Reporters and supporters were at a rally today to protest Maryland State police surveillance of Mike Tidwell and Josh Tulkin while working for CCAN in 2005-2006. Josh and Mike regularly met with church groups, politicians, 3rd graders–so do all these people need to be worried that their information is also in these databases?
We’re calling on the police to release this information immediately and explain their actions.
Virginians Unite!
And unite we did. At the Obama rally held at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, Virginians sent a unified message about energy. When Obama mentioned investments to create 5 million green jobs and investing in renewables like wind and solar, the crowd in front of him responded with cheers and a public display of hundreds of green scarves to show their support. It was an amazing site to behold to see a message that was so loud and so clear that it didn’t even need words. Here in Northern Virginia, we know what real clean energy is and expect the next President of the United States of American to have a plan to put us on the path to Clean Energy Future.
No one wants to gamble our future on the fairytale of “clean coal.” When our economy is in such a fragile state, the time for telling bedtime stories to ease our fears is over. We need real solutions and when we hear them you better believe we get excited. That’s what happened yesterday in Leesburg and what will continue to happen as this 21st Century energy economy becomes a reality.
Several of Maryland’s top environmental leaders today called on the state police to release all files related to a former spying campaign on activists and called on the state government to redouble its effort to fight the real terror and violence facing the state: rapid global warming. Continue reading
JOB DESCRIPTION
The Virginia Campus Organizer will be responsible for running the Campus Climate Challenge on campuses across Virginia. Continue reading
The Governor’s Commission on Climate Change is meeting tomorrow, October 23. The current plan falls shockingly short of what scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. Governor Kaine’s plan would return Virginia to 2000 emissions levels by 2025. Scientists, in comparison, say we must cut emissions 25% below 1990 levels by 2020! This means that by 2020 Virginia should reduce emissions 35% below the 2000 level. The Commission on Climate Change has the ability to increase those targets.
Virginia Environmental Organizations’ Core Recommendations to the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change
Secretary L. Preston Bryant, Chair and Members of the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change
Dear Mr. Secretary and Commission members,
We recognize that developing climate change policy recommendations is an extremely complex endeavor. The variety of sources of carbon emissions, combined with the even greater number of control measures, the uncertain economics, and the competing stakeholders make this a most difficult charge.
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UPDATE: Andrew Revkin weighs in: “Climate Campaigners Were on Terrorist List“
Pictures from the rally posted here>>
Letter from Mike:
Since 2001, I have devoted my life entirely to the peaceful promotion of windmills and solar panels to solve global warming. Apparently not everyone liked my work, however. Believe it or not, the Maryland State Police – your state police – put my name in their criminal intelligence database as a “suspected terrorist” as part of their larger program of collecting information about political activists in 2005-2006. I was on this outrageous “watch” list apparently because of a single act of peaceful civil disobedience I participated in outside a coal-fired power plant in 2004. CCAN’s former deputy director Josh Tulkin was also put in the database as was another former CCAN staffer who has chosen to remain anonymous. Neither of these people has ever been arrested for anything in their entire lives. (See background below) Continue reading
Hello. My name is Captain Truelight.
I have come to rid the world of evil energy. Will you join me? I’m on Facebook.
Watch this Frontline program tonight from 9-11 on PBS and online here>>
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Essay by Mike Tidwell, published online at Grist
The dirty secret behind D.C.’s high-tech Virginia suburbs
There’s a chance the presidential election will come down to who wins the state of Virginia. And the key to winning Virginia comes down to who does well in the D.C. suburbs of northern Virginia. This area is an economic powerhouse where no fewer than one in three Virginia voters live. Just mention the words “northern Virginia” across the mid-Atlantic region and the hyphenated adjectives come back at you: Fast-growing, high-tech, well-educated, high-income.
No wonder the presidential candidates can’t seem to stay away from the area. Despite perennial traffic congestion, “NoVa” has that certain gleam of 21st century life, from the glitzy high-rises of Rosslyn to the corporate campuses around the Dulles airport to the performing arts stage at a place called Wolf Trap. Fairfax County alone, the heart of the region, has a higher percentage of high-tech workers than Silicon Valley.
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Dominion released their lobbying disclosure report yesterday and I wonder what they got with their $500,000. Eric Cantor has received nearly $25,000 from Dominion in the last year and he voted against environmental education, to eliminate a Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, and against public transportation giving him an “ugly” rating by LCV.
But $25,000 is just a drop in the bucket compared to what Dominion has actually spent. They’ve spent nearly $500,000 was spent on lobbying expenses in just the last few months. Even this is a huge increase, compared to the $20,000 the previous quarter. View Dominion’s $500,000 disclosure report here>>
Obviously, the fight against climate change is between the people and Big Oil and Big Coal money. We can’t outspend the energy corporations but we can outnumber them.