Mad As Hell and Doing Something About It

Last week, a couple of days after Harry Reid announced that there would be no floor debate and no vote until at least September on ANY legislation having to do with the BP blowout disaster, energy policy or climate change, I was part of a group of people that went up to Capitol Hill and presented “oily hands awards” to staff people for Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. This action was initiated and organized by the 1Sky coalition.

Unexpectedly, our group of 10 people got into a polite but pointed and direct back-and-forth with one of Lisa Murkowski’s top aides, Chuck Cleeschulte, before we gave him a big foam hand covered in brown paint, the “oily hand.”
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We're Hot as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Any More

Three Steps to Establish a Politics of Global Warming
By Bill McKibben (Cross Posted from TomDispatch.com)

Try to fit these facts together:

* According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record.
* A “staggering” new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950.
* Nine nations have so far set their all-time temperature records in 2010, including Russia (111 degrees), Niger (118), Sudan (121), Saudi Arabia and Iraq (126 apiece), and Pakistan, which also set the new all-time Asia record in May: a hair under 130 degrees. I can turn my oven to 130 degrees.
* And then, in late July, the U.S. Senate decided to do exactly nothing about climate change. They didn’t do less than they could have — they did nothing, preserving a perfect two-decade bipartisan record of no action. Senate majority leader Harry Reid decided not even to schedule a vote on legislation that would have capped carbon emissions.

I wrote the first book for a general audience on global warming back in 1989, and I’ve spent the subsequent 21 years working on the issue. I’m a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy.

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Your climate art judged by Philippe Cousteau and Van Jones?

CCAN has partnered with groups like Energy Action, 350.org, the Hip Hop Caucus and many more in the first online art contest exploring climate change in its many forms – how it is impacting our lives and what can be done to ensure a sustainable future for all of Earth’s inhabitants.

Participate in the CoolClimate Art Contest and get the chance to have your submission judged by Philippe Cousteau, Van Jones and the comedian Chevy Chase!

Here are the details:

Submit a work of art that explores our relationship with the climate

LTE: One step forward, two steps back for Bay project

The following letter to the editor, written by CCAN fellow Justin Klecha, was printed in the Culpeper Star-Exponent on June 30th. Read more about CCAN’s summer fellows in our June-July newsletter (written right before Justin began). Congrats, Justin!

One step forward, two steps back for Bay project
Justin Klecha, Fredericksburg
June 30, 2010

Culpeper, along with other municipalities across our state, has or is implementing cleaner wastewater technologies in an effort to reduce pollution. The June 25 article, “Cleaner Wastewater,” laid out the details of the improved treatment facilities in Culpeper, stating that the town has “modernized and sanitized its wastewater treatment process for the sake of the health of the Chesapeake Bay.”

One step forward!

While at the same time REC’s parent electric cooperative is proposing a $6 billion dollar coal plant just 35 miles from the Chesapeake Bay.

If built it would be the largest coal plant in Virginia producing massive amounts of pollutants, such as mercury, lead and carbon-dioxide, which would undermine projects like the one in Culpeper.

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Judge Refuses to Jail Climate Activist

In a victory for both the climate and basic decency, a federal judge today refused to put a global warming organizer in jail for simply hanging activist banners in a U.S. Senate office building.

Judge Frederick H. Weisberg rejected a request from U.S. attorneys to sentence Ted Glick to 40 days in jail for two misdemeanors related to peaceful civil disobedience. Last September, Glick, Policy Director at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, unfurled two large banners in the Hart Senate Office Building saying, “Green Jobs Now” and “Get to Work.”

After receiving hundreds of letters from concerned citizens ranging from NASA’s Dr. James Hansen to actor Danny Glover, Weisberg told an overflowing courtroom audience in D.C. Superior Court that he saw “no useful purpose served by incarceration.” He sentenced Glick instead to a week of community service and a year of probation, plus a $1,000 fine.

The audience cheered and applauded when Weisberg announced his decision.

