Quick Reads on ENERGY and CLIMATE

Going 100% Green Will Pay For Itself in Seven Years, Study Finds

A Stanford University professor whose research helped underpin the U.S. Democrats’ Green New Deal says phasing out fossil fuels and running the entire world on clean energy would pay for itself in under seven years.

It would cost $73 trillion to revamp power grids, transportation, manufacturing and other systems to run on wind, solar and hydro power, including enough storage capacity to keep the lights on overnight, Mark Jacobson said in a study published Friday in the journal One Earth. But that would be offset by annual savings of almost $11 trillion, the report found.

“There’s really no downside to making this transition,” said Jacobson, who wrote the study with several other researchers. “Most people are afraid it will be too expensive. Hopefully this will allay some of those fears.”

Read more at Bloomberg

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If the World ran on Sun, It wouldn’t Fight over Oil  
by Bill McKibben

No one will ever fight a war over access to sunshine – what would a country do, set up enormous walls to shade everyone else’s panels? (Giant walls are hard to build – just ask Trump.) Fossil fuels are concentrated in a few places, giving those who live atop them enormous power; renewable energy can be found everywhere, the birthright of all humans. A world that runs on sun and wind is a world that can relax.

Read more at The Guardian

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Warren Buffett is spending billions to make Iowa 'the Saudi Arabia of wind'

Warren Buffett is spending billions to turn Iowa into "the wind capital of the world, the Saudi Arabia of wind," he told the Financial Times.

Berkshire Hathaway's billionaire boss isn't emulating Greta Thunberg, however. Rather than leading the charge on climate change, hoping to cut carbon emissions at any cost, he told the newspaper he was simply taking advantage of government incentives for renewable-energy investments.

"We wouldn't do [it] without the production tax credit we get," he said.

Read more at Business Insider

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ExxonMobil Eyes $3.4-$3.6B Gain From Norway Asset Divestment

Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM expects a gain of $3.4-$3.6 billion from the divestment of Norwegian assets. This will likely give a boost to its fourth-quarter 2019 results. The company’s recent regulatory filing showed that the gains from this divestment can offset lower margins from chemicals and refining businesses.

Read more here

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New York Confirms Plan for 1GW-Plus Offshore Wind Solicitation in 2020

The Empire State’s second offshore wind procurement targets 1 gigawatt of capacity — “and perhaps substantially more.”

New York confirmed plans to issue its second solicitation for offshore wind farms this year, expected to add at least 1 gigawatt to the state’s pipeline.

The upcoming solicitation, to be overseen once again by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), will run alongside a separate competitive process to award $200 million in public funding for offshore wind-related port infrastructure improvements, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who gave his 10th State of the State address on January 9, 2020.

The offshore wind solicitation "is expected to yield at least an additional 1,000 megawatts of clean power, and perhaps substantially more," according to a detailed document (PDF) laying out the various plans in Cuomo's 2020 State of the State.

The new capacity will come on top of the 1.7 gigawatts of capacity the state awarded in its first offshore wind solicitation last summer to developers Ørsted and Equinor.

Read more at Greentech Media

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A New Year’s Message About Climate Change - Act Quickly

Bill McKibben Has A New Year’s Message About Climate Change — Act Quickly

January 1st, 2019 by Steve Hanley | Clean Technica

Bill McKibben has been writing about climate change for 30 years. Along the way, he has been arrested multiple times, spat on, had his life threatened, and been spied on by minions working for fossil fuel companies. Oh, he also founded 350.org, whose stated mission is to keep the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere below 350 parts per million. The world blew by that benchmark some time ago and is racing toward the 450 ppm level.

He has written almost 30 books on the subject, including The End Of Nature in 1989 and Oil & Honey in 2013. If you want to be fully informed on the topic of climate change, the writings of Bill McKibben are the definitive source.

In a piece for Rolling Stone dated December 1, 2017, McKibben penned these words, “The technology exists to combat climate change — what will it take to get our leaders to act?” As 2018 draws to a close, it is appropriate to examine his thesis and see what, if anything changed this year. McKibben started his Rolling Stone piece with these words:

“If we don’t win very quickly on climate change, then we will never win. That’s the core truth about global warming. It’s what makes it different from every other problem our political systems have faced.

“I wrote the first book for a general audience about climate change in 1989 – back when one had to search for examples to help people understand what the ‘greenhouse effect’ would feel like. We knew it was coming, but not how fast or how hard. And because no one wanted to overestimate – because scientists by their nature are conservative – each of the changes we’ve observed has taken us somewhat by surprise. The surreal keeps becoming the commonplace.”

Watching The Arctic Melt

“[W]ith global warming, the fundamental equation is precisely what’s shifting. And the remarkable changes we’ve seen so far — the thawed Arctic that makes the Earth look profoundly different from outer space; the planet’s seawater turning 30 percent more acidic — are just the beginning. ‘We’re inching ever closer to committing to the melting of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, which will guarantee 20 feet of sea-level rise,’ says Penn State’s Michael Mann, one of the planet’s foremost climatologists. ‘We don’t know where the ice-sheet collapse tipping point is, but we are dangerously close.'”

As if to underscore Mann’s and McKibben’s warnings, on December 5, NASA posted a video on YouTube showing how the Arctic ice sheet has melted from September, 1984 through September, 2016. It’s pretty scary stuff. [To view the video, click here.]

“Another way of saying this,” writes McKibben, “By 2075 the world will be powered by solar panels and windmills — free energy is a hard business proposition to beat. But on current trajectories, they’ll light up a busted planet. The decisions we make in 2075 won’t matter; indeed, the decisions we make in 2025 will matter much less than the ones we make in the next few years. The leverage is now.”

FOSSIL FREE FAST - THE CLIMATE RESISTANCE: Live-streamed January 31 at 8PM

 On January 31st, the day after Trump’s first State of the Union, Climate movement leaders and Community organizers will gather in Washington D.C. to share our plan to win at ‘Fossil Free Fast: The Climate Resistance.’

