...in Ireland.

This is great news for the people of Ireland. But we need to create those jobs in the U.S. too. In Ireland, a country of four million, 10,000 "green" jobs were created in the last three months in organic farming, energy efficient construction, electric cars, and other green industries. With US GDP falling by 1.6% in the first quarter of 2009 we need more action and investment from our government and the private sector. Passing effective climate and energy legislation this year will increase both public and private investment in a clean energy economy, creating new jobs and lifting America out of the recession.

The Waxman-Markey Act recently introduced in the House could be the right start, but it currently falls far short of what we need. An analysis by the Breakthrough Institute found that of the $1 trillion in cap and trade revenue between 2012-2025, only $9 billion a year will be invested in clean technology. “This $9 billion is far less than what Obama promised ($15 billion) and far less than the $30 billion that three dozen energy scientists and experts, including several Nobel laureates, called for in a sign-on letter during the fall of 2007.”

Strong climate legislation will also encourage investment from the private sector, giving American businesses the opportunity to compete in a global economy. Currently, only 6 of the top 30 companies in solar, wind, and advanced batteries are US companies.  We can do better. The recession is the perfect opportunity for forward-thinking businesses to invest and put America back on the path to prosperity. Let's hope we can print headlines here, like the one above, very soon.

Related Links:

India aims for 20 gigawatts solar by 2022

New Energy Finance: Solar power 50% cheaper by year end

Approaching Copenhagen with a Portfolio of Domestic Commitments

BELFAST—Northern Ireland’s environment minister came under fire Monday after he banned a climate change ad campaign, saying it was “nonsense” to suggest people could save the world by turning off their lights.

Sammy Wilson, a member of the Democratic Unionist Party which shares power with Sinn Fein in the British-ruled province, believes mankind is not to blame for global warming.

He refused to allow an advertising campaign produced in London, which urges people to use less energy in the home, to be broadcast in Northern Ireland, saying it was simply “propaganda”.

He argued the ads gave people “the impression that by turning off the standby light on their TV they could save the world from melting glaciers and being submerged in 40 feet of water”, according to the BBC.

“That is patent nonsense,” Wilson added.

The Green party’s representative in the Northern Ireland assembly, Brian Wilson, accused the minister of being “grossly irresponsible”, while the Friends of the Earth environmental pressure group called on him to resign.

“We urgently need someone in post that will take this job seriously,” said Friends of the Earth’s John Woods.

Roy Beggs, a member of the Ulster Unionist Party, said Wilson’s views “are out of kilter with mainstream political opinion and more importantly the overwhelming consensus view of climate scientists throughout the world”.

Wilson told the BBC that he had offered to work with officials in London to create a new advert, but said they insisted on issuing “New Labour propaganda”, a reference to the ruling Labour party of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

DUP leader and Northern Ireland’s first minister, Peter Robinson, said Wilson’s comments were personal and did not reflect party policy.

Related Links:

On ‘climategate’

What to make of the new climate poll

Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Enlightenment thinking

It's St. Patty's day -- so you just knew someone would do a study on the impact of climate change on Ireland, didn't you? Sure enough, the Irish American Climate Project has issued a report entitled "Changing Shades of Green," warning that decreased rainfall could necessitate a nickname change for the Emerald Isle, and summer droughts could bring about Potato Famine II. "You tell people in Dublin that the climate might be like the Mediterranean coast and their initial reaction is, 'So what? That'll be nice in the summer,'" says project leader Kevin Sweeney. "Then in about five minutes, it sinks in. And these same people are like, 'Oh my God, that won't be same Ireland anymore.'" Insert cheesy "bad luck o' the Irish" joke here.

Related Links:

EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Ask Umbra’s video advice on composting

Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots

So Australia wants to phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2010? Ireland plans to do it by as early as January 2009. Anybody wanna try to top that?

