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The famous Paris landmark has been fitted with two new wind turbines that generate enough electricity to power the commercial areas of its first floor.

France’s most recognisable landmark, the iron Eiffel Tower erected in 1889, has seen its iconic frame festooned with many different decorations and objects over the years for various celebrations. Its latest addition is a little more subtle — and maybe a little more in keeping with the tower’s original purpose as a monument to human ingenuity and artistry.

As part of a major renovation and upgrade to the tower’s first floor, the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel will be adding a variety of sustainability features — the first of which is a pair of VisionAIR5 wind turbines designed by renewable energy specialist Urban Green Energy.

The two vertical-axis turbines have been installed on the tower’s second level, about 122 metres (400ft) from the ground — a position that maximises wind capture. The turbines have been specially painted so as to blend in with the tower, and produce virtually no sound. They can also capture wind from any direction, producing, between them, a total of 10,000kWh per year — enough to power the tower’s first floor.

“The Eiffel Tower is arguably the most renowned architectural icon in the world, and we are proud that our advanced technology was chosen as the Tower commits to a more sustainable future,” said UGE CEO Nick Blitterswyk. “When visitors from around the world see the wind turbines, we get one step closer to a world powered by clean and reliable renewable energy.”

There was no environmental benchmark the tower was required to meet; however, the SETE wishes to reduce the tower’s environmental impact by 25 percent as part of the City of Paris Climate Plan. It is funding the entire €30 million cost of the renovation — which includes cosmetic and safety upgrades — itself.

Other sustainable measures to be introduced to the Eiffel Tower include LED lighting, solar panels, a rainwater collection system and high-power heat pumps.

You can read more about the upgrade project on the official Eiffel Tower website.

The motto of Dauphin, Manitoba, a small farming town in the middle of Canada, is “everything you deserve.” What a citizen deserves, and what effects those deserts have, was a question at the heart of a 40-year-old experiment that has lately become a focal point in a debate over social welfare that’s raging from Switzerland to Silicon Valley.

Between 1974 and 1979, the Canadian government tested the idea of a basic income guarantee (BIG) across an entire town, giving people enough money to survive in a way that no other place in North America has before or since. For those four years-until the project was cancelled and its findings packed away-the town’s poorest residents were given monthly checks that supplemented what modest earnings they had and rewarded them for working more. And for that time, it seemed that the effects of poverty began to melt away. Doctor and hospital visits declined, mental health appeared to improve, and more teenagers completed high school.

“Do we have to behave in particular ways to justify compassion and support?” Evelyn Forget, a Canadian social scientist who unearthed ​some of the findings of the Dauphin experiment, asked me rhetorically when I reached her by phone. “Or is simply human dignity enough?”

Critics of basic income guarantees have insisted that giving the poor money would disincentivize them to work, and point to studies that show ​a drop in peoples’ willingness to work under pilot programs. But in Dauphin-thought to be the largest such experiment conducted in North America-the experimenters found that the primary breadwinner in the families who received stipends were in fact not less motivated to work than before. Though there was some reduction in work effort from mothers of young children and teenagers still in high school-mothers wanted to stay at home longer with their newborns and teenagers weren’t under as much pressure to support their families-the reduction was not anywhere close to disastrous, as skeptics had predicted.

“People work hard and it’s still not enough,” Doreen Henderson, who is now 70 and was a participant in the experiment, told the ​Wi​nnipeg Free Pres​s​ in 2009. Her husband Hugh, now 73, worked as a janitor while she stayed at home with their two kids. Together they raised chickens and grew a lot of their own food. “They should have kept it,” she said of the minimum income program. “It made a real difference.”

The recovered data from “Mincome,” as the Dauphin experiment was known, has given more impetus to a growing call for some sort of guaranteed income. This year, the Swis​s Parliament will vote on whether to extend a monthly stipend to all residents, and the Indian government has already begun replacing aid programs with direct cash transfers. Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich has called a BIG “alm​ost inevitable.” In the US, Canada, and much of Western Europe, where the conversation around radically adapting social security remains mostly hypothetical, the lessons of Dauphin might be especially relevant in helping these ideas materialize sooner rather than later.

There are other compelling arguments for a guaranteed income now. Despite record corporate earnings, most people are not benefitting. Wages are stagnant, unemployment is high, ​student debt and health care costs are soaring, and the job market is not rewarding those who are already employed with enough money for a decent way of life. The so-called ​Uberization of the workforce, in which workers are paid by the task rather than on a salary or under an established hourly rate-is increasing the precariousness of work. (And that’s not to mention ​robots and artificial intelligence taking away jobs.) As the concept of universal healthcare spreads and minimum wage is debated, conversations around reconsidering or expanding social security are growing.

“Originally the interest was primarily prompted by the concern that the welfare system was discouraging people from working,” Ron Hikel, who coordinated the Mincome program, ​told Dutch television last y​ear. Today, he says, the motivation for guaranteed income is an increase in inequality. “At some point, the income inequality begins to interfere with people’s ability to have education, and also to take care of their own health. To the extent that that effects the relations in society, it begins to accentuate divisions and differences, and you get an increase in social pathologies, alcohol addiction, the use of drugs, an increase in mental illness, a decrease in provision of educational courses and an increase in the crime rate.”

In the US, support for basic income has come not just from the left but, perhaps surprisingly, from the right, and ​especially from libertarians.

“There has always been some support for [a BIG] from the political right because the scheme is less intrusive than most ways of delivering social programs,” explained Forget (pronounced for-zhay). Thomas Paine and Martin Luther King, Jr. called for something like a basic income, but so too did ​the seminal libertarian economists F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman ​(Friedman called it a “negative income tax”). Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan has proposed combining various forms of federal anti-poverty assistance into a single funding stream, acknowledging that the effects of the rich getting richer are getting harder to ignore.

Dauphin in the early 1980s. Image: ​Lisa N. Daniel/Fac​ebook

Forget documented a decline in doctor visits, an 8.5 percent reduction in the hospitalization rate, and more adolescents continuing into grade 12

Advocates have argued that a single coordinated program providing a base income is more efficient than the current panoply of welfare and social security programs and the bureaucracy required to maintain them (in the U.S. there are currently 79 means-tested social welfare programs, not including Medicare or Medicaid). “Existing social assistance programs were riddled with overlaps and gaps that allowed some families to qualify under two or more programs while others fell between programs,” says Forget.

When Mincome was first conceived, in the early ’70s heyday of social welfare reform, some thought the experiment in Dauphin could be the prelude to a program that could be introduced across Canada. South of the border, there was widespread support for minimum income as well. A 1969 Harris poll for Life Magazine found that 79 percent of respondents supported a federal program President Nixon had proposed called the Family Assi​stance Plan that guaranteed a family of four an annual income of $1,600, or about $10,000 today. Nixon’s FAP plan (it wasn’t guaranteed income, he insisted, but it was) made it through the House before it was killed in the Senate, voted down by Democrats. Still, there remained a sense of experimentation in the air. Four minimum income trials occurred in the US between 1968 and 1975, which appeared to show that the work hours of basic income recipients fell more sharply than expected.