The event will feature: Senator Bernie Sanders, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, Rev. Lennox Yearwood from Hip Hop Caucus, Jacqueline Patterson from the NAACP, and many other exciting speakers and performances.

This event has ended, but you may watch a video recording of the event at C-Span - Click Here

This inspiring event will be live-streamed at 8:00 PM ET -- and thousands across the country will watch with their friends and family. Will you join them?


Watch a short Video: Click Here


Sign up for a watch party near you -- or if there isn’t one happening yet, sign up to host one!  

Go to: https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/fossil-free-fast/


Watch TONIGHT, Wednesday 1/31 at 8 PM:
Livestream Link

For more information, see the following article at Common Dreams:

Fossil Free Fast: A Climate Resistance Game Plan for 2018 
With the transition to 100% renewable energy, we have perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity to rebuild our economy in a more just and equitable way.

The Climate Resistance Strategy for 2018:
- stop all new fossil fuel projects
- a fast and just transition to 100% renewable energy for all
- continuing and expanding the fossil fuel divestment movement

Read more at Common Dreams  

 

New Yorkers Celebrate as NYC Mayor announces Divestment from Fossil Fuels, Files Climate Lawsuit

[Click image to enlarge]

#DivestNY victory reverberates around the world as New Yorkers vow to keep up the fight for bold climate action


 January 10, 2018  |  350.org

New York, NY — Today, following over five years of persistent campaigning from New Yorkers, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the City is moving forward with full fossil fuel divestment. The city’s five pension funds, a combined $191 billion, will divest $5 billion in securities from over 100 fossil fuel reserve owners.

New York’s announcement brings the total number of global divestment commitments to 810 institutions representing more than $6 trillion in assets.

“New York City today becomes a capital of the fight against climate change on this planet. With its communities exceptionally vulnerable to a rising sea, the city is showing the spirit for which it’s famous: it’s not pretending that working with the fossil fuel companies will somehow save the day, but instead standing up to them, in the financial markets and in court,” said Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. “Ever since Sandy, New Yorkers understand the risk, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable. Now, thanks to Mayor de Blasio and his team, the city is fighting back, and in ways that will actually matter.”

In addition to this multi-billion-dollar hard-won divestment, Mayor de Blasio announced the City is launching a lawsuit against five major oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and ConocoPhillips for climate damages. With New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman investigating ExxonMobil, and seven municipalities across California fighting similar damage lawsuits, this announcement adds significant momentum to the #ExxonKnew campaign to hold fossil fuel corporations accountable for the role in climate destruction.

“New York City is standing up for future generations by becoming the first major city to divest our pension funds from fossil fuels,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “At the same time, we’re bringing the fight against climate change straight to the fossil fuel companies that knew about its effects and intentionally misled the public to protect their profits. As climate change continues to worsen, it’s up to the fossil fuel companies whose greed put us in this position to shoulder the cost of making New York safer and more resilient.”

Naomi Klein, author and activist, said, “Emanating from the financial capital of the world, the message of today’s historic announcement is unmistakable: investing in fossil fuel companies is a high-risk, bad bet. New York City is now leading cities and states to not only divest from fossil fuel companies but also insist that the corporations that profit from destabilizing our shared planet pay for the mess they knowingly created. As of today, the entire fossil fuel sector finds itself under a cloud of huge potential court-imposed costs, as well as the growing global momentum of investor flight. That means no matter how many oil and coal leases the Trump Administration hands out, the economics of new drilling will make less and less sense. This is very good news.”

“Today is a momentous day in the fight against corporate greed exploiting our communities and fueling climate chaos,” said Betámia Coronel, US Reinvestment Coordinator, 350.org. “While the oil-washed White House rolls back protections, New York City has leapt forward in modeling climate leadership. Divesting our city’s pensions from the dirtiest companies is an enormous hard-won first step; holding companies like Exxon accountable for their role in climate deception is next. Today’s announcement is a rallying signal to cities all over the world that the dawn of a fossil free world has arrived.”

This New York City announcement is sending ripples around the world, reinvigorating divestment fights from California to Japan and beyond. The San Francisco pension board is scheduled for a long-awaited divestment vote on January 24.

On January 31, the day after the State of the Union, 350.org is launching Fossil Free US, with leaders including Senator Bernie Sanders, Bill McKibben, Varshini Prakash, and Rev. Lennox Yearwood speaking at a livestreamed event in Washington D.C. to lay out the plan for the climate resistance in 2018 and beyond.

350.org is building the global grassroots climate movement that can hold our leaders accountable to science and justice. Our network extends to 188 countries. 350 uses online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions to oppose new coal, oil and gas projects, take money out of the companies that are heating up the planet, and build 100% clean energy solutions that work for all. 

Bill McKibben - Renowned Environmental Author, Educator and Activist - to Speak in Buffalo

Bill McKibben 

will speak on 

“The Desperate Climate Fight: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Moment,”

 Friday, Sept. 29, 8pm at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with The End of Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He is a founder of the first planet-wide, grassroots climate movement, 350.org, which has coordinated tens-of-thousands of rallies in 189 countries since 2009. 

Time Magazine called him 'the planet's best green journalist' and The Boston Globe said that he was 'probably the country's most important environmentalist.' 

Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, he holds honorary degrees from a dozen colleges and universities, including the State University of New York. In 2011 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2014 was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel.’

Bill McKibben will deliver the featured lecture of the Buffalo Humanities Festival, a three-day event featuring  environmentally-themed talks, music, performances, community debates and other activities that focus on issues of local, regional and national environmental justice and economic sustainability.

General admission tickets for Bill McKibben’s lecture are $20 for the public and $15 for students. Click here to buy tickets online.

