Featured Stories Archive
"We're Living on Borrowed Time"
London — Prince Charles has launched his "green revolution" with a stark warning that we are all "living on borrowed time" if we don't stop eating up the world's resources.
In a forthright speech in front of leading figures, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, on December 6, the Prince said: "We are consuming the resources of our planet at such a rate that we are, in effect, living off credit and living on borrowed time. It is our children and grandchildren who will have to pay off this debt and we owe it to them and ourselves to do something about it before it is too late."
The Prince launched his Costing The Earth — The Accounting For Sustainability project at a forum at St James's Palace attended by politicians and business and faith leaders. They included the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, and Lord Browne, chief executive of BP. Former Vice-President Al Gore praised Charles's green initiative in a video message to the forum. He said it may be "one of the most important initiatives" and stressed: "We need to continue the effort to solve the climate crisis."
The heir to the British throne is determined to reduce his carbon footprint on the world. The Prince intends to cut back on the number of domestic and international air flights, which introduce carbon emissions directly into the atmosphere. To reach engagements he intends to journey by rail more frequently and as far as possible on regular services. Many flights will be replaced by car journeys and he will convert his personal Jaguar and Land Rover to run on biodiesel. He encourages his staff to make trips around the capital on bicycle instead of taking cars or cabs. The Prince is set to label all his Duchy Originals range of high-quality organic and premium sustainably-produced products with details of greenhouse gases made during their production. Under the plan, every stage of production will be looked at to examine how much carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other gases are emitted. A Clarence House spokeswoman said: "The prince hopes that Duchy Originals will be able to lead the way and thinks that people should know the cost of their food in terms of greenhouse gases as well as pounds and pence." The Queen has already gone green at Windsor Castle with a plan to use hydroelectric power. The Duke of Edinburgh uses a taxi cab fuelled by liquid petroleum gas to travel around London, while water in a bore hole at Buckingham Palace is used to supply air conditioning to the Queen's gallery before topping up the water levels in the Palace lake.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, has previously warned that without a radical rethink of the relationship between environmental and economic challenges the world could face the specter of social collapse. In a keynote lecture at the University of Kent in Canterbury in 2005, Dr. Williams said that the separation, or even the opposition, of economic and environmental concerns had "come to look like a massive mistake." Economy and ecology, he warned, cannot be separated. To seek to have economy without ecology is to try and manage an environment with no knowledge or concern about how it works in itself — to try and formulate human laws in abstraction from or ignorance of the laws of nature.
Dr. Williams foresaw dire consequences for such an approach: "When we speak about environmental crisis, we are not to think only of spiralling poverty and mortality, but about brutal and uncontainable conflict. An economics that ignores environmental degradation invites social degradation — in plain terms, violence."
The archbishop went on to recommend new regulatory frameworks to protect the environment from economic depredation. He spoke of the urgency of some intensified international regime to monitor and discipline economic activity. He also envisaged a charter of environmental rights, adding: "we should be able to live in a world that still had wilderness spaces, that still nurtured a balanced variety of species, that allowed us access to unpoisoned natural foodstuffs."
Dr. Williams highlighted the significance of faith traditions in promoting a new approach: "All the great religious traditions, in their several ways, insist that personal wealth is not to be seen in terms of reducing the world to what the individual can control and manipulate for whatever exclusively human purposes may be most pressing." He added: "The loss of a sustainable environment protected from unlimited exploitation is the loss of a sustainable humanity in every sense — not only the loss of a spiritual depth but ultimately the loss of simple material stability as well. It is up to us as consumers and voters to do better justice to the "house" we have been invited to keep, the world where we are guests."
Government Report Shows EPA Still Failing to
Conduct Environmental Justice Reviews
Washington, D.C. — On September 19, 2006 the Office of the Inspector General released a report, EPA Needs to Conduct Environmental Justice Reviews of Its Programs, Policies, and Activities, in which it found that the Environmental Protection Agency is still failing to conduct environmental justice reviews of their programs, policies and activities. The report found that the EPA "cannot determine whether its programs cause disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects on communities of color and low-income populations."
