Climate Activist Greta Thundberg: TIME Magazine's 'Person of the Year'

TIME’s Editor-in-chief on why Greta Thunberg is the Person of the Year

BY EDWARD FELSENTHAL

It began with a story line familiar to every parent of every generation in every corner of the globe: an indignant teenager and a sudden burst of rebellion. It became one of the most unlikely and surely one of the swiftest ascents to global influence in history. Over the course of little more than a year, a 16-year-old from Stockholm went from a solitary protest on the cobblestones outside her country’s Parliament to leading a worldwide youth movement; from a schoolkid conjugating verbs in French class to meeting with the Secretary-General of the United Nations and receiving audiences with Presidents and the Pope; from a solo demonstrator with a hand-painted slogan (Skolstrejk för Klimatet) to inspiring millions of people across more than 150 countries to take to the streets on behalf of the planet we share.

Meaningful change rarely happens without the galvanizing force of influential individuals, and in 2019, the earth’s existential crisis found one in Greta Thunberg. Marshaling “Fridays for Future” protests throughout Europe; thundering, “How dare you!” at the world’s most powerful leaders in her viral U.N. speech; leading some 7 million climate strikers across the world in September and tens of thousands more in Madrid in early December, Thunberg has become the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet—and the avatar of a broader generational shift in our culture that is playing out everywhere from the campuses of Hong Kong to the halls of Congress in Washington.

As Isabella Prata, the mother of two climate strikers in São Paulo, puts it, “Greta is an image of all of this generation.”

Thunberg demands action, and though far too many key measures are still moving in the wrong direction, there are nascent signs that action is coming. Corporate commitments to sustainable growth and net-zero emissions are on the rise. More than 60 countries have pledged to have a net carbon footprint of zero by 2050. American primary voters, especially in states beset by wildfires and flooding, are suddenly giving presidential candidates an earful on climate change. In Austria’s September elections, the Green Party more than tripled its support at the expense of the Social Democrats, a development a leader of the Social Democrats attributed to Thunberg—just before he resigned. Even as China burns half the world’s coal, it too is changing. It’s now home to roughly 45% of the electric cars and 99% of the electric buses in the world.

Thunberg stands on the shoulders—and at the side—of hundreds of thousands of others who’ve been blockading the streets and settling the science, many of them since before she was born. She is also the first to note that her privileged background makes her “one of the lucky ones,” as she puts it, in a crisis that disproportionately affects poor and indigenous communities. But this was the year the climate crisis went from behind the curtain to center stage, from ambient political noise to squarely on the world’s agenda, and no one did more to make that happen than Thunberg.

Wind Energy & Public Health Forum - Join Us Tonight!

Wind Energy & Public Health Forum 

WHEN: Thursday, November 21, 2019, 6:00-8:00 PM
WHERE: Center for Tomorrow, North Campus, University at Buffalo (UB)

As wind energy development accelerates in western New York, the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, New Yorkers for Clean Power, the New York League of Conservation Voters, and the Union of Concerned Scientists have come together to co-host a public forum on the relationship between wind energy and public health. Join us tonight for a fact-based discussion on the topic led by prominent experts.

​​​​​​The panel of experts speaking as part of the event will include:

• Dr. Jonathan Buonocore, program leader for the Harvard School of Public Health’s climate, energy, and health team whose research focuses on the health co-benefits of renewable energy development.

• Michael Hankard, President and Principal or Hankard Environmental Acoustical Consultants who specializes in measuring, analyzing, and reporting on environmental noise levels relating to wind turbines and other sources. 

• Dr. Robert J. McCunney, a practicing physician in the Pulmonary Division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston whose clinical research focuses on illnesses associated with occupational and environmental hazards.

• Jason Kehl is a fourth-generation dairy farmer who, along with his wife Missy and three daughters, milk 120 Holstein cows at Kehl Farms in Strykersville, New York. Kehl Farms grows all their own forages on 450 acres of property that hosts not only the Kehl’s home, but also four wind turbines from the High Sheldon Wind Farm. Jason will offer a first-hand local perspective on what it is like to live and work near wind turbines.

• Professor Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney School of Public Health, one of the world’s leading experts on the issue of human health and wind farms and the author of Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Communicated Disease.

The forum will be moderated by Rita Graham, an independent meeting facilitator with 35 years of experience in environmental and agriculture-related issues.

The event is open to the general public and audience members will be encouraged to submit questions to the panelists. To learn more or reserve a free ticket online, visit wnywind-health.eventbrite.com.

FORUM: NY State's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act

This Forum is a solutions focused discussion where the audience will hear from policymakers, businesses, social justice advocates, environmentalists, academics, thought leaders and others as they take a deeper dive into the new legislation and what it means to achieving climate neutrality.

  The event is on October 17th from 6-7:30pm at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in downtown Buffalo. Refreshments and a cash bar will be available at 5:30pm. 

