BREAKING: Pelosi/Reid call to switch Capitol Power Plant off of coal!

From It’s Getting Hot in HereBreaking news – and the organizing hub for the Capitol Climate Action is lit up right now!Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just made an announcement moments ago – calling to switch the Capitol Power Plant entirely off of coal! Just 4 days before thousands of people are mobilizing at the facility for the largest act of civil disobedience in US history for the climate – this statement shows the power of grassroots action!cca-table-bannerThe Capitol Power Plant has been controversial for years – as an antiquated, inefficient facility that is the largest source of the pollution in Washington DC. While efforts to clean up the plant and switch off its usage of coal have been attempted for years (including by Pelosi and the Greening the Capitol Initiative), powerful coal state interests (namely Senators Mitch McConnell and Robert Byrd) have blocked attempts to end it’s usage of coal. This plant symbolizes the stranglehold coal has over our climate, our environment, our communities, and our political process.In the past 2 weeks, the Capitol Climate Action Coalition (made up of over 100 organizations from across the country) sent letters to Congress, informing them of our intent for peaceful action March 2nd at the Capitol Power Plant that is  reflecting the urgency and seriousness of the climate crisis.  And as the media buzz and public interest grows for this historic mobilization – we are flexing out political muscles, showing that people are demanding real change in our climate and energy policies.As Pelosi and Reid accurately noted:

Taking this major step toward cleaning up the Capitol Power Plant’s emissions would be an important demonstration of Congress’ willingness to deal with the enormous challenges of global warming, energy independence and our inefficient use of finite fossil fuels. We strongly encourage you to move forward aggressively with us on a comprehensive set of policies for the entire Capitol complex and the entire Legislative Branch to quickly reduce emissions and petroleum consumption through energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean alternative fuels.

This statement today by Pelosi and Reid shows the power of grassroots movements to spur our leaders into action. As Congressional leaders are recognizing that better solutions exist for their own backyard – we must keep the pressure up to ensure that coal is phased out across the country, and replaced with clean, renewable, just solutions that solve the climate crisis, and support our communities.Thousands of you are already planning to join us March 2nd in DC – to make sure that our message is not simply about cleaning up one facility – but about climate justice for all.  We still have non-violence trainings  all weekend, and for people choosing to peacefully engage in civil disobedience or participate in the support rally -you can still  join us in keeping this momentum up! Continue reading

See You in Jail: It's Not Symbolism When You Live in D.C.

Why I’m joining 2,000 people for a global warming mass arrest on Monday

On Monday I’m going to get arrested just two blocks from the U.S. capitol building. I’ll peacefully block the entrance to an energy plant that burns raw coal to partially power Congress. My motivation is global warming. My colleagues in civil disobedience will include the poet Wendell Berry, Country western singer Kathy Mattea, and Yale University dean Gus Speth.

Up to two thousand other people from across the country will risk arrest, too. We’ll all be demanding strong federal action to phase out coal combustion and other fossil fuels nationwide that threaten our vulnerable climate.

This mass arrest might seem symbolic and radical to many Americans. Symbolic because it’s purposefully organized amid the iconic images of Washington, D.C. And radical because, well, isn’t getting locked up kind of out there? And isn’t global warming kind of vague and distant?
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I love this sleeping child. Here's my Valentine's pledge

iheartcleanenergy.orgSee the sleeping child in the photo? He’s my son, Sasha, and he’s 11. He’s all you need to know about me. He’s the reason I give my life completely to the fight for a safe climate. In this photo – a random photo, so ordinary — he’s conked out after hiking and swimming in the Appalachian Mountains near our Maryland home. I look at it and I feel it all over again. The love. Like nothing else I’ve ever known. It has no boundaries, my heart, for Sasha.

Our children – all children – are so vulnerable. So we must wake up, right now, to the challenge of saving our life-giving climate. This Valentine’s Day, show your leaders in Congress the real face of the fight for clean energy – the ones we love. Show them that we don’t act because of distant ideas, we act so that the ones we love will have a safe future.

That’s why I just sent this photo of Sasha to Congress. Will you join me?

With help from our partners, we are reaching out to people across the nation and asking them to share their story. Visit our website www.iheartcleanenergy.org to upload a picture of the person or thing you love most. Then send an email to Congress letting them know that you’ve joined thousands of others across the nation in showing your love for clean energy this Valentine’s Day.

Take action at www.iheartcleanenergy.org
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Energy Efficiency

The Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Virginia economy is in full-on crisis. Businesses statewide are hurting, state employees are being laid off by the thousands, and the state is cutting core services in the face of a $3 billion budget shortfall.

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One Meat Lover's Low-Carbon Diet

From Mike TidwellCross posted from Audubon Magazinecow

Full disclosure: I love to eat meat. I was born in Memphis, the barbecue capital of the Milky Way Galaxy. I worship slow-cooked, hickory-smoked pig meat served on a bun with extra sauce and coleslaw spooned on top.

My carnivore’s lust goes beyond the DNA level. It’s in my soul. Even the cruelty of factory farming doesn’t temper my desire, I’ll admit. Like most Americans, I can somehow keep at bay all thoughts of what happened to the meat prior to the plate.

