1Sky Blog Posts about everything

August district actions: You still have time!

Emily — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:43:55 -0700

We're right around the corner from the August Congressional recess, and as you hopefully saw in Ada's post last week, we've had an amazing number of people sign up to take part in the Congressional district actions. As of yesterday, we've had over 1,500 people sign up—but we still need your support so we reach all 435 Congressional districts! Now is the time to send a clear to members of Congress. The recess is starting soon (Starting August 9 for Senators and August 11 for Representatives), but it isn't too late for you to sign up.

I've had some great conversations with people from all over the country who are setting up meetings with their Congress member, recruiting friends to come along, and are excited to bring their message to their representatives in person. All the meetings, rallies and other events happening on a district level will come together to really make a national statement. They are an opportunity to push for the bold action we need now, and bring attention to the need for strong short term targets for carbon reduction. Global warming is already creating huge changes across the world; let's make it clear to Congress that we need urgent U.S. action.

We need to hear what you are doing as part of the national movement, so please sign up for the August Congressional Action and, if you already have, send us an email letting us know that you have set up a meeting with your Member of Congress. Keep in touch before and after your action by emailing congress@1sky.org.

I am so excited that we have had so many people stand up and say they are ready to take action and meet with their Member of Congress, and I really want to urge everyone who signed up to make the call (find your Congress member's contact information at www.congressmerge.com) and set up a meeting. Do it today! We are counting on you, so that together we can have a huge impact.

I'm excited that so many of you are ready to turn up the heat on Congress, and now let's keep it hot!

Filming Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis

Gillian — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:13:40 -0700

Imagine if you had one minute in an elevator to tell our next President why climate change matters. What would you say?

1Sky and Brighter Planet are teaming up and we want you to film your message and upload it now to our new national video message competition -- Climate Matters: Inspire Your Next President! Winners will win cash prizes and their ads will be broadcast nationwide and delivered to the Presidential candidates and members of Congress.

Click here to visit the competition page on Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/climatematters

You and I both know climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time. We may already have changed our light bulbs, transformed our diets, moved to more fuel-efficient transportation, reduced our consumption and limited our air travel. What more can we possibly do? The climate is constantly on our minds, but the final and most important piece of the climate puzzle is missing—putting the issue front and center in the minds of our leaders. Now is the time and we need your help to deliver a message to our leaders demanding bold federal climate action. So what’s your message? Quickly... the elevator ride is almost over and time’s running out!

The headline from big business lately has been drill, drill, drill. We say film, engage, and change! I believe one of the most powerful ways to avert this climate crisis is by using video to open the eyes of our leaders so that they can join us in our quest to tackle global warming. (As you may know I spent the last 10 years as the director of WITNESS, founded by Peter Gabriel, which focuses on using video to create change. So I have first hand experience with how a video can make a difference). The only way we can avoid catastrophic climate change is if our leaders base their decisions in the scientific reality. But in order for our leaders to act in-line with what science demands, we must move quickly and show them that America is ready for bold climate action!

You’ve all heard the old phrase “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Well, Brighter Planet and 1Sky are opening the political space for you and now is your chance to shoot a video showing Congress and the next President to take bold federal climate action. The best messages will be shown to a central audience of over 50 million people nationwide as well as our leaders. And the grand prizewinner will get $3000 on a Brighter Planet gift card. (We won’t force you to weatherize your home with the prize money, but you might think about it!)

So think of what you would tell our leaders, grab a camera and start filming! You have the power to catalyze a new American movement and reshape the critical climate policies on Capitol Hill. It’s time for Congress and the next President to see that America is ready for bold climate action. If Congress and the President can see it, they just may believe it.

Biking for climate change: An update on Leah and Kelsey's trek

Luis — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:15:00 -0700

You may remember last month I posted a guest blog from Leah Gourlie and Kelsey Stone, two avid bikers and climate activists who are trekking across America this summer to raise awareness about global warming and donations for 1Sky. Fortunately for us, Kelsey and Leah have been keeping a blog about their adventure, called Biking Across the Country, that you should definitely check out.

Not only does it have day-by-day accounts of their trek, but also lots of lovely photos taken during the trip. I've included a couple of sample posts below. Be sure to visit their blog and leave some encouraging comments!

Kelsey and Leah in Colorado

Day 36
Yesterday we got caught in a huge hail storm and had to wait it out in a barn so we camped in Dove Creek last night. This morning we crossed over into Utah! Only three more states to go! We're having lunch in Monticello and staying tonight in Blanding. Tomorrow we have a 75 miles stretch with no services so it made today much shorter and it's kind of nice to get a little break after coming out of the Rockies.

Day 35
Currently we are in Dolores Colorado, it is around 10:30 and we are using the library here- unfortunately the computers here wont let us load our pictures onto the internet... We will be crossing into Utah this afternoon if all goes as planned and we have a few destinations in mind but haven't settled on any of them since it is still early. Our ride so far has been downhill and very pleasant although this morning it was really very cold.