But these experiments were done with small sample sizes; the experiment in Dauphin was unusual in that in encompassed a whole town. Forget, now a community health professor at the University of Manitoba who studies a range of social welfare programs, saw in the Mincome data a rare chance to examine the effects of BIG on a wider scale.

An undergrad in Toronto at the time the experiment was first being conducted, she remembers hearing about it in class. “My professor would tell us about this wonderful and important experiment taking place ‘out west’ that would revolutionize the way we delivered social programs.”

Years later, when she ended up “out west” herself, she began piecing together what information she could find about Dauphin. After a five-year struggle, Forget secured access to the experiment’s data-all 1,800 cubic feet of it-which had been all but lost inside a warehouse belonging to the provincial government archives in Winnipeg. Since 2005, she’s been thoroughly analyzing it, carefully comparing surveys of Dauphin residents with those collected in neighboring towns at the time.

Forget’s analysis of the data reveals that providing minimum income can have a substantial positive impact on a community beyond reducing poverty alone. “Participant contacts with physicians declined, especially for mental health, and more adolescents continued into grade 12,” she concludes in her paper, “The Town with No ​Poverty,” published in Canadian Public Policy in 2011. Forget also documented an 8.5 percent reduction in the hospitalization rate for participants as well, suggesting a minimum income could save health care costs. (Her research was unable to substantiate claims from US researchers that showed increases in fertility rates, improved neonatal outcomes or increased family dissolution rates for recipients of guaranteed incomes.)

Grade 12 enrollment in Dauphin and nearby localities as a percentage of previous year’s enrollment. Image: ​Evelyn Forget

The Dauphin experiment was born out of a particularly left-leaning moment in Canadian politics, as the progressive and provincial New Democratic Party (NDP) swept into office, and Pierre Trudeau was elected as prime minister. The plan, drawn up in 1973, called for two-thirds of the $17 million program to be paid by the federal government and the rest by the province.

Any person or family who fell into the lowest income bracket was eligible to participate, with the amount varying by family size, year, and other income sources. Families of two parents and two children that earned more than $13,000 were not eligible. By 1978, according to Forget, families that received no income from any other source would have received between $3,800 and $5,800 Canadian dollars per year; those with income from other sources would receive less, sometimes as little as $100 a month.

The feared labor market fallout-that people would stop working-didn’t materialize. Part of this was by design, says Forget. “Mincome was designed in such a way that there is always an incentive to work more hours rather than less,” because every dollar received from other sources would reduce benefits by only fifty cents, whereas typical welfare programs provide no extra benefits when recipients earn money from other sources. “If you work another hour, you get to keep 50 percent of the benefit you would have gotten anyway, so you are better off working than not.”

Some recipients used the money to pay for essentials; others used it as supplementary income to purchase things that could help them increase their earning potential, like new vehicles. One major benefit of the program was a sense of security, potentially counteracting the sort of worrying that can ​weigh heavily on the minds ​of the poor.

“Most important for an agriculturally dependent town with a lot of self-employment,” writes Forget ​in her pap​er, “MINCOME offered stability and predictability; families knew they could count on at least some support, no matter what happened to agricultural prices or the weather. They knew that sudden illness, disability or unpredictable economic events would not be financially devastating.”

While every family in Dauphin was eligible to participate in the experiment, only about a third had incomes low enough to qualify. In some cases, the effects on the town seemed to extend beyond the third who were participating. When looking at graduation rates, for example, Forget notes that there was likely a “social multiplier” effect at work. One student might have been afforded the ability to continue in school because of the minimum income, and then his or her friends whose family were not participating in the program might be influenced to stay in school themselves.

“We cannot separate out the direct effects from the indirect effects that might operate through social networks or other market or nonmarket mechanisms,” explains Forget in her paper. “Ironically, the inability to randomize in a saturation site, far from being a liability, may have generated a response that would be invisible in a classic randomized experimental site.”

Dauphin’s hasn’t been the only minimum income experiment in North America-in the 1960s, studies were conducted in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Seattle and Denver-but Mincome was unique in that it was the only experiment to make guaranteed income available to a whole town rather than just a randomly selected sample of the population. This was a way, Forget writes, “to answer questions about administrative and community issues in a less artificial environment.”

Midway through, though, the project ran into financial problems. The economy across North America drastically changed, and a recession, stagf​lation and higher-than-anticipated unemployment made the project more expensive than its budget could accommodate. Two years in, a decision was made to keep archiving data, even though the researchers no longer had the budget to pay for its analysis.

By the end of the four years, new economic realities like the oil shocks had altered the political climate; new parties were voted into power, with ideological outlooks that rejected the idea of a minimum income. While Mincome was initially a pilot project for a national universal program, the new government had more urgent concerns and abandoned the idea. The experiments’ findings were filed away.

Footage of Dauphin in the ’70s. Video: Leo Bunyak

A lot of our social services were based on the notion that there are a lot of 40 hour-per-week jobs out there, full-time jobs, and it was just a matter of connecting people to those jobs and everything will be fine.

In 2005, after Forget discovered the 1,800 boxes of Mincome records, she tried to fill in the blanks by talking to families that had actually participated in the program. To avoid breaking ethics rules that forebade her from contacting any of them directly, Forget planted stories in the local press and on the radio, inviting participants to call her. Many did.

“They thought that it was a very positive thing and thought that were it to be reintroduced they thought it would be a very positive thing. They found it useful, and said that it certainly improved quality of life,” said Forget. “On the other hand,” she added, “it was hardly a random sample. If people had negative memories they probably wouldn’t have called me.”

Forget’s methodical research, however, gives more substantial proof than these memories and anecdotes. “I’m a social scientist, so I always have great hope that people will pay attention to evidence,” she said. “There’s always a fear that if you introduce a program like this people will stop working. We’ve got a fair amount of evidence that that is not the case, but people still worry about that. So I think it takes, sometimes, more than evidence to change public opinion.”

Dauphin in the snow. Image: Dauphin Economic Developme​nt

James Manzi, a ​senior fellow at the Manhatta​n Institute, believes that making minimum income a reality would be “a pretty tough hill to climb.” Typically some sort of guaranteed income or negative tax has been proposed as replacing all or part of the current welfare system, and while libertarians are in favor of that idea because it means less government bureaucracy, Manzi noted that special interest groups would be negatively impacted.

“Provider organizations for the entire welfare program are going to resist it because you are essentially describing eliminating all their jobs,” he said. He also noted that the cost of the program would be another challenge to overcome. “Any serious budget analysis that I’ve seen says it’s going to require a net increase in tax payments,” he said. “Even if it were free, could you get the electorate to support this idea? Then, it’s not free. The median voter’s tax bill is going to go up.”

