It’s Getting Hot In Here

If you’ve been following the news on Capitol Hill this morning, you might have noticed that Chairmen Waxman and Markey released a draft climate bill that will be the opening salvo in a legislative battle on climate change here in the US.

It’s going to be an uphill struggle to take that bill and make it stronger; strong enough so that when we come to the table in Copenhagen this December, we can lead the world to a clean and just energy future.

But that’s what needs to be done, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Visit your Members of Congress and Senators this April, tell them what a good climate bill looks like, and check out this invitation to take action on October 24 from Bill McKibben and our crew at 350.org.

This is an invitation to help build a movement–to take one day and use it to stop the climate crisis.

On October 24, we will stand together as one planet and call for a fair global climate treaty. United by a common call to action, we’ll make it clear: the world needs an international plan that meets the latest science and gets us back to safety.

This movement has just begun, and it needs your help.

Here’s the plan: we’re asking you, and people in every country on earth, to organize an action in your community on October 24.

There are no limits here–imagine bike rides, rallies, concerts, hikes, festivals, tree-plantings, protests, and more. Imagine your action linking up with thousands of others around the globe. Imagine the world waking up.

If we can pull it off, we’ll send a powerful message on October 24: the world needs the climate solutions that science and justice demand.

Continue reading ‘An Invitation from Bill McKibben, Vandana Shiva, David Suzuki…’

Quick post here – I will try to go into more details later.

The Energy Information Administration just released their Annual Energy Outlook report (full text here, summary here) that found that only two new coal plants would need to be constructed between 2013 and 2025, if you don’t take into account investment and deployment of efficiency and renewable energy technologies.

All those new coal plants needed to meet our energy “demands”?  Unnecessary.  No new coal plants built without carbon capture and sequestration becomes simply, no new coal.  This means we can focus on cleaning up and shutting down existing coal plants as we transition to a clean energy economy.

Below is the text of the Sierra Club press release that just went out about the report.

Continue reading ‘Government Report: New Wave of Coal Plants Not Needed’

Hilarious and inspired!

Lone Protester Shuts Down Bank; Mannequin demands end to funding of coal industry, foreclosure evictions

BOSTON, MA – The Kenmore Square Bank of America branch was closed for business this morning by an activist with Mannequins for Climate Justice. The protester chained himself to the doors of the bank shortly before opening this morning.  

The protester, Guy Fox, said, “Even a dummy like me can see that Bank of America’s massive loans to coal companies and support for the epidemic of foreclosures and evictions has to stop now.”

Continue reading ‘Mannequins For Climate Justice Shut Down Bank of America’

“We’re living somebody else’s vision for our city.” Donele Wilkins, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice

Detroit has a 22% unemployment rate. It is the poorest major city in the country and has the highest rate of segration out of every other city in the nation. The city counted over 45000 ecologically contaminated sites before they just simply stopped counting. The mayor, Dennis Archer, in the early 90s tried declaring the entire city a brownfield site. Detroit needs a green jobs future that will clean up Detroit’s environment and bring jobs back to the city that can lift poor residents out of poverty.

I was inspired today at a forum on bringing green jobs to Detroit at the IBEW Local 58. The event was held by the Sierra Club, AFL-CIO and Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, but there were tons of different groups and organizations represented there from the labor, environmental and social justice movements. The three speakers covered the issues that link the environmental and labor movements together and how we can work to build a stronger “blue-green alliance.” Continue reading ‘Detroit and Labor’s Green Jobs Future’

This is a guest post from Matt Williams, a youth organiser from the UK working with the UK Youth Climate Coalition. He recently helped lead a UK delegation to the Our Opportunity youth conference in Copenhagen, and wrote this report.

All over Europe, young people are mobilising around climate change issues. This was evident at a recent event organised by Energy Crossroads Denmark, at which around 300 European students gathered to discuss the challenges we’re facing regarding energy generation. We were part of a team of 23 British students that attended the 3-day conference of talks, discussions and workshops.

Some of the British youth in Copenhagen. Image courtesy of Conor Reid.

Continue reading ‘Our Opportunity’

Cross-posted at Focus the Nation

When the movement for a clean energy future looks for leaders, it often turns to rising activists like Billy Parish, environmental champions like Bill McKibben, outspoken atmospheric scientists like James Hansen, or international environmental justice heroes like Wangari Matthai.

