Tidwell Talks Oil Spill on the Diane Rehm Show

Coastal Louisiana author and CCAN director Mike Tidwell spoke to Diane Rehm this morning about the oil spill and its impact on the already vulnerable Louisiana coasts. Tidwell’s 2003 best-selling book “Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast” catalogued how the Louisiana wetlands are vulnerable to oil drilling activity as well as the related consequences of climate change.

Mike has reported extensively from the drilling fields of the Gulf of Mexico and can speak directly to the enormous scale and scope of the drilling operation there.

The show also features Jackie Savitz, Pollution Campaign Director and Senior Scientist for Oceana, Stephen Power, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and Rayola Dougher, senior economic adviser for the American Petroleum Institute.

Listen now!

Forget Humpty-Dumpty, Move Forward with CLEAR Bill

Rabbi Arthur Waskow and the Shalom Center recently announced their support of the CLEAR Act. Here’s a piece he recently wrote about the legislation:

Even if Senators Kerry and Lieberman can put Humpty-Dumpty back together again after losing Senator Graham’s support for what used to be the KGL (Kugel) bill for climate control, far better is the CLEAR bill introduced by Senators Maria Cantwell (Democrat) of Washington State and Susan Collins (Republican) of Maine. It is often named “cap and dividend” because it prevents any Wall Street trades in carbon credits, and returns 75% of the money gathered from auctioning rights to emit CO2 to the American people: dividends of about $1,000 a year to every legal resident of the US. The other 25% will go to research on renewable energy sources.

It is now the only climate bill with bipartisan support, and could attract grassroots support because it gives most of the money to the people, not big corporations or the government.

Those dividends to the people will offset the cost of higher fuel prices for the poor and the middle class, and will build a Main Street rather than Wall Street political constituency for CO2 controls. CLEAR

Support Ted Glick! New trial date approaching

Our very own Ted Glick is headed to a jury trial on May 11th in Washington, D.C. All the way back on Sept. 8th, 2009 (the day Congress returned from its summer recess) he hung a banner that said: “Green Jobs Now, Get to Work.”

It’s ironic and sad that this call for action is as relevant now as it was eight months ago.

The trial was originally set to take place in late February but was postponed until May 11th. Prosecutors have made it clear that they want to make an example of Ted because of prior convictions for similar actions. Their plea deal, which he rejected, was that if he pleaded guilty he’d have to serve 30 days in jail.

Ted’s going to be defending himself, with the assistance of attorney Ann Wilcox. An important part of his defense will be to fill the courtroom with supporters. Can you come out and show your support?

Register>>

If possible, it’s preferable that you come in the morning when the jury is selected. Of course, if you can only make it for the afternoon, that would also be greatly appreciated. The trial will take place in the Superior Court building, 500 Indiana Ave. NW. Ted’s judge will be Judge Frederick Weisberg. Hope to see you there!

Please sign up if you are interested in attending.

40 Day Earth Day Video Contest

Friends at Solar Energy World forwarded me this press release, which I wanted to pass along. Seems like a great opportunity to win a pretty significant prize for your favorite nonprofit.

40 Day Earth Day Video Contest Extends Earth Day Celebrations, Encourages Children, Teens to Promote Environmental Awareness
Two $2,500 Prize Donations for Best Videos to Be Awarded

Jessup, Md. (April 22, 2010)

Mother Earth Day in Cochabamba

With the poor people of the earth
I want to share my fate
The brook of the mountains
Gives me more pleasure than the sea

-the last verse of the song, “Guantanamera,” by Jose Marti

Riding in a taxi yesterday early in the morning of the last day of the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, my driver told me, as we passed the big stadium in Cochabamba where the concluding event was being held later that afternoon, that the stadium held 30,000 people. If he was right, then there were 30,000 people celebrating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Mother Earth Day, in Cochabamba yesterday.

I’d be surprised if there was a bigger Earth Day event anywhere in the world. And it sure would be a nice surprise to find out that this likely reality was reported in the mainstream news sources of the USA. After all, just like the 117 nations at Copenhagen that supported 350 parts per million as the objective that the world needs to get to as far as carbon in the atmosphere, those 30,000 people, and the many like them around the world, just don

The Bolivian Government: "Mother Earth or barbarism"

I missed President Evo Morales’ speech on Tuesday at the official opening of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Asking several friends who were there how it was, they all were surprised by its relative mildness, for Morales. The main things he called upon people to do, my friends said, were to use clay dishes, stop drinking coca-cola and stop eating industrial agriculture-raised chickens.

Perhaps President Morales was holding his powder to allow his Vice President, Alvaro Garcia Linera, to give the rousing speech. This is what he did that afternoon at a major plenary session on the Univalle Campus in Tiquipaya. It was a comprehensive overview of what is happening because of climate change (dried up rivers, melting glaciers, desertification, forest destruction and more) and the cause of it (the economic system of capitalism which turns people and nature into commodities for private gain no matter who and what gets hurt). “Capitalism is ready to destroy nature,” he said.

Linara made clear his government’s belief that we are at the beginning of a certain worldwide catastrophe if humanity does not get serious right now. He used the figures of 260 million people who have been affected already by climate change and 200 million who have emigrated because of it.

Linara went on to put forward a very different solution than many in the United States, including many environmentalists, believe is the solution. For Linara, it’s not new technology that is going to save the world. What will save it, he said, is when “we take the Bolivian Indigenous, the Bolivian peasant model and make it universal. We need a new civilization that’s not about consumerism but about meeting basic needs. Humans must recognize that Mother Earth has rights and we have obligations to respect them. Our new model must be consensus-based, dialogical and rooted in personal relationships with nature. We need new forms of production, and we need new ethics.”

He referenced Rosa Luxemburg, a socialist leader from over 100 years ago, when he called, not for “socialism or barbarism,” her call, but for “Mother Earth or barbarism,” and he put forward five things that we must do:
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Video: Artists for the Climate compilation

CCAN’s 4th annual “Artists for the Climate” event last Thursday, April 15th was a smashing success. Jeff Biggers, Mike Tidwell and Bill McKibben all gave rousing speeches and were joined by the extremely talented bluegrass performer, Lissy Rosemont.

View a short compilation video from the event below. You can also watch the entire program on google video.

Video by Lauren Glickman

Day Two of the Cochabamba Conference

The daily culture of the World Conference on climate change in Cochabamba, Bolivia is an experience that many present will never forget.The work of the conference is taking place in three ways:

  1. via 17 working groups putting together proposals as to what should go into an overall document coming out of the conference;
  2. a series of large plenary sessions with panels of speakers addressing a range of subjects related to the overall theme of the conference; and
  3. dozens of self-organized events by organizations which are here on a wide range of subjects, also related to the overall theme.

But as significant as this work, this addressing of issues and planning for the future, is the amazing daily culture of the World Conference, as it has unfolded like a beautiful flower over the last two days.

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