 

Registration is mandatory. Please RSVP here:  

https://tinyurl.com/CLCPA2019 

More information can be found at:  

http://www.buffalo.edu/sustainability/keyinitiatives/CLCPA2019.html 

 

 

Alaskans See Impacts of Climate Crisis as Arctic Warms Two Times Faster than the Planet

Climate Crisis plays out in Alaska.

Arctic warming twice as fast as rest of planet. 

By Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent | September 09, 2019

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) - Alaska's summer of fire and no ice is smashing records.

With the Arctic warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, America's "Last Frontier" feels like the first in line to see, smell and feel the unsettling signs of a climate in crisis.

There are the smoky skies and dripping glaciers, dead salmon and hauled-out walrus but scientists also worry about the changes that are harder to see, from toxic algae blooms in the Bering Sea to insects from the Lower 48 bringing new diseases north.

The head shaking among longtime locals really began on the Fourth of July, when at 90 degrees, Anchorage was hotter than Key West.

A dome of hot, dry air over the southern part of the state refused to budge. When lightning struck the Kenai Peninsula, it was just the beginning of a wilderness inferno unlike any other in memory.

Like rainy clockwork, Alaska's fire season usually ends August 1 but the Swan Lake fire is still burning and only 37% contained. To the relief of exhausted fire crews and worried residents, September is bringing the first moisture in weeks but the most populous part of the state is still swallowing more smoke than ever.

"We've had more than twice as many smoky hours in 2019 than in any other season, and in fact, almost as many as all other years combined," says Brian Brettschneider, a climatologist at the University of Alaska.

Strolling in short sleeves atop the rapidly melting Spencer Glacier, Brettschneider lists one superlative after another, pulled from a century's worth of records that predate Alaskan statehood. "Eight of our top 13 warmest days on record are this year," he says. "We didn't just get a little bit past the old marks, we really blasted past them."

He points to the bare rock and dirt 150 feet above us where the glacier once stood. "This is half as thin as it was not very long ago." Every drip is headed to sea, which makes what is happening here directly relevant to New York, Miami, Dubai, Osaka, Hong Kong and countless beach towns in between. According to the European Space Agency, melting Alaskan ice has contributed more to sea level rise than Greenland, Antarctica or any other part of the world.

And then there are the fish, so vital to the economy. While Bristol Bay saw another epic salmon run this season, more and more streams are just too warm for the fish to spawn.

"We definitely have reports from around the state where we've found dead fish that have not made it to their spawning grounds," says Sue Mauger, science director for the nonprofit Cook Inletkeeper. "They still have the eggs inside and have not spawned. Those are just lost future generations."

She has been measuring streams for almost two decades and while the warming trend was obvious, she is stunned by the speed. "The temperatures we saw this summer were what we expected for 2069 -- we're 50 years ahead of where we thought we would be for stream temperatures."

Climate Change threatens Food and Water Supplies, while Farming and Land Practices fuel the change, says new U.N. Report

Changing climate imperils global food and water supplies, new U.N. study finds

Agriculture and other land use accounts for 23 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

by Brady Dennis | Aug 8 2019 | Washington Post

The world cannot avoid the worst impacts of climate change without making serious changes to the ways humans grow food, raise livestock and manage forests, according to a landmark study Thursday from an international group of scientists.

The sprawling report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) examines how land use around the world contributes to the warming of Earth’s atmosphere. But the report also details how climate change is already threatening food and water supplies for humans: turning arable land to desert; degrading soil; and increasing the threat of droughts, floods and other extreme weather that can wreak havoc on crops.

It makes clear that although fossil fuel-burning power plants and automobile tailpipes are the largest drivers of climate change, activities such as agriculture and forestry account for an estimated 23 percent of total human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

“We already knew that humanity’s over-exploitation of the Earth’s lands is a key driver of climate change, and that we need to take urgent, ambitious action to address these issues,” Jennifer Tabola, director for global climate strategy at the Nature Conservancy, said in a statement. “We have a choice: do we balance the needs of human development and nature, or do we sleepwalk into a future of failing farmlands, eroding soil, collapsing ecosystems and dwindling food resources?”

Four years ago in Paris, world leaders agreed to take aggressive action to keep global warming to “well below” 2 degree Celsius, compared with pre-industrial levels. Their aspiration was to limit warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (the world has already warmed 1 degree).

But Thursday’s report, which includes the work of 107 experts from 52 countries, underscores that meeting those goals will require fundamental changes not only to the transportation and energy sectors, but also by cutting emissions from agriculture and deforestation — all while feeding growing populations.dd

Last fall, IPCC scientists found that nations will need to take “unprecedented” actions to cut their carbon emissions over the next decade to avoid devastating effects from rising seas, more intense storms and other impacts of climate change.

[The world has just over a decade to get climate change under control, U.N. scientists say]

They also detailed how such a radical transformation would require large swaths of land currently used to produce food to instead be converted to growing trees that store carbon and crops designated for energy use.

“Such large transitions pose profound challenges for sustainable management of the various demands on land for human settlements, food, livestock feed, fibre, bioenergy, carbon storage, biodiversity and other ecosystem services,” the authors wrote at the time.

