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The Resource Curse Of Indigenous Peoples

How the transparency agenda could reverse unjust exploitation of indigenous territories

Alexander Aribalov is an Evenki reindeer herder who lives on the vast steppes of the Sakha Republic in Siberia. His grandfather herded 14,000 domesticated reindeer, which he bred for clothes and food - a job their family have been doing for generations.

When the coal industry moved in, open-pit mines destroyed many of the reindeer grazing grounds, forcing reindeer to change their grazing patterns. Today, Alexander herds a mere 4,000 reindeer and struggles to put food on the table at the end of each day. His fate is shared by 300 million other indigenous peoples who live in countries endowed with large oil, gas, mineral, hydro and timber resources from the Americas to Scandinavia, Russia and Asia.

As we celebrate the international day of the world's indigenous peoples, we must address how indigenous peoples are robbed of their right to sustainable development, now and in the future.

Resource extraction could be a pathway to economic prosperity, but indigenous peoples rarely benefit from the revenues generated by the industry. Instead, they bear the brunt of its environmental and social impacts and remain the most impoverished populations in the world. In Ecuador, for instance, the Quechua's ancestral land is home to the 500km transandean pipeline which has spilled an estimated 16.8 million gallons of oil since 1972, representing one and a half times the Exxon Valdez spill.

Indigenous peoples have historically been economically and politically marginalised. Their land tenure system is systematically challenged by nation states. They are rarely included in decisions-making processes related to the planning and monitoring of large extraction projects, let alone decisions over who should benefit from the revenues generated by these resources.

"Resource extraction could be a pathway to economic prosperity, but indigenous peoples rarely benefit from the revenues generated by the industry"

Most often, consultation is tokenistic and leads to division within communities, although a handful of successful mechanisms for natural resource co-management have been established. When indigenous leaders stand up against mega projects, the cost can be detrimental. Berta Cáceres in Honduras is one of the latest casualties in a struggle that pitches unarmed communities against billion-dollar investors often backed by military or paramilitary forces.

Yet, free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is now a well-recognized principle in international law. In theory, indigenous peoples have the right to give or withhold their consent for industrial projects that affect their traditional land and customary practices. The UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples reinforces this principle, stating the need to meaningfully consult indigenous peoples prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands.

States also need to provide effective redress mechanisms to mitigate adverse environmental, economic, social or cultural impact. ILO Convention 169, which predates the UN Declaration, also guarantees the rights of indigenous peoples to exert control over their land and resources.

Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, many resource-rich countries with large indigenous populations have refrained from ratifying the Convention, including the US, Canada, Australia, Russia, Sweden, Finland, and the Philippines.

Interestingly, some of these same countries (US, Canada, the Philippines) are engaging in a number of mandatory and/or voluntary disclosure initiatives focused on the extractive sector. Acknowledging that this sector is more prone to large-scale corruption, these initiatives promote payment transparency, foster corporate accountability, and support financial reform.

"Transparency activists and indigenous rights activists have not been good bedfellows in the past - but this can change"

One such initiative, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), brings together representatives of civil society, governments and companies to establish and implement a transparency standard for the extractive sector. The EITI could provide a crucial opportunity for indigenous peoples to participate in decision-making processes related to natural resource extraction which affect their territories.

However, the EITI standard also lacks any reference to indigenous peoples. The EITI and its civil society constituency have failed to properly reach out to communities and represent them on its International Board. The EITI could learn from the Forest Stewardship Council, a voluntary, multi-stakeholder forest certification scheme, which developed a core principle more than 10 years ago to uphold indigenous peoples' rights of ownership and use of land and resources.

As anti-corruption activists, it is our responsibility to reach out to indigenous peoples affected by the resource curse, to engage them in the transparency movement and effectively support their political mobilisation. Publish What You Pay and its partners need to ensure that indigenous peoples are meaningfully represented in initiatives such as the EITI.

Transparency activists and indigenous rights activists have not been good bedfellows in the past - but this can change. Once we end indigenous peoples' chronic invisibility, people like Alexander will be able to shape the laws and processes that affect indigenous lands, rights and revenues.

#WeAreIndigenous

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Modern Day Dian Fossey of The Amazon
As a scientist, explorer and conservationist, I have spent much of my professional life in the rainforests of the world trying to understand and preserve these incredible and irreplaceable ecosystems. To many it seems unusual that a former NFL cheerleader would choose to go and live in some of the most remote places on earth and brave all the undeniable challenges and occasional dangers of living in a tropical rain forest.