Manzi also noted that in the ’90s, when welfare reform was being debated, the electorate was in favor of more work requirements, not fewer. “The primary distinguishing characteristic of TANF [Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, introduced in 1997] as compared to AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which ran from 1935 to 1996] is the introduction of a work requirement,” he says.

Despite the Dauphin data, the effects-negative and positive-on people’s willingness to work and other aspects of their lives under BIG and similar programs remains unresolved. Even studies that appeared to show a drop in work incentives in guaranteed income pilots may have overstated the case. As Dylan Matthews points out on Vox, evidence shows that full withdrawal from the labor force was a relative rarity. Instead, workers spent longer periods of time searching for better jobs. Others may have spent more time in school. Forget saw this effect in Dauphin, and experimenters in the New Jersey and Seattle-Denver trials showed ​increases in teenagers completing high school, of 25-30 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

When Forget looks at politics and culture and the economy now, she sees forces converging to create a more hospitable climate for minimum income experiments on a grander scale than before.

“This is an interesting time,” she said. “A lot of our social services were based on the notion that there are a lot of 40 hour-per-week jobs out there, full-time jobs, and it was just a matter of connecting people to those jobs and everything will be fine. Of course, one of the things we know is that’s certainly not the case, particularly for young people who often find themselves working in precarious jobs, working in contracts for long periods of time without the benefits and long-term support that those of us who have been around longer take for granted.”

In the Canadian context, at least, she said, “I’m optimistic enough to believe that at some point we are going to end up with a guaranteed income.”

Part 1: The Spectrum of a Movement (Part 2)

The environment movement has, of late, become all but subsumed by the climate movement. I point this out not because climate doesn’t matter, but because it’s not the only thing that does.

I fear that many important challenges are going unaddressed due to lack of attention. And I fear that our tactics are narrowing in scope, shunning direct action and favouring populism. The aim to attract more mainstream attention and support means vanilla tactics dominate while striking at the core of issues is viewed as too radical for popular appeal.

The emerging trend of the environment movement is toward the centre of the bell curve, both in terms of issues addressed, and the means by which they are addressed.

As the movement pulls resources toward the organizations and agendas at the centre of the bell curve the extremities get frozen out, and alternative perspectives get lost. More radical perspectives, once commonplace in the environment movement are now greeted with disdain, and the worldviews underpinning them are not given serious consideration – instead they are often denigrated as extremist. We have become a movement of eco-pragmatists, a position far removed from our roots in ecocentrism, where nature was regarded first and foremost.

This transition has much to do with the emerging pattern of differing shades of green in the environment movement as it grows, lending nuance to the approaches of the various different groups, organizations and initiatives that have emerged to combat ecological crises. Green is no longer unified, if it ever really was. Bright Green, Lite Green, Deep Green and Dark Green tribes form around divergent worldviews, theories of change, and an accepted range of tactics. Each tribe vies for attention to its message in a world of time-constrained news cycles and manufactured consumerism, and competes for the resources – in a finite pool of funding and volunteers – required to make good on its mission statements.

With such intense competition for such limited resources, brand image and recruitment become powerful means for amplifying a perspective, and the movement collapses toward the populist centre, where most of the funding is applied. Current funding favours Bright Green and Lite Green approaches, for obvious reasons: they don’t challenge the received wisdom of the economic growth imperative or anthropocentric delusion, and they don’t challenge existing power structures. It is no surprise, then, that the environment movement has, to a large extent, been declawed by its own mainstream success.

A closer look at the various shades of Green present in today’s environment movement is needed if we are to identify points of common ground upon which to unite and collaborate, and cracks that lead to ruptures if left unaddressed.

The Bright Green tribe dominates the environment movement today, and, as such, it is Bright Green solutioneering that dominates public and political discourse. Bright Green techno-optimists present the promise of a bright future based on human ingenuity and our ability to harness technology, policy and market forces to solve any environmental problem and meet our every economic need.

Big Green Tech and carbon pricing mechanisms are the mainstays of Bright green advocacy, with the overwhelming majority of Bright Green groups, such as 350, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club spruiking support for large-scale energy infrastructure projects such as solar and wind farms and the magic of the invisible hand of the carbon market – in some cases while playing the stock market or engaging in market speculation (and not always winning). Petitions, protests, divestment actions, and media-friendly PR stunts are the modus operandi, with occasional forays into political advocacy.

The Lite Green tribe has seen a slow and steady increase in membership with its embrace of ‘green consumerism’, an appealing new brand for cashing in on a niche market. Once the business world got wind of the potential of the eco-dollar, the eco-friendly alternatives rolled in. Lite Greens believe in voting with their dollars, that their own ethical consumption adds a drop to the bucket of overall change, and that is noble in and of itself.

These are the Prius drivers, folks with solar panels on the roofs of their energy-intensive-by-global-standards suburban homes, folks who delight in organic everything and eschew single-use plastic. Lite Green is a shade that needs no organizing to shine, but is amplified by light-hearted symbolic events, such as Earth Hour, and consumer-based challenges, such as Plastic Free July.

Deep Greens have earned themselves a reputation for being the new radicals of the environment movement for their commitment to deep ecological sustainability and pulling our destructive system up at the roots. For Deep Greens, the environment is the bottom line, and resistance is protection. Think Deep Green Resistance, Earth First or Generation Alpha at the systemic challenge-to-civilization end of the pool, and Sea Shepherd, at the resistor-come-protector end.

Although the current corporate media-induced panic over Deep Green tactics is relatively new, Deep is not a new shade of Green. Deep Green tactics such as monkeywrenching and blockading are frontline norms, and have saved many a natural wonder that petitions and placards have merely bounced off. Deep Greens don’t aim to tweak at the system; they aim to undermine it, disrupt it, and facilitate its eventual transformation.

The Dark Green tribe is a relative newcomer to the shades of Green, and is most strongly associated with initiatives such as the Dark Mountain Project and Transition Towns network. Dark Greens base their approach to the environment movement on the realities of limits to growth, and, in some cases, the prediction of civilizational collapse. Issues such as peak oil, population growth, industrial agriculture, and a perpetual-growth economy, underpin Dark Green theory and practice.

Seeking to remove their tacit compliance with the systems that perpetuate our predicament, Dark Greens are generally downshifters who have escaped the treadmill to the extent possible, moved their lives off-grid to the extent possible, and are working to build resilience and upskill themselves in preparation for the limits-to-growth predicated shocks to our energy supply, the economy, and the environment.

