Drink up! It could be your last!

I personally prefer my brew with fewer hops, but apparently I may not have a choice!  Clearly polar bears drowning and glaciers melting have not been enough to motivate the world into unified action to stop climate change  But apparently our precious brew is being threatened.  Can we get behind saving our precious hops.  This article below comes from New Scientist.

In all seriousness climate change legislation is drifting away.  That’s why this week we are generating hundreds of phone calls to our Senators so they realize that life as we know it could change forever if they don’t take action now.  We are asking folks to call on Wed.  Click here for details>>>

Read on for me details on the newest victim of Climate change::  Precious HOPS!

IF THE sinking Maldives aren’t enough to galvanise action on climate change, could losing a classic beer do it? Climatologist Martin Mozny of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and colleagues say that the quality of Saaz hops – the delicate variety used to make pilsner lager – has been decreasing in recent years. They say the culprit is climate change in the form of increased air temperature.

Mozny’s team used a high-resolution dataset of weather patterns, crop yield and hop quality to estimate the impact of climate change on Saaz hops in the Czech Republic between 1954 and 2006. Best-quality Saaz hops contain about 5 per cent alpha acid, the compound that produces the delicate, bitter taste of pilsners.

The study found that the concentration of alpha acids in Saaz hops has fallen by 0.06 per cent a year since 1954, and models of hop yields and quality under future global warming scenarios predict bigger decreases (Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2009.02.006).

It’s not just Czech hops that are at stake here, says Francesco Tubiello, a crop specialist at the European Commission and a lead author of the agriculture chapter of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. “The famous hop-growing regions of eastern Germany and central Slovakia are facing the same situation,” he says.

Is beer the final straw??  Are you ready to tell our Senators to support STRONG CLIMATE legislation?  It’s more than just our frosty beverages at stake.  Across the country this week we are generating thousands of phone calls to our Senators so they don’t forget to make climate a top priority. 

We’ve made it easy… Click here to give a call.

Can We Make It?

Future Hope column, August 29, 2009

More than once over the last several years I have talked with people who understand the deep hole humankind has dug for itself because of our reliance on fossil fuels and the dominant system’s environmentally destructive model of “development.” They have difficulty seeing a way that we will ever get out of this hole. Intuitively, they see little hope that we can avoid climate catastrophe. They ask me why I’m doing what I’m doing given that likelihood.

What I say to them is, OK, let’s assume the worst. Let’s accept that it is unlikely that we will be able to overcome in enough time the power of the fossil fuel interests and those allied with them and enact a clean energy revolution in enough time. Let’s accept that throughout this century billions of people will die and the world’s population is reduced to several hundred million people, the prediction of James Lovelock. What then? What does that mean for those of us alive today who want to do the right thing with our lives? Continue reading

How to Get a Strong Senate Climate Bill, Part 5: Fight teabaggers, astroturfers and town-hall mobs

If you’re reading this post, and you’re not a right wing-nut blogger looking for something to froth at the mouth about, chances are you’re a progressive activist type who takes the democratic process seriously enough to stay informed on the issues and occasionally respectfully push and prod your elected officials on them. If that’s the case, odds are you’re also pretty appalled, disgusted, and downright frustrated with the hysterical, anti-democratic mobs and their corporate ringleaders who have attempted to hijack the debate over health care over the last few weeks.

If you’re reading this post, it’s also a big no brainer that you’re here to read about climate policy not the health care debate. Maybe you revile the tea-bagger maniacs that are turning town halls into town hells but as a climate activist you’re not going to get too worried or worked out about them until they start coming for climate policy as well. Well if that’s the case then my advice to you would be to start getting worried and start taking action.

