Of course not. But the Heartland Institute, an organization well-known for giving a microphone to climate science deniers, now wants to bring this false message into America’s classrooms.

As their President and CEO just admitted, they are writing a “global warming curriculum” that would say climate science isn’t settled. They’d like our teachers to claim we just don’t know if humans are changing our climate.

This plan is outrageous on its face. As you well know, the science behind climate change is not controversial — it is a reality. Scientists know that climate change is happening, and we are beginning to see the impacts with our own eyes. It would be the height of irresponsibility to urge our schools to teach something known to be untrue.

As its own budget documents reveal (PDF), the Heartland Institute is funded by oil and coal companies with a financial interest in denying climate science. But I think you’ll agree this industry-funded propaganda has no place in our schools.

Fortunately, one brave high school student is asking the Heartland Institute to stop. Corey Husic is writing to the group to say there is no place for a climate denial curriculum. He is asking that Heartland immediately “cease and desist” its plan to bring climate denial into our schools. And today, I invite you to sign this petition as well.

It’s time we move on from this false debate over climate science and engage in a much more fruitful and educational discussion over what we can do to solve the climate crisis.

We’ve created a short video to help you learn more about this urgent issue. I encourage you watch this video now, and sign the petition to keep climate reality in America’s science classrooms.

In Nepal, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development organized an expedition into the Himalayas to find out how people are responding to the threats of melting glaciers and flash floods. Watch this video to follow their journey; and to find out more, read Part 1 and Part 2 of their blog post.

On Feb. 27, Paul Reale is giving a Climate Reality Project presentation to kick off “The Carbon Squeeze,” a series of environmental events he is organizing with friends from his community. The first event is the announcement of a “game” to motivate people to reduce their carbon footprints. According to Paul: “It involves determining your initial score based on your carbon footprint, and you get points for actions we’ll suggest. It will be a series of environmental events occurring every six weeks or so.”

Carbon Squeeze events will include presentations from Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man; and Mark Gorton, a transportation expert. They will each introduce new actions people can take to reduce their carbon footprints. Taking these actions will increase the player’s score, and they will also have a community score, posted on a website. The next step is a “Carbon Smackdown” with another community! For more info, please go to their Facebook page.

This is just one example of the fun and innovative settings our Presenters are using to get the word out about the climate crisis.

If you would like to host a presentation in your community, visit our Presenters HQ.

After a fascinating day in Zurich learning about the risks of glacial retreat, I headed by train to Zermatt, a town at the foot of the Matterhorn, to hear from some professionals who work in an environment impacted by glaciers every day.

Zermatt is at 1,608 meters above sea level; that’s 5,276 feet. This town offers not only year-round skiing, but also a unique car-free lifestyle. Residents get around by walking, skiing, electric “taxi,” or the occasional horse-drawn carriage. No combustion engines are allowed except for a few emergency vehicles. Although there are almost 30 major peaks within viewing distance of the town, the highlight is definitely the Matterhorn, which is over 4,260 meters (14,000 feet) high. The mountain glaciers, like the Gorner glacier pictured below, are rapidly receding.

I spoke with Christian Gruetter, an engineer-surveyor for the town, who told me about the retreat of the glaciers near Zermatt and some potential hazards.

Next to the Dom, one of the highest mountains in Switzerland, there is an old glacier called Grabengufer. Many glaciers normally travel 8 meters a year, Christian told me. “This one travel 8 meters in two months.”

Christian explained that since 2008, scientists have been monitoring the glacier closely. While the movement is less urgent than they’d first feared, there is a “critical passage” where a glacier lake might form. The community has also built a protection wall up on the mountain to protect against possible rock and ice falls.

“Also, there was a suspension bridge on the Europaweg trail but they had to close it as soon as they’d opened it because it was too dangerous,” he said. “It is very steep and if the rocks fall down they might fall onto the bridge. I should mention, these rocks are the size of a house.”

Christian told me that in his spare time he is also a mountaineer, and he has experienced firsthand how hikers and climbers must find new routes through the Alps due to the retreating glaciers.

I also visited Lorena Donnabella from the Zermatt Bergbahnen – the company responsible for building, maintaining and operating the vast cable car system throughout the Matter Valley.

Lorena told me how this key mountain industry is making efforts to reduce its impact on the local environment and the global climate.

“We are optimizing our artificial snow system so that we produce more snow in less time so that not much energy is used,” she said. “We also made some studies at the Trockener Steg (a cable car station) and found it’s one of the areas where we can have solar panels. So there are solar panels there.”

