Time for the topic “Climate News” in the daily news flow

Time for the topic “Climate News” in the daily news flow

May 12, 2014

DEBATE. Party leaders’ debates is an embarrassing evidence of how little interest the first generation of climate-conscious shows in the subject environment. It writes Helen Rosell who is the writer and composer with great interest in environmental issues.

After only 50 years of intensive industrialization, we have found out that with current politics and lifestyle will pass the 2-degree target and instead are heading for 4 degrees.

We have found out that it means a disaster for all humanity.

We have found out that we already would have to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and that human civilization can not handle 4 degrees (desperate message on 2-degree target, SVT.se September 28, 2013).

We have learned that we are close to many “tipping points” where the climate can shift to a mode of self-reinforcing mechanisms, and never able to recover.

We know that climate change is already negative for food production in the world, crop yields are affected, increasing emissions.

We have heard about the risk of future mass migrations, strife, rising sea levels, fires, droughts, floods, water scarcity, ocean acidification, melting of ice … but there is no policy that indicates that we are on track to break the trend.

Instead, increases carbon emissions in an exponentially rising curve.

SO WHAT? Who cares?

One feature of CLIMATE NEWS in the daily news flow – and no longer would be able to miss the ocean acidification and impoverishment, whisk away the food question or dilemma melting ice affecting the global climate and ecological balance. It would kick start vital debates, bringing the population and provide “the sleeping people” something extremely important to talk about and get involved in. No one could escape the questions anymore.

… Not even the politicians.

What news could well be more important?

Text: Helen Rosell

via Helen Rosell: Time for the topic “Climate News” in the daily news flow.

How Sweden can reduce emissions for real

Published March 28, 2014

How Sweden can reduce emissions for real

Sweden’s emissions of greenhouse gases are increasing instead of decreasing, if we include the aviation and our imported consumption. The government’s response is to hand over responsibility to the consumers. But the government should look at themselves  to reduce Sweden’s carbon footprint both at home and abroad, writes Pia Björstrand and Samuel Jarrick, Klimataktion.

SVT’s newscast last Thursday asked Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt a question that he has never had to consider: Why potray the government continually insures Sweden is a climate model with emissions falling, when our overall impact on the climate is actually increasing?

It is quite correct that Sweden’s emissions, according to official UN statistics dropped by 20 percent since 1990. Partly it’s because Sweden early introduced a carbon tax and invested in heating and more, partly due to emissions of heavy industry moved overseas.

If we instead look at our total consumption, the picture is quite different. Then, total emissions increased by 15 percent during the same period, according to the Environmental Protection Agency statistics from 2012. Increased consumption of harmful climate imported goods and services, electronics, meat, long holidays, etc., have eaten up all climate efforts we made at home.

SVT’s story got the Prime Minister therefore asked whether we Swedes really are living more and more climate-friendly. His response: I think we are largely getting more and more tools that enable to reduce our carbon footprint, but then of course there is also a personal responsibility.

Common political commitment

Fredrik Reinfeldt suggesting that it is up to us consumers to ensure that the carbon footprint is reduced. But it is unrealistic to think that we as individual consumers should be able to do what is needed to meet climate challenges. According to a report from the Nordic Council of Ministers, Sustainable behavior must be promoted by the consistent message that is not only conveyed through information dissemination, but also through other strategies, such as infrastructure, marketing, pricing and social institutions. This calls for a common political commitment to the Swedes should be able to reduce their emissions from consumption.

There is an inconsistency in the government’s climate policy. The goal is to reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2020, where a third of the reduction shall be credited by actions in other countries. The government wants to count on the emission reductions our policies help in other countries, but do not want to take any responsibility for the emissions increases that our lifestyle causes in other countries.

Offensive climate policy

With an aggressive climate policies at home, we can tackle this inconsistency. We propose the following actions:

First Environmental Management across central and local government own procurement, where low carbon footprint given a higher priority than low prices, and where businesses are encouraged to sustainable consumption.

2nd Tax / VAT exchanges where low-carbon goods and services enjoy a more favorable tax treatment than carbon-intensive goods and services.

The third the face of a meat tax, slowing imports of climate-damaging concentrate and reduce the use of chemical fertilizers. Decrease in return VAT on vegetable, locally grown and organic food.

4th Facing a climate tariff on imported emissions heavy goods that provide an economic incentive for producers to shift and consumers to choose climate-friendly goods.