A significant amount of agricultural emissions comes from livestock — primarily from the belches of cattle. Additionally, while all soils emit some nitrous oxide, soil on farms often emits higher levels because of nitrogen that is added in the form of manure, fertilizers or other material. Meanwhile, deforestation in places such as the Amazon and Indonesia has harmed the ability of forests to retain carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Give Wind Energy a Chance — Call your Erie County Legislator

The Erie County Legislature is considering a resolution sponsored by Legislators Dixon and Mills and supported by Chris Collins to preemptively oppose wind development "along the shores of Lake Erie". 

The Sierra Club, PUSH Buffalo, the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, and the Building Trades Unions will be testifying against this resolution and in favor of investment in renewable energy and green jobs coupled with a rigorous review of any offshore wind projects to make sure our drinking water and the lake ecology are protected. 

We need to ramp up wind and solar exponentially if we are to meet our climate goals and every area with good wind and solar resources needs to be evaluated scientifically and thoroughly. Passage of the Dixon-Mills resolution for the County housing New York's 2nd largest city would essentially sink our State's chances of reaching the adopted goal of 100% carbon free electricity by 2040. 

Stand Up for Renewable Energy and Green Jobs!

CALL Your Legislator before the Thursday, Sept.19 Hearing and urge them to vote against the Dixon-Mills anti-wind resolution.

Legislator List and Contact Info: click here

District Map: click here

If possible, please join us at the Legislative Hearing:
Thursday, September 19th 1:00-2:30 PM
Erie County Hall, 92 Franklin St. (4th Floor Legislative chamber), Buffalo [Map]

'People friendly' wind turbines near Woodlawn Beach State Park on Lake Erie

Climate Crisis: Senator Sanders releases a Green New Deal plan along with ways to pay for it

Bernie Sanders unveils $16 Trillion Green New Deal To Combat Climate Crisis

The 2020 Democratic candidate’s climate plan offers a detailed vision that would expand public ownership of utilities and make electricity “virtually free” by 2035.

By Alexander C. Kaufman | Aug 22, 2019 | HUFFPOST

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders released a sweeping $16.3 trillion climate plan on Thursday, vowing to create 20 million jobs and completely zero out planet-heating emissions by 2050.

The proposal outlines easily the most ambitious vision for a Green New Deal to date, with calls to massively expand public ownership of everything from power generation to groceries. With Washington Gov. Jay Inslee ending his climate-centered bid for the Democratic nomination a day earlier, the plan vaults the Vermont senator ahead of his 2020 rivals on what’s emerging as the defining policy issue of the Democratic primary.

At a moment when record wildfires are raging from the Amazon to the Arctic and Greenland is losing up to 12.5 billion tons of ice in a single day, the plan is dense with detail and frank in its goals. Where other proposals, including those from Inslee and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) depict expanded regulatory regimes and public spending aimed at spurring private investment, Sanders charts out a path to a hospitable global climate through Nordic-style social democracy.

“The scope of the challenge ahead of us shares some similarities with the crisis faced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940s,” the plan states. “Faced with battling a world war on two fronts ― both in the East and the West ― the United States came together, and within three short years restructured the entire economy in order to win the war and defeat fascism. As president, Bernie Sanders will boldly embrace the moral imperative of addressing the climate crisis.”

The campaign declined a request to interview Sanders on Wednesday evening.
  
 The plan opens with Sanders vowing to slash U.S. emissions 71% below 2017 levels by 2030 with 100% renewable electricity and zero-emissions vehicles. He declares war on the fossil fuel industry with kproposed bans on fracking, drilling on public lands and all imports and exports of oil and gas, and threatens companies with civil and criminal charges for pollution and obstructing climate action. He pledges $200 billion to help developing countries reduce their own climate pollution by 36% in the next decade.

Citing the nuclear disasters in Chernobyl and Fukushima, Sanders, long a critic of nuclear power, swears off new reactors and promises a moratorium on future licenses to existing plants. His plan rules out geoengineering the climate or deploying technologies to capture carbon dioxide from fossil fuel plants, which he derided as “false solutions.” It’s unclear whether he’d consider carbon capture technologies for difficult-to-decarbonize industries like cement making.

Generous pledges for workers animate Sanders’ proposal. The plan, which comes the same week the campaign released its proposal to boost unions, promises five years of unemployment insurance, a wage guarantee, housing assistance, job training, pension support and priority job placement for all workers displaced by the transition. It offers “early retirement support for those who choose it or can no longer work.” It proposes high wages and union protections across nearly every sector.

What stands out first is Sanders’ clear answer to the perennial question of how to pay for it.

There’s the money saved: $1.215 trillion from “scaling back military spending on protecting global oil” and $1.31 trillion from federal and state welfare “due to the creation of millions of good-paying, unionized jobs.”

Then there’s the money earned: $6.4 trillion from selling electricity produced by the Energy Department’s regional power marketing authorities, $3.085 trillion from “making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies,” $2.3 trillion from income taxes on the 20 million new jobs the plan creates, and an additional $2 trillion from forcing “the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share.”