I’ll pre-empt premature suspicions of pigeon-holing here with the disclaimer that no one individual, group, organization or initiative is likely to fall squarely in one box. One can adopt a Lite Green lifestyle while advocating Bright Green solutions; one can engage in Deep Green direct action while embracing Dark Green downshifting; one can advocate for Bright Green solutions using Deep Green tactics; one can downshift to a Dark Green footprint via a Lite Green gearshift. And few individuals remain in one category throughout their activism, with many Dark Greens being jaded former Deep Greens, and many Deep Greens being radicalized Bright Greens, and many Bright Greens being mobilized Lite Greens.

My own haphazard journey through the various shades of Green has covered them all. I suppose I was raised Deep Green in all honesty, with the worldview instilled in me that we are but one strand in the web of life and that we must tread lightly upon the earth. My family ensured I was well-versed in the Lite Green rituals of recycling, water conservation and energy saving, and now I’m an ardent plasticphobe who showers with a bucket and goes around switching off appliances at the wall. I briefly trotted out the politically appealing mantras of the Bright Green techno-optimists – that we can have our cake and eat it; and then I learned about peak oil and carrying capacity, and limits to growth – things that should have been intuitive, but required a deconstruction of cultural indoctrination to comprehend.

Now I find myself with a foot in each of the Deep Green and Dark Green camps with the occasional Lite Green flicker of indulgence. That means my activism is Deep Green, my lifestyle is as Dark Green as I’m able to shade it, and Lite Green slips through the cracks in my plans. Please forgive me my biases – I’ve been there, done that, and worn out the t-shirts.

Despite the differences between the various shades of Green, there are areas of common ground shared between the tribes.

Bright Greens and Light Greens favour populist approaches that have the potential to generate mass-uptake, while Deep Greens and Dark Greens push the envelope in order for the environment movement to progress. While Bright Green and Light Green initiatives are strong on populist messaging for their causes, thus sacrificing depth and breadth, the more holistic messages of the Deep Greens and Dark Greens have narrower appeal.

Where Bright Greens and Deep Greens share common ground is their reliance on collective action, while many Lite Green and Dark Green actions can be carried out by individuals acting alone – it is their collective impact that achieves the desired results. Bright Green activists also take part in some traditionally Deep Green direct actions such as blockades, lending a greater degree of support to the movement’s goals.

Deep Green activists are often critical of the Lite Green approach to the environment movement, however. The notion that shortening our showers and changing our lightbulbs brings about incremental change has worn thin for Deep Greens, and the all-too-frequent response is a failure to reach out to potential allies from the Lite Green camp – who are usually starting out on their environmentalist journey and could use experienced, empathic guidance, not the cold shoulder of know-it-alls.

Dark Green downshifters, likewise, tend to be critical of Bright Green activism, questioning the value of their work in light of the limits to growth constraints and unintended consequences that render many Bright Green solutions moot. While the Dark Greens most definitely have a point, it is a mistake to sacrifice Bright Green relationships – it is only by connecting and communicating across the network that realities such as limits to growth can permeate the movement and couch its strategies in a more realistic framework.

Despite the obvious differences at the surface, many Dark Green downshifters began their journey as Lite Green conscious consumers. Lite Green consumer choices can light the path toward one-planet living that leads one to further questions regarding what mode of living is genuinely sustainable. The rabbithole goes as far as any individual is prepared to go when it comes to downshifting, and a Lite Green thinker can transition fairly rapidly into a Dark Green downshifter given the advantages of a critical mind and access to information.

Bright Green activists aren’t a one-size-fits-all phenomenon, despite frequent public appearances in matching t-shirts. Many Bright Greens stand with a foot inside the Deep Green camp, and seek to ramp up Bright Green action in order to be more effective. Many, however, are critical of the radicalism of Deep Greens, and are wary of the lengths some are prepared to go to in order to achieve their goals, while Deep Greens are often harshly critical of the parameters of professionalized activists’ campaign remits, suggesting these limit the movement’s capacity to effect change. The distrust of one another that this criticism engenders bubbles up from time to time, and has the potential to fragment the movement in the absence of communication across the borderlands between the shades, and genuine intention to understand the other’s perspective.

And everyone is a hypocrite hunter when it comes to Bright Greens or Deep Greens who don’t curb their consumption while waiting for technological or political salvation, or the collapse of industrial civilization; or when it comes to Lite Greens or Dark Greens who live cocooned by privilege while ignoring their responsibility toward their broader Earth community.

Once the various shades of Green within the environment movement are recognized it then becomes possible to find areas of common ground to work from and develop. A danger with any movement is its potential to fragment into factions once it reaches a certain size – with the various factions competing instead of collaborating – and the potential emergence of a dominant faction that drowns out competing worldviews, theories of change, and tactics. Through this tangled web of worldview, theory and practice there is a need to locate strands of commonalities that can be woven together in a comprehensive strategy. Our collective power is surely much greater than the sum of all our parts.

Read Part 2.Kari McGregor is based on the Sunshine Coast, in Australia and blogs as The Overthinker. She is a full-time downshifter after walking out on the employment paradigm, turning her back on non-profit management and mainstream ‘education’. These days she spends far more time working pro-bono forSustainability Showcase than generating dollars from her small non-profit sector consulting business. Just how she likes it!

Hershey intends to remove genetically-modified ingredients from Hershey’s Milk Chocolate and Kisses by the end of the year.

The company plans to ditch emulsifier polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR) and artificial vanillin for the brands as it pledges to shift to “simple ingredients”.

No artificial colors and flavors or HFCS

Hershey said in a statement: “We are specifically looking to formulate new products and transition existing products to deliver on no artificial flavors, no synthetic colors, no high fructose corn-syrup and to be gluten-free.”

Hershey’s clean label initiative comes just days after Nestlé USA committed to removing artificial colors and flavors in its confectionery range.

Jeff Beckman, director of corporate communications at Hershey, told ConfectioneryNews. “We are looking closely at every ingredient in our products and how we describe them. We will strive for simplicity with all of our ingredients, but we may not achieve it with every product.”

Hershey has been under pressure from consumer groups to remove or label GMOs for a number of years.

Follows an earlier move in Canada

For Hershey’s Milk Chocolate and Kisses, the company will move to natural vanilla, non-genetically modified sugar and milk from cows that have not been treated with growth hormone rBST.

Hershey replaced artificial vanillin with natural vanilla and removed PGPR in Canada a few years ago. The Canadian products still contain soy lecithin, which Hershey has previously described as “basically a natural emulsifier made with soy beans”.

‘Simple snacking products’

In the US, Hershey also intends to roll out “simple snacking products” without high-fructose corn syrup or artificial colors & flavors, such as Brookside Dark Chocolate Fruit & Nut Bars.

It also plans to introduce a full ingredient glossary and profiles of the firm’s suppliers on its website.

Beckman said the shift to ‘simple ingredients’ could take a number of years, but said Hershey would provide updates on its progress.

The company said it would initially cost more to source ‘simple ingredients’, but pledged to maintain consumer prices. Last year, the company increased wholesale prices 8% globally in response to rising cocoa, dairy and nut prices. “No other action is planned at this time,” it said in a Q&A on its simple ingredients policy.

