From Clayton Thomas-Muller

We all know the Olympics are about more than fun and games but we need your action to help get the facts heard! The Olympics industry tries to promote that the 2010 Winter Games a re making a positive contribution for our ‘social, economic, and environmental benefit’, but in reality the Olympic Industry causes large-scale environmental destruction and negative social impacts – as do many of its corporate sponsors.

Right here in our backyard, we have the largest industrial project on the planet, the Tar Sands, and two of the top Tar Sands investors are lead sponsors with the Olympics – Royal Bank and Petro Canada/Suncor. The Royal Bank of Canada is the largest financier of Tar Sands expansions and Petro Canada/Suncor directly operates six Tar Sands projects, is a major supporter of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline – a project set to devastate communities and land throughout Alberta, BC and the Northwest Territories – and is the main energy supplier to the Olympics.

This means the Olympics are being powered up by Tar Sands crude!

On Saturday February 13th, 2010 we are calling on all anti-capitalist, Indigenous, housing rights, labour, migrant justice, environmental, anti-war, community-loving, anti-poverty, civil libertarian, and anti colonial activists – who are not able to make it to the No 2010 convergence in Vancouver – to hold solidarity actions in their communities against Olympics and Tar Sands projects like the Royal Bank and Petro Canada/Suncor. Please send in photos and updates about your actions to noolympicsnotarsands@gmail.com

Want some action ideas?

Target a Royal Bank or Petro Canada/Suncor in your community and:

• Hold a die-in to represent the lives lost and threaten from both Olympics and Tar Sands operations.
• Wrap ‘climate criminal’ tape or ‘caution’ tape around a Royal Bank or Petro Canada.
• Print off the stencils attached to this e-mail and put them around a Royal Bank or  Petro Canada to signify the oily footprints of the corporation with the slogan ‘thetarsandsblow.org’ – Click here to download your very own Oily Tar Sands Footprint stencils.
• Paint a large banner and signs with slogans of concern around the tar sands and the Olympics and stage a rally outside a Royal Bank or Petro Canada

In the United States or Europe?

No problem! There are SO many banks and oil companies conspiring to commit the world’s greatest climate crime, here is a quick list of the dirtiest:

• USA Banks: Bank of America, Citibank
• European Banks: HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays
• Oil Companies: Shell, Exxon, BP, Total, Chevron, Esso, Conoco, Enbridge, Syncrude, Suncor, TCPL (Trans-Canada Pipeline)

So pick your favorite bad guy and take action on February 13, 2010!

Check out these links for useful background info and handouts.

• 2010 Corporate Campaign Materials
• Olympics Resistance Network Factsheets and Flyers
• RBC Tar Sands 2010 leaflet
• The Lie of the Green Olympics
• Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign

For action resources, including easy to use handouts and ‘climate criminal’ tape please contact: Eriel Deranger at ederanger@ran.org

This action supported by: Indigenous Environmental Network, Rainforest Action Network, Oilsandstruth, UK Tar Sands Network and many more…

The fossil fools ain’t no joke – but that doesn’t mean we can’t fight them with one!

The Fossil Fuel Empire is real and it’s here. The stakes couldn’t be higher: destabilization of the global climate, communities from Alaska to Appalachia being destroyed by dirty energy extraction and combustion, devastating super hurricanes, droughts, flooding, the list goes on…

Last December in Copenhagen, the politicians sold us out to the fossil fools, corporate lobbyists and big banks. Now we’re left with “green capitalism,” carbon market shenanigans and continued assaults on our communities and ecosystems. If we’re going to stop climate change, the only real solution is to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

This April, join Rising Tide North America as we pull some pranks that pack a punch. Use the simply subversive to the downright disruptive: office occupations, banner drops, road blockades, clownish parades, spoof product launches, sub-vertising, leaflets, street theater, lock-downs and laugh-ins. Whatever works for you and your group!

Climate change is no laughing matter, but we can’t take things too seriously all the time. Join us this Fossil Fools Day as we employ our senses of humor to hatch some harebrained schemes that will strike a blow to fossil foolery everywhere!

