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Some very prominent voices have gotten a lot of media attention for their comments on climate change, including President Obama and Pope Francis. And there are people within the scientific community who have been speaking out for years, providing us with information and thoughtful insights.

The Weather Channel’s new media package, The Climate 25: Conversations With 25 of the Smartest Voices on Climate, Security, Energy and Peace, is bringing to the forefront a diverse set of voices and perspectives worthy of more attention.

It describes the project as “a digital media and television experience featuring interviews with the world’s 25 most compelling voices on one of the most pressing issues of our time-the impact of climate disruption on human security.”

“There are are only a few issues more contentious than climate change in American political life,” it says. “But while the climate change debate rages in some quarters, in others, most notably among those who study the climate, there is wide consensus. It’s for this reason that the Weather Channel has adopted a position on climate change that can generally be summed up as follows: we report the science, and the science consistently says climate change is real, humans are causing it and we must prepare for its effects.”

All 25 people spotlighted start with the assumption that climate change is occurring, and go on from there to offer their opinions as to what that might mean for the planet, for local economies, and for peace and security. Some of the voices have names people might know, such as former Republican governor of New Jersey and former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator under President George W. Bush, Christine Todd Whitman. Others most probably have never have heard of such as Ugandan community leader/farmer Constance Okollet, who speaks out about the impact of climate change on her village.

The 25 individuals spotlighted include former politicians and government officials, business people, scientist, writers, retired military officers and community leaders. They range from the powerful, such as former Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulsen who calls climate change “the biggest economic risk the world faces,” to Syrian refugee Farah Nasif who talks about how drought fueled the revolution and the refugee crisis in her homeland.

“Everything changed with the drought,” she says. “The drought was one of the main reasons for the revolution. They have that anger, that hate for the government. They said, ‘Oh, this government doesn’t help me before and I don’t expect in the future so I will destroy it.'”

One interesting aspect of the Weather Channel’s Climate 25 is that most of the political figures are Republicans, including Whitman, Paulson, former South Carolina congressman Bob Inglis and William K. Reilly, U.S. EPA administrator under President George H.W. Bush, a rebuke to the climate deniers who make up the majority of the Republican presidential field. Inglis has attributed his defeat in 2010 to his outspokenness on the need to take action on climate change. In his video, he explains how he evolved from thinking climate change was a figment of ” Al Gore’s imagination ” to introducing a carbon tax bill in Congress.

“Our challenge is explaining why conservative would want a new tax, especially a tax on carbon dioxide,” he says. “My fellow conservatives, they sort of break out in hives if you mention the word ‘carbon.’ They go into anaphylactic shock when they hear the word ‘tax.’”

“You cannot have thriving economy if people don’t have clean air to breathe or clean water to drink or good quality of life,” says Whitman. “The way the Republican Party is addressing the issue of climate change is both frustrating and puzzling, because if you think about it, it’s our history. The first president to set aside open space was Abraham Lincoln with Yosemite. Then you have Teddy Roosevelt and the national park system and all he did to expand that. It was Richard Nixon who established the EPA. It’s ours. It’s our issue. It’s conservation. It’s conservative. This is an issue we should be talking about in a rational way.”

In addition to those mentioned above, the Weather Channel’s Climate 25 includes New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, General Charles H. Jacoby (ret.), Unilever CEO Paul Polman, Climate Central chief scientist Heidi Cullen, White House science advisor Dr. John Holdren, Global Crop Diversity Trust special advisor Cary Fowler, Energy Innovation CEO Hal Harvey, author Cleo Paskal, Major General Munir Muniruzzaman (ret.), Papua New Guinea community leader Ursula Rakova, Rear Admiral David Titley (ret.), former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Sherri Goodman, Eli Lehrer of free market think tank R Street Institute, Brigadier General Stephen Cheney (ret.), founding editor of Climate Progress Joe Romm, president & CEO of Care USA Helene Gayle, former firefighter and director of climate change science and policy integration at WWF Nicky Sundt, former CIA director James Woolsey and Associate Director for Climate Change at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. George Luber.

The multi-platform project launched today on the website, mobile and Facebook, with a week of five mini-episodes airing on the Weather Channel. The Climate 25 is the latest commitment by The Weather Channel to “explore important topics at the nexus of weather, climate and impactful news.”

California is the best state in the country if you want to go solar – but only if you’re rich enough. Due to the steep upfront costs of around $15,000, only those from middle- to upper-income families can afford to install solar arrays. A novel initiative is, however, looking to change that. This new project hopes to help disadvantaged communities see the sun in a different light.

Using money raised by the government to help fight global warming, the Grid Alternatives project aims to get polluting companies to pay for putting solar panels on the roofs of those who cannot afford them. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the plan is to use the cap-and-trade money raised by the state from companies who have to pay per ton of carbon dioxide emitted. The cost to the disadvantaged families: nothing.

Grid Alternatives has been made project manager of the $162 million Single-family Affordable Solar Homes ( SASH) project, the country’s first dedicated solar repayment system for low-income families. They want to install solar arrays to over 1,600 homes by the end of next year. Using job-training programs and donations from solar companies, they aim to keep the costs as low as possible. Whilst it is totally free for the families getting them installed on their houses, they do ask that the families either offer to feed the crew, or help them install the panels.