There is a separate VIP reception with McKibben in the AK Café. The VIP reception is included with the purchase of a VIP Full Festival Pass, which is $60 for the public and $40 for students.

A complete festival schedule, including additional ticket information is available online -- Click here.

CAMPUS ACTIVISM: Protest with Dignity, Not with Rage

College students should resist – not silence – their political foes

by Bill McKibben 

Campuses can be Sites of Powerful Protest and Activism – if Students and Faculty use some Care

Canniness is a virtue, at least for organizers. When protest goes well – the Women’s Marches, the airport demonstrations – it helps immeasurably, limiting the right’s ability to act or at least exacting a high price in political capital. But protest can go badly too, and when it does it gives the bad guys a gift.

I should have gotten a chance to see this close up last week, because Middlebury College in Vermont, where I teach, had a protest go mostly sour. But since my mother was taken to the emergency room early in the week, I was camped out in her hospital room, not on campus. Still, the  picture of events that emerges from Facebook and campus chat rooms is fairly clear.

It began when conservative students at the college invited a man named Charles Murray to speak on campus. Murray is a professional troll – “Milo with a doctorate”, as one observer described him – who made his bones a quarter century ago with a vile book, The Bell Curve, arguing that intelligence tests showed black people less able. Academics of all stripes have savaged the book’s methodology and conclusions, but back in the day it was one of the many bulwarks of the nation’s ugly rightward and racist shift.

So, many students and faculty at Middlebury were mad that he was coming, as they should have been – it’s gross, in particular, that students of color should have to deal with this kind of aggressive insult to their legitimacy. But of course, that was the point for Murray and his enablers at the American Enterprise Institute: they’re trolls.

They want these kinds of fights, over and over, as part of their campaign to discredit academia and multiculturalism. And once some students had made the invitation, the die was cast, if only because Americans by and large believe that colleges and universities should be open to all ideas (and they’re probably right to think so, if for no other reason than it’s hard to imagine the committee that could vet what was proper and what wasn’t).

College authorities made their share of mistakes in the days that followed: there was no real reason for the political science department to officially support Murray’s visit, for instance. But other parts of the college reacted the right way: the math department, say, which held a series of seminars to demonstrate why Murray’s statistical methods were rubbish.

Instead, it was goodhearted campus activists – both some students and some faculty – that really fell for the troller’s bait.

Some began demanding that the college cancel the visit, and others threatened to prevent him from speaking. They failed at the first task but they largely succeeded at the second: when Murray arrived on Thursday he was greeted by a wall of noise, as protesters chanted and screamed him down.

When administrators took him off to a room where his remarks, and questions from a professor, could be live streamed, a few people pulled fire alarms. When they tried to rush Murray from the building, a small throng, many in masks, blocked the car and sent the professor who had been escorting the racist to the hospital with a concussion.

The result was predictable: Murray emerged with new standing, a largely forgotten hack with a renewed lease on public life, indeed now a martyr to the cause of free speech. And anti-racist activism took a hit, the powerful progressive virtue of openness overshadowed by apparent intolerance. No one should be surprised at the outcome: in America, anyway, shouting someone down “reads” badly to the larger public, every single time. And it is precisely the job of activists to figure out how things are going to read, lest they do real damage to important causes – damage, as in this case, that will inevitably fall mostly on people with fewer resources than Middlebury students.

Elect Hillary Clinton - Then Pressure Her, says Environmental Author, Bill McKibben

The Climate Movement Has to Elect Hillary Clinton—and Then Give Her Hell

Clinton’s no friend of the earth, but she can be pressured. Trump, on the other hand, would be an ecological and moral disaster.

By Bill McKibben | The Nation | Oct.18, 2016

It’s an odd feeling to be working for the election of someone you know dislikes you and your colleagues. I’ve spent a good chunk of this month trying to register voters on campuses in Pennsylvania and Ohio—registering them to vote against Donald Trump, which means pushing for the election of Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t how I wanted to spend the fall—I’d much rather have been campaigning for Bernie Sanders.

It didn’t get any easier when Wikileaks released a tape of Clinton talking to backers in the building-trades unions about the environmental work so many of us (including much of the rest of organized labor) have been engaged in for the last few years. “They come to my rallies and they yell at me and, you know, all the rest of it. They say, ‘Will you promise never to take any fossil fuels out of the earth ever again?’ No. I won’t promise that. Get a life, you know.”

The good news is that when Clinton wins, none of us will be under the slightest illusion about who she is.

I know the young people Clinton was talking about, and they weren’t demanding she somehow wave a wand and stop the fossil-fuel age overnight. They were asking her about the scientific studies showing that we can’t actually keep mining and drilling new supplies of coal, oil, and gas if we’re going to meet the temperature targets set with such fanfare in Paris last year. They were asking her to support the “Keep It In the Ground” Act introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and endorsed by a passel of other senators, from Barbara Boxer of California to Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. (Oh yeah, and that guy Bernie.) They were also asking her to take a stand against fracking, since new studies demonstrate quite clearly that the release of methane from the use of natural gas makes climate change worse. Publicly, she hemmed and hawed. When Bernie said in a debate that he was against fracking, period, Clinton said, “By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.” That was a pretty weak hedge to begin with, but we now know that privately she reassured the building trades unions: “My view is, I want to defend natural gas…. I want to defend fracking.”

Truth be told, these aren’t revelations. All of us working on climate issues have known this is how Clinton feels; she set up a whole wing of the State Department devoted to spreading fracking around the world. She’d favored the Keystone Pipeline from the start, and it was abundantly clear that only Sanders’s unexpected success in the primaries convinced her she’d have to change. (And it was only his refusal to endorse her until after the platform was agreed upon that made the platform into the fairly progressive document that it is, on climate and other issues). Still, it stings to see in black and white exactly how little regard she has for people fighting pipelines, frack wells, coal ports. Though truth be told, that was no huge surprise either: Politicians are forever saying they want people engaged in the political process, but most of them really just want people to vote and then go home.