• 

  Simple Ingredients: Ingredients that are simple and easy to understand, like fresh milk from local farms, cocoa beans and sugar.

• Sharing What’s Inside: Sharing information on ingredients sourcing, manufacturing and labeling.
• Thoughtful and responsible sourcing: Working with suppliers to source sustainable ingredients, e.g 100% certified cocoa and traceable palm oil.

Mars under the spotlight

Mars has now come under pressure to remove artificial dyes following Nestlé and Hershey’s recent announcements.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a release : “If Nestle can do it, Mars can do it.”

The organization has called on Mars to remove artificial colors linked to child hyperactivity in its M&M’s brand.

Mars has removed these dyes for M&M’s in Europe, but the brand contains Blue 1, Blue 2, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, and Red 40 in the US.

The European Commission’s overhaul of the EU electricity market will target national public support for renewables, while encouraging governments to pay energy companies in other member states for idle power stations.

Capacity mechanisms reward power companies – mainly gas and coal stations – for the amount of power they can produce, rather than by buying the energy they actually generate.

New legislation on capacity markets are part of the executive’s plan to create an EU-wide Energy Union, according to a paper leaked ahead of next week’s official launch of the project.

Supporters claim the model can prevent blackouts, enabling the surplus capacity to be brought online in case of a shortage or to cover consumption at peak time.

Critics counter that paying for surplus, unused power is a public subsidy for high-carbon industries, entrenching polluting fossil fuel stations for years to come.

Opening up capacity mechanisms, already a reality in some member states such as the United Kingdom, to investment from other EU countries, will only exacerbate that, they argue.

The executive will write laws to make it possible for EU governments to buy capacity based in other member states, according to the communication, which is subject to change.

An Energy Union would allow energy to be shared more effectively across the EU, so that a surplus in one country could be used where there is a shortage, be it because of an unreliable supplier or any other reason.

Supply security is one of the central drivers behind the Energy Union. It gained political momentum after 2009, when Russia shut off gas supplies to the EU, causing shortages.

The Commission will legislate to fully open capacity mechanisms to cross-border investment as part of rules to manage the security of electricity supply, according to the draft.

In 2015 to 2016, it will publish an initiative to co-ordinate capacity markets. A review of the directive concerning measures to safeguard electricity supply security will begin in 2016, the paper said.

Serious overhaul

The legislation will be part of a redesign of Europe’s electricity market. “A serious overhaul is needed in relation to state interventions in the market”, the paper said.

“Uncoordinated national policies” on capacity and renewables will be tackled by ambitious legislation, it added.

Member states “all over Europe” were increasingly turning to capacity markets “even when this is neither efficient nor cost-effective,” the draft continued.

“Public support to national renewable electricity producers has often created cost distortions,” the document said. Particular attention would be paid state intervention in pricing mechanisms for energy in the electricity market overhaul.

Governments across Europe cut funding for renewables schemes after the financial crisis. Spain angered investors by making retrospective cuts in their subsidies to renewables.

But public subsidies and other national support has been successful in countries such as Denmark and Ireland.

>> Read: Denmark sets world record in wind energy A subsidy?

“Our vision is of the Energy Union as “a sustainable, low carbon and environment-friendly economy,” the draft reads.

Environmentally harmful subsidies will be phased out altogether, the draft said. But capacity mechanisms are viewed by some as just that.

In July 2014, the Commission authorised the UK Capacity Market electricity generation scheme, deciding it was in line with EU state aid rules. It found the market would ensure energy supply security without distorting competition, backing the government intervention.

After the UK’s first capacity auction in December, £293m (nearly €400 million) was earmarked for old coal plants, according to British NGO Sandbag.

Oxfam’s climate policy adviser Kiri Hanks said at the time, “The days of burning dirty coal should be numbered but instead the UK government is giving two-thirds of the UK’s coal plants a public subsidy.”

Brian Ricketts, the Secretary General of the European Association for Coal and Lignite, told EurActiv capacity mechanisms were a rational response to the increase in subsidised, must-run renewables and, if properly designed, should not be considered state aid.

“Fossil generation secures electricity supply when there is no wind or sun. Only if all options to provide reliable capacity are eligible – from new as well as from existing plants, from coal as well as from gas – will consumers get the best deal on security,” he said.

The German government, in contrast to the UK, has refused to pay capacity payments for fossil fuel plants, despite pressure from the country’s coal and gas industry.

Power plant operators are only interested in capacity payments so that they can “conserve surplus capacities at the cost of electricity consumers,” Germany’s Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy Sigmar Gabriel told Handelsblatt in January.

>> Read: Gabriel rejects ‘senseless’ calls for surplus energy capacity

Reducing the cost for consumers is another goal of the Energy Union set out in the leaked paper.

Efficiency

The Energy Union’s ambition is to turn the EU into the most energy efficient economy in the world, the paper said. The Commission will revise the energy efficiency and performance of buildings directives. It will also push a financing initiative aimed at existing buildings, it said.

While welcome, campaigners warned the energy efficiency initiatives will reduce demand, creating more surplus capacity and idle stations – and potentially more capacity payments.

“The Commission’s idea of an Energy Union looks more like a confused shopping list than a coherent plan. Investors need the right signals,” Tara Connolly, Greenpeace EU energy policy advisor said.

“A clear plan focusing on renewables and phasing out coal would cut carbon emissions, while maintain Europe’s competitiveness, generating jobs, and contributing to energy security.”

EU leaders in October committed by 2030 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40%, and increase energy efficiency and renewables by at least 27%.

>> Read: EU leaders adopt ‘flexible’ energy and climate targets for 2030

The Commission plans to legislate to achieve those gas emissions targets, according to the leaked paper. At the same time as the Energy Union launch, it will publish a strategy paper for December’s UN Climate Change Conference in Paris which aims to set a worldwide legally binding target for global warming.

The politics of solar power keeps getting more and more interesting.

In Indiana, a fight over net metering – basically, whether people with rooftop solar can return their excess power to the grid and thereby lower their utility bills – has drawn out groups ranging from the state chapter of the NAACP to the conservative TUSK (Tell Utilities Solar won’t be Killed) in favor of the practice.

Arrayed on the other side of the issue, meanwhile, are the Indiana Energy Association, a group of utilities, and Republican Rep. Eric Koch, sponsor of a bill that would potentially change how net metering works in the state. The legislation, in its current form, would let utility companies ask the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to include various “tariffs, rates and charges, and credits” for those customers generating their own energy at home.

Net metering advocates charge that this would reduce how much money rooftop solar installers save on their electricity bills. But the bill’s supporters say it will “level the playing field to ensure that all of those who use the electric grid – whether consuming or generating power – are paying for its upkeep,” in the words of the Indiana Energy Association.

