Grade: High School, 12th grade Participation in Government
Class Duration: Seven 45 minute class periods
Learning Objectives: Students will be able to:
1. Identify and understand some of the issues surrounding Global Warming.
2. Interpret and articulate the meaning of specific media resources pertaining to Global Warming.
3. Write a persuasive letter to the President of the United States regarding Global Warming.
Materials:
photo from Hurricane Sandy:
Activity 1: Do-Now: Do-Now Activity Worksheet
Activity 2:
Media Comparison Exercise: Use Media Critique Question Sheet for media analysis of two clips.
http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/01/23/cnns-erick-erickson-climate-change-seems-like-a/192369
CNN's Erick Erickson: Climate Change Seems Like "A Problem We Probably Have To Get Used To" Rather Than One "We Can Cure" ››› MEDIA MATTERS STAFF
Time: 2:17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e-2iRRrBts
DemocracyNow!Amy Goodman Questions Top U.S. Envoy on Role of U.S. to Curb Emissions, Pay Climate Reparations
Time: 1:58
Activity 3:
Read the two articles, (find articles below), view the video clips and fill out the INFORMATION GATHERING WORKSHEET
- Article 1: 4/12/12 www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/4/12/the_long_hot_march_of_climate_change The Long, Hot March of Climate Change, By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
- Article 2: 7/4/12 www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/7/4/climate_change_this_is_just_the_beginning Climate Change: 'This Is Just the Beginning', By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan, 7/4/12
- Video 1: www.smithsonianmag.com/video/Climate-Change-101-With-Bill-Nye-the-Science-Guy.html Climate Change 101 With Bill Nye the Science Guy The famous scientist cuts through the global warming noise and lays out the facts (4:33)
Does Barack Obama really care about climate change?
President Barack Obama has declared a host of new measures to tackle climate change, but how serious is he about leading the fight against global warming? 1:18PM BST 27 Sep 2013
IPCC report: global warming theory is 'junk science'
Telegraph columnist James Delingpole says Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a "political organisation rather than a scientific one which uses the science to its own ends".
1:16PM BST 27 Sep 2013
- Video Clip 5: 8/29/11 www.democracynow.org/2011/8/29/global_warming_war_new_study_finds Global Warming & War: New Study Finds Link Between Climate Change and Conflict
- Video Clip 6: 6/21/12 www.democracynow.org/2012/6/21/are_you_here_to_save_face "Are You Here to Save Face — or Save Us?": Brittany Trilford, 17, Addresses World Leaders at Rio+20
- Video Clip 7: 12/7/12 www.democracynow.org/2012/12/7/your_governments_have_failed_you_syrian"Your Governments Have Failed You": Syrian-American Student Munira Sibai Calls For Climate Justice
- Video Clip 8: 2/19/13 www.democracynow.org/2013/2/19/the_atm_for_climate_denial_secretive The ATM for Climate Denial: Secretive Donors Trust Funds Vast Network of Global Warming Skeptics
- Video Clip 9: 12/18/13 www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/12/18/video_kochtopus_map_of_the_billionaire_koch_brothers_influence New "Kochtopus" Graphic Maps the Influence of Billionaire Koch Brothers on Climate Policy
- Video Clip 10: 12/10/12 www.democracynow.org/2012/12/10/incredibly_disappointed_civil_groups_decry_weak "Incredibly Disappointed": Civil Groups Decry Weak COP18 Deal amid Deadly Proof of Climate Change
1. Have students answer the Do-Now/Motivation activity. Elicit student responses. After eliciting responses, explain to students that they are looking at a picture of the effects of Hurricane Sandy on our daily lives; the flooding at the Newark, NJ train station as caught on camera.
2. Tell students that we will continue to learn about climate change and Global Warming and direct them to Activity 2: Media Critique Question Sheet for media analysis of two clips.
3. Have students view the various videos including Democracy Now! videos, with transcripts, about Global Warming examining what Climate Change is and examine how Global Warming affects our environment, political systems, and the business sector. Direct students to fill out the 5 W’s and 1 H questions on the INFORMATION GATHERING WORKSHEET to gather and explain the information found in the articles and videos.
4. Using these materials, students will take a position on Global Warming and debate each other about Climate Change.
Activity 1: Do-Now: Do-Now Activity Worksheet
Do-Now:
NAME: _______________________________________ DATE: __________________
Do-Now Activity Worksheet
1. Look at the picture and describe what you see. “Upon first glance I notice”… ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Look at the picture again carefully and describe what you see “Upon further observation, I see”… ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. What does the picture make you think of? Why do you think this is so? “I think this picture is about…because…” ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Activity 2: Media Critique Question Sheet for media analysis of two clips.
http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/01/23/cnns-erick-erickson-climate-change-seems-like-a/192369
CNN's Erick Erickson: Climate Change Seems Like "A Problem We Probably Have To Get Used To" Rather Than One "We Can Cure"
Video ››› ››› MEDIA MATTERS STAFF
Time: 2:17
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e-2iRRrBts
Time: 1:58
Know Your Media Literacy in the Classroom and the World
Media Critique Question Sheet for media analysis
| Key questions for analyzing media messages |
Mainstream News
|
Democracy Now! Clip
|
| 1. Who are the people shown? (note race, gender, age, ethnicity, class, occupation, etc.) 2. Who is left out? 3. Whose voice drives the story? | ||
| 4. What kinds of visuals accompany the stories and the portrayals of individuals and events? 5. How much time is given to speaker/story and how was time used? | ||
| 6. Who might benefit from the clip? 7. Who might be harmed? 8. Whose interests are being served? | ||
| 9. What is my interpretation of this, and what do I learnabout myself from my reaction or interpretation? Does it reflect my experience? 10. What impact does the clip have on me as a viewer? |
www.DEMOCRACYNOW.ORG
Activity 3:
NAME: ______________________________ DATE: ____________ JOURNALISM
INFORMATION GATHERING WORKSHEET Directions: After reading your articles, please respond by answering the 5 W’s and 1 H questions. Share the information you learned with members of your group.
1. Who is this article about? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. What happened? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3. When did it take place? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Where did it take place? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Why did it happen? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6. How did it happen? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Article 1:
www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/4/12/the_long_hot_march_of_climate_change
APRIL 12, 2012
The Long, Hot March of Climate Change By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
The Pentagon knows it. The world’s largest insurers know it. Now, governments may be overthrown because of it. It is climate change, and it is real. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, last month was the hottest March on record for the United States since 1895, when records were first kept, with average temperatures of 8.6 degrees F above average. More than 15,000 March high-temperature records were broken nationally. Drought, wildfires, tornadoes and other extreme weather events are already plaguing the country.
Across the world in the Maldives, rising sea levels continue to threaten this Indian Ocean archipelago. It is the world’s lowest-lying nation, on average only 1.3 meters above sea level. The plight of the Maldives gained global prominence when its young president, the first-ever democratically elected there, Mohamed Nasheed, became one of the world’s leading voices against climate change, especially in the lead-up to the 2009 U.N. climate-change summit in Copenhagen. Nasheed held a ministerial meeting underwater, with his cabinet in scuba gear, to illustrate the potential disaster.