Mostly my dangers were parasites and disease, although I also had my run-ins with poachers, hunters and rebels. One of my inspirations for going into this line of work, Dian Fossey, was murdered in an attempt to save her beloved gorillas. To me, however, it seems perfectly natural that I do this work, because like Dian, I think these forests and its creatures are spectacular, not to mention biologically important. But some people think I'm brave (or mad) and, for my exploits, I've been labeled by more than one media maven, as the female Indiana Jones.

But I want to share with you the story of a woman who's recently come to my attention and who has faced far more real-life danger than me or any cinematic archaeologist. She comes face to face, not with gorillas, but rather guerillas, and unlike the gentle giants, these are armed and dangerous. To me, she is the modern day Dian Fossey of the Amazon.

I cannot tell you her name or her exact location. Far from a household name, she's an indigenous woman with little outside communication or access to the web. For years now she has faced multiple death threats warning her to stop the work she is doing to preserve their lands and conserve tradition. She continues to do it...but lives her life with a constant armed guard. Now that? That is really is brave...and I am in awe of what she's doing.

So, rewinding just a bit...I've always been well aware that the indigenous people are more knowledgeable and wise about the rainforests they call home, and have throughout my career been welcomed, taken in and, on occasion, even rescued, by the generosity and kindness of the local people. My research teams not only have always included the villagers, but we were dependent on their knowledge and wisdom of these remote and often little explored areas. This is true whether it was during my time in Congo, South America or Madagascar.

But the latter is particularly true during my time in the Amazon region. The Amazon contains over half of the planet's remaining rainforest. It comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world. One in ten known terrestrial species in the world lives in this rainforest. The Amazon houses more varieties of plants and animals than any other place on the face of the Earth. Biologically, it is unparalleled.

Simply put, the Amazon is the largest wildlife biome on Earth.

While the Amazon forests are abundant in jaguars and monkeys, these are not their only inhabitants, or the most endangered. The Amazon is also home to hundreds of indigenous tribes. These people are repositories of thousands of years of ancestral knowledge about their unique environment. Without them, important resources, medicinal compounds, diagnostic wisdom and ecological process would be unknown to all of science.

But the Amazon is under great and increasing threat from illegal mining and logging.
Deforestation has already claimed nearly 20 percent of the Amazon's original primary rainforest, and continues at a steady rate. If the Amazon forest is severely degraded or disappears, so diminishes our opportunity to understand this ecosystem and its relationship to other life on Earth, to find new medicines and to fight climate change - the defining environmental challenge of our time.

One and a half acres of rainforest are lost every second.

As Dr. Mark Plotkin, ethnobotanist and co-founder of The Amazon Conservation Team said "Every time a shaman dies it is as if a library is burned down".

But my conservation focus up until just recently has always been primarily on the wildlife and the rainforest itself. It has only been in the last 6 months while I have exclusively been working with The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), an organization that protects the rainforest by working in close partnership with indigenous peoples that I have become aware that indigenous people and their culture are equally at risk of disappearing. Across the globe, there are an estimated 370 million indigenous people, spanning 90 countries. They speak the majority of the world's estimated 7,000 languages and represent 5,000 different cultures. Yet how much do we hear about them, their plight, or their achievements in mainstream media?

This week, while at ACT headquarters, it was brought to my attention that a little-known celebration, "The International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples" is observed every year on August 9 to promote and protect the rights of the world's indigenous populations.

While the day is not recognized as a public holiday, it is used to teach about indigenous culture, traditions, religion, arts, and history, along with the contributions of indigenous individuals to society. This occasion also identifies achievements and contributions that indigenous people are making to improve world issues such as environmental protection.

So I started doing a little research, and that leads me to this piece. In searching for indigenous people around the globe who are really making a difference but are unsung heroes to the rest of the world, I came upon an extraordinary woman. More than extraordinary. She is a by all definitions of the word: a hero.

As an environmental activist who has gone head to head with local government, mining companies, and even armed militia, she has, so far, survived numerous direct attacks against her life. Her latest mission has resulted in even more threats. Her fear that every day may be her last, are not unfounded. According to Global Witness, 185 environmental activists have been murdered in just 2015.

Although I cannot name her, I can say that she is not alone. Indigenous people are at the forefront of these environmental wars. She is one of many shining examples of the perilous work that indigenous people are doing to save their lands, cultures and traditions. Even in the persistent face of danger.

