Category: Blog

Campus activism spreads to Newport News

As the Virginia Campus Organizer with CCAN, I get to work across Virginia with students who are eager to get involved with climate activism (how lucky am I, right??). For those of you who have been to Virginia- or outside of NOVA at least- you know just how big the state is. With well over two dozen colleges and universities spread across the state, it’s not easy to cover all the ground I’d like to over the course of a year. And although we’re active on fifteen campuses right now, I’m always looking to engage more VA students in our campaigns and support the awesome work they’re doing on their own campuses.

climate activism

Marking Katrina's 8th Anniversary: Don't let Hampton Roads be the next New Orleans

Eight years ago today, Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, flooding the city and leaving a wake of irreversible damage in its path. The stage had been set for a storm of this magnitude, as coastal Louisiana residents watched the seas rise and their land sink in prior years.

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That sounds all too familiar when we look at the coastal conditions of Hampton Roads. This week, CCAN climate activists took to the Virginia Beach oceanfront to call attention to the parallels between pre-Katrina New Orleans and present day Hampton Roads. Without strong action on climate change, a child born today could live to see a future of their coastal community devastated by climate-induced rising seas and more extreme storms.
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Climate Documentary Inspires Local Activists

When it comes to fighting climate change, people power is our greatest weapon. This is the message I took with me from CCAN’s screening of the documentary Chasing Ice in Richmond. Last Thursday night at the Camel, I was able to see what comes of weeks of planning, stress, and seemingly endless phone calls and emails. The result was a room full of people who were motivated and ready to take action against climate change.

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Virginia

Climate change town hall encourages individual action

Gazette.Net

By Marlena Chertock

About 500 residents, politicians and activists showed support for climate-change policies at an Organizing For Action town hall last week at the Silver Spring Civic Center.

“Cleaner air leads to healthier families,” said Neeta Datt, the county director of OFA.

The nearly four-hour meeting was the first in a month of action for OFA, a nonprofit that supports President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Speakers focused on the president’s plan, but also encouraged action on an individual level.

climate change Maryland

Suit objects to loan that helps region's coal exports

The Virginian-Pilot

By Robert McCabe

Environmental groups on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit challenging the U.S. government’s backing of a loan that facilitates the export of some Appalachian coal through the ports of Hampton Roads and Baltimore.

The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco, alleges that the U.S. Export-Import Bank broke federal law by approving a $90 million loan guarantee in support of Latrobe, Pa.-based coal broker Xcoal Energy & Resources LLC without first preparing an “environmental impact statement.”

The taxpayer-backed financing, approved on May 24, 2012, will help leverage $1 billion in coal exports from Appalachia to markets in Japan, South Korea, China and Italy through coal terminals in Hampton Roads and Baltimore, the groups said.

Coal Export ExportImport Bank Virginia

Lawsuit seeks to stop federal loan guarantee for coal planned for export from Hampton Roads

Daily Press

By Tamara Dietrich

As a registered nurse at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital for more than 20 years, Lorraine Ortega has noticed more and more serious asthma patients who need treatment.

“I was alarmed by the increased number of acute asthmatics in our area, as well as people actually being diagnosed with lung cancer when they’re non-smokers,” Ortega said.

One of those acute asthmatics happens to be Ortega’s daughter, who’s wound up several times in the emergency room. Ortega says she’s also had her own share of “really, really bad lung congestion” and pulmonary issues, even though she, too, is a non-smoker. She didn’t have such problems before moving from Brooklyn to Chesapeake in 1991.

She believes the culprit is coal.

Coal Export ExportImport Bank Virginia

Environmental groups, critical of coal export loans, file lawsuit

Cumberland Times-News

By Matthew Bieniek

CUMBERLAND — At the same time the coal industry is fighting against what industry leaders say is a war on coal, several environmental groups have filed a lawsuit to fight multimillion dollar loan guarantees to export U.S. coal to foreign nations including Japan, South Korea, China and Italy.

Much of that coal leaves the country through the Port of Baltimore.

Coal Export ExportImport Bank Maryland Virginia

Environmentalists sue Export-Import Bank over loan guarantee to domestic coal broker

The Washington Post

By Max Ehrenfreund

Above the harbor in Baltimore’s industrial Curtis Hill district is a one-acre urban farm. Jason Reed, a community organizer who works there, described the view. “I can look out over the harbor, and you can see the piles and piles of coal,” he said.

That coal is the subject of a lawsuit filed Wednesday by a coalition of environmental groups against the Export-Import Bank of the United States. The groups are challenging the federal agency’s financing of fossil fuel exports from ports in Baltimore and Hampton Roads.

Coal Export ExportImport Bank Maryland Virginia

#Walk4Grandkids Day 8: NO KXL!

From July 19th to July 26th, grandparents, parents and young people, from age 15 to 78, journeyed together on a eight-day trek from Camp David to the White House. After 100 miles of sweat and blisters through this summer’s worst heat wave, the Walk for Our Grandchildren reached DC today. Dozens gathered downtown at the headquarter of ERM to expose corporate influence in the US Department of State’s analsysis of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Tomorrow, we will reach our ultimate goal – the White House, calling upon President Obama to demonstrate substantive leadership on climate by rejecting the KXL.
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climate change DC Keystone XL pipeline Maryland President Barack Obama

Loudoun Rally Promotes Clean Energy

Leesburg Today

By Emily Moschetto

Almost 50 people gathered outside the Loudoun County Government Center Tuesday afternoon to catch the attention of local leaders and to raise awareness about how Loudouners can help combat climate change.

The “Wake Up Loudoun” rally drew members of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and a group of activists from the “Walk for Our Grandchildren” group who are in the midst of a 100-mile walk from Camp David to the White House.