And remember what Abbie Hoffman said: “The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.”

Let us know if your group wants to endorse or co-sponsor!

WHAT: Actions, Jokes and Pranks Galore to Stop the Fossil Fools
WHERE: Your Town USA
WHEN; April 1st, 2010
CONTACT: fossilfoolsday@risingtidenorthamerica.org
FOR MORE INFO: http://www.fossilfoolsdayofaction.org [to be updated soon!]

Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood radical climate network, Rising Tide North America

More than I ever thought, businesses are serious about sustainability. And I’m not talking just small businesses – I’m talking about big corporations like Disney, ESPN, and Aspen Ski Company. I know this because I recently was at the 2010 Winter X Games in Aspen, seeing behind the scenes, meeting the people responsible for environmental projects, and generally witnessing first hand through observation and conversation how serious these companies are getting about environmental stewardship.

I journeyed to the X Games this year wearing two hats: I’m an Educator with ACE (Alliance for Climate Education) and also our new National Campaigns Manager. ACE was invited to bring our sweet climate change assembly and our new Do One Thing (DOT) campaign to Aspen to support some of ESPN’s environmental initiatives. This was an amazing experience for a number of reasons! It’s easier to illuminate the experience in video – so if you’re interested, check out a short clip of some of our live reporting last week:

Here’s the scoop on what the companies I mentioned at the start are doing to lower their carbon emissions and raise their voices for a future safe from climate change:

Aspen Ski Co has dedicated millions of dollars and countless staff hours to environmental conservation and protection initiatives and have more in the pipes. What’s more, they recently joined BICEP (Businesses for Innovate Climate and Energy Policies), to take their environmental initiatives to the next level. BICEP companies are getting serious about clearn-energy and climate lobbying and Aspen Ski Co joined because they know their business depends on a safe and predictable – not warming – climate. Aspen Ski Co knows that climate uncertainty means business uncertainty, so they are taking action.

Disney and ESPN have formed something called their “Environmentality Initiative,” which is a program to preserve environmental health, promote environmental sustainability, and raise awareness about responsible environmental stewardship. We hung out with Fabian DeGarbo, ESPN’s Senior Manager for Global Sustainability, for much of the weekend and got some inside information about all the efforts to minimize waste, conserve energy, and minimize the environmental footprint of the X-Games. They’re getting serious with composting, waste diversion, and saving tons of energy. They’re doing so much, I think they’re giving Bonaroo a run for their money!

My experience at the X Games taught me more than I thought it would. For one thing, Shaun White is a beast on the superpipe. More relevant to my line of work: businesses recognize that clean energy and environmental sustainability lie at the core of their success, now and in the future. I was thrilled to see three giant companies – that many of us admire and respect already – recognizing the threats and opportunities that our changing climate presents and bringing a bold plan for a cleaner, brighter future.

And friends in the movement – if I can share an idea that I’ve just come to realize, it’s this: businesses can be our allies in the fight against climate change – with the exception of perhaps the Chamber of Commerce and a few others. They’re influential, powerful, and self-interested. If we frame the conversation correctly, that what’s good for the planet (and human health) can be good for business, we’ll find some loud and powerful voices shouting on the behalf of fair, responsible, and just climate and environmental policy.

Make friends. Build consensus. Change the world.

Cross-posted at The Leadership Campaign Blog

Today, An Act to Create a Repower Massachusetts Emergency Task Force — written by Students for a Just and Stable Future (SJSF) and others in The Leadership Campaign — was released from the Senate Ethics and Rules Committee during the 6th Day of Climate Court Hearings for the Boston Common Sleep-out.

Each day last week, citizen-activists marched from the Court House after paying their court fees to the State House to show legislators the depth and breadth of support for the bill.  Well over 100 people faced the courts last week for sleeping out on the Boston Common after the park had formally closed (a misdemeanor trespassing offense).

After scores of people visited his and other key legislator’s offices indicating their support, Senator Frederick Berry, Chair of the Senate Ethics & Rules Committee (and Senate Majority Leader) released the bill from his committee and moved it along to the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy.

