After watching three presidential debates in which climate change was mentioned a grand total of zero times, Richmond area CCANers struck with our well-known banner at today’s big swing-state candidate appearance in sunny Byrd Park!
CCANers to Ryan in Virginia: No KXL
The day after the Republican National Convention of 2012 concluded, Ryan appeared today at a rally in Richmond Virginia in stifling 100-degree August heat on an airport tarmac, and local climate activists greeted him with a clear message to pass on to his running mate Mitt Romney: No Keystone XL Pipeline.
While candidate Romney spent the day reaching out to Americans affected by flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac, recalling the damage done by Hurricane Katrina and the risk of stronger storms hitting the Gulf Coast and mid-Atlantic as the climate changes, Ryan addressed a sizable swing-state crowd. As he began to bring up the issue of energy and speak about Virginia’s coal reserves and the need to use it, local activists took a stand for the climate and unfurled a banner for the candidate to read.
CCAN delivers over 19,000 Keystone XL petitions to Warner and Webb
Starting at noon on February 13th, over 800,000 people across the U.S. signed a petition urging Congress to stop the Keystone XL Tar Sands pipeline – 800,000! Equally impressive, Virginians made up over 19,000 of those signatures. All in just 24 hours. And today a dozen volunteers delivered that message loud and clear to Senators Warner and Webb.
The 24-hour action was set in motion after organizers gained intel that members of Congress in the pocket of the fossil fuel lobby were trying to force through approval of the pipeline through amendments to unrelated bills. Late last Thursday, we learned even more sudden news that a vote could be imminent – as soon as this Tuesday or Wednesday – on an amendment to a federal transportation bill.
A little laugh for your Wednesday afternoon
As 60,000 barrels of oil or more spilled into the Gulf of Mexico a day, the U.S. Senate voted to preserve subsidies to the oil industry. As the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency announced the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest year, and the warmest April, May, and June on record, the Senate utterly failed to pass any energy, climate change, or even oil spill response legislation. As devastating floods sweep Pakistan and Russia wakes up to deep yellow skies, uncontrollable wildfires, and a chocking heat wave, the U.S. Senators continue to bury their heads in the sand and ignore the problem: we are addicted to fossil fuels and its killing us AND the earth.
Needless to say, all of us in the climate movement are a bit exasperated right now. I think we need a good laugh, especially if it comes at the expense of the group at the root of many of our current woes.
Enter Oil Change International’s newest campaign website: CleanUpTheSenate.com. Continue reading
Congress: You've Got Oil On Your Hands
SAVE THE DATE: JULY 20TH, 2010
July 20th – On the 3-Month Anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster Continue reading
Obama Says "Drill Baby Drill?!?!" and that's a good thing?
Just because you read it in the paper doesn’t mean it’s true. I’m tired of the papers pretending to represent the views of all Virginians when, in fact, they’re filled with global warming skepticism and a drill-baby-drill mentality. That is why I’m happy to introduce CCAN’s newest feature, “Virginia Climate Clips,” bringing you recent climate news compiled from papers all across Virginia. I’m contacting concerned climate activists weekly to get our voices heard! There’s a big hole in the news right now. Every day I read about how how climate change isn’t real, wind farms are the next Armageddon and, if you picked up today’s paper, EVEN President Obama’s misguided decision to open up our shores to offshore drilling sounds like a good idea
These papers aren’t reporting the whole story and it’s time to get our voices heard. I will send out “Climate Clips” every Thursday, which will include tips, a sample letter, and articles to respond to. Hopefully these stories will inspire you to submit a letter to the editor reacting to any of the articles I’ve pasted in these emails.
Feel free to circulate this far and wide.
If you are interested in not getting these emails please just reply and I will remove you from this hand selected list of Climate Activists. If you are receiving this as a forward and would like to subscribe please email Lauren@chesapeakeclimate.org with Climate Clips in the subject.
PS- If you want an extra set of eyes to look over your letter please don’t hesitate to call me (804) 335-0915 or send it my way. Also if you could forward me any letters you do submit so I can keep track that would be great!