5th Replace consumption driven tax cuts, such as earned income tax credits and interest deductions of investments in climate adaptation and green jobs.

6th Count In international aviation in the national emissions statistics.

7th Let more message than encouraging consumption take place in the public sphere. Limit climate malicious advertising.

Stricter ambitions

The level of ambition needs to be tightened considerably even when it comes to the emissions created in Sweden. The decrease is not nearly as fast as is required if we are to take our justice responsibilities to meet the 2-degree target. Climate science shows that in countries like Sweden would have to be almost independent of fossil fuels in the coming decades about the risks of climate landslides are to be avoided.

The transition should be operated on, for instance through aggressive investment and a conscious use of pension funds for more rapid development of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency among residential and industrial.

If we Succeed the government can reduce both our domestic emissions and the imported emissions, Sweden can be a real role model in international climate policy.

Pia Björstrand and Samuel Jarrick

spokespersons for Climate Action

via How Sweden can reduce emissions for real – Debate – Gothenburg Post.

According To A Nasa Funded Study, We’re Pretty Much Screwed by I Fucking Love Science

by Stephen Luntz
Aralship

Photo credit: Staecker. The demise of the Aral sea could be a foretaste of the future if we don’t change the way society works

Our industrial civilization faces the same threats of collapse that earlier versions such as the Mayans experienced, a study to be published in Ecological Economics has warned. The idea is far from new, but the authors have put new rigor to the study of how so many previous societies collapsed, and why ours could follow.

Lead author Mr Safa Motesharrei is no wild-eyed conspiracy theorist. Motesharrei is a graduate student in mathematics at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, a National Science Foundation-supported institution, and the research was done with funding from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

“The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent,” the forthcoming paper states

Two key social features are identified that contributed to the collapse of every civilization studied: “The stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity,” and “The economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]”.

If these look familiar, so do the factors that make up the resource side of the equation, with climatic change, and scarcity of water and energy key among them, although for others climate variation was a matter of bad luck, rather than their own actions.

The model Motesharrei used, Human And Nature Dynamics (HANDY), explores the relationship between population and resources, drawing heavily on predator-prey models used by ecologists. Four key factors were included in the model: Elites, Commoners, nature and wealth. Equations of how these interact were created with varying inputs. The outcomes were not pretty. The timing and shape of collapses varied, but the societies that most closely resembled our own doomed themselves, through overuse of resources exacerbated by economic stratification.

In one scenario many commoners do make it into the elite population at year 750, but the “scarcity of workers” caused a collapse by year 1000. In another so many of the Earth’s resources are consumed that society, and the ecology of the planet, are doomed by the year 500.

“It is important to note that in both of these scenarios, the Elites — due to their wealth — do not suffer the detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners,” the paper notes.

If those year numbers seem comfortingly far off, be aware that the year zero in these models is well behind us. Nevertheless, contrary to much of the reporting, the model does not provide a useful timeline for when we can expect to see the world we live in turn into something that resembles a post-apocalyptic nightmare, although studies of the convergence of climate and resource challenges suggest we may witness drastic food crises within a little over a decade.

In every economic bubble people looking back to past crashes are told “this time it is different”. Certainly some things have changed for modern civilization compared to the others Motesharrei has looked at. Technological developments that provide access to greater resources is the most frequently mentioned difference. Motesharrei responds, “Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use.”

One advantage we do have, however, is much greater knowledge of what has gone wrong in the past, and therefore the capacity to build models like HANDY. In a presentation of an earlier draft of this work in 2012 Motesharrei noted, “Simple models provide a great intuition and can teach us invaluable points. It is crucial to have a measure that can give us an early warning of collapse. Carrying Capacity tells us when overshoot happens, and this can be defined by noticing the decline in wealth.”

Some coverage of the announcement has described disaster as inevitable, but that is not the paper’s conclusion at all. “Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion,” it argues.

Although the study has reportedly passed peer review it is yet to be published. It received global attention after a pre-release version was provided to The Guardian.

Update: NASA has issued a clarification stressing that this study does not necessarily represent NASA’s viewpoint. Noting that they fund many studies they stress it “was not solicited, directed or reviewed by NASA”. The funding came about because the project was “utilizing research tools developed for a separate NASA activity.” The clarification points out, “As is the case with all independent research, the views and conclusions in the paper are those of the authors alone.”

via According To A Nasa Funded Study, We’re Pretty Much Screwed | I Fucking Love Science.