“We are extremely thankful to Senator Berry for releasing our bill from committee, opening debate to legislators across the state and allowing us to focus our energy on gathering the votes needed to pass it this spring,” said Martha Pskowski, Hampshire student and Western Massachusetts Legislative Coordinator for SJSF.

The bill, introduced on December 7th in both houses of the State Legislature after 7 straight weeks of sleep-outs and lobbying, would create a Repower Massachusetts Emergency Task Force that would have a six-month mandate to evaluate the steps required to obtain 100% clean electricity by 2020, and issue a report with regulatory and legislative recommendations.

The Leadership Campaign, a coalition of groups in support of the bill – and the broader goal of 100% clean electricity – will now be turning its attention to show support to Senator Michael Morrissey and Representative Barry Finegold, Senate and House Chairs, respectively, of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy.

Further MA citizens will face the courts tomorrow and on Thursday as the court dates had to be spread out over the course of 10 days (the last two court appearances will be in May and September for students who had traveled abroad).

The next statewide sleep-out will occur on the Amherst Common on February 20th, followed by the Cambridge Common on March 28th, with a return to the Boston Common scheduled for April 21st (the night before the 40th anniversary of Earth Day).

“We’re very excited to be able to move forward with our bill, and are looking forward to working with community members, students, organizations, and businesses as we enter the next stage of the bill process.” said Jamaica Kelley, a graduate student of social work at Simmons and the State Legislative Coordinator for SJSF.

Participants in sleep-outs have included Bill McKibben, Dr. James Hansen, Green-Rainbow Party Gubernatorial Candidate Jill Stein, Rev. Fred Small, Rev. Jim Antal, and hundreds of inspiring students, faculty, and community members.  The leading organizations of The Leadership Campaign include the Mass Council of Churches, Unitarian Universalist Mass Action, Somerville Climate Action Network, and Students for a Just and Stable Future.

[The following was co-written by Naomi Klein, author of #1 international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, Terry Tempest Williams, world renowned wildlife author, Bill Mckibben, founder of 350.org and author of The End Of Nature, and Dr. James Hansen, author of Storms of my Grandchildren, and who is regarded as the world's leading climatologist. All recognize the trial of Tim DeChristopher to be a turning point in the climate movement. Please visit our resource page for more information]

Dear Friends,

The epic fight to ward off global warming and transform the energy system that is at the core of our planet’s economy takes many forms: huge global days of action, giant international conferences like the one that just failed in Copenhagen, small gestures in the homes of countless people.

But there are a few signal moments, and one comes next month, when the federal government puts Tim DeChristopher on trial in Salt Lake City. Tim—“Bidder 70”– pulled off one of the most creative protests against our runaway energy policy in years: he bid for the oil and gas leases on several parcels of federal land even though he had no money to pay for them, thus upending the auction. The government calls that “violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act” and thinks he should spend ten years in jail for the crime; we call it a noble act, a profound gesture made on behalf of all of us and of the future.

Tim’s action drew national attention to the fact that the Bush Administration spent its dying days in office handing out a last round of favors to the oil and gas industry. After investigating irregularities in the auction, the Obama Administration took many of the leases off the table, with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar criticizing the process as “a headlong rush.” And yet that same Administration is choosing to prosecute the young man who blew the whistle on this corrupt process.

We cannot let this stand. When Tim disrupted the auction, he did so in the fine tradition of non-violent civil disobedience that changed so many unjust laws in this country’s past. Tim’s upcoming trial is an occasion to raise the alarm once more about the peril our planet faces. The situation is still fluid—the trial date has just been set, and local supporters are making plans for how to mark the three-day proceedings. But they are asking people around the country to flood into Salt Lake City in mid-March. If you come, there will be ample opportunity for both legal protest and civil disobedience. For example:

#Outside the courthouse, there will be a mock trial, with experts like NASA’s Jim Hansen providing the facts that should be heard inside the chambers. We don’t want Tim on trial—we want global warming on the stand.

