Probably. Luckily, though, we don’t have to find out.
The very talented Lissy Rosemont of the Junior League Band will perform at CCAN’s fourth annual event on April 15th.
Lissy has been referred to as one of the “most promising up and coming vocalists on the Americana scene.”
Check out one of her songs below and then sign up! Tickets are only $15 ($10 for students)!
On Tuesday the Senate’s march to pass Gov. Martin O’Malley’s $32 billion budget hit a roadblock when an item was raised that attempted to withhold $250,000 from the University of Maryland law school until it disclose its legal clinic’s clients.
The UMD environmental law clinic is investigating whether a pile of waste on an Eastern Shore farm came from the massive chicken farms in the area. The chicken farmers, including corporate giant Perdue, claims the waste came from the people of Ocean City. The Maryland Reporter has the story.
It is clear that this blatant attempt by Maryland’s factory farms (and general assembly members that are friendly to these interests) to gut the University of Maryland’s Environmental Law Clinic funding is a political maneuver used to intimidate and squash efforts to address real environmental violations that are destroying the Chesapeake Bay.
Scientists have set thresholds for nine key environmental processes that, if crossed, could threaten Earth’s habitability. According to the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, three have already been exceeded.
Check out this three-minute video and then take action!
Imagine hearing this question Continue reading
Cross-posted from it’s getting hot in here
In an attempt to further pressure EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to enforce the Clean Water Act and halt mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR), activists early this morning erected two 20-foot-tall, purple tripod structures in front of the agency’s headquarters. A pair of activists perched at the top of the tripods have strung a 25-foot sign in front of the EPA’s door that reads, “EPA: pledge to end mountaintop removal in 2010.” Six people are locked to the tripods and say they won’t leave unless Administrator Jackson commits to a flyover visit of the Appalachian Mountains and MTR sites, which she has never done before.
This is the latest in a series of actions and activities aimed at pressuring the EPA to take more decisive action on mountaintop removal coal mining. Today’s tactic is modeled on the multi-day tree-sits that have been happening in West Virginia to protect mountains from coal companies’ imminent blasting. Called the worst of the worst strip mining, the practice blows the tops off of whole mountains to scoop out the small seams of coal that lie beneath.
“We’re losing our way of life and our culture,” said Chuck Nelson, who worked as a coal miner in West Virginia for three decades and came to DC to support today’s protest. “Mountaintop removal should be banned today. The practice means total devastation for communities, the hardwood forests, the ecosystems, and the headwaters. Why should our communities sacrifice everything we have?”
In case you missed the live broadcast Tuesday, you can listen at www.EarthbeatRadio.org. It’s been a great 7.5 years as co-host. But it’s time to move on. I’m especially proud of the last 20 minutes of this show as I talk about how my wonderful son, Sasha, keeps me going as a climate activist. See full summary of the last show below.
Ebert, Romm and More
Listen at www.EarthbeatRadio.org
Host Mike Tidwell reviews the highlights of seven years of hosting Earthbeat. Including a conversation with famed film critic Roger Ebert on the significance of Al Gore’s movie,
Today, instead of just wearing green- take a quick green action: VOTE in the national Define Our Decade campaign! The two questions will help to define what our generation wants to see in the next decade. It’s a new year, and a new decade, and with that comes new opportunity. As our elected leaders struggle to make progress on climate and energy legislation in Washington, a grassroots movement has grown and won real victories in our local communities. We can’t let the “political realities” of corporate-influenced policies define our future. It’s time for us to set our own course, on our own terms, and Define Our Decade! Check out Ethan Nuss’s blog post for some more inspiration!
After you vote- get friends to join in too- the more votes the more powerful our message is. Post the link on your facebook profile (http://energyactioncoalition.org/define) and your friend’s walls. Send it over your list servs. And while you are at it- tweet it out! Wearing #green for #stpatricksday? Then, you should help Define #OurDecade with clean, green energy. Vote now!
It is a very unfortunate fact that what the U.S. Senate does about the climate crisis, and when, is decisive when it comes to the possibility of an eventual solution to that absolutely critical issue. If the Senate does nothing, or very little, this year or for the next few years, the odds of staying this side of climate tipping points and avoiding climate catastrophe are definitely worsened, and they’re not so good right now.