CCCRdg will be representing Climate Change mission in the Reading / Thames Valley Berkshire area at the Future of Places (FOP) Conference

Newsdesk

Climate Change Centre Reading
How can Reading / Thames Valley Berkshire become a role model in Climate Change? How can our leadership in in this very current area attract green businesses to the region? How do we form a strong sustainable community 2020-2050? These are questions the Climate Change Centre will address in Driving Readings bid for the 2017 European Green Capital Award; and in doing so will help safeguard the future of our children;

“Streets as Public Spaces,” reflects the importance of modern street design in enabling – or damaging – the well-being of city dwellers.  Streets serve a broader function than the efficient conveyance of vehicles or pedestrians from one location to another.  They, and their adjacent spaces, form a critical connective network within the city, profoundly influencing, and potentially limiting, social and economic development.

Please see our press release here: http://media1.tvb-climatechallenge.org.uk/2014/03/Press-Release_Climate-Change-Centre-Reading22.pdf

Press-release_CCCRdg_180613

Following the 2013 Future of Places conference in Stockholm, Sweden, Ax:son Johnson Foundation, together with its partners UN-Habitat and Project for Public Spaces, are pleased to announce the next conference in the series. The theme of the 2014 conference, “Streets as Public Spaces,” reflects the importance of modern street design in enabling – or damaging – the well-being of city dwellers.  Streets serve a broader function than the efficient conveyance of vehicles or pedestrians from one location to another.  They, and their adjacent spaces, form a critical connective network within the city, profoundly influencing, and potentially limiting, social and economic development.

BACKGROUND TO THE PUBLISHER:

Towards Habitat III 2016

‘Habitat III’ is the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, to take place in 2016.

Habitat III will be one of the first global conferences after the Post 2015 Development Agenda. It is an opportunity to discuss and chart new pathways in response to the challenges of urbanization and the opportunities it offers for the implementation of the sustainable development goals.

The conference promises to be unique in bringing together diverse urban actors such as governments, local authorities, civil society, the private sector, academic institutions and all relevant interest groups to review urban and housing policies affecting the future of cities within an international governance architecture, with a view to generate a ‘New Urban Agenda’ for the 21st century which recognizes the ever-changing dynamics of human civilization.

Habitat III offers Member States an opportunity to discuss a New Urban Agenda that will focus on policies and strategies that can result in effectively harnessing the power and forces behind urbanization.

“Consider Climate Change in every action”~Climate Change Centre Reading

More information:
See UN-Habitat Vision for Habitat III

First ever global assessment of best practices in green growth reveals pathways for success – Regions 20

First ever global assessment of best practices in green growth reveals pathways for success

Category: News

Published on Tuesday, 11 March 2014

R20 is pleased to announce the release of the summary of key findings from the Green Growth Best Practice (GGBP) book, ahead of its full release in June 2014. This summary report was unveiled at the 1st Global Conference on Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE) in Dubai earlier this month.

The Green Growth Best Practice book is the result of an initiative led by the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), and was written by 75 authors in the field of green growth from a variety of organizations, including R20.

Lead authors Christophe Nuttall (R20’s Executive Director) and Tadashi Matsumoto (OECD Senior Policy Analyst), wrote the chapter on National and Subnational Integration that explores approaches to advancing green growth through coordinated national and subnational programs and across government. Several co-authors contributed to this chapter, including Denise Welch (R20’s Director of Research & Technical Initiatives).

By analyzing around 60 specific government programs from different countries and regions around the world, the GGBP makes recommendations for effective green growth approaches, based on the experience of early movers, and provides practical guidance for national and subnational policy planning.

Green growth strategies play vital roles in unlocking synergies between economic growth, environmental protection and poverty reduction, and enabling a transition to an inclusive green economy.

The Synthesis of Key Findings elaborates on nine key actions that enable effective green growth policy:

·      Use well-designed planning and coordination processes;

·      Establish clear visions, targets, and baselines;

·      Undertake robust analysis and balanced communication of the benefits of green growth;

·      Prioritize options and develop credible pathways towards targets;

·      Design policies to address multiple goals and respond to specific market failures;

·      Design public finance instruments to overcome barriers and mobilize private investment;

·      Tap the power of public-private collaboration;

·      Pursue mutually reinforcing action across all levels of government;

·      Build and maintain strong monitoring and evaluation systems.

