Climate Ride: CCAN director bikes from Baltimore to DC

One hundred and forty brave climate activists left New York City’s Central Park on Saturday September 26th with the idea of wheeling down to Congress with a message: Fix the climate now! By the time I caught up with the group on Tuesday night just north of Baltimore, the cyclists had already ridden through rain, hail, headwinds and punishing crosswinds. “I was literally riding at a severe angle, my bike tilted toward the ground,” said one participant from Northern Virginia, describing his trek across Pennsylvania.

Welcome to the 2nd annual Brita Climate Ride, 300 miles of leg-testing, spirit-challenging work (and fun) to beat global warming. Hearing the stories of bad weather, I realized this was the perfect metaphor for the climate movement as a whole. It has NOT been a smooth and sunny ride trying to get strong climate legislation passed by the U.S. Congress this year. We have experienced lots of rain and hail and crosswinds in the House of Representatives. And now more storms are likely in the Senate as we push toward the international Copenhagen conference in December.

But we have to keep on riding until we reach our destination: Clean energy now. No new coal plants. Green jobs for a green economy! Continue reading

Big day for our side; big blow to King Coal!

Not only was the Senate climate bill announced today, but Secretary Chu issued a dire warning to proponents of new coal-fired power plants and the EPA made two exciting announcements, further protecting our precious mountains and our planet from devastating practices.

Today, Senators Boxer and Kerry announced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. The President weighed in for the first time on the climate debate stating that his administration is “deeply committed” to passing a climate bill. We are excited to hear him make this long awaited statement. While this bill is an improvement over the house-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act, by strengthening the 2020 emissions by 3%, it still doesn’t go far enough to stop climate change. We look forward to working towards a strengthened bill that will provide for real change to the climate crisis.

It seems that addressing climate change is truly a top priority for the Obama Administration. Just yesterday, while touring the Jefferson Laboratory in Newport News, VA, Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu was specifically asked by reporters about the same proposed coal-fired power plant in the Hampton Roads region that CCAN is currently fighting. Secretary Chu commented that he favors delaying new coal plants until existing power plants have the capabilities of reducing harmful emissions.

Continuing the momentum, the EPA announced this morning that all 79 mountaintop removal permits currently being reviewed by the Army Corps of Engineers must undergo additional scrutiny. These permits were halted earlier this month until further investigation by the EPA which has determined that each and every permit would likely result in significant harm to water quality and the environment and are therefore not consistent with the requirements of the Clean Water Act. The next step is for the Corps and the EPA to work in “enhanced coordination” within a 60-day period. While the Corps can issue a permit without the EPA’s approval, the EPA can take action under section 404c of the CWA, allowing the agency to block Corps permits.

Later in the day, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, announced steps the agency will take in regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. The proposal will require large industrial facilities- including power plants- that emit at least 25,000 tons of GHGs annually, to obtain construction and operating permits to cover these emissions. The EPA estimates 14,000 facilities will be effected by the proposed emissions threshold.

So what does this all mean for Virginia? Well first, passing a climate bill has the potential for creating 46,000 clean energy jobs. These jobs can boost the clean energy economy of our Commonwealth while making us a leader in this sector. Regulating greenhouse gas emissions of power plants will make the already $6 billion coal-fired power plant proposed for Surry County even more costly for consumers. There are better solutions for our energy needs through energy efficiency programs and renewable energy projects. The EPA scrutiny over the 79 mountaintop removal permits shows that King Coal can no longer get its way by destroying communities and impacting our climate. This is a great day for the environmental movement- especially for those of us working in Virginia. We haven’t won the war but the battle victory is ours.
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Obama to Denmark for Olympics Pitch

Cross-posted from: here

I came across an article that President Obama is going to Denmark. For crucial international negotiations in Copenhagen this December about the next global climate treaty? Not quite.

“President Barack Obama will travel to Denmark this week to support Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.”

“Obama would be the first U.S. president to take on such a direct role in lobbying for an Olympics event.”

Well, lets hope he returns this December as the first U.S. president to take on a direct role in lobbying for the most important global treaty in the history of mankind. If he doesn’t, I sense the activists will really have a field day with this one.

The Chamber of Commerce has no friends

This has been one exciting week for the climate.

Leaders came together in New York for a United Nations Climate Change Summit, climate activists geared up for the G-20 talks in Pittsburgh, and the whole world geared up for the big talks in Copenhagen.

CCAN’s Ted Glick, Andy Revkin at the New York Times and Anna Pinto, an indigenous rights activist from India, all appeared on Democracy Now! yesterday to talk about the all-important talks in Copenhagen.

