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After The Closing Ceremony: Rio's Sustainable Olympic Legacy
As the historic 2016 Olympic Games draw to a close in Rio de Janeiro, we commend C40 Chair, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro Eduardo Paes not only for a successful world-class event, but also for investing in and developing legacy Olympic projects that will benefit the city and its inhabitants in the long-term.

Guided by the principle that the Olympics must serve the city, Mayor Paes leveraged the challenge of hosting the global competition--the first-ever held in South America--to instigate a transformation in sustainable transport and public space across the city as well as raise awareness about climate change during the opening ceremonies. Rio de Janeiro's example provides lessons for future bidding and host cities among the C40 membership and beyond, particularly given the International Olympic Committee's commitment to a sustainable future.

Mayor Paes' accomplishments hosting the Olympic games aligns with his larger legacy as C40 Chair, a position he has held since 2013. Under his leadership, C40 has deepened its global engagement and now has a majority of member cities from Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The organization has created the C40 Finance Facility to provide cities within the C40 network with technical assistance and guidance to unlock up to $1 billion worth of financing for sustainable infrastructure projects. And C40 has also played a leading role in launching the Compact of Mayors, an effort that is creating a new global standard for urban emissions reporting and prompting ambitious climate commitments from cities worldwide.

Mayor Paes' flagship initiatives such as the city's bus rapid transit system, which is the most extensive in Latin America, and the creation of new urban spaces for pedestrians have done much to inspire the ambition, action and active collaboration among the world's greatest cities. In his home city of Rio de Janeiro and on the global stage, he has shown both dedication and passion to building a sustainable future, and the lasting impact of his leadership will be felt for years to come.

A message of congratulations from:

Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis
Auckland Mayor Len Brown
Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa
Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodríguez-Larreta
Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille
Copenhagen Lord Mayor Frank Jensen
Dalian Mayor Xiao Shengfeng
Heidelberg Mayor Eckart Würzner
Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena
Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle
Mexico City Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo
Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista
Quito Mayor Mauricio Rodas
Salvador Mayor Antônio Carlos Peixoto de Magalhães Neto
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike
Tshwane Executive Mayor Councillor Solly Msimanga
Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz
Wuhan Mayor Wan Yong
U.N. Secretary General's Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change Michael R. Bloomberg

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5 Things I Learned In My First Year As A Vegan

A photo posted by nzinga young (@veganzinga) on Jun 17, 2016 at 6:14pm PDT

Going vegan has been a learning process.

Learning the atrocities of the meat and dairy industries and living more ethically are part of it, but here are other things I learned during my first year as an ethical vegan.

Exploitation is everywhere.

I was on vacation when I realized the $5 I paid to take a picture with a python was supporting its captivity. Colored candies I bought for my niece seemed vegan at the time, but were probably dyed with bug juice. Getting my sunscreen and multivitamins right was hard enough, but every few months I learned something new.

I didn't realize how pervasive animal exploitation is in our culture.

I didn't realize how pervasive animal exploitation is in our culture until I had to become more mindful. I'm a lot better now, but I'm sure there are a few more "uh oh" moments left in me.

Vegans are nicer in person.

My experiences with vegans online and offline have been very different.

Some online vegans can be pretty intense. Honest questions from aspiring vegans and differing views from well-meaning people are subject to brutal criticism in Facebook groups. There are more great vegans on social media than unnecessarily judgmental ones, but I have yet to meet a rude vegan offline.

The people I've met have been lovely. We can discuss differing opinions without raising our voices. We may not always agree, but we honor and respect each other for being different parts of the same fight.

I'm not sure if the anonymity of the internet makes people bolder or if I'm not in the right circles, but my view of vegans changed for the better when I started connecting in person.

A photo posted by nzinga young (@veganzinga) on Jul 20, 2016 at 6:35pm PDT

Activists are trying their best.

If you maintain a consistent argument and fight for full liberation, you're called a rigid abolitionist who's too stuck in your ways.

If you work for incremental change and improved conditions for farm animals, you're called a dirty welfarist who's doing more harm than good.

And let's not get started on vegans who urge us to consider the human rights issues tied into animal exploitation.

