An oil pipeline to Canada's untapped Tar Sands deposits would create short-term construction jobs, but its effects on the climate could permanently destroy jobs elsewhere. Photo: rickz (Flickr)

Proponents of the proposed pipeline from Canada’s Athabasca Tar Sands to the Gulf of Mexico claim that its construction would create jobs. But while the long-term employment prospects are debatable at best, the resulting long-term economic devastation is far more certain.

The recent decision by the Obama administration to deny a permit for the construction of the pipeline has received much press and been touted as a victory for environmentalists. But as climate activist Bill McKibben and his organization point out, stopping the extraction of the tar sands would be a victory for those far removed from the American environmental movement as well.

McKibben said in an interview with Green Prophet that “Any place that is already living close to the margins is in the greatest danger” when facing climate change.

This means the world’s poorest, already suffering from food shortages and decreased agricultural production, would be hardest hit by this carbon bomb. And scientific consensus backs up McKibben’s view.

Country Ranks, Estimated Percentage of Agricultural Productivity Loss by 2080: Potential Carbon Emissions from Canadian Oil Sands. Photo: Center for Global Development

David Wheeler, senior fellow emeritus of the Center for Global Development, compiled a recent study specifically tying the exploitation of the Canadian oil sands to increased agricultural losses.

Wheeler concluded that “full exploitation of Canada’s oil sands deposit would impose significant agricultural productivity losses on over 3 billion people in the developing world, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.” He calculates that “combustion of the Alberta deposit would increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 by 99 ppm, or 21.3 percent of the increase already projected to occur by 2100.”

Or, as reputed climate scientist Jim Hansen of NASA put it, tapping the tar sands would be “essentially game over for the climate."

Wheeler's findings show a "game over" scenario in poor rural regions, in particular, predicting agricultural productivity losses of up to nearly 13 percent in Africa and 9 percent in Asia. Wheeler, who also created a ‘Climate Vulnerability Index’ by country, sums up his findings powerfully and succinctly, stating "Put simply, the potential destructive power in Canada’s oil sands exceeds anything modern civilization has witnessed to date."

“This new report puts into stark relief exactly what ‘game over’ looks like: Millions upon millions of starving people across the planet," says 350.org co-founder Jamie Henn.

On the ground, countries projected by Wheeler to see further damaging impacts are already struggling with agricultural losses. Another 350.org co-founder, Phil Aroneanu, told Global Envision that “we have a plethora of anecdotal and story-based thoughts from our organizers around the world” of agricultural devastation and food shortages linked to changing climate patterns.

Drought-stricken countries in the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia and Sudan, among others, provide some of the most poignant images of climate-related suffering. An Oxfam International report points out that 85 percent of Ethiopians depend directly on agriculture. And as a local farmer told Oxfam, “The rain doesn’t come on time anymore. After we plant, the rain stops just as our crops start to grow. And it begins to rain after the crops have already been ruined.”

And with the projections from scientists like Hansen and Wheeler, Africa’s farmers and communities appear unlikely to recover soon.

While McKibben writes that “Blocking one pipeline was never going to stop global warming,” and Obama’s denial of the Keystone permit may well not kill the project in the long run, the scientific and anecdotal evidence is clear: Vulnerable populations are suffering at the hands of carbon kings already, and tapping the tar sands will exacerbate their problems.

So the Keystone proposal may or may not be dead. But the political discourse around potential job-killing has mostly left out an important aspect: the killing of crops and livelihoods elsewhere in the world.

McKibben has said that extracting Canada’s tar sands would mean lighting the “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” For now, at least, that fuse remains unlit.

Industrial emissions are a major source of CO2 contributing to climate change. Photo: United Nations Photo (flickr)

The ongoing global financial crisis should not impede the fight against climate change. That's the concern coming from a surprising corner of the world: China.

As the latest round of UN-sponsored climate talks continue in Durban, South Africa, Chinese officials warn that financial hardships in Europe, the United States and elsewhere are no excuse for inaction on climate change.