#Demonstrators will be using the time-honored tactics of civil disobedience to make their voices heard outside the courthouse in an effort to prevent “business as usual”—it’s business as usual that’s wrecking the earth.

#There will be evening concerts and gatherings, including a “mini-summit” to share ideas on how the climate movement should proceed in the years ahead. This is a people’s movement that draws power from around the globe; for a few days its headquarters will be Salt Lake City.

You can get the most up-to-date news at climatetrial.com, including schedules for non-violence training, and information about legal representation. If you’re coming, bring not only your passion but also your creativity—we need lots of art and music to help make the point that we won’t sit idly by while the government tries to scare the environmental movement into meek cooperation. This kind of trial is nothing but intimidation—and the best answers to intimidation are joy and resolve. That’s what we’ll need in Utah.

We know it’s short notice. Some of us won’t be able to make it to Utah because we have other commitments or are limiting travel, and if you’re in the same situation, climatetrial.com will also have details of solidarity actions in other parts of the country. If you can contribute money to help make the week’s events possible, click here. But more than your money we need your body, your brains, and your heart. In a landscape of little water, where redrock canyons rise upward like praying hands, we can offer our solidarity to the wild:  wild lands and wild hearts.  Tim DeChristopher deserves and needs our physical and spiritual support in the name of a just and vibrant community.

Thank you for standing with us,

Naomi Klein,

Bill McKibben,

Terry Tempest Williams,

Dr. James Hansen

As a tribute to the inspiring Climate Generation series, I thought I would re-publish this early history of Energy Action, originally written in December 2005.

A History of Energy Action

We each arrived on the scene from different beginnings. Billy Parish, Adi Nochur, and Meg Boyle were taking time in and out of school to pull together a powerful new climate coalition in the Northeast U.S.. Maureen Cane, Arthur Coulston, and Marcia Winslade were establishing their own sustainability network in California after a major clean energy victory at one of the nations’ largest university systems. Lindsay Telfer and Jeca Glor-Bell were spearheading an innovative sustainable campuses initiative in Canada as part of the Sierra Youth Coalition. Nick Algee and Liz Veazey were storming through the American Southeast shouting “Green Power” in the heart of coal country. Tricia Feeney and I were building a national student clean energy campaign with the Student Environmental Action Coalition. We were joined by networks, campaigns, and individuals from all corners of the US and Canada, all committed to bringing about a clean energy revolution. With relatively little national organizing experience and few of us over the age of 25, we set out to tackle the beasts of global warming and dirty energy by creating a North American youth and student clean energy and climate coalition rooted in unified action.

Thanks to the efforts of more than 20 environmental networks and organizations and more than 300 student campaigns for clean energy across the United States and Canada, the student and youth clean energy movement has become a powerful force for change locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. As is so often the case with important movements, our network grew out of several small, but forceful local examples initiated by students and young people. In the mid to late 1990s, Middlebury College, Tufts University, Northland College, and University of Vermont all made significant clean energy achievements. Students played an important role at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 where the seeds were planted for a concerted international response to the problem of global warming. Between 1997 and 2001, University of Vermont, Tufts University, Cornell University, and Lewis and Clark College in Oregon had all committed to or achieved the greenhouse gas emission reduction levels called for in the Kyoto Protocol. By 2001, 55 colleges in New Jersey had committed to reducing greenhouse gas levels to 3.5% below 1990 levels. The student campaign, “Kyoto Now!” at Cornell was particularly important for the growth of the national movement.

In the spring of 2001, Cornell students staged rallies, sit-ins, and collected thousands of signatures in support of a resolution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the standards of the Kyoto Protocol. Following their success in April, Cornell students took the campaign to the Student Environmental Action Coalition’s National Meeting in Berea, KY. At the January 2002 meeting, SEAC’s National Council adopted Kyoto Now! as one of its three national campaigns. Meanwhile, several other campuses had won monumental victories that changed the landscape for energy policy decisions of school administrators across the country. In 2001, the University of Pennsylvania, Penn State University, and Carnegie Mellon University made the three largest retail wind energy purchases in the U.S. In the Spring of 2001 students at the University of Colorado at Boulder set a new precedent for the student clean energy movement by agreeing to increase their own student fees by $1.00 per semester for the next four years to pay for clean energy. The funds were enough to purchase 2 MW of wind energy per year, or enough for a large industrial-size wind turbine.