Forty-three states and the District of Columbia currently allow net metering – among them, Indiana. The fight is important because the solar industry in the state, and the number of people installing rooftop solar, is expected to grow in coming years – that is, so long as solar remains a good deal financially.

What’s particularly fascinating is how this debate has mobilized the religious community. Solar panels are going up on church rooftops in Indiana, and on Wednesday, the head of the Christian Coalition of America wrote a blog post favoring solar and referring specifically to the Indiana fight (although without getting into the technical details of net metering).

Roberta Combs, president of the group, titled her post “For God and Country, Indiana and America Need Better Energy Policies,” writing,

Indiana’s utilities are interested in keeping us reliant on traditional fuel sources that hurt our national security and weaken our economy. We must allow homes, businesses, public organizations, and churches to create local, American power by installing solar.

As conservatives, we stand up for our country’s national security and the health of our economy. And, as Christians, we recognize the biblical mandate to care for God’s creation and protect our children’s future.

This is not the first time that Combs has come out for an initiative that might be described as “green.” She previously supported efforts by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, former senator Joe Lieberman and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to battle global warming. Her daughter, Michele Combs, is the founder of a group called Young Conservatives for Energy Reform, which stands for “weaning our nation from foreign oil, boosting efficiency, and developing homegrown alternatives from natural gas to biofuels to wind and solar.”

“This whole concept of conservative support for solar has certainly gotten a lot of attention, but this is the most remarkable chapter in the story,” said Bryan Miller, who co-chairs the Alliance for Solar Choice, which advocates in favor of net metering across the country. “We’ve seen a lot of grass-roots activism for sure, but we haven’t seen a major national group, associated with the far right of American politics, coming out on a renewable energy issue.”

The reason this has happened in Indiana, suggests Miller, is that “we’ve had houses of worship who have gone solar, speaking out about this for weeks.” The South Carolina Christian Coalition has also supported solar power in the state.

The Christian Coalition did not immediately return requests for comment.

Energy in the United States is changing so fast, it seems, that politics barely knows how to adapt to it.

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

When it comes to innovation, businesses often follow the lead of government. Take large-scale renewable power-especially solar. Before the 2009 stimulus package, solar power was nowhere in this country. But the same program that brought us the Solyndra debacle offered loan guarantees for the first efforts to build truly massive, utility-scale projects-ones that could supply massive quantities of energy and theoretically replace plants fired by fossil fuels. Those projects worked. America now is home to the world’s two largest solar plants. California’s Desert Sunlight and Topaz facilities each have a capacity of 550 megawatts. Both were made possible by Energy Department loans.

Once the technologies were proven, and the costs began to come down, investors and operators stepped in. Companies put up plants, and then made deals with utilities to buy the output-often at a price above the cost of electricity created by coal plants. Utilities complied in part because of state requirements that they source a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources.

Now we’re entering a new stage. Companies in sectors such as technology, health care, and consumer products-all big consumers of power-are striking deals to purchase huge amounts of renewable energy from newly constructed plants. This is different than companies putting up a solar array, or buying some carbon offsets, or making token greenness gestures. They are conjuring into existence new infrastructure that can’t help but replace coal.

Take last week’s announcement that Apple will spend $850 million to purchase 130 megawatts of capacity from the First Solar California Flats Solar Project for 25 years. This is a step up for Apple, which had developed much smaller solar power plants in North Carolina and other states to power its data centers. As developer First Solar notes, this is the “industry’s largest commercial power deal.” Armed with an agreement from Apple, First Solar will build a 280 megawatt power plant on a large plot of land in Monterey County. It will sell nearly half the output to Apple and the rest to California utility Pacific Gas & Electric. Apple says the supply will be sufficient to run its stores and other operations in the state, allowing it to achieve carbon neutrality in California.

On Feb. 12, Procter & Gamble announced a somewhat smaller deal with Constellation. The energy company will spend $200 million to build a biomass plant that will supply steam to a P&G plant in Albany, Georgia, that makes Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels. That biomass plant, which creates energy by burning scrap wood, pecan shells, sawdust, and other natural materials, will have a capacity of 50 megawatts, and will supply electricity to both the factory and to a local utility.

The scale of solar and wind has grown to the point where these renewables can compete on or near equal footing with other sources of power.

On Wednesday, Kaiser Permanente, the giant California-based health care company, signed a series of deals that, in aggregate, top Apple’s commitment. It hired NRG Energy to install solar panels on some 170 buildings and hospitals that will have a combined output of 70 megawatts. And it agreed to purchase 110 megawatts of electricity from a giant 485-megawatt solar plant under construction in California, as well as 43 megawatts of wind capacity from the Altamont Pass wind turbine farm. One of the earliest large-scale wind farms in the country, Altamont Pass is currently being refurbished-the owner is taking down several hundred old turbines and replacing them with a smaller number of new ones. Google, which already gets about 35 percent of its power from renewable sources, has also agreed to take 43 megawatts of capacity from the refurbished Altamont Pass plant.

What gives? Yes, companies like to be green. And many executives, who are genuinely concerned about the future of the planet, are taking matters into their own hands. “We know that climate change is real,” as Apple CEO Tim Cook said when announcing the company’s deal. “Our view is that the time for talk has passed, and the time for action is now.” Kaiser Permanente noted in its release that these transactions and other measures it is undertaking would help reduce the company’s annual CO ₂ emissions by 23 percent.

But there’s a more practical impulse. Companies have to manage power consumption, and they engage in a bunch of different short-term and long-term strategies to ensure adequate, cheap supplies-they buy power from the power company, purchase it on the spot market, and sometimes make their own. What’s happened in recent years is that the scale of solar and wind has grown to the point where these renewables can compete on or near equal footing with other sources of power-even without big loan guarantees or subsidies. (As large companies well understand, the cost per unit comes down when you produce a lot more units.)

“What you’re seeing is that as energy prices move to the north, the cost of installation is going down and we’re delivering competitive energy,” says Erik Fogelberg, senior vice president of commercial sales at SolarCity, which has installed solar panels on 190 Walmart stores over the past several years, bringing the retailer’s cumulative generating capacity to about 65 megawatts. At corporations, the mentality has shifted from being willing to spend a little more money to use green power to viewing the shift to green power as a way to save money.

In addition, renewable energy-for so long a flaky, small-scale enterprise-has developed into an industrial-strength solution that affords big companies the opportunity to lock in the cost of electricity over a period of 20 to 25 years. There are a lot of variables that may affect the price of power-new regulations might impose higher costs on coal-based energy, a carbon tax may be enacted, and so on. When companies strike long-term deals for solar or wind, they get a guarantee of price stability for a big portion of their supply over a long period of time. “It’s truly a hedge” against factors that can affect their operating costs, Fogelberg says.

