The 7-minute explanation of the 50-year solution to global climate change all laid out by the director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Mike Tidwell. Video by Jay Tomlinson
For even more information, you can also read a short Op-Ed by CCAN Director Mike Tidwell about Cap and Dividend that ran in the Baltimore Sun.
Cross-Posted from: HERE
So I have a column out today instead of Tuesday because of some complications. This was as much as i could fit into 550 words worth of space. I like how they threw in a disclaimer at the end about my dad.
Issue date: 4/10/09
I’ve been hearing about safety issues ever since I arrived on the campus. The Student Government Association and the university have had plenty of ideas to address off-campus safety, but they don’t get to the root of the problem: Why is there crime? I’ve seen enough e-mails from University Police to realize most incidents involve robbery. People in the surrounding community are stealing from students because they don’t have money or jobs.
Crime is always going to be high if you don’t address poverty. The best way to reduce off-campus crime would be to revitalize the College Park community and make this area of Prince George’s County better off. Easier said than done.
I’m going to use bringing green jobs to College Park as an example. The SGA has as much authority as the Queen of England, but it does have the standing to build coalitions – and they should make a list of stakeholders to bring green jobs and less crime to College Park. We’ve got students, business leaders, the city council, the county council, our state representatives, religious leaders, non-profits, the university administration and people who live in the community.
Reach out to all these stakeholders as best you can and collaborate with them. It’s a transformative process that doesn’t happen overnight. Local groups such as Progressive Cheverly and Green DMV are already working on bringing green jobs to low-income areas and would welcome student involvement; Annapolis matters, but the state legislature isn’t the only decision-maker out there. Some Prince George’s County politicians tried to get the state to use hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds to bring a D.C. United soccer stadium to the county. Fail.
How about asking for a Maryland Clean Energy Center similar to the one Montgomery County just got? The center will provide technology commercialization, business incubation and workforce development and training. It’s there to help meet the state’s goal of creating at least 100,000 green jobs by 2015. Wouldn’t it help us if some of those were created here? Or how about pushing for the development of a low-interest energy-efficiency loan fund by the city or county? This can be used to give low-income residents the means to retrofit their home and lower the energy bill while providing jobs to others in the community.
I just got an e-mail that the university is holding an open forum Tuesday called “Moving Diversity Forward.” That’s the best you can come up with? Nothing worthwhile is easy. A way to get diverse groups to work together is give them an issue to address that everyone has a stake in. Bringing green jobs to College Park to address poverty would allow the SGA to combine the ideas, effort and ingenuity from a broad spectrum of groups on the campus. Green, social justice, cultural and religious groups would be inclined to get involved. The university would be wise to provide resources to this kind of an initiative not only to actually back up their diversity talk, but also because spending a little money to reduce crime would lessen the financial strain security costs our school every year.
The SGA and university administration should think outside the box next semester for ways to address on-campus problems such as diversity and safety. Green jobs to College Park is just one tool in the bag.
Matt Dernoga is a junior government and politics major whose father serves on the Prince George’s County Council. He can be reached at mdernoga@umd.edu.
CCAN sent out this email to our list yesterday…
We’ve waited years for serious climate legislation from Congress, and last week we got our wish. Two major bills were introduced – and both need your quick attention. Please, take five minutes to read more below and send quick notes. This session of Congress is one of our last chances to get it right and avoid major climate change impacts for future generations.
Climate bill #1:
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) proposes historic “cap and dividend” bill
Congressman Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland environmental champion for decades, has authored the strongest “carbon cap” bill ever proposed. HR 1862 has all the right features: It’s simple, fair, and built to last. It makes polluters pay by auctioning 100 percent of carbon permits instead of giving them away, contains no controversial “carbon offsets,” and returns all carbon revenues back to the American public as a monthly dividend. Watch this short video featuring CCAN director Mike Tidwell. And learn more at www.capanddividend.org.
Here’s what author/activist Bill McKibben said last week about the Van Hollen bill: “This is the most innovative, yet obvious, piece of climate legislation in the 20 years I’ve been following this battle. Van Hollen’s bill sets out a straightforward mechanism for reducing carbon in the atmosphere in a way that will actually be popular with voters.”
TAKE ACTION: Please show your support right now. Please ask your Congressional representative to co-sponsor the Van Hollen bill. If Van Hollen is your Congressman, please thank him for his leadership.
Climate bill #2:
Waxman/Markey bill provides landmark first step but needs to be stronger
Also last week, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced a comprehensive clean energy/climate bill. The Congressmen deserve our gratitude for their years of hard work promoting climate solutions. As you would expect of a very comprehensive energy bill, there are both strong and weak provisions. The bill sets excellent statutory targets for clean energy development by increasing the requirements for renewable energy and energy efficiency. However, the bill funnels public funding into unproven carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects, allows new coal plants to be built through 2015 without proving they are CCS-compatible, and allows billions of tons of controversial carbon offsets. Read a good summary of the bill from CCAN’s Policy Director.
TAKE ACTION: Please email your Congressional representative and ask him/her to support the strong provisions in the bill and insist that the weak provisions be strengthened. With Arctic ice melting and sea level rising fast, we need a STRONG carbon cap right now.
As you saw if you tuned in to Lauren’s detailed twitter feed last night, the Virginia House of Delegates killed the Governor’s amendment to SB 1248 which would have re-instated a voluntary target for reducing Virginia’s energy use 19% by 2025 through energy efficiency measures. The vote was close: 47 in favor, 50 against. The amendment squeaked by in the Senate by a vote of 22-18.