In a joint statement released the same day, congressional leaders once again condemned the EPA's failure to comply with Executive Order 12898, issued by President Clinton in 1994, which directed all government agencies in the executive branch to conduct such reviews.
Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (D-CA32) (pictured left) said, "This report is yet more proof that the Administration and its senior officials have ignored their responsibility to protect the health and welfare of working families across this county. The continued failure of this Administration and its senior agency officials to protect the health of low income and minority communities is unacceptable. They must be held accountable."
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) said, "This report is further evidence that minority and low income neighborhoods that have become America's industrial dumping grounds and this administration couldn't care less. We will go to the mat on this. Simply put, the EPA needs to start doing its job and end this national disgrace."
Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate's incoming Assistant Majority Leader, said, "Once again, the Bush Administration has fallen short of meeting its obligations to millions of people living in some of the most economically disadvantaged areas in the country. The EPA needs to live up to its obligation to protect all Americans — not just those in the upper tax brackets — and implement the steps necessary to combat the environmental injustices present in our minority and low-income communities."
The Inspector General found that sixty percent of the responding EPA program officials reported that they had not performed environmental justice reviews and eighty-sevent percent reported that EPA senior management had not requested them to perform such reviews. Eighty percent reported that they did not know how to do an environmental justice assessment and that protocols, framework or additional direction would be useful.
The report came just one year after Solis, Kerry, Durbin and seventy-five other Members of Congress, including speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, expressed concern about the EPA's proposal to delete race as a consideration for determining environmental justice, and just six months after the White House deleted evidence showing a proposed rule on soot could hurt low-income populations and may have a substantial impact on the life expectancy in the United States.
As Representative Solis stated, "For decades, industrial zones, refineries, and power plants have jeopardized the health of low-income and minority communities. In Southern California, 71 percent of African-Americans and 50 percent of Latinos live in non-attainments areas. Nationally, people of color are three times more likely to be hospitalized or die from asthma and other respiratory illnesses linked to air pollutions."
On February 11, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12898, entitled Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations. Unable to compel a reluctant Congress to address the issue of environmental justice by way of legislation, President Clinton's order was directed to all federal agencies under the control of the executive branch of the American government.
As might be expected, the Bush Administration generally ignored Executive Order 12898, but in March 2004 the Inspector General's office did issue a report, EPA Needs to Consistently Implement the Intent of the Executive Order on Environmental Justice, stating that the EPA had not fully implemented Executive Order 12898 nor consistently integrated environmental justice into its day-to-day operations.
This latest report demonstrates that the EPA and the Bush Administration has generally refused to listen to its own people on issues of environmental justice.
That's why we're here. And that's why we need your help!
Pope Benedict XVI Warns: Damage to the Environment Threatens the Poor
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI delivered a strong warning against environmental damage, saying it was aggravating the already heavy burden on the world's poor.
The pope, speaking at his summer villa outside Rome Aug. 27, expressed support for the Italian church's first day dedicated to the protection of creation, which was to be celebrated Sept. 1.
The pope said the created world was a great gift of God but is presently "exposed to serious risks by life choices and lifestyles that can degrade it."
"In particular, environmental degradation makes poor people's existence intolerable," he said.
The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church says the world's poor, who often live in polluted slums, are connected to the environmental crisis. In cases of poverty and hunger, it is "virtually impossible" to avoid environmental exploitation, said the 2004 social doctrine.
Pope Benedict said, "In dialogue with Christians of various churches, we need to commit ourselves to caring for the created world, without squandering its resources, and sharing them in a cooperative way."
The Italian initiative aimed to promote the church's teaching on care for the environment. In churches throughout the country, the faithful were being asked to pray and to meditate on ecological damage.
In July, the pope sent a message to Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, praising his efforts in reminding Christians of their duty to protect the environment. In that message, the pope warned that the ecological balance of the Amazon region was under threat.