As I’ve noted before, when it comes to innovation in energy, procurement policy matters a great deal. Until now, it’s mostly been public entities-municipal governments, regional transportation agencies, the military-that have been helping to foster green technologies through their purchases. Now we’re starting to see private-sector companies do the same. And they’re a much more powerful force. Each of these new, large-scale transactions will displace and obviate the need for power produced from fossil fuels. The Fortune 500is opening up a new front in the war on coal.

Clean Transport

February 18th, 2015 by

Japan is now home to more electric vehicle (EV) charging points than gas stations – with there now being more 40,000 EV charging points as compared to 34,000 gas stations, according to recent reports. That’s not even including normal electrical sockets, where electric cars can also charge. Of course the comparison does include the EV charging points installed at homes – but still, that’s pretty impressive. And no doubt a comparison that will become more and more lopsided in favor of EV charging stations over the coming years.

The new figures are coming to us via a recent report from one of Japan’s leading EV manufacturers, Nissan – which has, to date, sold more than 160,000 LEAFs since the launch of that model a few years ago.

Despite those global sales numbers, though, sales in Japan have not been quite as high as the company hoped – reportedly in part due to concerns about not finding a charging station when needed and running the battery dry. Hence the rapid buildout over recent years.

“An important element of the continued market growth is the development of the charging infrastructure,” noted Nissan chief financial officer, Joseph G Peter, during a recent conference call with analysts.

RenewEconomy provides some information on growth of infrastructure elsewhere in the world:

In Australia, local fast-charge tech company, Tritium, installed its first public Veefil EV charger in Brisbane at a BMW dealership in Fortitude Valley – the first of a planned “electric super highway” of fast chargers along the east coast.And in the US, BMW and Volkswagen have agreed to join the EV charging network operated by ChargePoint, and to help finance the roll-out of up to 100 fast chargers along the busiest corridors of the US coasts.And just last week, US utility Pacific Gas & Electric filed a proposal for $654 million in ratepayer dollars to build 25,000 electric vehicle charging stations in public places in northern and central California – the leading market for EVs in the US.A month earlier, in January, Kansas utility Great Plains Energy, announced plans to build a network of more than 1,000 charging stations in the region by mid-2015, with charging to be free to the public for the first two years.

And then, of course, there’s Tesla’s rather rapid rollout of charging stations throughout its biggest markets. (See: North American Tesla Supercharger Network Surpasses CHAdeMO In Charging Point Numbers)

Given that there are still some decent incentives in place in Japan for EV infrastructure development, it seems likely that the network there will continue growing relatively rapidly.

Image Credit: Nissan LEAF charging in Japan & man unplugging Nissan LEAF, via Joel_420 / Shutterstock.com & Joel_420 / Shutterstock.com

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Tags: Japan, Japan electric vehicle charging stations, Nissan

About the Author

James Ayre ‘s background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.

The country’s foremost nutrition advisory panel is taking a stand against meat: Americans should eat less of it, top experts say, in order to protect the environment.

The recommendation could have a significant impact on the amount of meat people eat — as well as the environmental impact of a carnivorous nation.

“We’re not saying that people need to become vegans,” said Miriam Nelson, a professor at Tufts University and one of the committee’s members. “But we are saying that people need to eat less meat.”

The panel’s findings, which were released to the public in the form on a 572 page report this afternoon, specifically recommend that Americans be kinder to the environment by eating more plant-based foods and fewer animal-based foods. The panel is confident that the country can align both health goals and environmental aims, but warns that the U.S. diet, as currently constructed, could improve.

“Consistent evidence indicates that, in general, a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with lesser environmental impact than is the current average U.S. diet,” the report says.

Americans, though they are eating less meat than they have in the past, are still eating too much. The problem, which the committee’s findings reflect, is that all that meat eating is still having too much of an impact on the environment.

Meat eaters have been linked to considerably larger carbon footprint than vegetarians. And the livestock industry has been associated with a considerably larger carbon footprint than any other food industry. The combination of those two realities, along with the committee’s understanding that diets lower in meat consumption, especially red and processed meat consumption, tend to be more healthful, has forced the committee’s hand.

The group, which has been mulling a number of changes to the dietary guidelines, has traditionally advised the government about healthy eating choices which, until now, have only reflected what the group views as a diet that is healthy for humans. The new recommendations mark a major break from the past, and offer a glimpse into what the guidelines might look like in the decades to come.

“If we’re thinking about the foods that are culturally appropriate, we need to start thinking about what’s sustainable,” said Nelson,. “Other countries have already started doing this-including sustainability in their recommendations. We should be doing it too.”

The meat industry, for its part, vehemently objects to the notion that Americans should be eating less meat. The North American Meat Institute has repeatedly questioned whether the nutrition panel should be allowed to include sustainability concerns in its recommendations, and challenged the notion that meat negatively impacts the environment.

“If our government believes Americans should factor sustainability into their choices, guidance should come from a panel of sustainability experts that understands the complexity of the issue,” Barry Carpenter, the chief executive of The North American Meat Institute, said in a statement.

The official dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years, won’t be released until later this year, after the department of Health and Human Services mulls over the advisory committee’s recommendations. The panel’s suggestions are, ultimately, suggestions, which the government doesn’t have to act upon. But historically, the government has incorporated the panel’s suggestions, especially those that recommend changes and updates, into its guidance.

If the government acts upon the panel’s recommendations to suggest lower meat intake, the impact on the meat industry will be significant. While Americans don’t necessarily heed the dietary guidelines ahead of each meal, the guidelines do influence prevalent health narratives. They also help dictate what is on the menu of federal feeding programs, like the school lunch program.

Even as President Barack Obama seeks the blessing of Congress for sustained attacks on the Islamic State, he’s being accused of slighting the threat of terrorism compared to the risks posed by climate change.

“It is entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned when you’ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris,” Obama told the news site Vox in an interview. “We devote enormous resources to that, and it is right and appropriate for us to be vigilant and aggressive in trying to deal with that – the same way a big city mayor’s got to cut the crime rate down if he wants that city to thrive. But we also have to attend to a lot of other issues, and we’ve got to make sure we’re right-sizing our approach so that what we do isn’t counterproductive.”

Vox asked Obama whether the news “sometimes overstates the level of alarm” about terrorism, “as opposed to a longer-term problem of climate change and epidemic disease.”

“If it bleeds, it leads, right?” Obama replied. “You show crime stories and you show fires, because that’s what folks watch, and it’s all about ratings. And, you know, the problems of terrorism and dysfunction and chaos, along with plane crashes and a few other things, that’s the equivalent when it comes to covering international affairs.”

Accounts of progress in battling disease or feeding more people are “not a sexy story,” he added. “And climate change is one that is happening at such a broad scale and at such a complex system, it’s a hard story for the media to tell on a day-to-day basis.”

Pressed on the comments, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that more people will face a “direct, daily impact” from climate change or disease than terrorism.