“We’ve had a fossil fuel party for a century,” said Revkin during the interview. Watch it here>>

Earlier this week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown committed to going to Copenhagen himself if it means securing a successful outcome. That phone call was part of thousands being placed across the globe as part of Avaaz.org’s “Global Wake-Up Call.” If their inspiring video is any indication (and I think it is), the coordinated “flash mob” actions went really well.

President Obama gave a heartening, although too tame, speech to the United Nations.

Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it — boldly, swiftly, and together — we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.

At the same meeting, the President of Malidives gave an incredibly powerful, moving speech.

If things go business-as-usual, we will not live, we will die. Our country will not exist. We cannot come out from Copenhagen as failures. We cannot make Copenhagen a pact for suicide. We have to succeed and we have to make a deal in Copenhagen.

And to top it off, PNM Resources just abandoned its seat on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, citing a fundamental disagreement over its approach to global warming.

According to NRDC’s Pete Altman:

The statement comes within hours of news of electric utility PG&E’s complete withdrawal from the US Chamber and a public statement from Nike expressing its disgust over the Chamber’s views on climate.

PG&E, Nike and PNM cited frustration with the Chamber’s call to put climate science on trial, which Chamber vice-President Bill Kovacs compared to the Scopes Monkey Trial. Kovacs later apologized for the remark. Earlier this spring, Johnson and Johnson made public its frustration with the Chamber’s position on climate.

Outlook for the Chamber of Commerce: not so good.

Outlook for the climate: Long way to go, but progress is being made.

Speaking of progress, don’t miss Lester Brown’s encouraging Op-Ed in the Washington Post’s Outlook section over the weekend.

Video:"We simply ask that you let us live"

On Monday I had the privilege of meeting one of the global climate movement’s greatest new leaders, President Nasheed of the Maldives. The Maldives is a nation of tiny tropical islands located in the Indian Ocean off the tip of the Indian Sub-continent. (Don’t worry I had to look it up too. Map here). This archipelago is the home to 350,000 people who will have their lives destroyed by the climate threat if we fail to act.

I met President Nasheed on Monday night in New York City at a Climate Justice event in which we both spoke at as part of Climate Week NYC. A man of short physical stature President Nasheed has a commanding presence with his illuminating humor and tremendous bravery.

When Mary Robinson, the event moderator and former UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, questioned him about what policy platform he was proposing to the UN he paused and said with a beaming smile: “We simply ask that you let us live.” The audience, myself included, joined him in laughing at his whimsical tone. However, mid-chortle I was suddenly overcome by a deep sadness. I will not soon forget the gravity of his simple plea for human decency and survival. For the 350,000 people of his nation clean energy is not about a lifestyle choice. It is the choice between life and death.

In President Nasheed own words: “Sea level rise of even half a meter would make much of it [the Maldives] uninhabitable; meanwhile, ocean temperature spikes could destroy the coral reefs that protect these islands from the waves.” In his passionate speech to the UN General Assembly (video here) he said that failure to reach a deal in Copenhagen will mean that “our country will not exist.” Wow. Almost unimaginable.

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"What do we want? Clean Energy! When do we want it? Now!"

This is a guest post from University of Mary Washington student and UMW Ecology Club activist, Tori Wong.

Green hardhats, American flags, congressional petitions and an endless supply of energetic optimism filled the lawn of Hurkamp park in downtown Fredericksburg Thursday night as University of Mary Washington students and community organizers joined together to show support for clean energy and to take action to make it happen.

The event, which featured speakers from the Spotsylvania County government, local clean energy businesses, the Rapahanock branch of the Sierra Club, and the UMW Ecology Club, was one of six “Clean Energy, Bright Future” rallies planned in Virginia for the evening of September 17th. The goal of the rallies was to create public support and demand for a national climate policy as Congress considers legislation to cap global warming pollution and invest in education for a clean-energy economy. The Fredericksburg rally was coordinated in part by the Sierra Club and the University of Mary Washington’s student-run environmental group, the Ecology Club.

At the rally, UMW students set up “action tables” where they encouraged all attendees to fill out postcards to Virginia Senators Warner and Webb. These postcards will be sent by the thousands to the senators’ offices to show Virginia’s, and especially Virginia college student’s support for strong clean-energy legislation. They were also writing letters to the editors of all local newspapers, showing their enthusiasm for taking action towards clean energy.

