In the United States, the transition to a clean energy economy is already underway. Climate-concerned citizens are calling on candidates in next year’s federal election to show their plan to power the country with 50% clean energy by 2030.
The time for a job-creating, climate-stabilizing clean energy revolution is NOW.
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Go to https://nextgenclimate.org/ to learn more.
“Transition to a post-fossil fuel world of clean energies will not occur as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy. Fossil fuels are cheap only because they are subsidized and do not pay their costs to society. Air and water pollution from fossil fuel extraction and use have high costs in human health, food production, and natural ecosystems, with costs borne by the public. Costs of climate change and ocean acidification also are borne by the public, especially young people and future generations.”
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Renowned climate scientist turned activist Dr James Hansen wrote in the Huffington Post about the “fork in the road” humanity is facing:
We stand at a fork in the road. Conventional oil and gas supplies are limited. We can move down the path of dirtier more carbon-intensive unconventional fossil-fuels, digging up the dirtiest tar sands and tar shales, hydrofracking for gas, continued mountain-top removal and mechanized destructive long-wall coal mining. Or we can choose the alternative path of clean energies and energy efficiency.
Click here to read the full article.
Today is the first day of the U.N. climate talks in Durban South Africa. As I wrote earlier, many people’s expectations (including mine) for a meaningful and binding international climate treaty coming out of these 10 days is low. It seems, sadly, that unbridled capitalism will triumph over humanity’s need for clean water, clean air, and a stable climate. The Alberta-based Pembina Institute put it this way:
Comparing the frustratingly slow pace of international negotiations on climate change against the ever-increasing urgency of climate-change science, it is hard to be optimistic. The level of ambition currently being demonstrated puts the world on track for irreversible and catastrophic climate change.
I recently heard someone say “Power is power.” Imagine if we lived in a world where everyone, whether they are an African living in remotest Sudan or a Pakistani in the highest Karakoram mountain or a New Yorker in Manhattan, could put up a solar panel or wind turbine to run their laptop or power their schools. Citizens of the world could get around without lining the pockets of Big Oil and Gas, as they rely on electric cars, or e-bikes, or accessible public transport. Parents wouldn’t need to be the gate-keepers of toxins to protect their children from poisons in the food they eat or the air they breathe, as sustainability becomes the norm in agriculture and industry as well as transportation, and clean water and air become the standard around the world rather than the exception.
The fossil fuel industry recognized several decades ago, before most environmentalists and certainly before most politicians (who still don’t get it), that a fundamental paradigm shift is required to address the climate crisis, and this shift threatens these corporations’ bottom line. They are fighting for their lives, and fighting dirty; and they don’t care about the lives of the most vulnerable or about our children’s future.
Christiana Figueres, who replaced Yvo de Boer as head of the U.N. climate secretariat in 2010, said Sunday the stakes for the COP17 negotiations are high, underscored by new scientific studies. Figueres said under discussion at COP17 was: “nothing short of the most compelling energy, industrial, behavioral revolution that humanity has ever seen.”
As investigative reporter William Marsden said on CBC Radio’s The Current this morning, it’s time to bring the science to the table, and let the science, not politics and the fossil fuel industry, dictate what should be done. Yet the industrialized nations, the big emitters, have been increasingly ignoring the science and muzzling scientists. In its 2011 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Association has said that the world is at risk of being locked into an ‘insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system’ that will lead to average temperature increases of 3.5 C, and called for immediate action because if the world’s energy infrastructure isn’t changed by 2017 CO2 emissions will be locked in and catastrophic climate change will be set in motion.
Where are the parents, who should be in the streets demanding our governments take the science seriously and protect our children’s future? It’s time for parents and grandparents, as well as young people, to get noisy and get active. Otherwise, we’re facing mutually assured destruction.
Suggestions For Immediate Actions:
The Council of Canadians has an action for Canadians to send a message to the European Union to uphold the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) which labels tar sands oil as a high carbon, and encourages suppliers to reduce emissions and promotes the use of cleaner fuels over dirty fuels. For details on how to send a message of support for this clean fuel policy, go to the Council’s Action Alert page.
