CLIMATE & ENERGY POLITICS - U.S., Canada, Mexico Pledge - Clinton Pushes Solar - Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Excerpts from News Reports

North America Will Draw Half Its Electricity from Carbon-Free Sources by 2025
37 percent already comes from non-carbon power plants, mostly nuclear and hydro

The United States, Mexico and Canada recently made a joint pledge to draw half the continent’s power from non-emitting sources by 2025. White House climate adviser Brian Deese described the pact as a sign of the growing bonds between the nations on climate and energy policies. He told reporters that the trio are cooperating more on those issues now than at any time in recent history.

The agreement calls for the continent’s power grid to draw 50 percent of its generation by 2025 from renewable energy, efficiency, nuclear power and fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage technology. It would require a steep increase in clean power and efficiency over the next nine years.

Renewables are projected to increase to 23 percent by 2025, while nuclear power is expected to decrease to 18 percent as some units are decommissioned. Those figures don’t include state and regional action to de-carbonize the power grid.

The Clean Power Plan will be the “central component” to meeting the goals, but other policies—including federal tax incentives for renewables—will help. The Clean Power Plan faces litigation and is stalled under a Supreme Court stay.

Nuclear power is also a big part of the existing 'carbon-free' electricity in the United States—representing about 19 percent of the power mix. [Editors note: nuclear power doesn't emit carbon, and so it is referred to in the article as 'carbon-free'. However, the life-cycle of nuclear is definitely not carbon-free. It's also not environmentally 'clean' since it generates radioactive nuclear waste].

Deese added that the three countries will focus on the transmission lines needed to pave the way for rapid clean energy development.

Mexico will join the United States and Canada in committing to reduce methane emissions by between 40 and 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025 from the oil and gas sector. This will immediate impact on climate change since methane has a strong, short-term impact on global warming.

Click here to read the full report at Scientific American.


Hillary Clinton has promised to have a half-billion solar panels installed by 2020

Hillary Clinton, courting young voters and the broader Democratic base, has promised to one-up President Obama on climate change, vowing to produce a third of the nation’s electricity from renewable sources by 2027 while spending billions of dollars to transform the energy economy. 

Under the Paris Agreement, an accord committing nearly 200 countries to lowering carbon emissions, Mr. Obama pledged to reduce the United States’ emissions 25 percent to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050.

A half-billion solar panels will be installed by 2020, she has promised, seven times the number today, and $60 billion will go to states and cities to develop more climate-friendly infrastructure, such as public transportation and energy-efficient buildings.

She would put the United States on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2050. And, she says, she could achieve all that without new legislation from Congress.
But Mrs. Clinton has avoided mention of the one policy that economists widely see as the most effective way to tackle climate change — and one that would need Congress’s assent: putting a price or tax on carbon dioxide emissions.

Conservative campaign operatives agree that they would immediately pounce on any mention by Mrs. Clinton of a carbon price.

Absent a carbon price, Mrs. Clinton plans to use a mix of new regulations, grant programs and spending on new infrastructure to achieve her targets. She would also spend $30 billion on a plan to help redevelop coal mining communities that are suffering economically in the wake of climate change policies.

And Mrs. Clinton would need at least some action by Congress to meet her goals — legislators would need to appropriate the $60 billion she intends to spend on clean infrastructure grants to states, and the $30 billion to help coal communities.

Among environmental groups and the renewable energy industry there is support for Mrs. Clinton’s proposals, however difficult they might be, compared with those of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, who denies the established science of human-caused climate change.

Click here to read the full report at the New York Times.
 

Richest nations fail to agree on deadline to phase out fossil fuel subsidies

Energy ministers from the world’s major economies have failed to reach agreement on a deadline to phase out hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies for fossil fuels — subsidies that campaigners say are helping to propel the globe toward potentially devastating climate change.

Ministers from the Group of 20 major economies met in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday but failed to reach agreement on a deadline, despite Chinese and American efforts and a joint appeal from 200 nongovernmental organizations.