Those pushing a Green New Deal, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and the grassroots group Sunrise Movement, have shied away from talking numbers, even as Republicans fabricated a bogus $93 trillion price tag. Instead, advocates have pointed to the costs of sticking to a business-as-usual. The Sanders plan touches on that, too, highlighting that the costs of catastrophic warming could total $70.4 trillion over 80 years.

“This plan will pay for itself over 15 years,” the policy memo reads. “Experts have scored the plan and its economic effects.”

The 13,840-word document includes 85 dollar signs. Sanders sets aside $5.9 billion for regional economic development plans, with the lion’s share ― over $2.5 billion ― earmarked for Appalachia. There’s $15 billion for coal miners’ Black Lung Disability Fund. Another $25 billion goes to clearing the national park maintenance backlog. The restored Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program that planted 3 billion trees in the 1930s, gets $171 billion.

Talk: Offshore Wind Works for Clean Energy and Green Jobs

We hope you can make it to the Thursday, 9/5/19 Sierra Club Writers Group to learn about a crisis situation where your help is needed.

Thanks to the efforts of a grass roots coalition of clean energy, labor and social justice activists, New York's recently enacted Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act mandates 100% carbon free electricity generation by 2040.  This puts us in line to blunt some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis. 

We will not meet this climate goal without thoroughly exploring New York’s windiest locations and the areas most accessible for solar development.

There is a move afoot by a couple County Legislators, supported by Rep. Chris Collins, to put Erie County on record opposed to wind energy along the shores of Lake Erie - one of the windiest areas in New York State.

If the County of New York's 2nd largest city starts premptively shutting down renewables it will be impossible for NYers to do our part in the fighting the climate emergency.

-- Bill Nowak, Sierra Club Writers Group

New York mandates Bold Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions to address Climate Change

Transition from Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy 

will Cut Emissions and create New Jobs

By David Kowalski

On July 18, 2019, NY Gov. Cuomo signed into law the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). It is the most ambitious legal mandate in the nation for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The CLCPA mandates:

- by 2030, 70% of electricity will be generated by emission-free, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar

- by 2040, electricity generation will have zero greenhouse gas emissions

- by 2050, 85% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels, and a goal of net-zero emissions in all sectors of the economy

The CLCPA has specific goals and timelines for different types of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Distributed solar is expected to have a capacity of six gigawatts by 2025. Offshore wind is expected to reach nine gigawatts of capacity by 2035. There's a target for energy efficiency improvements (a 185 trillion BTU reduction by 2025) and storage (3 gigawatts by 2030) as well.

When he signed the CLCPA, Cuomo announced some initial steps toward the goals, including contracts for two offshore wind power projects that will generate 1.7 gigawatts, enough electricity to power 1 million homes. These wind power projects will create 1,600 unionized jobs and over $3 billion of economic activity.

Cuomo said there would be nearly $280 million in new investments in infrastructure to distribute the power and a $20 million program at the state university system to train clean energy workers.

The CLCPA also focuses on adaptation mechanisms, including increasing the resilience of infrastructure to withstand disasters. The legislation also establishes a process ensuring that investments from clean energy and energy efficiency funds benefit frontline communities that have been historically burdened by pollution or are at high risk from the effects of climate change.

Achieving drastic emissions cuts will also require tackling transportation, the largest source of emissions in the state, and buildings where natural gas and other fuels are the primary source of heating.

A 22-member panel, which will include state agency commissioners and others appointed by Cuomo and legislative leaders, will be given broad authority and three years to come up with a "scoping plan" to recommend changes the state can make to reduce its emissions. Specific industries or areas, such as transportation, will be the focus of sub-panels.

The text of the CLCPA is here.

NY's Master Plan for Offshore Wind Power is here.

 BATTERY STORAGE

Grid-sized Battery Storage Facility under construction | NY Times photo

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UPDATE: 8.01.2019

$1.1B Niagara Power Project upgrade is NYPA's biggest investment ever

ALBANY – The New York Power Authority will invest $1.1 billion in a massive modernization effort at the Niagara Power Project, the state’s largest producer of electricity.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, in a statement announcing the investment Wednesday, said the project will help the state meet its ambitious plans to transition a carbon-free energy system throughout New York by 2040.

“The Niagara Power Project is New York’s largest source of clean electricity and this modernization project will allow it to continue operating for another 50 years," Cuomo said in a statement.

Read the article in The Buffalo News

NY Renews Coalition Comments on Governor Signing Ambitious Climate Bill into Law

NY Renews, a coalition of over 180 environmental, justice, faith, labor, and community groups released the following statement on the Climate Leadership and  Community Protection Act:

“Today, the Governor signed the nation’s most ambitious climate bill into law. This would not have been possible without years of work from community, environmental, labor, and justice organizations throughout the state.

For four years, NY Renews has done the meaningful work of uniting New Yorkers under the banner of climate, jobs, and justice. Our coalition put forth nation-leading policy to address the climate crisis while investing in the communities most impacted by the effects of climate change.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act makes New York the nation’s leader in legally-mandated emissions cuts. For the future of humanity and our planet, we need to move off fossil fuels towards a renewable economy, and we hope we can inspire other states to follow our lead on bold climate action.

