Archive - 2009

In general, the climate community has been thrilled with Obama lately. Tuesday night, he called on Congress to pass a climate bill, and later this week, he released a budget that takes revenue from a cap on carbon into account. For the most part we are thrilled and we will be working hard alongside the President to achieve a strong climate bill this year.

Unfortunately, one of the most important details of Obama's plan is not up to snuff: science-based targets for reducing carbon pollution.

This week, President Obama presented his budgetary plan for the United States stating that our government must “invest in the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future: energy, health care, and education." Obama's energy policy marks a sea change away from the archaic energy regulations of George W. Bush. Think Progress' Wonk Room reports on the details of Obama's energy plan:

I can’t believe this weekend is already here! We’ve been talking about it for weeks, and now, in a matter of HOURS, 11,000 people are descending upon Washington, D.C. for Power Shift '09 to unite the movement and make our voices heard in Congress .

Wow.

More anti-coal campaigning news: the Oscar-winning Coen brothers directed the latest "clean coal" TV ad from the Reality Coalition (h/t to TreeHugger):

If the tide keeps turning this way against dirty coal, even The Dude may become an anti-coal activist.

The backlash against dirty coal power plants continues. A couple of days ago, Waterkeeper Alliance launched The Dirty Lie, a new online campaign to bust the myth of "clean coal":

The website’s core is a list of lies propagated by the coal industry, including the dirtiest lie of all: that coal can ever be clean. The site exposes the lies through scientific studies, legal facts, videos, and graphics, revealing the shocking truths about the destructiveness of the entire coal life cycle.

The site's videos are especially compelling. "The Miraculous Mercury Baby, Parts 1, 2, and 3" in particular grabbed my attention. The series weaves together the story of coal's toxic effects on the food chain with the story of Lucy, a young mother from Williamsburg, New York trying to find out if her son Freddy has high levels of mercury (a by-product of coal mining) in his body. While waiting for her and her son's mercury test results (which she has to pay out of pocket because her insurance won't pay for them unless she already shows symptoms of mercury poisoning), Lucy talks about the high levels of toxic substances contained in fish due to coal pollution of our waterways, and the hard choices coal pollution poses for a young mother of two.

So I was just checking out the White House blog, and what do I find? Props to Power Shift '09:

And finally, don't forget to check out the Powershift conference this weekend in DC. 10,000 youth organizers talking about climate and green jobs.

I believe the expression you're looking for is "w00t, w00t!"

The whole post is worth a read. Greg Nelson does a roundup of President Obama's green jobs initiatives, including the confirmation of Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor:

It is shaping up to be a great week for making that promise a reality for even more Americans. Representative Hilda Solis, one of the earliest champions for the power of green jobs -- and the architect and sponsor of the Green Jobs Act -- was confirmed by the Senate yesterday with a strong 80-17 to be our next Secretary of the Department of Labor. She's been a remarkable advocate for developing green jobs by building an economy we can all be proud of, and her voice and vision will be a powerful addition -- the Sierra Club said they were "overjoyed" by the confirmation.

It's good to see the White House blogging about green jobs. Actually, it's good to see the White House blogging at all.

During his address to Congress, President Obama just said:

We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet, it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea.

Well I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders - and I know you don't either. It is time for America to lead again.

Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years. We have also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history - an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in medicine, science, and technology.

We will soon lay down thousands of miles of power lines that can carry new energy to cities and towns across this country. And we will put Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our energy bills.

But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. And to support that innovation, we will invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America.

Full text of speech here.

I recorded this short video earlier today before heading out to the airport, with some thoughts on what we've achieved together so far this year and what lies ahead in 2009:

There is a firestorm a brewing in the American public over sloppy journalism that propagates myths, not facts. Journalism as we know it is losing audience share daily and the economic crisis has exacerbated an already crumbling infrastructure of the fourth estate. But maybe part of the reason that the public has turned away from newspapers is because we can't always believe what we read in the paper. Some wounds are self-inflicted. Washington institution columnist George Will hit a new low when he skipped the fact-checking and wrote an op-ed titled Dark Green Doomsayers, syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group on February 15. Will propagated many a myth passing his opinions off as unsubstantiated "fact"--and his editors did not check the facts, either.

Designing a winning logo: $250. Solving the climate crisis: Priceless.

Last Thursday, we launched the Climate Precinct Captains program -- and now we're looking for a logo to represent it. We thought about hiring a graphic designer to do it, but we thought we'd go to you because no one knows better than you do what being a CPC and being a part of this movement is all about! Submit a logo design to the contest and learn more about what we're looking for in a winning design today. To learn more about being a CPC, click here.