With the Kyoto Protocol about to die, the global financial crisis could add another dimension to the already complex relationship between rich and poor countries when it comes to climate change.

China’s top climate official said a global pact to fight climate change should be a top priority for developed countries, even as they face severe economic challenges at home. "After the financial crisis, every country has had its problems, but these problems are just temporary," Xie Zhenhua, vice-director of the National Development and Reform Commission, told reporters, according to Reuters. He expressed concern that rich countries will break their promises to help poor ones mitigate and adapt to climate change.

According to The Economist, the vast majority of ‘climate finance’ for developing countries comes from western nations. Over $75 billion a year, or more than 75 percent of climate finance to the developing world, comes from a combination of private donors and multilateral and bilateral banks funded by taxpayers in wealthy countries. These sources have been hit the hardest by the global financial crisis.

"Climate change hasn't become less important because of the international financial crisis, but it has become less prominent," Xie said.

Developing countries, meanwhile, would be hit hardest by climate-related disasters. They lack the infrastructure and financial resources to deal with problems they have had less of a hand in causing. The 2010 climate talks in Cancun included a commitment of $30 billion to poorer nations to adapt to impacts of climate change, and an increase to $100 billion a year by 2020 for this ‘green climate fund.’ Now, says China, even the initial $30 billion commitment seems unlikely to be met.

China might seem an unlikely voice of support for carbon cuts, as it has surpassed the United States as the world’s leading producer of CO2 emissions. Under the Kyoto protocol, China was deemed an emerging economy, and not bound to the stipulations placed on developed countries. Yet China has pledged to reduce its emissions intensity by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, and hopes western countries sign on for an extension of the protocol’s commitment period. Kyoto signatories Canada and Japan have already refused to extend the protocol’s requirements. The United States has also said further negotiations are off the table.

That means the Durban discussions themselves may well determine the direction of climate funding and its impacts. And without climate action, the financial crisis could soon seem like a small-scale problem.

Erik Mandell is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. He is currently pursuing a master's degree in public administration and global leadership at Portland State. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

A Victorian stained glass window depiction of the "Good Samaritan" story from the Gospel of Luke. Photo: Lawrence OP (flickr)

This article was republished by The Christian Science Monitor.

The Good Samaritan of Biblical lore was different than you and me: he was able to help without the fear of being sued.

Disturbing footage of an unattended Chinese girl being run over twice and ignored by 18 witnesses has shed unflattering light on China’s civil society. Two-year-old Xiao Yueyue (which translates as Little Joy in Chinese), daughter of two migrant worker parents, died on October 21st in a Guangdong hospital, eight days after the horrific incident.

Disapproving fingers are being pointed in various directions: from the disintegration of society’s morality to the government’s neglect of protecting civil liberties. Yue Yue’s unexpected death has revived a fierce international debate over Good Samaritan laws.

If you missed the final Seinfeld episode, Good Samaritan laws protect people who assist victims of injury or crime. “They are intended to reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist, for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death," as Wikipedia puts it.

Prior to the broadcasting of Yue Yue’s tragedy, several sensational lawsuits had embittered the public toward performing heroic deeds for strangers. Specifically, in 2007 an elderly woman sued a young man by the name of Peng Yu for escorting her to the hospital after she had fallen and broken her leg. Mr. Peng was ordered to pay the damages to the elder woman under the judge’s logic that the man wouldn’t have helped her unless he was guilty of injuring her in the first place. Some litigators suggest that lawsuits of this nature create legal disparity between the affluent and the less privileged. Perhaps had the woman not belonged to the poorer class, in need of money, no such lawsuit would have been filed.

A recent China Daily poll reveals that approximately 87 percent of Chinese citizens are unlikely to aid an elderly person who has fallen in the street because they want to avoid being blamed for the accident. “The public's lack of a sense of trust has been made obvious by recent media stories that have looked at the hesitation people feel before they come to someone else's aid," Xie Jing, a communications professor at Fudan University, told the newspaper.

