Posts Tagged ‘congress’

Published on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

The People Speak on Climate Change

by Karyn Strickler

“If it was easy, they wouldn’t call it a ‘struggle.’” –Rising Tide North America

A mighty, sleeping, giant rose with the sun in the east yesterday and the swell of resistance thundered westward across North America.  The Mobilization for Climate Justice called for urgent action on the global climate crisis.  Organizers contemplated the protests in Seattle a decade ago, that shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) and looked ahead to Copenhagen, where the world will go to set international standards for reversing climate change.

Ananda Lee Tan, who helped organize the WTO protests and today’s Mobilization said in an interview with Democracy Now, “I think we’re at a place where once again we’re faced with turning out massive numbers of people on the streets to challenge the corporate interference with international climate policy talks, but also here in the U.S.”

Activists launched non-violent fasts, die-ins and blockades in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Ontario.  Bold climate activists in Greenville, SC chained themselves to the Cliffside Coal Plant Power Generator; in Washington, DC, they blocked K Street, where the corporate lobbyists roost; in Chicago, IL, they were arrested by the dozen in the financial district; they held a die-in in Denver; and in San Francisco, CA 200 activists took control of the Bank of America headquarters on Market Street, locking themselves to the revolving doors prior to being arrested. Read the rest of this entry »

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 9, 2009
10:03 AM

CONTACT: PEER
Carol Goldberg (202) 265-7337
Email: info@peer.org

Nearly two decades after writing a book that popularized the term “global warming,” MoJo contributing writer Bill McKibben founded 350.org. He is chronicling his journey into organizing with a series of columns leading up to the global climate summit in Copenhagen this December. You can find the others here. And you can put yourself on the cover of MoJo‘s special issue on climate change here.

And so the climate show moves on. Last week it was Barcelona.
We’ve been in the out-of-town tryouts phase, everyone trying hard to
get it right before the curtain opens in Copenhagen a month from now.

Or maybe not so hard. Governments, and international negotiators, keep lowering expectations
just as fast as they can. “Of course, we are not going to have a
full-fledged binding treaty-Kyoto type-by Copenhagen,” European
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said last week. “There is no
time for that.” Of course not-the Copenhagen meeting was only scheduled
five years ago. Added the UN Secretary General, “I am reasonably
optimistic that Copenhagen will be a very important milestone. At the
same time, realistically speaking, we may not be able to have all the
words on detailed matters.”
Read the rest of this entry »

CONTACT: Center for Biological Diversity
Bill Snape, (202) 536-9351

TUCSON, Ariz. – November 6 – Capping a week in which the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee overwhelmingly passed a weak global warming bill with no Republican support, Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director Kierán Suckling issued the following statement:

“It is a sad day when the lead environmental committee in the Senate passes a bill (S. 1733) that contains pollution-reduction goals far less than scientists tell us are necessary to stem global warming and avert catastrophe. It is even more distressing that this bill contains Clean Air Act exemptions that will eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s longstanding duty to reduce greenhouse pollutants based on scientific standards. This is not a time to cheer. The fossil-fuel industry has received what it wants and will now seek more.

There are three fundamental problems with the Senate bill.
Read the rest of this entry »

This week both The Washington Post and Greenpeace reported on the failure of the Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This decade old “carbon offset” forest project in Bolivia demonstrates that “carbon trading” and other market mechanisms (CDM, REDD, cap and trade, so forth) will not effectively slow the burning of fossil fuels. These financial instruments are scams, frauds, and human rights violations.

Read the rest of this entry »

For immediate release: October 8, 2009

Contacts:

Brian Tokar, 802-229-0087 briant@pshift.com

Rachel Smolker, 802-482-2848 rsmolker@riseup.net

A controversial article posted last week on a popular environmental website has inadvertently highlighted environmentalists’ skepticism toward the cap-and-trade provisions of climate legislation now before the US Congress. The article, posted on the environmental news site Grist.org on October 1st, was titled “‘No compromise’ faction attacks climate bill,” and attempted to dismiss the activities of Climate SOS (climatesos.org) and other groups highly critical of the legislation, as far outside the environmental mainstream. A review of comments posted in response to the article tells a very different story, according to members of the Climate SOS network.