She added that the restaurant at Matterhorn Glacier Paradise Station, the highest mountain viewing platform in Europe, received an energy efficiency rating called Minergie-P. The restaurant is “covered with solar panels on the facade,” she said “Thanks to the solar panels, we can provide all our own energy for heating and lighting. It also has an autonomous purification plant, and the wastewater is used for artificial snow.”

These are just a few of the ways that the town and businesses of Zermatt are dealing with the hazards of climate change and reducing their carbon footprint. How is climate change affecting the communities and businesses near you?

Many thanks to Christian Gruetter and Lorena Donnabella, and also to Urs Geissbuehler and the Zermatt Tourismus for their assistance with this story.

At 12:30 we reached the town of Barahbise, where we met with a group of about 40 people.

What we heard from the local people at Barahbise: Older participants shared their memories of the 1981 glacial lake outburst flood, which destroyed homes and property. It was very interesting to learn how the local people perceive their risks. They are aware of the risk of floods but are not taking measures to reduce it. Many new houses are built right next to the river in very high-risk zones. The residents’ concern, on the other hand, is that the government is not doing anything to protect their property.

“During the monsoon season, we rarely sleep at night. We constantly fear that a flood wave will sweep us away. We feel the bridge is high and safe from flooding, and some nights we spend on the bridge chatting with each other,” said Bishnu Shrestha.

“The river was much deeper when I was young, and behind our houses there was enough buffer land,” an older resident said. “Now, after several floods, the river has widened and the river bed has risen.”

We later visited the Bhote Koshi power plant, built about 10 years ago, which is also highly vulnerable to flash floods. The company has installed an early warning system (pictured at right), but its flood sensor is located not far upstream, at the China/Nepal border. Therefore, the system, although technologically advanced, can only provide five minutes’ lead warning. Furthermore, while the system can save lives by helping people to evacuate, the power plant itself remains at risk.

Next, we stopped briefly to observe the remnants of the old Phulping Bridge, which was washed away by the flood of 1981. The new bridge is constructed at a higher level to avoid the same fate. It also has an arched construction that would permit floodwaters to flow through more safely. Many kilometers of destroyed, abandoned highway could be seen even 30 years after the flood event.
We passed through Larcha village, which was engulfed by a landslide dam outburst flood in 1996; in this case, heavy rainfall caused a landslide which dammed the flowing water, and the backed-up waters then burst out. This flood killed 54 people and washed away 22 houses. We saw how people had resettled in the same place, exposing themselves to the same risk.

At around 4 p.m. we reached the final point of our journey, the friendship bridge over the Sun Koshi River at the border between China and Nepal. Here we saw the sensors of Bhote Koshi Power’s early warning system. The glaciers creating the flood risk are all located on the other side of this border – a striking reminder of the transboundary nature of the problem.

What we’re doing next: As a result of our expedition, the media have published several high-profile articles (including many in Nepali) which should be helpful in raising the government’s interest in the risk to the mountain communities and infrastructure, and on the need to take proactive measures to manage the risk. It should also help encourage risk management measures at the local level, particularly in planning settlements. It is hoped that the media reporting will provide impetus for the preparation of national land use guidelines, whose absence is greatly felt in the country as a whole; and maybe even provide a stepping stone for developing a transboundary early warning system for glacial lake outburst floods.

To find out more about the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, click here. And for more information about the issues discussed in this blog post, ICIMOD has prepared the following fact sheets:

• Hindu Kush-Himalayan Glaciers: Frequently Asked Questions
• Managing Flash Flood Risk in the Himalayas
• Glacial Lakes and Associated Floods in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas
• The Changing Himalayas: The Impact of Climate Change on Water resources and Livelihoods in the Greater Himalayas

What does a climate denier group do when the science isn’t on their side? Perhaps they use fossil fuel money to foment doubt about the reality of climate change in American classrooms?

Earlier this week, the folks over at DeSmogBlog posted some documents from the Heartland Institute.

The Heartland documents appear to reveal the organization’s central role in the effort to discredit established climate science:

• Funding: Heartland receives funding from the Charles G. Koch Foundation and tobacco companies, and is otherwise funded by one anonymous donor.
• Schools: The organization is paying to develop an alternative K-12 school curriculum that calls established research on climate change “a major scientific controversy.”
• Deniers: Heartland directly funds deniers like Fred Singer, Robert Carter, Anthony Watts, and Craig Idso – who has said burning fossil fuels has “been win, win, win for all of life.”