While these are not often stories or people that make it to mainstream media, this woman should be a household name. And yet, because of the very risky nature of her work as an accomplished environmental activist, she, like many others on the ground fighting the fight, may never be given the acclaim she deserves.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Obscured Oceans: What We Don't/Can't See, We Harm

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Image by Dana Ellis Hunnes

I was a child of the early 1980s. Looking back, perhaps with a certain ethereal fondness, it seemed like life was simpler, values were different, people were more in tune with their surroundings; and certainly, more in-tune with each other (no cell phones here!).

My 2 1/2 year-old son on the other hand, is growing up in a world where climate change is real, investing in wildlife conservation is a must, and where biological diversity is falling precipitously and at unprecedented rates.

Roughly two months ago we went out on the ocean, on a boat, to go whale watching, to see some of the most majestic animals on the planet, and long lived. To see one of the biggest brains in the ocean, that somehow manages to live off one of the smallest edible life-forms in the ocean. To see an animal that causes no harm to humans, but almost came to extinction by the hands of humans.

This boating trip that was two months ago? You would have thought it was yesterday. My son talks about it ALL THE TIME. In his short-lived life, it made a huge impression. He LOVED those whales and dolphins. In fact, hundreds of dolphins swam by, almost in unison. Their magnificence and their ability to bow-ride in unison and with grace was unlike anything we had ever seen. It was unprecedented and cannot be understated.

But, as adults where has our sense of wonder gone?

It seems we are all buried in our phones, in our work, in our "problems" that we forget there are BIGGER problems than ourselves occurring in the world. Right now. On land. In our Oceans. And, we are not doing enough to help.

We ignore what happens under the ocean's surface, because we cannot see it. Therefore, everything must be OK, that the oceans must still be pristine waterscapes, unmarred, and untouched.

But, that is the problem.

In the 18th, 19th and early 20th century's humans nearly caused most whales to go extinct, FOREVER. And, while they are still recovering, even today some nations still engage in whaling, and sometimes for "fun."

Ghost nets--abandoned fishing gear--resides in the oceans, sometimes miles wide obliterating, drowning, trapping, destroying everything in their wake.

Yet, from the surface, everything seems fine. We can't see those nets, we can't see their path of destruction. All we see is a "beautiful" but obscured ocean.

Nets, often a mile long and a couple-hundred years deep, are often splayed out in the oceans to capture fish. As they are brought on deck, they bring with them not only the intended fish, but unintended fish, seals, dolphins, seabirds, sharks, coral reefs, almost anything marine you can think of. The whole gamut of oceanic biological diversity.

Now, imagine the African Savanna. Imagine a net a mile long and a couple hundred yards tall being dragged across the plains. Imagine giraffes, zebras, elephants, hyenas, meer cats, wild dogs, hippopotamuses, any living thing, birds, trees, bushes being dragged into the net; injured, suffocating.

You can't imagine it, can you?

Because, we wouldn't allow this to happen on land.

No, on land things are done differently. The destruction may be no less to wildlife, from culling elephants and poaching, to destroying habitat via clear-cutting. But, the difference is, on land, there is (some) transparency. We can see what we're doing. It's evident in satellite images.

In the the oceans, it's as bad, if not worse. The difference? It's obscured.

Whether on land, or in the seas, it's atrocious and a blight on humanity.

But, this is perhaps the problem. Countries control land. The oceans are a global commons (once outside a country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)).

Nobody owns the oceans; yet, everybody owns the oceans.

With no single country owning the oceans, everyone does as they please; pillaging, removing wildlife, dumping trash, water pollution, everything you can think of.

With no single country owning the oceans, no one is responsible for the cleanup, for the conservation, for the protection, for the oversight.

Therein lies one of the problems.

There are conservation organizations, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES). But, from what I can tell these organizations do not really have regulatory or disciplinary oversight.

Thus, the damage continues. And, because we cannot readily see it, we cannot believe it. We cannot believe the oceans are running out of fish - THEY ARE. 80% of fish stocks globally are either overexploited or fully exploited.

We cannot believe there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish - BUT THERE WILL BE BY 2048.

We cannot believe there are mass oceanic "graves" where animals can no longer live because of dead zones caused by human-waste waters and other toxic chemicals.

This is the problem with Obscured Oceans.

I wish desperately that we could bring out our inner toddler. Every day. The one in all of us who marvels at nature, at the sky, at the oceans, the one who remembers that fateful day on the ocean like it was yesterday, today, and hopefully tomorrow.

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image credit: Huffington Post Images

That is my hope, my dream. That we all remember how much we depend on our oceans, how much we need them, and how much they have provided us. They deserve our help and our protection.