The report and supporting case studies will also be available in the form of an online “living handbook,” which will feature an interactive interface.

Read the Synthesis of Key Findings here.

via First ever global assessment of best practices in green growth reveals pathways for success – Regions 20.

BIKES vs CARS

Bikes vs. Cars, a new film project from BANANAS! * and Big Boys Gone Bananas! * director Fredrik Gertten. Climate change and the daily stress of being locked up in a car frustrate people more than ever. People in cities around the world take on the bicycle as a Do It Yourself tool for change. But still: Car sales are booming. 1 billion cars today. 2 billion in 2020.

A film by Fredrik Gertten
Release 2014

BIKES vs CARS TRAILER from WG Film

EU can do better

“What we are presenting today is both ambitious and something that we can afford” President Barroso stated while presenting the European Commission’s proposal on climate change for the EU by 2030.

Its main target is to reduce EU Carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030. Also two previous cases regarding renewable energy and energy efficiency are not legislated at present. When comparing that to Stockholm’s current 50% slash since 2007 it is absurd to call a 40% reduce in emissions over the next 16 years as “ambitious”

The criticisms from environmental organizations have come in thick and fast.  Both Stefan Löfven (S), and Asa Romson (MP) have demanded in an article that all three goals should be mandatory not a “goal”.

There is every reason to be crital of the EU Commission’s lack of ambition. In the struggle to save the climate, it is not clear that the three goals are better than one.

We must look to be critical and push for more, as the more we do now the better infrastructure we will have to tackle climate change in the future.
 

How can we over achieve?
Renewable energy and energy efficiency is really the only means to achieve the main goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. With a functioning emissions offset trading system combined with a carbon tax. We will increase the amount of renewable energy and therefore energy efficiency will take off simply because it will be more profitable to do so. On the contrary, the more goals there are to fulfill. It will make it more expensive and more difficult than necessary to achieve the goal of reducing emissions,

The real scandal of the EU Commission’s proposal is rather than accepting the goal of limiting global temperature increase to two degrees is unattainable and creating a new achievable programme based on three point five global temperature increase. Environmental experts now say that it means that the EU now don’t actually stand behind their goal of limiting global temperature rise to two degrees and are looking into other less relevant methods.

Environment Minister Lena Ek, (C) claims (C) Are washing their hands of their responsibilities and she had a tougher global temperature increase target. However Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said that no country raised any such requirements.

EU Commission’s proposal will now be discussed by the Government and the European Parliament. But the situation is indeed grim. A few years ago Barroso spoke with a strong voice on the EU to take on a leading role in climate change. Now it has died down in favor of defensive talk that Europe takes its share of responsibility. But it is only reasonable that the EU with its developed countries take the lead and provide more time for poor countries to adjust.

Although there are no guarantees that the big emitters like China would follow Europe if we embarked on a more ambitious climate path.  Are we really left with an alternative?

With climate threat hanging over us, we can hardly afford not to be ambitious.

expressen.se

Water pollution from fracking confirmed in multiple states

Water pollution from fracking confirmed in multiple states

Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Texas have received hundreds of complaints, an AP investigation revealed

LINDSAY ABRAMS

fracking-water-recycling.jpeg3-620x412

A jar holding waste water from hydraulic fracturing is held up to the light at a recycling site in Midland, Texas, Sept. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

For a process that’s driving America’s energy boom, the things we don’t know about fracking for oil and natural gas often seem to surpass that which we do. One thing we do know: It involves pushing gallons of chemical-laden water into the ground, which has the potential to seep into nearby sources of drinking water. Leaving aside the fact that gas and oil companies aren’t required to disclose exactly which chemicals they’re using, actual information about water contamination’s scope and severity, along with other details crucial to public knowledge and health, is hard to come by.

In states at the forefront of the past decade’s boom in drilling for gas and oil, the Associated Press found hundreds of complaints about well-water pollution, a number of which were confirmed by officials:

— Pennsylvania has confirmed at least 106 water-well contamination cases since 2005, out of more than 5,000 new wells. There were five confirmed cases of water-well contamination in the first nine months of 2012, 18 in all of 2011 and 29 in 2010. The Environmental Department said more complete data may be available in several months.

— Ohio had 37 complaints in 2010 and no confirmed contamination of water supplies; 54 complaints in 2011 and two confirmed cases of contamination; 59 complaints in 2012 and two confirmed contaminations; and 40 complaints for the first 11 months of 2013, with two confirmed contaminations and 14 still under investigation, Department of Natural Resources spokesman Mark Bruce said in an email. None of the six confirmed cases of contamination was related to fracking, Bruce said.