So why are many of us out there working to beat Trump and elect her? Because Trump is truly a horror. He’s man who looks at fourth-grade girls and imagines that he’ll be dating them in ten years. He’s a racist. He knows next to nothing and lacks the intellectual curiosity to find out more. He’s a bully. He’s almost a cartoonish villain: If a writer invented a character this evil, no one would believe them. But he’s very nearly president.

Because environmentalists are not just concerned about the climate—we have allies and friends whom we support. And on some of those issues Clinton actually seems sincere: She clearly cares about women’s issues and understands that we are a nation of immigrants.

Because if Trump wins, we backslide on the small gains we’ve made. We’ve forced Clinton to say through gritted teeth that she opposes Keystone, for instance. She can’t, I think, go back on that. Trump has made it clear he’ll permit that and every other pipeline, just as soon as he’s done tearing up the Paris climate accord.

But none of that makes it easy to go out and support her. We’ve watched all fall as she’s maintained a studied silence about the most dramatic and important fossil-fuel fight of the moment, the Dakota Access Pipeline. Even the sight of attack dogs being used on peaceful Native American protesters didn’t move her to break ranks with her industry allies and that fraction of the labor movement that still wants to build pipelines. That’s craven on her part, pure and simple.

And so the good news is that when she wins, none of us will be under the slightest illusion about who she is. The honeymoon won’t last 10 minutes; on November 9 we’ll be organizing for science and human rights and against the timid incrementalism that marks her approach. It’s clear that we need to beat the creepy perv she’s running against. It’s also clear that we then need to press harder than ever for real progress on the biggest crisis the world has ever faced.

“Get a life”? We’ve got a planet, just one.

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Climate & Economic Justice - Conversation with Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben and more

Hangout with Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, and more

WHEN:    FRIDAY, Feb. 5, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

WHERE: Hangouts On Air - Broadcast for free

WHAT: No more small steps for the Climate and Economic Justice Movement. Now is the time to LEAP!

WHO: A conversation with Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis (This Changes Everything), Bill McKibben (350.org) and Asad Rehman (Friend of the Earth UK) and special guests.

REGISTER: Click Here

To celebrate the Leap Year, people are gathering to mobilize towards new economic and energy systems. 

Learn more about Leap Year 2016

Bill McKibben: An Agreement to Finally Begin Addressing Global Warming

The New York Times
The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor

Falling Short on Climate in Paris

By BILL McKIBBEN    DEC. 13, 2015

Paris — THE climate news last week came out of Paris, where the world’s nations signed off on an agreement to finally begin addressing global warming.

Or, alternately, the climate news came out of Chennai, India, where hundreds died as flooding turned a city of five million into an island. And out of Britain, where the heaviest rains ever measured over 24 hours in the Lake District turned picturesque villages into lakes. And out of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, where record rainfalls flooded atolls.

In the hot, sodden mess that is our planet as 2015 drags to a close, the pact reached in Paris feels, in a lot of ways, like an ambitious agreement designed for about 1995, when the first conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change took place in Berlin.

Under its provisions, nations have made voluntary pledges to begin reducing their carbon emissions. These are modest — the United States, for instance, plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 2025 by 12 to 19 percent from their levels in 1990. As the scrupulous scorekeepers at Climate Action Tracker, a non-government organization, put it, that’s a “medium” goal “at the least ambitious end of what would be a fair contribution.”

And that’s about par for the course here. Other countries, like gas station owners on opposite corners looking at each other’s prices, have calibrated their targets about the same: enough to keep both environmentalists and the fossil fuel industry from complaining too much. They have managed to provide enough financing to keep poor countries from walking out of the talks, but not enough to really push the renewables revolution into high gear. (Secretary of State John Kerry, in a fine speech, doubled America’s contribution — to $800 million, which is more than Congress is likely to appropriate, but risible compared to the need.)

So the world emerges, finally, with something like a climate accord, albeit unenforceable. If all parties kept their promises, the planet would warm by an estimated 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit, or 3.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels. And that is way, way too much. We are set to pass the 1 degree Celsius mark this year, and that’s already enough to melt ice caps and push the sea level threateningly higher.

The irony is, an agreement like this adopted at the first climate conference in 1995 might have worked. Even then it wouldn’t have completely stopped global warming, but it would have given us a chance of meeting the 1.5 degree Celsius target that the world notionally agreed on.

Instead, as we now know from recent revelations about Exxon Mobil, those were exactly the years the fossil fuel industry set to work to make sure doubt replaced resolve. Its delaying tactics were cruelly effective. To meet that 1.5 degree target now would require breakneck action of a kind most nations aren’t really contemplating. At this point we’d need to leave almost all remaining coal and much of the oil and gas in the ground and put the world’s industries to work on an emergency basis building solar panels and windmills.

That we have any agreement at all, of course, is testament to the mighty movement that activists around the world have built over the last five years. At Copenhagen, world leaders could go home with nothing and pay no price.

That’s no longer true.

But what this means is that we need to build the movement even bigger in the coming years, so that the Paris agreement turns into a floor and not a ceiling for action. We’ll be blocking pipelines, fighting new coal mines, urging divestment from fossil fuels — trying, in short, to keep weakening the mighty industry that still stands in the way of real progress. With every major world leader now on the record saying they at least theoretically support bold action to make the transition to renewable energy, we’ve got a new tool to work with.

And we’ll try to keep hoping that it adds up fast enough to matter. That’s a little hard, as the hottest year ever measured draws to a close. One doesn’t want to rain on the Paris parade — but that’s what seems to be happening somewhere every day now.

Like Washington State, where high temperatures and heavy rainfalls led the governor to declare a state of emergency late last week, as landslides closed highways. Or Portland, Ore., which had the rainiest December day in its recorded history. Or Norway, which had the worst flooding in more than a century of record keeping. Or …

Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org, the global grass-roots climate campaign. He teaches environmental studies at Middlebury College.

