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It's ExxonMobil And The GOP Who Are 'Chilling' Scientific Inquiry

Jesse Bragg, Media Director for Corporate Accountability International, at an ExxonKnew campaign press conference at the Capitol today

As the campaign to hold ExxonMobil accountable for hiding what they knew about climate change gains momentum, Exxon's defenders have fallen back on a bizarre strategy to try and protect the company: claiming that environmental groups and attorneys general are colluding to "silence" scientists and "chill" scientific inquiry.

"These investigations have had a chilling effect," said Texas Republican Representative Lamar Smith, the Chair of the House Science Committee, who hosted a hearing on the Exxon issue this afternoon in Washington. Other Republicans on the committee echoed him. "If government was put in charge of science, we'd still think the Earth was flat," said one member. "Scientists are being bullied," thundered another.

This Republican committee's eagerness to defend science was rather ironic considering the committee's own track record. The committee is perhaps best known not for its support for science (Republicans consistently vote to defund federal science agencies), but for subpoenaing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for, wait for it, conducting climate science. "The hypocrisy from the majority members defending scientific freedom given their previous actions towards NOAA+Tom Karl is breathtaking," tweeted Gavin Schmidt, himself a scientist and director of the NASA Goddard Space Institute at Columbia Institute.

The hypocrisy from the majority members defending scientific freedom given their previous actions towards NOAA+Tom Karl is breathtaking
— Gavin Schmidt (@ClimateOfGavin) September 14, 2016

The only science that took place at the committee hearing this afternoon came courtesy of Democratic Representative Bill Foster, the only Member of Congress with a PhD in science, who lamented Chairman Smith's abuse of his position to subpoena various officials and organizations. "At some point I'd like to return to science on this committee," said Foster. He then proceeded to grill one of the Republican's "expert" witnesses, Professor Ronald Rotunda, about some outlandish statements Rotunda had made about how the melting of the entire Greenland ice sheet wouldn't cause sea levels to rise. "This hearing is an example of just another rearguard action by a group of people who deny climate change," concluded Foster, shaking his head.

The claim that the groups behind the #ExxonKnew campaign are silencing or chilling scientific inquiry is especially strange because of our shared focus on, well, science. 350.org is named after the safe level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 350 parts per million -- that's about as scientifically wonky as it gets. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), another group supposedly having a chilling effect, is, as the name suggests, largely made of scientists. UCS released a letter earlier this week with over 2,000 scientists weighing in on their behalf to say it was the committee, not environmental groups, that was chilling scientific inquiry. Greenpeace, another subpoenaed group, is best known for its bold campaigns and actions, but it too has a deep track record of supporting scientific inquiry, often transporting scientists up to the Arctic or other remote areas to conduct research.

350.org Executive Director May Boeve

Our complaint with Exxon has never had anything to do with the science they did or are doing. In fact, we'd like to see them do more climate science. Environmentalists have long urged the fossil fuel industry to do a more thorough study of the impact of their business on the planet. We fully support any scientific research into climate change, renewable energy, or zero carbon fuels. Many have made this case to Exxon directly. At the company's annual shareholder meeting this year, advocates continued to lobby for the company to do a full climate assessment of its business and appoint a climate expert to its board. Exxon shot down both proposals. We also applaud the scientists at ExxonMobil, who as early as the 1970s discovered that their product causes global warming.

Our problem isn't with the science, our problem is with the coverup. When Exxon executives heard from their scientists about climate change, instead of warning the public, or urging Congress to fund more research into solutions to the crisis, Exxon spent millions on a vast misinformation campaign. They donated millions more to climate denying politicians, including many of the Republicans at the commitee hearing today (Rep. Smith, the Chairman, has received over $24,000 from Exxon over his career, for example). Instead of supporting science, Exxon funded front groups who published false studies about global warming, lambasted scientists on television, and went after the reputations and careers of individual scientists. Watch the documentary Merchants of Doubt and you'll see PR hacks like Marc Morano, a former Republican politico aid, laugh gleefully about his own personal track record of intimidating scientists. As he says in the preview below, "I'm not a scientist...but I play one on TV occasionally. Ok, hell, more than occasionally."

If Representative Smith is so worried about the chilling of scientific inquiry in this country, he should be subpoenaing the executives over at ExxonMobil to see what role they had in their company's own scientific coverup. He could even go a step further and subpoena the records of his own committee--we'd like to know, for example, what conversations his staff have had with Exxon or any industry front groups. As Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said at a press conference before the hearing this afternoon, the public deserves to know "how far the hand of the fossil fuel industry is into the glove of this committee."

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse

Today's hearing was designed to distract the public from the real issue at hand: whether Exxon lied about their knowledge that their product caused climate change. Instead, it just reaffirmed why this case is so important. As 350.org's Executive Director May Boeve said at this morning's press conference, "This hearing is Exhibit A in the case study of Big Oil's stranglehold on Congress."

Our hope is that the ExxonKnew campaign can play some role in breaking that stranglehold, because if we don't, Congress and its committees will continue to be run by politicians who deny the basic facts of climate change, let alone are supporting scientific research to help solve it. Now that is a chilling thought.

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This Land Is Your Land

In September, TU will be feeding you a heavy dose of stories about public lands. From the Golden Trout wilderness in California to the Green Mountains of Vermont, public lands are hugely important to wild and native fish. In most Western states, public lands comprise more than 70 percent of the available habitat for trout, and virtually all of the strongholds for native trout.

My father is the sixth generation of our family to grow up in Newark, NJ. Growing up, the closest public land we had was a local county park called Tuers, where I shot countless hours of hoop. Except for visiting family in Ireland, I didn't leave the Garden State until college in Vermont, and there discovered the Green Mountain National Forest. I spent many hours in that forest catching native brook trout.

After graduation I took a long, slow trip across the country with my dog, Gus, and a big box filled with Dinty Moore beef stew. Gus and I walked the Natchez Trace in Mississippi. We hiked the Smokies in Tennessee. We took pictures of fields of Black-eyed Susans in the Shenandoah. Swam in hot springs in Idaho and clamored over red rocks in Utah. Camped among the aspen in Colorado. Hiked old growth forests in Oregon, marveled at the coastal redwoods of California.

All those places share one thing. They are public lands that belong to us all. For now. In recent years, more than 50 short-sighted bills have been introduced in state legislatures to transfer, sell, or otherwise take away your birthright—the public lands that are managed for us by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Not to be outdone, Congress has entertained similar proposals. Presidential candidates have campaigned on the issue. As much as we'd all like to think “that can't happen,” the fact is that there are well-heeled special interests dedicated to seeing that it does.