Emboldened by the well-publicized scenes of ignorant, disruptive fury that have stifled rational dialogue over real policy at town halls over the past few weeks, opponents of federal climate change action including the American Petroleum Institute and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity have already initiated campaigns to employ the same types of anti-democratic tactics to derail Congressional efforts to pass a climate bill this fall. Last week, API launched its’ “Energy Citizens” initiative Continue reading

Bill McKibben on the Colbert Report

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bill McKibben
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

Typically when I hear someone I like is going to be on Jon Stewart, I get excited. When I hear someone I like is going to be on the Colbert Report, I just get nervous. So I’m sure that Monday was a long day for Bill McKibben, who anxiously tweeted, “waiting to go on colbert–i’m sweating, and not because it’s 97 in nyc today.” Well, [SPOILER ALERT] on air to promote 350.org’s October 24 International Day of Action, I’m proud to report that Bill did just fine! He managed to get out his talking points in an uninterrupted 33 seconds, which I believe may set a record for any guest on the show.

What really caught my attention was when McKibben told Colbert, “We’re past the point where you can make the math work one lightbulb at a time.” He’s right- we need serious international commitments to cut carbon emissions and plan to reduce the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere to a scientifically safe level (350 ppm.) Our job, according to McKibben, is to “get our leaders to take the steps we need.” Luckily, 350.org is hosting a day of action on September 24 and CCAN is excited to be planning an DC action that day with some amazing other groups (mark your calendar.) Even before that, we’re gearing up for the Senate to come back from recess and get back to work. This fall we’re holding our leaders accountable. So thanks Bill for putting them, as Colbert would say, they are Continue reading

UMD for Clean Energy Letter to Ben Cardin

Cross-posted from: here

The University of Maryland student activist group I am currently campaign director of is called UMD for Clean Energy. In the past year we’ve worked on getting thousands of Powervote pledges, collaborated with state environmental groups to pass a state global warming bill with the strongest short term greenhouse emissions target in the country, and our most recent accomplishments were organizing(with other groups) a 300 person clean energy Town Hall meeting for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer(whose floor debate remarks are incredible), and bringing together students statewide to help turn Maryland Congressman Frank Kratovil’s swing vote on ACES into a yes vote. Our close proximity to DC gives us plenty of opportunities to lobby and have a strong presence on Federal legislation.

This past Tuesday, we delivered a letter to our Senator Ben Cardin’s office in a visit a couple of our members made to DC to meet with Cardin’s office as well as Senator Barbara Mikulski’s. The letter outlined what our group feels should be prioritized regarding improvements in the drafting of Senate legislation over the House climate bill . Although we know we have Ben Cardin’s vote, he is playing a important role on the Environment and Public Works Committee in drafting the Senate bill, and in marking it up. We would like to see the part of the bill that comes out of the EPW committee be as strong as possible, and feel that there can be improvements since the make up of the committee is fairly progressive and full of East and West coast Democrats who states are not particularly coal dependent. Letter is below, and was signed by our elected officers. Continue reading

Don't Let the Polluters Get Away With This!

A recent Zogby International poll reported that 67% of likely voters “believe Congress is either doing the right amount (22%) or should be doing more (45%) to address global warming. Just 28% believe that Congress is doing too much.”

That helps to explain why the American Petroleum Institute (API), along with groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Conservative Union and Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks are holding “Energy Citizen” rallies all over the country starting today in Houston, Texas. Their purpose? To “call on the Senate to oppose unsound energy policy and ‘get it right.'”

In other words, maintain our addiction to and dependence on polluting and dangerous fossil fuels.

It is critical that supporters of energy reform show up to these API-organized rallies and the ongoing town hall meetings Congress members are holding across the nation. We need to speak the truth about the necessity of strong federal legislation to address the climate crisis and jumpstart a clean energy economy!

Who will be at these rallies? A lot of them will be employees of API member groups. In a memo written by API President and CEO Jack Gerard obtained and released by Greenpeace a few days ago, Gerard urges member groups to provide “strong support for employee participation in the rallies.”

Talk about an Astroturf group!