In February, Nasheed was ousted from his presidency at gunpoint. The Obama administration, through State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, said of the coup d’etat, “This was handled constitutionally.” When I spoke to Nasheed last month, he told me: “It was really shocking and deeply disturbing that the United States government so instantly recognized the former dictatorship coming back again. ... The European governments have not recognized the new regime in the Maldives.” There is a parallel between national positions on climate change and support or opposition to the Maldives coup.
Nasheed is the subject of a new documentary, “The Island President,” in which his remarkable trajectory is traced. He was a student activist under the dictatorship of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and was arrested and tortured, along with many others. By 2008, when elections were finally held, Gayoom lost, and Nasheed was elected. As he told me, though: “It’s easy to beat a dictator, but it’s not so easy to get rid of a dictatorship. The networks, the intricacies, the institutions and everything that the dictatorship has established remains, even after the elections.” On the morning of Feb. 7, 2012, under threat of death to him and his supporters from rebelling army generals, Nasheed resigned.
While no direct link has been found yet between Nasheed’s climate activism and the coup, it was clear in Copenhagen in 2009 that he was a thorn in the Obama administration’s side. Nasheed and other representatives from AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island States, were taking a stand to defend their nations’ very existence, and building alliances with grass-roots groups like 350.org, that challenge corporate-dominated climate policy.
Back in the U.S., March delivered this year’s first weather disaster that caused more than $1 billion in damage, with tornadoes ravaging four central states and killing 41. Dr. Jeff Masters of the weather website Weather Underground blogged about March that “records not merely smashed, but obliterated.” On March 23, conservative Texas Gov. Rick Perry renewed the state of emergency declared there last year as a result of massive droughts.
Texas lists 1,000 of the state’s 4,710 community water systems under restrictions. Spicewood, Texas, population 1,100, has run dry, and is now getting water trucked in. Residents have severe restrictions on water use. But for Perry, restricting corporations whose greenhouse-gas emissions lead to climate change is heresy.
Mitt Romney is on track to be the Republican candidate for president, with the support of former challengers like Perry. They are already attacking President Obama on climate change. The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, has been promoting legislation in statehouses to oppose any climate legislation, and rallying members of Congress to block federal action, especially by hampering the work of the Environmental Protection Agency. As the Center for Media and Democracy has detailed in its “ALEC Exposed” reporting, ALEC is funded by the country’s major polluters, including ExxonMobil, BP America, Chevron, Peabody Energy, and Koch Industries. The Koch brothers have also funded tea-party groups like FreedomWorks, to create the appearance of grass-roots activism.
This election season will likely be marked by more extreme weather events, more massive loss of life, and billions of dollars in damages.
President Nasheed is working to run again for his lost presidency, as President Obama tries to hold on to his. The climate may hang in the balance.
Article 2: www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/7/4/climate_change_this_is_just_the_beginning
JULY 04, 2012
Climate Change: 'This Is Just the Beginning' By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
Evidence supporting the existence of climate change is pummeling the United States this summer, from the mountain wildfires of Colorado to the recent “derecho” storm that left at least 23 dead and 1.4 million people without power from Illinois to Virginia. The phrase “extreme weather” flashes across television screens from coast to coast, but its connection to climate change is consistently ignored, if not outright mocked. If our news media, including—or especially—the meteorologists, continue to ignore the essential link between extreme weather and climate change, then we as a nation, the greatest per capita polluters on the planet, may not act in time to avert even greater catastrophe.
More than 2,000 heat records were broken last week around the U.S. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the government agency that tracks the data, reported that the spring of 2012 “marked the largest temperature departure from average of any season on record for the contiguous United States.” These record temperatures in May, NOAA says, “have been so dramatically different that they establish a new ‘neighborhood’ apart from the historical year-to-date temperatures.”
In Colorado, at least seven major wildfires are burning at the time of this writing. The Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs destroyed 347 homes and killed at least two people. The High Park fire farther north burned 259 homes and killed one. While officially “contained” now, that fire won’t go out, according to Colorado’s Office of Emergency Management, until an “act of nature such as prolonged rain or snowfall.” The “derecho” storm system is another example. “Derecho” is Spanish for “straight ahead,” and that is what the storm did, forming near Chicago and blasting east, leaving a trail of death, destruction and downed power lines.
Add drought to fire and violent thunderstorms. According to Dr. Jeff Masters, one of the few meteorologists who frequently makes the connection between extreme weather and climate change, “across the entire Continental U.S., 72 percent of the land area was classified as being in dry or drought conditions” last week. “We’re going to be seeing a lot more weather like this, a lot more impacts like we’re seeing from this series of heat waves, fires and storms. ... This is just the beginning.”
Fortunately, we might be seeing a lot more of Jeff Masters, too. He was a co-founder of the popular weather website Weather Underground in 1995. Just this week he announced that the site had been purchased by The Weather Channel, perhaps the largest single purveyor of extreme weather reports. Masters promises the same focus on his blog, which he hopes will reach the much larger Weather Channel audience. He and others are needed to counter the drumbeat denial of the significance of human-induced climate change, of the sort delivered by CNN’s charismatic weatherman Rob Marciano. In 2007, a British judge was considering banning Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” from schools in England. After the report, Marciano said on CNN, “Finally. Finally ... you know, the Oscars, they give out awards for fictional films, as well. ... Global warming does not conclusively cause stronger hurricanes like we’ve seen.” Masters responded to that characteristic clip by telling me, “Our TV meteorologists are missing a big opportunity here to educate and tell the population what is likely to happen.”
Beyond the borders of wealthy countries like the United States, in developing countries where most people in the world live, the impacts of climate change are much more deadly, from the growing desertification of Africa to the threats of rising sea levels and the submersion of small island nations.
The U.S. news media have a critical role to play in educating the public about climate change. Imagine if just half the times that they flash “Extreme Weather” across our TV screens, they alternated with “Global Warming.” This Independence Day holiday week might just be the beginning of people demanding the push to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, and pursue a sane course toward sustainable energy independence.
- Video 1: www.smithsonianmag.com/video/Climate-Change-101-With-Bill-Nye-the-Science-Guy.html Climate Change 101 With Bill Nye the Science Guy The famous scientist cuts through the global warming noise and lays out the facts (4:33)
Does Barack Obama really care about climate change?
President Barack Obama has declared a host of new measures to tackle climate change, but how serious is he about leading the fight against global warming? 1:18PM BST 27 Sep 2013
IPCC report: global warming theory is 'junk science'
Telegraph columnist James Delingpole says Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a "political organisation rather than a scientific one which uses the science to its own ends".