Day 32
Today we climbed over Monarch pass which is the great divide. The elevation at the top was 11,312 feet. We all felt the altitude and felt a little sick so we headed down after taking a few pictures. We stopped in Sargents for lunch although we didn't feel that great. We continued on to Gunnison where we stayed at an Episcopal church along with 4 other cyclists. We had been rained on by an ice cold rain so staying inside was really great.

Climate news roundup - 7/25

Luis — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:28:07 -0700

There was no shortage of significant news on the climate front this week, so let's just dive in and take a look at the week that was.

In a familiar pattern, the states continue to lead the way in climate policy. This time, it's Texas:

Texas regulators have approved a $4.93 billion wind-power transmission project, providing a major lift to the development of wind energy in the state.
The planned web of transmission lines will carry electricity from remote western parts of the state to major population centers like Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The lines can handle 18,500 megawatts of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when air-conditioners are running.
The project will ease a bottleneck that has become a major obstacle to development of the wind-rich Texas Panhandle and other areas suitable for wind generation.

In that same vein, seven Western states and four Canadian provinces signed a major deal to cut carbon emissions (the lead of this story speaks volumes):

Tired of a lack of leadership at the national level, Western leaders are taking charge on curbing climate change by proposing a plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The Western Climate Initiative -- a coalition of seven states, including Washington and four Canadian provinces -- on Wednesday released a draft strategy to "cap and trade" releases of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.
"It's a proud day. No states have ever done this before," said Janice Adair, the initiative's chairwoman and special assistant to the director of the Washington Ecology Department. "It's a huge, huge deal that we got this done."

New Jersey is also jumping into the emissions-cutting bandwagon with a plan of its own:

The New Jersey Legislature passed a bill yesterday that set ambitious goals for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from power plants, refineries, motor vehicles and other sources that contribute to global warming.
Business leaders expressed concerns about the bill’s effect on energy costs and the state’s competitiveness, but environmental advocates hailed it as path-breaking, and Gov. Jon S. Corzine said he was ready to sign it into law.
Under the new law, greenhouse gas emissions generated by every aspect of the state’s economy, not just electricity-generating stations, will have to drop about 13 percent, to 1990 levels, by 2020. The bill further requires that emissions be capped at 80 percent of 2006’s levels by 2050.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the saga of the radioactive EPA email continues:

Under a subpoena threat from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the Environmental Protection Agency late Wednesday sent the panel a copy of its Dec. 5 proposal to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act -- as a brief loan.
Three Senate Democrats -- Boxer, Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) -- huddled together with their aides to review the documents, which were e-mailed to the White House Office of Management and Budget last year in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision on the matter. The senators had to return the document after reading it.

The White House never opened the document and instructed EPA to retract it. Instead, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson backed away from the conclusions that he and his staff had reached and last week issued an "advanced notice of proposed rulemaking" that invited public comment on the question of whether to regulate emissions linked to global warming. It took no stand on the question the court had asked it to address: whether global warming poses a threat to human health or public welfare.

. . .
"It is more than outrageous that documents that pertain to the health and safety and very lives of our citizens are being hidden from the American people," Boxer said in a statement yesterday. "I will continue the fight on their behalf to let the sunshine in."

The New York Time's Tom Friedman continued this week his evisceration of the Bush Administration's energy policy:

What doesn’t the Bush crowd get? It’s this: We don’t have a “gasoline price problem.” We have an addiction problem. We are addicted to dirty fossil fuels, and this addiction is driving a whole set of toxic trends that are harming our nation and world in many different ways. It is intensifying global warming, creating runaway global demand for oil and gas, weakening our currency by shifting huge amounts of dollars abroad to pay for oil imports, widening “energy poverty” across Africa, destroying plants and animals at record rates and fostering ever-stronger petro-dictatorships in Iran, Russia and Venezuela.
When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up. His problem is what that crack addiction is doing to his whole body. The cure is not cheaper crack, which would only perpetuate the addiction and all the problems it is creating. The cure is to break the addiction.
Ditto for us. Our cure is not cheaper gasoline, but a clean energy system. And the key to building that is to keep the price of gasoline and coal — our crack — higher, not lower, so consumers are moved to break their addiction to these dirty fuels and inventors are moved to create clean alternatives.

And to close: At last week's Netroots Nation conference in Austin, 1Sky ally Van Jones gave the closing keynote address:

Van Jones delivered the final keynote address at Netroots Nation today, stopping in Austin to talk about green jobs and the political prospects for addressing both the energy and climate woes of the country. The message from the netroots, he said, should be clear: "We cannot drill and burn our way out of this problem. If we do, we will burn this planet."
"We can say no, we're not going to drill and burn out way out. We're going to invent and invest our way out," said Jones.
Jones, the founder of the green jobs and environmental justice group Green For All, just returned from a trip to the Arctic with a group of political and business leaders that included Tom Daschle, Madeline Albright, and Jimmy Carter.

Read any interesting climate stories this week? Share them in the comments!