The Group of Seven richest economies last month urged all countries to eliminate “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies by 2025. At a separate annual meeting in June, the United States and China agreed to push for a firm target date to be set at a summit of G-20 leaders in Hangzhou in September.

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said the G-20 had not agreed on a specific timeline to eliminate subsidies but said the United States believed that by 2025 or 2030, “we’d like to see very substantial progress.”

A 2015 report by the British think tank Overseas Development Institute, along with Oil Change International, calculated that the G-20 major economies subsidize fossil fuel production to the tune of $444 billion a year, marrying “bad economics with potentially disastrous effects on the environment.”

Russia spends some $23 billion in annual subsidies, and the United States $20 billion — despite President Obama’s calls to end tax breaks on the fossil fuel industry, the report said. China spends $3 billion, while Britain is one of the few G-20 countries increasing fossil fuel subsidies and cutting back on investment in renewable energy. Total G-20 subsidies for fossil fuels was four times the total global investment in renewable energy, it estimated.

“It is tantamount to G-20 governments allowing fossil fuel producers to undermine national climate commitments, while paying them for the privilege,” the report said.

 Click here to read the full report at The Washington Post 

Bill McKibben: Fracking Will Not Save Our Climate

Global Warming’s Terrifying New Chemistry

Our leaders thought fracking would save our climate. They were wrong. Very wrong.

By Bill McKibben | March 23, 2016 | The Nation

Global warming is, in the end, not about the noisy political battles here on the planet’s surface. It actually happens in constant, silent interactions in the atmosphere, where the molecular structure of certain gases traps heat that would otherwise radiate back out to space. If you get the chemistry wrong, it doesn’t matter how many landmark climate agreements you sign or how many speeches you give. And it appears the United States may have gotten the chemistry wrong. Really wrong.

There’s one greenhouse gas everyone knows about: carbon dioxide, which is what you get when you burn fossil fuels. We talk about a “price on carbon” or argue about a carbon tax; our leaders boast about modest “carbon reductions.” But in the last few weeks, CO₂’s nasty little brother has gotten some serious press. Meet methane, otherwise known as CH₄.

In February, Harvard researchers published an explosive paper in Geophysical Research Letters. Using satellite data and ground observations, they concluded that the nation as a whole is leaking methane in massive quantities. Between 2002 and 2014, the data showed that US methane emissions increased by more than 30 percent, accounting for 30 to 60 percent of an enormous spike in methane in the entire planet’s atmosphere.

To the extent our leaders have cared about climate change, they’ve fixed on CO₂. Partly as a result, coal-fired power plants have begun to close across the country. They’ve been replaced mostly with ones that burn natural gas, which is primarily composed of methane. Because burning natural gas releases significantly less carbon dioxide than burning coal, CO₂ emissions have begun to trend slowly downward, allowing politicians to take a bow. But this new Harvard data, which comes on the heels of other aerial surveys showing big methane leakage, suggests that our new natural-gas infrastructure has been bleeding methane into the atmosphere in record quantities. And molecule for molecule, this unburned methane is much, much more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

The EPA insisted this wasn’t happening, that methane was on the decline just like CO₂. But it turns out, as some scientists have been insisting for years, the EPA was wrong. Really wrong. This error is the rough equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange announcing tomorrow that the Dow Jones isn’t really at 17,000: Its computer program has been making a mistake, and your index fund actually stands at 11,000.

These leaks are big enough to wipe out a large share of the gains from the Obama administration’s work on climate change—all those closed coal mines and fuel-efficient cars. In fact, it’s even possible that America’s contribution to global warming increased during the Obama years. The methane story is utterly at odds with what we’ve been telling ourselves, not to mention what we’ve been telling the rest of the planet. It undercuts the promises we made at the climate talks in Paris. It’s a disaster—and one that seems set to spre2ad.

The Obama administration, to its credit, seems to be waking up to the problem. Over the winter, the EPA began to revise its methane calculations, and in early March, the United States reached an agreement with Canada to begin the arduous task of stanching some of the leaks from all that new gas infrastructure. But none of this gets to the core problem, which is the rapid spread of fracking. Carbon dioxide is driving the great warming of the planet, but CO₂ isn’t doing it alone. It’s time to take methane seriously.

