Maldives in Peril: Richard Branson on impacting climate change

by Jon Bowermaster on

I’ve bumped into Richard Branson a couple times now, in vastly different settings. The first was in the high Arctic village of Clyde River, where he’d come to join his son Sam for a weeklong dogsled expedition. He introduced himself with what he admitted was a weakish pinky-tap, blaming his inability to lift his arm on having rolled an ATV at his African safari camp the week before.

When we met again a few days ago on a beach in the Maldives, again he extended just a pinky. This time he blamed it on a nasty cold, which he was politely attempting not to spread.

He had flown in for a few days to participate in the SLOWLIFE Symposium as I had; ironically he’d arrived by British Air from London, rather than aboard his own Virgin, which doesn’t fly to Male, the capital of the Maldives. Given his longstanding competition and high-level squabbles with BA, he joked that he’d brought along his own “food taster.” I assume he wasn’t referring to his lovely wife Joan, who accompanied him.

During the course of three days spent in sessions where 80 or so participated in conversation and debate about subjects ranging from the consequences of not taking climate change seriously to the energy future of small island states, Branson sat in on every one, taking notes in a small red notebook, participating in round table debates.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t have plenty on his plate that might have kept him otherwise occupied: The bankruptcy of the American solar company Solyndra had cost him a bundle; his house on his Caribbean island paradise, Necker Island, had burned to the ground just a month ago (thanks to a lightning strike during Hurricane Irene); and in a few days time he would be outed by Wikileaks for participating in covert plots to oust Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, announce plans to have Virgin Atlantic Airways running on recycled industrial gases by 2014 and by the following weekend be testing a new submersible amongst great white sharks off the coast of Mexico.

When it was his turn to present in the Maldives he chose the challenge of running a transportation business — an airline — while simultaneously trying to limit contributions to climate change and still make money. A relatively recent convert to environmental activism — which began with a literal house-call from Al Gore, “who did his whole ‘Inconvenient Truth’ routine in my living room” — Branson has since pushed many of his various companies towards greener ethics and is the prime motivator behind both The Elders and the recently announced Ocean Elders, as well as the Carbon War Room.

The latter, he suggested, was focusing on 25 sectors for which clean technology is available, like shipping, which he said emits 1 billion tons of CO2 annually and spends “some $70 billion dollars a year needlessly.” Similarly, fifty percent of all carbon emissions worldwide, he said, come from inefficient buildings, which led to his gathering 30 mayors of the largest cities in the world together to plot how to be less polluting.

“We do need to keep broadening the debate,” he said. “As arguments continue to rage around the weather patterns and reality of climate change, we are missing the bigger picture that there is no scientific debate about that every single one of our natural eco-systems is in decline. Part of this shift must be a new perspective on how we value our natural assets and how we change our consumption patterns. If we don’t move on this, Mother Nature will force us to.”

The week before been in China, to help launch a campaign there against shark fin soup, and had met a man he believed to be one of the richest in China whose company could put up a 20-story, full functioning, environmentally sound building in 10 days. He loved the spirit behind the effort.

“At Virgin we have always backed the power of the entrepreneur and inventor to find solutions to tricky problems,” he said. “With this in mind why should climate change and the battle against carbon be any different.”

To that end, in 2007 he had announced the Virgin Earth Challenge, an idea he credited to his wife, which offered a $25 million prize to whomever — inventor, scientist or entrepreneur — could come up with the best way to remove carbon from the atmosphere. The original deadline was 2010; to-date they’ve received 2,500 entries but have not yet chosen a “grand prize winner.” Instead, he said, the panel — which includes James Lovelock, Tim Flannery, Al Gore and James Hansen — had decided to choose a handful of promising entries and give them grants to help develop some experimental technologies.

Ever the optimist, he was the first to admit “we have a lot of work to do on many fronts and not much time to change the course we are on.

“We must look at the issues around protecting our natural resources as one of the biggest entrepreneurial opportunities of our lifetimes. We have the technology to realize this opportunity – we now need the right government policies to put the capital in place to build a new economy that puts people and the planet ahead of just business as usual and creates a more equitable way of life in harmony with the planet.”

In typical Branson form, of course, he refused to end on a dour note, choosing optimism instead and closing by referencing Martin Luther King. “He did not get his message across by saying ‘I have a nightmare!’ “

[images via Six Senses]

Maldives in Peril: From the SLOWLIFE Symposium part II

by Jon Bowermaster on

Perhaps the most essential weapon — or tool — in affecting environmental change is political will. While individuals can make a difference, and must often lead the charge, for change to stick it demands governmental teeth.