Related Links:

EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Making buildings more efficient: It helps to understand human behavior

Why buying cheap energy certificates worsens climate change

Bono and his fellow U2-ers are stuck in a melee (and they can't get out of it) over a plan to construct a skyscraper in band members' native Dublin. The tower, monikered U2 Tower in the name of self-love, would be the highest building in Ireland. Ian Lumley of heritage group An Taisce says the building is not the sweetest thing -- it would "be an incongruous blot on the skyline." Lumley still hasn't found what he's looking for: he charges that no environmental impact study was carried out and that "no provision has been made as to the effect of rising sea levels on an entire area earmarked for more residential living as well as businesses." U2's likely reaction: We'll go ahead, with or without you.

Related Links:

EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

We're sure you have plenty of fodder for eco-nightmares, but let us add another: killer jellyfish. Last week, a horde of jellies covering an area of 10 square miles (!) attacked Northern Ireland's only salmon farm, killing some 100,000 fish. The mauve stinger jellyfish were well north of their favored Mediterranean habitat, thanks to warmer-than-normal water. Another type, the Nomura jellyfish, has within the past five years become a huge problem to fisherfolk in Japan. Theories for the recent jump in jellyfish include warmer seas, pollution, and changing water flows linked to China's Three Gorges Dam. Japan is doing what it can to deal with the Nomura jellies, which can measure six feet across and weigh up to 450 pounds: the country's fisheries service has devised a cookbook with jellyfish recipes, and a coastal dairy makes vanilla-and-jellyfish ice cream. Mmm. Peanut-butter-and-jellyfish sandwich, anyone?

Related Links:

EU pushes China further after pledge to slow carbon intensity

Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Willie Corduff.

Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize.

"We'd never objected to anything in our whole lives," says Irish farmer Willie Corduff. But when Shell Oil proposed to put a high-pressure gas pipeline through his family farm, Corduff changed his quiet ways. He and a handful of his neighbors refused to allow Shell on their property -- a stance that landed them in jail, and gained them international attention as the "Rossport Five."

Shell has its sights set on the Corrib gas field, which lies off the northeastern coast of Ireland, more than a mile and a half below the seabed. After the field was discovered in 1996, the Irish government -- eager to develop it and increase domestic energy supplies -- turned over rights to Shell and its partners. Shell planned to bring raw gas ashore at Rossport, the small farming town where Corduff grew up, and send it through a six-mile pipeline to a proposed refinery. The government granted Shell permission to construct the pipeline, leaving only Corduff and his neighbors to stand in the way.

The Rossport Five spent 94 days in jail. Since their release in late 2005, local opposition to the pipeline and refinery has only increased. Rossport residents have founded the Shell to Sea campaign, which is pushing to have the gas processed offshore -- an option Shell says is prohibitively expensive. In October, Shell broke ground on the refinery near Rossport, but Corduff remains unbowed, and hopeful. "I'd love to see this done properly, our natural resources gained back, in hopes that they would do some good for our country and our community," he says.

Corduff, 53, was awarded one of six 2007 Goldman Environmental Prizes at a ceremony in San Francisco on April 23. He spoke to Grist from San Francisco.

Tell me about Rossport. What's life like there?

It's a beautiful place, a beautiful place to live. It's a quiet, unspoiled community, with all the old traditions -- we milk cows, feed hens and ducks -- and we have clean air and clean water. I've been farming with my father all my life -- he passed away just two years ago -- and my sons are doing it now, and I have a grandson and a granddaughter, so there's a fourth generation there. It's a way of life, a way of life that Shell is working on taking away from us.

How did you first learn about Shell's pipeline proposal?

When they started to come to the area to drill trial holes -- we knew nothing about it before then. We just never expected something that big to come to our little community. The pipeline was a high-pressure gas pipeline -- and as far as we have learned, it was never done in the world before, not on land. This was raw gas, in from the well, and they were treating it on land, in the middle of a small community, one with valuable estuaries and plantations and all that type of thing. This area is protected [by the European Union] and we just couldn't imagine that this project would be allowed to happen. We thought, "Where are the protection agencies now? How come they're not stopping this?"

Did anyone ask you for your opinion on the proposal?