As a new vegan, I started to believe these reviews of vegan thought leaders, but I have yet to meet anyone from differing camps who wasn't passionate about animal liberation. The methods may differ from person to person, but the ultimate goal of freedom for all animals seems to be the same.

Connecting with vegans helped me formulate my own opinion about the biggest names in the movement. I may still disagree with their tactics -- especially ones that disrespect other social justice movements -- but everyone seems to be making an impact the best way they know how.

Intersectionality matters.

With a situation as dire as systematic murder, it's easy to focus solely on what's best for non-human animals. That's why it's important to have vegan organizations with a broader perspective. Groups that understand all oppression is intertwined and remind us that fighting for animals doesn't mean disregarding other injustices.

Collectively Free protests the forced impregnation of dairy cows and the underpaid Ethiopian workers that keep your favorite coffee shop in business.

Food Empowerment Project reminds us that the factory farm employees we often vilify are also being exploited.

Veganism is certainly about animals, but it doesn't mean we disrespect our own species along the way.

Veganism is certainly about animals, but it doesn't mean we disrespect our own species along the way.

I should be doing more.

I spent a lot of this year buying vegan without being vegan. I was caught up in vegan consumerism without doing anything to inspire change. I hope my latest initiative helps vegans everywhere get those closest to them to understand the importance of a vegan lifestyle.

My goal is to have a bigger impact during my second year of veganism. For more on my initiative to get our friends and family to go vegan, visit Wanyama Box.

-- 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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The Write Questions: Advice From The Wrong Side Of The Lens

Photo by Rhododendrites (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I am unashamed to admit it: I am terribly proud of my people.

To what "people" am I referring here? To doctors? To scientists? To astronauts and aspiring astronaut-types? I'm surely proud of all those people. Today, I'm referring to another group to which I belong; to something I've done on and off for more than half my life; to one of the most important things I've ever done, as well as one of the most important things that occurs in a truly free and democratic society. I am referring, of course, to the press.

My people - journalists - are amazing. We bust in doors behind which lie nefarious activities that undermine the basic tenets of our civil liberties. We point the spotlight on violations of human rights. We call "foul" when justice isn't being served and, in that sense, are our own sort of justice. Therein lies the agony and the ecstasy of the media: with words, sounds, and images, we convene trials, summon the accused, calls witnesses, and cause judgments to be made. Like an outstanding attorney, an excellent journalist solicits input from relevant experts and arranges concrete evidence in such a way that the jury - our audience - can make an informed decision. In outstanding journalism - not editorial, just plain ol' features about life and the people who live it - there's no need to prosecute or to defend. The facts, well-presented, do that for themselves. The facts, poorly presented or not presented at all, twist and maul the truth and raze our ability as professionals to educate, empower, and vouchsafe civilization.

Photo By Txbeaker [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

These days, both facts and the way in which they are presented are more malleable than ever. When I first got into the field, it wasn't so. Back then, I inked an honest-to-god press. The thing was a behemoth - a giant born from the black depths of global mechanization. You basically had to wrestle it in order to get your paper out. Every word you fed into that thing you thought about. Then you thought about it twice and twice again, because lord knows you didn't want to go more rounds with that infernal machine than was absolutely necessary. My summer at The Otter Valley News and Views is witnessed by the ink particles still embedded deep within the lining of my lungs.

Photography used to follow a similar plodding, dedicated to-the-point-of-cultish course. At The Daily Californian, we photographers rolled our own black-and-white film, ran up and down at sporting events at nearly the same pace as the players, and worshiped the smell of fixer in the morning- or at least pretended to, because what we sweated (and sometimes bled) for mattered. Our shots were a critical part of the process. They provided more than just meaning and context. Photographs printed on paper drew people in: they gave the words our colleagues penned the opportunity to inform readers and transform the world for the better. That was before I graduated from college, before I built something that flew into space, before I ever laid hands on a patient. Long before I ever saved someone's life, through journalism, I was able to have a significant, positive impact on the lives of my fellow human beings. And also: really great calves.

