It’s Getting Hot In Here

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis 40 years ago, where he was assassinated, to help support the long struggle of the city’s sanitation workers for decent jobs and dignity. He was also speaking out against the Vietnam War, organizing a Poor People’s March on Washington, and crafting an Economic Bill of Rights, calling for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America’s cities. In Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community, the last book he released before he was killed, he wrote:

There is a need for a radical restructuring of the architecture of American society … For the evils of racism, poverty and militarism to die, a new set of values must be born. Our economy must become more person-centered than property-and profit-centered. Our government must depend more on its moral power than on its military power. Let us, therefore, not think of our movement as one that seeks to integrate the Negro into all the existing values of American society. Let us be those creative dissenters who call our beloved nation to a higher destiny.”

Today, the struggles for economic and racial justice must merge with the struggle to stop global warming. Its worst effects will be visited on the poor, and the great economic opportunity a clean energy future offers should be shared fairly with them. Equal protection and equal opportunity was what King demanded in the 1960s. We should be demanding the same today.

As Congress prepares a giant Economic Stimulus package — up to $150 billion in emergency spending — and George W. Bush suggests that it be more tax cuts for the rich, there is no better way to honor Dr. King’s memory and continue his struggle than to demand that Congress offer stimulus that is green and economically just. Click here to send a message to your member of Congress:

Continue reading ‘Honoring Dr. King in the economic stimulus’

After John Edwards thrashed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in MoveOn’s online straw poll on climate and energy, I wrote a piece here asking when the two front-runners would offer up their own bold and comprehensive proposal.

Obama finally has (for the most part) - see his announcement here.

There’s some great stuff, including a 100% auction of pollution credits towards a cap to reduce emissions 80% by 2050, $150 billion spent on clean energy and green jobs and making the U.S. a leader in international negotiations. All good things and part of the 1Sky platform we’re advocating for at Power Shift, our first-ever national youth summit.

This paragraph from his proposal is particularly good and sounds like things we’ve been advocating for here and with our allies at Green For All:

Barack Obama also believes the transition to a clean energy economy holds special promise for low-income communities and families, which are poised to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden of global climate change. To combat this problem, Obama will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to invest in disconnected and disadvantaged youth. This program will provide youth participants with energy efficiency and environmental service opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of homes and buildings in their communities, while also providing them with practical skills and experience in important career fields of expected high-growth employment. The program will engage private sector employers and unions to provide apprenticeship opportunities. Participants will not only be able to use their training to find new jobs, but also build skills that will help them move up the career ladder over time.”

There’s also some key things not to like in Obama’s plan, like investments in “low-emissions coal plants” (remember Harry Reid saying there’s no such thing as clean coal?), his short-term emissions target of 1990 levels by 2020 (ahem, the European Union is aiming for 30% below 1990 levels by 2020 if the U.S. steps up), and his energy intensity target that sounds dangerously like a notorious Bushism.

But it’s a start. The big question for me now is … When’s Hillary Clinton going to get serious about this issue?

This is the kind of thing I LOVE to see. Last month, Ohio became the first state to require new public schools to be built to LEED standards and are embarking on a major green renovation initiative as well - and they’re financing it with billions of dollars from a tobacco settlement!

For those who haven’t seen it yet, here’s a recent study that makes a very strong case for Green Schools.

Speaking with reporters at a renewable energy conference in Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced his opposition to the construction of any new coal-fired power plants worldwide.  Says Reid:

There’s not a coal-fired plant in America that’s clean. They’re all dirty.

For more information about the many recent victories leading towards a moratorium on coal, check here.

MoveOn.Org just held a straw poll on climate change, and John Edwards won by a landslide. Over 100,000 voted based on short video responses to questions asked by MoveOn members, and Edwards got 33% - more than the next two candidates (Kucinich and Obama) combined. See the press release here.