In the other energy efficiency bill that landed on the Governor’s desk, Delegate Pollard’s bill HB2506, the General Assembly passed the Governor’s amendments which removed a bad portion of the bill giving authority to the Attorney General’s office to study energy efficiency programs implemented by the utilities and added a positive addition to require the SCC to consider energy efficiency and environmental protection when reviewing applications from small-scale industrial facilities for opting out of energy efficiency programs. The original language only looked at economic development as the sole point for opt out consideration. This bill passed the Senate 23-17 and the House 47-44.
Just to put things in perspective: Virginia currently ranks 45th in the country in percentage of utility revenues spent on efficiency – a total of just $84,000 statewide in 2006. In comparison, utilities in Alabama and Mississippi spent more than $400,000, and North Carolina energy providers spent $3.8 million.The bills passed this session do help move efficiency measures closer to being on a level playing field with new generation like coal-fired power plants. But the completely fail to set even a voluntary target, which is necessary to counter subsidies in Virginia for coal power.
It’s very unfortunate that the target was defeated but at least we now have some form of energy efficiency on the books. This gives us a foundation to work from next year to push even harder for stronger language. And the votes were close, which just goes to show that a statewide mobilization of grassroots efforts can be effective here in Virginia.
Press release here.
More detailed analysis coming soon.
Efficiency was a hot issue this past General Assembly session. The bills that passed were short of our goals, but in a midnight amendment, Governor Kaine added efficiency targets, which gives us tangible goals to work towards and sets precedent for passing a mandatory standard next session.
The General Assembly reconvenes today to vote on all the amendments put forth by the governor. Stay tuned here to get the up-to-the-tweet updates from Richmond.
People talking about the Virginia Efficiency bill on Twitter
Community members applaud decision to protect streams, residents
Appalachia, Virginia
One of the bonus side effects of global warming is that warming water is super hospitable to jellyfish. This will have impacts in the Chesapeake Bay as well – more open seas as marsh lands floods, along with warmer temperatures and dead zones caused by algae blooms all mean more jellyfish.
The fate of the crab cake sandwich that you love so much? Well, since blue crabs are in trouble due to loss of habitat, we’re going to have to replace them with the squishier and potentially less delicious jellyfish burger, like this one,
From The Green Miles
“The sustainability of our economic development successes are dependent on having a reliable energy source,” — Delacey Skinner, Gov. Tim Kaine’s communications director, talking about coal-fired power, March 31, 2008
I think of that quote every time I hear about how our continued dependence on coal-fired power is hurting consumers and businesses and leaving Virginians in the dark. The only thing dependable these days about coal-fired power is that it keeps getting more expensive. And the only thing reliable is Dominion’s guaranteed profits
RICHMOND, March 31 — Dominion Virginia Power is seeking to raise electricity rates 6.9 percent during the next 14 months to pay for equipment, salaries, plant construction and conservation projects. […]
Dominion said incremental increases proposed for Sept. 1 and Jan. 1 will pay for operating costs, power plants in Buckingham and Wise counties and conservation programs. The increase also includes a 13.5 percent profit for the company and its investors.
At a time when Virginia businesses are laying off workers, Dominion is asking them to divert more money away from their payrolls and towards Dominion’s payroll and profit.
The proposed 7 percent hike would be on top of the 18 percent rate increase we just got hit with in September. Oddly, the Washington Post article doesn’t mention the 1.5 percent fee Dominion quietly added in January to cover the cost of the new $2 billion coal-fired power plant in Wise County. Compounding the rate hikes, it would be more than a 28 percent total increase.
But surely our elected officials will take a stand for consumers … right?
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), who does not have a formal role in reviewing the request, said Dominion officials informed him they would be seeking an increase.
“The SCC is a strong body with a great staff, and I think they will do due diligence on this,” he said. “It’s difficult because the cost of energy is going up.”
Wow. Dominion wants to raise customers’ energy bills more than 28 percent in the worst economy since the Great Depression, and all Gov. Kaine can muster is a shrugging “well, what’re ya gonna do”?
Our continuing dependence on dirty coal is taking money out of consumers’ pockets, costing Virginia jobs, stripping our natural resources, polluting our air, and warming our planet. Remember that the next time anyone tries to tell you we can’t switch to clean energy.
With a new carbon-free economy in the works, we’re going to need to start thinking creatively about how we entertain ourselves. Seriously. The carbon-budget of a Hollywood blockbuster is generally out of control (transportation for starlets, megawatt lighting, building all those crazy pyramid sets…), so I think we should support more entertainment like this:
Why it’s awesome and low-carbon:
1. LEDs. Nuff said.
2. No special treatment for the sheep stars.
3. It’s outside, and involves all low impact technology for fun. Like dogs.
So here’s what I suggest. Next time you and your friends are looking for something fun to do, get on your bikes, grab some LEDs, and make your own fun. Extreme sheepherding style.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee discussion draft, “The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” released on March 31st is very robust, a 648 page document. Based upon one reading of this document, these seem to be most of the significant provisions:
-It would establish a cap-and-trade system which sets mandatory and declining limits on greenhouse gas emissions (ghg) over the next 40 years. Emissions credits would be allocated to accomplish this, but the draft is silent on how many of those credits would be given away or auctioned, or perhaps distributed in some other way. This remains to be negotiated.
-It appears that the cap is more “downstream” than “upstream.” The summary of the document says that it “establishes a market-based program for reducing global warming pollution from electric utilities, oil companies, large industrial sources, and other covered entities that collectively are responsible for 85% of U.S. global warming emissions.” At several points throughout the document it describes a “covered entity” as one which emits at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
-The draft projects a 20% reduction in ghg’s from 2005 levels via the cap, which is about a 7% reduction below the 1990 baseline year. There is another 10% reduction projected via investments in prevention of deforestation outside the U.S., and there is another 0-6% projected via offsets.
Continue reading