It\’s Getting Hot In Here

President Obama is on a tour across the southern USA right now promoting his plans for getting the country back to work. The number one program he highlighted? “Cash-for-Caulkers,” a $6 billion proposal to provide cash rebates to people who improve the energy efficiency of their homes. That’s right: getting America and the world back to work means investing in clean energy programs that save cash and the climate.

“This is not a Democratic idea or a Republican idea,” Obama told his audience. “This is a common-sense approach that will help jump-start job creation while making our economy stronger.”

Here’s why I like this proposal: it gives everyday people the incentive they need to get to work tackling the climate crisis from the ground up. We’ve spent so long waiting for Congress or the United Nations to take action and repeatedly watched our leaders fail to deliver. It’s time to show them how it’s done.

Continue reading ‘Getting to work: Obama pushes “Cash-for-Caulkers”’

Rising sea levels. Stronger storms. Melting ice caps. Increased famine, disease, and drought. This doesn’t have to be our future – or our legacy.

Our planet is in peril and we need our Senators to pass a strong climate bill this year. We are at a critical moment, not only for our planet, but for our country. A new bipartisan proposal is taking shape, and may be introduced in the Senate as soon as this week.

The question is, will this bill create the clean energy economy we need, or will it fall victim to lobbyists from Big Oil and Coal who will fight tooth and nail to maintain our addiction to dirty fuel?

Today, we are joining with dozens of organizations across the issue spectrum to launch a massive grassroots call-in campaign: 72 Hours for Clean American Power. Together, we will flood Senate phone lines to make sure voices for clean energy are heard over the special interests.

Join in! Add your voice to the call for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation.
Continue reading ‘Earth to C02ngress: Act on Climate NOW!’

The discussions about how to Define Our Decade are taking off in communities around the country. The Weeks of Action are coming up in 2 weeks, but already young people are having discussions about how they want to define their decade, and taking action to make it happen; this past week dozens of young people turned out at a student-called hearing at Michigan State University.  While preparing for the hearing, they had a discussion about what they want to see in the next decade, and then the next day hit the streets calling for MSU to be powered by 100% clean energy by 2020.

All of this comes at a time when the U.S. Senate continues to try to figure out how to proceed with climate and energy legislation. In a Sunday op-ed penned by Thomas Friedman titled “How the G.O.P. Goes Green,” one of the leading figures in crafting legislation, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina acknowledged that he is inspired to take up climate and energy legislation because of young people on college campuses. Graham correctly points out that young voters are driven by deeply-held environmental values, and more lawmakers would be wise to wake up to this, but Graham’s solutions of nuclear and offshore oil-drilling are both counter to our values and economic interests. Every dollar spent on the dirty energy economy, is a dollar that could have created more jobs in the clean energy economy we must create. That’s why in the coming month it’s essential that we, as the Millennial Generation, further define what our vision for a clean energy economy really is.

Already dozens of events are being hosted around the country that will help us do just that. Check out the event registration page for the full listing and see a couple of highlights below: Continue reading ‘Graham is right, for young people “climate is no-debate.” Let’s make sure we show him our solutions’

In 2009, millions of people came together around the world to pressure leaders to sign a legally binding and ambitious deal in Copenhagen. Although the final result in Copenhagen was a failure, 2009 was the year that the climate movement exploded. This energy will carry forward and we will continue to build in numbers until sustainability is achieved. This multimedia piece looks at the growth of this movement throughout 2009.

Take a moment and watch hundreds of those around the world taking action and inspiring others in the fight for climate justice.

All images (unless provided by 350.org) ©Robert van Waarden,
Music – “Open Road Kisses” by Small Affairs

Philly EPA Considering 16 New Mining Permits

This morning activists in Philadelphia descended upon their Regional EPA branch to put an end to Mountaintop Removal mining (MTR). Decisions made here in Philly have devastating consequences for Appalachian communities and our country as a whole.

Activists prepared to enter the building and risk arrest by sitting-in until they were granted a meeting with officials inside, and after a successful engagement and demands met, the rally of 40 people exited.

In recent months, the EPA has wavered in their position on mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR); in particular with the recent approval of the high profile Hobet 45 Mine permit. Philadelphia’s EPA has oversight of MTR permits for Virginia and West Virginia, which includes the Hobet 45 Mine. Philadelphia’s Region 3 EPA is considering 16 upcoming MTR permits and is responsible for the enforcement of the Clean Water Protection Act at existing MTR sites, which makes it a critical agent in ending the mining practice.

