It’s Getting Hot In Here

Check out this great video from the Cliffside Climate Action.

“Dear Bank of America: Now that We’re Co-Owners, How about No More Coal? Sincerely, The American People”

Last Monday, hundreds rallied (with 44 arrested in a peaceful civil disobedience) in downtown Charlotte to tell Duke Energy “Stop Cliffside, No New Coal.” Charlotte’s other hometown company, Bank of America, is one of Duke Energy’s biggest financiers and gave them $200 million in January to build the new Cliffside coal plant and burn mountaintop removal coal.

And not only is Bank of America financing Duke’s coal plant, but Bank of America has been the personal ATM for a lot of dirty energy expansion.

BUT, we’re all now owners of Bank of America. The U.S. taxpayers have given Bank of America over $25 billion in bailout funds and we need to tell them we don’t want that money going to the funding of coal and fossil fuel expansion. Continue reading ‘Dear Bank of America: Now that We’re Co-Owners, How about No More Coal?’

Iowa is all over the news this week.  But what you may not have heard through all the coverage of same-sex marriages is that Iowa will soon connect to the Midwest High Speed Rail Network.

This weekend the Iowa State Legislature approved the allocation of $3 million to the Department of Transportation specifically for passenger rail.  These funds are enough to qualify Iowa for matching federal funds of $12 million, which is enough to begin upgrading existing tracks between the Quad Cities and Iowa City to handle higher speeds.

As I mentioned in my post last week, “travel by train is approximately 3 times more efficient than travel by car and six times more efficient than travel by airplane.  So not only does it create jobs, reduce congestion and traffic hassles, but it cleans the air and enables affordable transportation between urban centers.”  But that is just in terms of transportation emissions.  Rail has further benefits if you consider that rail doesn’t require the paving of green space for parking lots, creates jobs  in upgrading the tracks and has next to zero fatalities or injuries. Continue reading ‘Victory in Iowa!’

Anyone watch Fox’s “House?” The medical profession’s answer to “CSI” and “Law and Order” with a cantankerous jaded doctor played by Hugh Laurie.

On this week’s episode, the opening segment is a lockdown by environmentalists to a bulldozer on a mountaintop removal site.  Their messaging is a bit on the cheesy side (“The Only Clean is the Green”, “What Would Nature Do”).  The interactions between activists and workers is a bit cliche and, IMHO, inaccurate (“I gotta feed my family”, “You’re children need to breathe clean air”). Continue reading ‘Anti-Mountaintop Removal Lockdown Depicted on Fox’s “House”’

While some are cheering the efforts in congress to implement a cap and trade system, many climate activists in Europe — who have already had a decade of experience with the practice — are doing the opposite, targeting the Carbon Trading system with mass actions.

Meanwhile, a huge coalition of environmental justice and human rights activists in the US have issued a public commendation of the efforts to include one aspect of Carbon Trading – Carbon Offsets – in the Waxman-Markey bill. More on that in a moment.

First, a YouTube video of the Climate Camp in the City which took place on April 1 brought together 1000 activists in a mass non-violent direct action against Carbon Markets in the heart of London’s financial district:

After the fold, read the reaction of a coalition of environmental and human rights activists to the Waxman-Markey…

Continue reading ‘Because Nature Doesn’t do Bail Outs: US, UK activists target Carbon Trading Markets’

As you may know, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has released a first draft of a climate bill. No surprise, the polluters are actively trying to weaken it. This bill is at a critical stage – the committee is holding hearings this week and we know the polluters will be out in force. In fact they are actually paying people ($) to attend the hearings so the representatives believe they have a bunch of supporters.

We have recruited and continue to recruit as many people as possible to make a statement that weakening this bill to the whims of the oil/coal lobby is not an option.This blog post will be continuously updated with updates on what is going on at Capitol Hill.

Day 4 – 4/24/2009 Comments appear in reverse order – They are loaded live. Refresh page to see updates

Panel 3: Energy Efficiency, Transportation, Building Appliances, and Utilities

• Ian Bowles, Secretary, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• David Gardiner, President, David Gardiner & Associates, LLC (on behalf of the Energy Future Coalition)
• Jeff Genzer, Counsel, National Association of State Energy Officials
• Andrew Delaski, Executive Director, Appliance Standards Awareness Project
• Dave McCurdy, President and CEO, Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers
• Alan Reuther, Legislative Director, International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW)
• Dan Sperling, Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California Davis
• David Friedman, Research Director, Clean Vehicles Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
• Charles T. Drevna, President, National Petrochemical and Refiners Association
• Sonny Richardson, President, Richardson Home Builders, Inc., Tuscaloosa, Alabama

2:30 Thank you for coming Mr. Gingich

2:25 Markey – we only have 4% of the world’s oil reserve but we consume 25%. It is up to us to find alternatives #powershift09

2:20 Gingrich keeps saying he’d support incentivizing shift to CE. Would he support plan to clean energy cheap? http://tr.im/jD9j

2:10 Dingell – ‘I desperately want to support this bill, but we have to deal with the issue of how do we pass this bill and handle the international business reaction.’ We need to take a lead here gentlemen. When has America ever sat back and seen if things work somewhere else before we acknowledge the science that we know is correct.

1:50 Inslee – “You were asked in 2007 if you supported a cap on carbon. You responded ‘Frankly it is somethin i would strongly support.’ What happened?” He asks Newt if 18 cents a day per family is too much to spend in order to save the planet. Newt didn’t answer.