In addition, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act includes a climate and equity screen, to make sure climate policies do not disproportionately burden environmental justice communities. It also includes a commitment to allocate 35% of the benefits of state climate funding to communities on the frontlines of the crisis. Given the Governor’s dismissal of environmental justice priorities throughout the legislative session, it is clear that these provisions were included in the final bill due to overwhelming public pressure from New Yorkers across the state.

NY State Assembly Passes Climate Leadership And Community Protection Act

Legislation sets the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 85 percent by 2050, and having net zero emissions in all sectors of the economy

Speaker Carl Heastie and Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Steve Englebright today announced Assembly passage of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a comprehensive bill that sets critical environmental standards, including reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the use of renewable energy in order to address and mitigate the effects of climate change (A.8429, Englebright).

"Climate change is already having adverse effects on communities here in New York, and if it continues unchecked, it will wreak havoc on our environment, our economy and on the everyday lives of New Yorkers," Speaker Heastie said. "As the administration in Washington rolls back environmental protections, the Assembly Majority will continue to lead the way in developing green energy alternatives and sustainable policies and practices."

"People across the state, from Buffalo to Long Island, have urged New York to act on climate change. I am proud that the Assembly Majority has led the way on this issue and has now passed the most comprehensive climate legislation in the nation. This bill sets New York on a course for a sustainable future by transitioning our state to clean renewable energy, unleashing the genius of American industry, and ensuring good paying jobs that work for all New Yorkers," said Assemblymember Englebright.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act would require that the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) establish:

•  Statewide greenhouse gas emissions limits by regulation, to reduce emissions 85 percent by 2050;
• Regulations to achieve statewide greenhouse gas emissions reductions; and
• A process ensuring that a minimum of 35 percent of investments from clean energy and energy efficiency funds are invested in disadvantaged communities.

The legislation would also establish a Climate Justice Working Group, consisting of representatives from environmental justice communities, DEC and the Departments of Health and Labor. The working group would identify disadvantaged communities for the purposes of reducing co-pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions and the allocation of certain investments.

NY State Senate Passes Historic Climate Leadership And Community Protection Act

Albany, NY -- The Senate today [5.19.2019] passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) to address and mitigate the effects of climate change by drastically cutting greenhouse gases, diverting the state’s energy reliance to renewable sources, and creating green jobs to promote environmental justice across New York State. This bill is the most comprehensive and aggressive climate change legislation in the nation.

"Today marks a historic day for New York State in the fight against climate change," Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said. "As our leaders in Washington fail to take action, New York needs to lead in this time of great crises for our planet. I commend Senator Todd Kaminsky for championing this bill and protecting New York's future generations."

Bill Sponsor and Chair of the Environmental Conservation Committee, Senator Todd Kaminsky, said, “While Washington is asleep at the wheel, New York is leading the way. The CLCPA will virtually eliminate New York’s greenhouse gasses, foster renewable energy production, create green jobs, invest in lower-income communities, and protect our planet. New Yorkers and the world cannot wait any longer. This is the moment for bold, global change--and I’m proud to say New York is leading the nation.”

The Senate Majority held a series of hearings on the Climate Leadership and Community Protect Act (CLCPA), led by Chair of the Environmental Conservation Committee, Senator Todd Kaminsky, in Albany, New Paltz, Syracuse, New York City, and Long Island. These hearings allowed concerned citizens, stakeholders, and environmental experts to provide testimony on how climate change has impacted their communities and recommendations for New York State moving forward.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, S.6599, will:

•     Minimize the adverse impacts of climate change by reducing statewide greenhouse gas emissions.

•     Improve the state’s resiliency to the certain effects and risks of climate change.

•     Ensure that the ongoing transition of the state's energy sector will create good jobs and protect workers and communities during the transition process.

•     Prioritize the safety and health of disadvantaged communities, control the potential regressive impacts of future climate change mitigation, and adopt policies for these communities.

Climate Crisis is Our Third World War -- Requires a Bold Response

The climate crisis is our third world war. It needs a bold response

Joseph Stiglitz | June 4, 2019 | The Guardian

Critics of the Green New Deal ask if we can afford it. 
But we can’t afford not to: our civilization is at stake.


Advocates of the Green New Deal say there is great urgency in dealing with the climate crisis and highlight the scale and scope of what is required to combat it. They are right. They use the term “New Deal” to evoke the massive response by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the United States government to the Great Depression. An even better analogy would be the country’s mobilization to fight World War II.

Critics ask, “Can we afford it?” and complain that Green New Deal proponents confound the fight to preserve the planet, to which all right-minded individuals should agree, with a more controversial agenda for societal transformation. On both accounts the critics are wrong.

Yes, we can afford it, with the right fiscal policies and collective will. But more importantly, we must afford it. The climate emergency is our third world war. Our lives and civilization as we know it are at stake, just as they were in the second world war.