None of the candidates are where they should be on this. It’s particularly disheartening that the front-runners, Obama and Clinton, haven’t offered a plan remotely to the scale of the problem.

Dan Carol, a co-founder of the Apollo Alliance, wrote a brilliant open letter in the Huffington Post to Obama urging him to match his bold rhetoric with a bold plan:

My gut is that the answer lies in marrying a call to national service around energy efficiency and independence - getting young and old, union worker and apprentice, city and rural, black and brown and white, retrofitting a new America and busy creating the jobs and industries of tomorrow. This is hardly a new idea, but no one yet owns the idea in this campaign. To own it you need to bet big and go all in, Texas hold-em style.

People want the whole enchilada - new federal R&D and clean energy earmarks in every Congressional district, national service to weatherize the 13 million homes that remain eligible for federal assistance (many in inner cities), and I’ll even bet Americans would reach into their pockets and buy freedom bonds to invest even more if they knew the jobs created would stay at home.

This is an idea whose time has come, but the key is scale. An initiative like this could pay for itself over time with the energy savings it would generate, but it would require an upfront investment of at least $50 billion. That’s a little over 4 months in Iraq and Afganistan, according to recent estimates of the cost of those conflicts.

Any bets on which candidate will get there first? Any ideas on what we can do to help get them there?

So the primaries are eight months away, but the campaigns are in full swing and the first Democratic Candidates’ Debate was on a Thursday night in Columbia, SC. For the full video, click here, and for the transcript, click here.

Responding to a call from two-thirds of the South Carolina Legislature and championed by their youngest representative - 22-year old Bakari Sellers, see here, the candidates did debate climate and energy policy. I copied the relevant statements from the debate (see below the fold). Few specifics were discussed, but Richardson called for 90% carbon reductions by 2050, one-upping Edwards’ 80% by 2050 plan, and Chris Dodd’s call for 80% by 2050.

But mostly, I’m curious who you all thought was strongest on those issues in the debate. And, more generally, who you think would make the best climate president.
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Continue reading ‘Racing towards the Climate Election - POLL’

The 502nd school to join The Challenge was The Collegiate School, where I went to from 1-12th grades. I spoke to the upper school a few months ago and have been working with students, faculty and staff since then on developing a climate plan for the school and building a network with other NYC schools. It’s been some of the most rewarding work I’ve done this school year.

Has your high school joined? Can you help them?

One helpful resource is a report that Cap-E wrote about the benefits of Green Schools in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers, American Institute of Architects, American Lung Association, Federation of American Scientists and U.S. Green Building Council. Check it out here.

As we gear up for a HUGE Climate Week of Action, if you needed a little extra fire in your belly, check this short clip:

A great piece by Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of Honor the Earth, about localizing our power systems and how different tribes across the U.S. are leading the way. As major power companies make a last ditch push to build new coal and nuke plants during this fossil-friendly administration, we need to counter with a different vision:

Distributed power production, matched with efficiency, is the key. According to the Department of Energy, we squander up to two-thirds of our present fossil-fuel electricity as waste; we lose immense amounts in inefficient production, heating, and transportation systems.

We must reduce our consumption, then create distributed energy systems, where local households and businesses can produce power and sell extra into the grid. Relatively small-scale and dispersed wind, solar, or even biomass generation provides the possibility for production at the tribal or local level without involving big money and big corporations. That, in turn, allows for a large measure of local accountability and control—pretty much the definition of democracy—and an appreciation for where we are and where we need to go.

Click here to read the full article at Yes Magazine.

On December 12th, 2006 community members in Burnham, New Mexico established a blockade to prevent preliminary work for the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired power plant (covered at IGHIH here and then here). For ongoing updates, check: www.desert-rock-blog.com AND check a request for support and media alert copied below the fold.

The short film, “Making a Stand at Desert Rock” was just released - directed by Klee Benally and Produced by Indigenous Action Media.

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Continue reading ‘Making a Stand at Desert Rock’