So here I am, 18 years and several degrees later, dealing first-hand with journalism from the far side of the lens. A lot has changed. For one, the cameras are now in my face, not hanging about my neck as they ought to be. The questions will be coming my way. In 48 hours, my exit from "Mars" will be attended by 55 members of the media (and my brother, who has promised to heckle me "like a reporter"). On either side of me will be five very nice, very smart, very tired innocent bystanders: my crewmates, who have born a ceaseless onslaught of media for the last 12 months with an impressive amount of grace.

In return for our patience, we've had some outstanding coverage. My most sincere thanks to VICE, The History Channel, The Surge, BBC Stargazer, The University of Rhode Island, The British Journal of Medicine, Radio New Zealand, Voices from L5 and many others for your thoughtful, thorough, and accurate pieces. We've also had our share of "What the heck is this? We don't play xBox! No one has actually been chosen to go to Mars! As for sending robots ahead of time to build our shelters for us... it's a cool idea, but not, as some people would have you think, "a done deal." Those last two informational travesties resulted from what increasingly passes for reporting: taking a story written by someone else, distilling it (badly), sprinkling it with Googled facts, and passing it off as news.*

Here we arrive at something else that's changed since that fateful day when I talked my way into a job shooting mayoral candidates, house-fires, extra softball innings, and other natural disasters for a living: As much good journalism as there is (more than ever, really), really bad media abounds.

What's the disparity between good journalism and...not? Here's my view: a journalist gathers and contextualizes information such that readers can imbue it with social relevance and personal meaning. Making up facts, distilling other peoples' articles without adding value, and lifting quotes from blogs posts rather than conducting interviews is not journalism. It takes up space in news feeds, but it isn't news. Predigested and filling, it lacks mentally nutritional value while giving readers a serious case of brain gas.

True, there's always been fluff out there. Also true: like the scarlet letter, sensationalism used to be highly visible from a distance (and for the same reason). Clearly marked by cheap newsprint yellowing before it even hit the stands or by super-glossy covers with garish titles, these tabloids practically glowed when held against a dark background. If you wanted news, you had to pluck off your doorstep or out of a metal box at a busy intersection.

These days, good journalists and bad media are jammed into the same space. No books, no covers: just the great equalizer of pixels on a screen. In the digital age, the friendly labeling we once counted on to help us discriminate between medicine and poison - between information and aggrandizement - has faded away. A text from your mother and a text from a scammer claiming that your mother is in the hospital and needs $10,000 for a procedure appear exactly the same way on your phone's LCD. An opinion piece written on an iPad on the way home from work may look as, or more, legitimate than a Pulitzer-winning piece of investigative reporting. On the surface, these two often appear the same.

That's one major change since I got into this business in 1996. The other is that properly trained, properly-paid journalists are vastly outnumbered by people under deadline to write click-bait.

So: what's a simulated astronaut to do?

Fundamentally, my job, whether I'm an astronaut or a reporter or a doctor, is to make things work: to take the limited resources at hand and deliver a victory for the home team. Ship me anywhere in the 'verse. Make the delay 20 minutes, 200 hours, or 40 days and 40 nights. Whatever the apparent barriers, I won't abandon my people - many of whom are or could be good writers who aren't given the time or training to make their product what it rightfully should be. I can't change that right now, but I can help even the odds stacked against us all by expediency, mediocrity, and inertia.

On 8/28 you will be able to ask us any question in the world. To help even the odds, here's a list of questions we've already answered many, many times:

What have you learned?
What do you miss?
What did you eat?
Have you seen The Martian?
How did it feel to not have the Sun and the wind in your face for a year?
What's the first thing you're going to do?
What's been the biggest challenge about being on Mars?
Do you guys argue? How do you deal with conflict?
What do you do if someone gets sick?
Have there been any disasters during the mission?
Do you really want to go to Mars?
Did this mission - do any simulations - help pave the way for the human exploration of Mars?
How is this simulation different from Mars?
How did your families react to your decision to go into isolation?
Did you always want to be an astronaut?
Have you ever felt like quitting?
What will be the hardest part about coming back to Earth?
Would you do it again?
Are any of you signed up for the one-way trip?

We're very glad that people are curious enough about our mission to ask any question that comes to mind. At the same time, anyone locked in a box with no direct access to the outside world, no fresh food except the small amount that they can grow in whatever space they aren't sleeping on, and only five flatmates can easily imagine what they are going to miss: more friends, family, sunshine, wind, flowers, pineapple, sushi, long walks in the woods, and tailgating at Cal games (go Bears!). If "What do you miss?" was a mystery, thanks to the power of Reddit, six crew blogs, and countless news articles, that mystery has been solved.