By 2003, students were coming together in record numbers to address the problems of dirty energy and global warming. On the West Coast, students working with Greenpeace USA’s Clean Energy Now! Campaign won an enormous victory for solar power on July 17^th, 2003 when the University of California Regents passed a resolution that mandates a purchase of 10 megawatts of onsite renewable energy for the entire UC system. In addition to having a dramatic impact on the renewable energy market, the UC victory has helped build a strong student coalition for clean energy led by Greenpeace and the new California Student Sustainability Coalition.

Also in 2003, a new coalition of six leading student environmental networks in the Northeast chose the “Climate Campaign” as their primary focus. The six networks, ECO-Northeast, Sierra Student Coalition, SEAC, Free the Planet!, Envirocitizen, and the Student PIRGS, have brought the often fractured student environmental movement together in a way that hasn’t been seen for years. In the Northeast, students are now hosting call-in days to their governors to push statewide Climate Action Plans, organizing conferences with hundreds of participants from around the Northeast and Eastern Canada, and communicating regularly through conference calls, listservs, and physical gatherings.

Last summer, youth organizers from SEAC’s national Kyoto Now! Campaign, now called “Youth Power Shift”, Greenpeace, and the Climate Campaign met in Detroit, Michigan during SEAC’s National Meeting to discuss bringing together the clean energy movement for a National Day of Action the coming Fall of 2003. Siting concerns about the many differences between local campaigns and the potential drawbacks of trying to pull off a day of action for clean energy when so much emphasis was placed on anti-war efforts, the group decided to keep goals modest. The November 13th National Day of Action for Clean Energy Campuses blew away all of our expectations. We far surpassed our initial goal of 25 campus actions with 65 groups ultimately participating in the Day of Action across the United States! In addition to bringing together dozens of student groups who had never been part of such an effort, the Day of Action signaled the birth of a new student and youth clean energy coalition. The November Day of Action was pulled together by a well-coordinated, respectful, and enthusiastic band of organizations including SEAC’s Youth Power Shift Campaign, Greenpeace, the Climate Campaign, the California Student Sustainability Coalition, Religious Witness for the Earth and NY PIRG.

Collaboration within our coalition has centered on monthly or bi-monthly conference calls and communication over our email listserv. This communication has led to the formation of temporary working groups to plan media strategy, newsletter publication, outreach, and other tasks related to pulling off a successful day of action. In February, 2004 the Climate Campaign and the overall coalition stepped up outreach and recruitment efforts to get over 350 students from around the Northeast and Eastern Canada to a Climate Conference at Harvard University. The Conference featured several workshops on strengthening campus campaigns and state-based strategy sessions for planning collaboration for the April 1^st Day of Action. These strategy sessions proved a boon to the participation levels of the Day of Action as more than 50 of the 130 actions on April 1^st came from groups in the Northeast.

Beginning with telephone discussions shortly after November 13^th, the coalition developed a plan to promote a massive, more coordinated Day of Action for the spring. Early in 2004 the date of April 1^st was chosen along with an April Fools Day theme related to moving beyond the foolishness of fossil fuels. With the success of November 13^th behind us and plenty of time to reach out to new organizations and networks, the coalition set forth a lofty goal of involving 125 local campaigns in another Day of Action for clean energy. We knew that in order to reach this goal we had to expand the coalition to new parts of the country, involving groups with a strong base in those areas. The participation of Envirocitizen in the Pacific Northwest and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in the Southeast helped make this possible.