Article online at the New York Times: Falling Short on Climate in Paris

~   ~   ~ 

@billmckibben on Twitter

"We've got a 1.5 degree target, and a 3.5 degree plan. So, let's get to work"

~  Bill McKibben 

Environmental NEWS

Why solar panels won’t solve climate change 
Interview: The environmental movement should shift its emphasis from personal responsibility to political change, says activist Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org  

Economists and engineers are ahead in terms of finding solutions, according to McKibben. “Economists – left, right and centre – have been saying we need to put a price on carbon to reflect the damage it does. And engineers have said we need government effort to take advantage of new renewable technologies. Up to now we can’t have these things, because of the power of the fossil-fuel industry.”  

McKibben says that the most important thing people can do is join together with others to fight against large fossil-fuel infrastructure projects and encourage investors to stop giving money to the fossil-fuel industry.

Described by Time magazine as the planet’s best green journalist, and by the Boston Globe as the United States’ most distinguished environmentalist, McKibben made his first visit to Ireland, to speak at Meeting the Challenge of Climate Justice: From Evidence to Action.

Read more at IrishTimes.com


Pope Francis, science and government are reframing climate change
The long-anticipated encyclical by Pope Francis to the world on the environment was released mid-June. The Lancet Commission, a distinguished United Kingdom-based health body, the following week released its report on health and climate change.
 
Pope Francis has already changed the conversation in the Catholic Church by prioritizing issues of justice and mercy. He holds a unique status today as a moral leader not only of Christians but of all peoples of the world. He has used that moral authority to call for a needed moral conversion about what he considers the interconnected issues of the environment, the poor, humanity, global development and peace.

Health professionals and scientists are also changing the conversation by calling attention to the ways in which environmental destruction, such as climate change, threatens human health and well-being. We feel the effects through more severe storms, risks of infectious diseases, food scarcity and more. There is strong evidence that the world’s poor are among the most vulnerable — a common-sense, but often overlooked, fact that Lancet and the encyclical spotlight. The Lancet report shows that combating climate change is an unprecedented opportunity to advance health, equitable development and sustainability.

Read more at SeattleTimes.com

Two Years After Oil Train Disaster, Profound Scars Remain in Lac-Mégantic
Activists prepare for demonstrations across Canada and US this week to 'Stop Oil Trains'

A week of direct actions across Canada and the U.S. to stop so-called "bomb trains" began on Monday, the two-year anniversary of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster, when an unmanned train with 72 tankers carrying 30,000 gallons of crude oil careened into a small town in the Canadian province of Quebec, where it derailed, exploded, and killed 47 people.

Decontamination work continues to this day at the crash site, but was suspended at noon for a moment of silence. Later in the day, church bells will ring out 47 times at Lac-Mégantic's St. Agnes Church.

On every level, recovery in the small community has been challenging. 

Read more at CommonDreams.org

Thousands March in Toronto, Urge Canada to Turn Away From a Fossil Fuel Economy
 Labor unions, student groups, indigenous communities, and environmentalists joined forces for the Jobs, Justice and Climate march, which activists called the most diverse climate mobilization in Canadian history.

The rally was timed to bring attention to the cause ahead of this week's Climate Summit of the Americas in Toronto, this fall's Canadian federal election, and the highly-anticipated UN Paris climate talks in November, which aim to bring together world leaders in legally-binding climate change solutions. 

Read more at VICE News


The EPA Just Banned the Chemicals That Helped Save the Ozone Layer 
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) can be as much as 10,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat in the atmosphere. 

"This rule will not only reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, but also encourage greater use and development of the next generation of safer HFC alternatives," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said.

"Tackling HFCs is a no-brainer," said Jason Kowalski, the US policy director of 350.org, which advocates for action on climate change. To restrict them is to go after "low-hanging fruit," he told VICE News, adding that the real issue in the climate change fight is the degree to which the Obama administration is willing to battle the fossil fuel industry.  

Read more at VICE News


Letter: How we heat, cool our homes matters 
The recently adopted New York State Energy Plan recognizes that in New York, we generate more greenhouse gases heating our buildings than by generating electricity. Heating and cooling our buildings efficiently with renewable energy will become increasingly more urgent as we address the challenge of climate change.

Read more at BuffaloNews.com


NY State Tax Incentives to Heat and Cool Homes Efficiently using Heat Pumps 
The potential for widespread adoption of heat pumps (shallow ground-source, aka 'geothermal') in New York was recently boosted by the passage of bills in the State Senate and Assembly. Final approval of these important pieces of legislation is now in the hands of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Urge Governor Cuomo to cut both energy bills and fossil fuel pollution by signing an online petition. Click Here to go to the petition.


State adds funds to budget in case of coal plant shutdown
 The allocation of $19 million in the state budget that’s designed to help communities affected by retiring coal plants was hailed Monday by the local Just Transition coalition. The coalition has been planning for the possibility of the retirement of the Huntley Generating Plant in the Town of Tonawanda.

Reduced operations at the Huntley plant have resulted in decreased tax revenue received by the town, Erie County and the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda Schools. While environmental advocates urge the transition from coal-powered electrical generation to clean energy, it’s also anticipated that a full shutdown of that plant could have devastating economic impacts on labor and the community.

Read more at BuffaloNews.com

Obama's Green Light on Arctic Oil Drilling - Bill McKibben Op-Ed

                                                        Adam Zyglis | The Buffalo News

Obama’s Catastrophic Climate-Change Denial

"It’s as if the tobacco companies were applying for permission to put cigarette machines in cancer wards.”

By BILL McKIBBEN  |  MAY 12, 2015  | Opinion | The New York Times

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — THE Obama administration’s decision to give Shell Oil the go-ahead to drill in the Arctic shows why we may never win the fight against climate change. Even in this most extreme circumstance, no one seems able to stand up to the power of the fossil fuel industry. No one ever says no.