While Good Samaritan Laws in the United States are not federally imposed, the largest jurisdictions in the United States—New York, California, and Texas—have statutes that shield voluntary assistants from liability in the case of an accident. Yet “Good Samaritans” in California and Vermont may be prosecuted if they don’t act in the medical interest of the victim. In 2007 a woman who pulled a friend out of a wrecked car, leaving the friend paralyzed, was liable to civil damages in California because “the perceived danger of remaining in the wrecked car was not "medical," the court ruled.”

One explanation for not imposing more collective responsibility on individuals: separation of morals and law.

"Our common law has always refused to transmute moral duties into legal duties,” Virginia Law Professor Charles O. Gregory noted to Time Magazine in 1965, when the killing of a woman within earshot of dozens of her neighbors prompted a national debate about civic duty. Today, every state has some form of Good Samaritan law protecting people from liability for trying to save a life, according to HeartSafe America.

In Canada, too, each province has its own set of laws concerning Good Samaritan acts. Quebec’s Charter of Rights gives citizens a "duty to rescue:" individuals must assist anyone in jeopardy, unless there is reasonable evidence that it would cause danger to himself or a third party. Abstaining from helping someone is not considered a criminal offense, since it comes from the provincial level. Yet the majority of provinces have adopted a version of the Good Samaritan Law, most of which provide some form of protection for voluntary passers-by from liability for the victim’s damages, unless it can be proven that the damages were caused by the gross negligence of the person.

In France, witnesses to a person in distress can be arrested for not intervening. A Frenchman who fails to help another when he can do so without risk is liable for up to five years in prison and fined several thousands in Euros. The French logic follows that a witness is a participant in the crime if he/she does nothing to prevent it.

In spite of the outrage bubbling in China over society’s apparent moral decline, the majority of the population is reluctant to follow in France’s footsteps. According to one online poll, 77.7 percent of Chinese respondents disagree with the idea of establishing a 'duty to rescue' law. Most claim they don’t want moral acts to be legally enforced. With restrictions on individual freedom already so tightly monitored, the Chinese appear weary to have one more government mandate imposed.

It took the death of a two-year-old girl to bring greater awareness to what it means to do the right thing. Perhaps what is most disturbing about Yue Yue’s death is the realization that an underlying current of fear has become inherently attached to what should be a visceral reaction of compassion. Had the Samaritan described by Luke in the New Testament been bound by today’s laws, perhaps he would not have been so good.

Students in South Africa learn how to use smartphones. Photo: DI GameWorks (flickr)

The internet revolution in Africa will not be televised, but it will most likely be tweeted from a mobile device.

In fact, more young people in developing countries access the internet via mobile devices than in developed ones, explain Opera Software developers in a World News Heard Now article.

About 5.81 percent of total web browsing in Africa is done on mobile devices, compared to 4.7 percent in North America, according to figures cited by The Independent. And depending on the country, the percentage can be much higher. The Independent cites the example of Chad, where about 29 percent of all web browsing is sourced to mobile devices.

Telcom experts are expecting enormous growth in continent-wide internet access.
CEO Brian Herlihy of the African broadband company SEACOM told the Christian Science Monitor that total internet access in Africa tops out at about 15 percent -- a figure he expects to grow by 50 percent each year. And he expects IT spending to go up -- tripling to $150 billion by some estimates -- as telecoms, phonemakers and service operators wage price wars.

Whether its being texted or tweeted, the revolution has begun.

What will the growth of the Mongolian mining industry mean for the country's nomadic herders? Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Mongolia could soon be home to the largest copper mine in the world.

After years of negotiations, Western mining companies Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe are close to reaching an agreement with the Mongolian parliament to develop significantly the Oyu Tolgoi mine. Mineweb reports that the untapped deposit contains 78 billion pounds of copper and 45 million ounces of gold. If all goes to plan, the massive investment would double the size of Mongolia's economy and create thousands of jobs, according to NPR.