No, they wouldn't listen to our opinion. That was the hardest part. We tried to explain to them, at the beginning, that we could not allow this to happen because it was going to finish our whole community.

We'd done research into this -- we weren't used to this type of work, and we had no money for it -- and we found that the oil and gas that was found on our coast, on the Irish coast, had been sold off by the Irish government for absolutely nothing. They gave it away. So we knew that there were going to be no benefits here for anyone in our community, that all we would get was the pollution and the destruction and all that type of thing. When we heard that, we said we have to fight this.

At the moment in Ireland our nurses are out on strike -- on the streets, the poor things, marching on the streets -- looking for higher wages. I mean, if [oil and gas development] were done right they wouldn't have to be out there. The country could afford to pay them their wages and let them do what they're good at doing.

What were the first things you did when you learned about the project?

When Shell came on our land in 2005 -- our own holdings of land, which are very, very small -- they were pegging it to survey for the high-pressure pipeline. I went to them and told them they were trespassing, and they said, "No, Willie, we're not, we have got the authority to come in here," and I said, "Well, I want to see it. Would you show it to me?" They said "No, we're not obliged to show it to you." I said, "I have to see something." So they left for that day.

They came back on the land a few days after that, and we did the same thing. So we were brought to court in April of 2005, and [Shell] got out an injunction against us, saying that we couldn't interfere with them doing anything on our property. The judge told us that if we interfered with Shell again, we'd be jailed.

The Rossport Five.

Photo credit: Willie and Mary Corduff

They came on our land again in June, and we stopped them again, so we were brought to court again and given an indefinite sentence. When the judge gave the sentence, he said to Micheál O'Seighin -- a teacher, one of the men who was jailed with me -- he asked Micheál, "Have you got a family home? Have you got a family car?" and Micheál said yes. "I'll take all that off ye," he said. "I'll fine ye hundreds of thousands of Euros, and I'll make sure that you pay it, and I'll lock up every farmer in [County] Mayo if I have to."

Well, it was scary. But when the judge said, "Go out and think about it," we didn't even leave the courtroom. So we were jailed.

So how did you manage to stand up to that kind of intimidation?

We knew we were going to lose everything we had. It wasn't a lot, but it was what was handed down to us, so it was an old tradition. And we loved where we lived.

There were times you'd break down and get emotional about it, and say "Oh, God, what's going to happen to us?" like when we were put to jail, which was an awful shock to our system. When you've kept quiet and peaceful and respected the law, it felt terrible for that to be done to you. But when we were put to jail, the whole community came out to support us. People came from Dublin, Cork, everywhere to rally behind us -- they had huge demonstrations. So that gave us strength.

And the prisoners were very nice to us when they knew why we were there. We were in there with murderers, you know, and God help us, a whole lot of young people that the system had let down. They would come up to us and ask, "What are you in for?" and we'd say, "Well, you know, to protect our place, our little farms," and they used to laugh. "Oh, no, lads, don't tell me that!" They didn't believe us. But then when they saw it on the television, they really respected us.

How have you continued your activism since your release?

When Shell lifted the injunction in September and let us out, thousands of people in Dublin marched for us, and people were coming up to us and saying, "Don't give up, lads, we're behind you." So we've just gotten stronger, and we've upped our campaign.

What does this prize mean to you?

It was a complete shock. I thought "Jesus, why me?" The government has painted a really bad picture of us -- all they had ever told us was, "Oh, go home and have sense, you're stopping progress, and keeping people out of jobs." So it's just been a complete shock -- I just don't realize yet what I have got.

How do you plan to use the money?

To tell you the truth, I haven't even thought much about it. We were never used to money, we never had money. It'll help the campaign and it'll help the whole thing, but in the excitement of all this, I haven't even thought about it.

Related Links:

Newsweek partners with oil lobby to raise ad cash

Feed-in tariffs—the new school of thought

Exploring the extreme frontiers of oil drilling

Related Links:

General Motors to start repaying government loans

Maryland county draws a “car-free blueprint for growth”

Would You Like Carbon Insurance With That Latte?