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.
Recently, the Obama Administration announced that they will approve new oil and gas drilling off Virginia’s coast, parts of the mid and south Atlantic, and near Alaska’s shores. This news has come to a surprise to many of Obama’s supporters, especially young people who are dedicated to preserving the environment. Here are a few questions that young people have asked about Obama’s decision to drill for oil. Hopefully the administration will be answering these questions at some point in the near future
Shouldn’t Obama be using drilling as a bargaining chip for real climate legislation, rather than an Easter present to the oil industry? Cadbury eggs are much better for the environment.
Why is Obama doing this now? Is it because he feels like people will hate him less since he gave us health care?
Is there anyone who feels like this is more than a temporary solution to a much bigger problem?
Why do they think this is worth the destruction? Is this an attempt to cross party lines?
How is he going to address his liberal environmental base on this issue?
Young people from coastal communities knocked on thousands of doors for the President in large part because of what has now become a broken promise. Is the President counting on similar enthusiasm from young people during the mid-term elections? If so, how will young people be motivated to do so when the President is loudest in announcing his support for dirty energy?
But the overwhelming majority of people asked this:
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…)
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
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.
Is there any doubt left? The website where I found this cool image has more of these great visuals demonstrating the vast scientific consensus around climate action. As Van Jones said at the 2009 Campus Progress National Conference, if you went to 10 doctors because of a pierced lung and one of them (a Psychologist) told you you were fine while the other 9 said you desperately needed surgery, what would you do?
Unfortunately, scientific certainty isn’t the only contentious issue we are facing in the climate debate. Naysayers and fossil fuel enthusiasts consistently blurt out noise about how taking action on the climate crisis would bring about an economic disaster. Needless to say, those lies have no basis. To a certain extent, much of what is required in climate action (especially in the short term) is to level the playing field between energy efficiency and renewable energy and fossil fuels.
I typically hate these cheesy, often-pretentious, holier-than-thou lists of things people should commit to doing if only they were smart/benevolent/disciplined/healthy enough. I promise that this one is different.
When 2009 begun, it seemed to many of us that all cards were stacked in our favor. We had a President and a congress that fully understood the problem of the climate crisis and had plans to do something about it right away. But after one year of running against the wind and getting all of our progressive hopes and dreams shattered by ConservaDems and suicide-pact-signing Republicans, we need to send a message to Congress that young people don’t just turn out to vote for a charismatic president, but we turn out for the issues that define the survival of our species.
So here are my top 5 Green/Sustainability/Climate Resolutions for 2010 that have the highest effort-to-outcome ratio:
Register to vote! (If you are a fellon and/or not a citizen skip to step #2)
Register everyone you know and everyone in your community to vote.
Have everyone you register send a letter to all the candidates running in your district saying “I’m voting for environmental justice/renewable energy/an end to the climate crisis” .
Campaign for your most climate friendly* candidates and let them know that’s why you picked them.
Vote and take 5 friends who wouldn’t have gone otherwise to the polls with you!
As Brad Johnson from the Wonk Room says, it took 30 years for the radical right to make their issues something few moderates would ever dare oppose (i.e. eliminating the right to choose, allowing just about anyone to carry weapons, etc). Electoral engagement isn’t a one-time fling that was cool last year cause we elected a charismatic dude, it’s a long-term effort to make our issues something that most candidates can’t get elected without supporting.
Commit to doing these 5 things in 2010 and you will help build a system that takes the urgency of the climate crisis seriously, but if you choose to ignore these resolutions and go for this list instead you’ll just be an environmentally friendly person living in a VERY warm world (do both and you are a trooper!).
* Climate friendly doesn’t necessarily mean that their platform is equal to ours, it means that they understand the issue and are committed to doing something about it. We can’t expect everyone to be on our same page, especially given the current atmosphere of confusion and distrust brewed by fossil fuel operatives and our gullible media. Even though it seems like an unfair burden, it’s up to us to educate people around us about the urgency of the climate crisis with out passion and hard work. If there are no candidates that come close to being climate friendly, find someone you support in your community (including yourself) and encourage them to run for office. It might be crazy, but you can influence the dialogue on the local level, build up local support, and maybe even get elected!
New video on actions in Copenhagen in support of the island states and the least developed countries. These courageous negotiators are standing up to the weak commitments proposed by the ‘global north’ that are far from what required by the science.
Under current commitments, warming of more than 2 degrees celsius is certain. Such warming would drawn small island states and seriously weaken the already small agricultural output of in sub-Saharan Africa.
The WonkRoom posted the video of the Tuvalu negotiator’s plea for developed nations to reduce their emissions fast enough to guarantee the survival of his people. I highly recommend it!
(sorry for my bad performance in this first video, I’m still getting used to being in front of a camera!)
I got to Copenhagen on December 4th and will be hanging out here at the United Nations international climate negotiation until the 20th. In this time, delegates from all nations in the world and many world leaders will swing by to either try to move the process forward or put roadblocks to climate action.
Official delegates aren’t the only ones here. Over 1,000 young people and tens of thousands of other NGO, business and industry representatives are here to try to get their voices heard amidst the chaotic negotiation process.
This first week, negotiators from different countries will begin drafting an outline of the proposal that should emerge. As the end of the conference draws nearer and the agreed upon aspects of the proposal are finalized, Environmental Ministers (i.e. secretaries) from each country will join their negotiators for the tougher part of the talks. Finally, on the last day where only few details need to be finalized Prime Ministers and Presidents will join in on the fight, ending the negotiations in a high-level high-stakes battle over words. The whole process happens over consensus and thus every nation must agree in order to come up with a viable proposal or treaty.
Unfortunately due to the delays brought about by the Bush Administration in the past eight years we are no-where close to finalizing a treaty, but hopes are high for a meaningful structure to be finalized over the next year and some strong commitments decided upon by some of the biggest polluters.
In my time here, I will be working with partner organizations in planning media saavvy actions, document them on this blog, and help U.S. young people take action through the Energy Action Coalition’s Rapid Response Network. If you wish to help us spread the word in your community about the U.S.’s behavior during the negotiations, sign up here to join my team of Rapid Responders.
If you have thoughts and ideas about what I should be covering while here, please leave me a note in the comments!
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.
On April 14th, 2009 at 9:30 AM, coal barons are finally testifying in front of Congress about the “The Role of Coal in a New Energy Age.”
Shouldn’t Obama be using drilling as a bargaining chip for real climate legislation, rather than an Easter present to the oil industry? Cadbury eggs are much better for the environment.
Is there anyone who feels like this is more than a temporary solution to a much bigger problem?
Why do they think this is worth the destruction? Is this an attempt to cross party lines?
How is he going to address his liberal environmental base on this issue?
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.
I typically hate these cheesy, often-pretentious, holier-than-thou lists of things people should commit to doing if only they were smart/benevolent/disciplined/healthy enough. I promise that this one is different.