Those who seek this so called “transfer”—county supremacists, sagebrush rebels and their contemporary cicadian progeny—neglect an important fact. At no time did the Western federally managed public lands belong to the states. They were either ceded to the Union by Eastern states or acquired through treaty, conquest or purchase by the federal government acting on behalf of the citizens of the United States.

Public lands are the best idea America ever had. For those of us who want to fish and hunt, camp and hike without having to beg or buy permission, they are a godsend. The ham-handed dialogue about transferring or divesting public lands that drives the debate today is unhelpful and unproductive. To suggest that our land legacy—a legacy that a kid from New Jersey shares with a rancher in New Mexico—should be transferred or sold for a pittance is extreme and offensive.

For the next 30 days, tune into TU for a steady diet of stores about why public lands matter. Share the stories, video, and photos with your friends. Raise your voice and let your member of Congress and elected leaders in your state know that the public lands are a birthright that belongs to all of us, and we are not willing sellers.

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Vulnerable countries urge strong action on Montreal Protocol

Some of the most vulnerable countries in the world just sent a clear message that they want leaders to agree to a strong agreement to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) this year under the Montreal Protocol. World leaders have a chance to minimize the damages to those countries if they act decisively next month and agree to significant cuts in the use of these super-potent, heat-trapping chemicals.

At the recent meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum, many island nations put their support behind an ambitious deal at the Montreal Protocol negotiations in October. Capable of avoiding warming of up to 0.5°C by 2100, an agreement on HFCs is critical to upholding the Paris Agreement's ambition of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C. As the Pacific Islands Forum communique states:

"Leaders stressed that the amendment should include an early freeze date for HFC production and consumption followed by a rapid phase down of HFCs."

Proposals vary widely for the timing of the HFC phase down schedule. Countries are already converging on a phasedown schedule for developed countries, likely to start in 2019. The timing for the phasedown schedule of developing countries is under serious debate, with widely diverging proposals. The Africa Group, Pacific Island countries, leading Latin American and Caribbean countries, the U.S., European Union, Japan, and other developed countries have the most ambitious proposal, with a freeze on HFC use for developing countries to begin in 2021. Other Latin American and Asian countries have indicated their willingness to freeze in 2025, while China and Pakistan are proposing 2025--2026 as their preferred freeze years. The Chinese recently committed to help achieve an "an early freeze date and ambitious phase down schedule," so there might be flexibility in this initial proposal. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States suggested 2028, and Iran 2029. India, seeking to continue HFC growth for another 15 years, is proposing a freeze in 2031. The 10-year gap between leading and lagging proposals makes a major environmental difference: waiting for the developing countries to freeze in 2031, would allow at least 15 billion extra CO₂-eq tons of HFC use - close to half the entire world's CO₂output for an entire year.

A strong HFC phase down schedule matters a lot to the most vulnerable. The Pacific Island leaders welcomed the Dubai Pathway for reaching an amendment on HFCs this year, and pushed for an agreement to be reached at the Kigali meeting this October. Without a strong global commitment to reaching a deal in Kigali, the very existences of these island nations is threatened. As the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Marshall Islands John Silk emphasized:

"Today's communique is a clarion call to action that even with the Paris Agreement, there remains a lot of work to do to guarantee there will still be 16 seats at the Pacific Islands Forum in a hundred years from now."

Members of the Pacific Islands Forum account for less than 2 percent of global emissions, with many island stands accounting for less than 0.01 percent of global emissions. But these states have already suffered devastating storms and cyclones of increasing severity and flooding. When leaders debate the exact freeze date, we should keep in mind the consequences for these most vulnerable nations that had such a small role in creating the problems we face.

Over 100 countries currently support an early freeze on the use and production of HFCs. Next month, when parties gather in Kigali, the key task will be for other world leaders to seize the moment and agree to a strong freeze date and phasedown schedule. The most vulnerable need an agreement, but as the Pacific Island leaders pointed out, they don't just need any agreement - they need an ambitious one.

The stage has been set - now can we get a deal that the climate, and the Pacific Islands, deserve?

---------------------------

(The Forty-Seventh Pacific Islands Forum was attended by Heads of State and Government and Deputies from Australia, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Republic of Fiji, Niue, the Republic of Palau, and Kiribati. Additional attendees included French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Tokelau as Associate Members, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, Timor-Leste, and Wallis and Futuna.)

This post was co-written with Han Chen and Alex Hillbrand.

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Why Are You Wearing Dirty Oil?

"2016-09-14-1473883005-6816144-Lozena4.jpg"

Image: "Clothing Spill" by Savers. Credit: Ecouterre

Co-Authored by Kathrine Nasteva CEO Lozena

The reason I care about sustainable fashion isn't that my wife is the founder of the eco and ethical fashion brand Lozena (although that helps). No, the real reason I care is that fashion is one of the most polluting and energy-intensive industries in the world. From raw material acquisition, to textile production, to apparel manufacturing, to product disposal, fashion's environmental footprint is atrocious and it's time that changed.

"2016-09-14-1473882211-5016389-lozenapic1.jpg"

Image: Fashion Products Lifecycle. Credit: The Sustainable Angle

We Wear Oil

One of the first and most disturbing things you learn about fashion is just how toxic the materials we wear are. That's because nearly one quarter of all chemicals produced worldwide are used in textiles. Worse, much of this comes in the form of polyester and other synthetic fibers which requires large amounts of crude oil. That's right, we literally wear oil.

Production of these fibers emits particulate matter and gases such as CO2, nitrous oxide (with a per kilogram global warming potential of 310 times more than that of carbon dioxide), hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides, and other by-products into the atmosphere. These processes also release volatile organic compounds and solvents in waterways from manufacturing plants. In short, wearing dirty oil may be the least of our worries.

Why is polyester so widely used in apparel production?

Polyester (polyethylene terephthalate), or PET has textile and industrial applications - it's a plastic, used as film for food packaging, electrical insulation, and water and soft drink bottles, among other things. Developed in 1941 in the UK most production now takes place in China - 33 million tons, or 65% of global production in 2015. The popularity of this fiber grew as a result of its stretch and shrink-resistant, low moisture absorption, and thermally stable properties. But it spread because it's really cheap. In 2014 one ton of conventional cotton cost $2,200 compared to $1,400 for one ton of polyester.

