consequences of ecocide. Chevron is refusing to pay for damages totaling $19 billion and the legal battle is still being fought today – twenty years on.

Even more worrying is the increasing arrogance of major extractive corporations, with revenues several times the budgets of host countries, which are filing lawsuits as intimidation tactics against human rights defenders and environmental organizations.

Could an ecocide law prevent environmental destruction in the future by holding individuals in corporations accountable for their actions?

On Saturday, 9 March, 2013, a forum on ecocide will be held at The 2013 Middle East Festival Forum on Ecocide, Culture and Peace. Polly Higgins and other panelists will be speaking about the progress of Ecocide Law in Edinburgh, Scotland.

For more information on the event click here or contact Neill Walker, mesp2013@hotmail.co.uk, 0131 331 4469.

Images of oil spills in Ogoniland, Nigeria from National Journal 

The post Ecocide Law: Give Mother Nature a Voice appeared first on Green Prophet.

The European Union has pledged to build a €10 million desalination plant that will service Khan Yunis and Rafah in Gaza. This is a “medium-term” project designed to alleviate what is Gaza’s evolving water shortages. Although the Environmental Minister Gilad Erdan praised the initiative, he denies allegations leveled by the Palestinian Water Authority’s head Shaddad Attili that Israel’s blockade is responsible for Gaza’s water troubles.

In accordance with a memorandum of understanding signed between the EU’s acting representative to the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinian Water Authority, the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, and UNICEF, the new plant should be complete within 3 years, and service up to 75,000 residents. This is just one of several initiatives planned by the EU.

Although desalination is by no means a panacea for water scarcity, it is one step that has to be taken in the chronically dry levant. Check out photos of  murals that depict the seriousness of life without water, and learn about Gaza’s incoming eco-schools. And for more details about the plant, please visit the Jerusalem Post from where this post is adapted.

image via Morguefile

The post Gaza’s New €10 Million Desalination Plant Will Fend Off Chronic Water Shortages appeared first on Green Prophet.

We have been warned that the earth has reached a dangerous borderline. Here I’ll give you my personal opinions about the environment, in order to hopefully reduce the affect of crimes committed against the earth and to decrease the danger that plagues us with floods (as the one that happened in Pakistan and more recently Thailand), earthquakes, tsunami and hurricanes.

We must preserve raw materials like energy and water and improve the efficiency of industrialization, avoiding the production of waste in all stages of industrial and marketing operations, and we must replace toxic and dangerous substances with alternative or clean ones.

We must impose penalties on those caught producing emissions (which are expected to double in the next 30 years) after the issuing of the legislation, and we must look to other alternatives and mechanisms for the various stages of the production such as recycling, employing and recovering secondary products and waste as much as possible, in order to convert waste materials into commercial profits.

Global warming

For many years environmental studies related to emissions have been conducted and supervised by a committee of experts ad hoc. Indeed the world witnessed an increase of temperatures caused by gas emissions and by fossil fuel consumption. The Emirates are the most over-warmed countries in the world in terms of per capital carbon dioxide for individuals. Compared to the rest of Arab Asia and Africa, the Emirates have the hottest climate and most extreme climatic conditions; along with sea level rise, this will cause more floods and bad weather.

All these circumstances will lead to a thermal increase against the population with a higher rate of disease due to population and economic growth that has in turn increased the rate of energy consumption. In order to prevent the risk of some national companies working in the oil-refining industry that may run out gas flaring operations, the Emirates have determined what should be done in order to adopt techniques to cut down harmful emissions to the maximum degree. However, we must provide more environmental awareness and implement punitive sanctions to manufacturing and reconstruction authorities, because for economic growth to stay green, it can’t stay dry.

Cleaner production

The result of unchecked climate change would be the collapse of our planet under the high pressure that threatens the livelihood of earth, water, and air, and even of good soil and planting. New diseases have emerged as a result of this imbalance in the ecological balance. In the 80s, the industrial sector implemented a cleaner production program, thanks to the United Nations environmental special program, performing the extraction of contaminated materials before their diffusion, in spite of the following Menda’s manipulation.

We need to restate the concept of “Ecological Efficiency” for the health of this planet and in particular for human health.Ecology increases productivity and decreases the use of natural resources such as water and alternative energy, and it contributes to the production of economic and environmental benefits in order to reduce the negative impact on environment.Thus, this concept is useful in order to prevent pollution and to reduce waste from the source to the final stage experienced by all the products.