Around the Blogs this Week - 7/25

Andrew — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:49:43 -0700

This week, the climate blogs exploded with hilarious video clips, crazy non-violent protests, and major climate news. Sit back and relax as we take you through this week’s hottest climate blog posts.

Carol Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club made an appearance on Stephen Colbert’s fake-news show, the “Colbert Report.” Michael from ecorazzi writes,
In this hilarious interview, Carl Pope cautiously (and with good humor) navigates the questions put to him — including how he traveled over 2,500 miles from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. for the taping. “Did you travel on the back of a spotted owl?” Stephen quips.
As the interview continues, Pope describes George W. Bush as, "the most horrendous president in American history.” For more on this, check out Pope’s recent blog post on the Huffington Post, "It's Official -- Bush Has Ruined the Market Value of the Whole Country!"
That's one way, at least, to explain a recent decision by the EPA to lower the value attached to the life of the average American by 20 percent in the past five years. The Agency announced that an average American's life is worth $6.9 million today, vs. $8.5 million five years ago (in 2008 dollars).

Watch Pope gracefully respond to Colbert’s questions:

Coal and oil companies continue to rake in tremendous profits. Brad from ThinkProgress’ Wonk Room reports that “ConocoPhillips, the third largest American oil company, and Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, both announced tremendous second-quarter profits.”

Oil giant ConocoPhillips said Wednesday that revenue increased to $71.4 billion from $47.4 billion a year ago.
Peabody Energy today reported that revenues for the quarter were also a record at $1.53 billion on 59.8 million tons sold
Climate activist Dan Glass, from the anti-airport expansion group Plane Stupid (we agree...the name is almost too ironic), tried to super-glue himself to Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a reception this week. Climate Progress reports:
Mr Glass told the assembled guests: ‘Do not worry - this is a non-violent protest. We cannot shake away climate change like you can just shake away my arm.’
With oil prices at an all-time high and unlikely to drop anytime soon, the Bush administration is working to reduce America’s dependency on foreign oil by giving industry the okay to start tapping US oil shales.

According to Dave Roberts from Grist.org:

This is an inflection point in our history. If Americans believe there's no other way to reduce energy costs than to exploit hard-to-get-at domestic fossil fuels, they will support oil shale etc. no matter the horrific consequences for the climate.
Everything now depends on proving the viability of clean energy. The race is on.

Finally, TomP of the Daily Kos reports that this week Teamsters General President, Jim Hoffa, announced the union's withdrawal from the ANWR coalition, a group pushing for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Hoffa is pushing for a sustainable, green economy that protects the American people, not the oil tycoons.

Our economy is in shambles. Gas is climbing to $5 a gallon. The dollar has collapsed. Inflation is on the rise. Americans are seeing their paychecks shrink. Their family health care is being slashed," Hoffa said. "Finding a long-term solution has a tremendous upside. It will be environmentally friendly and will serve as a much-needed boost to our sagging economy."

What did we miss? Post it in the comments!

New report: African Americans bear the brunt of climate change

Vivian — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:21:00 -0700

Today, three years after publishing its groundbreaking report Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events: An Unequal Burden on African Americans (2005), the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative and Redefining Progress are unveiling its follow-up report entitled A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy for the U.S. (PDF)

The report highlights how African Americans are disproportionately affected by climate change, and how they will lose more economically from bad climate policy but stand to gain more from well-crafted policy that takes a myriad of seemingly discrete factors into account. The findings are the result of in-depth analysis of the effects of rising temperatures, greater pollution levels, and host of other harms from global warming. From the report's executive summary:

Global warming amplifies nearly all existing inequalities. Under global warming, injustices that are already unsustainable become catastrophic. Thus it is essential to recognize that all justice is climate justice and that the struggle for racial and economic justice is an unavoidable part of the fight to halt global warming.
Sound global warming policy is also economic and racial justice policy. Successfully adopting a sound global warming policy will do as much to strengthen the economies of low-income communities and communities of color as any other currently plausible stride toward economic justice.

Climate policies that best serve African Americans also best serve a just and strong United States. This paper shows that policies well-designed to benefit African Americans also provide the most benefit to all people in the U.S.

Climate policies that best serve African Americans and other disproportionately affected communities also best serve global economic and environmental justice. Domestic reductions in global warming pollution and support for such reductions in developing nations financed by polluter-pays principles provide the greatest benefit to African Americans, the peoples of Africa, and people across the Global South.

A distinctive African American voice is critical for climate justice. Currently, legislation is being drafted, proposed, and considered without any significant input from the communities most affected. Special interests are represented by powerful lobbies, while traditional environmentalists often fail to engage people of color, Indigenous Peoples, and low-income communities until after the political playing field has been defined and limited to conventional environmental goals.

A number of Congressional members will participate in the announcement and discussion of the findings of the current report that was authored by Nia Robinson, Director, Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative and J. Andrew Hoerner, Director, Sustainable Economics, Redefining Progress. Among them will be Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY); Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO); Congresswoman Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI), Chair, Congressional Black Caucus [tentative]; Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA), Chair, Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming; and Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA).