It’s Getting Hot In Here

The fight to make the Pacific Northwest the first region of the United States to completely sever its ties to the coal industry is moving forward in leaps and bounds.  A couple of weeks ago, I reported on Portland General Electric’s release of this year’s Integrated Resource Plan, in which PGE advocates tying the state to coal for at least another 30 years.  The idea of Oregon relying on the dirtiest fossil fuel in the world for three decades is so patently ridiculous that the plan’s release arguably represents little more than a really good chance for environmental groups to highlight PGE’s double-talk regarding clean energy and global warming.  Sure enough, just last Friday the Oregon Sierra Club, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Environment Oregon held a press conference at Waterfront Park in Portland, at which all three groups criticized PGE’s short-sightedness and lack of environmental responsibility.

A couple of days ago, a few of us from the Sierra Club headed down to Eugene, Oregon, for a Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPCC) hearing at which the Council took public testimony on their 6th Northwest Power Plan – a document that will help determine energy policy in the Northwest for the next 20 years.  In Eugene, we were joined by University of Oregon students and other concerned citizens for a rally across the street from the Eugene Public Library, where the hearing was to be held.  Lane County Commissioner Pete Sorenson spoke out against coal use in the Northwest, to much applause.  Our numbers were bolstered by a sizable group of local high school students who started a spontaneous chant in favor of a clean energy future for Oregon, and joined their elders in holding up a banner reading “Oregon Deserves Clean Energy Now.”

Continue reading ‘Toward a Coal-Free Northwest’

I have recently moved to Oregon and I just attended my first energy hearing on the West Coast.  As someone who comes from the Southeast US, it was extremely refreshing to be at a hearing that was about a regional energy plan focused on efficiency, conservation and renewable energy and NOT about any new coal or nuclear plants or reducing mining protections!  The plan was created by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a group created by Congress to give the citizens of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington a stronger voice in determining the future of key resources common to all four states.  The plan is definitely more on the right track than anything I’ve seen in the Southeast, but considering the dire status of our climate (a new study predicted that even with some carbon cuts we will see 6.3 degrees F of warming by 2100) including our need to reach 350 ppm of CO2 from our current 387, the plan must go further.

Continue reading ‘NW Power Plan on track, but must go further!’

Tonight, EPA Admin Lisa Jackson spoke at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.  I put on my best duds and bought some tickets so that some friends and I could go, hear her talk about our “Green Future” and ask her some pointed questions about mountaintop removal.  The room was packed with EPA employees, PG&E employees (they were a co-sponsor of the event) and folks from ENGOs.  Lots of others as well.

I went with folks from RAN, Greenpeace and Climate Ground Zero.  All my friends are passionate about coal and mountaintop removal.  We felt compelled to go and ask her pointed.

Her speech was little too sunshine-ey for my tastes.  I’m not too keen on politicians telling me it’s going to all be ok, simply because we’ve had a change of administrations (who seem to be aligned with a few too many of the same interests as the previous one.)  I’m more of a “show me ,don’t tell me” kinda guy.

As activists we employed agit-prop tactics to get our point across to Lisa Jackson that we’re not taking the issue of mountaintop removal lightly by patiently waiting for Obama’s EPA to act.   Continue reading ‘My Hot Date with Lisa Jackson’

Cross-posted from: here

The Chamber of Commerce has been fighting the regulation of carbon dioxide for a long time, and has been very intense in its opposition this year because of pending Federal legislation. Wonkroom has a great history lesson of all the shenanigans of the Chamber, most recent of which was calling for a “Scopes Monkey Trial” on global warming. Continue reading ‘Nike Leaves Chamber of Commerce Board!’

Cross Posted From Grist.

Flooding in the Philippines yesterday displaced over 600,000 people. As if we didn’t need more of an urgent call to solve the climate crisis.

Increased intensity of flooding is among one of the may well-documented impacts of global warming. The implications have hit our organizing here at the UN in Bangkok too – as some activists had to go to support their families amidst crisis.

But Filipino groups are still here in full force, emboldened to call for the solutions their communities need – this morning The Peasant Movement of the Philippines and the National Federation of Peasant Women in the Philippines held a demonstration in front of the United Nations Climate Change Negotiations in Bangkok.

With vivid street theater, the groups called to abandon false solutions to climate change – such as biofuels.

Demonstrators this morning said “Climate change is not only jeopardizing our future but is being used by multi-national and trans-national corporations who are the main contributors to global warming to rake in more profit from our misery…vast tracts of agricultural lands around the world are being controlled and converted by plunderers into cash-crop plantations such as biofuels and other corporate schemes that forcibly drives us out from our land.”

Their calls for climate equity in negotiations were echoed by even more demonstrators today from Jubilee South and many others, calling on rich countries to pay their ecological and climate debt to the rest of the world. Activists from Thailand, Nepal, Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Africa, and Latin America mobilized to push Northern countries to recognize their historical and disproportionate contributions to climate change, and the disproportionate negative impacts suffered by the Global South. This concept of climate debt is increasingly gaining traction among international civil society, flipping on its head the idea of the debt owed by the South to the North from loans from international finance institutions.

As civil society groups call for financing and compensation for the averse affects of climate change for affected peoples, delegates inside the UN continue to debate on our 3rd day of the climate talks. The pressure is on, and the 600,000 people displaced in the last day only add to the urgency.

