Nationwide Climate Rallies to Demand Action from Candidates
NEW YORK — Encouraged by the positive response to their call for demonstrations last April, environmental activists have planned another round of nationwide rallies today to demand decisive actions on global warming.
“November 3 represents a new move towards political accountability,” said Bill McKibben, author and spokesperson of Step It Up, a coalition of environmental groups that organized more than 1,400 events on global warming in April.
Mindful that electioneering for primaries is gearing up, McKibben and other organizers are trying to build pressure on presidential contenders to take a firm stand on the issue of global warming.
“So far it’s been enough for politicians to say: ‘I care’,” McKibben added in a statement. “Now, one year out from a pivotal global warming election, it’s time to see who’s going to lead.”
Saturday’s events are being planning by seasoned activists based in New Hampshire and hundreds of others across the country whose main organizing tool is the Internet.
Organizers say the demonstrators will dip their index fingers in green ink to demand that Congress take climate change seriously by banning new coal plants, and approving 80 percent cuts in U.S. carbon emissions by 2050.
“We unlocked a pressure cooker of public concern in April by simply calling for local action,” said the campaign co-coordinator May Boeve, amid hopes that Saturday’s action will prove to be a wake-up call for politicians.
Boeve may be right. This week’s events on Capitol Hill indicate that a change in Washington’s climate change policy may be in the offing, though it will likely take some time.
On Thursday, for instance, a 7-member Senate panel approved a bipartisan bill to cap greenhouse gas emissions, launching the much-anticipated legislation down the arduous road to becoming law.
The move has been welcomed by some of the nation’s leading environmental policy advocates.
“This is much more than a milestone,” said Elizabeth Thompson, legislative director at the Washington, DC-based independent group Environmental Defense, which has thousands of supporters across the nation.
“With this bill we have a real chance of enacting a mandatory cap on emissions in this Congress,” she added in a statement. “Today the U.S. Congress begins its leadership on climate at home and abroad.”
The bill, known as “America’s Climate Security Act,” would put the United States on a path that is consistent with achieving the roughly 80-percent reductions in carbon emissions scientists say is needed by the middle of this century.
The bill is likely to be taken up by the Senate committee on environment and public works in the next two weeks. It would put a mandatory cap on emissions from the electric power, transportation, and manufacturing sectors of the economy.
The bill contains energy efficiency provisions that, when combined with the cap, would help reduce carbon emissions up to 19 percent by 2020, and 63 percent by 2050, compared to 2005 levels.
It contains “a sensible and important” provision for managing costs — without busting the emissions cap like alternative “safety valve” proposals, according to Environmental Defense.
“(This) Act would allow companies to bank and borrow emissions allowances for future compliance, without compromising the integrity of the overall emissions limit,” the group said in a statement.
Those who are leading this Saturday’s protests say they will continue their mass action campaign until Congress finalizes concrete and serious legislative steps to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
“Americans are demanding real solutions that will stop global warming before it is too late,” said campaigner Jamie Henn.
“From melting ice caps to erratic weather, we already see the impact of global warming,” added McKibben. “But while global warming presents our most pressing challenge, it also presents our most inspiring opportunity.”
Organizers said demonstrations will be held in all 50 states, and many will take place at historic places, such as the Lincoln Memorial, to symbolize the need for genuine political leadership.
Cyclists in Massachusetts will trace the route of Paul Revere’s historic “revolutionary ride” before holding a “Revolutionary Energy Rally” at the iconic Old North Bridge in Concord.
At least 71 members of Congress are expected to attend events, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Congress’ newest member, Massachusetts’ Niki Tsongas.
Also expected are seven presidential candidates, including Democratic front runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama; John Edwards is scheduled to speak at the culmination of a “second line” parade through New Orleans.
None of the Republican candidates, including front runners Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Fred Thompson, has indicated their intention to attend, though all have been invited by organizers and other attendees.
Copyright © 2007 OneWorld.net.
The fact of rapid, dramatic climate change with a fluctuating sea-level is the single most important unify factor for the future of humanity. Only together can we face this and survive without huge lose of life and disruption to human cultural progress. Most of the very rich and powerful are either in denial or are attempting to frame this as a question of survival of the richest.
