Non-violent direct action activists were acquitted of charges that they caused almost
More Extreme Weather for a Nation in Denial
Video by Jay Tomlinson
With hurricane Gustav acting as another wake up call for Americans reminding us of the impact of extreme weather along our shores we bring you another extreme weather story that hits a bit closer to home here in the Chesapeake Bay region.
Share Your Extreme Weather Story
Extreme weather is happening all around us, from tornadoes ripping through Virginia to increased flash floods and severe storms.
Leave a comment below to share your extreme weather story.
And, if you haven’t already, see the video below about one Maryland woman’s heart-wrenching extreme weather story.
A Meeting with Rep. Elijah Cummings
When I sat down in a coffee shop in downtown Baltimore last Friday morning with a group of climate activists from Congressman Elijah Cummings’ district I did my best to project optimism and to rally the troops as it were prior to our big meeting. But the truth is that, internally, I wasn’t actually brimming with optimism. That’s not to say I wasn’t confident we’d get a good hearing or fail to have any impact on the Congressman; I was just a tad doubtful about the current potential for real aggressive leadership from Washington on climate policy, and perhaps rightly so.
For those of us who are deeply engaged in the climate and energy fight, the political events of this summer have been a constant reminder of the tendency of politics and partisanship to stifle leadership and smart policy-making at a time when we need them the most. True, there have been rare moments, like Al Gore’s landmark speech, when a spark of real leadership briefly illuminated an otherwise murky national energy debate. But for the most part our leaders have only succeeded in keeping the country in the dark; Convinced that the American public is impervious to the light of reason on issues like offshore drilling, we’ve seen one leader after another, from John McCain, to Nancy Pelosi, opt for the path of least political resistance, and thereby eclipse any short-term hope of a national climate and energy awakening.
So, when we all finally gathered around the table in Congressman Cummings’ office that morning I was expecting some variation on this prevailing political theme. First he would agree with us about the severity of the crisis and echo our sentiments about the need for strong, decisive federal action, but then the inevitable moment of political prevarication would arrive, and shaking his head in frustration, he’d inform us that, alas, the clout of King Coal and other special interests was just too darn strong to allow for the passage of really uncompromising climate legislation and that for the foreseeable future we’d have to live with whatever we could get. I’d this seen this pattern played out in other constituent meetings, and I had no reason to suspect that things would be different this time. But, then, I’d never met Congressman Elijah Cummings before.
From the very start he set an entirely refreshing tone. Continue reading
Gustav: More Extreme Weather for a Nation in Denial
Hurricane Gustav is just the latest example of extreme weather in a nation that’s seen its share this summer. Indeed, the Iowa floods and Southeastern drought and western wildfires all fit the patterns scientists say we should expect with global warming. As we watch the spectacle of two million American refugees evacuating the Gulf coast, it’s important to remember that not so long ago category 3 and 4 hurricanes were a true rarity in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Now they seem almost routine. Indeed, of the ten strongest hurricanes ever recorded in terms of low barometric pressure, six have occurred in just the past ten years.
Learn more in my 2006 book The Ravaging Tide: The Race to Save America’s Coastal Cities. As for climate-induced sea level rise and it’s affect on the levees in New Orleans, see my recent piece below in Grist magazine.
Mike Tidwell
cell 240-460-5838, mikewtidwell@gmail.com
Fear on their Faces; Hope in their Eyes. VA Citizens Demand Real Solutions for Climate Change
I saw fear yesterday on the faces of the men and women directly affected by the proposed Wise County coal plant who had just driven 8 hours to testify before the Governors Climate Commission. They knew that their land, their health, and their beautiful landscapes were the ones being sacrificed for our runaway energy demands. That fear and concern was most eloquently expressed by Bill McCabe who challenged the commission to actually think and care about the people most affected by dirty energy. To try and relate to the 91 year old woman who could sit on her porch her whole life and enjoy the mountains, worship God with the mountains, and live in a healthy environment with land she has always known. Now the same woman comes outside to her porch to see her familiar mountains flattened and toxic waste left behind.