At the start of the hearing, Glick read a brief statement explaining why he unfurled the banners last September 8th. “Faced with a planetary emergency,” he said, “and as citizens of a democracy, we must nonviolently urge, in the best ways we know how, our elected representatives to do the right thing. That is what I did on September 8th of last year.”

Glick has only two previous convictions related to peaceful acts of civil disobedience.

Weisberg acknowledged the great tradition of nonviolent struggle in America from Thoreau to King. He finally made clear, however, that — by law — it wasn’t the message of global warming that was being sentenced, it was the delivery of that message.

“But on the great scale of things, I don’t think a meaningful punishment would include incarceration here,” Weisberg said.

CCAN director Mike Tidwell said he was very pleased with the decision.

“We’re still not sure why the U.S. Attorney’s office wanted to

What happens when a priest, a rabbi, and an imam ask their senators to get serious?

Over one hundred Virginia clergy have united to send a message to Senators Webb and Warner that climate change is moral issue and their action is required. They delivered their letters to the senators’ offices and got some great press hits. See below for Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light’s release on the letter’s delivery:

RICHMOND, Va. — As the US Senate prepares to take up climate and energy legislation, over 100 religious

leaders from across Virginia delivered letters to Senators Webb and Warner today, making a moral case for comprehensive

climate legislation that includes strong emission reductions, international adaptation assistance, and protections for low-income families.

The letters were delivered in person to senate staff during meetings in Richmond today by a representative group of signers. Numerous others are calling the Senators’ DC offices to deliver their message. Transcending the intense lobbying from special interest groups, the faith community is calling on lawmakers to honor the values of caring both for our neighbors and for God’s creation.

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Why the CLEAR Act is Fair

The following is an article written by Meg Power, Senior Advisor to the National Community Action Foundation (NCAF). NCAF is the Washington, DC representative of the nation’s 1100 local Community Action Agencies, which deliver many services and investments in all the nation’s low-income communities including Low-Income Home Energy Assistance and the federal Weatherization Assistance Program. NCAF has endorsed the CLEAR Act.

Why the CLEAR Act is Fair to Low- and Moderate-Income Households
By Meg Power

About one-third of US households have incomes lower than 60% of the median income of their state and qualify for the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Their average annual residential usage is just 87% of the average for the other 2/3 of consumers. The gasoline consumption of the lowest income drivers is less than half that of median income households. Their houses are smaller, albeit more inefficient per square foot; they own fewer appliances, buy few finished goods and drive fewer cars. Their carbon footprint is far lighter than that of middle income consumers.

However, these Americans are extremely vulnerable to increases in energy costs; on average they spend from 18% to more than 23% percent of an entire year’s income directly on energy, including home fuels and gasoline, depending on the fuel prices in a given year. This percentage is known as the Continue reading

Prison time for activist over green jobs banner. No kidding.

Despite the Gulf disaster, no one from BP has been arrested and sent to jail. Despite safety violations at coal mines, no one from Massey Energy has been handcuffed. But today I write to inform you that one of America’s best global warming activists is probably facing several months of jail. He’s been convicted by a D.C. jury, and now he awaits sentencing on July 6th. Why? Because he peacefully dropped two banners on Capitol Hill that said: “GREEN JOBS NOW” and “GET TO WORK.”

I’m not joking. Ted Glick of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network was convicted by a jury May 13th of peacefully dropping the banners inside the U.S. Senate Hart Office Building last September. The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office clearly has decided to make an “example” of Ted because of his previous two — count ’em, two — convictions related to peaceful acts of climate civil disobedience. Can you believe it? You can see a three-minute video of Ted’s September “crime” below. He’s the guy towards the end simply lowering the banners.

Now Ted is facing up to three years in jail. Based on the judge’s comments last week, it really does appear that he will be incarcerated for at least a month or two.

What can you do? Help spread the word about this fight to keep a morally innocent staff member out of jail during this time of great global crisis.