Those who are serious about passing legislation that effectively manages carbon emissions through the United States Congress would be wise to listen to some very different voices: the 163 members of Congress (37 in the Senate, 126 in the House) who represent the “swing” votes that can make or break the effort to address climate change with federal legislation.

Congressman Bob Inglis, R-SC, gave an address for the kick-off event for Focus the Nation’s inaugural civic engagement campaign at Clemson University in 2008 and recently produced this video for the Nationwide Town Hall on Clean Energy taking place this April. In this statement and in a recent speech on the house floor, Congressman Inglis gives invaluable insight into the language and framing that can build consensus on the urgency and opportunity of managing carbon emissions with federal legislation in 2009. Continue reading ‘Congressman Bob Inglis: How to Engage Republicans, even Skeptics, on Climate Change’

Monday 30th March:  The state of negotiations in Bonn.

This is a blog-post for the policy addicts who sadly can’t be in Bonn. If you’re not a policy-wonk, be warned – this post contains too many acronyms to be healthy.

The update here has been provided by the wonderful Thomas Spencer, a 22 year-old Australian expat living in Germany – a specialist in REDD issues and Russia.

Read on in this post for what happened today on:

• Reduction targets for Annex 1 (ie, the rich countries)
  
• Cash – SIDS (Small Island Developing States), LDCs, and India called for specific adapatation funding commitments
• REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries) – and Australia’s backwards stance
• SIDS and LDCs – crying out for progressive mitigation targets

And while all this was going on, Saudi Arabia took every opportunity to whining about the need to have a ‘low emissions’ future not a ‘low carbon’ one, and the need for them to be paid ‘adapatation’ funding so they can ‘adapt’ their fossil-fuel industries into something else. No specific mention of what they’d be transitioning to…

From Thomas Spencer:

Continue reading ‘UN negotations, Bonn: Policy download’

Cross posted on the Eastern Energy Systems blog.

Solar rebates are really good right now, but they’re not simple or straightforward. Three different rebates typically combine to make solar pay for itself in as little as 4 years (in Long Island, for instance) and make the owner money after that. But those rebates are from 3 different places – and they don’t apply to everyone.

Two of the major rebates are tax credits. The federal government agreed to increase its tax credit from a cap of $2000 to a full 30% of the cost of the system. This can be over $20,000 for many homes. New York state, like many states, has a 25% tax credit which is still capped at $5000. Unfortunately – and this is the key – you need to pay income tax to get these.

While its great that the government is able to provide such a strong incentive, they rule out a large percentage of the population who don’t pay any income tax, and therefore can’t receive the tax credit.  And yet, Americans over 65 have the highest rate of home-ownership: 80% in 2008. Whey are we ignoring this large percentage of the population, effectively preventing them from making investments with their money and their homes that will benefit future generations and make them more secure against rising energy prices after they stop working? Continue reading ‘Solar Rebates for All’

This is a repost of Ted Glick’s latest Future Hope column. I felt it was an excellent, and sobering assessment of where much of the US climate movement is, and some smart strategies for victory.

Is “Washington” Winning?

By Ted Glick

It was a couple of weeks before the historic March 2nd shutdown action at the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant on Capitol Hill in D.C. A national leader of an important climate group came up to me in the hallway at a conference we were both attending to express concern about the action. She had heard from Nancy Pelosi’s office, which was not happy that the action was happening. I asked, “what are the specific concerns?” and wasn’t able to get a clear answer.

And this was a national leader of a climate group that has been among the strongest when it comes to calling for serious, substantial and science-based reductions of dangerous greenhouse gas emissions, a minimum of 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 for countries like the U.S.

Continue reading ‘Is “Washington” Winning?’

As many of you know, I have a special affinity for grassroots anti-authoritarian climate activists in Australia.  Good on ya, mates!

Friends of the Earth Melbourne lock-down and walk onto the Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria, Australia.

The worldwide escalation against Big Coal is continuing.

Not only are NGO’s like Greenpeace Australia-Pacific escalating against coal down under, but so are grassroots networks like Rising Tide and Friends of the Earth. Continue reading ‘Earth Hour Direct Action Down Under’