When it comes to the ocean that means things like creating Marine Protected Areas, dictating what fish can be taken when and where, eliminating plastic at every step of life since so much of it eventually ends up in the sea and attempting to control leaks into the ocean, from waste to oil.

During nearly three years in office, President Mohammed Nasheed of the Maldives has shown a backbone far stronger than his petite frame would suggest (he’s not much more than 5 feet tall). On a humid, blue-sky day on the island of Kunfunadhoo, the 43-year-old took time out from his global campaign to encourage nations big and small to reduce carbon footprints to give the crowd gathered at the 3rd Annual SLOWLIFE Symposium an update on how it’s going.

A former journalist and human rights activist, Nasheed was jailed — and tortured — by his predecessor, Maumoon Gayoom, an autocratic leader who held the presidency for 30 years and is expected to run against Nasheed in 2013.

There is concern that Nasheed’s globe-trotting presidency, which has earned him accolades such as The Green President and been the subject of a documentary, “The Island President,” which recently won a prize as best documentary award at the Toronto International Film Festival, may have distanced him from voters back home.

For now he shrugs those concerns off, at least publicly, preferring to keep the focus on mankind’s continued burning of fossil fuels, which he believes, is killing the planet. “We don’t have much time,” he says, “just a window of opportunity of about seven years. If our leaders are not able to sort it out by then they should stop calling themselves leaders and get out.”

He gets a rise from the 80-person crowd, feet dug into the sand, when he asks, “Do you know what politicians get the most applause for?”

“Cutting ribbons at new power plants.”

“Politicians, including me, love to hear clapping. Now we just need to find an equivalent of ribbon cutting for green power plants, renewable energy sources.”

The president said he doesn’t regard climate change as an “earth science, but an economic, development, security and safety issue.” “Too often we hear leaders who say capping carbon emissions would result in poverty, of course this is not true at all.” He cites Iceland, an island state that became a developed country through its emphasis on renewable energy as a great model.

“But it’s an upside down world. The richest country on the planet, the United States, is the one most in debt. And the leader of the poor countries, China, is now the biggest investor in the world.”

Nasheed is not against a good publicity stunt to draw attention to his rhetoric, like he did by holding the first-ever underwater cabinet meeting in 2009, which attracted more than a billion Internet hits. There is concern though that he may be more popular outside of his own country than inside, where the economy and jobs, crime and illegal drugs are growing problems.

Sonu Shivdasani, CEO of the Six Senses resorts, called the president on his ability to get re-elected. “All of your actions have been well received on the global stage, the idea that politicians bicker too much and we just need to get down to the black and white of things. But what are you doing in the Maldives to get that message across, to get the Maldivians to vote for your green party ticket?

“Local Maldivians do not refer to you as the Green President. Isn’t your legacy at risk if you don’t get re-elected?”

Forecasting that he would get re-elected “handsomely,” the president insisted in the future no matter who is president of the Maldives will have to keep the focus on the environment.

“We have always lived right next to the elements, the sea is everywhere around us, making it far easier for us Maldivians to understand that if the ocean is out of balance, things will go wrong. Since the tsunami (2005) I think Maldivians are much more concerned about the environment.”

In general though we protect what we love and sometimes it’s hard to know just how much Maldivians love the beautiful ocean that surrounds since so many of them don’t swim. Marine conservation is just beginning to be taught in elementary schools; most kids have never used a mask and fins to explore the shallow reefs. To that end, a group of a dozen “Ocean Rangers” dressed in matching blue shirts kneel in front of the stage to hear the President. They have volunteered to help monitor the nearby Baa Atoll, recently declared a UNESCO Biosphere.

Nasheed counters that he thinks young Maldivians in particular appreciate what’s at risk. “I am very clear with them that if they destroy the reefs, they are destroying their homes.” The reefs in the Maldives are already in big trouble thanks to warming seas, most of them bleached and white. “If we also dump garbage on them and continue to take all the fish, they will break down even faster,” said the president.

Concerns about Nasheed’s re-electability prompt actor and environmental activist Edward Norton to praise the president for his honesty. “I don’t think your comments were just positive they were completely inspirational and amazing, I can’t think of many leaders around the world talking with such clarity and vision …”

Prompting the President to quip, “exactly why Sonu thinks I won’t get re-elected.”

Norton continued. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to have a long tenure, but you’re still a young man. When you’re finished here could you come and consider being president of the United States, we could use some of that clarity and honesty.”

