Police Find Car Bomb in Times Square – New York Times (while the motive for the NYC bomb hasn’t been identified yet, similar oil-funded terrorist actions are regularly occurring)
These three headlines might not seem related, but they all stem from our insane addiction to oil and fossil fuels. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about domestic or foreign sources, fossil fuels are eating away at our quality of life.
From causing the global climate crisis to financing terrorist plots, greedy fossil fuel corporations, and their utility enablers, must be put out of business as soon as possible to protect citizens of the United States and the rest of the world. While the executives of these companies are ranking in record bonuses and paychecks, their employees and the communities surrounding their operations are exposed to toxic fumes and the grief that comes with repeated and preventable accidents. People around the world are witnessing the first waves of impacts of the climate crisis in the form of stronger droughts, floods, wildfires, and the loss of natural resources. In the meantime, everytime oil goes up $1, Iran gets another $1.5 billion to use against us.
The time to move beyond oil and coal is now and within our reach. What we need is a national strategy to do so, rather than the stubborn commitment to protect a dying industry we’ve been hearing from the President and many members of congress. We also need to secure a just transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry. They should be the first in line to receive the millions of new jobs that are already being created in the deployment of clean, renewable energy.
In 1969, two environmental disasters awakened the people of the United States to the necessity of environmental protection. I hope that in mourning the tragic events afflicting our nation – the Gulf Coast oil spill, last month’s coal mine explosion, the Tennessee floods, and the seemingly endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – will provide a similar jolt, and unite Americans behind a common goal: to end our fossil fuel addiction as soon as possible.
Coal is the single most dangerous form of energy and, despite many claims by industry spokespeople, is not clean and cannot be cleaned. While industry front groups are spending millions of dollars convincing Americans that CO2 emissions from coal can be tucked away safely, all evidence shows the contrary, that doing so is technically dubious, extremely expensive, and environmentally disastrous.
Young people will welcome these criminals that deal in coal, the most deadly weapon of mass destruction! We will let them and anyone watching know that young people don’t want coal to have a role in the New Energy Age, that we demand fair worker transition programs for coal miners, clean energy for the nation, and stable climate for future generations!
If you live in the D.C. area, sign up here to help organize the welcoming reception. If you’d like to walk around and sign people up with some old school tabling or canvassing, you can find a handy sign-up form here.
“…what wouldn’t do a thing to lower gas prices is … to open up Florida’s coastline to Offshore drilling. it would have long-term consequences to our coastlines but no short term benefits since it would take at least 10 years to get any oil… it will take a generation to reach full production and even then the effect on gas prices will be minimal at best” Candidate Obama – June 20, 2008 – Jacksonville, FL.
Young people from Florida changed the course of history when they delivered their state to President Obama in the 2008 elections. They worked hard, knocked on doors, called reluctant family members, all in an effort to elect the candidate that spoke those words. Well, after a year and a half spent doing some really great (but woefully insufficient) things to move us towards a clean energy economy, seems like the President is turning his back on the wise words he spoke on his campaign.
“Today we are announcing the the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration, but in ways that balance the need to harness domestic energy resources and the need to protect America’s Natural resources… the only way this transition [to domestic fuels] will succeed is if it strengthens our economy in the short run and in the long run”
Many progressive bloggers already challenged the President’s assumption that opening up the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling would be politically (or economically) smart, but few provided alternative strategies to drastically, quickly, and efficiently achieving the stated goals of the President’s new initiative.
Making efficient cars more accessible to the general public is something the administration is already doing great work on. In addition to today’s announcement about doubling the efficiency of the Federal Government’s auto fleet (spoken as a sidenote to the oil drilling expansion), the Obama administration also enacted stricter greenhouse gas limits to newly built car emissions. (more…)
That’s right, on Friday 22 Senators wrote to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asking for the climate crisis to be the next big issue to be addressed by the Senate.
Click on your Senators’ name and give them a call to thank them for prioritizing our future. Make sure to let them know about how you Define our Decade! (more…)
Last week, President Obama met with a bipartisan group of 14 Senators and four cabinet officials to talk about climate legislation. To those of us involved in multi-issue progressive organizing, this meeting brought back daunting memories of the fabled ’bipartisan interest’ that stalled healthcare reform for many months.
At the same time as this high-level meeting was going on, young people across the nation were logging on to ourdecade.org/define to share their vision for how our country’s energy use needs to change in the upcoming decade.
Both President Obama and the youth climate movement are on the same path: both are interested in moving our country away from our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels, in cleaning up our air, in strengthening our national security, creating jobs, and, reducing the terrifying effects of the climate crisis. Both can’t do it alone: the youth clean energy movement needs the insight, creativity and energy of its growing base, and President Obama needs 60 Senators to endorse his plan.
The difference between the two groups ends there. (more…)
For the past year, I’ve been anxiously waiting for the federal government to address the growing climate crisis, but month after month new delays to passing healthcare reform brought my desire for a fair, just and ambitious climate bill further and further out of reach. As Senators found excuse after excuse to avoid moving forward, I started thinking back about the fundamental role that healthcare played in motivating my climate change activism.