The Heartland Institute has been working to deny the reality of climate change for years and now we finally have their own words as evidence. They are going to keep going if we don’t do something. It is important to stop this dangerous campaign of doubt wherever possible. If you need a refresher course in how and why these interests manufacture doubt, take another look at our Doubt video from last year.

We’ll be watching this story as it develops and will keep you updated.

Recently, I left the comfort of my office at the UN Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, Germany, to join Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project expedition to Antarctica. As the head of the UN agency which supports the global climate change negotiations, I mostly get to see meeting rooms and people in smart suits. This mission would take me to one of the roughest corners of the planet, so you can imagine my excitement and trepidation.

I packed extra layers, the warmest, fluffiest clothes in my closet, and availed myself of polar boots. But when you go to the extremes of the world, there really is nothing that prepares you for what you’re about to experience. After several days of travel on board the National Geographic Explorer, we sailed into Antarctic water and I approached one of thousands of enormous icebergs in a small zodiac craft. I was captivated by the haunting beauty of the ice, sculptured to perfection by the forces of nature. But the massive size of the icebergs with their graceful, translucent, aquamarine-blue pillars belie their vulnerability and that of the entire Antarctic ice cover.

Antarctica is not only the highest, coldest, driest and windiest continent on the planet. It is also a global bellwether of climate change, and a big influencer of the world’s climate. As we passed this iceberg, I was reminded that rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the world’s atmosphere have already led to a temperature rise of almost three degrees Celsius over the past 50 years in this part of the world. This is why the land ice is diminishing so fast, and huge chunks of ice are slipping into the sea. We have started what scientist Henry Pollack calls a “huge inadvertent experiment with the Earth’s climate.”

Animals are of course affected by this, too. I saw colonies of penguins that appeared to be thriving in the warmer climate. But I also saw other penguin species, whales and seals that are losing the possibility to feed sufficiently in what used to be nutrient-rich waters. The dwindling ice cover in some areas means less krill, and less krill means a serious weakening of the bottom of the food web in Antarctica, affecting all animals up the food chain.

The effects of warming global temperatures are not only local, and not only on animals and plants. On board the ship chartered by The Climate Reality Project were a number of people from the worlds of science, business and policy. Among the people I talked to was Hassan Mahmud, Minister of the Environment of Bangladesh. Although halfway around the world from Antarctica, his low-lying country is directly affected by the loss of ice in the Antarctic. As ice melts, sea levels rise
puts 18 million of his people at risk. The fate of people in his region goes close to my heart. I went to visit Pakistan after the flood to examine the extent of the damage, back in 2010. How quickly it has already been replaced in news photos by successive major weather disasters.

Minister Mahmud and the representatives of 193 other countries attended the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban at the end of last year. The countries meeting there agreed on a common vision that will shape the way climate change is dealt with internationally over the years to come. They agreed to keep the existing legal system under which industrialized countries promise to reduce emissions, the Kyoto Protocol. And they agreed on a pathway towards a new global system, covering the emissions of all countries. This global system is to be adopted by 2015 and to enter into force by 2020. The open question is: Will governments, supported by business and civil society, move quickly enough to protect the most vulnerable from the worst effects of climate change? And in the meantime, will our efforts to make them more climate-resilient reach those who need the support most? Can we anticipate adaptation, rather than just react?

© 2009 Flickr/UNclimatechange CC BY-NC 2.0

Heading back from Antarctica, it struck me how the world is rapidly transforming. The ice of Antarctica is in constant – and accelerating – movement. Action to combat climate change also needs to urgently increase in scale, scope and speed. I left the Climate Reality Project boat haunted by the moral challenge that was put before us: “Before you make a decision that affects the world’s climate, imagine the eyes of seven generations of children in the future looking at you, and asking … Why?”

© 2010 Flickr/Glenna Barlow CC BY 2.0

Sadly, this is a danger that won’t go away soon. Glaciers all over the world are shrinking. This sustained ice loss is both a natural indicator that the world is warming and a warning that local communities are at risk. For people inland, melting glaciers can mean flash floods, landslides and reduced drinking water. For people on the coast, melting glaciers mean rising seas.

© 2008 Flickr /wildxplorer CC BY 2.0

What is surprising from a scientific perspective – and has some media outlets in a tizzy – is that ice cover in the Himalayas may be shrinking more slowly than previously thought.