By “extreme” I don’t just mean that Shell will be drilling for oil in places where there’s no hope of cleaning up the inevitable spills (remember the ineptness of BP in the balmy, accessible Gulf of Mexico, and now transpose it 40 degrees of latitude north, into some of the harshest seas on the planet).

No, what’s most extreme here is the irresponsibility of Shell, now abetted by the White House. A quarter century ago, scientists warned that if we kept burning fossil fuel at current rates we’d melt the Arctic. The fossil fuel industry (and most everyone else in power) ignored those warnings, and what do you know: The Arctic is melting, to the extent that people now are planning to race yachts through the Northwest Passage, which until very recently required an icebreaker to navigate.

Now, having watched the Arctic melt, does Shell take that experience and conclude that it’s in fact time to invest heavily in solar panels and wind turbines? No. Instead, it applies to be first in line to drill for yet more oil in the Chukchi Sea, between Alaska and Siberia. Wash, rinse, repeat. Talk about salting wounds and adding insult to injury: It’s as if the tobacco companies were applying for permission to put cigarette machines in cancer wards.

And the White House gave Shell the license. In his first term, President Obama mostly ignored climate change, and he ran for re-election barely mentioning the subject until Hurricane Sandy made it unavoidable in the closing days of the campaign.

Theoretically his second term was going to be different. The president has stepped up the rhetoric, and he’s shown some willingness to go after domestic greenhouse gas emissions. His new regulations on coal-fired power plants will be helpful, as will his 2012 rules on fuel efficiency for cars and trucks. And his nonbinding pledge that America will cut emissions in future decades may make the upcoming climate talks in Paris less of a fiasco than earlier talks in Copenhagen.

But you can’t deal with climate on the demand side alone. If we keep digging up more coal, gas and oil, it will get burned, if not here, then somewhere else. This is precisely the conclusion that a study in the journal Nature reached in January: If we’re to have any chance of meeting even Mr. Obama’s weak goal of holding temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, we have to leave most carbon underground. That paper, in particular, showed that the coal reserves in the Powder River basin in the West and the oil in Canada’s tar sands had to be left largely untouched, and that there was no climate-friendly scenario in which any oil or gas could be drilled in the Arctic.

And yet Mr. Obama — acting on his own, since these are all executive actions requiring nothing from Congress — has opened huge swaths of the Powder River basin to new coal mining. He’s still studying whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, though the country’s leading climate scientists have all told him it would be a disaster. And now he’s given Shell the green light, meaning that, as with Keystone, it will be up to the environmental movement to block the plan (“kayaktivists” plan to gather this weekend in Seattle’s harbor, trying to prevent Shell from basing its Arctic rigs there).

This is not climate denial of the Republican sort, where people simply pretend the science isn’t real. This is climate denial of the status quo sort, where people accept the science, and indeed make long speeches about the immorality of passing on a ruined world to our children. They just deny the meaning of the science, which is that we must keep carbon in the ground.

Bill McKibben teaches environmental studies at Middlebury College and is the founder of the global climate campaign 350.org.

Bill McKibben to President Obama: Say No to Big Oil

After the State Department issued a long-awaited environmental impact statement on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline last week, environmentalists and those opposed to the 1,179-mile pipeline have intensified their push for the Obama administration to reject the project.

In the Moyers & Company video below, Bill Moyers talks with Bill McKibben, an activist who has dedicated his life to saving the planet from environmental collapse, about his hopes that Americans will collectively pressure Obama to stand up to big oil.

“Most people understand that we’re in a serious fix,” McKibben tells Moyers, “There’s nothing you can do as individuals that will really slow down this juggernaut … You can say the same thing about the challenges faced by people in the civil rights or the abolition movement, or the gay rights movement or the women’s movement. In each case, a movement arose; if we can build a movement, then we have a chance.”

Bill McKibben on Caring for Creation - February 5, 2014

Bill Moyers asks author and environmental activist Bill McKibben about the premise of an article McKibben wrote for OnEarth Magazine in 2006, subtitled “Will Evangelicals Help Save The Earth?” McKibben tells Moyers that faith and environmentalism aren’t necessarily at odds; in fact, they should go together. 

“More and more and more, people of faith are understanding that the very first thing we were asked to do in the good book is steward creation, safeguard it. And it’s probably the command we’ve done the worst job living up to,” McKibben tells Moyers.
 
Hear more of the conversation with McKibben on this weekend’s Moyers & Company. 

Click Here to view McKibben's OnEarth Magazine article entitled, “The Gospel of Green -- Will Evangelicals Help Save The Earth?”

Click Here to read the transcript of the video entitled "Bill McKibben to Obama: Say No to Big Oil."

CLIMATE NEWS: Warming Video - Policy Battlefield - Polar Vortex - What's 350?

VIDEO: Six Decades of a Warming Earth.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, which analyzes global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated report on temperatures around the globe in 2013. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience temperatures warmer than those measured several decades ago.

With the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years in the 134-year record all have occurred since 2000. 2010 and 2005 rank as the warmest years on record. NASA scientists say 2013 tied with 2009 and 2006 for the seventh warmest year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures.

Scientists emphasize that weather patterns always will cause fluctuations in average temperatures from year to year, but the continued increases in greenhouse gas levels in Earth's atmosphere are driving a long-term rise in global temperatures. Each successive year will not necessarily be warmer than the year before, but with the current level of greenhouse gas emissions, scientists expect each successive decade to be warmer than the previous.
Read more at NASA.gov.

Climate to be 2014 Battlefield

Climate change and energy will be a major policy battleground in the 2014 midterms, advocates on both sides of the issue promise.

Republicans like Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) plan to go on the attack against President Obama’s  climate action plan, which they have dubbed a “war on coal.”