To my fellow journalists out there: there are much better questions to be asked and answered. For the record, the questions that were truly mysterious until I arrived on "Mars" and have never/rarely been asked by the media are:

What turned out to be replaceable? What foods were replaceable, or even better/easier to make? What new favorite food took the place of the old one that you can't have?
You can't talk directly to your family - how well do the other things that you can do compensate for that? And how well does your new family, your crew, compensate for it?
While nothing can replace sunshine and wind, how well do the new adventures that you get to have compensate for their temporary loss? How well does the new filter between you and the world function to give you a sense of peace and the ability to accomplish things that you would struggle to accomplish otherwise, with the world knocking at your door?
Now that you have been there for a year, what message do you have for the people of Earth about their planet?
What message do you have for the folks designing the human Mars missions?
Name one total disaster - suits, radios, experiments, food recipes - and how, if you were able to salvage something from it, you did.
Name an epic win and how you accomplished it.
How is human society going to have to change to survive and thrive on Mars?
What do you expect will be extremely challenging for you when you return to Earth and what's your plan for overcoming that challenge?
What do you think will be the thing that you remember most - the dreaded memory and the cherished memory?
What's the weakness that could have torn this mission apart? What's the strength, or strengths, that saved it?
Did you find all the media attention flattering or annoying? How weird is it to be a journalist inside a Mars mission?
Did any of you get sick or get hurt? If that had happened on Mars would you have been alright?
Do you think that six people will be enough - or too many?
Did you get enough support from the people of Earth? What else could we have done to help this mission?
Do you plan to drive right away, or will you be re-integrating back into the operation of heavy machinery slowly?
What advice do you have for choosing the next crew?
Would you have tried to vote from space? How do you think that future Mars crews should handle the political process?
We talk a lot about the science of these missions - what the role of art, music, entertainment during these long voyages?
In a place where there's no money and nothing to buy, what do you value?

When we ask the right questions, we get people thinking, challenging assumptions, and pushing the boundaries of what ought to come next. These are free from me to you. Go to!

We Martians are ready to meet the press. We've been getting ready all year. All that we ask in return for the time that we're giving you the minute we hit dirt - I have to let you photograph me before I can so much as hug my husband - is this: be journalists. Be the truth-advocates who held this country together for hundreds of years. Adventurers like us are always good for a story. We scientists have been keeping things interesting for the last few centuries. Astronauts - bright and shiny! - are the new kids on the block when it comes to popular coverage, and deservedly so. We've faced dangers and made sacrifices for twelve long months, and we thank you for your attention. So please, come one and come all to the show. And when you come, bring the right questions. When the hatch opens and we finally present ourselves to you, that's the signal: It's YOUR turn to be the hero. To write our way into the future. To find the facts, solicit the opinions, and frame the stories that will make the last year - our lives in service to science and Earth and all of humankind - meaningful. To make the fact that I waited 366 days PLUS 10 minutes to hug my husband worthwhile. So let's do this, people. We scienced the heck out of this. Now, let's write the heck out of this.

You ask. We'll answer. Make me proud.

Courtesy of Wikimedia commons, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=197374

*Corrections were requested to all of these articles.

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5 Things I Learned In My First Year As A Vegan

A photo posted by nzinga young (@veganzinga) on Jun 17, 2016 at 6:14pm PDT

I didn't realize how pervasive animal exploitation is in our culture.

A photo posted by nzinga young (@veganzinga) on Jul 20, 2016 at 6:35pm PDT

Veganism is certainly about animals, but it doesn't mean we disrespect our own species along the way.

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Obama's Hawaiian Marine Preserve: Massive Potential, Monumental Challenges
By Char Miller, Pomona College

"The The endangered Hawaiian monk seal is one of the 7,000 species that gained a measure of protection.U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CC BY

President Obama's environmental record just went big. On August 26, he quadrupled the size of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the center of the Pacific Ocean, northwest of Hawaii. Whatever other conservation actions he takes in his final months in office, Papahānaumokuākea will be hard to top.