Please refer back to my previous posts (Plastic: it's what's for dinner and Apathy to our Overfished Oceans) for some recommendations to protect the oceans.

To contact Dana: recipe.for.survival@gmail.com
Twitter: recipe4survival
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RecipeForSurvival/
PlanetExperts: http://www.planetexperts.com/author/danahunnes/

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Refocusing on the Facts for World Lion Day

It's another hot humid day in Zululand, South Africa and the steel cable bolted to the truck I'm sitting in the back of snaps taught. The truck's tires slid a bit in the sandy dirt. On the end of that cable are five hungry lions clawing at the piece of meat we've tied to it. As they grip into the bait with their teeth, we quickly learn that the cable is a bit shorter than anticipated and I am a bit closer than I want to be to this pride of peckish lions.

Before I have too much time to consider my predicament, the second truck carrying our veterinarian flanks the distracted lions and, with pinpoint marksmanship and a quick draw, each one soon has a dart in its rump. It won't be long now until they are fast asleep and on a 3,000-kilometer journey to the country of Rwanda. These will be the first lions in Rwanda in over two decades.

Last year World Lion Day was dominated by anti-trophy hunting dialogue after the recent death of the 13-year-old Zimbabwean national park lion, Cecil. For conservationists on the ground in Africa, the immediate worldwide outcry of support for lions was inspiring, a glimmer of hope for widespread awareness and potential funding for protected areas.

I advocate for this World Lion Day to refocus on the real threats facing lions today.

The focus on trophy hunting overshadowed the actual causes of lion population declines. I advocate for this World Lion Day to refocus on the real threats facing lions today.

Today there are as few as 20,000 wild lions left in in the world (including the single population of Asiatic lions in India), compared to the half a million in the 1940s. This dramatic and continued decline in lion numbers is not a result of circumstances such as Cecil's. While humans are the greatest threat to lion population success, that threat is not from foreigners with hunting rifles, but rather from the communities living alongside wildlife as neighbors.

Two Threats

The two main threats that lions currently face are conflict with humans (retaliatory or preemptive killing) and loss of habitat and prey. Both of these are related one way or another to Africa's ongoing population boom. Now with 1.2 billion people, the continent of Africa is the fastest growing human population on Earth, and is on track to double again by 2050. A large portion of this growth is occurring in West and Central Africa, where in 20 years Nigeria will have the third largest human population in the world with over 400 million people. With this many people comes an increase in human-wildlife conflict, making it no surprise that lions were placed on the U.S. endangered species list at the end of last year.

With the expansion of West and Central Africa's human population into previously “wild” areas, people and wildlife are living in closer proximity. They are eating “bushmeat”, the same prey animals that lions use (West, Central, and East Africa have seen an 85 percent decrease in wild prey animals), they are extracting resources and creating agriculture — transforming and degrading lion habitat (lions now occupy less than 8 percent of their historic range) they bring their livestock with them. These three factors create the perfect storm for lion-human conflict.

In countries like Kenya, the average herder loses U.S. $209 annually from cattle taken by predators such as lions. For people living near national parks in the central African country of Cameroon, this accounts for at least 20 percent of their financial losses. Persecution of lions is thus rampant, as the cats are perceived as having a negative economic value for people. They are shot, poisoned, and snared, either in retaliation for property loss or for the prevention of it. Lion persecution alone accounts for 5 percent of the population decline in Kenya.

Southern Africa continues to stand in dichotomy with the rest of Africa. Lion populations in the countries of Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe have actually increased by 12 percent in recent years, while in the rest of Africa lion numbers have declined by 60 percent.

There are two major causes for this difference: low densities of people and fences.

Less People = Less Conflict

Across vast areas of southern Africa human density is low compared with the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. Less people means less conflict.

The second factor is a result of different wildlife management practices. Many protected areas in southern Africa and most in South Africa are entirely fenced. There is a clear line between wildlife and people; in most of the parks I work in you can see lions and other wildlife virtually next to human communities, separated only by a fence. There is no interaction with the predators other than for ecotourism, and thus there is no conflict or cause for persecution.

Ring-fencing our wildlife does come at a considerable cost, both economically and management-wise. As most parks in South Africa are considerably smaller in size than their northern counterparts, the need for intensive management increases. 100,000 ha (247,105 acres) is known as the “golden number”, or the size where natural processes can occur without management intervention. As most of our protected areas in southern Africa are not this large, we are constantly struggling to contain our lion populations.