EnviroJustice Supports Grassy Narrows Struggle for Self-Determination
More than 2,500 square miles of forests, lakes and rivers north of Kenora, Ontario have sustained the people of Grassy Narrows First Nation for thousands of years. Now Weyerhaeuser, the largest lumber company in the world, is driving a wave of destructive logging that threatens to uproot their traditional way of life.
The Grassy Narrows First Nation has and continues to be subjected to human rights abuses. Throughout much of the twentieth century, Grassy Narrows children were forcibly taken from their families to the now infamous church-run "residential schools" that indoctrinated them into the anglo way of life. Many suffered abuse at the hands of their caretakers. In the 1960s, the community was "relocated" by the Canadian government from their traditional territory to a reserve on a small, stagnant lake away from the wide-open rivers the community depended upon for food and water. Housing was inadequate and the soil was too poor to support even kitchen gardens.
Hydroelectric damming, touted by the provincial authorities for their environmental benefits, flooded sacred burial grounds and destroyed wild rice beds — a major food staple. The consequent deplacement of families further resulted in a loss of traditional knowledge, language, culture and spirituality.
Now, Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi, another major lumber company, are clear-cut logging the Grassy Narrows land without the community's consent. This exploitation is robbing the community of economic opportunities, and destroying their way of life.
Fortunately, the Grassy Narrows community is taking a stand. In 2002, Grassy Narrows established a blockade on a logging road in their territory, sparking the longest standing and highest profile indigenous logging blockade in Canadian history. However, more than three years later, logging is still taking place on remote sections of their land where the community does not have the resources to block all of the logging roads in their territory. Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi refuse to stop the logging, leave the land and respect the community's right to self-determiniation within their traditional territory.
Grassy Narrows First Nation and an international coalition of allies, including EnviroJustice and Rainforest Action Network, are challenging wood and paper buyers to demand respect for indigenous rights.
And you can help. Go to Free Grassy Narrows and sign the petition to pledge your support to the Grassy Narrows First Nation's struggle to stop Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi from logging without their consent on their land, and secure the right to self-determination within their traditional territory.
Banks Failing Environment and Social Standards
A new study released by BankTrack and World Wildlife Fund on January 26 has found that there is a growing commitment to sustainable banking within the international banking sector. However, the report also highlighted the need for the sector to adopt more transparent financing policies, advancing sustainability while helping to reduce their exposure to risk. This is a concern because environmental justice must "follow the money" to locate the centers of injustice to be able to take action.
The report, Shaping the Future of Sustainable Finance: Moving the Banking Sector from Promises to Performance, ranked the financing policies of 39 international banks across 13 issue areas, from climate change to human rights. The study also benchmarked the banks' policies against international norms, and found that banks are failing to uphold environmental and social standards developed by UN agencies and other international bodies.
One of the foundations of sustainability is transparency and the report found a near total lack of publicly available information. The world has moved on from "trust me" to "show me" and without transparency even the more progressive banks leave themselves vulnerable to charges of "greenwash".
"This study shows that the banks have some real blind spots when it comes to sustainability. Only eight banks - or 20 per cent of those surveyed - have a human rights policy, which is a huge gap given the importance of this issue," said Johan Frijns, coordinator of BankTrack, an international network of advocacy NGOs monitoring the finance sector. "Before the banking sector congratulates itself too much for its successes it should take a hard look at this report and tackle those problem areas where progress is urgently needed."
The study also serves as a reality check for the banks which have adopted the Equator Principles, a set of project finance policies based on the International Finance Corporation standards.
"This report shows the Equator Principles clearly cannot be considered best practice," said Michelle Chan-Fishel of Friends of the Earth - US, who noted that banks adopting only the Equator Principles earned lower-than-average rankings. "First, the Equator Principles have always been weak in some areas, such as human rights. Second, this report identifies several examples where individual banks' environmental and social policies go far beyond the Equator Principles in substance and scope."
For the full press release, click here.