Their default policy emerging is to let the catastrophe come unheeded so the mass hysteria that will ensue will be the justification for more of a military lock down.
Whatever the role of human pollution one fact remains that must be embraced, this is a natural and often repeated occurrence. It is as natural as the changes of season. It is the natural earth cycle of turning from continental glaciers and low sea-level to how it has been for 12,000 + years, polar ice caps high sea-level. And back again. The cycle includes periods of temperature and sea-level fluctuations along with periods of climatic instability. This part of cycle is natural; just like the flooding wasn’t some retributive god, it was the natural seasonal cycle of the earth played out over tens of thousands of years. If humans have been around for over 200,000 years then we have lived through a few of these.
We need to prepare for the changes. Evacuation plans. We need to build compact contained cities. We need to go in overdrive to train and cross train as many people as possible. We need to establish a distributed industrial capacity. We need to secure food and water. We need to prioritize planetary geologic and climatic studies.
A reasonable party platform, a reasonable candidate for any office from municipal to national must have at its core a congruent set of policies for this inevitable incoming change. This is our future we are talking about and this challenge will not go away even if we pray. It is just the way the earth works. 10 years 100 years it is coming.
Where are all the people that live in the litoral regions of the world going to go? Sea-level rises or drops there is a huge catastrophe.
I like the analogy, survival of the richest by natural selection, as the updated theory of evolution for the republican party . This is the party of the oil and coal companies and anybody else with more money than brains.
Isn’t it funny how money can make you more mean and more stupid, not that a lot of democrats aren’t also on the take and acting like dummies. The dark secret is that economic growth is tied to energy consumption which is why china is building power plants at the rate of one a week.When we stop burning oil we kill the economy which explains the political lack of interest in the subject.
There is no scalable alternative energy economy. As Jeremy Rifkin points out extracting energy from the soil, biomass, either depletes the soil or requires large amounts of fertilizer. Removing the detritus from the forest burning socalled waste wood depletes the forest ecology.We humans have outgrown our support system using stored energy from other geologic epochs and are living beyond are planets means.We are pumping our fossil water to depletion and filling our air and soils with poisons that nature has spent eons removing from the ecosystem. It’s all better living through chemistry.
Do we have the imagination to redesign our economy
and our whole suburban,big box,beltway,golf course,
corporate office complex way of life. What are we going to do, take fewer showers and turn down the heat and freeze while we try to dry our cloths on the line while we eat our turnips. Who are you trying to kid.
The political will to change requires a new paradigm and that paradigm has to be articulated. I think it has to an extent been described by writers of the sustainability movement, Wendell Bary for example, but the economy he describes is the one that was destroyed after WWII. Can we go back in time? Do we want to go back. His kind of talk is ridiculed by the political culture of today.Disaster will be the wake up call.
when enough things have changed for the worst we and our political leaders will get the message.
metroeloise: Their default policy emerging is to let the catastrophe come unheeded so the mass hysteria that will ensue will be the justification for more of a military lock down.
Thanks for enlightening us on this key point. The capitalists understand which policies benefit people but deliberately avoid those to more fully exploit the people.
metroeloise: We need to establish a distributed industrial capacity. We need to secure food and water. We need to prioritize planetary geologic and climatic studies.
Many of these actions we should be taking anyway, to free ourselves from the chains of capital, build our health and self-determination, and minimize our impact on the biosphere.
The simple idea that is most easily communicated and implemented is localism. Virtually everyone relates to the idea, and may practice it in their own ways. Localism is self-sufficiency, efficiency and justice.
This article on Common Dreams Newswire should be posted in the regular section so we can comment on it: “Cheney Meetings With Auto Executives On Fuel Economy Spell Trouble” so maybe we can email submissions@commondreams.org and request that.
The current global warming is not about natural cycles or higher sea levels. It is about the Earth turning into the true twin of Venus, the end of all life on Earth. We have already passed the tipping point where ending all man-made greehouse gas emissions will be enough to end total destruction. At this point we must not only end all greenhouse gas emissions, but also find ways to remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere and/or block/reflect some of the sun’s rays.