These rallies are coming as health insurance companies, “clean coal” proponents and right-wing groups are mobilizing to try to intimidate elected officials at town hall meetings in support of their conservative agenda.
We don’t know where all the town meetings over the next few weeks are being held, but we do know where the API rallies are being held (more here):

8/18, Houston, Texas, Verizon Wireless Center, 11:30 am
8/20, Roswell, NM, Eastern New Mexico Fairgrounds, Arts and Crafts Building, 11:30 am
8/20, Greensboro, NC, Greensboro Coliseum, 5:30 pm
8/21, Lima, Oh, Veterans’ Memorial and Civic Center, 11:30 am
8/21, Farmington, NM, Convention Center at McGee Park, 11:30 am
8/22, Atlanta, Ga., Marriott Century Center, 11:30 am
8/25, Elkhart, In., RV Hall of Fame, 11:00 am
8/25, Greeley, Co., Island Grove Regional Park, TBD
8/25, Nashville, Tn., Wild Horse Saloon, 11:30 am
8/27, Bismarck, ND, National Center of Energy Excellence at Bismarck State College, TBD
8/27, Tampa, Fl., Tampa Convention Center, 5 pm
8/27, St. Louis, Mo., Hilton at the Ballpark, 11:30 am
8/31, Greenville, SC, Carolina First Center, 5 pm
8/31, Minneapolis/St. Paul, South St. Paul Hotel and Convention Center, PM TBD
8/31, Anchorage, Ak., Anchorage Convention Center, TBD
9/1, Springfield, Il., TBD
9/3, Detroit, Mi., Burton Manor Banquet and Conference Center, TBD
9/3, Richmond, Va., TBD
9/3, Philadelphia, Pa., TBD, 4:30 pm
9/5, Lincoln, Nb., Embassy Suites Lincoln, 2:30 pm
9/7, Huron, SD, Freedom Stage, South Dakota State Fair, 1:15 pm

If you live in or are close to one of these locations and would like contact information for the primary local organizer, write to me at ted@chesapeakeclimate.org. I can also suggest some creative possibilities for what you could do.

If you go to one of these rallies, leave a comment here letting us know what you are able to pull together.

Let’s stand up for clean energy and strong action on the climate crisis now!
Continue reading

The Man from Greenland

While reading the article “Climate-Change Calculus” in Newsweek, I see all of this data and scientists discussing Greenland’s ice sheets melting. Satellite measurements of Greenland’s mass show that it is losing about 52 cubic miles per year and that melting is accelerating. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states they projected sea levels to rise 16 inches this century, but now are saying that sea level will rise one meter (39 inches) at least. “Chest high instead of knee high, with half to two thirds of that due to Greenland,” states David Carlson, a scientist from the International Polar Year, a global consortium studying the Arctic.

When reading these statistics, I thought to myself, “the facts are now showing up, but I knew about Greenland’s situation from an eye-witness in February.” While attending the Powershift conference here in Washington, D.C. I took part in the Indigenous Caucus, a consortium of Indigenous people from across the world. Many Indigenous people traveled great distances to tell their stories of the effects of Climate Change in their communities.

The first person to speak about their community was a man from Greenland. In Indigenous culture, the oldest is the first one to speak and the man from Greenland has lived on this Earth for 63 years. He spoke of the changes that are happening in Greenland. When he was a boy the ice sheets in Greenland were two miles high. Now, the ice sheets are only one mile high. In the span of 63 years! He also said trees are growing in Greenland and that hasn’t happened in 20,000 years. “It doesn’t matter what we do now, Greenland’s ice sheets are going to melt. And soon the ice caps will follow,” The man from Greenland informed us. Hearing this, I felt that I couldn’t give up. There is still time to change the course of history.

In May, I was in a course to become an Advanced Permaculturist. The man teaching the course was from El Salvador and a Mayan Spiritual Leader. During one of our classes, the topic of 2012 came up and he said this statement. “There is going to come a time when Mother Earth is going to ask humanity if they want to keep going and live on or end existence.” When I heard that statement it gave me hope.

It is time for humanity to show Mother Earth we want to live on. We need to start building Climate Change Showcase Communities. We need communities that will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We need communities that can become models that will be replicated throughout the world. Models to show our governments reluctant to change. Because the change we want will not happen until we have an infrastructure to show our elected officials.

– Marc ‘Swift Otter’
Member, Menominee Indian Tribe