I grew up in the small rural community of New Town on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. When I was 20 years old I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer known as a level 4 sarcoma tumor. It’s an extremely rapid spreading cancer that’s usually attached to the muscle or bone. What made it rare was that in my case it wasn’t attached; it was right there on my stomach where I could see it and feel it. I remember the morning I woke up and noticed that the pea sized lump I had discovered on my tummy just a few days before had grown and was now changing color. Because of the fact that so many people on the reservation had already dealt with cancer in the past I knew that it was not good and that I had to get to the doctor. At that point I was in college and my only form of health care was through the Indian Health Service (IHS).
By the time I was able to get into the IHS clinic for an emergency appointment the following week, my lump had gone from pee-size to nickel size and was changing from red to dark purple to blue. I remember feeling scared because I was pretty certain that it was cancer and I remember being completely taken aback when my doctor had asked if I had somehow bumped into a chair. He told me it looked like a bruise and he thought I just had calcium build up from an old scar that was there. As a result he would not give me a referral to see a specialist. Without the referral there was nothing I could do because I had no other form of healthcare and no money. My doctor told me to come back in 30 days and sent me home.
Within less than one week I was back at the IHS clinic talking to the same doctor. The lump on my stomach had grown from nickel size to just over walnut size and the color had spread as well. (more…)
Right after the State of the Union, young climate activists submitted a question about the President’s remarks on clean energy and crossed their fingers hoping that it would get asked. The smiling faces of Energy Action Coalition activists made it in the the intro screen as the YouTube announcer explained the format.
During the CitizenTube State of the Union Q & A discussion, President Obama severely dodged a question submitted by young activists about his support of dirty energy.
His answer is unwise, and deceitful. I hate to say this about the President that has done more to invest in a clean energy economy than anyone before him (not a hard accomplishment since W, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Carter were the only presidents in office since clean energy became an issue), but young people are tired of being lied to by the White House and congress. (more…)
On Monday President Obama will be answering questions about his State of the Union address, how would you like for that question to be one submitted by young climate activists?
Right now, the most voted question is from someone promoting alternative fuels. Not clean energy. Not just energy. Not renewable energy. But alternative energy, and you know what that means right? If this question is still #1 by tomorrow, President Obama will have an open window to reiterate his support for dirty coal, nuclear, and offshore oil drilling and ignore the true solutions to our energy, national security, and climate crises.
Go to CitizenTube and upvote this question from Energy Action. We are only 120 votes away from the top, so every vote counts. Please spread the word and RT this:
RT @energyaction: Vote up youth leader question to #Obama! Why dirty energy when clean is smarter & creates more jobs? http://bit.ly/bGNR8R
Senator Landrieu and Murkowski are working together to pass an resolution that would essentially halt the United States’ current efforts to prevent the climate crisis. The two senators, from Louisiana and Alaska respectively, should know a thing or two about the problem since they are in some of the most vulnerable areas of the nation. Alaska is warming faster than the continental U.S.A. and the effects are already clearly visible. In Alaska, the melting permafrost is threatening the structural integrity while indigenous hunters are struggling to keep up with the changes to the animals’ migration pattern. The Louisiana Senator should also be a little more concerned about the climate crisis since her state was the hardest hit during the devastating 2005 hurricane season. Almost every scientific study on the subject says that if the climate crisis is allowed to continue unrestrained, sea level rise and hurricanes will make disasters like Hurricane Katrina commonplace.
Ensuring the survival of our species on this planet shouldn’t be a hard fight. Anyone with an ounce of common sense and a 5th grade diploma understands that when the world’s scientists are freaking out about something, it might be time to start paying attention (see: Nuclear Weapons, Ozone Layer, Armageddon), it is time to get working on solutions.
It is hard to feel optimistic about solving the climate crisis these days. The media’s take on the Copenhagen international climate treaty negotiations is that they were an absolute failure. Their reporting on the federal climate bill is similarly macabre. Acc stuck somewhere between incompetence, cowardice, and straight-out corruption.
On the other hand, think tanks of ideologies continue releasing highly ideological analyses that are hard to believe. Nonetheless, somewhere between the mainstream media’s alarmism and the think tanks’ platitudes there is a grain of truth about the extremely challenging times ahead of us.
Funding our Future is a campaign to pass a progressive federal budget for 2010 and ensure that our nation.s key economic choices invest in our education, spark reform of our health care system, and address climate change through cap and trade and clean energy investments. Click here for more info.
The time to move beyond oil and coal is now and within our reach. What we need is a national strategy to do so, rather than the stubborn commitment to protect a dying industry we’ve been hearing from the President and many members of congress. We also need to secure a just transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry. They should be the first in line to receive the millions of new jobs that are already being created in the deployment of clean, renewable energy.
On April 14th, 2009 at 9:30 AM, coal barons are finally testifying in front of Congress about the “
That’s right, on Friday 22 Senators wrote to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) 
Last week, President Obama met with a bipartisan group of 14 Senators and four cabinet officials to talk about climate legislation. To those of us involved in multi-issue progressive organizing, this meeting brought back daunting memories of the fabled ’bipartisan interest’ that stalled healthcare reform for many months.
Both President Obama and the youth climate movement are on the same path: both are interested in moving our country away from our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels, in cleaning up our air, in strengthening our national security, creating jobs, and, reducing the terrifying effects of the climate crisis. Both can’t do it alone: the youth clean energy movement needs the insight, creativity and energy of its growing base, and President Obama needs 60 Senators to endorse his plan.
Senator Landrieu and Murkowski are working together to