What do people think of One WOrld Net? I was at an internet rally of thiers in NYC and
was very unimpressed. It seemed like a well funded attempt to prevent real opposition to what the corporations are doing with communications in this country..\
Jimmy Wales was there and there was no mention of his cooperation with the CIA and wikipedia. There were a bunch of shiny people from Columbia business school talking about giving out free lemonade, while our country was working on its second million dead iraqis– all entirely censored.
Suspicious of where this group gets its money. Smells like foundation gate-keeper!
The bill that oneworld makes such a fuss about has been called “the largest corporate giveaway in US history” (see www.foe.org)
This news article also contains a glaring error: Environmental Defense isn’t an environmental group, they are merely a front, paid for and serving as greenwashers for some of the largest corporate polluters in the world. Carbon Trading, a concept which they helped create, is a bogus scam and the vast majority of ecos are falling for it.
If you care — even remotely — about the problems of corporate power, globalization, or climate change please read “The Sky is Not the Limit” at http://www.carbontradewatch.org/pubs/skyeng.pdf — well documented, deeply frightening stuff is in the works on the climate front, and no one is talking about it.
steven lee:
“…This is the party of the oil and coal companies and anybody else with more money than brains.”
I think most people I’ve known have ‘more money then brains’ and they aren’t/weren’t wealthy…
It is a good thing to demand that the ecological issue be addressed in that it raises awareness. This system is incapable of addressing the issue in any meaningful way. The reality that climate change will radically alter the world we live in cannot be stopped or reversed at this point — though the extent and duration can be influenced.
What will become increasing apparent and inescapable is that we have to make major changes to adapt to the new reality. When systems no longer function, they are either replaced by systems that work or they collapse into complete ruin. If we are to survive at all much lass as a civilization, we have to dump the archaic notion of nation states and competitive hegemony. We will have to function as a global collective with semi-autonomus but interactive regions. Our main goal will have to be the efficient transport of necessary goods (food, water . . .) to where they are lacking.
Capitalism and the nationalism it uses to support itself is the primary obstacle. It is an obsolete outgrowth of Feudalism that has nothing left to offer humanity. We must begin to build the institutions of a new and different society so that when the inevitable economic collapse due to ecological change occurs, we will be ready.
A better world can rise from the ashes of the old or we can join the fossil record.
Sometimes, it takes a child to show us the truth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZsDliXzyAY
Metroeloise:
What we are starting to live through is more than a natural cycle. Temperature records have been set all over the world and we are actually at the low point of the 11 year solar cycle. Its the CO2, and there are signs the oceans can absorb no more. If the models are correct, the atmosphere is approaching the CO2 level where temperature increases are most sensitive to CO2 increases.
No one can predict exactly what another 20 years and an additional 30-40 ppm of CO2 will bring, but it probably won’t be pretty, and it probably will be “new territory” for most species, including humans. At the same time, global population is increasing at a rate pushing Malthusian limits even under the best conditions.
We will need a stong central govenment to close the borders (with whatever force necessary), peacefully resettle US citizens within the US, enforce rationing of electricity and maybe food, deal with massive unemployment, decide who gets to use fossil fuel and how much, and replace the fossil fuel based infrastructure as quickly as possible. It will be the greatest test ever for our form of government. And we are going to watch much of the rest of the world starve.
We can start now with a moritorium on new fossil fuel (especially coal) electric generation, and new refinery capacity. Limit and then reduce oil imports and air travel. Provide tax incentives for home and building insulation, high efficiency furnaces and autos…
Cars will become a secondary means of transportaion, if they are around for public use at all. Life in the burbs will mean you live within walking distance of an electric trolley or train, and your workplace is the same. Your house is superinsulated and you heat/cool it with a state of the art system.
Sorry Messrs. Gore and Clinton, but you can’t trade credits for a plane ride. You have to demonstrate your need and wait your turn. Or take a metroliner. And Al turn off all those lights! Sorry Mr. RFK Jr, but that windmill farm off Hyannis is approved. Sorry Mr. Cheney. We don’t need your oil.
As far as tactical issues, talking about sea level rises is probably not a good approach. Most USAns will simply think: “I live a lot higher than 50 feet above sea level, so why should I care - those low lying cities are just full of undesirables anyway”.