When the US was attacked during the second world war no one asked, “Can we afford to fight the war?” It was an existential matter. We could not afford not to fight it. The same goes for the climate crisis. Here, we are already experiencing the direct costs of ignoring the issue – in recent years the country has lost almost 2% of GDP in weather-related disasters, which include floods, hurricanes, and forest fires. The cost to our health from climate-related diseases is just being tabulated, but it, too, will run into the tens of billions of dollars – not to mention the as-yet-uncounted number of lives lost. We will pay for climate breakdown one way or another, so it makes sense to spend money now to reduce emissions rather than wait until later to pay a lot more for the consequences – not just from weather but also from rising sea levels. It’s a cliche, but it’s true: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The war on the climate emergency, if correctly waged, would actually be good for the economy – just as the second world war set the stage for America’s golden economic era , with the fastest rate of growth in its history amidst shared prosperity. The Green New Deal would stimulate demand, ensuring that all available resources were used; and the transition to the green economy would likely usher in a new boom. Trump’s focus on the industries of the past, like coal, is strangling the much more sensible move to wind and solar power. More jobs by far will be created in renewable energy than will be lost in coal.

Read more at The Guardian

Joseph E Stiglitz is a university professor at Columbia, the 2001 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, a former chief economist of the World Bank and the author, most recently, of People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent

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U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending, says International Monetary Fund Report

Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending

The world would be richer and healthier if the full costs of fossil fuels were paid, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund

By Tim Dickinson | May 8, 2019

The United States has spent more subsidizing fossil fuels in recent years than it has on defense spending, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion.

The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices and how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs” and other damage, including premature deaths from air pollution.

These subsidies are largely invisible to the public, and don’t appear in national budgets. But according the the IMF, the world spent $4.7 trillion — or 6.3 percent of global GDP — in 2015 to subsidize fossil fuel use, a figure it estimated rose to $5.2 trillion in 2017. China, which is heavily reliant on coal and has major air-pollution problems, was the largest subsidizer by far, at $1.4 trillion in 2015. But the U.S. ranked second in the world.

The human, environmental and economic toll of these subsidies is shocking to the conscience. The authors found that if fossil fuels had been fairly priced in 2015, global carbon emissions would have been slashed by 28 percent. Deaths from fossil fuel-linked air pollution would have dropped by nearly half.

Oil, gas and coal companies — and their stooges in public office — have long argued that making consumers pay for the full impacts of fossil fuel use would cripple the economy. The IMF experts call bs on this idea, revealing that the world would, in fact, be more prosperous. Eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels would have created global “net economic welfare gains” in 2015 of “more than $1.3 trillion, or 1.7 percent of global GDP,” the study found. (These net gains are “calculated as the benefits from reduced environmental damage and higher revenue minus the losses from consumers facing higher energy prices.”)

For the United States, the $649 billion in fossil fuel subsidies exceeded even the extravagant amount of money the country spent on defense. To offer a sense of scale, Pentagon spending accounted for 54 percent of the discretionary federal budget in 2015. In comparison to another important, but less well-funded part of the federal budget, fossil fuel subsidies were nearly 10 times what Congress spent on education. Broken down to an individual level, fossil fuel subsidies cost every man, woman and child in the United States $2,028 that year.

At the opening of the IMF’s spring meetings in April, Managing Director Christine Lagarde laid out the benefits she sees in properly pricing fossil fuels. “The numbers are quite staggering” she said, referring to the savings that could be achieved “fiscally, but also in terms of human life, if there had been the right price on carbon emission as of 2015.”

Lagarde continued to rattle off the benefits to humanity of realizing these savings. “There would be more public spending available to build hospitals, to build roads, to build schools and to support education and health for the people,” she said.

For Lagarde and the IMF, the conclusion was obvious: “We believe that removing fossil fuel subsidies is the right way to go.”

Link to the article at Rolling Stone here 

ENERGY: Report finds strong bipartisan support for 100% clean, renewable energy -- Majority see economic benefits

Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

REPORT: Energy in the American Mind -- December 2018

By Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Seth Rosenthal, John Kotcher, Abel Gustafson, Parrish Bergquist, Matthew Ballew and Matthew Goldberg

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Executive Summary

Drawing on a nationally representative survey (N = 1,114; including 966 registered voters), this report describes Americans’ energy-related beliefs, attitudes, consumer behaviors, and support for different energy policies. Among other important results, we found strong bipartisan support for requiring electric utilities to use 100% clean, renewable energy, that a majority of Americans say transitioning to clean, renewable energy will benefit the economy, and that support for renewable energy research has increased by 30 percentage points among conservative Republicans over the past five years.