This has become a national issue. Appalachians can’t wait any longer, and Philadelphia activists met this urgency with action.

Meanwhile, there is a simultaneous rally at EPA’s region 4 in Atlanta GA, also responsible for MTR permitting.

Every day, across Appalachia, the coal industry literally blows the tops off of historic mountains, impoverishing communities, poisoning drinking water, clear-cutting entire forests, wiping out the natural habitats of countless animals, and sacrificing the heritage and the health of families across the region. The EPA estimates that more than a million acres of American mountains across Appalachia have already been lost to MTR, and yet they allow it to continue.

Continue reading ‘Philadelphia activists rally & risk arrest to tell the EPA no more MTR’

I’m writing to ask you to take a step today that can help break King Coal’s economic stranglehold on coalfield communities in Southwest Virginia. By a few simple, digital steps, and three votes, you can help jump start grass roots efforts at sustainable economic development in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Heard enough? Great. Go to Brighter Planet and vote for the Wise Energy and Sustainable Economic Development and Diversification Project. Need to know more? Read on.

WE SEDD, Green Jobs Now!
For years, communities in Central Appalachia, in parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, have been standing up to defend their quality of life, the quality of their environment and the prospects for a brighter and better tomorrow for their children and grandchildren. For over a century, the coal industry has maintained a mono-economic stranglehold on many places in Appalachia, a stranglehold that has held the coalfields captive to the destructive whims of King Coal.

Today, coalfield communities are fighting harder than ever to stop the destruction of their mountains. They are also opening a new front in the struggle against King Coal’s social violence.  From West Virginia to Tennessee, grassroots groups are coming together to promote a new kind of sustainable, and diverse economic development that keeps wealth at home, rebuilds our environment and supports our communities for the long haul.WE SEDD is one of these efforts, and it sure could use your votes

You can read more about some of these coalfield visions of sustainable development, among many other places, at Appalachian Transition Initiative, Appalachian Community Economics, Central Appalachian Prosperity Project. Below is a little bit more about the effort in Wise County. Haven’t voted yet? What are you waiting for?

Continue reading ‘Support Grassroots Sustainable Economic Development in the Coalfields!’

©Stuart Matthews

Guest post and photography essay from photographer Stuart Matthews

In November, 2009, I visited Bangladesh to document the impact of global warming on the country and its’ people. I focused on how NGO’s such as Oxfam Great Britain are collaborating with the communities to develop initiatives like the ‘Cash for Work’ program. This provides an income to the individual workers who participate in developing the climate defenses around their community.

Bangladesh has an extremely vulnerable landscape with 80% of its land made up of low-lying deltaic plains with an altitude of only 10 meters above sea level or less. This land is subject to frequent flooding during the Monsoon season, with large quantities of water flowing down the Jamuna and Padma rivers, causing catastrophic erosion along the banks of a fragile, predominantly silt, landscape.

Skip to full slideshow

Continue reading ‘Changing Tides – A Photo Essay on Bangladesh’

Through an event arranged by the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, college students from Alaska and across the United States had the opportunity to speak with McKie Campbell, Republican Staff Director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, about environmental issues in Alaska – and what Senator Murkowski is doing in Washington DC to address climate change, the opening of the Northwest Passage, and ocean acidification.

Naturally, one of the hot topics of conversation was Senator Murkowski’s bill to block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide as a criteria air pollutant.  Senator Murkowski has drawn fire for these views, since this is seen to be the last hope for achieving meaningful GHG reductions if no bill passes this year.  The chances of a bill passing this year are looking smaller and smaller – the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill has failed to materialize, despite their op-ed pledging a bipartisan bill.  According to Campbell, while Kerry this morning seemed optimistic about the state of the legislation, Senate Majority Leader Reid today stated that if a climate bill is not brought before the Senate within the two weeks, climate change is not going to be addressed this year.  This puts huge pressure on Kerry – it is increasingly clear that another year without action will have huge economic and environmental consequences.

Mr. Campbell defended Senator Murkowski’s anti-regulatory actions.  Her action against EPA regulation of carbon dioxide is not because she feels it is not contributing to global warming–rather, that the language of the Clean Air Act is not sufficient to regulate GHGs as it is now written.  Continue reading ‘Let’s Talk: Alaska’