The high mountains of Asia, including the Himalayas, Tian Shan and other mountain ranges, have been notoriously difficult to study. Unlike the well-known glaciers of Alaska or the Alps, many of Asia’s high-mountain glaciers are difficult to access, and the region is plagued by border conflicts and wars. Furthermore, ice trends in the region aren’t exactly simple. As one scientist recently put it, “each glacier has its own individual behavior.” Glaciers may be retreating in some areas but not others, making it difficult to establish an average rate of retreat for the region.

If anything, a lower rate of ice loss in the Himalayas is good news. The glaciers help provide millions of people in Asia with drinking and irrigation water, and low-lying regions like coastal Louisiana need all the time they can get to prepare for sea level rise. But as Jonathan Bamber, head of the Bristol Glaciology Centre in the UK points out, the new study “doesn’t change our view of the risks and threats from climate change.” As the Earth continues to warm, even the formidable glaciers of the Himalayas can’t hang on forever.

ICIMOD team, from left: Nabin Baral, photographer; Birkhu Jirel, Security Guard (assistant to the driver); Sagar Bajracharya, Integrated Water and Hazards Management expert; Subasana Shrestha, Nira Gurung, and Andrea Perlis, organisers (Communications); Udayan Mishra, video; Vijay Khadgi, IWHM expert; Chinikaji Maharjan, Driver; Arun Shrestha, IWHM expert and trip leader.

I am Arun B. Shrestha, and I am a Climate Change Specialist in the Integrated Water and Hazard Management Programme at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Much of our program’s work is related to flash floods: developing methodologies for analyzing flood risk, providing training for flash flood risk management, and piloting early warning systems.

On 23 January 2012, I took a group of 24 people, comprising 14 media representatives and 10 people from ICIMOD, to the basin of the Sun Koshi River (called Poiqu in Chinese), a basin shared among India, Nepal, and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. You can find more background about the region here (PDF). The shrinking of glaciers in this area is leading to the formation and growth of more glacial lakes. This basin is vulnerable to flash floods caused by sudden discharges of water from such lakes, known as glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), as well as additional floods from intense rainfall and landslides. Scientists expect these risks will increase as the planet warms due to climate change caused by human activities.

A map of the region pictured at right.

What we did: The main purpose of the field visit was to provide the media with direct evidence of climate-related hazards, the vulnerability in the mountains, and the way local people are dealing with risk, so that this knowledge can be disseminated widely.

After passing through beautiful old towns in the Kathmandu Valley, we climbed up to a scenic resort town called Dhulikhel, and then descended to Dolalghat, a small town located at the confluence of the Indravati and Sun Koshi rivers. As we passed over the bridge, I pointed out the government’s apparatus for measuring water levels visible in the distance.

From this point, the journey was mostly along the river, but the narrow road often went up and down following the difficult mountain terrain. In many places the road is so low that it would be inundated in the event of a flood. Since this is the only road connecting the settlements in the basin, and also the only trade route between Nepal and China, the loss of connectivity would be disastrous.

At about 12 noon we reached Khadi Chaur, a commercial town serving travellers along the route. Owing to the strategic location, people had taken a huge risk in building their houses and infrastructure very close to the river. The bridge over the river, like most of the bridges in this area, was a truss type, not designed properly to allow flood water and debris to pass beneath it. We also saw public schools built on the low flood plains, too close to the river, because that is the only government-owned land available in the area – so our kids are put at risk.

Shortly after Khadi Chaur, we passed the Sun Koshi hydropower project, which was severely damaged in 1981 when the melting of the Zhangzangbo Glacier in Tibet caused a powerful glacial lake outburst flood. In addition to the structural damage, silt, sand, and debris from the flood clogged up the turbines.

In Part 2 of this post, we will visit a local village and find out how melting glaciers are affecting their everyday life.

© 2012 350.org/Flickr cc by nc sa 2.0

Our message was heard loud and clear. In just under seven hours, we smashed through our goal of 500,000 messages opposing the Keystone XL pipeline. And in just one day, from noon on Monday to noon today, we’ve collected over 781,000 messages telling our Senators to reject this latest effort to build this pipeline so we can stop the dangerous carbon pollution it carries.

© 2012 350.org

Over three-quarters of a million Americans signed a petition to make it clear that if we’re going to solve the climate crisis, we cannot build this pipeline. A few hours ago, the coalition took your messages up to Capitol Hill and delivered them to the Senate leadership. Thank you for telling our leaders to stand up to the oil industry’s lobbyists and reject this pipeline once and for all. If you haven’t yet, take a look at our petition and help spread the word.