The development of a Southeast Climate Network by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and several local student groups planning the Southeast Renewable Energy Conference in Chapel Hill, NC was an important key to the success of April 1^st. Outreach for the Southeast Renewable Energy Conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill held on April 2^nd-4^th coincided directly with outreach for the Day of Action. Adding to the enthusiasm of the Day of Action on April 1^st were a series of monumental clean energy victories at University of Tennessee, Appalachian State University, and University of the South-Sewanee. In late March, UT became the largest purchaser of clean energy in the region. More than 300 students came together in Chapel Hill for the Conference as several partner organizations in our coalition made the trip and sat down to discuss plans for the future. It was in Chapel Hill where the groups decided to use a physical meeting in Washington D.C. in June 2004 to solidify plans for the fall and better establish the coalition physically and conceptually.

With the planning of our meeting in D.C., several more groups have stepped up their involvement beyond previous levels and put energy into the coalition. Clean energy and climate issues have become a major topic for youth and student groups across the US and Canada. This spring, Unity College in Maine and Western Washington University have made commitments to purchase 100% renewable electricity. Students at Illinois State University have launched a national campaign to resist the construction of several new nuclear reactors around the country, including a reactor only a few miles away in Clinton, IL. Canadian students have called on Prime Minister Paul Martin to set a clean energy target for Canada of 10% by 2012 and 20% by 2020. At the same time, Canadian students have called on their administrations to invest heavily in energy efficiency and green building practices. With an environmentally disasterous energy bill being considered in Congress, Russia ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, and millions of US citizens being turned on to the issue of climate change in this election year, the time for a heavy shift to cleaner, more just energy systems is upon us. This coalition now has a unique opportunity to channel the activism and creativity of grassroots youth and student initiatives into a powerful new vision for the future.

Area fire and ambulance crews arrive near the scene in Middletown, Conn., Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010. Multiple people have died in an explosion at a power plant in Connecticut and an unknown number of people are injured. (AP Photo/Richard Messina, Hartford Courant)

This morning, at 11:30 am, Middletown’s Kleen Energy Power Plant suffered a major explosion,  believed to be when a gas line caught fire during testing. Friends who work at the plant said that there were 50 – 100 construction workers, engineers, and plant managers who were inside. As of 12 pm, Middletown firefighters had only found 9 individuals. Since then, five* have been reported dead, with casualties and injuries expected to be many more. Firefighters from around the state came into the plant, with Hartford and Boston’s search-and-rescue teams both coming to Middletown to help clear the wreckage and free workers still stuck inside.

Workers at the plant were working long shifts, trying to finish the plant on a tight schedule. Matthew Lesser, Middletown’s representative to state government, said, “As I understand it, they were testing a gas line when the explosion took place but we’re not sure. Our first priority is making sure that everyone there is safe.”

I live about 5 miles away from this power plant, and felt my house shake from the explosion. The nearby Connecticut Valley Hospital had windows blown out from the explosion, and while most nearby homes had little damage done, nearby towns like mine are making house calls to reassure our communities that we are still safe. In Durham’s town store, the sidewalks and our skating pond, people shared the news they were receiving from our volunteer firefighters, from friends who were supposed to have gone into work, and from friends living nearby the plant.

Fossil fuels are not safe. They are not safe for our planet, they are not safe for our communities, and they are not safe for the workers inside of their power plants. This is not the first power plant explosion, this will not be the last. It is time for America to commit to a clean and safe energy economy – where our friends and neighbors can work in green jobs that give good wages and safe working environments. My heart and prayers are with the workers at the Kleen Energy Plant and with their families — and with the future of our nation to not face such a tragedy again.

Are you a smart young person looking to help create a more sustainable future around the world? Do you want to rub shoulders with some of the most influential policymakers in sustainable development? Do you have ideas about how to improve the UN?

Agents of Change (AoC) is now accepting applications to join the SustainUS youth delegation to the Eighteenth Session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-18), which will be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City from May 3 – 14, 2010. CSD-18 is a review session and addresses the topics of transport, chemicals, waste management, and mining. In addition, CSD-18 will follow-up on the 2006 Johannesburg Summit call to develop a 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns.

Selected delegates will have the opportunity to work with government officials, scientists, civil society representatives, and youth from around the world to review progress on issues related to sustainable development. In the past, AoC delegates have presented case studies and policy statements on behalf of youth; participated in forums with fellow representatives of civil society; and met with government delegates, international organizations, and the US State Department.