To understand how we got here, it’s necessary to remember what a savior fracked natural gas looked like to many people, environmentalists included. As George W. Bush took hold of power in Washington, coal was ascendant, here and around the globe. Cheap and plentiful, it was most visibly underwriting the stunning growth of the economy in China, where, by some estimates, a new coal-fired power plant was opening every week. The coal boom didn’t just mean smoggy skies over Beijing; it meant the planet’s invisible cloud of carbon dioxide was growing faster than ever, and with it the certainty of dramatic global warming.

So lots of people thought it was great news when natural-gas wildcatters began rapidly expanding fracking in the last decade. Fracking involves exploding the sub-surface geology so that gas can leak out through newly opened pores; its refinement brought online new shale deposits across the continent—most notably the Marcellus Shale, stretching from West Virginia up into Pennsylvania and New York. The quantities of gas that geologists said might be available were so vast that they were measured in trillions of cubic feet and in centuries of supply.

The apparently happy fact was that when you burn natural gas, it releases half as much carbon dioxide as coal. A power plant that burned natural gas would therefore, or so the reasoning went, be half as bad for global warming as a power plant that burned coal. Natural gas was also cheap—so, from a politician’s point of view, fracking was a win-win situation. You could appease the environmentalists with their incessant yammering about climate change without having to run up the cost of electricity. It would be painless environmentalism, the equivalent of losing weight by cutting your hair.

Petitioning President Obama: Keep Fossil Fuels Safely in the Ground

PRESIDENT OBAMA — SECURE YOUR CLIMATE LEGACY:

KEEP FOSSIL FUELS SAFELY IN THE GROUND

Mr. President,

We call on you to secure your climate legacy by halting all new drilling, fracking, and mining on public lands and waters, including stopping all new offshore drilling in the Arctic, Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic.

The world is in a deep climate hole and now that we find ourselves here, we must stop digging. As you said when you rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, “we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground.”

We couldn’t agree more.

The science is clear. [1] A safe climate means we need to stop drilling and mining for more fossil fuels; and we need to keep at least 80% of what we already have in the ground.

The first place to start is our precious public lands and waters. New oil and gas sales on these lands would expand known reserves of fossil fuels, which would clearly fail to harmonize our energy policy with climate science.

The historic Paris climate agreement was the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. To create that fossil free future we need a just transition to 100% renewable energy, and we need to implement a climate test to stop expanding reserves and keep our fossil fuels in the ground.

We thank you for your leadership to date, and we urge you to boldly secure your climate legacy by announcing that America’s public lands and waters will no longer be auctioned off to oil, gas, and coal companies.

To Sign the Petition, CLICK HERE.

Brought to you by: Other98 - Greenpeace USA- Oil Change International - Rainforest Action Network - Daily Kos - Environmental Action - Friends of the Earth - Courage Campaign- Stand- The Nation- WildEarth Guardians - Food & Water Watch - WatchDog.net

Landmark Climate Deal Approved by All Nations at Paris Talks

Historic deal sets the world on a course to a low carbon future 

fueled by clean, renewable energy

For the first time in history, representatives of 195 nations have unanimously approved lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help avoid the worst effects of climate change.

In a statement from the White House, President Obama said “This agreement sends a powerful signal that the world is fully committed to a low-carbon future."

Obama added, "We’ve shown that the world has both the will and the ability to take on this challenge. It won’t be easy. Progress won’t always come quick. We cannot be complacent."

“The world finally has a framework for cooperating on climate change that’s suited to the task,” said Michael Levi, an expert on energy and climate change policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Whether or not this becomes a true turning point for the world, though, depends critically on how seriously countries follow through.”

Prior to the Paris talks, 186 nations put forth public plans detailing how they would cut carbon emissions through 2025 or 2030. Enacting those plans will cut emissions by half the levels required to fend off the worst effects of global warming.

