Industrial Workers of the World

Wally Yachts of Monaco's WallyPower 118 ( gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3,400 litres per hour when travelling at 60 knots. That's nearly a litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometre.... So where are the movements protesting about the stinking rich destroying our living systems? Where is the direct action against super-yachts and private jets? Where's Class War when you need it? It's time we had the guts to name the problem. It's not sex; it's money. It's not the poor; it's the rich. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/sep/28/population-growth-super-rich

O.H. & S ? Instead of recycling a highly toxic byproduct, silicon tetrachloride, the companies were stockpiling the substance in drums or simply dumping it, rendering land infertile and exposing both workers and surrounding citizens to dangerous concentrations of chlorine and hydrochloric acid.” http://www.hazards.org/greenjobs/blog/2009/09/21/china-not-so-green-solar-energy/

...many green jobs are old jobs in green livery. The waste industry morphed into the recycling industry, keeping its horrific fatality record all the while. Manufacturing, transporting, assembling and maintaining wind turbines has and will make workers sick. Ditto other “clean” sources, that haven’t had the benefit of a full lifecycle analysis of related costs and burdens (like, say, the chronic diseases of coal mining of the health and waste headache of nuclear). There’s nothing so far to suggest the management of green industries will be any more caring than its less green predecessors. The switching from old to new industries, to paraphrase Philip Larkin on the parental legacy, “may give you all the faults they had, and add some extra just for you.” http://blogs.worldwatch.org/greeneconomy/?p=118

http://www.hazards.org/

Copenhagen negotiating text: 200 pages to save the world? Draft agreement being discussed ahead of December's crucial Copenhagen summit is long, confusing and contradictory http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/28/copenhagen-climate-text

Jargon translated ?

Copenhagen: The venue in December for the final UN negotiations to deliver a successor to the Kyoto treaty. There are preparatory meetings in Bangkok and Barcelona before then.

Carbon intensity: How much fossil fuel you have to burn to make something or deliver a service. Reducing carbon intensity does not mean cutting overall emissions, but it does mean that a country can expand its economy without driving up emissions at the same rate.

Implicit targets: A diplomatic phrase deployed by India to describe targets India has chosen for itself and for which it will not be held to account by anyone else. Appearing to cave in to foreign demands for specific cuts would be political poison in Dehli.

Mitigation: This simply means actions to reduce global warming, most importantly cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Afforestation: The replanting of trees. About 20% of all global carbon dioxide emissions come from the destruction of forests. Preventing that is the main focus of the UN talks but China is also keen on creating new forests.

Cap and trade: One way of setting a limit on greenhouse gas emissions for a region or industry. Polluters are given carbon permits that add up to the cap. They can then sell permits if the have cut their emissions to those who have not. In theory, it allows a market to deliver cuts efficiently.

Carbon tax: A direct tax on activities that result in carbon emissions. Much less bureaucratic than cap-and-trade but cannot deliver an exact cut in overall emissions.

Offsetting: Paying for reductions in emissions elsewhere to compensate for polluting activities. Popular on a voluntary basis for flights, but criticised on a national level for allowing rich nations to butt their way out of making cuts at home.

Peak emissions: The time at which global greenhouse gas emissions stop growing and begin to fall. Scientists say that year must be 2015 if dangerous climate change is to be averted but current trends will not achieve this.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): The international scientific body, involving thousands of scientists, used by the UN since 1988 to provide a neutral source of information on climate change. Its reports are approved by national governments. It was awarded the Nobel peace prize along with Al Gore.