The state government in California raises an annual $14.7 million through the cap-and-trade system, aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions, and over the years this has totted up to an impressive $1.6 billion. By ploughing at least 10% of this money back into solar, the project aims to kill two birds with one stone – saving lower income families money, whilst also making big fossil fuel polluting companies help cut energy emissions in the state even further.

Anyone who is currently living in a neighborhood in California that is classed as disadvantaged is qualified to apply to get the arrays installed. Grid Alternatives predicts that it could save individual families up to $1,000 a year, which they hope could then be spent on other essentials such as food. The sun sets on the initiative in 2021, so if you’re living in the state, you might want to jump on board soon.

[via San Francisco Chronicle & Motherboard]

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(ANTIMEDIA) As the oil and gas industry seemingly attempts to swallow up pristine land at any cost, one indigenous band in British Columbia has proven an old adage false – not everything can be quantified with a price tag. The Lax Kw’alaams Band rejected an energy giant’s plans for a liquefied gas shipping terminal that would have given each member roughly $267,000 – bucking short-sighted gain in favor of sustainability.

Malaysian energy giant Petronas and its partners sought to build the $30 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG terminal on the isolated western coast of the Canadian province as part of the larger Prince Rupert pipeline project, and offered the 3,600-member first nations group nearly $1 billion to do so. But the group demurred.

“Hopefully, the public will recognize that unanimous consensus in communities (and where unanimity is the exception) against a project where those communities are offered in excess of a billion dollars, sends an unequivocal message this is not a money issue: This is environmental and cultural,” explained the community’s mayor, Garry Reese in an announcement.

Reaching a consensus after six public meetings, the Lax Kw’alaams felt the cultural and environmental consequences of a bustling shipping terminal would be too extensive to warrant their approval, no matter the monetary gain.

In a statement explaining their decision to refuse the offer, Lelu Island was a salient concern since the LNG facility was slated to encompass virtually its entire surface area. Not only would the band lose access to procure traditional plants and medicines, but over 400 culturally modified trees would be destroyed during the facility’s construction. Such cultural losses, they believe, couldn’t possibly be monetized.

Of vital importance to the coastal community’s well-being are its marine resources, so the construction process, location of the port’s infrastructure, and volume of shipping traffic all had to be considered. By Petronas’ projections, an average of one ship a day would traverse the delicate habitat, so the Lax Kw’alaams feared even if construction were accomplished with minimal negative effects, the ongoing activity would be too disruptive to the delicate marine environment. Even modified plans still seemed to risk major damage to the breeding ground of a local salmon species on which their livelihood depends on.

The relatively tiny group had such clout, in part, from tough indigenous rights law that was strengthened last year by Canada’s Supreme Court. Groups like the Lax Kw’alaams who do not hold treaties with the government, must be consulted for projects that will transpire on their land, and plans are subject to modification to suit the group’s needs. Though the law doesn’t expressly give such groups an ultimate veto power, the negative socio-political ramifications for any company choosing to forge ahead with undesirable plans, act as an unstated stopgap.

Canada’s fossil fuel industry hasn’t been faring well of late, and though this rejection represents another defeat for the energy giants, activists see a break in the clouds.

A separate project, the Northern Gateway Pipelines, has faced strong resistance from Aboriginal groups in both British Columbia and Alberta as well as from Alberta’s new premier Rachel Notley. Notley vowed ahead of her appointment that she would withdraw provincial support for the plans. “Gateway is not the right decision. I think that there’s just too much environmental sensitivity there, and I think there’s a genuine concern by the indigenous communities,” she said, as reported in the Calgary Herald. “It’s not going to go ahead. I think most people know that.”

Notley also stated she wouldn’t be pressuring the White House to complete the last leg of the stalled Keystone XL Pipeline, which is the controversial proposal to transport Canada’s tar sands oil across the US to the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Refusal by the small and relatively obscure group of Lax Kw’alaams to be purchased out of their traditional land is a beautifully symbolic but no less powerful event. In fact, it is a reminder of Margaret Mead’s compelling exhortation,

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”This article (Canadian Indigenous Group Rejects $960 Million, Halts Pipeline Plans) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TheAntiMedia.org. Tune in! The Anti-Media radio show airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: [email protected].Follow @TheAntiMedia1

In the wake of controversy over the poaching of endangered animals, a number of airlines are now refusing to ship hunting trophies. According to multiple reports, Emirates Airlines and others will now be refusing to ship endangered animals.

According to a recent press release from Emirates SkyCargo:

Please be advised that effective 15th May 2015 Emirates SkyCargo will not accept any kind of animal “Hunting Trophies” for carriage on Emirates services. This restriction shall be applicable to all animal hunting trophies, protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), as well as includes species, that are not threatened with extinction now, meaning all CITES & Non-CITES species.

This decision is to support international governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, that are managing wildlife population towards sustaining the task to eliminate illegal trade and transportation of hunting trophies worldwide and saving wildlife heritage.

The list below, courtesy of traveller24, lists the airlines that have specific policies in regards to the shipment of hunting trophies.

Some major airlines, such as Delta, currently allow hunting trophies to be shipped, and are now facing pressure from different groups to join the embargo.

John Vibes writes for True Activist and is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war.

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