June 19th, 2009 -- Climate Change Action Day

Get involved! Go to your local congressman's office and speak out against global warming! Show that this issue matters to you! Speak out in support of the Waxman-Markey bill.

For more info, go to: http://action.1sky.org/t/4153/signUp.jsp?key=1041

A letter to House Speaker Pelosi, from

1Sky
Acorn
Democracia Ahora
Environment America
Green for All
Health Care Without Harm
Oxfam
MoveOn
Rock the Vote
Sierra Club
US Action

Dear Madame Speaker,

The American Clean Energy and Security Act offers our country the most important opportunity in generations to jumpstart our economy, create millions of new, well-paying jobs and set the stage for America to compete and win in a 21st century economy while reducing global warming pollution. A commitment by our elected leaders to a strong clean energy jobs bill will benefit small businesses and set us on the pathway back to economic prosperity. But in order to reach the full potential of this opportunity, Congress will need to stand strong against the special interests that seek to weaken the bill at every turn.

The Bush Administration had a virtual open-door policy to Big Oil for the last eight years. Meanwhile, the powerful interests of oil and coal have had a stranglehold on our energy policy, keeping our country hooked on old, dirty and expensive energy sources. At the same time, China and India have invested massively in clean energy technology development, recognizing that global economic leadership in the future is dependent on investments in clean energy infrastructure and technology now.

America has a chance to lead in the global race if we pass a bill that truly levels the playing field for new energy industries and limits the entitlement to federal resources and the control of our energy economy of Big Oil and Coal.

Yet, long-established energy industries have received concessions during the House committee negotiation process that have weakened this bill’s ability to deliver on the full promise of clean energy jobs, strong, inclusive and sustaining economy in the 21st century and reducing pollution. Many of the considerations granted the oil, coal, and electricity industries would preserve their market power and profits while transferring the cost of reducing pollution to the taxpayer. We believe that industries should pay to clean up their emissions, not demand loopholes, bailouts, and giveaways from the federal government.

The clean energy jobs bill will best serve America if we can strengthen its provisions to maximize job creation, invest in the skills of our workers and the long-term economic prosperity of our country, and significantly reduce the pollution that has been caused by fossil fuel industries for decades.

In order to achieve these goals by the time it passes the House, we call on the House of Representatives to further the work of the committees and pass the following amendments:

Amendment #1: Ensure more clean energy for America
Increase the Renewable Electricity Standard to 30 percent by 2020 combined renewable energy and energy efficiency to deliver more clean energy jobs to the U.S. economy more quickly.  Utilities would have to achieve 17 percent mandatory renewables and 10 percent mandatory efficiency by 2020, while maintaining flexibility to do either with three percent.

Amendment #2: Hold polluters accountable
Restore authority to the EPA to regulate carbon emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act.

Amendment #3: Create more Clean Energy Jobs for America and Build Resiliency to Climate Change
Reduce allocations to polluting industries in order to supplement allowance accounts that would bolster green job development and protection of vulnerable communities that are impacted first and worst by climate change.  Shave allocations from fossil fuel producers and redistribute to programs that deliver energy efficiency and renewable energy, create green jobs and train workers to fill them, and protect natural resources and vulnerable communities here and around the world.  

We expect an effort on the House floor to roll back the already weakened target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.  Our groups will work to turn back this effort. Our organizations stand ready to work with Chairmen Waxman and Markey, the House leadership, and other Committees to strengthen and improve this bill to fulfill the promise of the historic opportunity before us. The U.S. can emerge from this process with legislation that effectively spurs clean economic development, powers our nation with efficient, renewable, home-grown energy sources, and establishes a carbon reduction plan that can give us the credibility to lead the international community to a global agreement. Given a chance, American innovation and ingenuity can lead us out of this crisis into long-term and broadly shared economic prosperity.

We will work tirelessly to accomplish that goal.

Sincerely,

1Sky
Acorn
Democracia Ahora
Environment America
Green for All
Health Care Without Harm
Oxfam
MoveOn
Rock the Vote
Sierra Club
US Action

CC The Honorable Henry A. Waxman
The Honorable Ed Markey

Concerned Citizens United for National Terra-friendly Energy Sources - official press release

Dateline: June 11, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE DISSEMINATION

Dear Madame Speaker,

You will no doubt be aware of the amendments proposed by Messrs Waxman and Markey to the American Clean Energy and Security Act to bring the United States into a modicum of sustainability and ecologicality while, at the same time, securing the nation's energy policy for the trying economic times ahead. While their aims are laudable, I, and indeed, the entire membership of Concerned Citizens United for National Terra-friendly Energy Sources feel that this does not go far enough in developing the renewable, sustainable sources of energy that the US already has unprecedented access to, and in particular, that it overlooks the environmental movement as a solution to their own problems, so to speak.

