Extinction Rebellion: Civil Rights Movement For Our Environment?

Made famous by their more recent mid April 2019 occupation movement in the UK, is Extinction Rebellion a “civil rights movement” for our environment?

By: Ringo Bones

Established in the UK back in May 2018, Extinction Rebellion got its start after one hundred academics signed a call to action involving nonviolent resistance to protest against climate breakdown, biodiversity loss and the risk of human extinction and ecological collapse. Named after the Anthropocene Extinction – our current epoch where most mass extinctions and environmental destruction are primarily caused by our collective human industrial activity. Even though they organized protests last year, it was in 2019 that the movement gained prominence back in April 1, 2019 after a so-called “nude protest” in the House of Commons – though a lot of people had mistaken it as a “Brexit protest” instead of an environmentalism one. It was around the middle of April 2019 when Extinction Rebellion occupied four prominent sites in central London – i.e. Oxford Circus, Marble Arch, Waterloo Bridge and the area around Parliament Square. The April’s protests more or less ended after a lot of activists were arrested but not before world famous Swedish student climate activist Greta Thunberg talked to the press about her support of Extinction Rebellion.

Extinction Rebellion attracted a legion of followers since their establishment back in 2018 largely due to their demands – something that needed to be reiterated to the powers-that-be. It goes that “the government must tell the truth about the climate and wider ecological emergency, reverse inconsistent policies and work alongside the media to communicate with citizens. The government must enact legally binding policy measures to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025 and to reduce consumption levels. A national Citizens’ assembly to oversee the changes to create a democracy fit for purpose.”

Despite of recent successes, Extinction Rebellion has been criticized by some for making unrealistic demands. The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, which supports the movement’s course of strong action and demands, said that the timeframe being urged by Extinction Rebellion was “an ambitious that technically, economically and politically has absolutely no chance of being fulfilled.” The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit calculated that to go net zero by 2025, flying would need to be scrapped (only viable in my opinion if all ongoing armed conflict is stopped and stay stopped for the duration) and 38 million cars – both petrol and diesel – would need to be removed from the roads. In addition 26 million gas boilers would need to be disconnected in six years. American philosopher and animal rights advocate Gary L. Francione criticized the movement for refusing to promote veganism as a solution to climate change and for adopting the “personal / political” dichotomy which he says “every progressive movement from the past 50 years has rejected because common sense tells us that you cannot ignore the role of the individual in creating and perpetuating social problems”.  

Solar Geoengineering: The Most Effective Way To Fight Climate Change?

Given that humans are pumping 60-times more carbon dioxide gas into the Earth’s atmosphere than all of the planet’s volcanoes combined, would solar geoengineering be a viable method to limit global warming rise to 2-degrees Celsius?

By: Ringo Bones

Even if we manage to halt all of our production of carbon dioxide tomorrow, it would take quite awhile for overall carbon dioxide gas concentrations in our atmosphere to return to pre-industrial levels. In an interview back in July 9, 2012, the 1984 Nobel Physics Prize laureate Carlo Rubbia stated that based on what we currently know on the behavior of gaseous carbon dioxide currently circulating in the Earth’s atmosphere, the average lifetime that the carbon dioxide generated by human activity – as in biomass and fossil fuel burning – stays in the atmosphere before being sequestered back into wood and dissolved into the world’s oceans and lithosphere, is 30,000 years. Therefore most of the carbon dioxide produced when Emperor Nero burned a section of Rome as he fiddled around 2,000 years ago is still in our atmosphere. Given the relatively long delay time of removing excess carbon dioxide from our atmosphere, are there other more effective ways to halt the average global temperature rise to within 2-degrees Celsius by the year 2100?

Professor of Physics and Public Policy at Harvard David Keith suggests a method which he calls solar geoengineering. Despite of the risks, due to our still limited understanding of the planet Earth’s overall climate system, there are aspects of solar geoengineering that is directly modeled after recent climatic events and how it can be implemented for our overall benefit. Professor Keith suggests mimicking how volcanic eruptions trigger a global cooling effect for a number of years after the event. We could manage to keep the inevitable temperature rise to within 2-degrees Celsius by the year 2100.