The nearly 200 citizens that flooded the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change yesterday were concerned about our addiction to dirty energy no matter what part of Virginia they came from. There were the school teachers from NOVA who did not want to use power at the expense of their neighbor’s rights and the college students who could not understand why Virginia’s leaders would blatantly ignore climate scientists about the consequences of building new coal plants. The overwhelming consensus at this hearing was that the commission has to recognize that global warming is real and deal with it aggressively. Residents insisted that VA would be perfect for leading the country in renewable energy and emphasized that its skilled labor force could be at the forefront of the burgeoning green jobs movement to replace dirty industries. Continue reading
Virginia's Climate Commission meeting as sea ice reaches second lowest level ever
The next meeting of Virginia’s Climate Commission is set for tomorrow at 1 pm. Public comments begin at 6. Attend>>
Hundreds of citizens are expected to show up at tomorrow’s meeting to demand, among other things, that the commission increase its pollution reduction target to science-based levels
Hands in the Middle for Maryland
by Ethan Nuss
Oh yea, Power Vote‘n in MD, baby! This past weekend members of the Maryland Student Climate Coalition (MSCC) gathered to launch Power Vote in style, and set a stellar state goal of 40,000 total pledges! (Two Maryland High School students gathered 400 pledges in the 5 days after returning from the Mega Camp training in MN. Booyah!) The MSCC is also planning multiple coordinated Green Jobs Day of Action events across the state and looking to garnish some high profile media like the Washington Post. But wait it doesn’t stop there…. the MD students heard that the Governor and several of their US congresspeople will be doing a campus speaking tour the first week of September. Expect to see Maryland students there in Power Vote T-shirts, green hard hats, and waving signs, because I smell some sweet bird-dogging.
But before we get ahead of ourselves with the excitement of the Sunday gathering (see silly video). Let’s rewind to Friday when they got their first campaign victory. Maryland students and community members went to an in district meeting with Rep. Elijah Cummings. What was the result of that meeting, you ask? They got Rep. Cummings to become the second member of congress to sign onto the 1Sky platform and commit to Green Jobs, Science based carbon reductions, and a moratorium on new coal plants. Yay! Look out Maryland elected officials because the MSCC is here to Kick this country into action!
CCAN's Hiring Interns! Clean Energy Internships
Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) is accepting applications for Clean Energy fall internships.
The Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Our mission is to educate and mobilize citizens of this region in a way that fosters a rapid societal switch to clean energy and energy-efficient products, thus joining similar efforts worldwide to slow and perhaps halt the dangerous trend of global warming.
We are in need of 3-4 qualified and dedicated individuals to work with us in several different capacities. We are looking for interns to support our:
- Communications/media support for our clean energy and global warming campaigns/trainings.
- Campus Climate Challenge campaign and other campus activities
- Federal and state policy campaigns in Virginia and Maryland, with focus on grassroots activism
- Web Development/Online campaigns
In your cover letter, please indicate whether you would be most interested in working on the national, campus or state campaigns.
The position requires a commitment of at least 15 hours/week during Fall ’08 (September – December). Location of the internship is flexible. Dependent focus
Want to See Climate Change? Look Out Your Front Door. It's here.
Has anyone noticed that our local weather in the D.C. region has turned truly screwy? We go from one bizarre weather condition to the next with almost no pause in between for “normal” conditions. It’s too wet, too dry, too cold, too warm, too windy – nearly all the time. Hmmm? And scientists and average people all over the world, from Japan to Argentina, report similar strangeness. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times recently wrote from Kenya that the Serengeti’s April rains, so critical to that famous ecosystem, haven’t shown up this spring. And they didn’t come last year. There’s just no normal weather anymore. Anywhere.
In the D.C. region nothing illustrates this better than the annual Martin Luther King parade. Last year, tired of the cold and grayness of January, the organizers decided to move the annual parade to early April. The result? This year on January 16th (the official King holiday) it was 70 degrees in D.C. Remember all that freakish winter warmth? Outdoor barbeques broke out all over the city on backyard decks still festooned with Christmas decorations. And on Saturday, April 7th, the date of the “warmer” and more hospitable MLK parade? There was actually snow on the ground. The parade majorettes and tuba players woke up to 34 degrees and a blanket of snow on the ground, the most April snow in DC since 1924.
And yes, I know: There’s always been weird weather that occasionally defies the seasonal norms, sometimes dramatically. It’s part of the natural unpredictability of weather. And if you listen to the dismissive climate rants of the Rush Limbaugh crowd, you’ll yield to that inner voice that wants to reassuringly say: Don’t worry. It’s all normal. Everything’s okay. Continue reading