The new monument is also outsized in the interrelated issues that it will address - and generate. In Papahānaumokuākea, biology, politics and policy converge and collide in revelatory ways.

For those of us who study the intersection of environmental history, policy and politics on sea and land as I do, it's clear the creation of this gigantic marine monument is a huge step forward for conservation and for helping ecosystems adapt to a changing climate.

But it also poses such significant management, budgetary and political challenges that I fear Papahānaumokuākea will complicate, if not submarine, President Obama's ambitious environmental agenda.

Human and natural challenges

To understand the challenges Papahānaumokuākea will pose, start with the site's remoteness - it is a far remove even from the main Hawaiian Islands, never mind the West Coast. Add, then, its vastness: President Obama added more than 440,000 square miles to boost the already designated monument to a staggering 582,578 square miles. Note: These are square miles, not acres. So gigantic is this national monument that it is larger than all the U.S. national parks and national forests combined; it's not much smaller than Alaska.

The conservation mission of Papahānaumokuākea, which is now the largest blue reserve on this blue planet, is also a tall order. Significantly, it prohibits fishing and other resource exploitation so as to protect such endangered species as the short-tailed albatross and the remaining population of Hawaiian monk seals, as well as the long-living black coral (some of which are estimated to be 4,000 years old). So little of its flora and fauna have been studied that it is highly likely that the 7,000 species known to inhabit the region are but a fraction of those actually there.

Finally, the national monument comes with a social justice commitment: The state's lead indigenous rights agency, the Department of Hawaiian Affairs, will help supervise archaeological and sacred sites, an innovative co-management initiative. By any calculation, Papahānaumokuākea is astonishing.

But it precisely the national monument's massive proportions that make its effective management so daunting.

The creation of the Papahanaumokuakea National Monument, which preserves important ocean resources, was enabled by Obama's predecessor Bush and gained backing from Hawaii's legislators.
Papahanaumokuakea National Monument

Consider that the first generation of forest rangers on the U.S. national forests had to control only one million acres in the remote western mountains, and yet understandably they were baffled how they and their horses could steward their new domain. Imagine their modern counterparts trying to survey a waterscape 100 times that extent, even with airplanes and satellites; Papahānaumokuākea dwarfs our faith in management by technology.

Now add budgetary constraints to the vastness of Papahānaumokuākea: The National Park Service's funding has taken a hit recently at the same time that the number of properties it supervises has mushroomed, thanks to President Obama's rapid-fire creation of 26 new national monuments (with even more anticipated).

I understand why the chief executive is moving with dispatch (a mash-up of legacy building and opportunity knocks). But I worry that the speed with which these sites have been designated, and their disparate fiscal demands, has outstripped the executive branch's capacity to underwrite them. My worry is magnified given the strong opposition in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to the president's ready use of the Antiquities Act.

Papahānaumokuākea will be a major test of the federal government's stewardship, then, not least because in the run-up to its expansion the National Park Service held a series of raucous public meetings in which the industrial and longline fishing industry, along with native organizations, opposed the designation.

Preservation of marine life, they argued, is in direct competition with their long history of harvesting food from these very waters. How the National Park Service manages these fraught human dynamics will be every bit as critical as its stewardship of the marinescape's threatened biodiversity.

Building on Bush's legacy

At the same time, I am buoyed by the national monument's oddly bipartisan political history: It owes existence to two very different presidents, one whose administration downplayed emerging climate change science, the other who has been at the forefront of world leaders responding to the threats climate change poses.

In 2006, after a White House screening of Jacques-Michel Cousteau's documentary "Voyage to Kure," which details human damage to the islands' ecosystems, President George W. Bush was moved to action. Using the 1906 Antiquities Act, he set aside Papahānaumokuākea - the first of four oceanic parks he would create in the Pacific. Time magazine dubbed this collection of sites Bush's last acts of "greenness," while a legion of environmental critics suggested they were his first and last; no president had used the Antiquities Act less than Bush did.

The creation of the monument is controversial with the fishing industry and indigenous groups who complain about new restrictions on fishing in the area.
Lindsey Kramer/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CC BY

Moreover, given how far away these sites were from the continental U.S., their very isolation dampened any controversy. Still, as Time magazine noted, these "marine monuments will mean that President Bush - perhaps the least environmental president in U.S. history - will have protected more of the ocean than anyone else in the world."