The economic crisis has hit Mongolia harder than most countries in East Asia. One in four people are out of work, NPR reports. The country’s nomadic herders – 40 percent of the population – are struggling after the price of cashmere dramatically declined earlier this year (see Manasi Sharma’s Downturn in the Gobi). Now, some are hailing Oyu Tolgoi as an immediate economic fix.

But there are several obvious challenges. First, Mongolia is highly corrupt. It is ranked 102 out of 180 countries in the latest Transparency International index, an annual rating of perceived levels of corruption (defined as the abuse of public office for private gain). Additionally, the editorial in Mineweb suggests that Russia and China may have inordinate influence over Mongolia’s mining industry. Given these two factors, how much will the average Mongolian gain?

Lastly, there are the social implications of this investment to consider. For many nomadic herders, shifting to industrial mining jobs is far from ideal, but there isn’t much else to turn to. People are desperate now that raw cashmere and other materials do not provide a reliable way to feed and clothe families. "They are losing their land, their animals, and even their culture," reported NPR’s Louisa Lim, "for a few specks of gold."

The G-20 is meeting this week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Chaired by President Barack Obama, the purpose of the summit is to, “review the progress made since the Washington and London Summits and discuss further actions to assure a sound and sustainable recovery from the global financial and economic crisis.” I’ve heard of the G-8, but the G-20? I began to wonder about this alphanumeric soup of organizations. Who are they and what are they concerned with? The following scorecard should help interested followers of this subject keep track of the major players.

The G-6: Organized in 1975 by the finance ministers of Germany and France who were frustrated with the formality and structure of larger international meetings, the G-6 and subsequent evolutions of this body are strictly informal bodies that meet to discuss economic issues of mutual interest. After the creation of the G-8, the term G-6 is now used to refer to the six most populous members of the European Union. The member countries are: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan

The G-7: Formed in 1976, this is an informal forum for the finance members of seven big industrial economies to discuss economic issues and seek agreement. Member countries include: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States. Now also includes the European Union.

The G-8: An evolution of the G-7, membership grew to include Russia. The European Union is a limited member; it cannot host a meeting or hold the presidency of the body. Members are: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, Russia. European Union (limited member)

The G-8 plus Five: Recognizing the growing influence of other countries, the original group sometimes broadens their meetings by including the Outreach Five. As with all meetings, other countries are sometimes invited to attend. Members: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, Russia. European Union (limited member) Plus: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa.

The G-20: According to their website, “[t]he G-20 was created as a response both to the financial crises of the late 1990s and a growing recognition that key emerging-market countries were not adequately included in the core of global economic discussion and governance.” Where the earlier groups (G-6 through G-8) were organized around the industrialized countries of the world, the G-20 begins to bring emerging economies into the dialog. Their first meeting was in Berlin, Germany. The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the President of the World Bank, plus the chairs of the International Monetary and Financial Committee and Development Committee of the IMF and World Bank, also participate in G-20 meetings on an ex-officio basis.

The G-20 is made up of the finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, European Central Bank

The G-33: The name for a group of developing countries that coordinates on trade and economic issues. It was created in order to help group countries which were all facing similar problems and give a unified voice to countries that were traditionally excluded from discussions among the industrialized countries. Members: Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Botswana, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Laos, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Senegal, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

There are other groups variously labeled as G-8, G-20, G-33, and even N-11 (countries which Goldman Sachs considered in 2005 to have a high potential of becoming the world’s largest economies this century: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam).

One of the best, reliable, sources of information about these groups and their members may be found on the websites of the World Trade Organization and the previously mentioned G-20.

You can Track the ongoing discussions of the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit here. But be prepared for slow page loading. It is a very busy website.

President Obama made an important anti-protectionist statement yesterday while in Canada — assuring America's largest trading partner that despite his critiques of Nafta while on the campaign trail, the Obama administration plans to "enhance" trade, rather than create barriers between the the two countries.