Check out this new video from the Consequence campaign. Obama has (or had) the right words, but he’s not hearing from us.  And now he’s going to Copenhagen to promote the Chicago olympic bid, but he won’t commit to go for the climate negotiations?  He needs to hear from us, and see us, and know that we’re fighting for the climate.

Posted on behalf of Dan Abrams, Massachusetts Power Shift Boston Media Coordinator and student at Northeastern University.

On Thursday, Massachusetts Power Shift (MAPS) officially kicked off our intense fall campaign – to re-power Massachusetts with 100% clean electricity within the next ten years.  We’ve named it the “Leadership Campaign,” to demonstrate that now is the time that we step up and answer the call to leadership which our politicians and those who represent us have failed to answer. The goal of the campaign is to make Massachusetts a leader in renewable energy and climate solutions by passing a bill to re-power the Commonwealth with 100 percent clean electricity in 10 years by Dec 7th 2009. By being leaders at home, the people of Massachusetts ensure the leadership of our state, of our Senator, John Kerry, and of our country in Copenhagen as it leads the world towards a future that preserves human life, heals our planet, and takes bold steps towards sustainability at home.

We kicked off our campaign with a line up of impressive speakers supporting our actions.  State Senator Marc Pacheco, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Atmospheric Science Professor at MIT, Craig Altemose, Mass Power Shift Coordinator, and Reverend Jack Johnson, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches all spoke on behalf of the need for strong climate leadership.

Sen. Pacheco reaffirmed the importance of every day citizens holding their elected officials – at every level – accountable.  We must ensure that our leaders act on our behalf.  Dr. Emanuel gave us the rundown on the most up-to-date climate science and what it means for the state of Massachusetts.  Rev. Johnson followed up with a moral perspective.  Climate change is more than just too much carbon in the atmosphere.  It is a political issue, economic issue, moral and religious issue and most importantly a human issue. We must work to protect not just ourselves, but our fellow man and fellow creatures that inhabit this earth now and in the future.

As we all are aware, the current federal bill (ACES) is basically a joke.  Under a best case scenario, the bill will reduce our emissions to around 1% below 1990 levels by 2020.  It is imperative we do more than this inadequate piece of legislation.  We at MAPS see Massachusetts having a great opportunity for bold climate leadership right within our state.  Massachusetts has a strong history been a crucial national leader. The Commonwealth was a battleground for the American Revolution and we championed progressive politics by legalizing gay marriage.  It is not unreasonable then to expect nothing less than this unshrinking leadership for our current crisis: global climate disruption.

Besides our progressive history, Massachusetts is also in another unique position: our US Senator, John Kerry, will be the US chief negotiator at Copenhagen.  We must send Kerry off to this summit knowing his state is committing itself to fighting global climate disruption with full force.  That is why our goal has an end date – December 7th, the first day of the climate summit.

Continue reading ‘Mass Power Shift and Mass Council of Churches Kick-off Leadership Campaign’

People in Copenhagen aren’t waiting around for world leaders to take action on climate change, on September 26 about 1,500 people took direct action to shut down one of Copenhagen’s coal fire power plants. The SHUT IT DOWN action plan had been openly announced several months earlier and Danish police had been gearing up for massive use of force to trial new anti-protest laws. Around 100 protesters managed to get inside the power plant. Although at that point the plant should have been shut down due to safety regulations, it was kept running. Around 100 people have been arrested. One person so far has been charged. The action was widely and positively covered in Danish news. The protesters regard this act of mass civil disobience for climate justice an encouraging success and a positive trial run for the actions surrounding the COP 15 climate conference in December in Copenhagen.

The future seems pretty dire as article after article is released describing a future planet that is ravaged by the effects of climate change. Just this week, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released a study that our future is shaping up to be worse than the most grim predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). Though despite the torrential downpour of bad news, we can not let ourselves become fatalistic about our future. Sure there is a lot of work to be done, but it is possible. Here is another story that is unfolding–one that reminds us there is a better way.

As the Senate gears up to tackle global warming, the Student PIRGs are working with more than 150 student interns on college campuses across the country to spotlight the need to combat global warming and urge our national political leaders to take immediate action to confront the problem.

With many schools across the country back in session the Student PIRGs kicked off this effort yesterday, teaming up with Campus Progress, Sierra Student Coalition, and the Clean Energy Works table on a National Campus Call-In Day for Global Warming Solutions. Generating 2392 calls into Senate offices, students on 33 campuses in 12 states (CA, CT, IA, IN, MA, MD, MO, NJ, NM, OH, WI, WA) organized events on campus that featured 20-foot wind turbines, Muscle-suit costumes, Super Hero Senators and more.

At Indiana University for instance, INPIRG students decorated Senator Evan Bayh in a superhero costume and mobilized 256 students to call his office (in the pouring rain) and urge him to be ‘Senate Superhero’ on climate.

Media Highlights:

WISPIRG calls on Feingold to support green-energy bill, The Daily Cardinal, University of Wisconsin, Madison

INPIRG lobbies Bayh for real-life changes, Indiana Daily Student (Indiana University)

Volunteers dress as Santa, push global warming solutions, Daily Targum (Rutgers University)

Building grassroots power on campus is critical for the prospects of a Senate climate bill this fall and students on campus understand that. Melissa Grau, a student intern with WISPIRG said “We have to accelerate our progress to stop global warming… Continue reading ‘National Campus Call-In Day Update’