What is the political reaction?

The responses vary from the politically correct “we will study the verdict” to audacious comments the judge is wrong. Pretty strange when you consider these comments were made an hour after the verdict and all reports combined total up to well over 5000 pages. Talk about speedreading. Another nice reaction: “The Netherlands is already well on its way, concerning the climate.” In an European context, we only leave countries like Malta and Luxembourg behind us. Do you believe you will ever hear a coach of the national team say that after we finish second to last in a UEFA championship? Sadly, statements like these make it so that the average citizen will have difficulties taking politicians seriously.

The real question is of course: what will our government change now? Will they finally re-invest the 4 billion euros of coal subsidies in sustainable energy sources? Or will they continue their business as usual?

Is mismanagement the only effective environmental management?

If you look at worldwide CO₂-emissions from the past decades, you will see two short, downwards trends. One when the Soviet Union collapsed and the other when the last financial crisis occurred. Might we conclude that changes that are negative to our economy have a positive influence on the environment? Why? The biggest problem is that companies that profit the most form the current economy, will risk making less profit in a more sustainable economy. Think for example about oil producers. What can they deliver if no more oil is burned? They will protest change, a.o. by denying the seriousness of climate change and by lobbying against laws and policies that threaten their profits. They will claim sustainable development is bad for the economy, but what they really mean is that such development is bad for their sales. Our government pays too much attention to those claims.

The goal of the climate case is forcing our government to abide to made agreements on the climate and to motivate her to give a positive spin to the current policy. Precise investments in new, sustainable techniques and changing to a carbon free economy is the big stimulant that will improve our large scale economy. And a big step forward into a healthier society!

What has this story to do with corals?

Simple: increased atmospheric CO₂ will lead to more CO₂ in the oceans. This makes seawater more acidic and that has huge consequences for all marine life that grows cartilage and carbonate based skeletons, like coral. In more acidic water this growth is more difficult and takes more energy. This makes corals susceptible to disease and death. Acidification can lead to the extinction of corals.

On behalf of CoralGarderning, future generations and many others, from the bottom of our hearts:

Thank you, Urgenda and judges for this historical verdict!

This climate case, filed by Urgenda and Roger Cox, is picked up in other countries as well. For example, a new case was filed in Belgium and in Australia work is done on the preparations for another case.

The post Judge saves corals! appeared first on CoralGardening.

According to some politicians, the Kabinet delays implementation of the courts’ ruling, and therefore E. Ouwehand filed a “motie van treurnis” (motion of sadness/disappointment) on the governments current attitude. Ouwehand: “the Kabinet puts all of our futures at risk. It is a Chutzpah for the Kabinet to keep saying they have an “ambitious” climate policy while the judge ruled that the government needs to take more care of our climate by taking extra steps forward. The judge says the government is acting unlawful otherwise.”

Thousands of scientists agree climate change has some antropogenic causes and that we need to do all in our power to reduce our emissions of CO2. If we don’t, the consequences will be severe. If you want to learn more, try the book “Six degrees” by Mark Lynas. He compared many scientific studies and ordered scenario’s based on the temperature change the earth might experience. The sights aren’t pretty…

We like to make fools out of Republicans in the US for denying climate change, but our Dutch politicians are equally good at denying.
Our politicians seem to believe they understand the matter better than all those scientists:
Undersecretary Mansveld questioned the causal relation between CO2-emissions in the Netherlands and worldwide climate change.
Minister Kamp added it was not scientifically determined a reduction of at least 25% was needed
Dijkstra called the ruling “strange” and had some substantive considerations against it.

Come on politicians, climate change is obviously already happening. We experience more and heavier storms, more droughts. At the moment more and more people come to seek refuge in Europe because of the unstable situation in the Middle East. We are also already having discussions about that. According to climate scientists the number of refugees will increase. Even the Dutch are nominated to become refugees! Our land slowly sinks while the sea level keeps rising!

We can solve many issues in a simple way. It does not even have to cost us a lot of money. In fact, if we solve some issues, we can earn a lot more. But we don’t seem to want that! We want “business as usual”. We know what we have and we don’t know what we will get if we work towards a sustainable society. Stop the unnecessary lawsuits and stop climate change for the benefit of humans AND corals world wide.

The post Corals victim of appeal appeared first on CoralGardening.

Excitement during the ruling.

What is the political reaction?

The responses vary from the politically correct “we will study the verdict” to audacious comments the judge is wrong. Pretty strange when you consider these comments were made an hour after the verdict and all reports combined total up to well over 5000 pages. Talk about speedreading. Another nice reaction: “The Netherlands is already well on its way, concerning the climate.” In a European context, we only leave countries like Malta and Luxembourg behind us. Do you believe you will ever hear a couch of the national team say that after we finish second to last in a UEFA championship? Sadly, statements like these make it so that the average citizen will have difficulties taking politicians seriously.

The real question is of course: what will our government change now? Will they finally re-invest the 4 billion euros in coal subsidies in sustainable energy sources? Or will they continue their business as usual?

Is mismanagement the only effective environmental management?

If you look at worldwide CO₂-emissions from the past decades, you will see two short, downwards trends. One when the Soviet Union collapsed and the other when the last financial crisis occurred. We might conclude that changes that are negative to our economy have a positive influence on the environment. Why? The biggest problem is that companies that profit the most form the current economy, will risk making less profit in a more sustainable economy. Think for example about oil produces. What can they deliver if no more oil is burned? They will protest change, a.o. by denying the seriousness of climate change and by lobbying against laws and policies that threaten their profits. They will claim a sustainable development is bad for the economy, but what they really mean is that such development is bad for their sales. Our government pays too much attention to those claims.

The goal of the climate case is forcing our government to abide to made agreements on the climate and to motivate her to give a positive spin to the current policy. Precisely investments in new, sustainable techniques and changing to a carbon free economy is the big stimulant that will improve our large scale economy. And a big step forward into a healthier society!

What has this story to do with corals?

Simple: increased atmospheric CO₂ will lead to more CO₂ in the oceans. This makes seawater more acidic and that has huge consequences for all marine life that grows cartilage and carbonate based skeletons, like coral. In more acidic water that growth is more difficult and takes more energy. This makes corals susceptible to disease. Acidification can lead to the extinction of corals.

Congratulations being exchanged after the verdict

On behalf of CoralGarderning, future generations and many others, from the bottom of our hearts:

Thank you, Urgenda and judges for this historical verdict!

This climate case, filed by Urgenda and Roger Cox, is picked up in other countries as well. For example, a new case was filed in Belgium and in Australia work is done on the preparations for another case.

The post Judge saves corals! appeared first on CoralGardening.