Energy waste

We must stress the truth of what has been committed to our planet if we are to revert our airspace from yellow to the clear blue that it once was. We must lead company and factory owners toward the use of clean new techniques that reduce energy waste and dangerous emissions in order to decrease the high rate of carbon dioxide emissions. The industrial system is linked with other systems, and it is not isolated. It should be lead to the optimal use for a life-cycle of materials, from the raw to the manufactured stage of any product, including secondary products, waste production, and storage, and should encourage an optimal use of energy resources and waste production.

Furthermore, we have to make people aware of low cost, smart sustainable buildings which use materials that are suitable for the nature of the local environment, and that are at the same time environmentally friendly. We can prevent the negative effect on population health and on the environment. One of the most important and positive aspects in smart buildings is the cost of using alternative and renewable energy sources, such as solar energy, in the process of heating and cooking.

Using natural ventilation and the sun in several aspects of building leads to reduction of waste and healthier indoor air quality. In addition, frequent landscaping absorbs toxic gases and helps oxygen generation, while the re-use of wasted water of the same buildings, after treatment, is good for watering plants. We must also stress the importance of laws that stipulate limits to atmospheric pollution, land and water and energy waste.

Finally, we should also call for the education of volunteer teams working on the care and protection of the environment and promote more dynamic and real action on charity for greater deeds.

This column was translated from Arabic into English by Silvia Gandolfo, a translator and interpreter based in France. She can be reached at silviagandolfo [at] hotmail [dot] it.

The post The Green Sheikh Calls for Action Against Ecological Crimes appeared first on Green Prophet.

Bill McKibben was arrested in August this year while protesting against TransCanada’s proposed plans to build a pipeline that would carry oil from the Alberta tar sands to Texas. McKibben has written:  “This is really really important. Jim Hansen, the world’s most important climatologist, has said that if we burn these tar sands in a big way it will be ‘essentially game over for the climate.’ That’s worth reading again. The oil companies and the Koch Bros are willing to take a few years of big profits in return for cratering the planet’s climate system.”

You might think that the facts would speak loudly enough for themselves, but McKibben has also written an introduction to this collection of short stories which aims to show that fiction can speak as persuasively as fact in making the point about the wounds we are inflicting upon our own planet. The book’s title is taken from a quote attributed to the environmentalist John Muir, ”When it comes to a war between the races, I’m with the bears.”

Not-too-preachy

There are ten stories from an impressive array of internationally acclaimed authors who write, for the most part, either literary or science fiction. When I picked it up to read I was truly hoping it wouldn’t be too ‘preachy’ and offputting in its approach to telling tales from a ‘damaged planet’. Of course, since these stories are essentially intended to be  environmental parables for our age, it would be surprising if there weren’t a certain amount of implicit preaching involved. But luckily, I also found a lot of variety in tone and subject matter and the authors’ approach to the topic

The collection begins with T.C. Boyle’s story of eco-activists fighting against deforestation. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Sacred Space looks at the environmental changes facing the Sierra Nevada region. As expected, these stories are clearly directly connected to the effects of human environmental destruction.

Oblique twists

But my favourite stories in the book take a more oblique angle on the theme. In Lydia Millet’s Zoogoing there is no immediate, overt environmental angle. Initially this seems to be the story of someone who likes getting too close for most people’s comfort to animals in zoos. But the story goes on to consider a very human angle on what it means to be endangered and waiting for extinction.

Similarly, Nathaniel Rich’s Hermie uses humour, featuring a talking hermit crab. Like so many of these stories it has a tinge of sadness despite the humorous style. But there are plenty of smiles to be found too, with creations like Toby Litt’s ‘Tescocommunists’ and ‘Walmarxists’ in a story which kookily conflates the blitz of the second world war with the blitz club of the 1980s London dance scene,  aping the postmodern way that most nostalgic reruns of historic trends manage to make a mash up of time. Even the title of the story, Newromancer, is a pun on the classic William Gibson cyberpunk novel Neuromancer.

Future planet earth

There are two stories set in 2040. Helen Simpson’s contribution is a diary account and possibly the most terrifying vision of societal breakdown to go with climate destruction. David Mitchell’s, The Siphoners is also a scarey vision of the future, featuring a story within a story, reminiscent of the complexity of his novel Cloud Atlas.  But it also involves a sobering reflection upon the possibilities and implications of population control.