Although competition between conventional cotton, the most prevalent natural fiber, and polyester continues to fluctuate according to commodities prices, the production capacity of cotton plateaued and demand for polyester has surged since 1980. Production is forecast to grow to nearly 100 million tons by 2025, while at the same time its price is expected to fall in line with oil prices.

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End of day commodity futures price for crude oil 9/13/16 closed at $44.90 USD per barrel. Image credit: McKinsey

It's not hard to see why apparel brands prefer polyester - it's inexpensive, blends well with other fibers, and new technological advances have dramatically improved qualities such as draping and denier, and enhanced performance features like breathability and sweat-wicking.

Why should you care?

The emergence and dominance of a fast fashion culture has resulted in skyrocketing demand for cheap, trendy clothing where frequent purchases are alluring and the disposal of heaps of barely-worn clothing is usually painless. While issues of environmental health and safety do not only apply to items made from synthetics (conventional cotton is a discussion for another time), the pervasiveness of these materials in our wardrobes has broader consequences. As of 2007, polyester became the most prevalent fiber used in apparel. This is a problem - not only because synthetic fibers aren't biodegradable and stockpile in landfills, but because the rise of synthetics is allowing consumer culture around fast fashion to proceed as "business as usual."

"2016-09-14-1473882981-2872938-Lozena3.png"

Image: Global fiber consumption, 2015. Credit: Lenzing

Inditex, the parent company of Zara, produces garments to the tune of 948 million per year - and that's just one company in an extremely fragmented and competitive industry. Low barriers allow for new entrants to the market at an incredible pace; and fast fashion brands introduce new trends every two weeks at ever-lower price points. The growth rate for women's apparel is expected to approach 5% per year by 2025, driven primarily by emerging market cities that will contribute an additional $100 billion to the market.

With 80% of the polyester manufactured used for textiles, MIT's Materials Systems Laboratory estimates that roughly 700 million tons of greenhouse gas can be attributed to fashion in 2015. That's because compared to a cotton t-shirt, a polyester t-shirt emits between 20-40% more greenhouse gases. All told polyester emits the equivalent of about 185 dirty coal plants - filthy stuff.

"2016-09-14-1473883208-6813662-lozena5.png"

Image: Total impact of polyester used in the textile industry per year. Credit: MIT Materials Systems Laboratory

So what can be done when everyone in the world wants the newest styles - and they want them now?

Slow Fashion Gaining Speed

Now, more than ever before consumers are more conscience about the items that fill their closets. They're checking garment labels and purchasing high-value, lasting pieces. They're buying clothes that matter. Trends are disappearing as designers are attempting to be original and remain true to their aesthetic. And, more and more emerging brands, large corporations, and retailers are taking environmental and social issues seriously. While sustainable fashion still remains a niche market, the energy and environmental crisis doesn't have to start in your closet. For fashion, the future looks green.

Kathrine is the Co-Founder of LOZENA, a family-owned fashion house with a mission to produce designer womenswear in an ecological and socially responsible manner. Since launching, LOZENA fashion has been seen on the runways of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Berlin; is featured in British Vogue and ELLE UK, and has been blogged about by numerous style writers. LOZENA is distributed exclusively via Kickstarter until October 8th, 2016.

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How Fighting the Bushmeat Trade Protects Lions

Sometimes, when traveling through Maasai Mara, visitors may see elephants with half of their trunk missing. The poor creatures must kneel to pluck grasses, and they are unable to reach leaves from the canopies of trees at all.

It is no mystery what maims these elephants.

Over smoky fires, well hidden from passersby on the road and the wary eye of law enforcement officers, people burn the rubber from tires and harvest the steel wire within them. Twisting these metal strands together and tying a slipknot in one end, they form deadly nooses with which to catch wild animals. The bushmeat poachers set these snares in between shrubs to trap wildebeests or zebra, high in trees to catch giraffes, and low to the ground to snag warthogs. The result is gruesome. Animals die from thirst or exposure, from deep lacerations caused by the biting wire cinched around their throat or leg or from spears and clubs when poachers return to check their traps. Some animals manage to break free on their own but sustain life-threatening injuries while doing so. The elephants that have lost their trunks are examples.

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(Above: The AKTF Anti-Poaching Team removes snares in Maasai Mara National Reserve)

Elephants are not the intended targets of these snares, as zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, eland, warthogs and antelope are, but they get caught all the same. The same is true for lions.

In partnership with National Geographic's Big Cat Initiative, The Anne K. Taylor Fund (AKTF) tackles the main threat to lion populations, human-wildlife conflict, ‘head on' through our work with predator-resistant, fortified bomas. By protecting livestock from wild predators in these stockades, we are able to significantly reduce the number of lions that die from retaliation attacks by herders. In addition to building bomas, though, we also protect lions by combatting threats to their habitat and prey populations from poachers, their snares and their spears.

Our Anti-Poaching Team, in partnership with the Mara Conservancy Rangers and Kenya Wildlife Service/David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust veterinarians, runs regular patrols in and around Maasai Mara to ambush and arrest poachers, remove snares from the bush, and rescue as many wildlife caught in snares as possible.

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(Above: AKTF & Mara Conservancy Rangers rescue a wildebeest caught in a poacher's snare)

This past week we removed 582 snares, rescued 40 animals trapped in them, and discovered eight more animals that had succumbed or been slaughtered already. It was a good week for the wildlife we protect. Those snares that our team removed represent more than just nearly 600 wildlife lives saved: because the steel wires are nearly indestructible, poachers use them over and over again, meaning that those snares, had they been left in the bush, could have taken the lives of thousands of animals a year.

"Team

(Above: AKTF Anti-Poaching patrollers holding dozens of snares removed from the Reserve; their faces are obscured to protect their identities)

We see the role of our work in Maasai Mara ‘buying time' until local education, society, and values change in ways that eradicate poaching organically. By addressing threats to lion populations from these angles, there is a better chance for a lasting difference to take hold. We are deeply grateful for the generous support of National Geographic, as well as many other private and institutional donors, that make our work possible and keep us optimistic about the future of Maasai Mara's ecosystem and the lions it nurtures.

