Is Global Warming

Larry Holden, who has appeared on screen with Al Pacino and other top actors in several movies, will direct a movie in the Rochester area this summer. He won't say what it's about, but local extras will be needed.

Hurting the Sugarbush?

By Sandy Vondrasek Cooch

Sharon sugarmaker Arthur Berndt believes that everybody can do something about climate change.

It might be driving a more fuel-efficient vehicle, or taking other steps to reduce energy consumption, or working with environmental groups to increase public awareness.

Berndt has a large personal stake in the issue and he has taken a large action. He believes that signs of stress in his 16,000-tree sugarbush are directly related to global warming, and that the future of sugaring at Maverick Sugarbush is uncertain, unless something changes.

His large action: Suing the federal government.

Back in 2002, Berndt and his wife joined two non-profit environmental groups and several large U.S cities in a suit against two little-known governmental agencies that funnel billions of taxpayer money to multinational corporations developing energy projects overseas.

Big Polluters

These projects, which are subject to little or no environmental review, put millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide and methane emissions into the environment.

The emissions, the plaintiffs documented in the complaint, equal more than 7% of the world's total emissions, and one-third of the total emissions in the U.S.

The case, which maintains that these projects should be submitted to the same sort of environmental review as domestic projects, has been wending its way through a federal district court since.

Representing Berndt and other plaintiffs in the case are several Burlington-based attorneys, most of them Vermont Law School graduates.

The Herald reported on the lawsuit in the fall of 2005, shortly after a federal judge, in a landmark decision, ruled that the case should go forward. Lead Atty. Ron Shems explained at the time that the ruling was the first time that legal standing was given to a federal case alleging injury due to climate change.

(That 2005 ruling was echoed earlier this month, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state of Massachusetts had standing through the federal courts over alleged climate change impacts due to carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate vehicular emission.)

Recent Ruling

Meanwhile, a new, mostly favorable, decision was recently issued the case in which Berndt is a party.

Atty. Geoff Hand, another lawyer working on the case, this week explained that the judge ruled that the same environmental review policy that applies to domestic projects "could apply" to the overseas fossil-fuel projects financed by the two defendant agencies. Those two agencies are the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC), and the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im).

Atty. Hand said the judge also dismissed the defendants' stance that "climate change was too remote or speculative" to be at issue in a federal case.

The judge ruled, Hand summarized, that "What I read in agency reports indicates no genuine dispute that coal, oil, and gas emissions are contributing to climate change."

However, the judge also ruled that the case should go to trial on whether federal financial support of these private projects is enough to "federalize them," Hand said.

OPIC and Ex-Im, over the past decade, have directed $32 billion in loan guarantees to Haliburton, and numerous energy and oil companies, to support their projects. Projects cited in the case include oil and natural gas projects in Mexico and a coal-fired plant in China.

Atty. Hand noted emissions from projects financed by OPIC and Ex-Im are increasing, as a percentage of total world-wide emissions, because of the high rate of development in countries such as India, China, and Indonesia. And, few of these countries impose their own environmental reviews.

During the past five years, as this case has slowly moved forward, public awareness and action on global warming has dramatically increased, Hand noted with satisfaction.

Although Maverick Sugarbush is enjoying an "exceptional" sugaring season this year, Arthur Berndt remains worried about the future of his operation.

Long-term trends, he said, must be studied, and conclusions cannot be drawn from any one-year "snapshot."

Warmer weather, Berndt believes, is contributing to tree regeneration problems and to an onslaught of insect and disease attacks.

Last year his stands "got nailed" by multiple disease and insect infestations, including anthracnose, scale, and forest tent caterpillar. He believes that spraying the biologic agent Bt on his acreage is the only thing that spared his stand from the kind of defoliation seen in nearby Pomfret and Woodstock last year.

Like Atty. Hand, Berndt is pleased at the recent uptick in public awareness and action about global warming.

One of the reasons for undertaking the suit, he said, was to direct attention to the issue of global warming and its impacts.

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