One of the impressive features of this collection is the variety of different approaches to the topic, including reflections upon the numerous different ways in which we have trashed our planet, or at least exploited it, and may one day be called to account.  For example The Tamarisk Hunter considers the importance of water supply as a vital resource and extrapolates upon the lengths that people will go to to obtain supplies.

Even the stories that have speculative or predictive elements to them are firmly rooted within the past and the present.  Margaret Atwood’s short-short story ends the book with a creation myth that turns into a destruction myth.  She writes, In the fourth age we created deserts. Our deserts were of several kinds, but they had one thing in common: nothing grew there. Some were made of cement, some were made of various poisons, some of baked earth. We made these deserts from the desire for more money and from despair at the lack of it.

This collection may not persuade everyone to side with the bears, and that’s fair enough, but it does present some of the possible reasons to do so in interesting and entertaining short-fictional ways. Royalties from the sale of this book go to 350.org, an international grassroots movement to reduce the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

More Book Reviews on Green Prophet:
Plastiki: Across the Pacific on Plastic
The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change
A No Nonsense Guide to Climate Change

This review is a collaboration with and will also appear in The Short Review.

The post Book Review: I’m With the Bears appeared first on Green Prophet.

The right wing has long maintained that America should reduce its oil dependency on the Middle East. Considered the root of the last war in Iraq and a compelling reason for Gaddafi to hold on so tightly to power over Libya’s oil fields, Republicans have pushed through a series of catastrophic measures to secure their own oil supplies in the United States. But this time, some of the country’s most respected scientists and environmental activists are risking arrest to fight the latest such folly.

Fast-tracked for presidential approval by the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Panel, the $7 billion Keystone XL Pipeline poses one of the greatest dangers humanity has ever experienced. The 1500 mile pipeline would transport heavy crude oil (or bitumen) evacuated from Northern Alberta’s tar sands to Texas refineries. If burned, this heavy crude oil would release up to 82% more carbon emissions into our atmosphere than conventional oil. More emissions = more erratic climate changes = worsening quality of life for everyone. One hundred and fifty protestors have already been arrested in Washington D.C., where they are putting pressure on President Obama to make good on the promises that got him elected.

The man America elected in 2008

The man who convinced the American public while campaigning for President that he would fight to clean up the country’s appalling environmental record but has since signed off an array of ruinous coal and oil exploration projects, Obama has to approve the bill that would allow TransCanada to build a pipeline that scientists say would set off a massive carbon bomb.

Second only to China, America produces more carbon emissions than any other country (though the UAE produces more per capita.) And the American dream of having more cars than any one family needs, eating an endless supply of food shipped across the world, and wearing the fanciest clothes stitched together by poor people living in substandard conditions has encouraged many developing countries to pursue a similar model. None of this can happen without oil and most of us are completely hooked.

Oil addiction

This relentless addiction to oil has given multi-billion dollar corporations the perfect excuse to pursue increasingly-risky (and profitable) programs to supply the demand that has pushed carbon levels in our atmosphere well beyond the 350 parts per million that scientists agree is safe for earth. This addiction is also behind the devastating famine in East Africa, rising temperatures in the Middle East, and floods in Pakistan that displaced millions of people.

But if President Obama approves the Keystone XL Pipeline, we will beg to have today’s comparatively comfortable weather patterns returned to us.

World-renowned climatologist Jim Hanson explains that if Alberta’s 300 billion barrels of tar sands oil are released into the earth’s atmosphere, we are effectively signing our own death sentence. Since we share an atmosphere, President Obama has the power in his hands, right now, to decide whether we in the Middle East (and others in Europe, Africa, Antarctica, South America, and Australia) have a future. That’s a lot of pressure to put on one man.

The weight of the world

It would be an easy call if  special interest groups and the right wing weren’t holding a political gun to the President’s head. Politically, Democrats risk seeming weak on domestic security if they don’t approve this pipeline, but we’ve seen in the Middle East that environmental pressures will eventually create even more serious security risks.

Consider the economic insecurity associated with stronger hurricanes (Irene is heading for the East Coast as we go to press), more drought in Texas, an equally dry Mexico and subsequent influx of desperate immigrants. And what of the country’s nuclear power plants, two of which were shut down after yesterday’s earthquake in Virginia that was felt as far north as Toronto, Canada? Do we want another Fukushima disaster on our hands?

Oil industry people will worry about the loss of income that would result from an energy independent America, a valid concern, except China will be happy to step in and buy up all of our oil. That’s not enough to convince leaders in the Middle East to pressure Obama to make the right decision. But climate change should.