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Saving Our Ocean
The Ocean in South America and worldwide is in danger. A recent study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) highlights the perils of ocean warming for humans. It points out that that the waters of the Southern Hemisphere are increasingly impacted by higher temperatures, leading to changing fish stocks and crop yields, extreme weather events and higher risk from water-borne diseases. The Chilean coast has become increasingly colder as the high seas warm up, leading to the migration of species, and to other effects upon the marine environment. Whales, turtles and birds are all feeling the changes, as are our fishermen, who must seek new fishing grounds.

©Viviana Urra, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile

The Chilean government is taking action, along with the private sector, the international community and national and international NGOs. On August 24th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with the Ministries of Defense, Economy, and the Environment, inaugurated the Council of Ministers for the Development of a National Ocean Policy. This initiative aims at creating an integrated and inclusive oceanic policy and is a new step towards fulfilling our commitment to the international governance of the oceans. We are placing our sea at the forefront of our foreign policy.

In addition, Chile actively participated in the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, whose objective number 14 refers to oceanic sustainability. We also led, along with France and Monaco, the adoption of the "Because the Ocean" declaration at the CoP21, which highlights the essential role oceans play in the fight against climate change, and in the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Last October, Chile organized the second version of the Our Ocean initiative, at which countries and civil society adopted more than 80 projects, equivalent to 2.1 billion dollars, dedicated to the protection and sustainable use of the ocean.

In the lead up to this year´s third Our Ocean Conference, in Washington DC, Chile created the new Marine Park Nazca-Desventuradas, which has a surface area of 300 thousand square kilometers and surrounds the Islands of San Félix and San Ambrosio, making it the largest marine protected area in Latin America. In parallel, along with the Rapa Nui community of Easter Island, we are moving forward on a huge marine conservation area surrounding the island.

We have also taken measures to fight illegal fishing, including the adoption of monitoring mechanisms coherent with the New York Agreement on Fish Stocks of 1995 and the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures.

We will continue to stress the importance of developing an oceanic policy to solidify the foundations of our future actions, emphasizing the conservation and sustainable use of our ocean and its resources, the fight against marine pollution, and the effects of climate change in the ocean, with a special emphasis on marine protected areas. This policy will not only establish national guidelines for oceanic matters, but also project them into the international arena, including through South-South cooperation programs to fight marine pollution in areas like the Caribbean.

We know that the ocean is a gathering point for the planet, for people and for prosperity. This is precisely what drives sustainable development. The fate of Chile, an oceanic country, and of many others, is directly tied to the measures we take today to address global warming. We are confident that growing awareness is leading to a greater worldwide commitment towards this goal. Action to save our ocean admits no delay.

1 - Explaining ocean warming: Causes, scale, effects and consequences, September 2016.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post in partnership with Secretary of State John Kerry's Our Oceanconference and Ocean Unite, an initiative to unite and activate powerful voices for ocean-conservation action. The series is being produced to coincide with the Our Ocean Conference (September 15th, 16th) as part of HuffPost's "What's Working" initiative, putting a spotlight on initiatives around the world that are solutions oriented. To read all the posts in the series, read here. The State Department does not endorse the content of this blog. Follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #OurOcean #MakeASplash.

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Rising Temperatures Are Making Life in Tropical Cities Precarious for the Poor

HONG KONG ― The numbers are in: NASA announced Monday that August 2016 was the hottest month ever recorded since global records began in 1880. Several parts of Asia, including Hong Kong and Singapore, have also recently had their hottest months ever recorded.

Standing outside in the middle of the day in Jakarta, Manila or Mumbai is sometimes almost unbearable. Calling it “humid” would be an understatement. In Singapore, the mean annual relative humidity is 84 percent, frequently reaching 100 percent during prolonged rain. A World Bank report released last week estimates that the “welfare losses” as a result of air pollution have dramatically increased over the last 25 years as developing countries urbanized and industrialized.

This is the environment that millions of urban dwellers in the tropics currently live in. It does not need to be like this. Tropical cities can be made livable again. But it will require governments to make very difficult decisions.

If the people living in tropical cities are to survive our hot future, governments need to radically rethink how they manage urbanization.

Tropical Asia's dense and overcrowded cities are already subject to the heat-island effect, which makes them significantly warmer than their rural surroundings. As temperatures threaten to increase by a further two to three degrees, as some scenarios by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict, tropical cities are quickly becoming unlivable. And this is not even taking into account overcrowding, poor housing and slums, water and sewerage issues, solid waste disposal and the curses of urban traffic and pollution.

Yet like the proverbial frog in boiling water, city inhabitants appear helpless ― as if resigned to their fate with no other options. If tropical cities, and the people that live in them, are to survive our hot future, governments need to radically rethink how they manage the urbanization trend ― and perhaps even consider moving people away from these unlivable cities.

For those who live in temperate or sub-tropical zones (or in climate-controlled rooms), it can be hard to know what a tropical city life feels like. The humid air sits on you, preventing your body from cooling itself properly, thus affecting productivity. For the poor, without air-conditioning, heat can make entire homes unlivable. Night temperatures can be so high that deep sleep becomes impossible. Many have to work in the heat outdoors or in a poorly ventilated, uncooled office, sometimes a long uncomfortable and pollution-ridden commute away.

The upper and middle classes have an escape from the unbearable heat: air-conditioning. Cooling is not seen as a luxury, but a necessity: as an article in the New York Times notes, “an air-conditioner has become a sign of middle-class status in developing nations, a must-have dowry item.” When air-conditioning first arrived in Asia, it was only available for the wealthy at a time when cities were a quarter the size they are now. But air-conditioning is now wildly popular in Asia, which now makes up half the global market for cooling units.

Rich cities like Singapore have even been able to ensure much broader access to artificial cooling; in Hong Kong, opposition politicians blocked the construction of a new homeless shelter, calling its lack of air-conditioning “inhumane.” For well-off households across Asia, air-conditioning is, to quote Lee Kuan Yew, “the greatest invention of the century.” One is perhaps also reminded of Noel Coward's old song: that only “mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” Yet for hundreds of millions in these cities, escaping the midday sun is not an option ― they must live, work and sleep in uncooled and sweltering surroundings.

Air-conditioning is an unsustainable solution to the problem of hot cities. A/C units release heat as waste, which is then trapped between dense skyscrapers. This pushes cooling units to work harder and use more energy. All these units consume electricity, which is likely produced by fossil fuels. As more and more people in the tropics buy air-conditioning, more carbon is released into the atmosphere. A/C units are also a major contributor to other less known but potent greenhouse gases. Research suggests that the energy demand for air-conditioning will increase by 40 times this century, overtaking the energy used for heating by around 2060.