President Obama has blown that claim out of the water. But he did so in a more calculated, less cathartic manner. As part of his 2009 commitment to address climate change, his administration has sought projects that would enhance landscape resilience to the effects of climate change.

In 2014, Obama added roughly 300,000 square miles to the Bush-inaugurated Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (now totaling 490,343 square miles), a stretch of remote Pacific islands south and west of Hawaii. When he did so, he justified its expansion as a way to strengthen Pacific ecosystems. The same rationale was deployed in support of Papahānaumokuākea National Monument.

These two mega monuments, when combined with the 126 other (and smaller) U.S. marine sanctuaries, now account for about 26 percent of the nation's waters, meaning that collectively they are giving oceanic species a fighting chance to survive as the climate-charged seas warm and rise. They also make the president's latest action in the Pacific more than a grand gesture. It just might be a planetary life preserver.

Char Miller, W. M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis, Pomona College

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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States Are Leading Winds Of Change In U.S. Renewable Energy Revolution
by Chris Brown, President, Vestas Americas and Chairman, American Wind Energy Association

Some are calling recent clean-energy actions by New York, Massachusetts and Iowa "game-changers." That might very well prove true in the medium-term. But we can say with confidence that they are immediate game-advancers.

Why? Energy markets are affected by policy, but they are driven by price. The underlying business reality is that the real cost of wind power has dropped below that of new fossil-fuel generation. And it's making wind and renewables a no-brainer choice for major corporations, utilities and power producers of almost every stripe.

Today, states are at the epicenter of America's renewable energy revolution. And, because we have 50 state energy markets, big positive advances in state policy can accelerate the pace of this historic shift.

Consider that New York, the 3rd-largest U.S. state economy, has now committed to meeting 50 percent of its power needs from clean, reliable, low-cost energy sources such as wind by 2030. That makes it the 5th state to commit to a 50 percent or more target for clean power, joining Oregon, Hawaii, California and Vermont. Other states such as Kansas, whose wind energy production has nearly tripled in the past five years, have voluntary aims to achieve up to 50% of their electricity needs through wind energy.

In Massachusetts, the legislature approved and governor signed an energy bill committing to purchase 1,600 MW from the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry, an action that promises to extend large-scale U.S. wind energy development from the land to the sea and power dozens of East and West coast urban centers.

And just last week in Iowa, currently the only state to generate more than 30 percent of its energy from wind, the Iowa Utilities Board approved plans by MidAmerican Energy, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Energy, to invest $3.6 billion for up to 2,000 MW of wind capacity. Once completed, the new 1,000-wind-turbine project promises to be the largest yet in MidAmerican's history.

These states aren't alone. Others also stand out for their leadership this year on renewable energy, including Maryland, D.C. and Oregon.

In fact, fully 29 states now have renewable energy portfolio standards designed to spur clean power development, diversify our electricity supply, generate local economic growth and jobs, conserve scarce fresh water and also reduce pollution.

Despite the drama playing out in the courts over implementation of the federal Clean Power Plan, most states are continuing to move forward with their plans to provide more domestic renewable energy to their constituents and ratepayers.

States are doing so because they have listened to the markets, and the marketplace has spoken. The smart money is backing low-cost renewable energy, especially wind. That includes major companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, IKEA, Microsoft and Walmart.

Wind is winning in the marketplace because its real costs are down more than 66 percent since 2009. Wind is already the lowest-cost clean energy by a large margin. Indeed, across a large swath of central U.S., in states such as Texas, Oklahoma and Iowa, wind is now the cheapest source of newly installed power from any energy source -- clean or fossil fuel.

In 2015, the low cost and long-term pricing certainty offered by wind energy made it the number one source of new U.S. electric capacity, supplying 41 percent of the nation's generating capacity additions, ahead of natural gas, solar and all other energy sources.

States get it. They get the fact that renewable power, wind in particular, is the lowest-cost energy choice.