They’re backed by conservative groups like the American Energy Alliance, which is already airing campaign ads attacking Democrats such as Rep. Nick Rahall (W.Va.) for supporting a carbon tax.

Green activists led by Tom Steyer plan to return fire.

The billionaire former hedge fund manager, who has poured his money into environmental causes, said Thursday that his New Year’s resolution is to make climate change a voter concern in 2014.

“This election year, more than ever, we must hold our leaders responsible for the role they play in the fight against climate change,” he wrote on NextGen Climate’s  website, keystonetruth.com. 

Noise surrounding crude oil exports and offshore oil development from coastal states is already being made, and Landrieu may push policy that evens the playing ground for coastal states when it comes to collecting federal dollars tied to energy development.

A number of political players are promising involvement.

The Sierra Club plans to highlight differences between candidates on energy issues. The green group touts that in 2014 it will mobilize its 2.1 million members and supporters to continue the momentum it built in 2013 races in Virginia and Colorado, where candidates it backed won reelection.

“Americans widely support climate solutions like accelerating job-creating wind and solar energy growth, tackling dangerous carbon pollution from dirty power plants, securing strong standards to protect our air and water, and protecting our public lands from destructive drilling and mining — we will help ensure the contrasts between candidates on these issues are clear,” Sierra Club Director Michael Brune wrote in an email to The Hill.

Read the full article at The Hill

VIDEO: The Polar Vortex Explained in Two Minutes

President Obama's Science and Technology Advisor, Dr. John Holdren, explains the polar vortex in 2 minutes—and why climate change makes extreme weather more likely going forward. 

Dr. Holdren says, "If you've been hearing that extreme cold spells, like the one that we're having in the United States now, disproves global warming, don't believe it!"

Click Here to view the video.

350 - Education of a Climate Upstart with a 'Weird' Name

A trip to the United Nations' climate talks in Bali sounds like every young activist's dream. But when a group of recent Middlebury College graduates trekked there in 2007 to continue the environmental work they began in school, at least one found the scene more daunting than inspiring.

The aspiring young leaders had orchestrated rallies in all 50 states that year to push for slashing greenhouse gas emissions -- only to be greeted in Bali by "endless meetings about long-term targets, most of which weren't going well," one of them, Phil Aroneanu, recalled recently.

Just as Aroneanu began "falling a little into despair" at the task of slowing global carbon, the Middlebury friends got a new email from their friend and adviser Bill McKibben. Government climatologist James Hansen, he told the young greens, was setting 350 parts per million (ppm) as the atmosphere's CO2 safe zone in his newest research.

McKibben also suggested that since 350 ppm was about to become a very important climate number, why not rename their group after it? Jamie Henn, now the group's communications director, remembered his initial reaction when the email arrived during a moment of reflection on the beach: "That's totally weird."

People would undoubtedly assume the name was 360, Henn thought at the time. But then the former classmates realized that the number's initial obscurity also illustrated its potential to pique curiosity among potential converts.

Read more at E&E Publishing 

Remembering Superstorm Sandy - It's Time to Act on Climate

Fossil fuels divestment campaign is gathering momentum
From university students to church groups, a united global effort will politically bankrupt the fossil fuel industry.

By Bill McKibben   
| Environment | theguardian.com.

Excerpts:
The world has a choice when dealing with climate change. One is to decide it's a problem like any other, which can be dealt with slowly and over time. The other is to recognise it as a crisis, perhaps the unique crisis in human history, which will take rapid, urgent action to overcome.

Science is in the second, scared camp – that's the meaning of the IPCC report issued last month, which showed that our planet is already undergoing climatic shifts far greater than any experienced in human civilisation, with far worse to come.

And those of us urging divestment from fossil fuel stocks are in the second camp too – we recognise that business as usual is quite simply impossible.

In the US, a number of colleges, churches, and universities have begun to divest those stocks, arguing that they can't both simultaneously decry the wreckage of the climate and try to profit from it for a few more years.

The trustees of San Francisco State University recognised that it made no sense to have, on the one hand, a physics department understanding climate change and on the other hand, an endowment full of oil and gas stocks.

The United Church of Christ, which traces its roots back to the Pilgrims, decided it couldn't pay the pastor by investing in companies that are running Genesis backwards.

In addition, UK university students are increasingly engaged in divestment campaigns as evidenced by the work undertaken by People & Planet. To date there are 19 active divestment campaigns across the UK including universities with the largest endowments: Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh.

Everyone involved in this campaign understands that divestment won't in fact bankrupt Exxon or BP or Shell, but they also understand how important it is to politically bankrupt them. These are now rogue industries, committed to burning more carbon than any government on earth thinks would be safe to burn. Their irresponsibility belongs to their executives and boards of directors – but it also belongs to anyone who holds their shares. If you think that climate change is a true crisis, then the time has come to sever your ties.

Read the full article here.

~ ~ ~

  ~ Superstorm Sandy Hit New York One Year Ago Today ~

TONIGHT: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 at 7:00 PM
Sierra Club Niagara Group will remember Sandy and screen “Comfort Zone” -- a one hour film on what Climate Change will do to Western New York.

Place: Schenck Hall at Daemen College, Main Street in Snyder [Campus Map]

The program is FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Bill McKibben Addresses Climate Crisis at UB Commencement

Bill McKibben speaking to UB graduates - D.Kowalski photo

Bill McKibben, world-renowned author, environmentalist and educator, delivered the 2013 commencement address of the University at Buffalo's School of Architecture and Planning on May 10.

McKibben wrote The End of Nature (1989), the first book on global warming for a general audience, and more recently, Eaarth - Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (20
10).

McKibben founded the global climate action campaign, 350.org, and has been steadfast in demanding that political leaders take steps to address the climate crisis.