1:16PM BST 27 Sep 2013
Video Clip 5: 8/29/11 www.democracynow.org/2011/8/29/global_warming_war_new_study_finds
Global Warming & War: New Study Finds Link Between Climate Change and Conflict A new study has found that that often war is associated with global climate change. According to the report, there are links between the climate phenomenon El Niño and outbreaks of violence in countries from southern Sudan to Indonesia and Peru. The scientists find that El Niño, which brings hot and dry conditions to tropical nations, doubles the risk of civil war in up to 90 countries, and may help account for a fifth of conflicts worldwide during the past 50 years. We speak with the report’s lead author, Solomon Hsiang, a postdoctoral researcher at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. [includes rush transcript] TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: We move to another issue around climate. A new study has found that war is associated with global climate. According to the report, there are links between the climate phenomenon El Niño and outbreaks of violence in countries from southern Sudan to Indonesia and Peru. In fact, the scientists find that El Niño, which brings hot and dry conditions to tropical nations, doubles the risk of civil war in up to 90 countries. The study was published online last week in the journal Nature. El Niño may help account for a fifth of conflicts worldwide during the past 50 years. We’re joined by Solomon Hsiang, a lead author of the study linking civil wars with climate change, postdoctoral researcher at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Welcome to Democracy Now! Explain what you found, in these last few minutes. SOLOMON HSIANG: So what we did is we looked at data since 1950, and we looked at how the global climate fluctuated between a cooler and wetter La Niña state and a higher and drier El Niño state. And what we found is that when the global climate was in the cooler and wetter La Niña state, the risk of conflict in the tropics was about three percent per year. So what that means is, if you had a hundred countries, you would expect about three of them to begin a new civil war in any given year. But when you move to the hotter and drier El Niño state, the risk of conflict rises to six percent, which is a doubling. AMY GOODMAN: And a little backing up, El Niño, explain exactly what it is. SOLOMON HSIANG: Sorry. So, El Niño is a change in the global climate that originates in the Pacific Ocean. So under normal conditions, there’s winds that push warm water across the Pacific Ocean and basically pile it up around Indonesia. But in some years, that wind pattern breaks down, and that water sloshes all the way across the ocean, across the equatorial Pacific, and releases a tremendous amount of thermal energy into the atmosphere. And that creates an enormous wave that propagates through the atmosphere around the tropics, leading to warmer and drier conditions throughout most of the tropics and subtropics. AMY GOODMAN: Do you see the U.S. being impacted by El Niño in this way that you’re describing? SOLOMON HSIANG: So, actually, in our study—there are generally observable impacts of El Niño in the United States. But in our study, the impacts were not large enough to merit inclusion in the group of countries that we denoted as being highly impacted by El Niño. So, in the tropics, the effect of El Niño is actually much more dramatic than what we observe in the United States. AMY GOODMAN: What were you most surprised by in this study? SOLOMON HSIANG: So, we were actually most startled by the magnitude of the effect. The idea that El Niño could affect one-fifth of conflicts around the world startled us, and it was completely unexpected. AMY GOODMAN: Give an example. SOLOMON HSIANG: So, you know, we have—it’s very difficult to pin down a particular conflict as being related to El Niño. In general, I think the way to think about it is that the global climate is a contributing factor to ongoing existing conflicts. But there are many countries in the sample that look particularly conspicuous, because they begin conflicts in El Niño years. AMY GOODMAN: Like? SOLOMON HSIANG: For example, Peru, Sudan, Chad, Indonesia, Myanmar, these are all countries that have experienced conflicts that seem to be highly correlated with this process. AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to link to your study at democracynow.org. Solomon Hsiang is our guest, the lead author of a study linking civil wars with global climate change, postdoctoral student at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Countries where the majority of the population lives in areas that become much warmer in El Niño years (red) are more likely to experience wars than those where temperatures are less affected (blue). -source http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110824/full/news.2011.501/box/1.html
Video Clip 6: 6/21/12 www.democracynow.org/2012/6/21/are_you_here_to_save_face
"Are You Here to Save Face — or Save Us?":
Brittany Trilford, 17, Addresses World Leaders at Rio+20 On Wednesday, 17-year-old environmental activist Brittany Trilford of Wellington, New Zealand, addressed more than a hundred heads of state at the opening plenary of the Rio+20 U.N. Earth Summit, the largest United Nations gathering ever. "We are all aware that time is ticking, and we are quickly running out," Trilford said. "You have 72 hours to decide the fate of your children, my children, my children’s children. And I start the clock now." [includes rush transcript] TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Leaders from more than a hundred countries are gathered in Brazil for the Rio+20 Earth Summit, the largest United Nations conference ever. The gathering comes 20 years after the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, when leaders pledged to protect the planet by endorsing treaties on biodiversity and climate change. Since then, few of the development goals have been reached in areas like food security, water, global warming and energy. On Wednesday, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff welcomed world leaders under a cloud of criticism that this new summit will fall far short of its promise to establish new goals. PRESIDENT DILMA ROUSSEFF: [translated] We know that the cost of not acting will be greater than taking the necessary actions, even though they may face resistance and may end up being politically complicated. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A new report by Friends of the Earth International warns that multinational corporations such as oil giant Shell have an undue influence over the Rio+20 Earth Summit. Negotiators had already agreed on a draft before the heads of state arrived Wednesday. Many groups working on environmental and poverty issues have criticized the agreement for being too weak. This is Greenpeace political director Daniel Mittler. DANIEL MITTLER: Any progress that you hear about in press conferences is about progress to water down the text, to avoid commitment, and to—in reality, governments are clearly here to do nothing and to commit to doing nothing. AMY GOODMAN: Well, 20 years ago, a 12-year-old rocked the Earth Summit in Rio with a plea to world leaders to get serious about saving the planet. Her name was Severn Suzuki, and she’ll join us later in the broadcast. She is back in Rio. But first we turn to another young environmentalist, 17-year-old Brittany Trilford of Wellington, New Zealand. On Wednesday, she addressed more than a hundred heads of state at the opening plenary of the Rio+20 U.N. Earth Summit. Listen carefully; the audio has some technical imperfections. BRITTANY TRILFORD: Thank you, Secretary-General and leaders, for the opportunity to address this plenary. Tena koutou from New Zealand. My name is Brittany Trilford. I’m 17 years old. I’m a child. Today, in this moment, I’m all children, your children, the world’s three billion children. Think of me as half the world. I stand here with fire in my heart. I’m confused and angry at the state of the world, and I want us to work together now to change this. We are here today to solve the problems that we have caused as a collective, to ensure that we have a future. You and your governments have promised to reduce poverty and sustain our environment. You have already promised to combat climate change, to ensure clean water and food security. Multinational corporations have already pledged to respect the environment, green their production, compensate for their pollution. These promises have been made, and yet still our future is in danger. We are all aware that time is ticking, and we are quickly running out. You have 72 hours to decide the fate of your children, my children, my children’s children. And I start the clock now. Tick, tick, tick. Let us think back 20 years ago, well before I was even an inkling in my parents’ eyes. Think back here to Rio, where people met at the first Earth Summit in 1992. The people at the summit knew there needed to be change. All our systems were failing, collapsing all around us. And these people came together to acknowledge these challenges, to work for something better, to commit to something better. They made great promises, promises that, when I read them, still leave me feeling hopeful. These promises are left not broken, but empty. How can that be, when all around us there is knowledge that offers us solutions? Nature, as a design tool, offers insight into systems that are whole, complete, that give life, create value, allow progress, transformation and change. We, the next generation, demand change, demand action, so that we can have a future. We trust you, in the next 72 hours, to put our interests before all other interests and boldly do the right thing. I am here to fight for my future. That’s why I’m here. And I would like to end today by asking you to consider why you’re here and what you can do. Are you here to save face? Or are you here to save us? Thank you. AMY GOODMAN: That was 17-year-old Brittany Trilford, a young environmentalist from Wellington, New Zealand, addressing more than a hundred world leaders, business representatives, NGOs, during the opening plenary of the Rio+20 U.N. summit, the largest U.N. summit ever. She’s joining us now from Rio de Janeiro, where the Rio+20 summit is taking place. Brittany, welcome to Democracy Now! BRITTANY TRILFORD: Hi. AMY GOODMAN: What was it like to be up there? You’re addressing the majority of the world’s leaders. What do you expect to come from your speech and this summit? BRITTANY TRILFORD: Well, it felt amazing. It was very nerve-racking, but very, very exciting. I hope that the world leaders can listen to my speech, that they feel what I was trying to say, that they understand the atmosphere and the ideas that I was trying to portray there, and that they’re driven to fulfill the promises that I asked of them: to act now, to act urgently, and to act boldly. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Brittany, can you tell us something of your—how you first became involved in environmental activism, what prompted you, and how you ended up being chosen to make this presentation? BRITTANY TRILFORD: Oh, sure. Well, I’ve always been really into youth affairs and giving youth a voice. And I received an email from one of the networks that I’m part of about this Date with History competition. And it’s run by TckTckTck, a collaboration of over 300 NGOs. And they asked me to give a two-minute speech to the world leaders about the future that I want. And I completely jumped at it, because I have a lot to say about the future that I want. I have a lot of demands. And so, I thought, "Well, this is perfect." This is the—this is the audience that needs to hear this. AMY GOODMAN: And how did you make your way from New Zealand to Rio? Were you a group of high school students? Who paid your way? BRITTANY TRILFORD: Well, it was just me that went with the Date with History competition, and I joined the TckTckTck team over in Rio here. And I came along with my dad, as well, so he’s here in Rio with me. AMY GOODMAN: And in terms of what you hope to see take place, the whole issue of climate change, how does climate change affect New Zealand, where you come from, Wellington, New Zealand? BRITTANY TRILFORD: OK, well, climate change affects everywhere in the world very dramatically, and it will continue to progress and sink deeper and deeper, and more of our systems will fail and collapse. So I think that in terms of how it affects Wellington, I think it affects Wellington just as much as other places all over the world. I mean, every day when I’m in Wellington, I see the effects of climate change. I can—it’s snowing in Wellington. It hasn’t snowed in Wellington for the last 50 years. So that’s—it’s just little things like that that are going to build and build into something really big and really irreversible, and something really awful. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: After your presentation, did any of the delegates come up to you, talk to you directly or comment on your presentation and its impact, if any, on their work there? BRITTANY TRILFORD: Yeah. I think—well, lots of the delegates and lots of people watching on TV and things like that responded really well. I think what I said, because it was so simplistic, because it was a 17-year-old’s view of the moral truths of what is happening here, they could really relate to what I was saying, and I think it resonated with a lot of people. I think the delegates that did come up and comment to me, because it was so simple, they understood what I was trying to say, and they felt the passion, not just of me, but of all the youth that I was trying to share there. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Brittany, you only got five minutes, but that was five minutes where you were addressing the world. Is there anything you didn’t get to say in that address that you had to edit out for time, and especially as you address young people around the world, many of whom may feel whatever they do does not make a difference? BRITTANY TRILFORD: OK, well, something I have said in the other speeches, but not—that I couldn’t particularly portray in the U.N. plenary was that this power of youth, this absolute—it’s such a powerful force. And sometimes I think they underestimate themselves. We have tools and technologies available to us, like social media, like radio and TV, where we can share ideas, where we can communicate, where we can educate. And it’s such a valuable, powerful tool. The voice of youth is so strong, so clear, so truthful. And I think that they can really not only speak truth to power like I did at the U.N. plenary, but they can take power. And I think that’s really important to look at, and I think that’s really something that the youth should take on board, should get involved with, should engage with. And I think it’s really something I wanted to share at the U.N. plenary, for sure. And I think I’ll continue to share that message through media like yourselves. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Brittany Trilford, I want to thank you very much for being with us, from Wellington, New Zealand, now in Rio de Janeiro at the largest U.N. summit ever. Brittany was the winner of the Date with History competition, which is how she ended up giving this address to the world and the world’s leaders. The competition asked young people to tell world leaders what they want for the future. I want to end up with a clip of those voices. CLAIRE: You, me and seven billion human beings on this planet, we’re pushing the limits. BRITTANY TRILFORD: Our future is in danger. ANDREW: We should be acting urgently, as if there is no tomorrow. ANNIE: The earth is the most treasured possession that we have. There is nothing more precious or worth caring for. FRANCISCO: We must do enwind the environment and the people, the same way the clownfish clings to the anemone for a support and survival of the two. CAROLINE: The evolving technology today has presented us with opportunities to turn situations around to our benefit. ALEXANDRA: I see a world where we can better understand human nature, and not see the relationship as humans and nature or humans or nature, but just nature. ANNIE: A world where we don’t take our resources or each other for granted. ELLIE: A world with biodiversity that is respected and protected. PRASHANTH: I envision a world where an environmentally conscious mindset has taken root.
Video Clip 7: 12/7/12
www.democracynow.org/2012/12/7/your_governments_have_failed_you_syrian
"Your Governments Have Failed You":
Syrian-American Student Munira Sibai Calls For Climate Justice Speaking on behalf of youth organizations, 19-year-old Munira Sibai criticized the actions of world leaders as she addressed the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar. "Over the past two weeks, we have seen not only a complete absence of vision, but also an active effort by some to move backwards," Sibai said. "Those who have caused the climate crisis already accepted the responsibility to solve it two decades ago. Today, after 18 years of inaction, the same countries are backing away from that obligation. The foundational principle of equity is under attack." [includes rush transcript] TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: That song sung by tens of thousands of Belgians, now being sung around the world, just about an hour ago sung right behind us on the media bridge here in the Qatar convention center at the 18th climate change summit of the United Nations. I’m Amy Goodman, on our last day of coverage here in Doha, Qatar. Syrian-American student Munira Sibai addressed the climate change plenary today, speaking on behalf of youth non-governmental organizations. She’s a 19-year-old student at Northern Virginia Community College and a member of the group SustainUS. She was born in the United Arab Emirates, not far from here, to Syrian parents, before coming to the United States. MUNIRA SIBAI: [speaking in Arabic] I stand before you, given two minutes to make the same call of action that has fallen upon deaf ears for too long. Over the past two weeks, we have seen not only complete absence of vision, but also an active effort by some to move backwards. Those who have caused the climate crisis already accepted the responsibility to solve it two decades ago. Today, after 18 years of inaction, the same countries are backing away from that obligation. The foundational principle of equity is under attack. Serious discussions of cutting emissions have been sidelined. Instead, you focus on carbon markets, gambling with our futures, throwing lives like poker chips. As you sit here applauding yourselves, the Philippines is being ravaged by the 16th extreme weather event this year. Haiti, Cuba and the U.S. are still counting losses from Hurricane Sandy. The adaptation fund, necessary because of years of inaction, is in grave danger. You, the developed world, must put forward the carbon cuts we need and the money you pledged. You are well on your way to leaving a legacy of global devastation. We’ve been telling you this for years. So let me now speak beyond the negotiators in this room to the people who I represent. Your governments are failing you. They are afraid that offering visionary pathways to low-carbon economies will make them look foolish, that taking responsibility will make them look weak, that standing up to the money and power of polluters will cost them political support. Unchecked, this cowardice will cost lives. Here in the halls of the United Nations, the voices of global citizens are limited, regulated and relegated to these short, symbolic statements. Outside these walls, these walls, there is a global movement, growing up from the grassroots, calling for climate justice. [speaking in Arabic] Join us. MODERATOR: Munira, I think—thank you, Munira. I think you are very popular, you know. So I advise you to nominate you in the next election. You will win. AMY GOODMAN: Syrian-American student Munira Sibai, speaking earlier today before the plenary. She ended her speech with a quote in Arabic from the poet Abu al-Qasim al-Shabi, popular during the Arab Spring, which translate roughly to: "If the people ever wanted life, destiny must respond."