“Most political leaders will do what their people tell them to do,” replied the president. “In the Maldives and the United States people must galvanize themselves to political action. People who can embrace the future now — today — will be the winners.”

[both pictures credit: six senses]

Maldives in Peril: From the SLOWLIFE symposium

by Jon Bowermaster on

There is no place more apt to engage in heavy-hitting conversation about the future of Planet Ocean than the heart of the small island nation of the Maldives.

It is a place many have heard of but few could pick out on a map. Made up of twelve hundred islands and atolls, most pancake flat, the highest reaches no more than five feet above sea level making the Maldives the lowest country on earth. Only two hundred of the islands are inhabited by roughly 320,000 people. It is an always hot, exceedingly beautiful, Muslim country stretching about 600 miles from north to south in the heart of the Indian Ocean off the tip of Sri Lanka.

In terms less geographic the Maldives is also ground zero for assessing the impacts of climate change. As the earth’s temperature continues to heat up, impacting sea surface temperatures in particular, the Maldives is at incredible risk of both rising sea levels and increased frequency and violence of storms.

No politician in the world has taken a bigger role in trying to ramp up interest in efforts to slow climate change (except perhaps Al Gore), than the Maldives’ young president, Mohammed Nasheed.

This past weekend an invested crowd of thinkers and doers, including President Nasheed and several members of his cabinet, gathered on the small island of Kunfunadhoo, home to the Six Senses resort Soneva Fushi. This was the third annual S.L.O.W.L.I.F.E Symposium organized by Six Senses CEO Sonu Shivadsani and his wife Eva. The barefoot conference brought together climate change environmentalists like the UK’s Jonathan Porritt, Tim Smits and Jeremy Leggett, renewable energy and island nation leaders from as far away as Reunion and Bali, ocean mariners including Fabien Cousteau and some incredibly dedicated headline-makers (Richard Branson and the actors Edward Norton and Daryl Hannah). The subject of three days of talks was: What can we do fast, before it’s too late.

Topics ranged from how small island nations can become energy independent, how to protect marine biodiversity, how to engage local communities in ambitious carbon reduction plans and the challenge of adapting transportation in a low-carbon economy.

It’s clear there are no easy answers. Soon after arriving by float plane on Saturday morning President Nasheed delivered a harsh message. “Carbon dioxide emissions are going to kill us,” he said. “Here in the Maldives our goal of becoming carbon neutral is not to scare the world, but simply to make a step in the right direction.”

While Nasheed leads an effort to make the Maldives the first carbon neutral country on the planet, by 2020, there are other good things going on here on the Laccadive Sea. They’ve banned shark fishing, tuna are only caught by pole and the Baa Atoll has been declared a UNESCO Biosphere.

The Maldives, with few natural resources but a growing population and energy demands, is on the forefront of taking itself permanently off the grid. It’s clear the problems are not a lack of knowledge and information — cures to the problems of renewable energy via solar, creating clean drinking water and wastewater treatment are known. But what the Maldivian government officials reiterated throughout the weekend is that access to money makes implementing all that knowledge and information extremely difficult.

In the past year the government has put its political energy behind its hope of becoming the first carbon neutral nation. By 2020 it hopes to generate 60 percent of its electricity from solar, without raising the cost of power to its consumers. It has introduced a new import regime by the Transport Ministry to ensure that in the future electric cars will be a third of the price of conventional gasoline cars. And it has pledged to spend two percent of its national income on renewable energy deployment in the country. If that figure were matched worldwide, we would be collectively spending $1.25 trillion a year rather than the $260 billion we spend today on renewable energy sources.

Worrying to all island nations of course is that CO2 in the world’s atmosphere is not declining but growing, as development and growth continue to mount globally. The goal of reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million — what scientists regard as the safe limit for humans — may fast becoming an unreachable goal, since it has already risen to above 392 ppm.

One industry that prospers in the Maldives of course is tourism. Nearly 1 million visitors a year, including increasing numbers from China and India, fly into the capital city of Male each year and jump out to various island resorts by float plane or small boat. Taxes on resort development — and potentially new tariffs on visitors to support renewable energy projects — are the lifeblood of the Maldivian economy.

(Tomorrow, up close and personal with Mohammed Nasheed, the Maldives’ Green President.)

[image credit: Fiona Steward (above) and Adrian Olson (below)]

Antarctica updates, July 2011

by Jon Bowermaster on

The fact that today’s high was -67 degrees at the South Pole is not news. Especially for the 49 hardy souls overwintering; they knew what they signed on for. Nor is it a shock that it was -97 at Vostok one day last week, since the Russian base holds the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded (-128).