Jordan and Yemen are running out of water. Israel will rely almost exclusively on desalination in the next two years, and the UAE and other Gulf countries already do. These are just a few of the problems we have to confront as a warming planet wreaks havoc on our climate. Each year, we set new records for high temperatures in a region that is already almost unbearable during summer. Do we really want TransAmerica Pipeline, other rich oil barrens, and the American right to decide an even more miserable future for us?

1.15 Billion tons of CO2

The Guardian reports that the Australian Government released a study called the Critical Decade Report which showed that humanity has a chance of surviving if we can keep this century’s carbon emissions below 1 trillion tons. Just 20% into the decade, and we have already released 300 billion tons or 30% beyond what is sustainable (and continue to produce more oil-hungry humans at an exponential pace). In 50 years, the Keystone XL Pipeline alone is expected to release a further 1.15 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, so that Americans don’t have to pay reasonably high prices at the gas pump, eat less food, or focus their collective attention on developing renewable energy alternatives.

Bill McKibben from 350.org, who we have interviewed on Green Prophet, is behind one of the largest civil disobedience efforts to take hold of America in far too long. He and other career scientists have been arrested for blocking a road to the White House to urge President Obama to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline.

One has to think: what would cause hundreds of America’s most reserved and studious citizens to risk having a criminal record? Probably only something incredibly serious. We ought to take note, and we ought to give them our support.

More on 350.org and the fight to curtail carbon emissions:

Interview: Bracing for a Warmer Future with Bill McKibben

The Middle East’s Carbon Emissions at a Glance

Israel Plans to Combat Carbon Emissions

image via transition voice

The post Why the Middle East Should Definitely Support America’s Keystone XL Pipeline Protests appeared first on Green Prophet.

Since its inception, Dimona Silica Industries Ltd. has been plagued with a dodgy reputation. After its involvement with the 2004 Investment Promotions Center scandal, where it was found that then Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Ehud Olmert (of Monster on the Mountain infamy) illegally offered a $10 million grant to help the company develop a proprietary asphalt mix called iBind, the company almost faltered.

An infusion of foreign investment has since saved them from obscurity, but at grave environmental cost. Founder Ephraim Fernblum handed over the company to his son-in-law Ronen Peled, who recently won a $6 million contract to line a Chinese highway with a rare mineral deposit found only in the Negev desert.

Not a chemist by training, Fernblum told Globes how he came to invent the IBind mix, which is said to prolong the lifespan of roads twofold and create a much quieter ride.

He said he was looking at a poster of a tire on the road, and wondered if adding silicate to the asphalt mix would improve its quality and even spare tires from undue destruction. That thought led to a series of experiments and tests from Russians and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Although Israel’s Investment Promotions Center’s director, Shmuel Mordechai originally ruled the project insufficiently viable for a government-sponsored grant, Olmert gave it $10 million. Peled claims that most of that money was not received and that foreign investment enabled them to continue their R&D.

The company claims that their product is more environmentally-friendly than conventional asphalt mixes since there is no need to heat the asphalt, and emissions are reduced by 30%.

But the Nahal Zinn in the Negev desert is the only place in the world where the mineral deposit on which the mix depends can be mined. At 75 miles long, the Nahal Zin is the Negev desert’s largest Wadi (valley) and comprises the biblical southern border of Canaan, according to Bible Places. 6th century C.E. monks sculpted closets, shelves, benches, stairs and water system into the limestone cliffs.

Dimona boasted its ambitions to Globes:

The sky’s the limit. We’ve got something and we have no intention of missing it, says Peled. We have more obstacles to pass. We never received most of the government grant. Now that the material is shown to work and is viable from any perspective, there is no reason not to release the money to us. There is no reason for not building here the first production line of the chemicals products industry in Israel for export. We have something to offer, and it will only do good for Dimona and the south.

The company plans to build a factory within the next four months in Dimona, which will provide jobs to 50 people – mostly Negev residents. But we must ask: when will company’s appetite for success be satiated? When all of the Nahal Zin Wadi has been shipped to China?

:: Globes

More Industries that sacrifice Israel’s pristine environments:
Dead Sea Worker Exposes Environmental Disaster Through Film
Israeli Black Globe Award Went to IEI For Oil Shale Agenda
Canadians Fight Tar Sands, Israelis Fight Oil Shale