Video clip 8:
2/19/13 www.democracynow.org/2013/2/19/the_atm_for_climate_denial_secretive
The ATM for Climate Denial: Secretive Donors Trust Funds Vast Network of Global Warming Skeptics While the secretive Donors Trust has given millions to a variety of right-wing causes, denying climate change appears to be its top priority. An analysis by the environmentalist group Greenpeace reveals Donors Trust has funneled more than one-third of its donations — at least $146 million — to more than 100 climate change denial groups over the past decade. In 2010, 12 of these groups received between 30 to 70 percent of their funding from Donors Trust. We’re joined by Suzanne Goldenberg, U.S. environment correspondent for The Guardian, who has written a series of articles detailing the ties between Donors Trust and opponents of climate change science. "The goal here is to create this illusion, this idea that there is a really strong movement against the science of climate change and against action on climate change," Goldenberg says. "In fact, that’s actually, to an extent, become a reality now: You see that opposition to action on climate change is central to Republican thinking." [includes rush transcript] TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AARON MATÉ: While Donors Trust has given money to a variety of right-wing causes, denying climate change appears to be its top priority. An analysis by the environmentalist group Greenpeace reveals Donors Trust has funneled at least $146 million to more than 100 climate change denial groups over the past decade. In 2010, 12 of these groups received between 30 to 70 percent of their funding from Donors Trust. Some of the recipients include Americans for Prosperity, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, the Heartland Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. AMY GOODMAN: Although many Donors Trust funders are unknown, at least two of its members include foundations bankrolled by the billionaire Charles Koch, a leading backer of climate denial. According to the most recent figures, the Koch-funded Knowledge and Progress Fund gave Donors Trust nearly $8 million through 2011. For more on Donors Trust and the denial of global warming, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Suzanne Goldenberg, U.S. environment correspondent for The Guardian. She has written a series of articles detailing the ties between Donors Trust and opponents of climate change science. Lay out what you’ve found, Suzanne. SUZANNE GOLDENBERG: Well, basically, what you see is that—over the last decade or so, you see a concerted effort by wealthy conservatives, conservative billionaires, to fund up and prop up a whole series of institutions that could work to undermine the science behind climate change and also work to undermine any kind of effort to pass legislation to deal with climate change. This money is going to think tanks. It’s going to activist groups. It’s going to so-called "scholars." It’s going to a wide range of individuals, you know, more than a hundred different organizations. And, you know, the goal here is to create this illusion, this idea that there is, you know, a really strong movement against the science of climate change and against action on climate change. In fact, that’s actually, to an extent, become a reality now: You see that opposition to action on climate change is central to Republican thinking. AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the different groups. SUZANNE GOLDENBERG: You’ve got lots. You know, you’ve got sort of blue-chip think tanks in Washington, D.C., some of the really big institutions like the American Enterprise Institute. You’ve got organizations that really wouldn’t exist or wouldn’t, you know, make much of an impact at all if they didn’t get half their budget from Donors Trust. In that category, I would put the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. One of its main activities is to run a website that’s like a clearing house for articles that try and discredit the science behind climate change or, you know, launch personal attacks against people like Al Gore or climate scientists, you know, people who speak up against climate change. So you’ve got lots of different efforts going on. I mean, you’ve seen—I don’t know if you remember, a few years back, there was this organization called the Energy Citizens that was launched by Americans for Prosperity, you know, grassroots activists against action on climate change. That, it now turns out, had funding from Donors Trust, as well. AMY GOODMAN: Donors Trust declined our request to join us on today’s show, but the group’s president and CEO, Whitney Ball, provided us with a statement. She wrote, "DonorsTrust was established to promote liberty and help like-minded donors preserve their charitable intent. We follow the same rules and operate in the same manner as other donor-advised funds which include the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, Jewish federations, local community foundations, and the left-of-center Tides Foundation, just to name a few. Donor-advised funds are classified as public charities, and thus are not required to disclose their donors. I do not know of a donor-advised fund that makes their donor lists public. The press has referred to us as a 'black box,' labeled our funding as 'dark money,' and [Suzanne] Goldenberg described us as 'secretive.' These characterizations are unfair and misleading. How is it that the Tides Foundation, which has a record of funding environmental causes and does not publish donor lists, is never characterized in the same way by these same reporters?" Your response, Suzanne Goldenberg, as she names you? SUZANNE GOLDENBERG: Well, oh, sure. This is the first I’ve heard of it. Well, you know, I talked to Whitney Ball. I asked her flat out, "Can you tell me who gives to you, what kind of people give to you?" And she said, "No. I mean, that in fact is the purpose of this trust, to make the giving anonymous, to give—to allow these conservative billionaires to remain hidden." And I think, you know, she’s trying to cast this as, look, the right have their organizations, the left have their organizations. I think there’s something really different here and that comes into play, in that these organizations being supported by Donors Trust are actually working to spread information that is factually incorrect, that is untrue. You know, it’s as if you’re sort of funding groups to go around saying, "Oh, you can get the HIV virus from toilet seats." You can’t draw this equivalence here. These organizations are—you know, were funded for the express purpose, many of them, of spreading disinformation. AARON MATÉ: Now, Suzanne, one of the climate denialists funded by Donors Trust is a group called the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. SUZANNE GOLDENBERG: Yes. AARON MATÉ: They run the website Climate Depot, which consistently attacks scientists and environmentalists who call for taking on global warming. Now, the head of Climate Depot, Marc Morano, appears frequently on Fox News and also mainstream outlets like CNN. On Monday, the day after tens of thousands of people rallied against the Keystone XL pipeline on the National Mall, Morano appeared on Fox News to warn that Keystone opponents could resort to, quote, "ecoterrorism." And he cited as their inspiration the NASA climatologist James Hansen. MARC MORANO: So, the leaders at NASA—and, you know, I call him NASA’s resident ex-con—is inspiring these people to potential acts of ecoterrorism. These people believe in this doomsday prophecy. And don’t think they won’t act. I mean, when I was in the U.S. Senate Environment Committee, we had to deal with ecoterrorism when it came to animal rights. We had to deal—there’s been ecoterrorism when it deals with property rights out in Colorado. So it’s a very real thing—torching SUVs. This movement, if it gets frustrated, particularly frustrated with a Democratic president, Obama, who’s supposed to be their standard bearer, and actually goes ahead and approves the