Lions breed like rabbits in small- to medium-size parks, for a number of reasons. Put simply, the life for a lion is relatively relaxed in these smaller parks and so they reproduce quickly, with most cubs surviving; populations can become exponentially larger within months. This means that while the rest of the continent struggles to keep its lion populations viable, we are constantly working on how to reduce our populations and growth rates. Efforts include translocations of individuals, swapping males to mimic natural processes, and even contraception programs. In South Africa, we struggle even to donate lions to the different parks, as we all face the same issue of having too many of the big cats.

Relocation of Lions from South to North

Most readers would by now be wondering if we should move lions from the south to the north to help repopulate an endangered species in the rest of Africa. While most geneticists cringe at this idea of mixing subspecies, in my opinion it's too late to split hairs over genetic purity. However, this doesn't remove the logistical mayhem of moving lions between countries and finding the funding to do so.

In June of 2015, I was lucky enough to be a part of a team that donated lions from two parks in South Africa to Akagera National Park in Rwanda. Although we translocate many lions within South Africa, this operation felt particularly meaningful. More than two decades after lions were extirpated from the central African country, the lions I've watched grow up would become the pioneers in repopulating Rwanda, the most densely human-populated African country. Last month Africa National Parks reported a litter of lion cubs was born in this new pride, the first to be born in the country in this millennium. Initiatives like this show that international translocations and partnerships can be forged for the sake of conservation and that the dichotomy can be mutually beneficial.

"Five — Five donated lionesses with the conservation team at Phinda Private Game Reserve, South Africa. Photo credit: Simon Naylor

To me World Lion Day is about recognizing that even the most iconic, beloved charismatic species, the one we call “king”, is becoming more endangered each year and cannot be saved by our emotions and sentiments alone. The threats that lions face today are far more complex and profound than a dentist with a bow and arrow.

"Axel We need to work towards innovative solutions to ensure the safety and survival of both local human communities and the lions who coexist with them. If we cannot properly protect one of the world's most iconic species, what chance do the rest of them have?

A Greenwich, CT native, Axel Hunnicutt holds degrees in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Wildlife Management. He lives in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, where he runs the research programs for Wild Tomorrow Fund.

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ExxonMobil's Latest Campaign To Stymie Federal Climate Action

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ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson acknowledges climate change is a "serious issue," but he is still trying to undermine government efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Recent press accounts report that ExxonMobil is now actively promoting a carbon tax. If true, that's big news. It would mean that, after nearly 20 years of blocking action on climate change, the world's biggest energy company has finally come to its senses.

But wait a minute. If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. So one might well ask: Is this anything more than a PR ploy?

Let's take a closer look.

As I reported earlier this year, ExxonMobil has paid lip service to the idea of a carbon tax since 2009 but, all the while, has continued to fund federal lawmakers who resolutely oppose it. In March 2015, for example, the Senate voted 58 to 42 to pass a budget amendment prohibiting a carbon tax. Thirty of the 40 senators who had received ExxonMobil campaign contributions since 2010 voted in favor of the prohibition. Meanwhile, in March 2013, 156 House members cosponsored a nonbinding resolution stating that "a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and businesses and is not in the best interest of the United States." Ninety-three percent of the cosponsors were funded by -- you guessed it -- ExxonMobil.

OK, but that was then, and things can change, right? After all, last December, Ken Cohen, the company's outgoing vice president of public and government affairs, blogged about ExxonMobil's strong support for a carbon tax, noting that the company has been holding "countless private briefings with members of Congress on carbon tax policy options."

So how have the company's friends on Capitol Hill responded?

In June, the House passed a resolution stating "a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy" on a 237 to 163 vote. Eighty-five percent of the House members who voted for the resolution received ExxonMobil political donations since 2013; 82 of them are documented climate science deniers. By contrast, only 26 of the representatives who voted against the resolution -- a measly 16 percent -- received ExxonMobil money.

The numbers are unambiguous: When it comes to a carbon tax, there's no escaping the fact that ExxonMobil still funds legislators who don't favor it and, by the same token, doesn't support many who do.

Disingenuous Origins

In his December blog post, Cohen traced ExxonMobil's support for a carbon tax back to January 2009, when company CEO Rex Tillerson endorsed it in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. Cohen, however, neglected to explain the context for this pronounced break with ExxonMobil's long-held position against any policy that would curb carbon emissions: Tillerson was trying to derail momentum on Capitol Hill for a different approach.

Back then, Congress was seriously considering instituting a cap-and-trade system, modeled after the George H. W. Bush administration's successful plan to reduce acid rain, which would have set a cap on overall carbon emissions and established a regulated marketplace where polluters could buy and sell emissions allowances. The less carbon they emitted, the less they would pay.