Beliefs and Attitudes about Clean, Renewable Energy

• Most Americans consider both “clean energy” and “renewable energy” to be good things. Liberal Democrats were more likely to rate the term “clean energy” (99%) positively than “renewable energy” (83%), while conservative Republicans were more likely to rate the term “renewable energy” (63%) positively than “clean energy” (46%).
• About six in ten Americans consider coal energy (62%) to be “moderately” or more harmful to people’s health. Democrats (76%) are more likely than Republicans (57%) to say that coal is harmful. About half of Americans (53%) say nuclear energy is harmful. In contrast, almost no Americans think solar (5%) or wind energies (5%) are harmful to people’s health.
• A majority of Americans (58%) – including three in four Democrats (75%) – think policies intended to transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy will improve economic growth and create new jobs. Only 18% of Americans – and 7% of Democrats – think such policies will reduce growth and jobs. More Republicans think such a transition will improve economic growth (39%) than reduce it (31%).
• Americans’ most important reasons to support a transition to 100% clean, renewable energy are reducing water pollution (75%), reducing air pollution (74%), and providing a better life for our children and grandchildren (72%).
• About seven in ten Americans (71%; including 87% of Democrats and 51% of Republicans) think clean energy should be a “high” or “very high” priority for the president and Congress. Very few Americans (7%, including 3% of Democrats and 11% of Republicans) think it should be a “low” priority.
• A majority of Americans (61%) – including about eight in ten Democrats (79%) – think that if all nations switch to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2050, it will be “moderately” or “very” effective at limiting global warming.

PUBLIC MEETING: Amherst Waterfront Revitalization Projects

Click images to enlarge

Help Pass Strong Climate Legislation in NYS Now -- Take Action!

We are on the verge of passing the strongest climate legislation in the country, right here in New York!

But Governor Cuomo, who says he supports strong climate legislation, is not standing as the bold leader he’d like us to believe he is and has called proposed legislation “a political placebo.” 

We need to tell him to get his priorities straight and pass a strong Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA) now.

It's more important than ever to Call Governor Cuomo and Email Your Representatives to tell them it is beyond time to pass a strong CCPA!

It's EASY: simply Click the Link above and select Call or Email. A message is supplied.

Despite Cuomo’s feet dragging, pressure to #PassTheCCPA is at its all time high. Our New York congresspeople endorsed this landmark legislation this week, from Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Brian Higgins and most other members of the NY congressional delegation (see letter and signatories, below).
 

The time is now. Let’s get this done. Let’s pass the CCPA this legislative session!

~  Environmental Advocates of New York - EANY.org

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Endorsement of the Climate and Community Protection Act by U.S. Representatives 
(click images to enlarge):

TAKE ACTION: Demand a Vote on the NYS Climate and Community Protection Act

TAKE ACTION: 

Tell our State elected leaders: our Planet, our Health, and our Communities can't wait. 

We need New York State to lead on Climate Justice and pass the Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA) this session. 

We have a Majority of Sponsors in the Senate and the Assembly. 

We demand a VOTE on the CCPA NOW!

Click Here to Take Action

NY Renews is a coalition of more than 150 grassroots, state, and national organizations. We aim to make New York State the nation’s leader in tackling the climate crisis while protecting workers and lifting up communities.

Teen Climate Activist Greta Thunberg - TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People

Greta Thunberg

By Emma González | TIME

The civil rights movement leaders of the 1960s had no idea that school-shooting survivors from one of the most southern points in the U.S. would lean on their teachings to power a modern nonviolent movement to end gun violence. Students around the world began standing up for their survival, leaning only on the fire inside them to prevent the pain they understand too intimately.

Greta Thunberg saw her power in us, and we in turn see our power in her. Fighting in her home country, Sweden, for a future free from pollution, environmental degradation and climate change, Greta is inspiring steadfast students and shaming apathetic adults.

She realized early on that the powers that be would be stacked against her and her mission, stating, “We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.” Greta went on to plan a multitude of student protests centered on action against our changing climate. Climate change is our reality, and youth activists like Greta are doing everything within their power to work against it, and demand a change.

González, a graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is a March for Our Lives co-founder

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Greta Thunberg is part of TIME’s 2019 Next Generation Leaders series.

‘Now I Am Speaking to the Whole World.’

How Teen Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Got Everyone to Listen

Read the Cover Story at TIME online

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Read earlier stories about Greta Thunberg and watch videos of her inspiring speeches at Re-ENERGIZE Buffalo

'SIT-STAND-SING' - Workshop & Training Event - NoNAPL Coalition

Despite NYSDEC’s denial of the Northern Access Pipeline (NAPL) Project, National Fuel continues attempts to move ahead. As they PERSIST, the NoNAPL Coalition will RESIST from the fracking fields in PA and northward through Western NY. 

We are excited to now team up with SaneEnergy and 350.org as part of their State-wide tour. Lunch will be provided at this free event so please be sure to RSVP below.  

We hope to see you there as we build community and continue resistance TOGETHER!!

 

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The NoNAPL COALITION

is teaming up with 350.org and SaneEnergy to host a

 

One Day Workshop / Training Event

Please  Join Us for

SIT-STAND-SING

the many roles of non-violent direct action

Sunday June 2nd, 2019
11am - 4pm

UNOVA Community Coworking Center
29 Mechanic Street, Springville, NY 14134 [Map]

Lunch will be provided at this Free Event - we need a count, so please:

RSVP HERE FOR SIT-STAND-SING NoNAPL Event

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Our NoNAPL Coalition is excited to be the first stop on this Statewide ‘Sit, Stand Sing’ Tour!