CLIMATE CLIPS: Issue 1: April 1, 2010
1. Tips on Submitting Letters
2. Sample Letter
3. This week’s “Climate Clips”
Energy: A tar-nished reputation
This is a crosspost from this blog: http://madrad2002.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/tar-sands-column/
So I have a column in the Diamondback today. I want to correct a couple of small things that the editors changed. I put “tar sands” everytime I discussed them, but they were changed to “oil sands” for some reason. Other thing is when I mention natural gas is being used to extract the oil from the sands, I say I would rather us be using that natural gas to replace coal plants because it is cleaner than coal. For the record I do recognize natural gas is not clean and not what we should be pursuing, I just would rather us burn it to replace coal rather than burn it to extract tar sands oil.
http://media.www.diamondbackonline.com/media/storage/paper873/news/2009/03/03/Opinion/Energy.A.TarNished.Reputation-3656037.shtml
Energy: A tar-nished reputation
Matt Dernoga
Issue date: 3/3/09 Section: Opinion
Last week, President Barack Obama met with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss energy. The United States and Canada share the largest energy trade partnership in the world, with Canada supplying the United States with more oil and natural gas than any other country. A major point of interest has been the Canadian oil sands, from which Canada is extracting increasing amounts of oil to export to the U.S. Continue reading
Truth Squad: Offshore Wind, Not Drilling
There was good news and very bad news from Capitol Hill yesterday. On the one hand House lawmakers finally voted to renew tax credits that are vital to the growth of our renewable energy industry. On the other hand they handed big oil a big victory by voting to overturn a 30 year ban on offshore drilling. As you all know such drilling would have no effect on gas prices, threaten our nation’s shorelines, prolong our addiction to oil, and worsen the climate crisis.
But, thankfully, the fight against offshore drilling isn’t over. The Senate has yet to vote on the issue, which leaves us with time to shed some light on this murky federal energy debate with some illuminating LTEs. Over the next few days while the topic is still hot, let’s shoot of some letters to the editor reminding our senators that oil and renewable just don’t mix, and that we shouldn’t hold the clean energy economy hostage to the dirty agenda of big oil.
Read more about this legislation on grist: “Where there’s a drill, there’s a way.”
Talking Points:
Continue reading
Would Orville Wright Drill Offshore?
See below for an Op-Ed published today in the Baltimore Sun by CCAN Director Mike Tidwell. Enjoy.
Let’s make history again
By Mike Tidwell
July 23, 2008
Baltimore Sun
I recently stood on the windy coast of North Carolina where Orville and Wilbur Wright made their maiden flight in 1903. That motorized glider, constructed with bicycle parts, lifted off and flew nearly 900 feet in 59 seconds. Americans, astonishingly, were walking on the moon 66 years later.
The miracle of U.S. air and space travel, achieved in an eye blink, is something we should keep in mind as we once again turn to our coastlines for answers. The same windy Atlantic shore that gave rise to human flight now offers a new fork in the road with two profoundly different technological and moral visions awaiting our national decision.
One vision involves turning thousands of miles of our shoreline – on both coasts – into new havens for oil drilling. Never mind rapid global warming. Never mind our reckless addiction to oil. Never mind federal government data showing it would do little for gas prices. The new drumbeat, even among many Democrats, is, “We gotta get more – offshore, onshore, wherever.”
That’s certainly one vision for our coastlines for the 21st century.
Thankfully, there’s another, entirely different, vision out there. It embraces the pioneering spirit of the Wright brothers. It promises positive, transformative, sky’s-the-limit change. It’s a vision that says: Let’s build along our coastlines, but instead of oil platforms, let’s put up wind farms. And let’s tap the power of ocean waves and ocean tides for energy, rather than climate-wrecking crude oil. In the process, let’s make history so that schoolchildren remember 2008 they way they now remember 1903. Continue reading
Keep Exxon OUT of the nation's first green stadium
The Washington Nationals ballpark is the first stadium to be LEED Silver Certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Yet the Nationals continue to accept millions of advertising dollars from Exxon, by far one of the world’s biggest contributors to global warming.
Nationals executives need to hear: “Exxon = $4 gas + Global Warming. NOT baseball!”
Get involved at www.strikeoutexxon.org Continue reading