Join Citizens Climate Lobby, a nonprofit non-partisan international group focused on creating the political will for a sustainable climate and empowering individuals to have breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power. Dr. James Hansen said at the Keystone XL Pipeline protests:
“Most impressive is the work of the Citizens Climate Lobby, a relatively new, fast growing, nonpartisan, nonprofit group with 35 chapters across the United States and Canada. If you want to join the fight to save the planet, to save creation for your grandchildren, there is no more effective step you could take than becoming an active member of this group.”
CCL has introductory calls on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of every month, contact me at 350orbust@gmail.com or email ccl@citizensclimatelobby.org. Or check out their websites:
Citizens Climate Lobby International
Whatever you chose to do, the important thing is to do something. For those of us who have a future generation depending on us, doing nothing isn’t an option any more.
Google is putting its substantial money where its mouth is on new energy technologies. From New Energy News:
When the story of this moment in history is told, it will be about the huge numbers of people in emerging economies coming out of poverty and the transition to New Energy that will make that emergence possible without further eroding the ecosystem and climate. An important part of that story may be Google’s role in facilitating the U.S. New Energy economy.
Google has recently invested
[1] $280 million in SolarCity for rooftop solar financing,
[2] $100 million in Oregon’s 845 megawatt Shepherd’s Flat project, the world’s largest wind farm,
[3] $38.8 million in 169.5 megawatts of North Dakota wind,
[4] power purchase agreements (PPAs) it access to 114 megawatts from an Iowa wind farm and 100 megawatts from a wind farm now under construction in Oklahoma,
[5] $168 million in a BrightSource Energy solar power plant now under construction, [6] $5 million in a solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Germany,
[7] over $100 million in California wind farms,
[8] one-third of the $6 billion for Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC), a transmission backbone system for offshore wind along the eastern seaboard, and
[9] in 9 or more ventures in startups, including ActaCell (batteries), Aptera (electric vehicles), Next Autoworks (advanced efficiency carmaker), Alta Rock (geothermal producer), RelayRides (car sharing), WeatherBill (weather insurance), Silver Spring Networks (smart grid technologies), Cool Planet Biofuels (next generation biofuels), Transphorm (power conversion).
And the corporation continues to invest in energy efficiency implementation at its data centers and in cutting edge advanced New Energy ventures.
Rick Needham, one of the Google execs leading the charge, recently told NewEnergyNews the company intends to show its business community peers that New Energy is as economically practical as it is environmentally sound. Click here to read the full article.
Here is a photo essay on why it is so important to move towards clean, renewable energy – for the Lubicon Cree in Northern Alberta, and for all of us:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz3nSscXamI]
More links:
Today’s Study: Google On Why Renewable Energy Is On The Way
Today’s guest blogger is Climate Champion Cheryl McNamara, who has blogged on 350orbust before about the Canadian Climate Change Accountability Act, Bill C311. Cheryl organizes Climate Response, a grassroots group whose purpose is to elevate the public conversation on climate change and encourage the transition to a low-carbon economy. Her blog Carbon Slim offers tasks and tips to help readers reduce their carbon footprints. This was first posted on Carbon Slim Friday September 17.
Urge Senators to Pass Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act
This is something I’ve thrown myself into. I’ve put a lot of work into it, so you don’t have to.
Canada is close to passing the Climate Change Accountability Act, but it’s under threat by Conservative Senators. Parliamentarians passed the Bill (C-311) in May. Now the Bill needs the support of 53 Senators. Of the 105 Senators, 52 are Conservative.
The situation is precarious. Years of hard work to get the Act to this point could prove meaningless if it does not get the support from all 53 opposition Senators: 49 Liberal Senators, two Progressive Conservatives and two Independents.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce is calling on its members to lobby the Senate to oppose the Bill. Join me in a concerted citizen campaign in support of Bill C-311. The Bill resumes debate on September 28th.
What’s the Big Deal? – If passed into law, the Climate Change Accountability Act will set science based emissions reductions, require the government to produce five year target plans, establish independent reviews, and punish polluters who break regulations. It will also position Canada as a global leader in the transition to a low carbon economy.
I heard Dr. James Hansen, one of the world’s top climatologists, speak in Toronto on Wednesday. Dr. Hansen heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He’s been sounding the climate action clarion call for decades. Dr. Hansen reminded us that addressing climate change is a moral issue. The safe level of greenhouse gas parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere is 350. In the past, natural global warming has taken place at a rate of .0001 ppm. Currently, we are experiencing an increase of an astonishing 2 ppm per year. According to Hansen, if we burn all the fossil fuel left on the planet, the greenhouse gases will constitute 1000 ppm in our atmosphere.