— West Virginia has had about 122 complaints that drilling contaminated water wells over the past four years, and in four cases the evidence was strong enough that the driller agreed to take corrective action, officials said.

— A Texas spreadsheet contains more than 2,000 complaints, and 62 of those allege possible well-water contamination from oil and gas activity, said Ramona Nye, a spokeswoman for the Railroad Commission of Texas, which oversees drilling. Texas regulators haven’t confirmed a single case of drilling-related water-well contamination in the past 10 years, she said.

via Water pollution from fracking confirmed in multiple states – Salon.com.

Le syndrome du Titanic

Hello, the very point is that we have passed the tipping point… consumption has finally taken us to a Point of No Return. Beyond the point of no return, it´s all about damage control – The Titanic sequel consequences – Why was the Titanic disaster an extinction? Mayabe, if we do as we should.. ..need 2 STOP all counterproductive activities now!

Check out this documentary

The Titanic Syndrome is a documentary film made in 2008 by Nicolas Hulot and Jean-Albert Hare, released on 7 October 2009. It follows the eponymous book published in 2004: The Titanic Syndrome

The logic step is to deal with, accept and agree on the above the sooner, the better!
/CCCRdg

Why can´t communities in the U.K. adapt from a Western unsustainable lifestyle to a ‘zero waste’ lifestyle?!

A World Without Landfills? It’s Closer than You Think | Nation of Change

GlobalEnrichmentPrize042013

There is a growing global movement to significantly reduce the amount of trash we produce as communities, cities, countries and even regions. It’s called the zero-waste movement, and it received a major boost this week as two of its leaders were awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize.

Nohra Padilla and Rossano Ercolini are two of the winners of this year’s Goldman Prize, which awards $150,000 to each of six grassroots environmentalists who have achieved great impact, often against great odds. On the surface, Padilla and Ercolini seem to have little in common. Padilla is a grassroots recycler—also known as a waste picker—from the embattled city of Bogotá, Colombia. Ercolini is an elementary school teacher from the rustic farmlands of Capannori, Italy.

Though their experiences are different, they share a common cause: organizing to reduce the amount of trash—everything from cans and bottles to cell phones and apple cores—that ends up buried in landfills or burned in incinerators.

What is zero waste?

Here in the United States zero waste is often thought of as a lifestyle choice, if it’s thought of at all. Blogs like Zero Waste Home and The Clean Bin Project attract a readership of thousands through tips on how to buy less, reuse more, and recycle and compost in the home. The popularity of these projects, along with the success of Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff, show a growing interest in reducing what we throw into dumpsters.

Padilla and Ercolini’s stories show that zero waste is not only a personal choice, but also an organized system that works at multiple levels including the community, municipality, nation, and region. Zero waste systems include:

composting, recycling, reuse, and education on how to separate materials into these categories;

door-to-door collection of recyclable and compostable stuff; swap meets, flea markets or freecycle websites to exchange reuseable goods and encourage people to buy less;

policy change, including bans on incineration and single-use plastic bags, and subsidies and incentives for recycling;

regulation of corporations to require them to buy back and recycle their products once they are used by consumers (glass soda bottles and tires are examples of products subject to this regulation in some countries).

Zero waste systems are designed with the goal of eliminating the practice of sending trash to landfills and incinerators. Not only is this possible, it’s already beginning to happen. Ercolini’s hometown of Capannori, Italy, has already achieved 82 percent recycling and reuse and is on track to bring that figure to 100 percent by 2020.

Taking on Europe’s incineration industry

Rossano Ercolini is an elementary school teacher. He began organizing against incinerators in the 1970s, when he learned of a plan to build one in Capannori. Concerned for the health of his students, Ercolini began a campaign to educate his community on the dangers of incineration, including how the burning of garbage releases particulates linked to asthma and other respiratory problems.

Over the course of the next 30 years, Ercolini led a David-versus-Goliath struggle, with education as his slingshot. In the 1990s, waste incineration was embraced by the Italian government as well as by big environmental organizations, all of whom bought into the premise that it was a safe and effective technology. Big business and the mafia also supported incineration because of the 20- to 30-year lucrative contracts and large government investments it involved.

