Virginia Environmental Organizations' Core Recommendations to the Governor's Commission on Climate Change

The Governor’s Commission on Climate Change is meeting tomorrow, October 23. The current plan falls shockingly short of what scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. Governor Kaine’s plan would return Virginia to 2000 emissions levels by 2025. Scientists, in comparison, say we must cut emissions 25% below 1990 levels by 2020! This means that by 2020 Virginia should reduce emissions 35% below the 2000 level. The Commission on Climate Change has the ability to increase those targets.

Virginia Environmental Organizations’ Core Recommendations to the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change

Secretary L. Preston Bryant, Chair and Members of the Governor’s Commission on Climate Change

Dear Mr. Secretary and Commission members,

We recognize that developing climate change policy recommendations is an extremely complex endeavor. The variety of sources of carbon emissions, combined with the even greater number of control measures, the uncertain economics, and the competing stakeholders make this a most difficult charge.
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Climate change and green jobs response

At the presidential debate on Tuesday, Ingrid Jackson asked a great question on climate change and green jobs:

Sen. McCain, I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?

View their responses here:

Hands in the Middle for Maryland

by Ethan Nuss

Oh yea, Power Vote‘n in MD, baby! This past weekend members of the Maryland Student Climate Coalition (MSCC) gathered to launch Power Vote in style, and set a stellar state goal of 40,000 total pledges! (Two Maryland High School students gathered 400 pledges in the 5 days after returning from the Mega Camp training in MN. Booyah!) The MSCC is also planning multiple coordinated Green Jobs Day of Action events across the state and looking to garnish some high profile media like the Washington Post. But wait it doesn’t stop there…. the MD students heard that the Governor and several of their US congresspeople will be doing a campus speaking tour the first week of September. Expect to see Maryland students there in Power Vote T-shirts, green hard hats, and waving signs, because I smell some sweet bird-dogging.

But before we get ahead of ourselves with the excitement of the Sunday gathering (see silly video). Let’s rewind to Friday when they got their first campaign victory. Maryland students and community members went to an in district meeting with Rep. Elijah Cummings. What was the result of that meeting, you ask? They got Rep. Cummings to become the second member of congress to sign onto the 1Sky platform and commit to Green Jobs, Science based carbon reductions, and a moratorium on new coal plants. Yay! Look out Maryland elected officials because the MSCC is here to Kick this country into action!

Want to See Climate Change? Look Out Your Front Door. It's here.

Has anyone noticed that our local weather in the D.C. region has turned truly screwy? We go from one bizarre weather condition to the next with almost no pause in between for “normal” conditions. It’s too wet, too dry, too cold, too warm, too windy – nearly all the time. Hmmm? And scientists and average people all over the world, from Japan to Argentina, report similar strangeness. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times recently wrote from Kenya that the Serengeti’s April rains, so critical to that famous ecosystem, haven’t shown up this spring. And they didn’t come last year. There’s just no normal weather anymore. Anywhere.

In the D.C. region nothing illustrates this better than the annual Martin Luther King parade. Last year, tired of the cold and grayness of January, the organizers decided to move the annual parade to early April. The result? This year on January 16th (the official King holiday) it was 70 degrees in D.C. Remember all that freakish winter warmth? Outdoor barbeques broke out all over the city on backyard decks still festooned with Christmas decorations. And on Saturday, April 7th, the date of the “warmer” and more hospitable MLK parade? There was actually snow on the ground. The parade majorettes and tuba players woke up to 34 degrees and a blanket of snow on the ground, the most April snow in DC since 1924.

And yes, I know: There’s always been weird weather that occasionally defies the seasonal norms, sometimes dramatically. It’s part of the natural unpredictability of weather. And if you listen to the dismissive climate rants of the Rush Limbaugh crowd, you’ll yield to that inner voice that wants to reassuringly say: Don’t worry. It’s all normal. Everything’s okay. Continue reading

An Analysis of "Barack Obama: New Energy for America"

On August 4th the Obama campaign released a comprehensive program for reform of the U.S. energy system. This article is a critical analysis of that program.

Following an introduction, there are seven separate sections.

The Introduction

Obama frames his program as primarily a response to “our dependence on oil.” He calls this dependence “a threat to our national security, our planet and our economy.”

Comment: It is striking that in this introduction, and nowhere else in the 8-page, single-spaced document, does Obama identify our fossil fuel addiction, or the carbon pollution from the burning of oil, coal and natural gas, as the, or even a, problem.

He does say in the concluding paragraph of the introduction that “the nation (needs) to face one of the great challenges of our time: confronting our dependence on foreign oil, addressing the moral, economic and environmental challenge of global climate change, and building a clean energy future that benefits all Americans.”

He lists in a prominent box six things his program will do:

  1. Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump

  2. Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future

  3. Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined

  4. Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars Continue reading

Coal is what it is–VP candidates and coal

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Barack Obama shone some of his rays of hope on the climate movement. He named “serious” action on global warming as one of the benchmarks for success in his first term. “If I haven’t gotten combat troops out of Iraq, passed universal health care and created a new energy policy that speaks to our dependence on foreign oil and deals seriously with global warming, then we’ve missed the boat.”

In order to deal “seriously” with climate change, we need a moratorium on new coal plants. According to James Hansen, “it’s just silly to build a new one now.” And yet VP hopeful, our own Governor Tim Kaine, aggressively pushed for his and Dominion’s coal plant in Wise County. As Gov. Kaine says on this video, “There are some who say that you can’t build any new coal plants, and I don’t agree with that.”


Join the campaign at www.chesapeakeclimate.org/nocoal

Another VP hopeful, Kathleen Sebelius, has a record on coal that is much more promising than Gov. Kaine’s. She made herself a hero by standing up to a Republican legislature and strong utilities by blocking a coal plant from being built. Even the Republicans have a strong hero in the VP running. Florida Governor Charlie Crist successfully halted the construction of a new coal plant and stated his strong support of renewable energy. “Coal is what it is and I know it’s been an important source of energy in the past. But you know we have solar, we have nuclear, we have wind and other alternative opportunities for energy in the Sunshine State.”

It’s obvious that Kaine supports coal. He wants coal now, and he wants coal in the future. Is this going to meet up with Obama’s stated goal, to seriously address global warming?

TRADITION! WashPost Global Warming reporting Fair and Balanced

Tradition!

The Washington Post is establishing a firm 21st Century tradition: when it comes to Global Warming, take guidance from Faux News, “Fair and Balanced”.

Multiple times in the pastweek, both in reporting and on the editorial page, The Washington Post continued a seemingly iron tradition of coloring Global Warming science by ensuring that skeptics and deniers have their say as well, without providing any indication to the Continue reading

Poison Ivy Thrives with Climate Change

Poison Ivy

A recent study indicates that as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere increase, poison ivy will grow larger and produce more rash causing oils. Even small increases in the concentration of CO2 were found to increase the size of the plant and allow it to recover faster after having its leaves removed. The study comes along with increasing evidence that vines and plants similar to poison ivy, which can cause significant harm to forests, have become more widespread in recent years. Read more about the study here

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