An air-conditioner has become a sign of middle-class status in developing nations, a must-have dowry item.
New York Times

Tropical cities in general are getting hotter even before we include the effect of climate change. The combination of heat absorbed by building materials and waste heat from transportation and homes means that cities can be up to 3 degrees warmer than rural areas. The temperature difference is greatest at night, as concrete and asphalt radiate the heat absorbed during the day. Waste heat from cities can even be carried to remote areas by air currents, with some scientists finding a temperature increase of 1 degree in some rural areas due to nearby urban development.

The well-off, thanks to air-conditioning, are insulated from a warming climate, and so there is little political will to make cities cooler. The upper and middle classes live and sleep in climate-controlled apartments, work in cooled offices and sit in air-conditioned cars when traffic is gridlocked. Their children enjoy the same and can sometimes cool off in private swimming pools. But for the vast majority of urban dwellers in tropical cities, these luxuries are out of reach.

The problem of these hot and unlivable cities has been worsened by uncontrolled and poorly conceived urbanization. According to the World Bank, 200 million people (equivalent to what would be the world's fifth-largest country) have moved to cities between 2000 and 2010. Urban areas have grown by an area the size of Taiwan. These migrants all need housing and transportation. Many are migrants who live in shanties or poorly constructed buildings and often work in uncooled environments that have become unbearable as temperatures have soared in recent years. They sit sweltering in congestion: in Jakarta, where the number of vehicles on the road increases by about 10 percent each year despite no growth in roads, 12 people reportedly died from heat and carbon-dioxide poisoning in a three-day-long traffic jam.

To make matters worse, urban migration often disproportionately targets one city: the capital. All cities are growing, but major cities like the capital attract the most migrants, which tests their provision of basic needs and social services ― in which regard most have failed. One would think that an urbanization drive that is much more equally shared amongst several cities and towns would lessen population pressures, but that is not what has been seen in the developing world because of poor economic policies and regional planning.

It is too often assumed that urbanization and economic development must go hand in hand. It is true that urbanization does unlock economic potential in a country's population. However, the problem is that many developing countries have not properly controlled and channelled urbanization. The enormous number of man-hours lost in traffic jams and persistent illnesses in crowded and hot cities decreases productivity and quality of life.

Letting people move to the city is “easy” but it is an archaic short-term path to growth with long-term negative consequences, as evident by the all-too-obvious and deteriorating conditions in tropical cites. It is also easy for the government to focus its energy and attention on the capital where big business is concentrated and where the rich tend to live, rather than developing a broad-based program that develops multiple reasonably sized cities and small towns simultaneously.

The well-off, thanks to air-conditioning, are insulated from a warming climate, and so there is little political will to make cities cooler.

If countries in the tropics are serious about mitigating and reducing the effects of climate change, they need to understand urbanization differently and appreciate that their increasingly unlivable cities must be the target of new and daring economic planning and environmental policy. Countries must find a way to channel people to less crowded areas, by providing economic opportunities in the countryside and developing secondary towns in order to broaden the economic base. They may need to do something that few have ever considered: moving people out of these large cities, to make sure that urban environments are actually livable.

All the efforts to make cities in the tropics adapt to climate change need a fresh dose of reality ― to move beyond hypothetical approaches towards reducing carbon demands, green cars and “smart cities” and toward an acceptance that these cities are too large and unmanageable to survive in a new climate that makes them too hot to live in. Only by cooling its drive to urbanize will Southeast Asia cool its sweltering cities.

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Feds must dismiss unhinged advice on wild horses

Our nation's management of wild horses has been a long-running debacle of poor execution layered over questionable intentions and flagging resolve. Those problems have been compounded by violence toward horses by ranchers and other private resource users. The latest incident involves an attack on a number of wild horses living on a ranch overseen by the philanthropist and wild horse advocate Madeleine Pickens.

Since 1971, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has had the task of managing wild horses, who are now classed, for administrative purposes, into 179 Herd Management Areas in 10 western states. The bureau's primary strategy over the past 20 years has largely consisted of rounding up and removing the animals from our public lands, ostensibly in an effort to protect the range from overgrazing. The original plan was to adopt out horses to private parties - which has been fraught with its own set of problems - but the removals have happened at a volume that not even a spirited adoption program can offset. This has resulted in approximately 45,000 wild horses and burros being maintained in government-financed holding facilities throughout the United States.

Because the captive horse management has cannibalized so much of the funding, the BLM has scarce funds for protecting horses remaining on the range, including fertility control programs that offer the only real hope of humane population management.

Last week, in an attempt to solve this financial crisis -- a self-inflicted wound created by serial round-ups -- a volunteer body called the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board (the majority of whose members' main focus is not, and has never been, the humane treatment of wild horses) made a recommendation that the BLM consider euthanizing all unadopted horses in holding facilities. That's a prescription for mass slaughter on an almost unimaginable scale and it would perhaps make the United States the biggest horse killing enterprise in the world. While the Advisory Board has no legal authority to mandate action on the agency's part, the agency will consider this recommendation, a sort of "Final Solution" cooked up by public-lands ranchers and their allies.

In 2015, the Department of Interior's Office of the Inspector General released a long-awaited investigative report, which found that the BLM had sold thousands of wild horses to a livestock hauler named Tom Davis who subsequently sold these horses to kill buyers. Though they are not being sold directly by the agency, wild horses are still going to slaughter by a variety of circuitous pathways. Sources at the Sugarcreek, Ohio, livestock auction last week documented BLM freeze-branded horses, in very poor condition, being sold to kill buyers.

Our nation's wild horses deserve better than this sort of mismanagement and abuse, and an attitude that they are throwaway objects. A sensible program must be grounded on controlling the population on the range through fertility control, obviating the need for dangerous round-ups that betray the national interest in protecting horses, and ending wasteful spending that ultimately solves no problems and just builds a massive captive wild horse program.

This headlong and heedless advisory committee recommendation should be summarily rejected. But it's so outrageous and overreaching that it may be just the kick in the pants that Congress and the agency need to overhaul the entire broken and battered program.

Act now to save America's wild horses »

This article first appeared on Wayne Pacelle's blog, A Humane Nation

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Pipeline Company Desecrates Graves On Sioux Sacred Land
Metropolitan Community Churches know what it means to have our sacred sites defaced with spray-painted slurs. We know what it means to have our ministers murdered. We know what it means to be turned away from funeral homes because of who we are. We know what it feels like to have all we hold sacred desecrated.