1:45 – Waxman doesn’t even want to hear Gingrich’s response!

1:40 Waxman – “Did I hear you correctly? We can’t do it. It’ll cost too much. And then you recomend funding a whole green job program. Where is that money? You seem to be talking in circles.” “We’ve heard these scare tactics since you’ve been in politics and we can all see how following them have resulted in.” “Stop complaining and using scare tactics. Work with us. If you are scared to work with us what are you doing here?”

Continue reading ‘Live-blogging from the Climate/Energy Hearing’

I am excited to feature this guest post by Bill Walker, campaign director with Earthjustice, focusing on a critical and largely unsung component of the fight to overcome the climate challenge – Jesse Jenkins, founder and chief editor, WattHead – Energy News and Commentary, contributing editor, ItsGettingHotInHere.org

Senators who usually couldn’t be farther apart on environmental issues agreed on Earth Day that the EPA should look at ways to control a dangerous pollutant that kills millions worldwide and accelerates global warming, particularly in the Arctic: soot, also known as the sinister-sounding “black carbon.”

Two of the Senate’s greenest members, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Barbara Boxer of California, and Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is the Senate’s chief global warming skeptic, introduced a bill requiring the EPA to study black carbon pollution and within a year come up with solutions for reducing emissions.

Earthjustice has just released a short animated film that explains the black carbon problem and urges EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to take action. The video also asks Americans to urge Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s team to take international leadership on black carbon at next week’s Arctic Council meeting in Tromso, Norway. The video can be viewed below and at www.stopsoot.org.

Continue reading ‘Strange Climate Bedfellows Tackle Black Carbon [VIDEO]‘

This posting is cross-listed at Grist.org

Yesterday, was the 39th anniversary of Earth Day and to mark the occasion, President Obama was in Newton, Iowa to speak about clean energy. Newton is one of those towns where most of the residents are employed by one major employer, and until October 2007, that employer was Maytag. So when Whirlpool bought Maytag and shut down the Newton plant, over 12% of Newton’s 16,000 residents lost their jobs. If you didn’t lose a job, your husband, sister, or neighbor surely did.

Obama Speaks in Newton, IA

But now Newton’s a shining example of what’s possible. Instead of dishwashers and washing machines, the people of Newton are making wind turbines. That’s why President Obama chose Newton and Trinity Structural Towers to argue that “the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy.  The choice we face is between prosperity and decline.”

But towns like Newton aren’t just losing jobs, they are losing talent too. Young people have been hit hard by this recession. According to the Education and Labor Committee, of the 1.2 million jobs lost last year, 60 percent were held by workers under the age of 25. Mobile and in search of opportunity they are moving to bigger cities and mega regions that promise greater opportunity. Iowa, in particular, has been hurt by this “brain drain,” losing more college graduates than any other state in the country.

So while we replace dishwashers with wind turbines, and re-open empty auto manufacturing plants with solar manufacturing facilities, let’s also work to build truly whole communities. The communities that define themselves by one industry or one employer will be increasingly at risk. A healthy, 21st century economy demands that we become increasingly self-sufficient in the resources we use—the food we grow, the water and energy we consume, and the products we build. Revitalizing local living economies can create jobs, conserve energy, and keep young talent in the community.

We have some serious momentum.  From the hearings on Capitol Hill, to actions to stop coal, to engaging our elected official across the country, this movement is really moving.  And we’re hitting our stride right here in Iowa (excuse the puns).

Yesterday, President Obama came to the Trinity Structural Towers, a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Newton, Iowa, to discuss his plan for clean energy including high speed rail, for this country. Watch Obama’s full Earth Day speech (video here) for highlights on renewable energy (including offshore wind and tidal power), energy efficiency and rail.

Local news station KCCI has great coverage (video here) of this plan:

President Barack Obama pitched his green energy plan in Iowa on Wednesday and draw raves for his proposal to build a high-speed rail network that with a line connecting Des Moines to Chicago.

“We could be on a train to Chicago in the next three years,” said Andrew Snow of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a group pushing the high-speed rail plan. “It…offers the opportunity to make the quality of life better here.”

“My budget is also making unprecedented investments in mass transit, high-speed rail and in our highway system to reduce the congestion that wastes money and time and energy,” Obama said.

In addition to major support from Obama, high speed rail is getting traction across the state.  Yesterday Senator Tom Harkin said “I applaud President Obama’s call for this high-speed passenger rail service from Des Moines to Chicago today – service I have long supported to complement the Amtrak route that runs through the Southern part of Iowa. ” Continue reading ‘VIDEO: Momentum in Iowa Hits High Speed’

In a school-wide celebration of Earth Day, students at the Collegiate School in Richmond, VA heard speakers, attended workshops, and participated in projects to learn about environmental issues-rather than sitting in class- on April 21. The event was organized by Holly Smith, school Art Teacher and Lindy Williams, Associate Head of School- both inspired by sustainability and firm believers that through education and student involvement, problems like global warming can be solved.

Mike Tidwell, Executive Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, addressed the High School on why global warming is the moral, economic, and envronmental issus we all must work together to solve. Following his address, Hilary Lufkin, Virginia Campus Organizer of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, addressed the Middle School on the history of Earth Day, and how Earth Day 2009 is so important in solving the climate crisis. Continue reading ‘The Real Meaning of Civics: Students Take Action on Earth Day’