There is no legal requirement dictating how, or how much, countries should cut emissions. So the Paris accord has built in a series of legally-binding requirements that countries ratchet up the stringency of their climate change policies in the future. Countries will be required to reconvene every five years, starting in 2020, with updated plans that would tighten their emissions cuts.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Obama’s top negotiator in Paris and who has spent the past year negotiating behind the scenes with his Chinese and Indian counterparts in order to help broker the deal, defended the agreement. While the deal includes no mechanism that would force countries to cut pollution, it will make every nation report emissions, upping the pressure on governments to act, he said.

“There is a uniform standard of transparency and therefore, we will know what everybody is doing,” Kerry said. “The result will be a very clear signal to the marketplace of the world that people are moving into low-carbon, no-carbon, alternative, renewable energy.”

Despite the historic nature of the Paris climate accord, its success still depends heavily on two factors outside the parameter of the deal: global peer pressure and the actions of future governments.

A deal that would have assigned legal requirements for countries to cut emissions at specific levels would need to go before the United States Senate for ratification. That language would have been dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate, where many members question the established science of human-caused climate change, and still more wish to thwart Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda.

The Republican-controlled Congress already voted this month to block the centerpiece of Obama’s climate agenda, rules that would cut emissions by one third from the U.S. fleet of power plants. However, Obama can veto the measure.

As with health care, opponents may find it hard to undo Obama’s environmental legacy. The power-plant rules will probably end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, where the administration has a strong track record on pollution cases. And in the private sector the tide has, arguably, been turning. Utilities have already shuttered dozens of coal-fired power plants in recent years. Last week, Ford Motor Co. said it plans to invest $4.5 billion in electric vehicles to meet ambitious new auto emissions standards put in place by the Obama administration.

“People in the Republican party I speak with know they’re on the wrong side of history on this issue, like with gay marriage,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “And Obama is sticking it to them. He’s saying, do you really want to be the party that’s against science and against what people want?”


Read more online at: 
The New York Times: Nations Approve Landmark Climate Accord in Paris
The Bloomberg Politics report at the Buffalo News: Like Obamacare, Climate Gives President Huge But Fragile Win
The Washington Post: 5 things you should know about the historic Paris climate agreement

Call on Obama for Bold Action at UN Climate Talks in Paris

The RISE UP FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE campaign needs YOUR Help
 

A diverse group of people in Western New York are involved in a campaign for climate action and justice. Recently, over 300 citizens rallied in support of the campaign in Buffalo.

Now, we want to draw attention to President Obama who will play a major role in the outcome of the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris. 

With your help, we want to send out huge numbers of a message using social media. In the message, we call on President Obama for bold cuts in greenhouse gas emissions at the UN Paris Talks to protect people and the planet.

You can view our message in context by clicking on this link http://thndr.me/3mTlLv. To support the message, simply click the Facebook or Twitter button and agree to support. 

That's it. Done. Easy!

With your support, our message will be greatly amplified. Also, the message from every supporter will be released at the same time through the Thunderclap website, creating a virtual 'thunderclap' on social media.

The release is scheduled for 1:00 pm on Friday, October 23, the day before United Nations Day. Check for the 'thunderclap' on Facebook or Twitter after 1:00 pm on Friday.

Please help us do this. Thanks!

The Rise Up for Climate Justice Campaign

Rise Up for Climate Justice! Rally at Niagara Square on THURSDAY

All are invited to attend a CLIMATE RALLY in Buffalo: 

 Rise Up for Climate Justice! 

WHEN: Thursday, Sept. 24 at 5pm; *Festivities at 4pm
The same day Pope Francis meets with the U.S. Congress and is expected to call for moral action to address the injustice of human-caused Climate Change as laid out in his recent Encyclical.

WHERE:  Niagara Square in Buffalo, NY 
MAP with Metro Rail stations & Bus routes, Click Here 

SPEAKERS include members of: Physicians for Social Responsibility, WNY Interfaith Climate Justice Community, Buffalo Common Council, Sierra Club Niagara Group, PUSH Buffalo, Seneca Nation, and other groups.