So, it is the more more dire scenarios that need to be emphasized as Mr. Butterfield mentioned. The scientists, by nature of their need for consensus, don’t bring up the more catastrophic scenarios. As a civil engineer, I am trained to think in terms of designing for the worst that can happen, and apply the needed safety factor to cover it. So, for global warming, it isn’t just some sea level rise or severe storms, it is geologically-historical global warming scenarios like the great Permian extinction, when 95% of all species went extinct and the heat and low oxygen levels left only areas around the poles and near sea level as the only places habitable for complex life forms. These scenarios that may be lower in probability, but the consequences are so dire (our extinction) that any and all measures should be implemented to prevent them.
The most effective imagery I always come up with is one of our great-grandchildren pissing on our graves.
First, here’s my political “de-elect these stooges” list of non-actions:
1. Nuclear power is a Ponzi scheme where more net oil is put into the whole nuclear life cycle than we get out. Pretending there aren’t adverse health effects is plain wrong.
2. “Clean coal” is an adman’s idea of lead-laced lipstick on a pig. This analogy really does a disservice to pigs, who in certain situations can be nice house pets.
3. Ethanol is another Ponzi scheme. More oil in than comes out.
4. I don’t believe in cutting down a forest, then planting tiny trees, then claiming a carbon credit for planting the little trees.
Now, here’s my political program:
Preamble: The entire world will leave coal in the ground, and will leave trees standing in the forest, when, and only when, the alternatives for using energy have been made cheaper.
1. Wind alone will only work when we store the energy for windless days. That’s why we need more pumped hydroelectric storage plants. Our closest pumped storage plant is on the Hudson River, at Storm King Mountain. It’s neither a new nor a difficult technology. Nor is pumped storage terribly dirty. However, we must mention pumped storage again and again because the conservative media are extremely hard of hearing, to the point of gross dishonesty.
2. A Stanford professor estimated that there’s 300 gigawatts of usable wind power off the Atlantic coast between Maine and Virginia, in ocean depths of 100 meters or less, and not in the way of shipping lanes. In addition, floating wind turbines could collect much more power. In any case, the Northeast could use maybe 60 gigawatts. It’s not like wind power isn’t abundant.
3. We need to support high voltage DC power lines. Unlike AC lines, they ship power thousands of miles without significant losses and without leukemia. They can travel from the windfields to the cities easily. Between the midwest and offshore wind farms, we are loaded with 100% energy from coast to coast.
4. We need all new houses and buildings to use at least 80% less fuel, with the option of letting the houses sometimes cool off a bit to cover the last 20% of the fuel.
5. We love our private cars but we hate the massive traffic jams, freeway subsidies, smog, global warming and carnage. We need an efficient all electric transit system that accepts private cars on the system. I forecast that all this will eventually cost less than what we pay now for asphalt.
6. We need to find more cost-efficient ways of reversing the world’s desertification. Most of the world’s deserts are man-made. Forests and cropland move carbon dioxide from the air into the soil, but deserts don’t. Forests, cropland and grasslands are all more productive than deserts, so we should recreate them.
7. We need to pay individual inventors for inventions in the field of global warming. There’s no way around the fact that we starve them now, and that’s the one and only reason why things don’t get invented. No complicated grant systems — that’s only fair to large corporations. We need real pay for the recognition of real work. The promise of pie in the sky while in practice guaranteeing knives in the back isn’t going to do the job.
I tell my fellow activists plainly that both the inventions and the inventors we need now are just sitting around out here. Just sitting around. A politician can’t stop global warming while simultaneously cutting out the inventors, any more than a politician can keep a city safe while simultaneously firing all the police and fireman.
In particular, we need any invention that makes solar power, wind power or a number of other power sources more cost-effective. We need more effective home heating, hot water heating, heat storage and heat loss minimization. Finally, we need cost-efficient transit.
We need inventors of merit, regardless of their relative poverty or possible lack of social skills, to have access to both laboratories and legal help. It’s a sin to waste an invention that could save the world’s species and prevent the flooding of coastal cities.
the people on D.C dont care about clean energy you cant sell the wind or the sun because if we would switch that kind of energy it you would have both kind wind and solar on you roof making the energy need to run your house right in your basement they cant sell that but they will see the shit of oil coal “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.— Mahatma Gandhi”