You may or may not be aware that, since 2004, the United States have been awash with celebrity activists, environmental lawyers, and miscellaneous windbags who spend their time demanding Governmental action on climate change yet, when asked what they are proposing, fall silent, or merely mouth platitudes about sustainability and how Big Oil is akin to the Antichrist. CCUNTES has calculated that all this pontification, awareness-raising, and similar produces over 9,000 tonnes of hot air every week. This is enough hot air to, given current technologies, power a medium-sized metropolis, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, even if less than 10% of this were to be harnessed. That could keep the lights on in DC all year round and save a significant amount of carbon dioxide, and in turn, the planet.

We also are aware, though, that both main parties in the US are compromised by a powerful cabal of vested interests, and have both proven themselves to, in the past, become inexcusably tainted by eco-sin. It is this that may block the passage of any, or all, of this Bill. We therefore call for the creation of a new political party that is not so run through with heresy, from which we can move forward with a consensus that will usher the US into an era of environmental responsibility. Ideally this must take place before this Bill goes through. This Party will also have, as part of its manifesto, the abolition of all term limits. It is regrettably the case that we are at war with the climate and as such the gross environmental irresponsibility of holding elections (CCUNTES has calculated that the carbon footprint of the 2008 presidential election was equal to that of deliberately flying up to the Arctic and back and punching 97,500 polar bear cubs in the face, five times a day, every day for a month) should be suspended until all this blows over. As such, certain other Constitutional rights and guarantees may have to be suspended until further notice.

With this in mind, CCUNTES propose the following be catered for in this Bill:

• All celebrity activists, officers of green charities, environmental volunteers, etc. are to be made to contribute 15% of their gassing to the Federal government each week. We envisage a network of specially-built turbine halls in which these tiresome individuals are sat in rows and made to flail the bladder about their ill-informed views on the environment for a full eight-hour shift. These "talking shops" will be equipped with special filters in the roofs that can harness all this hot air and convert it into electrical power, which can be sold to the consumer at prices that are competitive with even the most energy-efficient coal and oil fired plants.
  
• A new, ecological, sustainable political party is to be formed with the express intent of becoming the ruling party in both houses of Congress and in the executive branch.
  
• Anyone who has ever held stock in an oil or coal company will be publicly flogged with an eco-whip made of sustainable hemp. Anyone who has ever been an executive in such a company will be subjected to a special Environmental Tribunal, a climate Nuremberg if you will, and summarily executed.
  
• Hard labour to be reinstituted in the nation's prisons, to wit, in the form of treadle pumps wired up to dynamos.
  
• Anyone caught pontificating about the environment before getting onto a Gulfstream jet will be sentenced to ten to fifteen years hard labour.
  
• Anyone caught criticising, opposing publicly, or being skeptical about the science with regard to global warming will be sentenced to five to ten years' hard labour.
  
• Anyone caught doing the above in the presence of children will suffer the similar punishment, plus castration. A message should be sent that allowing children access to a dissenting view is tantamount to child abuse and should be punished likewise.
  
• A programme will be put in place by which children can gain consumer electronics and college scholarships by informing on anyone committing any of the above acts of treason.
  
• Any former President living in the region of Crawford, Texas is to be publicly executed in a manner yet to be decided but which will be both bloodthirsty and sustainable, perhaps being torn apart by four Toyota Priuses or something like that, I don't know.
  
• Actually, we might as well just expel Texas from the Union wholesale, they're all incorrigible Republican rednecks down there, waste of time trying to bring them round.
  
• And finally, vandalism of a wind farm or solar array is to be deemed an act of war by that person against the United States and thus treason.
  

I trust that you and the rest of the House will see the need for these measures which, although they may appear harsh, are perfectly justifiable in the light of the current environmental crises.

Now where's my Nobel Prize, bitch?

Yours in Gaia,

- The Right Honourable Jon T. Hazelnut, Order of Monbiot (First Class), Légion d'Écologie, Director of CCUNTES.

(Anyone who finds this writeup offensive is resoundingly uncool.)

(References to serious green activists who have endorsed quite some of these positions I have set out are available on request.)