So why in the world am I a dedicated vegetarian? Why is meat, including sumptuous pork, a complete stranger to my fork at home and away? The answer is simple: I have an 11-year-old son whose future–like yours and mine–is rapidly unraveling due to global warming. And what we put on our plates can directly accelerate or decelerate the heating trend.

Read the whole story here.

Do we need another disaster to move away from dirty energy?

coal sludge

In one of the most devastating environmental disasters in US history, 5.4 million cubic yards of coal sludge was released into Tennessee waterways when a slurry dam burst and flooded 400 acres in the toxic waste. Water sources for millions of people have been contaminated with toxins that cause birth defects, nervous and reproductive disorders and elevate cancer risks by over 50%. The surrounding are was flooded with a “tidal wave” of sludge, leaving six feet of sludge that covered 12 homes and damaging 42 residential properties. Roads, gas lines and other infrastructure in the region were also destroyed.

The recent toxic sludge spill in Tennessee is now shown to be 48 times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.

We definitely didn’t need a disaster of this magnitude to wake us up to the dangers of coal. Drinking water contaminated by arsenic in coal waste has been shown to increase cancer risks several hundredfold. Exposure to mercury pollution from coal plants has been linked to mental retardation and language development in children. Mountaintop removal mining dumps toxic mining waste into the valleys below, polluting the air and water. Coal plants spew tons of global warming pollution into the air.

Despite the ad campaign lies about “clean coal”, energy derived from coal is ALWAYS dirty. Continue reading

A Meeting with Rep. Elijah Cummings

When I sat down in a coffee shop in downtown Baltimore last Friday morning with a group of climate activists from Congressman Elijah Cummings’ district I did my best to project optimism and to rally the troops as it were prior to our big meeting. But the truth is that, internally, I wasn’t actually brimming with optimism. That’s not to say I wasn’t confident we’d get a good hearing or fail to have any impact on the Congressman; I was just a tad doubtful about the current potential for real aggressive leadership from Washington on climate policy, and perhaps rightly so.

For those of us who are deeply engaged in the climate and energy fight, the political events of this summer have been a constant reminder of the tendency of politics and partisanship to stifle leadership and smart policy-making at a time when we need them the most. True, there have been rare moments, like Al Gore’s landmark speech, when a spark of real leadership briefly illuminated an otherwise murky national energy debate. But for the most part our leaders have only succeeded in keeping the country in the dark; Convinced that the American public is impervious to the light of reason on issues like offshore drilling, we’ve seen one leader after another, from John McCain, to Nancy Pelosi, opt for the path of least political resistance, and thereby eclipse any short-term hope of a national climate and energy awakening.

Cummings talks to activistsSo, when we all finally gathered around the table in Congressman Cummings’ office that morning I was expecting some variation on this prevailing political theme. First he would agree with us about the severity of the crisis and echo our sentiments about the need for strong, decisive federal action, but then the inevitable moment of political prevarication would arrive, and shaking his head in frustration, he’d inform us that, alas, the clout of King Coal and other special interests was just too darn strong to allow for the passage of really uncompromising climate legislation and that for the foreseeable future we’d have to live with whatever we could get. I’d this seen this pattern played out in other constituent meetings, and I had no reason to suspect that things would be different this time. But, then, I’d never met Congressman Elijah Cummings before.

From the very start he set an entirely refreshing tone. Continue reading

Want to See Climate Change? Look Out Your Front Door. It's here.

Has anyone noticed that our local weather in the D.C. region has turned truly screwy? We go from one bizarre weather condition to the next with almost no pause in between for “normal” conditions. It’s too wet, too dry, too cold, too warm, too windy – nearly all the time. Hmmm? And scientists and average people all over the world, from Japan to Argentina, report similar strangeness. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times recently wrote from Kenya that the Serengeti’s April rains, so critical to that famous ecosystem, haven’t shown up this spring. And they didn’t come last year. There’s just no normal weather anymore. Anywhere.

In the D.C. region nothing illustrates this better than the annual Martin Luther King parade. Last year, tired of the cold and grayness of January, the organizers decided to move the annual parade to early April. The result? This year on January 16th (the official King holiday) it was 70 degrees in D.C. Remember all that freakish winter warmth? Outdoor barbeques broke out all over the city on backyard decks still festooned with Christmas decorations. And on Saturday, April 7th, the date of the “warmer” and more hospitable MLK parade? There was actually snow on the ground. The parade majorettes and tuba players woke up to 34 degrees and a blanket of snow on the ground, the most April snow in DC since 1924.

And yes, I know: There’s always been weird weather that occasionally defies the seasonal norms, sometimes dramatically. It’s part of the natural unpredictability of weather. And if you listen to the dismissive climate rants of the Rush Limbaugh crowd, you’ll yield to that inner voice that wants to reassuringly say: Don’t worry. It’s all normal. Everything’s okay. Continue reading

Kaine's coal plant is big controversy in Virginia

Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia is a big supporter of new coal combustion and offshore drilling. And he has done next to nothing for clean energy and efficiency. In fact, Kaine’s administration gave the final green light in June 2008 for the construction of a 585 megawatt coal plant in Wise County, Virginia that has no carbon capture capability whatsoever. Despite overwhelming opposition from all across the state, with concerned students and faith leaders and environmentalists turning out everywhere Kaine goes, the Gov. gave the thumbs up and