In his address to the graduates, McKibben cited Superstorm Sandy, which he said "drove the Atlantic Ocean into the New York subway system." He added, "If you had any doubts about the vulnerability of our technological civilization to the new and souped-up Nature we are creating, that should have ended."

McKibben urged the graduates to call for change, referring to the climate crisis as "one of the central tests of your life, a test of both your skill and your character." He said "your training is now not just an end to a profitable rewarding career, but something that our society badly, badly needs."

VIDEO: It opens with Robert G. Shibley, Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning, followed by an introduction of Bill McKibben by Subhashni Raj (3:54), Masters Degree recipient and a Pacific-350 organizer from Fiji. Subsequently, Shibley presented McKibben with the Dean's Medal (8:00), and then Bill McKibben delivered his address to the graduates, faculty and guests (11:22 to 29:00). 

Watch the video on YouTube: Click here.

UPDATE May 21, 2013: A TRANSCRIPT of Bill McKibben's speech and transcripts of the introductions and the medal presentation were kindly provided by Alan Oberst. To view the transcripts, Click Here.

Bill McKibben to Deliver Commencement Address

Bill McKibben, Author, Educator, Environmentalist, to Deliver Commencement Address, Receive Dean's Medal

The School of Architecture and Planning Commencement will be held on Friday, May 10, 2013 at 5:00 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Mainstage Theatre, North Campus of the University at Buffalo. The event is open to the public.

Special seating is available in the balcony area for guests who will be attending the ceremony that are not directly connected to the graduates. No tickets are required to attend.

As this event is a celebration for the students, you are invited to stay for the full program.  However, since this occasion represents a special opportunity to hear Bill McKibben speak about important issues in today’s fragile world, a musical interlude will be included after his speech to allow guests to quietly exit the auditorium. 

Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with The End of Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. He is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. Time Magazine called him 'the planet's best green journalist' and the Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was 'probably the country's most important environmentalist.' Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, he holds honorary degrees from a dozen colleges, including the Universities of Massachusetts and Maine, the State University of New York, and Whittier and Colgate Colleges. In 2011 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Obama Inaugural Addresses Climate Change -- Bill McKibben Reacts

Text of President Obama's Inaugural address on Climate Change:

“We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snow-capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.”

— President Barack Obama
_____________________________________________________________

Bill McKibben reacts to Obama Inaugural Address on Climate Change:
Bill McKibben, author, educator and climate activist, reacted to President Obama statements about climate change in an email message. McKibben's message is below (the emphasis is his):

"With words like that, it's easy to let ourselves dream that something major might be about to happen to fix the biggest problem the world has ever faced.

But we know that even if the President is sincere in every syllable, he's going to need lots of backup to help him get his point across in a city dominated by fossil fuel interests. And, given the record of the last four years, we know that too often rhetoric has yielded little in the way of results.

That's why we need you -- very badly -- to take a trip to our nation's capital on Feb. 17. We'll gather on the National Mall, in what is shaping up to be be the largest environmental rally in many years.

Click here to join us in DC: act.350.org/signup/presidentsday

Together we'll send the message loud and clear: 'If you're serious about protecting future generations from climate change, stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. If you can do that, Mr. President, we can all work together to help build a climate legacy that will be a credit to your critical eight years in office.'

Look -- numbers count. If 20,000 of us show up on February 17th, it will be noticed. We need you in that number. The President may have given us an opening, but it's up to us to go through it, and we need to do it together.

Thanks for all you've done to bring us this far, friends. Let's keep it up -- this is our chance."

Bill
_____________________________________________________________

 

Hop on the Bus to the Climate Rally & March in Washington DC! 

Sierra Club Niagara Group has chartered a Bus leaving Buffalo the evening of February 16 and returning directly after the rally. 

For information on bus tickets, Click Here.

Sign up to attend the Rally and get more information through the Sierra Club website.

_____________________________________________________________

Youth for a Just & Sustainable World - Be the Change!

Generation Waking Up is a global campaign to ignite a generation of young people to bring forth a Thriving, Just, Sustainable World. 

The Video below is part of the 'Generation Waking Up Experience', a multimedia educational workshop that inspires young people to transform their lives and communities. The video is awesome! Check it out:

Below are a couple of upcoming campaigns that young people can get involved in to help make change happen:

PowerShift NY: Shift from dirty Fossil Fuels to clean, Renewable Energy.
Power Shift NY will be held in Albany on April 27-29.
Don't miss the amazing speakers like Bill McKibben (environmental author and activist, 350.org founder), Josh Fox (Gasland filmmaker and activist), Sandra Steingraber (biologist, author, and environmental & children's health advocate), and others. Check out the Conference and Register here. Spread the word!

350.org - Connect the Dots:
350.org is launching a Global Day of Action to connect the dots between fossil fuel extraction, climate change, and the extreme weather that has reshaped so much of the American landscape this year. Take action on May 5, 2012! 
Rally, educate, document and volunteer along with thousands of people around the world to support the communities on the front lines of the climate crisis. To learn about events in your area, or to start your own event, Click Here. Invite your friends!

Bill McKibben to Speak in Buffalo at Environmental Congress

2010 WNY Environmental Congress

Featuring author, educator and environmentalist,
Bill McKibben*

Join us to participate in a discussion of recent progress on efforts to improve our environment and learn how we can all work together to protect Western New York's natural resources in 2011.

The congress is open to all interested participants.

November 13, 2010 from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm at City Honors High School, Buffalo, NY.

CLICK HERE to see the AGENDA and REGISTER

*Bill McKibben, scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, is the author of twelve books, including The End of Nature (1989), the first book for a general audience about global warming, and, more recently, Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007), which addresses what the he sees as shortcomings of the growth economy and envisions a transition to more local-scale enterprise. His latest book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet explores what it means to live on a planet that we have changed fundamentally. McKibben is a founder of high-profile campaigns to raise awareness about climate change, both nationally (StepItUp2007.org) and globally (350.org).