How to apply: Please respond to the questions in the Application and email your application in the form of a single Word document to agents@sustainus.org. Applications must be received by 11:59 pm EST on Wednesday, February 17, 2010. Incomplete applications, or those not compiled into a single document, will not be considered. Applicants will be notified of their selection by early March and will be required to confirm their involvement shortly after notification. Please be sure to include all five sections of the application. If you have any questions, please contact AoC Coordinator Julia Wong at agents[at]sustainus.org

When it comes to curbing climate change, some things are easier to do than others. As activists, much of what we work towards involves large-scale, industrial change and tough decisions from consumers, legislators, and industry. But sometimes solutions are really simple. Reducing junk mail is one of those no-brainer policy changes that helps get us closer to the planet we want to see.

Just two weeks ago, the Seattle City Council took an important stand against deforestation by adopting a resolution calling on the state of Washington to create a Do Not Mail registry. The registry would create an enforceable system to allow residents to choose to keep their mailboxes junk mail free. Currently, there are various ways to reduce your junk mail, but unlike the popular national Do Not Call Registry to stop unwanted phone calls, none of these options are enforceable–and some are even industry sponsored.

Grassroots volunteers in Seattle phone-banked, hit the streets, and lobbied elected officials to ensure the adoption of this resolution. Even though popular support is clearly on the side of common sense (nearly 90% of respondents to a Zogby poll support an opt-out registry of some kind), the junk mail industry has money, power, and the time to try to hijack our democratic process. As per usual, big business is attempting to make a very simple issue much more complicated. Luckily, the growing grassroots movement to stand up for our privacy, forests, and climate is winning.

The carbon connection

Most people hate junk mail because it’s annoying and wasteful, but by destroying forests it also contributes to our climate woes. Every year, the production of junk mail emits as much greenhouse gas emissions as 9 million passenger cars, or 11 coal-fired power plants.

The paper in direct mail comes from forests that would otherwise absorb carbon and provide one of our best defenses against climate change. Deforestation and forest degradation currently account for nearly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. (Want more info on the climate connection? Check out our report Climate Change Enclosed.)

Any serious attempt to address climate change needs to take on deforestation–and could there be a better place to start than with junk mail? Direct mail in the US accounts for 30% of all the mail delivered in the world. That means almost one out of every three pieces of global mail is US junk mail. Imagine the impact we could make by reducing something Americans didn’t ask for and don’t want anyway.

Seattle isn’t the first city to adopt a resolution like this (San Francisco passed a similar resolution last year), and they will not be the last. There is a growing grassroots movement demanding accountability from companies that are cutting down our forests for junk mail.

Want to get involved?

Sign our petition to establish a national Do Not Mail Registry today, and download our toolkit for info on passing a local resolution in your city.  And if you’re looking for ideas on how to take on junk mail, watch this video from our recent Return to Offender day of action.

By Ishan Nath
Cross-posted from LeadEnergy.org

A special three-part series in last week’s San Jose Mercury News, entitled “The Cleantech Revolution,” highlighted the enormous economic opportunity in the clean-tech sector and warned that the U.S. is quickly falling behind while Asia seeks to gain global market dominance.

In its analysis of the clean technology market, the Mercury’s rhetoric is grand and its data convincing. The first part of the series begins:

“Cleantech is poised to be the valley’s third great wave of innovation — not just the next big thing, but perhaps the biggest thing ever. Confronting the peril of greenhouse gases and climate change happens to be a multi-trillion-dollar business opportunity.”

The numbers provided support this claim: U.S. yearly utility bills exceed $1 trillion annually and the global energy and transportation market is estimated at $7 trillion. The wind and solar industries — valued at $80 billion in 2008 — are projected to triple in 10 years and employ 2.6 million people. Smart-grid technology, according to Morgan Stanley, will grow to $100 billion by 2030 and Cisco Systems believes smart-grid communications infrastructure could be worth $20 billion in the next 5 years.