Remember when Mt. Pinatubo erupted back in June 1991? It manage to lower overall global temperature by 2-degrees Celsius and another unforeseen consequence of the volcanic eruption was the resulting increased farm and ecosystem productivity that happened two years after the event. And according to Professor Keith, solar geoengineering could mimic such natural phenomena by flying jet planes to the stratosphere at the near equatorial region and spraying sulfur dioxide gas to produce sulfuric acid ice crystal clouds in order to increase planet Earth’s albedo – i.e. the reflectivity – of the Earth’s atmosphere reflecting excess infrared energy our planet receives from the Sun back into space. The planet Venus’ naturally occurring sulfuric acid ice crystal clouds is the reason why it has a higher albedo in comparison to planet Earth and this its “brighter” appearance in comparison to its sister planet. Although there are unforeseen risks involved due to our still limited understanding on how our planet’s climate system works and the formidable logistics involved of using a fleet of our current jet aircraft to produce sulfuric acid crystal clouds of similar density of that created by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption around the Earth’s equator, it seems that it is the only scheme that could produce a plausibly desirable result when it comes to keeping overall global temperature rise to within 2-degrees Celsius by the year 2100.

Skipping School For Climate Change Action?

Given that most of our supposedly “grown-up elected officials” are not telling it like it is and dragging their heels when it comes to climate change action, will skipping school finally spark meaningful change?

By: Ringo Bones

I might be getting old when the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to thousands of high-school students skipping schools is going to an Iron Maiden or Metallica concert, but as of late, thousands of mostly high-school students are now skipping school on a weekly basis in order to protest over their elected officials inaction over climate change. The most recent of which happened in Berlin, Germany and is lead by the very high-school girl that started it all, Sweden’s very own Greta Thunberg.

Greta Thunberg is a 16-year-old Swedish political activist seeking to stop climate change and global warming. In August 2018, she quickly rose to prominence for starting the first “school strike for climate” outside the Swedish parliament building. In November 2018, she spoke at TEDxStockholm, in December 2018, she addressed the United Nations Climate Change Conference and in January 2019, she was invited to talk to the World Economic Forum at Davos.

Greta has been walking out of Swedish schools due to the grown-ups inaction when it comes to climate change and according to her: “the grown-ups are not telling it like it is”. And what makes her cause face an uphill struggle is that people like US President Donald J. Trump and prominent people of America’s so-called Christian Right are actively denying the existence of climate change and global warming because they are so beholden to the so-called Big Oil and the rest of the multi-national fossil fuel industry. The School Strike For Climate may be facing an uphill struggle, but the movement has been swiftly spreading across the globe.

United States National Butterfly Center to be Bulldozed For Trump’s Wall?

If putting migrant children in cages is not cruel enough, would President Trump give the green light to bulldoze the US National Butterfly Center?

By: Ringo Bones

The center’s director Marianna Wright compares the site to Disney’s Fantasia and more than 200 wildlife species, not just butterflies, make their homes at America’s most diverse sanctuary. But if President Trump had his way, all of it could be bulldozed to oblivion. On any given day at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, visitors can see more than 60 varieties of butterflies. In the spring and fall, monarch butterflies and other species can blanket the center’s 100 acres of subtropical bushlands that extend from the visitor center to the banks of the Rio Grande river, where the wildlife center and US sovereignty ends.

The Trump administration could now bulldoze the National Butterfly Center to oblivion in order to build Trump’s so-called border wall because back in December 2018, the US Supreme Court issued a ruling allowing the Trump administration to waive 28 federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act and begin construction on 33 new miles of border wall in the heart of the valley – and right through the National Butterfly Center.

According to the National Butterfly Center’s director Marianna Wright “Environmental tourism contributes more than $450-million to Hidalgo and Starr counties.” referring to the adjacent counties in the valley. “Many of the properties people choose to visit to see birds, butterflies and threatened and endangered species are all going to be behind the border wall. For us, the economic impact is potentially catastrophic.”

More than 200 species of resident or migrating butterflies make homes at the butterfly center over the course of the year, including the vibrant Mexican bluewing, the tiny vicroy’s ministreak and the black swallowtail which carpets the wild dill at the property with its eggs each spring. The center opened in 2003 and is the flagship project of the North American Butterfly Association. Sadly, Trump has expansive powers to construct the border wall on both public and private land because since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security has had the power to waive numerous environmental laws in the name of national security. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Emmanuel Macron: Let’s Make The Planet Great Again?

As a counter rebuttal to U.S. President Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Climate Deal, could former action star and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and newly-elected French president Emmanuel Macron “make the planet great again”? 