Out of 55 original, non-duplicate comments posted to the Grist.org site by mid-day October 6th, 34 were critical of the article and of the “cap-and-trade” approach to limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Fourteen comments defended the legislation and/or supported the article’s point of view, and five others were ambiguous or uncertain in their position. While far from a scientific poll, comments on mainstream environmental websites such as Grist are seen as a useful indicator of the views of environmentally concerned readers.

“We feel tremendously vindicated by Grist readers’ response to this article,” said Brian Tokar, director of the Institute for Social Ecology Read the rest of this entry »

For immediate release: October 2, 2009

Climate SOS: Senate Bill “Condemns us to Climate Chaos”

Climate SOS, a coalition of scientists and activists who support science- and environmental justice-based climate legislation, today characterized the draft Senate bill, called the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” which was introduced on Wednesday by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) as an “irresponsible non-solution.”

They maintain that any bill that embraces cap and trade, offsets, outrageously inadequate emission reduction targets, and counter-solutions such as biomass burning, nuclear power and more coal fired power plants (under the guise of partial carbon capture technology that is as yet unavailable) will fail to meet its stated goal of forestalling catastrophic climate change.

Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Citizens Climate Lobby, Center for Biological Diversity and others have also rejected the Senate bill for its lack of grounding in science and its failure to consider global environmental justice concerns.

Maggie Zhou, a Climate SOS organizer, and project coordinator with the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, said “Cap and trade is the worst choice for pricing carbon. It is proven ineffective even in its best incarnations, is influence-prone, creates a huge, risky, game-able carbon market that is extremely complex, subject to manipulations, whose likely bubble-bust will overshadow the mortgage or the dot com bubble.  While cap and trade is the scheme of choice for polluters and Wall Street executives, a revenue-neutral carbon tax-and-dividend program would be much more straightforward, equitable, less prone to fraud and gaming, and would compensate people, not corporations, for the costs of pricing carbon.” She added “The US forced cap and trade into the Kyoto protocol, which we didn’t even ratify.  It’s time to correct that mistake, and lead the world in implementing a much more sensible system that could simplify global efforts on fighting climate change, that has a real chance of success.” Read the rest of this entry »

Earth Island Institute has an interview with NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen. He denounces cap-and-trade, the Waxman-Markey bill, and calls for civil resistance in the face of the fraudulent inaction of the US government.

When I give a talk on this, I show that the three options for getting the actions that are obviously needed are through the democratic process, influencing the elections of the administration and Congress; secondly, the courts; and then thirdly, civil resistance.

full audio mp3

(New York) Climate justice activists from Rising Tide North America and Climate SOS in New York took to the streets on the final day of the UN Climate summit, making housecalls to the New York offices of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and the Nature Conservancy. NRDC’s street-level banner was festooned with a 14 foot mock “Climate Bill” in the form of $2 trillion bank note (the approximate value of a U.S. carbon market). Imagery on the giant spoof bill critiques roles of many large environmental groups in their push for passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), chiefly for its advocacy of an carbon market. Following NRDC, the offices of EDF and The Nature Conservancy received delivery visits where activists desperately tried to present organizational representatives with their version of the “green”.

These organizations are leading members of the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), which has united them with highly polluting corporations such as Dow, DuPont, General Electric and Alcoa Aluminum under the auspices of lobbying Congress to reduce emissions. This unsavory alliance played a major role in crafting the Waxman-Markey ACESA bill (HR 2454) passed by the US House of Representatives in July, and expected to make its way for a Senate vote imminently. Read the rest of this entry »

Environmental activists, some dressed as “Trillionaires for Bad Math” today delivered a “climate bill” to Copenhagen, ahead of schedule.  The mock “bill” was delivered at a 3 pm lecture at Columbia University’s School of International Public Affairs hosted by Danish Climate and Energy minister Connie Hedegaard. Hedegaard is the chairperson of the UN climate summit to be held in Copenhagen this December, where many hope that a strong global climate agreement will be signed.

Representatives of groups including Climate SOS and Rising Tide North America presented a 14-foot banner representing the climate bill currently being debated in the US Congress, which many consider essential for strong US participation in Copenhagen. The banner depicts a two trillion dollar note, representing the size of the new market in carbon dioxide emissions allowances that would be established by the Waxman-Markey climate bill that passed the House of Representatives in late June.