In a nod to its geographic location, the paper focuses primarily on Silicon Valley’s role in the industry. And local experts have a strong take on the subject:

“When it comes to cleantech, we have the largest market opportunity in the history of the planet driven by global climate change, resource constraints and energy independence,” said Dallas Kachan, managing director of Cleantech Group. “Silicon Valley is critical to this revolution, but it does not occupy the throne it once did.”

“Energy is the biggest opportunity Silicon Valley has ever seen,” declared T.J. Rodgers, the founder of Cypress Semiconductor and chairman of SunPower, a leading maker of photovoltaic panels to produce solar energy.

Much of the progress being made in the U.S. can be attributed to venture-capital funding, a development for which the Mercury has encouraging news. Venture capital investment in clean-technology grew from 3% to 25% of overall investment over the last few years, expanding from $908 million in 2002 to $8.5 billion in 2008. Significantly, California garnered 40% of the world’s funding in 2009. The Bay Area’s 7,000 renewable energy jobs make it the country’s biggest hotspot.

So with all this venture-capital flowing in, the American cleantech industry must be in good position, right? Wrong. The Mercury makes a strong appeal for the alarm bells to start going off in Washington about the state of American competitiveness.

The report declares:

“In other tech revolutions of recent decades, Silicon Valley became the uncontested global leader. The region’s ability to innovate its way to the top in cleantech, though, is far from guaranteed. Competition is fierce and global, with trillions of dollars at stake.”

True, the Valley has benefited from venture capital funding and has built-in advantages with decades of expertise in semiconductors and software – vital to solar energy production and grid integration strategies – but there are simply too many disadvantages to ignore.

For one thing, the American education system isn’t doing the clean energy revolution any favors, as noted venture capitalist Vinod Khosla observes:

“We (in Silicon Valley) don’t have a natural advantage in talent — like chemical engineers, fermentation experts, engine designers and physicists.”

This statement underscores the urgency for RE-ENERGYSE, the comprehensive energy education proposal from the Department of Energy that a growing number of organizations are mobilizing behind. But solving the problem doesn’t end there.

Like several other sources — including “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” the first comprehensive comparison of Asian vs. U.S. clean-tech competitiveness — this report outlines the extensive foreign investment in clean-energy, particularly in China. Pointing to annual investment in excess of $100 billion, renewable energy requirements, and tax incentives, the Mercury shows how China has already overtaken the lead in key markets such as solar. Once again, testimony backs the evidence, starting with a prominently supported letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

A group of valley tech executives, including former Intel CEO Andy Grove, recently sent a letter to Chu urging the energy secretary to “sound the alarm bell to make America aware — clearly and unequivocally — of how rapidly other nations, particularly China, are moving on clean energy.

“Unless we move quickly and commit substantial resources on a sustained basis, we risk becoming an energy also-ran, and risk developing a new dependency,” said the letter

Only 5 of the world’s top 30 wind, solar, and battery companies are in the United States. And on the current trajectory of only about $4 billion in annual federal investment in clean energy R&D — far below the $15 billion recommended by Nobel Laureate scientists — that trend will continue:

“Unless there’s a dramatic shift in national policy in the United States, the road to success in cleantech most likely goes through Beijing,” said Matthew Lewis, spokesman for the San Francisco office of ClimateWorks Foundation, an international philanthropic network that promotes clean energy. “From a policy perspective, they are doing everything right.”

And as the U.S. continues not to do everything right, the need for investment remains so acute because the technologies are still so new.

Every aspect of cleantech “needs new science,” said Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials.

Without adequate federal funding, this new science will come out of Beijing, as the Chinese aim to use “cleantech as a gold rush that will propel Chinese companies to world-domineering status.”

This prospect need not be seen entirely as a threat as Peggy Liu, founder of the Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, sees it: “I’m afraid people are setting up China as the enemy,” she said. “You need to treat China like a partner.”

Liu is probably right: clean-energy development is not a zero-sum game and US-China cooperation could benefit from the competitive advantages in both countries.

But the way it stands right now, the United States is standing still while other countries take advantage of “not just the next big thing, but perhaps the biggest thing ever.”