States also get that the American public is demanding it. Who wouldn't want a clean-energy source that can save ratepayers dollars on their utility bills? Indeed, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Wind Vision report projects that Americans will save almost $150 billion on their electric bills by 2050 in the switch to low-cost wind power.

Not surprisingly, polls show that wide majorities of voters -- Republican, Democrat and Independent -- strongly support continuing these successful clean-energy policies.

A growing number of utilities, including MidAmerican Energy, Xcel and Alliant, also get it. AWEA's U.S. Wind Industry 2nd Quarter 2016 Market Report confirms utilities are moving forward with 2,600 MW of new wind investment. Last year more than 4,300 utility-scale wind turbines were installed in 20 states, says DOE's 2015 Wind Technologies Market Report, helping drive America's world leadership in wind electricity generated.

As more and more states see their neighbors passing legislation and taking other steps to encourage more wind and other renewable energy -- they don't want to risk being left behind. A dozen states already meet more than 10 percent of their energy needs with wind power. The switch is on.

Recalling the words of the recent Broadway hit 'Hamilton', America's clean energy revolution is being led by states whose leaders are "young, scrappy and hungry."

Like the American revolution that Alexander Hamilton and others led more than two centuries earlier, the switch to low-cost renewables to power America's energy future is undeniable. And it just makes sense.

Chris Brown is Chairman of the Board of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), and President of Vestas-American Wind Technology, Vestas' North American business unit.

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Louisiana Floods: Restoration Will Help Us Build Back Better

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In Baton Rouge these past weekends, the "Cajun Navy" was out in force cleaning up after the devastating Louisiana floods that killed 17 people and forced thousands of others to leave their homes. Despite the crushing heat and debris-filled neighborhoods, the mood felt oddly cheerful as volunteers hefted water-logged furniture, drywall and insulation out of homes and distributed sandwiches and snacks to neighbors, family, and strangers who were affected by what is described as the worst storm since Hurricane Sandy.

In Louisiana, we have become used to this pattern: rain, flood, cleanup, rebuild.

Unfortunately, floods like this are no longer once-in-a-millennia aberrations. This is the eighth time Louisiana has flooded since May of last year, and this storm rivaled the power of a hurricane, dumping 21 inches of rain in 48 hours.

When President Obama visited Baton Rouge last Tuesday, he praised the recovery efforts. "I know how resilient the people of Louisiana are," he said. "And I know you will rebuild again.

Obama echoed a common refrain we hear after almost every natural disaster: Build back better.

This time, we need to do more than just rebuild. We need to restore the earth.

For too long, human and industrial development has worked against nature, knocking out the ecosystems that create a natural defense against storms. Over the past half-century, we have all but rubbed out the coastal estuaries, wetlands, and forests that protect our communities and economic infrastructure from a changing climate. Today, Louisiana loses wetlands at the rate of one football field every hour. This is significant because wetlands absorb storm surge. For the more than 2 million people living in south Louisiana, the existence of healthy wetlands means the difference between safety and more frequent, severe flooding.

The good news is that we can restore this land, and as the nation focuses on rebuilding after the floods, it is critical that we include landscape-scale restoration as an essential part of this effort.

A relatively unknown concept, landscape-scale restoration is surprisingly simple and incredibly effective: Using a science-based approach, we can rebuild natural hydrology and replant native trees and plants to restore entire ecosystems. My organization, Restore the Earth Foundation, has been using this approach to restore degraded land in Louisiana ever since Hurricane Katrina, which was not only one of the country's most devastating storms, it was also the largest forestry disaster in U.S. history. Working alongside federal and state agencies, as well as private, philanthropic, and community organizations, we reforested 45,000 acres along the Gulf Coast.

When natural ecosystems are restored, they become factories producing abundant benefits: mitigating climate change, recharging groundwater, providing critical habitat, buffering against sea level rise, and, yes, supporting flood control and preventing storm damage.

Restoration is such an important part of climate mitigation that it is codified in Article 5.1 of the international Paris Agreement on climate change. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced $1 billion in grants to help communities invest in climate resilience. The largest of those grants are going to Louisiana, including for projects that protect coastal wetlands and restore the land.

Our vision is to restore more of these ecosystems so they can work properly and help provide for and protect our communities and economy.