Now is a time where we've got to be very careful about any signals of protectionism, because as the economy of the world contracts, I think there's going to be a strong impulse, on the part of constituencies in all countries, to see if they can engage in beggar-thy-neighbor policies.

Obama took the opportunity to reiterate his pledge to revamp Nafta side agreements to include environmental and labor protections, stating:

My hope is that as our advisers and staffs and economic teams work this through, that there's a way of doing this that is not disruptive to the extraordinarily important trade relationships that exist between the United States and Canada.

Eating bugs is already a common practice in over 13 countries. Photo: Vilhelm Sjostrom (flickr)

Scientists are jumping on an underutilized protein source that is abundant and environmentally friendly.

Sounds great — until you realize that what the scientists from National Autonomous University of Mexico are suggesting is dining on insects.

Entomophagy, or eating bugs, is already a common practice in over 13 countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia, according to this week's Economist.

And what better then bugs? Gram for gram, bugs provide more nutrients than beef or fish.

And while the Food and Agriculture Organization at the United Nations considers livestock “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global,” bug farming is a low-impact process.

Khon Kaen University in Thailand has already developed an inexpensive cricket-rearing technique and taught it to 4,500 families. On just a 100 square feet of land, a family can raise enough crickets to make a tidy profit. Or they can even be “grown” inside homes. Because bugs are a crop that doesn’t require much food or water, grows and reproduces quickly, the yield can be incredible.

The Mexican university researchers themselves cite numerous reasons for insect eating: the 75 percent rise in some food prices, the additional 100 million people pushed into poverty, and global warming as reasons to shift to these more sustainable sources of protein.

Of course, there are perils to introducing new species of insects to areas. And there are those who just plain won’t eat bugs.

A more palatable option suggested by the Economist might be to replace supplements in processed food or animal feed with insect-derived protein, which would still help make carnivorous habits a little more sustainable.

Photo: wili_hybrid (flickr)

Contrary to opinions such as Senator Frank Murkowski's, the Arctic is not just “snow and ice.”

From Inuit tribes to the migratory caribou, the Arctic is full of life, especially during the summer. For energy-hungry nations, however, the Arctic is full of another element of interest: oil.

Beneath its melting icecaps lie the “world’s largest remaining untapped gas reserves and some of its largest undeveloped oil reserves,” says the WWF. In face of the current “oil shock,” the five nations that border the Arctic Ocean — Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the U.S. — all want a slice of this lucrative “ice” spot.

Late last May, these five rival nations met in Greenland to resolve these competing claims. The convention reaffirmed rules laid out by the UN Law of the Sea Convention, which draws national boundaries based on geological features. The UN is expected to oversee decisions on Arctic control by 2020.

Climate change has a big role in increasing the appeal of the Arctic. Rising temperatures rapidly melt the Arctic ice, which increase drilling and shipping access during summer months. Eventually, this will even open up “a route through the Arctic Ocean linking the Atlantic and Pacific that would reduce the sea journey from New York to Singapore by thousands of miles,” says The Telegraph.

Absent from the meeting were environmental groups, who “said the closed-door meeting paved the way for a land grab by countries who have claims to the continental shelf at the pole,” according to The Guardian.

Environmentalists also object to the environmental dangers of drilling.

John Calder, the director of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Arctic Research Division, warns not only of the landscape destruction and negative impacts on the indigenous Arctic villages due to infrastructure development, but also the calamitous effects of oil accidents:

Oil spills are especially dangerous in the Arctic, because its cold and heavily season-dependent ecosystems take a long time to recover. Besides, it is very difficult to remove the damage from oil spills in remote and cold regions, especially in parts of the ocean where there is ice.

The New York Times reports that despite concern over Nafta among Mexican farmers and U.S. big sugar companies, in time Nafta should make the U.S. consumer and the Mexican farmer better off.