University of Mary Washington senior, Nate Delano opened the rally with the well-known Mark Twain quote, “There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist,” and was followed by Doris Whitfield, Chair of the Rappahannock Group of the Sierra Club, Bob Bennett, Founder of Energy and Environment, Inc. an international renewable energy company based in Spotsylvania County and Henry “Hap” Connors, Chancellor Supervisor for the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors. All speakers emphasized the importance of action and optimism, and applauded the wonderful turnout especially of young people and college students.

URGENT: Call Your Senators Today!!

I’m thinking many people who read our blog have heard this by now…But, just in case you’ve gotten an email from us or one of our coalition partners today and haven’t gotten around to making this call, now’s the time. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has introduced a rider to the Senate Appropriations bill that would halt the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases from stationary sources – i.e. coal plants, oil refineries, the biggest carbon polluters nationwide.

Gotta love those judges…

gavel Yesterday, the 2nd circuit court of appeals in New York overturned a lower court decision brought by 8 states against 5 of the largest electricity providers in the country. The court said that greenhouse gases, like traditional air pollutants, can be considered under common law as a “nuisance”. The decision provides yet another “feather” in the proverbial legal “cap” of progressive states and environmental advocates to address CO2 emissions from the biggest climate change offenders via the courts. Way to go 2nd circuit! Continue reading

Pittsburgh to Host G-20 and G-20 Protests

Today, September 22nd, is the first day of the United Nations opening session in New York City where heads of state from all over the world are speaking publicly about the climate crisis and, in some cases, what their country is doing and intends to do about it.

Two days from now, some of these same heads of state will travel west to Pittsburgh, Pa. for a summit meeting of the G-20. Part of the G-20 agenda is the climate crisis; specifically, how on-going negotiations can be advanced so that at the United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in December, a new and stronger climate treaty than the Kyoto Protocol can emerge.

Climate activists and other activists will be taking part in a variety of actions outside the G-20 meeting in the streets and elsewhere. There will be a number of climate-related activities. The major one is taking place on Wednesday evening when the Alliance for Climate Protection’s Repower America campaign, the United Steelworkers and the Blue Green Alliance will conclude their Clean Energy Jobs Tour with a rally beginning at 7 pm. The Jobs Tour, a month-long campaign with more than 50 events in 22 states, highlighted how a transition to a clean energy economy will create jobs while reducing harmful carbon pollution and our dependence on foreign oil.

The Wednesday evening event will feature musical entertainment, including Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, the Pittsburgh Gospel Choir and Grammy-award winning artist Kathy Mattea. Scheduled speakers include Pa. Governor Ed Rendell, Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, Rich Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO and Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus.

The event will take place in Point State Park. Click here for more information.

Other climate-related events include a Wednesday afternoon forum on “Challenging the G20’s Agenda of Corporate Globalization, a Thursday morning breakfast with Larry Schweiger, President/CEO of the National Wildlife Federation and a Thursday afternoon Jobs and Climate Solutions Press Conference featuring youth leaders from the United States and India.
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Copenhagen: Turning Point or More of the Same Old Same Old?

This coming week, in New York City and Pittsburgh, there will be important United Nations and G20 meetings that could advance the process of coming up with a new international treaty to address the climate crisis. This coming week will also see the opening salvo of “civil society” groups in the streets taking action to press their demands for not just any treaty but one that is strong and fair, one that reflects the deepening of the crisis.

From December 7-18, in Copenhagen, Denmark, 190 or so nations will come together in for the annual U.N. Climate Conference, but this one is particularly important. One reason is that it will be the first one in eight years where the U.S. delegation will be led by people who believe that climate change is real, serious and that action is needed to address it. But much more significant is that this is the U.N. conference that was planned, two years ago at a UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, as the place and the time that the world had to come up with a much stronger international climate treaty than the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol became operative on February 16, 2005, and as of sometime in 2012 it will no longer be in effect. The countries which signed it and agreed to reduce their emissions by an average of 5% below 1990 levels have until then to do so. At that point, if there is no international treaty that has been negotiated, ratified by enough countries and gone into effect, there will be nothing that replaces the expired Kyoto treaty.

Since it is expected that it will take at least two years for enough countries to ratify a treaty, the Copenhagen conference has been seen as critical so that there’s no gap in between Kyoto and a new treaty. However, as we’re less than three months out from Copenhagen, with 15 actual negotiating days between now and the end of Copenhagen (including five days in Barcelona, Spain Nov. 2-6), and with a significant number of major issues unresolved and points of conflict, especially between the countries of the Global South (developing countries) and the Global North (developed), it is not looking hopeful for any kind of treaty, much less a good one, to be adopted and signed at Copenhagen. Continue reading