But there are some surprises being reported from the deep-deep south during the continent’s long, cold winter (which lasts eight months, roughly March through October). Like that alien species are invading and that declining penguin numbers may have less to do with warming temps than previously thought. And that the ozone hole over the continent increasingly influences the southern hemisphere’s weather and that the ice around the continent’s edges is melting faster than predicted. And that for the first time in a decade tourist visits to Antarctica are expected to dip dramatically in the coming summer season.

1. The aliens worrying Antarctic observers are not of the cellophane-skin and pumpkin-head variety, but rather more garden variety: Insects, slugs, worms, plant seeds and fungi that sneak in with the fruits and vegetables consumed by the 4,000 scientists who call Antarctica home during the summer season. Tourists are contributing too, carrying plant seeds in on their shoes and clothing. The invasion is encouraging calls for new levels of “biosecurity” to protect the otherwise pristine continent from being further infiltrated. For the moment, simple fungi and mold are the greatest concern because they often carry plant diseases: On the 11,250 fruit and vegetables sent to nine research stations researchers found soil on 12 percent of the food as well as 56 alien invertebrates and 19 different species of mold. On Antarctica’s near islands, rats, mice and cats are already devastating bird populations, a risk the mainland doesn’t have to worry about … for now … since warm-blooded creatures have a hard time surviving sub-sub freezing temps. For now.

2. Everything from burning fossil fuels and rain forests to cow farts are blamed for the planet’s changing climate. Now a team from Columbia University suggests the ozone hole growing over Antarctica is linked to warmer, wetter weather reaching all the way north to the equator. Initially discovered in the 1980s and blamed on the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in refrigerators and aerosols, since their banning it’s expected the hole will largely close up by the middle of the century. In 2000, NASA satellites measured it at 11.5 million square miles; a decade later it had been reduced to 8.5 million square miles. Despite the shrinkage, the study blames the high-altitude ozone hole for contributing to higher wind speeds, leading to more intense storms and for heavy summer rains across eastern Australia, the southwestern Indian Ocean and the South Pacific.

3. It has been widely reported (including by me) that the Adelie penguin population in Antarctica has dropped by as much as 50 percent in recent years. The blame has been placed largely on the fast-disappearing ice along the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula, which had long been home to thriving penguin populations. The reasoning has been that as the average winter temperatures along the Peninsula have risen by 9 to 11 degrees since the mid-20th century, compared to 2 degrees everywhere else on the planet, the habitat change was chasing the ice-loving Adelie’s further south, or killing them off. But new studies by NOAA and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography suggest that might not be their numbers are declining, but rather because their main food source – krill – is diminishing thanks to warming seas, a recovering whale populations and overfishing. The two-inch long, shrimp-like crustaceans are the basis of Antarctica’s food chain but along the Peninsula it’s estimated krill density has declined by 80 percent. Warming temps, of both air and sea, will continue to take a toll as will man’s growing demand for krill: In 2009-2010 more than 202,000 tons of krill were taken, a four-fold increase over 2002-2003.

4. It looks like penguins and krill alike will have to adapt to even warmer temps and less ice far sooner than expected. A new report out of the California Institute for Technology and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggests that the big ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland are melting faster than previously predicted. If nothing changes – i.e. dramatically less-burning of fossil fuels and far fewer cow farts – that will make melting ice the biggest contributor to sea level rise, outstripping the melting of mountain glaciers and polar ice caps. The report suggests a 6 inch rise in sea levels around the world by 2050, sounding even more worrying alarm bells than the 2007 study by the International Panel on Climate Change, the last international body to fully assess the future of the ice sheets. The new numbers are based on a new technique that combines satellite radar readings of ice movement and soundings of ice thickness with new satellite information that measures differences in gravity planet-wide. Between Antarctica and Greenland, the two ice sheets dump 475 gigatonnes of ice (one gigatonne is one billion metric tons) into the ocean each year. They report estimates that the melting of polar ice caps and glaciers is about three times slower.

5. According to the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) the numbers of people visiting the 7th continent during the most recent summer season has dropped way off its high of 46,265 people in 2007-2008. Last season – 2010-2011 – the number was less than 34,000. This coming summer, thanks largely to a new ban on heavy fuels which will prohibit most big cruise ships from visiting the Peninsula, the industry monitoring group anticipates a 25 percent drop, to just over 25,000 visitors. The ban on heavy fuels, imposed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), goes into effect next month; it is purposely aimed at reducing the number of big ships visiting the Peninsula, the kind that carry thousands of passengers. Big ships + heavy fuel = big trouble in case of an accident, which could be disastrous on many fronts in this most-remote, most-pristine region. Visitor numbers are also down simply due to a still-sour global economy. Even the smaller ships that carry fewer than 500 passengers and make a dozen or more trips to the Peninsula each season are expecting fewer customers in the season, which begins in November.