So we have some idea what the Sioux nation in Standing Rock Dakota and all the First Nations people gathered in the Dakotas are facing as they resist the desecration of their graves and sacred lands.

When graffiti taggers deface gravestones with their mark -- or symbols of hate like swastikas, outcries and headlines condemn the scurrilous act. But in the Dakotas, Native American gravesites were bulldozed recently in a shocking act of grave desecration. The bulldozers cut a swath through historic grounds to destroy evidence of the graves and to stake corporate claim to the land as a preemptory act of violence instead of waiting for a pending court decision. The company brought in vicious dogs that bit peaceful protestors. Despite dogs and pepper spray, the resisters continued to stand in the way until the bulldozers finally stopped. I thought, as a nation, we were done with using dogs to control and punish protestors, but this is not the case.

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Tribal Chairman, David Archambault II said, "This demolition is devastating. These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The ancient Cairns and stone prayer rings there cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground."

The pipeline company, Energy Transfers Partners (ETP), blatantly ignored the recommendations of multiple official departments: the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Each of these groups recommended more study before moving ahead with the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

Because burial grounds do not resemble European-style headstones, companies like ETP consider the burial sites to be open prairie. Just as when Europeans arrived in the Americas and decided there was nothing there since settlements did not look European, to this day, Native peoples are invisible and inconsequential to business interests. Racism's strategy of invisibility is alive and well today.

When the court decision came down, shockingly, it went against the Native American claims of burial grounds and allowed the bulldozing to continue. In virtually the same moment, I learned that the Obama administration had stopped the construction of the pipeline through Native lands in the Dakotas. I can only imagine that President Obama and I shared similar feelings of horror as we watched dogs viciously attack Native Americans as they stood to protect the land and water against oil defilement. It may well be another legacy of the Obama Administration that this plea for justice from Native Americans was not ignored.

As the Global Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches, I join religious leaders from Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, UCC, and others who have spoken out to support the stand of Native Americans. We know that both the government and the churches have a long history of exploitation, betrayal, broken treaties and wars. We have learned enough to know that when Native Americans are treated as trespassers on their own land, something is deeply wrong. We must act now. When the land is gone and the water is gone, there will be nothing left to save. For all Americans, the future of our children depends on a rapid shift to sustainable energy sources.

In the Dakotas, construction is paused, but we call on the U.S. government to stop construction on all pipelines. Oil is poisoning our waters and land. For Native Americans, this is just one more expression of genocide. Even the American Petroleum Institute projects spills of 40,000 barrels of petroleum products this year. Right now, almost 15 billion barrels of oil traverse the pipelines. Global warming and the poisoning of our land and water give us no option but to end the burning. This is a crime against humanity and a crime against nature. Those who are most vulnerable, the poor, those with little power or voice, will be the ones most impacted.

When will we learn? How do we stop the defilement of sacred lands and the despoilment of our waterways while our climate heats beyond all recognition? We must stop the burning and turn to renewable energies. It can be done, but there is not much time to do it. May all our relatives be blessed.

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How To Be An Organic Pioneer

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This past weekend we celebrated the Organic Pioneer Awards at the Rodale Institute, and it gave me a moment to reflect on the past 70 years and what it takes to be a pioneer and create change. But first some context... The change we have created has come in four distinct phases, and we are about to enter the fifth.

1. Invent organic
The first phase was when my grandfather, J.I. Rodale, invented the idea of organic. If you put it into scientific language, this is the hypothesis he created: Healthy soil equals healthy food equals healthy people.

2. Prove organic
Like any good hypothesis, it must be proven scientifically, which is what we started doing in 1983 with the Farming Systems Trial. As the picture shown above reveals, we have more than proven scientifically that organic is a viable, productive, and profitable way to farm--and the only way to feed people for the long term and mitigate climate change. (It was about 100 degrees inside the barn that night, by the way.) There are still many things left to prove, but that organic farming works better than conventional is not one of them.

3. Institutionalize organic
Our next step was to work together with all the people and organizations involved in organic farming to create the USDA Organic Certification. It took more than a decade, and it was what propelled the organic movement and market to a whole new level.

4. Demand organic
Through all our research and education, we have now succeeded in convincing the majority of consumers that organic is healthy, delicious, and worth it for both health and environmental reasons.

5. Supply organic
The biggest obstacle we now face is that there is not enough organic food in America to supply the demand! As a result, we need to transition as many farmers and acres to organic as possible. And that is where the Rodale Institute will now be focusing the majority of its efforts.

We've also learned at least four things on this journey...and now we are in the process of learning the fifth thing...

1. To be an organic pioneer takes courage and resilience
OPA award winner David Vetter talked about overhearing three farmers take bets on how long it would take for him to fail at organic farming. They gave him between 1 and 3 years. Five years later, he was the only one still farming, and now over 60 years later, he has helped many other farmers transition to organic.

2. We need need patience and persistence
True, lasting, pioneering change takes time. Generations! So taking one step forward every day is important and the only way to get there.

3. Emotions and experience change hearts and minds faster than facts do
Maybe someone gets sick, or has a financial crisis, and then suddenly they are open to a new way of doing things. People are stubborn and tend not to look for alternatives until they need to. It's just human nature.

4. But you need the facts
For so many reasons, we need to be ready with facts for when people are finally willing to change and are looking for alternatives.

Every single one of our organic pioneers has been part of this journey, and all of them are amazing leaders and models of what is possible. I am so proud of all of them. (For a complete list through the years, click here.)

And now for number 5...what we still need to learn...

The other day I brought a friend to the institute for the first time, and he asked a simple question: "How did we get into this mess in the first place?" At first I didn't want to answer because it was too complicated. But then I realized we are in this mess for two reasons: People have been afraid of nature and tried to control it. And lots of people have made lots of money taking advantage of that fear.

So how do we get out of "this mess" and move beyond fear?

5. Love. We need to love nature. Love diversity. Love our differences. Love each other.
Money can buy a lot of things--and we rely on it to do our research and support our staff and do our work. But it can't buy love. And that's what I'm most grateful for--the love I have felt and feel for so many of you: readers, farmers, supporters, friends, family, anyone who eats and appreciates where food comes from.

So take a minute out of your busy day and think about it. Think about love. And more importantly feel the love. And with that positive energy, you too can be an organic pioneer.