Please join us!

This tour is a collaboration with Communities featured on the You Are Here Map of fracking 

N.A.Pipeline (green), infrastructure (pink), Waterways (blue).  
Click Image to Enlarge.

infrastructure. Each tour stop entails trainings on organizing skills like strategy, direct action and movement building. The goal: Connect Communities across the State to build the Sustainable and Renewable World we know is possible.

QUESTIONS? 
Contact Diana Strablow, niagarasierra@gmail.com 

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See a Buffalo News Editorial titled  'Northern Access Pipeline could endanger water supply for thousands' here.

For additional information about the forces pushing the Northern Access Pipeline, see the report titled The Power Behind the Pipelines by the Public Accountability Initiative.

A Campaign for Natural Solutions to the Climate Crisis

A natural solution to the climate disaster

Climate and ecological crises can be tackled by restoring forests and other valuable ecosystems, say scientists and activists

Letters | April 3, 2019 | The Guardian

The world faces two existential crises, developing with terrifying speed: climate breakdown and ecological breakdown. Neither is being addressed with the urgency needed to prevent our life-support systems from spiralling into collapse. We are writing to champion a thrilling but neglected approach to averting climate chaos while defending the living world: natural climate solutions. This means drawing carbon dioxide out of the air by protecting and restoring ecosystems.

By defending, restoring and re-establishing forests, peatlands, mangroves, salt marshes, natural seabeds and other crucial ecosystems, large amounts of carbon can be removed from the air and stored. At the same time, the protection and restoration of these ecosystems can help minimize a sixth great extinction, while enhancing local people’s resilience against climate disaster. Defending the living world and defending the climate are, in many cases, one and the same. This potential has so far been largely overlooked.

We call on governments to support natural climate solutions with an urgent program of research, funding and political commitment. It is essential that they work with the guidance and free, prior and informed consent of indigenous people and other local communities.

This approach should not be used as a substitute for the rapid and comprehensive de-carbonisation of industrial economies. A committed and well-funded program to address all the causes of climate chaos, including natural climate solutions, could help us hold the heating of the planet below 1.5C.

We ask that they are deployed with the urgency these crises demand.

Greta Thunberg Activist
Margaret Atwood Author
Michael Mann Distinguished professor of atmospheric science
Naomi Klein Author and campaigner
Mohamed Nasheed Former president, the Maldives
Rowan Williams former Archbishop of Canterbury
Dia Mirza Actor and UN environment goodwill ambassador
Brian Eno Musician and artist
Philip Pullman Author
Bill McKibben Author and campaigner
Simon Lewis Professor of global change science
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Presenter and author
Charlotte Wheeler Forest restoration scientist
David Suzuki Scientist and author
Anohni Musician and artist
Asha de Vos Marine biologist
Yeb Saño Activist
Bittu Sahgal Founder, Sanctuary Nature Foundation
John Sauven Executive director, Greenpeace UK
Craig Bennett CEO, Friends of the Earth
Ruth Davis Deputy director of global programmes, RSPB
Rebecca Wrigley Chief executive, Rewilding Britain
George Monbiot Journalist

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For additional details, see:

The natural world can help save us from climate catastrophe

Ecological restoration can be a powerful means of protecting the atmosphere – we need to rewild on a massive scale 

By George Monbiot | April 3, 2019 |  The Guardian

Ban Use of Styrofoam Food Packaging - Take Action!

On March 26, the Buffalo Common Council allowed for a 30 day comment period on potential legislation to ban the use of Expanded Polystyrene Food Packaging, more commonly known by the trademark name Styrofoam. The base legislation would ban the use of foam food service cups, plates, bowls, and clamshell containers. 

These products are neither recyclable nor bio-degradable. Their continued use and disposal has fouled our environment and harmed fish and wildlife.

This type of legislation has been passed around the country, with a momentum boost given by the enactment of a ban in New York City effective 1/1/19.  The City of Buffalo was nearly the first major city in the country to ban Styrofoam in 1990, but backed out when the county refused to join in on the ban. That is not the issue this time, as the City has not tied this into a wider, regional ban. However, the leadership in Erie County today would be more amenable to joining in on a ban.

TAKE ACTION to Help Ban Styrofoam Food Packaging

Mail or email Councilman Pridgen’s office (and your District Councilman’s office if you live in Buffalo) by April 25th voicing your support for a ban on Styrofoam (See a sample letter - Click here). 

Contact information:
Darius G. Pridgen, Council President & Ellicott District,
65 Niagara Sq., Rm 1315, Buffalo, NY 14202

Email: dpridgen@city-buffalo.com
Call: (716) 851 – 4980

Thank you for your help!

This effort was started as part of a campaign Bring NYC’s Styrofoam Ban to My Hometown! through the Sierra Club Niagara Group.

John Szalasny
Sierra Club Niagara Group Executive Committee
Email: sierraniagara.john@gmail.com

NOT recyclable or bio-degradable - Fouling Our Environment