The European Union had instituted such a system in 2005 and, although there were disagreements over the details, the idea of a U.S. cap-and-trade system had the support of a number of environmental organizations, including the Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council, and more than two dozen companies, including oil giants BP America, ConocoPhillips and Shell. Perhaps most important, the plan had the backing of President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, who then controlled both houses of Congress.

Tillerson was having none of it. "A carbon tax strikes us as a more direct, transparent and effective approach" than a cap-and-trade system, he said in that January 2009 speech. "It is the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions, from investments made by companies to fuel and product choices made by consumers." Any carbon tax, he added, should be revenue-neutral, meaning it should be offset by reductions in income and corporate taxes.

But there was a major obstacle in the way of Tillerson's preferred solution: It had no political support. When California Rep. Pete Stark proposed a carbon tax just the year before, it attracted only three cosponsors.

Tillerson, who surely knew Congress wasn't about to pass a carbon tax, publicly conceded it faced long odds. "Right now, any talk of imposing new taxes would rattle the markets and individuals," he told E&E News, a trade publication, the same day he spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center. "...But probably later this year, I think they're going to get around to want to further investigate what their alternatives are."

As it turned out, the House narrowly passed a cap-and-trade bill on a 219 to 212 vote in June 2009. In the Senate, however, it was a different story. The legislation never made it out of committee for a number of complicated reasons, but the fact that fossil fuel interests had plenty of friends in the upper chamber -- many of them longtime recipients of ExxonMobil political donations -- no doubt played a significant role. The bottom line? ExxonMobil ultimately got what it wanted by plugging a carbon tax: gridlock.

Beyond the Rhetoric

There has been some speculation about what motivated ExxonMobil to recently ramp up its pro-carbon tax rhetoric. First, with multiple investigations underway by state attorneys general of the company for misleading its shareholders and the general public about climate risks, it likely feels the need to polish its tarnished image. Second, the company knows that last December's historic U.N. climate meeting in Paris, where 195 countries committed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, means that it will be harder to maintain the status quo. Third, if and when Congress does seriously consider a carbon tax, ExxonMobil wants to position itself to influence the debate. And finally, ExxonMobil would likely benefit more than its competitors from a carbon tax, because such a tax would favor the cleaner-burning natural gas over coal and ExxonMobil has the largest natural gas reserves of any U.S. company.

These are all plausible reasons, except for one thing: The evidence suggests that the company is still doing what it can to obstruct policies to combat climate change.

Last fall, for example, California Rep. Ted Lieu -- who has not received any ExxonMobil campaign contributions -- met with the company's lobbyists in what was presumably one of the "countless private briefings" Cohen cited in his December blog. Lieu asked the lobbyists what they would do if he drafted carbon tax legislation. They replied that "they would take a look at it," Lieu told InsideClimate News. "They didn't say they wouldn't support it and they didn't say they would," he added. "It's clear that they are not going around championing their position. If they actually believe this internally, then they ought to do so in a much louder way than just quietly sticking it on a website."

In the Senate, meanwhile, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii have introduced a carbon tax bill, the "American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act." Has ExxonMobil endorsed it or lobbied on its behalf? According to Whitehouse and Schatz, no.

"Regarding ExxonMobil's alleged seven years of support for a carbon fee, we've seen no meaningful evidence of that," the senators said in a letter they sent to the company just yesterday. "None of the top executives that make up ExxonMobil's management team has expressed interest in meeting with any of us to discuss the Whitehouse-Schatz proposal or any carbon fee legislation."

Conversely, House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, a climate science denier, explained to Fox News host Steve Doocy in December 2012 that he told ExxonMobil lobbyists a carbon tax was a "bad idea." "I sat down with the Exxon folks a couple of months ago," Upton said, "and let it be known that this is not a proposal that ... is going to be coming through in the House." Nevertheless, ExxonMobil donated more to Upton during the current election cycle than it did in either the 2012 or 2014 cycles.

Besides its political donations and lobbying, the company is still spending millions of dollars a year on think tanks, advocacy groups and trade associations that dispute climate science and disparage climate policies, including a carbon tax. Just last month, ExxonMobil was a lead sponsor of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) annual conference, which featured Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a self-described free-market think tank ExxonMobil has been funding since 1998. According to one conference participant, Cass "absolutely eviscerated the case for conservatives adopting a carbon tax." Conference organizers also provided ALEC state legislator members with a sample resolution against the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to curb power plant carbon emissions.

ExxonMobil doesn't just rely on paid surrogates, however, to spread disinformation and block government action. Company executives may sing the praises of a carbon tax, but they still find time to misrepresent climate science and question the necessity of taking any action at all.

Climate Science Denial Starts at the Top

In March 2013 -- the same month 146 ExxonMobil-funded House members cosponsored a resolution against a carbon tax -- Tillerson appeared on on PBS's Charlie Rose, ostensibly to promote one. The CEO told Rose he preferred a carbon tax to a cap-and-trade system, but then he doubted whether scientists knew enough to warrant one. "The facts remain there are uncertainties around climate change, why it's changing, [and] what the principal drivers of climate change are," Tillerson claimed, repudiating the consensus among climate scientists worldwide. He also falsely claimed there is no scientific evidence of a link between global warming and extreme weather events.

Two years later, at ExxonMobil's 2015 annual shareholder meeting, Tillerson again argued that climate models are not accurate enough to justify a dramatic shift away from fossil fuels. "What if everything we do," he asked, "it turns out our models are lousy and we don't get the effects we predict?" He recommended continuing to burn fossil fuels and adapting to whatever happens, be it sea level rise or crop failures. "Mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity," he said, "and those solutions will present themselves as the realities become clear."

Contrary to Tillerson's assertions, climate models have proven to be extremely accurate. A March 2013 peer-reviewed paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, for example, found that the models accurately predicted the rise in global temperatures over the previous 15 years to within a few hundredths of a degree. No matter. When given the chance to set the record straight at this year's shareholder meeting in late May, Tillerson would not back down. "My view on the competencies of the models," he said, "has really not changed."

Perhaps the most revealing statement demonstrating the depth of ExxonMobil's support for a carbon tax, however, came the day before the House resolution vote in June -- the one where nearly 90 percent of the ExxonMobil-funded House members casting a ballot voted yes, a carbon tax would hurt the U.S. economy. A Huffington Post reporter contacted ExxonMobil Media Relations Manager Alan Jeffers to find out what the company had to say. Given the company's supposedly heightened interest in persuading Congress to pass a carbon tax, one would have expected Jeffers to register the company's opposition. Certainly he would explain why the resolution was misguided and tell House members to vote no. It was what some would call a teachable moment.

So how did Jeffers respond?

"We're not commenting on the resolution."

Elliott Negin is a senior writer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dave Anderson and Jayne Piepenburg provided research for this article. ExxonMobil federal campaign contribution data was supplied by the Center for Responsive Politics.

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ExxonMobil's Latest Campaign To Stymie Federal Climate Action

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Celebrating India's Asiatic Lions on World Lion Day

World Lion Day celebrates all sub-species of lion, raises worldwide awareness of conservation programs, and brings attention to the threats they face everywhere. Much of the attention is on the African lion, but today we also want to celebrate and appreciate India's Asiatic lions, and those working to protect them and their habitat.

Asiatic lions, (Panthera leo persica), are one of the seven sub-species of lions in the world. There are a little over 500 of them left.

They live in the Gir National Forest in the state of Gujarat, India, and close to nearby communities in the area. They differ from the African lion in size, (they are slightly smaller). Male manes of Asiatic lions are less full than those of their African counterpart, thus, their ears are more prominent. Males tend to not live with the females of the pride unless they are mating or have a large kill. They are listed as Endangered (very high risk of extinction in the wild) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

*Male Asiatic lion in the Gir Forest, Gujarat, India* ©ZSL

Threats for the Asiatic Lion

With so few Astatic lions left and living in one small part of the Gir, one disease or natural disaster could reduce the population to zero. While these lions are known to only be found in the Gir, they sometimes roam into nearly human habitats. According to Wildlife Conservation Trust of India, there are debates about relocating a small number of the lions to other parts of the country to conserve and boost the lion population.

Bhushan Pandya is a wildlife photographer and conservationist who serves on the Gujarat State Board for Wildlife (SBWL). The SBWL is opposed to a scheme to reintroduce some of the Gir's lions to a sanctuary in India's Madhya Pradesh state, he says. “A lion translocation project has been going on at Kuno Palpur Sanctuary in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The SBWL and many other lion-lovers have been opposing it. There was a long legal battle fought in the Honorable Supreme Court of India. The Apex Court on 15th April, 2013, gave a sad and surprising verdict in favour of the translocation. The Wildlife Conservation Trust, Rajkot (WCT) has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Apex Court praying to reconsider the unfortunate verdict.”