For more from Maria Rodale, visit www.rodalesorganiclife.com/bymaria

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House Science Hearing on ExxonMobil & Subpoenas: What You Should Know

This morning, the House Science Committee is holding an unusual hearing, at which the committee's chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), apparently aims to justify subpoenas he already has issued to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, and eight organizations and foundations concerned with the issue of whether Exxon deceived on the public on the issue of climate change.

Smith seeks communications between and among the attorneys general and the groups. Every entity that got a subpoena has refused to comply; Healey and Schneiderman each issued an emphatic response, as did each organization. Ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and other Democrats on the committee have sharply criticized the subpoenas, as have numerous others, including:

Abrams Institute at Yale Law School letter from legal experts
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights statement
Open the Government statement
Letter from 2,000+ scientists
Boston Globe editorial, Congressional bullying on behalf of Big Oil
San Antonio Express-News editorial, Irony in Smith's latest subpoenas
Los Angeles Times editorial, House GOP members pursue an objectionable defense of fossil fuels

Here are some key points about what's happening at today's hearing. (Disclosure: I'm a consultant to some of the organizations that have received subpoenas from Rep. Smith.)

1. The subpoenas to the attorney generals of New York and Massachusetts are not grounded in any legitimate legislative purpose -- and they violate the Constitution's protections for states' rights.

At least five state attorneys general are investigating ExxonMobil, looking at claims that Exxon defrauded its shareholders and customers by supporting efforts to deny the risks of climate change from fossil fuels, when the company already had extensive research showing that the risks were real. These are clearly valid investigations; as Yale School Dean Robert Post has argued, the First Amendment does not protect fraudulent statements.

Chairman Smith's subpoenas violate state sovereignty by interfering with these attorney general investigations. The 10th Amendment says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution...are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The states have broad police powers to protect their residents.

Chairman Smith has not cited any provision of the Constitution or other federal law that gives him the power to interfere in a state's investigation of a corporation for fraud. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently required a congressional committee to have a "valid legislative purpose" in order to investigate a matter.

Chairman Smith says the committee has a role in ensuring that the attorneys general are not pressuring the "private sector...to make research funding decisions based in part on a desire to avoid burdensome state investigations and political or ideological coercion." He also claims the committee could legislate to seek to "correct" any "imbalance in scientific inquiry" resulting from the fraud investigations.

Massachusetts Attorney General Healey responded that the committee's legislative authority is "limited to scientific findings made or funded by federal government agencies, not by corporations, such as Exxon." The committee is not authorized to act as America's "science police."

State officials need the authority to enforce fraud and consumer-protection laws, without congressional committees acting to hinder such work.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who was previously the attorney general of Rhode Island, recently wrote regarding this controversy, "The constitutional principle of federalism requires 'proper respect' to states' constitutional functions, and what more proper and inherent state function is there than investigation and prosecution of violations of state law?"

2. The subpoenas to the organizations and foundations are not grounded in any legitimate legislative purpose -- and they threaten free speech.

For a congressional committee to demand documents from advocacy and research organizations, as well as charitable foundations, simply because they have spoken out on an issue of concern, is a threat to free speech and our democracy. The subpoenas represent a dangerous new direction that threatens to suppress the speech not only of environmental groups, but also civil rights groups, reproductive choice groups, conservative advocacy groups, and others.

New York University law Professor Burt Neuborne called Chairman Smith's subpoenas "just another retaliatory gimmick aimed at making it too expensive and time consuming to criticize a powerful entity with deep pockets capable of enmeshing the critics in legal quicksand." These subpoenas are the legislative equivalent of SLAPP suits filed by corporations with the aim of stifling and deterring public debate by critics.

3. Two of the three witnesses that Chairman Smith has called for today's hearing -- Professor Ronald Rotunda and Elizabeth Price Foley -- have extensive financial ties to the fossil fuel industry and to think tanks that deny the dangers of climate change.

The fact that the Chairman is staking his argument about the validity of the subpoenas on the testimony of witnesses with such obvious bias suggests how improper this whole effort is.

4. The purpose of this effort by Chairman Smith seems to be to try to intimidate critics of, and to score political points for, fossil fuel companies.

It's worth noting that Chairman Smith and other members of the committee have taken extensive campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.

5. We are in the final weeks of this Congress and there is so much important work that the House Science Committee could be doing instead.

The American people expect Congress to address serious challenges our country faces. Instead, Chairman Smith wasting precious time, explaining the rationale for subpoenas that the Chairman already has sent. Worse, he is using his committee as a dangerous threat to our democratic system.

As ranking member Johnson wrote in a June 23 letter to the chair:

I have served on the Committee on Science for more than two decades, and during that time this Committee has accomplished great things. We've overseen the completion of the International Space Station and the sequencing of the human genome, and we've undertaken serious investigations, ranging from the Space Shuttle Challenger accident to the environmental crimes at the Rocky Flats nuclear site. However, lately the Committee on Science has seemed more like a Committee on Harassment. The Committee's prolific, aimless, and jurisdictionally questionable oversight activities have grown increasingly mean-spirited and meaningless. They frequently appear to be designed primarily to generate press releases. However, none of these recent investigations has rushed head long into a serious Constitutional crisis like we are about to face. We are moving into dangerous and uncharted territory.

...the Democratic Members of the Committee also take this oath seriously. We will not sit idly by while the powers of the Committee are used to trample on the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. I implore you to cease your current actions before they do lasting institutional damage to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Congress as a whole.

This article also appears on Huffington Post.

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Youthful Hope to Save the Sea

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Sebastian Nicholls diving above a coral reef near Aqaba, Jordan. The Kingdom protects 7 km of its 27 km of marine coastline in the Aqaba Marine Park.

Millions of people saw Rio de Janeiro for the first time last month while watching the summer Olympics. Daily, they saw beautiful shots of the city--the glistening beaches and blue sea reflecting Brazil's crimson sunsets. Buildings dot the city's slopes, but a dense layer of vegetation lingers over the hills. Bright-billed toucans turn the dark quiet of the rainforest into a cacophony at daybreak. I lived there for two years, and Rio's natural beauty filled me with awe.

I felt the same sense of wonder when I saw a coral reef for the first time in the Islas del Rosario near Cartagena, Colombia. I didn't know then that the coral was dying--that overfishing, climate change, acidification, and pollution are rapidly choking the life out of tropical seas. Those same man-made problems also threaten kelp forests, mangroves and other magnificent ocean ecosystems that have existed for millennia.