SIGN UP for RALLY: 
- Facebook: Click Here - Invite your Friends! 
- Not a Facebook user? Sign up Here

*Pre-RALLY FESTIVITIES: Live Music, Song, Dance and Fun!

SCIENCE tells us we must stop burning fossil fuels to curb greenhouse gas pollution that causes global warming and drives Climate Change. 

JUSTICE for People and our Environment demands that we act in earnest NOW. 
 
WE THE PEOPLE call on President Obama and elected officials to back a global, legally-binding agreement to combat Climate Change and provide the necessary support for a Just Transition from fossil fuels to Clean, Sustainable Energy.

Please sign the Climate Justice Pledge  petitioning Obama for bold Climate Action.

For more information visit:
- facebook.com/riseupforclimatejustice
- twitter.com/SierraNiagara
- niagarasierraclub.com
- twitter.com/RU4CJBuffalo

Rise Up for Climate Justice! Rally at Niagara Square on September 24

GETTING TO PARIS AND A SANE CLIMATE AGREEMENT

Mobilizing Western New York for Climate Action and Social Justice 

(September – December 2015) 

Rise Up for Climate Justice

JOIN US 

Rally at Niagara Square on September 24 at 4:00pm

 The day Pope Francis speaks to the U.S. Congress

As President Obama said, “Climate Change is not a problem for another generation.” 

Failure to act would constitute a grave injustice to all future children of the Earth as well as to poor people and poor countries that contribute the least to global warming pollution.

SCIENCE TELLS US WE MUST STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS TO CURB GLOBAL WARMING, AND JUSTICE DEMANDS THAT WE ACT IN EARNEST NOW.

WE CALL ON THE PRESIDENT AND LEADERS OF ALL NATIONS
TO SIGN AND ENFORCE A UNIVERSAL, LEGALLY-BINDING AGREEMENT 

TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE AND SUPPORT A JUST TRANSITION 
FROM FOSSIL FUELS TO CLEAN ENERGY SOURCES.

"A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor." -- Pope Francis

To learn more about CLIMATE JUSTICE, Click Here.   

For more information and opportunities to participate/volunteer as organizations or individuals,
visit the Sierra Club website: www.NiagaraSierraClub.com
Contact us at: niagarasierra@gmail.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.

Images of the Massive PEOPLES CLIMATE MARCH in NY City

LARGEST Climate March in History! 

400,000 march in NY City - Events held in over 150 countries

“We said it would take everyone to change everything — 

and Everyone showed up!”

Eddie Bautista, Exec. Director of the NY City Environmental Justice Alliance.

President Obama gives a nod to the climate marchers in his speech at the UN Climate Summit on Sept. 23 (see below).

NY City - Sept. 21, 2014

[Click image to enlarge]

VIDEO: Aerial View of the Massive Climate March 

 

The March was held two days before the 

UN Climate Summit in NY City - Sept. 23, 2014

President Obama's quote (above) in the context of his UN speech:

"So the climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it.  The alarm bells keep ringing.  Our citizens keep marching.  We cannot pretend we do not hear them.  We have to answer the call.  We know what we have to do to avoid irreparable harm.  We have to cut carbon pollution in our own countries to prevent the worst effects of climate change.  We have to adapt to the impacts that, unfortunately, we can no longer avoid.  And we have to work together as a global community to tackle this global threat before it is too late. 

We cannot condemn our children, and their children, to a future that is beyond their capacity to repair.  Not when we have the means -- the technological innovation and the scientific imagination -- to begin the work of repairing it right now.

 As one of America’s governors has said, “We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.”  So today, I’m here personally, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and its second largest emitter, to say that we have begun to do something about it."

France was one of the 150 Countries that participated in the Peoples Climate March:

Monday: Nationwide Vigils to Protest Keystone XL

 

This is an all-hands-on-deck moment in the fight to get President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. Now that the U.S. State Department has released its final environmental analysis, the decision will soon be in the president's hands.

We know that the pipeline fails the climate test he set. Renowned climate scientist James Hansen said that if we burn all the carbon in the tar sands, it's "game over" for avoiding catastrophic climate change.