Opposition to the relocation focuses on the risk of increased poaching, human-lion conflict, a poor wild prey base, and the area earmarked for relocation is a known tiger corridor.

Other threats for the Asiatic lion in general are illegal wildlife trade, speeding vehicles on roads, trains, and open wells.

A male Asiatic lion in Gir forest.
Image credit: Kishore Kotecha, Wildlife Conservation Trust of India

But in Gujarat, the Asiatic lion is considered a symbol of Gurjarati pride, and it is celebrated for bringing tourists to the area to view and admire them.

“Almost all tourists, whether new or regular ones, from all over world come to Gir to see lions in their natural home because Gir and its surrounding areas have been the last home of this majestic species,“explains Bhushan Pandya. “However, tourism has never been the priority over lion conservation. Less than 9 percent of Gir PA is open for tourists.”

Conservation Activities

Asiatic lion conservation programs are managed through a number of agencies, including the Indian government, and Indian wildlife law enforcement. The Zoological Society of London operates training for Gir forest rangers in tracking lions, monitoring pride population, and identifying threats, using GPS devices and other pieces of electronic equipment. Conservation efforts also take place at the Sakkarbaug Zoo in Gujarat. The veterinarians there play a valuable role in rehabilitating injured lions with a view to releasing them back to the wild. Educational efforts are ongoing with local human populations to help them learn to live with the Asiatic lions in their space.

"Conservationist-Julien-Godfrey-training-GFD-Forest-Rangers — *ZSL Conservationist Julien Godfrey training GFD Forest Rangers* ©ZSL

The Asiatic lions of India are an iconic species, beloved and protected in their range. Like all animals that are cherished though, there are heated debates about conservation and protection.

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Here's What's Keeping College Students From Getting The Sleep They Need

Late last month, I visited the California offices of Chegg, a higher education company that specializes in helping college students with everything from affordable textbook rentals to online tutoring. Lately, Chegg has committed to gaining a deeper understanding of another subject central to college students' lives: sleep. And as Chegg's CEO Dan Rosensweig and I began a conversation with an audience of Chegg employees, Dan shared the results of a new Chegg survey on the sleep habits of college students.

The survey's findings bring valuable data to a familiar problem: for an alarming number of students, college has been turned into one long training ground for burnout. The motto "sleep, grades, social life: pick two," or some version of this, can be heard on campuses across the country. The combination of academic pressures, social opportunities -- and for many, newfound freedoms and the resulting challenge of time management -- creates an environment where sleep doesn't get the respect it deserves.

So as thousands of young people across the country prepare to head off to college, here are a few findings from the Chegg study -- which surveyed 473 students from a mix of public and private colleges -- that I found most illuminating.

Most students know there is a link between sleeping and academic performance.

Over half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that students who do better in school probably get more sleep. (They're right, of course. A 2014 study by the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota showed that the effect of sleep deprivation on grades is roughly equivalent to binge drinking and drug use.)

And the vast majority of students want to get the sleep they need.

Fully 84 percent said 8 or more hours would be "ideal" on a school night.

But very few are meeting that goal.

Only 16 percent usually get 8 or more hours on a school night, with far more (79 percent) sleeping 5 to 7 hours a night.

Today's college students are constantly connected.

Students overwhelmingly cited time spent online and with electronic devices as significant obstacles to sleep. Asked to name the reasons that keep them from sleeping, 51 percent cited too much time online doing non-school related activities -- second only to having too much homework.

Even in bed.

A whopping 86 percent said they take their devices to bed with them -- for email, texting and other non-school activities. And 90 percent leave their phones on when they go to sleep.

The good news?

Chegg's survey found that most college students have plenty of free time each day (much of it, for better or worse, is spent online). So there's an opportunity for students to set aside some of that time for sleep, whether that means going to bed 30 minutes earlier or finding time during the day for a nap.

And the fact that so many students know how much sleep they should be getting, and are aware of how tethered they are to their devices, is at least a first step in changing habits. As more studies like this emerge -- and as I was researching The Sleep Revolution, I was struck by the sheer number of new studies adding to our understanding of sleep's vital role in every aspect of our lives -- people will be more equipped to make changes, even small ones, to help them get the sleep they need.

That's why HuffPost launched the Sleep Revolution College Tour, and why we continue to tell stories around sleep's impact on our lives -- everything from the military's rediscovery of sleep as an essential tool of judgment to the ways athletes increasingly view it as the ultimate performance enhancer. As we approach the start of another academic year, with all its possibilities, there's no better time than now to renew our relationship with sleep and savor all the benefits it brings.

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