From November 2-5, 6,000 youth gathered in DC and rallies were held in all 50 states, all with the common goal of uniting to solve global warming. Below, watch the video from that historic weekend.
This video was created by Step It Up’s Jamie Henn.
Learn more at www.1skycampaign.org.
My alarm went off at 6:00 am. The rain was falling outside and I could count on hours of sleep on one hand (and no thumb). The urge to hit snooze was overwhelming, but I had a job to do! It was November 6th, election day, and I had to get COAL on the ballot!
I was one of over a hundred volunteers participating on “Vote No on Coal”, an outreach campaign designed to educate people about the proposed coal-fired power plant Dominion Virginia Power wants to build in Wise County, and why we as citizens need to say NO NEW COAL. This plant will cost $1.6 billion in taxpayer money, emit millions of tons of CO2, and bring further environmental and health hazards to the already impacted communities of SW Virginia.
Our goal was to collect signatures for a “mile-long petition” that Kathy Selvage and other members of Wise-County based Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards will present to Dominion at their annual shareholder meeting.
The debate over coal has caught on all across the U.S., even reaching into the heartland, and America is beginning to stand up and demand clean energy.
The Des Moines Register’s Perry Beeman lays it out in an informative piece centered on controversies in Iowa, a state that’s also front and center now in the presidential race.
Environmentalists, NASA’s chief climate scientist, industry experts and citizens are lining up to testify about the coal-burning plants, which could affect Iowans’ lungs, power bills, fish-eating habits and ability to find jobs. The debate over whether to build the two Iowa plants is part of a national argument as utilities and a new breed of so-called “merchant generators” have plans for 150 new coal-fired plants. States as different as Kansas, California, Idaho and Florida have blocked new coal-fired plants. Even Texas forced its biggest utility to pare down a proposal for 11 new coal plants to three.
NASA’s chief climate scientist, James Hansen is an Iowa native and graduate of University of Iowa. He is also an outspoken critic of coal, saying “It seems to me that young people, especially, should be doing whatever is necessary to block construction of dirty coal-fired power plants” back in August. He’s provided testimony against the proposed Iowa plants. Continue reading
The Weblog Awards are going to be issued tomorrow for the best science blog. Currently, a climate denial site called climateaudit.com is winning. To ensure that Climate Audit does not win this award, we need as many people as possible to vote for Bad Astronomy today. To be clear, Bad Astronomy is not a climate blog, but it is running 2nd behind Climate Audit – if we can get a bunch of people to click on Bad Astronomy, we can defeat Climate Audit.
Click away!
Here’s the voting link:
The following post was written by my dad, Paul Douglass, who is on vacation in Coronado, a town in Southern California…
The wildfires that sweep through Southern California this week, blackening over 400,000 acres and displacing a half a million residents from their homes, may be cited correctly as evidence of global warming, all right. But the well-organized response to the disaster by local authorities, firefighters, volunteers, and ordinary citizens in San Diego County may signal that people here have crossed a milestone in their thinking about climate change.
San Diegans remember the Cedar Fire that devastated the county only three years ago. San Diegans know that more fire-related disasters are sure to be coming their way living in this arid corner of the country because they know what climate change is likely to mean for them. The increasingly frequent wildfires in recent years seemed to have taught San Diegans to be prepared when the next fires hit.
They were prepared this time. Fortunately for my wife and me, we were staying at a house on the beach in Coronado, a quiet village located on the narrow finger of sand that forms San Diego Harbor, when the fires raged in the hills to the east. Watching the local TV stations’ non-stop coverage of efforts by firefighters and air tankers to stave off the advancing walls of fire burning everything in its path only a few miles away was surreal.
Comparisons of the response to the wildfires with Katrina by the media were inevitable. By all accounts San Diegans did a superlative job of dealing with the thousands of evacuees, saving homes, providing supplies to those in need, even arranging live entertainment for the kids at the county’s central relief station, Qualcom Stadium, home of the San Diego Chargers. Continue reading
Between 1970 and 2003, the average length of the active wildfire season (from the start of the first reported fire to the day the last reported fire is controlled) increased by 64 percent, or 78 days. Wildfires between 1987 and 2003 burned for an average of 37.1 days before being controlled
Last year students in Maryland won significant clean energy victories at their universities as part of the first year of the Campus Climate Challenge. However, with all of their successes on their individual campuses the students were hitting some road blocks with institutional policy for the entire University System of Maryland (USM). So, empowered by their past victories they had a great idea: why not get all of the USM schools to band together in one big grassroots coalition and push for one big comprehensive policy? It just seemed crazy enough to work.