Our ocean is not just beautiful, but also essential for life. It provides half the oxygen we breathe, regulates climate, and feeds millions. The next generation's future depends on it.

Beyond the stunning shots of whitecaps and shimmering carioca sunsets, the sea is in deep trouble--and the symptoms are visible at the surface. Driving out of the airport, views of Guanabara Bay revealed floating trash and thick layers of black mud where the pollution was worst. Thousands of dolphins used to live in Guanabara Bay , and it was a breeding ground for whales. Now, only 34 dolphins remain and the population is rapidly declining.

Yet Rio's story, like young idealistic eyes, also glimmers with hope. The Tijuca forest at the heart of the city is now among the largest urban forests in the world, but in the 19th century, the area had been cleared for coffee farming. In 1861, Dom Pedro II, Brazil's emperor, expressed concerns about deforestation and native plants were reintroduced. Now, it's a vibrant rainforest in a concrete jungle.

Youth, like Dom Pedro, can combine hopeful eyes with a vision, and create a better future for all. When I learned about the degenerating health of our ocean, I didn't know what I could do but despair. Yet we can reclaim the ocean, just as Dom Pedro revived the Tijuca forest, so that it can provide for generations to come.

Policy has started shifting towards improved stewardship, states are discussing protection of the High Seas , and nations are creating new and larger marine reserves every year . The Our Ocean Summit, a meeting of the world's ocean ministers convened by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, provides a venue for announcing ever-greater commitments on ocean stewardship. Most importantly, leaders are recognizing that youth should take ownership of our ocean and our future. Millennials are eager to make a difference, and the rest of the ocean conservation movement is beginning to take note.

My friend Daniela Fernandez founded the Sustainable Oceans Alliance, (SOA) in 2014. She had attended a UN meeting about ocean sustainability and returned to Georgetown University with a vision for mobilizing the next generation of ocean advocates. I heard her idea and I was in.

With guidance from an advisory board that believes in SOA and a team of hardworking students, we built a movement from scratch. Our plans came to life in less than a year: SOA's inaugural summit brought together some of the most influential figures in marine conservation, including Under Secretary of State Cathy Novelli, National Geographic Explorer Sylvia Earle, Director of Oceans at The Nature Conservancy Maria Damanaki, and National Geographic CEO Gary Knell.

This year, the Sustainable Oceans Alliance has partnered with the State Department and counts on its support to further our vision of empowering youth globally. Secretary Kerry's dedication to youth engagement and our shared desire to create impact will come to fruition this Thursday and Friday at the Our Ocean, One Future Student Leadership Summit.

At the summit, young participants will have the opportunity to become protagonists in the fight to save our ocean. From committing to coral restoration, to introducing marine environmental science into school curricula , action pledges submitted by summit participants can effect change on a large scale. In aggregate, these actions will improve ocean health.

Philippe Cousteau wrote recently that youth are the hope for our ocean. We need to show Millennials that the horizon of possibilities is as vast as their vision is bold.

The Sustainable Oceans Alliance, which started as a small group of committed students, has launched petitions that were delivered to the White House and the UN. They helped expand the Pacific Remote Islands National Monument and establish a Sustainable Development Goal on oceans. In Barbados, a four-person team took the initiative to create a new Marine Protected Area. One of the team members is only 19.

Empowering more young voices can guarantee the protection of our ocean, and ensure that the wealth of resources and ecosystem services it provides continue to inspire and sustain generations to come. We can restore the ocean so that its beauty on the surface is matched by abundance below. To paraphrase the great conservation advocate Margaret Meade, we should never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens--regardless of their age--have the power to change the world.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post in partnership with Secretary of State John Kerry's Our Ocean conference and Ocean Unite, an initiative to unite and activate powerful voices for ocean-conservation action. The series is being produced to coincide with the Our Ocean Conference (September 15th, 16th) as part of HuffPost's "What's Working" initiative, putting a spotlight on initiatives around the world that are solutions oriented. To read all the posts in the series, read here. The State Department does not endorse the content of this blog. Follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #OurOcean #MakeASplash.

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Organic Green Beauty Is Wonderful Healing Self-Care
When it comes to smelling and looking good, my motto is, "wear organic or wear nothing!" I'm a very simple down-to-earth woman and I prefer to keep my beauty and cleanliness self-care simple and down-to-earth. I'd like to share some helpful tips to help you feel good. When you begin your day, splash your face with cool water and drink a cup of spring water, and do a little facial yoga to keep your facial muscles healthy and comfortable. When you shower, use some organic lavender castile soap or your favorite organic plant based soap or shampoo and rinse your face under the shower. When you want to comb and detangle your wet hair, allow your hair to dry naturally and use natural organic products to style your hair so that you look good and feel good with healthy organic self-care. There is a lot to be said about keeping it green, organic, natural, and non-toxic. Many aware people know that it's a smart wise choice to vote with their wallet and only use cosmetics and personal care products that contain all natural organic plant essences. The reason many people are conscious consumers is because they know that their skin is their largest organ and absorbs everything like a sponge. After all, you wouldn't eat organic healthy fruits and continue to use a shampoo that contains toxic neurotoxins that pollute the air, right? You also would only use an organic plant based laundry detergent instead of something toxic that could pollute the groundwater, right? After all, water is life and without air, we can't breathe, right? This is why I say, keep your carbon footprint very small and be gentle with your self-care and keep it green and organic.

I personally will only use a shampoo that contain plant essence ingredients like mint, sandalwood, and orange essential oils. If I'm unable to pronounce the ingredient, I won't buy it or use it. It's that simple and I think this is a very healthy smart approach that everyone should use when buying something that will touch your skin and your hair that you and others will breathe. I wear makeup only on special occasions, but when I do, I wear a little translucent foundation powder, a little blush, eye shadow, and lipstick, all organic and green. Sometimes, I just wear a little lipstick and absorb some Vitamin D from the sun, allowing the warmth to make my cheeks naturally rosy.

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When my skin feels itchy, dry, or uncomfortable, I gently massage the uncomfortable areas with a teaspoon of organic unrefined sesame oil. When I want to smell lovely and feel good, I pour a drop of organic sandalwood oil on my wrists, ankles, and neck. I'm grateful for the lovely gifts Mother Nature gives me. If we could all learn to be grateful for the lovely gifts Mother Nature gives us and simplify our lives, perhaps we could learn to appreciate what we have and be happy without trying to make unnecessary dramatic painful changes to our appearance.

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