The centerpiece of the banner is an image of a bewildered Al Gore, who introduced the concept of tradable emissions allowances into the UN process in Kyoto in 1997. Hundreds of environmental groups are critical of the current US climate bill. Many view the bill’s cap and trade provisions as a dangerous false solution, that is inherently unstable and ultimately incapable of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Leading Trillionaire, Cap’n Trade, dressed in pirate regalia, told the assembled crowd, “‘Tis a bloody shame for the climate that Congress has chosen me to clean up this mess for ‘em. But I don’t mind a bit,” he continued, “’cause rising seas and booty and plunder are just my thing and soon the land, air and water will be all mine.”

The “trillionaires for bad math” argue that the House bill “just doesn’t add up”, pointing out that it falls far short of scientifically valid targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; removes the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act; and incorporates massive corporate giveaways into its cap-and-trade program. Corporations would be able to defer needed emissions reductions for decades under the bill’s offset provisions. International groups widely condemn the lack of US leadership on climate issues and demand that wealthy countries pay their share of the accumulated “climate debt.”

“If these lily-livered politicians aren’t ready to do something about the climate, those scurvy activists on the streets of Copenhagen are going to make ‘em walk the plank,” said Cap’n Trade.  “We’re all going to end up in Davy Jones’ Locker.”

As the Climate SOS crosscountry tour culminates, activists from Climate SOS, Rising Tide, and other groups of environmental activists in New York launched direct action interventions to signal the widespread opposition to the Waxman-Markey climate bill and its inadequate targets and schedules and financial mechanisms for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

For press materials, photos and video: contact mutualaid@earthlink.net More info at: climatesos.org, risingtidenorthamerica.org

Contacts (Mobile phones): Rachel Smolker, Ph.D.802 482 2848 Brian Tokar, 802-595-9677

September 2009 by Brian Tokar

printer friendly version Tokar’s ZSpace page

The summer and fall of 2009 will surely be noted in the annals of environmental history. This period could be remembered as the time when the world’s elites slowly began to crawl toward a meaningful solution to the threat of accelerating global climate disruptions. But if events continue along the path of recent months, it could mark the beginning of an inexorable slide toward an increasingly unstable planetary climate regime, an unstable and chaotic world that our ancestors would barely recognize.

Relying on the mainstream media for news, you’d think the outlook was fairly rosy. For example, a somewhat cautious note of triumph accompanied the G8′s pronouncement in early July that the world was committing to holding the global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius. The obstacle? “Developing Nations Rebuff G-8 on Curbing Pollutants,” proclaimed the New York Times headline.

You had to read through most of the article to discover that the main objection of those pesky “developing nations” representatives was to establishing a long-range goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (50 percent by 2050) without proportionate commitments from the major industrialized countries to nearer-term commitments—at least 20 percent reductions by 2020, as accepted by most European governments—that would facilitate meaningful progress toward the more distant goal. One astute European activist pointed out that the G8 outcome was “nothing but hot air,” akin to pronouncing that there would be luxury resorts on Mars by 2050. With no intermediate goals nor tangible steps toward implementation, politicians can pledge to do anything at all 40-plus years into the future. Read the rest of this entry »

CLIMATE SOS

TELL YOUR SENATORS A CLIMATE BILL THAT IS “WORSE THAN NOTHING” IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

This past June, the House passed the American Clean Energy & Security Act (ACESA). Soon, this bill will be voted on by the Senate. If passed, this climate bill would:

a. Prevent the U.S. from making anything remotely close to its fair share of greenhouse gas emissions reductions – necessary for averting catastrophic consequences and forging an effective global strategy on climate stabilization.

b. Lock us into an extremely complex cap-and-trade scheme that benefits fossil fuel, utilities, the Wall Street, and big agribusinesses, prone to Enron style market manipulations, while doing nothing to save the climate.

c. Use public money to subsidize the most polluting industries like coal and nuclear, drawing much needed financing away from real climate solutions like renewable energy production;

d. Add more toxic and climate polluting smokestacks, especially in backyards of the poor, people of color, and indigenous communities across the U.S., by grandfathering dirty old coal plants, permitting numerous new ones, and subsidizing incinerators as a form of renewable energy.

In the words of leading climate scientist James Hansen:

[ACESA would] “do more harm to the environment than doing nothing at all.”

Please contact your Senators and let them know that as a person deeply concerned about climate change, you want to see climate legislation passed, but ONLY IF IT IS REAL AND EFFECTIVE legislation, not like ACESA.

Click to join ClimateSOS

Read the rest of this entry »