pipeline, there are going to be a lot of angry people, not the least of which is probably the NASA scientist going to jail again, James Hansen. AARON MATÉ: That’s Marc Morano of Climate Depot appearing on Fox News. SUZANNE GOLDENBERG: You know, I wish I’d— AARON MATÉ: Suzanne Goldenberg, if you could talk about his group. SUZANNE GOLDENBERG: Well, I wish I would seen. I mean, that’s quite incredible. Just let’s get back to the truth here, is that, yes, James Hansen was arrested, in fact as recently as last week, and what he was doing was just using plastic twist-tie handcuffs to handcuff himself to the gates of the White House and, you know, in an agreement arranged in advance with the D.C. police, arranged to be arrested in a nonviolent fashion with 40-something other activists, you know, to make a symbolic protest against the Keystone pipeline. So I do not know how you can describe these kind of acts, which, you know, were preceded by Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and other, you know, peaceful resisters—I don’t know how you can call that ecoterrorism. But I think it’s really—it’s really interesting and important to see what Marc Morano is doing here, and which is that he’s deliberately spreading misinformation and lies, really, about what happened and about the means of protest that are taking place against the Keystone pipeline. And this is crucial because it helps create this sort of confusion about what people are doing to oppose the pipeline, and in that confusion, it makes it difficult for people to make an informed choice about what is right, what is wrong, and it makes it really hard for people in Congress or people in government agencies and in state agencies to actually act on a very urgent problem, because there’s so much confusion and controversy surrounding it. AMY GOODMAN: Suzanne, the Donors Trust-backed Heartland Institute sparked controversy last year after it paid for a billboard advertisement in Chicago likening those who accept the reality of global warming to the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. SUZANNE GOLDENBERG: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: The billboard featured a picture of Kaczynski and the words "I still believe in global warming. Do you?" Talk about the Heartland Institute, this ad. SUZANNE GOLDENBERG: That’s interesting. I just want to add, briefly, first, you know, I asked Whitney Ball about that advertisement, and she laughed. And she said, "Look" — and, you know, I was asking, "Well, did your donors like what Heartland did?" And she said, "Some of them did; some of them didn’t." I think that ad was really interesting, because, in a way, it was—you know, it really exposed Heartland Institute and exposed the way that they see—you know, exposed the lengths they will go to to try and defend their cause, right? I mean, you know, for a lot of people looking at that, that was really an extreme kind of action. And I think that’s true. I think what Heartland and these other groups are promoting is a really extreme view and a wrongheaded view of the science of climate change, of the need for action on climate change. That billboard, for many people, crystallized that extreme view. To go back there, the reason why Heartland put up that billboard was because they were feeling besieged and under attack because of a disclosure of information about their finances, which showed that they were being heavily financed by the Koch brothers and by conservatives like Donors Trust. So, they had been the victim of a sting, which sort of laid bare all their financials, laid bare their strategy, and they fought back and sort of went overboard with this extremist ad about the Unabomber. AARON MATÉ: Now, Suzanne, we’ve talked already about the actions of Donors Trust on the state level, and you’ve written about their funding of groups trying to fight wind farming in several states. We have 30 seconds. SUZANNE GOLDENBERG: Yeah, I think that’s their new focus, is not to look at trying to oppose action in Washington on climate change, because it’s not happening, but they’re going to go out into the states and oppose efforts to increase the amount of renewable energy, like wind farms and solar farms. I would also look at them to oppose action for—by city councils in coastal communities to protect themselves from climate change in future development planning. AMY GOODMAN: Suzanne Goldenberg, we want to thank you for being with us, U.S. environment correspondent for The Guardian. Her article, most recently, "Secret Funding Helped Build Vast Network of Climate Denial Thinktanks," and we’ll link to it at democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.
Video clip 9: www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/12/18/video_kochtopus_map_of_the_billionaire_koch_brothers_influence
VIDEO: New "Kochtopus" Graphic Maps the Influence of Billionaire Koch Brothers on Climate Policy
The author of a new report on U.S. carbon billionaires givesDemocracy Now! a tour of the Kochtopus — a map of the empire of Charles and David Koch. The Kochs run oil refineries and control thousands of miles of pipeline, giving them a massive personal stake in the fossil fuel industry. We are joined by Victor Menotti, executive director of the International Forum on Globalization. Click here to see Part 1 of this interview. Read the new report at KochCash.org. See all of Democracy Now’s coverage of the Koch Brothers, and see our Climate Change topic page. AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report_. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting live from the U.N. climate summit in Doha, Qatar. I’m Amy Goodman, and I’m here with Victor Menotti. He is with the International Forum on Globalization and has just released a report/">report called "Faces Behind a Global Crisis: US Carbon Billionaires and the UN Climate Deadlock." We’re turning to his website right now, "The Influence of Koch-Cash." Victor Menotti, take us on a tour. VICTOR MENOTTI: Well, you go to kochcash.org, and you click right here on The Kochtopus, what you get is this. And this is a mapping that we’ve done of how they move their money, the structure of their influence network, and it’s an unprecedented scale. So, first of all, Charles and David Koch, we have to update this, because it’s not $76.4, it’s now $80.2 billion. They’re a single financial-political entity, more than the world’s wealthiest man, Carlos Slim. So, more cash than anybody on the planet. Their money comes from oil, gas, refining. Their father, Fred, invented cracking, which is what turns crude oil into gasoline. So, all of the technologies— AMY GOODMAN: That’s—you said "cracking" of "fracking"? VICTOR MENOTTI: Not fracking; cracking. Cracking. His father doubled the net energy that came out of cracking, so the whole family fortune is based on fossil fuels. But few people know that they do seven essential services in fracking also. Georgia-Pacific makes the little chemicals that prop open the microfissures and let the methane escape and pollute the water. AMY GOODMAN: And they own Georgia-Pacific. VICTOR MENOTTI: They own Georgia-Pacific. Tar sands, as I said, 25 percent of existing tar sands imports, they process. Chemical, ranching, fertilizer. Their biggest money, though, Amy, comes from commodity speculation and oil derivatives. They quintupled their wealth in the—quintupled their wealth in the past six years through the commodity trading, because there’s no ban on trading commodities, and they can control enough of the flow of energy and then bet on it—or not bet on it; they’ve got the rules rigged, and they cash in on it. So, here are some of the clowns that then decide where that money is going to move, out to these different areas, which are really about controlling policy. First are the media manipulators. You know some of these faces. They invite them to their secret strategy meetings, so they’re really in on the conversation and the ideology to explain for the—the big picture to the— AMY GOODMAN: And who are they? VICTOR MENOTTI: Some of these folks are Rush Limbaugh; Michelle Malkin; Steve Moore, aWall Street Journal writer; and Glenn Beck, who I’m sure you know about. Next are the think tanks. For over 30 years, they’ve been funding some of these. The Cato Institute was originally called the Koch Institute. The Heartland Institute, big climate deniers. Then the astroturf agents. These are the fake grassroots groups that they give money to to project an appearance of popular support. Americans for Prosperity, probably the most significant one, they kind of are the farm team for the tea party, that you can go google "billionaire tea party" and see David Koch getting a report from the field of AFP, bragging about how many members they turned out, state by state, for the tea party caucus. And then you’ve got what we call the "wealth warriors." This is their legions of lobbyists, their armies of accountants, their tax attorneys, whose job is to keep the money out of government coffers and into the Kochs’ hands. So, that’s KochPAC. It’s ALEC. It’s the Chamber of Commerce. AMY GOODMAN: ALEC. VICTOR MENOTTI: ALEC. But here you see that ALEC is just a single sucker on one tentacle of the larger Kochtopus. AMY GOODMAN: But ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council. VICTOR MENOTTI: That’s right. That’s right. AMY GOODMAN: That puts together government officials with corporate executives, and many of the corporate executives are involved in writing legislation that’s handed to said legislators and others. VICTOR MENOTTI: That’s right, everything from the Stand Your Ground laws that killed Trayvon Martin to all the important climate legislation—or, sorry, their rolling back important climate legislation at the state level, which is really the main thing that’s been happening in the U.S. in light of no global action here at the U.N. So, this is just from dirtyenergymoney.com. You could type in the name of whatever contributor oil company you want, and what you’ll get is all the different members of Congress who get money from the Kochs. They’re the single-largest contributor from the gas and oil sector. And then, of course, some of their chief ideologues. Paul Ryan now risen to party leader after the recent elections, so let’s not think the Kochs didn’t get much out of their big spend in 2012. AMY GOODMAN: Why Paul Ryan, do you select, in particular, do you point out? VICTOR MENOTTI: Well, he had— AMY GOODMAN: The congressman from Wisconsin who was Mitt Romney’s running mate for president. VICTOR MENOTTI: Because he believes in the Koch agenda of what’s called economic freedom. He’s probably the chief ideologue of that ideology, Ayn Rand’s get government out of the way, government’s the problem, and just freedom for capital to invest as it wants. AMY GOODMAN: And you include Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. VICTOR MENOTTI: Scott Walker. There are a lot of more faces up here we could have added, but Scott Walker was sort of a testing ground for passing collective bargaining laws and— AMY GOODMAN: That eviscerate collective bargaining. VICTOR MENOTTI: That’s right. So that’s sort of our elected officials part of the government. Then there’s the courtroom collaborators. Those are the like-minded judges that eventually get appointed. Kochs, for years, have been funding judicial education conferences through this organization FREE. It’s giving to some of the more radical Supreme Court justices and led to— AMY GOODMAN: FREE is the Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment? VICTOR MENOTTI: That’s right. That’s right. It’s judicial trainings to think like the Kochs, basically. And that’s what’s led to the Citizens United decision, is that sort of— AMY GOODMAN: You have a picture right there of two Supreme Court justices in your Kochtopus, as you call it. VICTOR MENOTTI: That’s right, Scalia and Thomas, who actually— AMY GOODMAN: Why? VICTOR MENOTTI: Well, they’re known to hang out with the Kochs. They go to their summits. They go to their strategy sessions—Aspen, Palm Springs, wherever it might be. There’s a very comfortable relationship that we think is entirely inappropriate. And then you get to your academic agents. So, they’re starting to fund universities with contracts, where they bring in their ideologues, their curriculum, and that becomes the—even at public universities. This is just a short video clip that you can see interviews with some of the people at those universities who are opposing it. And then, of course, there’s the physical force. They’ve got control of the legal system. All of this they do is legal. But when that breaks down, they need the blue meanies out there with their billy clubs, so—and their presence is increasing as the protests against the Kochs— AMY GOODMAN: You’re saying police contracted to—show us that part of— VICTOR MENOTTI: Both private contract, but also when they show up, they get municipal police forces. AMY GOODMAN: To guard secretive Koch meeting— VICTOR MENOTTI: That’s right. AMY GOODMAN: —at Rancho Mirage, California. VICTOR MENOTTI: That was the one last year. They may do it again this January. We’re hoping they do. AMY GOODMAN: What about the scientists, when you talk about the climate deniers? I want to go to Richard Muller, who was funded by the Koch brothers, though now is saying that climate change is a very real issue. RICHARD MULLER: We were able to show that the poor station quality, although it affected the temperature measurements, didn’t affect the temperature changes. We were able to use 100 percent of the data, not the 20 percent that others had used. We found that data selection bias didn’t affect things. We looked at the urban heat island. It came together. We concluded that global warming was indeed real. ... And I’ve got to admit, I was shocked when I saw the results. There was short-time—short-term variability that was due to volcanoes, essentially nothing due to the solar variation. Theoretically, that’s not too surprising, but I was surprised nonetheless. But the remaining curve, the rise in that curve, was dead on to human production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. At that point, the data had led me to a conclusion I would not have expected a few years earlier. AMY GOODMAN: That’s scientist Richard Muller. Victor Menotti? VICTOR MENOTTI: Well, he’s been one of the chief climate denialists, that the Kochs have funded his research over the years. And this summer, as the droughts were hitting the Midwest, his report—he, I think, was on your show and talked about, conclusively, it’s human-caused carbon emissions that are warming the planet. So, we think this kind of puts the Kochs in new legal territory now, because they’ve been informed about the impacts and causality of the products that they are producing, kind of like big tobacco. So it kind of gets into the willful ignorance territory, which could cause greater liability for them down the road. But the question here is: What do we do about this? So what IFG is doing is we’ve been contacting all these different groups on the ground that are fighting the Kochs from different parts, whether it’s the NAACP fighting voter rights rollback in 30 different states or the United Steelworkers defending collective bargaining in Wisconsin and other states throughout the country. And we’re—first thing is to get everybody together and recognize that who we’re all fighting is the same person, because we haven’t seen a situation like this before in the U.S. You know, we first met around Seattle—I don’t know if you remember—but that was about theWTO. It’s not just about corporations or the institutions now. Globalization has concentrated wealth and power to such extremes, we have the emergence of oligarchic powers. And that’s really what this Kochtopus is all about. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Victor Menotti, I want to thank you very much for being with us, author of "Faces Behind a Global Crisis: US Carbon Billionaires and the UN Climate Deadlock" and the force behind kochcash.org, a picture of what he calls the "Kochtopus: The Influence of Koch-Cash."
Video clip 10: www.democracynow.org/2012/12/10/incredibly_disappointed_civil_groups_decry_weak
"Incredibly Disappointed": Civil Groups Decry Weak COP18 Deal amid Deadly Proof of Climate Change” The United Nations climate change summit ended Saturday after negotiators agreed to a weakened deal that will do nothing to halt rising world greenhouse gas emissions. The so-called Doha Climate Gateway extends the Kyoto Protocol for eight more years and paves the way for talks on a new global U.N. pact to enter into force in 2020. Under the deal, the United States made no new pledge to cut its greenhouse gas emissions or to increase its aid to nations suffering from the impact of climate change. "We expected, going into Doha, that after the president mentioned climate change in his inaugural speech, after Hurricane Sandy, after discussions amongst high-level politicians in the U.S., we expected a pivot on climate policy, and we saw instead exactly the same kinds of tactics that we’ve seen for the last four years from the United States," says Samantha Smith of the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative. "We think it’s time for President Obama to step forward to start a national conversation about climate change." [includes rush transcript] TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: "Mra," by Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath. And I can see my breath here in Oslo, Norway. It is 21 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m Amy Goodman. This is Democracy Now! We’re broadcasting outside Oslo City Hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony has just wrapped up. But we’re going to turn right now to another global summit that has just taken place. The United Nations climate change summit ended on Saturday after negotiators agreed to a weakened deal that will do nothing to halt rising world greenhouse gas emissions. The so-called Doha Climate Gateway extends the Kyoto Protocol for eight more years and paves the way for talks on a new global U.N. pact to enter into force in 2020. Under the deal, the United States made no new pledge to cut its emissions or to increase its aid to nations suffering from the impact of climate change. But wealthy nations did agree to send funds in the future to poorer countries for so-called loss and damage incurred by climate change. But at the request of the United States, the deal does not make the world’s largest polluters legally liable for damage caused by climate change. Greenpeace International’s Kumi Naidoo spoke in Doha soon after the deal was announced. KUMI NAIDOO: Our governments must realize that this failure is a betrayal of the people in the Philippines and around the world that have faced climate impacts now, today, and will continue in the days to come. But what is at stake here is not some ethereal thing called the planet, the climate, the environment, but what is at stake here is selling down our children and grandchildren’s futures. AMY GOODMAN: Ed Davey, Britain’s energy and climate change secretary, praised the outcome of the Doha talks. ED DAVEY: It’s not just about paving the way for post-2020. It’s about increasing ambitions now in the run-up to 2020. And I think there’s been some—some steps in that direction. So, you know, I think that that is positive. And I know some people have been disappointed and would want more. The U.K. and the EU has always been on the ambitious side of things, but we’re moving as a world, and it’s important that the world moves in the right direction. And it did here in Doha. AMY GOODMAN: Well, joining us now here in Oslo, Norway, is Samantha Smith, where she lives. But she was in Doha for the last two weeks. She’s leader of WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative. In the United States, it’s known as the World Wildlife Fund. Samantha, welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about the results of the Doha summit. SAMANTHA SMITH: This was an incredibly weak deal. As you said, Amy, it will do nothing to make sure that emissions go down and not up. It will do nothing to bring finance over the long term to poor countries that are suffering from climate change. And it will do nothing to pave the way for the global deal that we have all been promised in 2015. So, from the side of civil society, we are incredibly disappointed. And we are even more disappointed because this was the year of extreme weather events, when folks all over the world suffered from the impact of climate change. We thought negotiators would come with a mandate, including the team from the U.S., and instead they came with empty briefcases. And the deal that they left us looks just like that. AMY GOODMAN: Why? I mean, in the midst of this, we saw the Typhoon Bopha in the southern Philippines. The death toll is still not yet in—hundreds of people dead, and many, many, close to a thousand, missing. SAMANTHA SMITH: I think that there is just not yet enough of a sense of moral outrage about the impacts of climate change. Just to give it a broader frame, today is International Human Rights Day. We’re standing in front of the place where the Nobel Peace Prize has just been awarded. We need to connect this to climate change. Climate change affects the poorest people in the poorest country. Today—countries. Today, the FAO announced that we are just one bad weather event away from the third global food crisis since 2008. And when the food prices spike like that, poor people starve, it’s a violation of their rights, and it affects peace and security all over the world. So politicians need to take this on board. This is not just a problem for a few people. AMY GOODMAN: Loss and damage was included in the convention. Talk about the significance of this. SAMANTHA SMITH: It’s a good step forward in the sense that countries are finally recognizing that this is a global problem. And so, what you emit, how you pollute in your own country, that is affecting other people, and they have a right to some financing. But what it doesn’t do, and what the U.S. prevented it from doing, is establish a right to compensation. So all of the decisions about what exactly this means—will there be money, what kind of money and to whom—that’s all been pushed off into the future. AMY GOODMAN: What role did the United States—really President Obama through his climate envoys—play? SAMANTHA SMITH: An incredibly disappointing role. I mean, we expected, going into Doha, that after the president mentioned climate change in his inaugural speech, after Hurricane Sandy, after discussions amongst high-level politicians in the U.S., we expected a pivot on climate policy, and we saw instead exactly the same kinds of tactics that we’ve seen for the last four years from the United States. So, U.S. pushed back on long-term finance for developing countries. It refused to make any commitments itself, said that it couldn’t because of the budgetary process in the U.S. And it also refused to detail its commitment to cut its emissions by 17 percent. We think it’s time for President Obama to step forward to start a national conversation about climate change. I think John Podesta was just out saying that the administration has spent four years taping its lips shut on climate change and not uttering the words, and folks are confused. But now there’s a chance for the president to leave a real legacy. Couldn’t this be the four years when the administration steps forward? AMY GOODMAN: Canada pulled out of Kyoto Protocol. SAMANTHA SMITH: Canada’s conduct was shameful. Canada made a commitment under a multilateral agreement, and it walked out of it showing no sign of remorse. And moreover, Canada helped the United States in blocking any discussion of long-term finance for developing countries. It also itself refused to give any finance to these countries, until there is a global deal applying to everyone. AMY GOODMAN: European Union? SAMANTHA SMITH: The EU would like to see themselves as leaders, but what instead we saw in these negotiations was an EU divided amongst itself, with one country, Poland, holding the rest hostage. But let’s just clarify what that means. When the EU wants to, it can move in concert, it can force through decisions. And ministers in the EU were just not willing to do that to make higher emissions cuts. AMY GOODMAN: Finally, civil society? SAMANTHA SMITH: In civil society, something unusual happened. So, six of the world’s largest environment and development organizations got together, along with social movements from developing countries and with representatives from developing countries that were—that were present in Doha. And we agreed amongst ourselves that the deal that was being negotiated was just not enough. And now it’s our job to go home to try to mobilize people to understand that these very technical negotiations, they affect all of us. They affect our kids and our grandkids. And we also have an ethical responsibility to act on climate change. AMY GOODMAN: Samantha Smith, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Samantha Smith is leader of the WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative. She lives here in Oslo, Norway. WWF in the United States is known as the World Wildlife Fund. You can link to our week of climate change coverage directly from Doha at democracynow.org. And that does it for our special broadcast from Oslo, Norway, on this day, December 10th, the International Human Rights Day, the day the Nobel Peace Prize is given out.
Additional Resources:
Koch Brothers Octopus visual:
Common Core Learning Standards:
Key Ideas and Details
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions. Craft and Structure
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies. Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