The conjunction of economic and political interests behind incineration left citizens alone, not only to fight against incineration but also to develop sustainable alternatives. Ercolini worked for several years as a grassroots educator, inviting scientists and waste experts to give workshops to residents on the health effects of incineration and potential alternatives.

As a result, when the residents of Capannori succeeded in defeating the incinerator proposal, they also had gained the knowledge necessary to develop a better way of handling garbage. Ercolini himself was tapped to lead a local, publicly owned waste management company and began implementing a door-to-door waste collection system that maximized the quantity and quality of the recyclable materials recovered.

Soon after, Capannori became the first Italian municipality to declare a zero waste goal for 2020. Since then, Ercolini has helped to defeat 50 proposed incinerators and has also helped the zero waste movement to spread across Italy. Thanks to the Italian network Legge Rifiuti Zero, or the Zero Waste Alliance, and with the support of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, there are now 117 zero waste municipalities in Italy, with a population of about 3 million people.

“Incineration is no longer wanted or needed in these areas,” Ercolini says. “Instead, they have established comprehensive recycling and composting systems guided by zero waste goals. This has helped improve community health and has sparked strong collaborations between communities and local governments.”

Grassroots recyclers unite

Nohra Padilla is a third generation recycler. For decades her family has survived by salvaging plastic bottles, aluminum cans, paper scraps, and the like from dumps, curbside trash cans, and collection centers. They made a living by reselling these materials to junk shops and also to businesses, which used them as raw material to create new products ranging from blue jeans to paper.

In the 1980s, Padilla began organizing her fellow recycling workers, creating the first grassroots recycler cooperative in Bogotá. Since then she has helped to form the Asociación de Recicladores de Bogotá, or Bogotá Recyclers Association, where she now serves as executive director. The association includes 24 cooperatives representing 3,000 people. She also played an important role in forming and leading Colombia’s National Recyclers Association.

“Grassroots recycling is a key component of a zero waste system,” Padilla says. Through their network of cooperatives, grassroots recyclers in Bogotá recover 20 to 25 percent of all material thrown away by city residents. This amounts to about 100 times more recyclable material than is collected by the city’s large private recycling companies.

In March the association won a milestone victory: Grassroots recyclers are now city employees. They will be paid $48 per ton of material they deliver to collection centers, and will be eligible for government pensions and health coverage.

“After years of battling for recognition from the Bogotá government, we will finally be treated as dignified workers and paid just like any large company would be,” Padilla says. “I believe this is a victory that can be replicated across Latin America.”

Padilla has achieved this success in the face of powerful political opponents, a violent environment for worker organizing, and climate subsidies that cut recyclers out of the picture. In 2009, for example, the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism awarded carbon credits to the Doña Juana landfill gas project. This project threatened the livelihoods of Bogotá’s 21,000 informal recyclers by making it more profitable to landfill waste than to recycle it, and by limiting access to recyclable materials.

Padilla and the Grassroots Recyclers Association worked to mitigate the impact of the project, but faced many challenges in making sure that their community benefits agreement was implemented. In contrast to large landfills like Doña Juana, Padilla and the association have created infrastructure to recycle waste instead of bury it. They raised nearly two million dollars, about 75 percent from outside funds and 25 percent co-financed by the association, to build the biggest grassroots-run recycling center in Latin America.

A FUTURE WITHOUT LANDFILLS

The stories of these two organizers show how zero waste movements from around the world share common problems and goals, as well as a need to confront powerful opponents with a vested interest in the business of trash.

Both stories also demonstrate the potential of zero waste organizing to bring people together across issues and sectors. For example, Ercolini has organized at the intersection of food sovereignty and trash reduction, advocating for a “Zero Miles, Zero Waste” approach to promoting local food. Meanwhile, Padilla has shown how zero waste approaches, and recycling in particular, can incorporate previously excluded workers into unionized labor, with a clear agenda to reduce trash and carbon emissions.

Padilla and Ercolini’s work has created a model for building viable zero waste alternatives to landfills and incinerators. The struggles of the Colombian recyclers’ movement, and the Bogotá Recyclers Association in particular, serve as an inspiration to recyclers throughout Latin America and beyond.

Meanwhile, the example of the Zero Waste network in Italy is being copied in many other places in Europe, decreasing the popularity of and need for incineration and sparking the creation of a continent-wide organization that advocates for zero waste.

 

via A World Without Landfills? It’s Closer than You Think | NationofChange.