But in order for this to happen, we need more support. We need public agencies, private industry, and likeminded nonprofit and community organizations to come together to support funding, access to land, science and research, and program implementation.

We all have a stake in this--not just those of us in Louisiana. Climate change is the new normal, and it's affecting us all. In the past 18 months, more than 200 people have been killed by floods in the United States. The third National Climate Assessment, released in 2014, showed that "the amount of rain falling in very heavy precipitation events" has been significantly above average since 1991. In other parts of the country, wildfires are raging--getting worse every year because of record-breaking heat waves such as the one we had in July.

We need to change our trajectory, and one action we can take right now is to invest in landscape-scale restoration. In October, my organization will break ground on a new project to restore 4,000 acres of freshwater-forested wetlands in the Pointe-aux-Chenes Bald Cypress Forest. This essential ecosystem is the largest landmass providing the last line of defense protecting 200,000 people from the open water of the Gulf of Mexico. This project is part of a larger initiative my organization is leading to restore 1 million acres of degraded land in the Mississippi River basin, North America's Amazon.

For me, this project has taken on new meaning--and renewed urgency. It will give me a chance to get my hands dirty and do something tangible and real to help protect my family, friends, and neighbors. Coming together to replant and restore gives people a common purpose and builds relationships that make our communities stronger. It also gives us hope that, even during this time of loss, there is something we can do to create a brighter future.

For the people of Louisiana, restoration can help heal their communities. For the country, restoration can change our path from degradation to resilience. It's time to make landscape-scale restoration part of the effort to build back better.

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Earth To Pebble Mine: Stay Away From Bristol Bay World Conservation Congress Registers Overwhelming International Opposition to Mega-Mine That Threatens Bristol Bay's Wild Salmon Fishery
A new chapter opened today in the battle against the proposed Pebble Mine, as the World Conservation Congress overwhelmingly adopted a motion opposing the embattled mega-mine and other large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska and urging the U.S. government to prevent the issuance of permits. With this action, an international body has for the first time formally joined longstanding opposition to the massive copper and gold project -- a project that, for years, has been the focus of a relentless, broad-based campaign in Alaska and the lower 48 states to stop it.

If permitted, the Pebble Mine would be the largest open pit mine in North America and perhaps the world, sited in the headwaters of the world's greatest wild salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska, which produces up to 50 million wild salmon each year. The mega-mine would create a hole nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon; generate an estimated 10 billion tons of waste (enough to fill a major football stadium up to 3,900 times); and cover an area larger than Manhattan.

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The reputation of the World Conservation Congress for environmental expertise and science-based decision-making make this unequivocal international action especially notable. Hosted every four years by the world's largest network of conservation experts - the 1,300 member International Union for the Conservation of Nature (or "IUCN") - the Congress brings together thousands of scientists and other environmental professionals from over 170 countries, including members from 89 states, 129 government agencies, and over 1,000 domestic and international non-governmental organizations.

The landslide vote announced today was virtually unanimous -- 100% of the countries voting supported the motion and, among the non-state members, only four of all the votes cast opposed the motion. The final vote count is expected to be posted on the IUCN's website later today.

The Congress' action against the Pebble Mine is also significant because of the unusual diversity of the motion's sponsors, pairing for the very first time, among others, the Natural Resources Defense Council ("NRDC") and the Dallas Safari Club.

Among other things, the motion -- entitled "Protecting the world's greatest salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska from large-scale mining" -- recognizes that "if action isn't taken to stop large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed, it will have devastating impacts on the region's environment, economics, and indigenous peoples." The motion supports the right of the people of Bristol Bay to determine their own future by preventing large-scale mining "including, in particular, the proposed Pebble Mine," and it urges the United States government "to take the necessary measures to prevent the granting of permits for large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed."

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With today's announcement at the World Conservation Congress, the momentum to stop the Pebble project continues to intensify. The people of Bristol Bay oppose it, the people of Alaska oppose it, and now the world's leading conservation experts have endorsed that opposition. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") has recognized, the Pebble Mine is a recipe for catastrophic contamination of the world's greatest wild salmon fishery.

Virtually without dissent, the IUCN's action reflects a solid international scientific consensus that the reckless mining project must be stopped.

Take action -- again.

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