So, on October 5th-7th these students planned the first ever USM Student State Summit to address the climate crisis. Students from across Maryland converged at Towson University for this big event. Over 30 students from 8 of the 11 USM institutions came together to hold activist skills trainings, strategize, and plan their campaign.
All of their labor paid off when on Saturday October 6th at 8:48PM the Maryland Student Climate Coalition (MSCC) was born! From the very start the MSCC has some ambitious goals and they are asking the state of Maryland to rise to the challenge. Their inaugural campaign is to make the entire University System of Maryland carbon neutral. Which means they want to neutralize the USM’s impact on climate change by reducing all possible emissions through energy efficiency, LEED certified buildings, and have all remaining energy use provided by clean energy sources. Their catchy campaign slogan: “Invest in our future: Make carbon neutrality a Maryland reality” is already taking off.
To realize this impressive mission they have set ambitious goals to get all 15 institutions in the USM to send endorsement letters to the Board of Regents and collect a total of 13,000 petition signatures!
Their efforts are already gaining notoriety from the USM Chancellor Kirwin who said that he is “dazzled” by the dedication and coordination of the student campaign. On December 14th MSCC will make their big presentation to the Board of Regents to urge them to pass a policy for carbon neutrality. (The USM is the 13th largest university system in the world and if the policy passes it will be the second system in the nation, following California, to have such a comprehensive policy).
Last week, the Maryland Student Climate Coalition hit the ground running and launched their campaign in a joint press conference with the Sierra Club of Maryland. On an unnatural and blisteringly hot October day they gathered in Federal Hill Park in Baltimore and unveiled their newly formed coalition to the press and the public. Read the coverage in the Baltimore Examiner and the Baltimore Sun Blog. Congratulations MSCC!
Today is “Blog Action Day,” a unique day where 15,000 blogs have signed up to write about something related to the environment. While that’s nothing different for CCAN, there will be lots of blogs that don’t normally focus on the environment who will be today, so keep your eyes peeled for some interesting and different environmental discussions on the web.
It seems quite appropriate that today, being “Blog Action Day” and all, there will be some BIG environmental news.
So here it is. Step It Up, which will take place on November 3rd and is going to be a day when Americans from coast to coast will rally in their communities and invite their politicians to join them. So far, 8 different members of Congress have committed to attending a Step It Up event, but no presidential candidates have, despite receiving 17 invites. No presidential candidates, that is, until now…
Over the weekend, three presidential candidates committed to coming to a Nov. 3rd Step It Up rally. Who are they? Democrats John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich and Republican John McCain.
This information hasn’t even been posted on their website yet but it comes for a very reliable source so stay tuned to the Step It Up blog throughout the day to learn more.
There are still plenty of candidates left to invite. Do so using this simple “invite tool:”
Over the past quarter century, billions of dollars have been invested in restoring the Chesapeake Bay watershed. These major investments could be lost due to global warming.
The National Wildlife Federation, which has been doing some great work reaching out to non-traditional constituents such as hunters and anglers, just released a new report on how global warming is impacting–and will impact–the Chesapeake Bay. It focuses specifically on how global warming will affect duck and other wildlife populations in the Bay.
The report comes as attention on global warming, and its local effects, reaches new heights. Only a week before the report’s release, a key Senate committee called a hearing with MD. Gov. O’Malley and VA. Gov. Kaine on how global warming is likely to impact the Bay. NWF’s report focuses on how continuing coastal development and global warming’s devastating effects have begun threatening the Bay and its wildlife at an unprecedented level.
Take action on NWF’s website and urge your representatives to protect the Chesapeake’s ducks by supporting strong global warming legislation.
Continue reading
On September 24th, WCAN (Williamsburg Climate Action Network) hosted the first in a series of CCAN events supporting the message of – No New Coal in Virginia! Invest in clean energy! The event was held on the campus of William and Mary and was attended by students, professors, and people in the community interested in learning how coal impacts their local environment.
Eric Blevins from Mountain Justice Summer presented a shocking slide show on mountaintop removal of coal and how it is devastating communities in Southwestern Virginia, particularly Wise County, Virginia.
Mike Tidwell talked about how coal is affecting climate change and the need for tougher legislative action NOW to shift to renewable energy sources. Continue reading