[Flickr image via Christian Revival Network]

A profile of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation

by Jon Bowermaster on

In the course of humankind’s global wanderings – whether in search of new lands or gold – there have been a couple historical cycles during which science has prevailed over more material seeking.

The early 21st century is one of those times. Already deep into the information age, what we want to know today about the future are things like where will new energy come from, what can we continue to learn from deep space and deep ocean and how the hell are we going to clean up the variety of messes we’ve created in the preceding 2000 years.

A fine example of this transition is in my recent post about the new class of Emerging Explorers named recently by the National Geographic Society. Among the 11 men and women in their 20s and 30s there wasn’t a mountain climber or North Pole trekker; instead they included molecular engineers, agroecologists and biotech entrepreneurs.

Along the same lines a six-month-old non-profit group, Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, is attempting to make sure that any adventurer headed into the field goes armed with some kind of scientific mission, big or small. The Bozeman-based group also wants to make sure that whenever a scientific team goes into the field, if they need to take along an accomplished adventurer to help further its work – to climb higher, dive deeper, walk further – it can help in the matchmaking.
In a ClimateWire/New York Times post the group’s founder Gregg Treinish, who with partner Deia Schlosberg walked the length of the Andes Mountains over the course of a couple years from 2006-2008, admits to feeling “selfish” at the end of that expedition for not doing more “for the planet and people.”

It’s my experience too, after a couple decades exploring the planet’s ocean and coastlines that adventure for adventure’s sake just doesn’t cut it today. Climbing, or crossing, something “just because it’s there” is very, very old school. Today if you you’re going “out there,” I think you are obligated to come home with more than frostbite or some unique collectibles. Whether by contributing to science, or somehow trying to link the planet’s growing oneness by sharing stories of environmental ills or solutions, it is imperative to make explorations about something bigger than self. (Full disclosure, I am an ASC board member.)

The goal of the ASC, says Treinish, is to identify and recruit hikers, bikers, climbers and other athletes headed into the field to help scientists by collecting valuable – and hard to access — data from some of the planet’s most remote ecosystems.

The novel notion is off to a good start, having already married a handful of expeditions with scientific goals:

  1. In June, climbing brothers Willie and Damian Benegas delivered samples of the highest living plant life collected from the flanks of Mt. Everest (at 22,300 feet) to researchers at Montana State University and the U.S. Geological Survey. One goal of the researchers is to ponder how food can be grown as the planet’s climate changes. The brothers also brought back rock samples so that scientists can study microbes growing on them and the impact of high levels of UV radiation.
  2. Another group of trekkers has begun research in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in partnership with the Center for Conservation Biology focused on ivory forensics as a way to help stop the illegal ivory trade. The work is not always glamorous: This particular assignment includes collecting elephant dung from five focus areas across the country.
  3. The ASC has organized 22 groups of hikers planning to hike the Pacific Crest Trail stretching from California into Oregon, asking them to collect data on the Pika, a small, hard-to-spot mammal regarded an “indicator species” for a changing climate.
  4. The group is actively looking for adventurers to help gather sightings of ice worms on glaciers in the Pacific Northwest, track the movements of grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park and catalog the spread of an invasive plant – garlic mustard – throughout Europe, Australia, Asia and North America.

Anyone collecting data on behalf of the ASC goes out armed with strict marching orders, the projects organized from the start with an eye on providing good science not just collecting stuff. Before the Benegas brothers’ climbed Everest, for example, they were trained to collect plant samples by Montana State University microbial ecologist Tim McDermott and USGS microbiologist Rusty Rodriguez. The Pika work is part of a larger effort overseen by the nonprofit, Bozeman-based Craighead Institute.

Beth Holland, a biogeochemist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research is a science advisor and board member. She sees the linkage between scientists and adventurers as “a great way to build bridges” between the two. “There is so much about science that can seem to happen in an ivory tower,” she says.

Anyone with an idea for linking more adventurers and scientists should get in touch with Treinish, who says interest in the concept has been “overwhelming.” Now he hopes money – from the outdoor, environmental and scientific communities – will trickle in to help finance new technologies and collecting.

[flickr image via Shayne Kaye]