What to do – Please visit http://www.trunity.net/climateresponse/topics/view/53728/ for sample letters to Senators and their emails. Just cut and paste. Easy. If you have a bit more time and love strategy, cut and paste the sample letters to the CEOs of insurance companies and financial firms, who are Chamber of Commerce members. The letters ask them to lobby the Senate to support the Bill. I also include contact details. Please send these letters off and spread the word.
On September 28th Senator Neufeld will speak out against the Bill when the Senate resumes debate on it. Let’s bombard the Senate with emails. Soon I will craft sample targeted emails to Liberal Senators, PC Senators and the Independents, and upload them onto the Climate Response campaign page.
Also – please join the Facebook page, Urge Senators to Support Bill C-311 – http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=152085321489110
Let’s insure that the Climate Change Accountability Act becomes law. And when that’s done, let’s work to usher in a government that respects it.
An excellent video from the Environmental Defense Fund:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9SUDoLsS1E&feature=player_embedded]
In his first address to Americans from the Oval Office, last night Barack Obama discussed the BP catastrophe in the Gulf, promising that BP would pay for their “recklessness”, and then he went on to say that the time to embrace clean energy is now:
So one of the lessons we’ve learned from this spill is that we need better regulations, better safety standards, and better enforcement when it comes to offshore drilling. But a larger lesson is that, no matter how much we improve our regulation of the industry, drilling for oil these days entails greater risk.
After all, oil is a finite resource. We consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. And that’s part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean: because we’re running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.
For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires.
Time and again, the path forward has been blocked, not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor.
The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. Countries like China are investing in clean-energy jobs and industries that should be right here in America. Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil. And today, as we look to the Gulf, we see an entire way of life being threatened by a menacing cloud of black crude.
We cannot consign our children to this future. The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean-energy future is now. Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America’s innovation and seize control of our own destiny.
This is not some distant vision for America. The transition away from fossil fuels is going to take some time. But over the last year- and-a-half, we’ve already taken unprecedented action to jump-start the clean-energy industry.
It’s a hopeful sign, and could signal stronger leadership from the White House on clean energy. Obama, after all, is a father to two young daughters who are going to have to live with the consequences of his leadership, or lack of it, on this issue. What is certain, though, is that Obama can’t do it without the support of the majority of Americans – and Republicans are already massing on the side of Big Oil – so hopefully there will be a groundswell of support for the President that can’t be ignored. I, for one, will be watching with great interest from north of the border, as this unfolds over the next months. Could the Gulf disaster be the tipping point that finally gets North Americans to kick our fossil fuel habit? And does this mean that Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to start talking about weaning Canadians off our addiction, including shutting down the tar sands? After all, for months, he and his Environment Minister Jim Prentice have been repeating that they can’t formulate their own policy, they have to wait and take the lead from the Americans. It looks like President Obama is leading, Mr. Harper. The question is, are you going to follow?
More Links:
For the full text of President Obama’s speech, click here. For video, click here.
For analysis, go to “A Clean Energy Future is Now: But Mr. President, How Do We Get There?” on The Huffington Post.
Disappointingly, from my perspective as a Canadian, the coverage of the speech on the CBC website focuses almost exclusively on his remarks on BP and the Gulf, which was the first half of the speech, without mentioning the last half of his speech, which was all about transitioning to clean energy (click here to check for yourself).
The Globe and Mail does cover the speech in more depth, although you wouldn’t know it from the headline. Click here to read “Obama Lashes Out At BP in Oval Office Address”. And the headline in the Toronto Star read “Barack Obama Calls Gulf Clean-up a ‘National Mission’ ” (click here to read article).
And, via the FB group 1,000,000 Strong Against Offshore Drilling, a request to add your votes to their clean energy questions for the White House’s Press Secretary tonight. “Its a long-shot, but please add your quick votes if you haven’t yet (it’s as easy as clicking the green thumbs). We’re close to the top of the list.“ Click here to do just that.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOWffhbEn60]
For more information, go to VoteVet.org.