But the US leader’s conservative critics swiftly jumped on his characterization of the Paris killings in January as a random attack at a time when the Islamic State – the al Qaeda offshoot that has seized control of much of Iraq and Syria – has been beheading Western hostages and burned a captured Jordanian air force pilot alive in a cage.

“What the hell?” conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh wondered on his widely aired show. “What daily impact? What dramatic changes in people’s lives is brought on by global warming? Is unemployment because of global warming? Is the fact that people can’t get health insurance, is that because of global warming?”

And even before the Vox interview, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee – a once, and perhaps future, Republican presidential contender – told Fox News that “a beheading is much worse than a sunburn.”

New safety rules for ‘bomb trains’ under White House review. Read more here.

Obama has repeatedly warned of climate change as a long-term threat. In his January State of the Union speech, he noted that the Pentagon has called climate change a “threat multiplier.” An October report from the Defense Department noted that a warming world “will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict,” fueling shortages of food and water, raising the odds of epidemics and making disputes over resources worse.

And the new National Security Strategy from the White House calls the issue “an urgent and growing threat to our national security.”

“The present day effects of climate change are being felt from the Arctic to the Midwest. Increased sea levels and storm surges threaten coastal regions, infrastructure, and property. In turn, the global economy suffers, com­pounding the growing costs of preparing and restoring infrastructure.”

The Institute for Economics and Peace estimates the number of deaths from terrorism has increased fivefold since 2000, with nearly 18,000 victims in 2013. The war in Syria accounts for much of the current toll, the group reported last year.

On the other hand, the World Bank estimates that climate change “threatens to put prosperity out of reach of millions and roll back decades of development progress.”

Earnest told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl on Tuesday that “more people are directly affected by those things than by terrorism.” But he wouldn’t elaborate when asked whether the administration considered climate change a greater threat than terrorism: “I wouldn’t have a whole lot more to say about what the president has said in that interview.”

Follow Matt Smith on Twitter: @mattsmithatl

After last year’s deadly avalanche on the slopes of Mount Everest, authorities in Nepal have ordered climbers to shift their route away from the scene of the snowslide.

Instead of hugging the western shoulder of the rugged Khumbu Icefall, the new path authorized by the body that regulates operations on the world’s highest peak will take climbers through the middle of the icefall. The idea is to leave climbers less exposed to the kind of avalanche that killed 16 Sherpa guides in April 2014 – a risk that could become more common as Himalayan glaciers retreat in the face of a changing climate.

The route may be more difficult for climbers, but “some things are more important,” Mohan Krishna Sapkota, a spokesman for Nepal’s Tourism Ministry, told VICE News.

“They have changed the route to make the expeditions avoid the more risky area,”

Sapkota said. “Our prime objective is to make a safer route than before.”

Tony Olejnicki, an Australian mountain guide who was on the mountain in 2014, called the decision “very sensible.” But he said it would mean bringing more equipment up the icefall, which he said is just like it sounds: “It’s like a big waterfall, if you like, of big blocks of ice.”

‘Things are changing, that’s for sure, the glacier environment, the glacier dynamics – it’s all changing.’

“If you go through the middle, you have to go across ladders,” Olejnicki told VICE News. “You need to put an aluminum ladder across the crevasses. These ladders have been brought by people, Sherpa porters, about 700 meters up from base camp.”

Last year’s avalanche effectively closed down the 2014 climbing season when surviving sherpas refused to return. It was the single deadliest day in the long history of efforts to conquer the 29,000-foot (8,800-meter) mountain, which has claimed more than 250 lives.

The Himalayan peaks of Everest and its sisters are sometimes called Asia’s water towers. The same snows that pose such a risk to mountaineers are a hydrological storehouse for the continent, but it’s been losing a bit of its stock every year.

“Things are changing, that’s for sure, the glacier environment, the glacier dynamics – it’s all changing,” Jeffrey Kargel, a University of Arizona geologist, who has conducted regular studies on the high slopes of Everest, told VICE News.

In 2014, a Chinese study found the glaciers atop Everest had shrunk by about 10 percent over the past four decades. A multinational study the year before put the figure at around 13 percent over 50 years and found the mountain’s snowline was 180 meters (585 feet) above where it had been in the early 1960s.

Glaciers have waxed and waned atop the Himalayas for centuries. But Kargel said human-induced changes in atmospheric and oceanic systems risk destabilizing those rivers of ice.

Alaska’s Iditarod sled dog race has been re-routed because there’s not enough snow. Read more here.

“You have the potential to enter into a new and unfamiliar regime of glacial hazards – a new and unfamiliar regime, so that Sherpa guides who know full well how the last decade has been might not understand what this next decade brings,” Kargel said. “It adds an additional layer of complexity to planning, and I would say that even without climate change, the ice falls and hanging glaciers are absolutely treacherous.”

There’s no way to completely avoid risks when climbing the world’s highest peaks – “But if it’s possible to skirt the most horrific hazards, that’s a good thing.”

Warmer air carries more moisture, which falls as snow in high elevations. The weight of that snow can break chunks of ice off hanging glaciers, like the one behind the 2014 disaster. And warmer temperatures and water from melting ice can combine to weaken a glacier’s grip on the underlying rock, Kargel said.

“Instead of ice being frozen to the bed, it finds itself on a slippery, wet surface and falls off,” he said.

And Olejnicki said that without the snowpack to cement it, the loose rock at the top of the mountain would leave Everest “not really climbable.”

“If you have exposed, loose rock, it’s dangerous and it’s not fun,” he said. The ice is “not necessarily safe, but you need this snow and ice cover to be able to climb up.”

Nepal can’t really afford a Sherpa boycott of Mount Everest after avalanche. Read more here.

The 2014 deaths were the last straw for some guides, who also have complained about the Nepalese bureaucracy. British Columbia-based PeakFreaks announced it was abandoning Everest in 2015, citing “drastic alterations to the weather” as well as safety concerns. In a statement posted on its website, PeakFreaks said it will concentrate on taking climbers to other mountains “free from thorny politics, crumbling glaciers, and looming ice-falls.”

And Olejnicki, who led climbers up Everest for five seasons before the disaster, said he was turning his attention to other peaks as well. The Sherpa deaths were “very upsetting,” he said, but the business of reaching the roof of the world was getting to be a grind. It’s a grueling, weeks-long trek, “But for me as a climber, it’s boring,” he said.

“Sometimes people who’ve been doing something over and over again, it all becomes the same,” he said.

But for many like Kargel, whose work has taken him about two-thirds of the way up the mountain, “There are no words” to describe Everest.

“Whenever I get above the treeline, it’s special like coral reefs are special and tropical rain forests are special,” Kargel told VICE News. “The tundra above the treeline is so beautiful. The wildlife, the flora and fauna, which are so exquisitely adapted to that range of condition, it’s just breathtaking.”

Follow Matt Smith on Twitter: @mattsmithatl