On Monday, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling announced a second round of stimulus funding to Virginia residents for energy efficiency upgrades to their homes. Some thirty hours later, the funds were all gone. This strikes me as pretty funny because during our fight at the General Assembly to pass a mandatory energy efficiency resource standard, Dominion VA Power and their supporters at the capital kept telling us that the utilities shouldn’t be held responsible for consumer behavior. Hmmm, seems to me that consumers not only understand the importance of upgrading old, money guzzling appliances but also want to make the necessary changes. I wonder what the excuse is going to be next year?
Reason #12: China is winning the global clean energy race
Forty years after the first Earth Day, the world is in greater peril than ever, but there is also an unprecedented opportunity to build a new future.
We need an “Earth Day Revolution” to bring about historic advances in climate policy, renewable energy, green jobs, and to catalyze millions who can make personal commitments to sustainability by mobilizing the power of people to create change. We need the Senate to stop stalling and start acting on clean energy and climate solutions for America.
That’s why we’ve joined others in presenting Congress with 40 reasons to take action. Every day until Earth Day activists will deliver another reason to offices of Congressional leaders.
CCAN’s very own Chelsea Harnish joined others to deliver reason #12 to Senator Webb and Warner’s Richmond offices. Her message? China is winning the global clean energy race. Her method of communicating her message? An actual race.
Could we hold "Artists for the Climate" w/out music?
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)!
A very dangerous road
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.
Big Question: Is the Earth Past the Tipping Point?
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!
"Do you mind if we put a 160-foot-high mound of dirty coal ash in your community?"
Imagine hearing this question Continue reading
Breaking: Anti-MTR Activists Risk Arrest at EPA HQ with Elaborate Protest
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?”
Tidwell's last radio show
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,
Wear Green, Vote Green
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!
Climate Legislation, Science and Activism
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