By: Ringo Bones 

A lot of the world’s head-of-states and environmental ministers and secretaries might have been dismayed by U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s withdrawal last month from the historic 2015 Paris Climate Deal – which was signed by 195 countries and ratified by 147 aiming to reduce carbon emissions and contain global warming. Could President Trump’s climate change denial risking the long-term future of our planet? Thankfully, a recent 10-second clip that represents a “new hope” to those dismayed by U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s recent announcement to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Deal runs for full duration with the caption: “With President Macron, a great leader!” It ends with President Macron bringing out his new catchphrase: “We will deliver together to make the planet great again.” 

The good news is, is that the pact made in the recent Sorbonne University meeting could eventually be put to the United Nations for adoption and to impose legally-binding obligations on signatory states, its drafters – comprising legal experts from several countries – have said. Attendees at the Sorbonne include former United Nations chief Ban Ki Moon. It was chaired by the former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius who also chaired the 2015 conference on climate change. 

Many world leaders are quite agog at President Trump’s recent decision to withdraw from the historic Paris Climate Deal given his mercantilist background. Since 2014, renewable energy systems like wind turbines and solar photovoltaic and solar thermal electricity generation business are already 3 times as profitable as their coal and crude oil based counterparts and in the United States alone, the renewable energy industry employ 3-times as much workers currently employed in the crude oil extraction and coal mining sector. And many experts predict that automobiles fueled by crude oil sourced fuels could become as rare as 1930s era automobiles still running today by the year 2030.

March For Science: Science Versus Donald J. Trump?

Even though the Earth Day “March for Science” was primarily aimed at the Trump Administration’s suppression of scientific research results, has America’s political and religious persecution of science finally reached a tipping point? 

By: Ringo Bones 

If you asked me, I wish that this year’s March for Science that coincided with this year’s April 22 Earth Day festivities should have been started back in 1996 to mark the moment that America’s radical right-wing Evangelical Christians started interfering scientific results of the National Academy of Science – especially ones that concern women’s health, climate change and environmental pollution. Fat forward to the election of Donald J. Trump into the U.S. presidency thanks to his “rhetoric” proclaiming that climate change is a hoax invented by The People’s Republic of China to help make them sell wind turbines and photovoltaic solar panels, not to mention Trump signing an executive order to undo any Obama Administration era Clean Energy and Security programs, many observant Christians finally reached the point of “Holy Jesus Hitler Christ, enough is enough” to have decided on this year’s Earth Day to march into Washington as a show of unity that Donald J. Trump’s Alternative Facts is no solution to global warming and sea level rise brought about by climate change due to man-made greenhouse gas emissions from industrial activity. 

Similar marches also happened around the world largely inspired by the march on Washington D.C. At a demonstration in Washington D.C., Dr. Jonathan Foley, the executive director of the California Academy of Sciences, said that research was being irrationally questioned, adding that attacks from politicians – especially from the U.S. Republican Party – “amounted to oppression”. According to Dr. Foley, skeptical politicians in DC are specifically targeting science that protects our health – especially women’s health – our safety and the environment. “Science that protects the most vulnerable among us”, Foley said. In short, everyone the world over protested on this year’s Earth Day against what they consider to be an “alarming trend” among politicians for discrediting their research.

Coal and Crude Oil On the Way Out?

Given the revelations at the annual UN’s COP22 meeting in Marrakech, are coal and crude oil on the way out to be replaced by renewable energy sources? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Maybe the American president-elect Donald J. Trump should pay close attention to the “revelations” of this year’s COP22 climate conference held in Marrakech which shows that renewable are increasingly getting more economically viable and coal is on the way out because more and more developing countries are rejecting its use due to the harm it can do to the environment offsets any profit gained. Maybe president-elect Trump should offer America’s coal industry alternative jobs instead. 

International Energy Agency representatives and industry analysts during this year’s COP22 Conference in Marrakech have shown figures that, if current trends continue, in the subsequent decades, renewable could become more economically viable than coal and crude oil due to China and scores of African states choosing to adopt renewable energy infrastructures for power generation. The only fossil fuel that could remain economically viable in the subsequent decades is natural gas – that is if the environmental downsides of fracking are solved. 

Ever since China has adopted renewable energy sources big time since 2005 and the country’s increased impetus to adopt renewable energy sources in the wake of the air pollution threatening to spoil the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the current economies of scale has driven coal and crude oil less economically viable in comparison to large-scale wind turbine and solar power installations. Look like environmentalists around the world could get the most of what they want and, sadly, America’s coal industry could die an ignominious death from an environmentalists’ perspective.