The conventional wisdom among the inside-the-beltway, established environmental groups is that the hope for action lies with the legislation-writing process currently taking place under the leadership of Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham. But two of the most significant political developments last week as far as Senate climate legislation took place elsewhere.
One was the public announcement via an email from Bill McKibben sent to 350.org’s far-flung network that “we’re joining a group of our best allies in backing the proposed Cap-and-Dividend approach that would stop letting big polluters pour carbon into the sky for free.”
The other was the public letter from AARP, the 39-million member organization of seniors, to Senators Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins, authors of the CLEAR Act cap-and-dividend legislation. In their letter [pdf] they commend Cantwell and Collins for their “continuing leadership” and for offering “a thoughtful, bipartisan approach to reducing harmful carbon dioxide emissions while also mitigating potential energy cost increases to consumers.”
Strengths and Weaknesses
There’s a lot that is good about the CLEAR Act (Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal), especially in comparison with the Waxman-Markey ACES bill passed by the House of Representatives last June. It would make fossil fuel polluters pay for their poisoning of our atmosphere, with no free pollution permits. In the first year, 2012, that the legislation would take effect, they would need to pay, cumulatively, as much as $126 billion dollars via a 100% auction of pollution permits. Putting a price on carbon in this way, all by itself, is an important step forward.
A steadily-declining cap on carbon pollution would be enacted so that, over time, prices for carbon-based fuels would go up and co2 emissions would go down as a steady national shift takes place to energy conservation, efficiency and renewable energy. There are provisions for a tightening of this cap relatively easily by way of a simple majority (no filibuster allowed) of both houses of Congress in support of a Presidential proposal. There are no problematic “carbon offsets.” Wall Street and speculators are prevented from buying or selling permits. 75% of the money raised from the auction each year will be returned in equal monthly payments to every legal US resident. A family of four will receive approximately $1,000 a year to help with the higher energy prices the oil, coal and natural gas companies will pass along. Analyses have shown that about 3/4 of all U.S. Americans will actually gain additional money to spend via this program. The remaining 25% of the auction revenue will be put into a “Clean Energy Reinvestment Trust (or CERT) Fund” for various programs to reduce U.S. and international greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for clean energy, energy efficiency, transition assistance and similar purposes.
A key feature of the CLEAR Act is its understandable, transparent architecture. It is 39 pages long, compared to 1,428 for the House-passed ACES bill.
There’s a lot to like about this proposal. Continue reading
Yesterday morning, I went to a press conference hosted by Clean Energy Works. I knew there would a variety of speakers but I didn’t expect was to be blown away by the words of two young women, both in high school at the Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School. I should have expected it.
As Callie Guy, a senior, pointed out to the crowd, “For my generation, the controversy over global climate change simply doesn’t exist. We know what the price of inaction is, and it will fall on me and my friends unless we act now. It is time for my generation to declare their independence from the fossil fuels of the past and lead our country on a clean energy revolution. “
Callie’s right. My generation has moved past deciding if global warming exists to deciding how to solve it. We refuse to listen to false solutions such as clean coal and nuclear. My generation will Define Our Decade with 100% truly clean, safe, green energy.
Maggie Chambers, a junior, closed the press conference with these words which I want to share with all of you.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that not all energy sources are created equal, that all people are endowed with the undeniable rights to clean air, liberation from foreign oil, and the pursuit of permanent clean energy jobs- That to secure these rights, Government should follow the path of pursuing strong clean energy and climate legislation
Chris Llewellyn is an amazing climate activist from Williamsburg. She was our CCANer of the Month back in June of 2007, which prompted me to go back and find that archived newsletter. Just a quick side note: It’s pretty amazing how far CCAN’s e-newsletters have come.
More importantly, I wanted to share her letter to the editor of the Daily Press about the Cap-and-Dividend solution, which was published earlier this week. Check it out below:
Make it CLEAR
BY Chris Llewellyn
Daily Press
March 8, 2010Despite what our state attorney general says, the science is clear