But whether or not the president stands up to the oil industry and rejects the pipeline will depend on what we do in the next few months.

That's why on Monday, February 3rd, we are joining with the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, 350.org and other groups to organize nationwide protest vigils to send a clear and urgent message: Keystone XL is a climate disaster, and President Obama must reject it.

• Where:  Front Park – Busti at Porter in Buffalo

• When:  Monday, February 3, at 6 pm.

• What:  Tell President Obama to reject Keystone XL

In this moment, it's especially important that we come out of the gate with a strong message to the president.  We need to show that we are prepared to hold the president to his commitment to take action on climate change, and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

Local Vigil to Include Additional Justice Issues

With the release of the State Department’s final environmental impact statement, the revelation of the cover-up of a true "win-win" solution to diesel traffic on the Peace Bridge, and the attempt to fast track the TPP,  this is a crucial moment to call for "Environmental Justice for All!"   

Join us Monday evening to send the message to President Obama that Keystone XL fails his climate test and he must reject it, to Gov. Cuomo that his current Peace Bridge expansion plans fail to protect the health of residents, and to Congress that fast tracking the TPP will harm the environment!  

For a map and additional information, click here.  

Keystone XL Pipeline: Time to End the Fossil Fuel Addiction

President Obama needs to turn down the Keystone XL pipeline if America is ever going to break its dependency on fossil fuels. Here is Chris Hayes' view:

 

Canadian Oil Sands: Keystone Pipeline - Buffalo Event - Environmental Fight - Trains?

Keystone XL Pipeline Decision Expected By June: WSJ .

The Obama administration will make its final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline by early summer, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The proposed pipeline, which would run from the Canadian oil sands to refineries in Texas, has been under consideration for years, but a final decision on it has been delayed several times due to requests for additional evaluations of the project's environmental impact.

The State Department's inspector general is looking into allegations that there was a conflict of interest with the company that prepared the project's latest draft environmental analysis. That report is expected to be released by the end of January. The State Department has the authority to approve the project because it crosses an international border.
The Journal reports that sources familiar with the decision said that the final environmental impact analysis is expected to be released next month. After that, the State Department will make a decision about whether the pipeline is in the national interest, and other agencies will have 90 days to comment on the verdict. That would put President Barack Obama in a position to make a final decision by May or June.

President Obama has said that the pipeline should be approved only if it is determined that it does not have a major impact on total carbon emissions. "Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation's interest," the president said in his big climate speech last June. "And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward."

Read the full article at the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal

Buffalo host site for Alberta Oil Sands info

The Consulate General of Canada in New York and the U.S. Commercial Service will co-host its fifth Canada Oil Sands Matchmaking Event in Buffalo on Feb. 3.

At the event, representatives from Alberta’s largest energy companies will host 15-minute meetings with area companies that want to be part of the oil sands supply chain. The rapid growth of the region, which hosts the third-largest proven oil reserve, has created demand for infrastructure, equipment and engineering services.

Read more at Buffalo Business First

Pipeline Fight Lifts Environmental Movement

WASHINGTON — Environmentalists have spent the past two years fighting the Keystone XL pipeline: They have built a human chain around the White House, clogged the State Department’s public comment system with more than a million emails and letters, and gotten themselves arrested at protests across the country. 

But as bad as they argue the 1,700-mile pipeline would be for the planet, Keystone XL has been a boon to the environmental movement. While it remains unclear whether Obama will approve the project, both sides agree that the fight has changed American environmental politics.

“I think it would be naïve for any energy infrastructure company to think that this would be a flash in the pan,” said Alexander J. Pourbaix, president of energy and oil pipelines at TransCanada, the company that has been trying to get a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline since 2008.

Environmentalists want to stop the transport of 800,000 barrels a day of heavy crude from oil sands formations in Canada to Texas refineries, and an oil extraction process that emits more greenhouse gases than other forms of production. Proponents of the Keystone XL project say that the oil will come out of the ground with or without a new pipeline and that other methods of transport, like rail, cause more pollution.

They point out that TransCanada began operations on Wednesday on a southern pipeline segment that connects to existing pipelines to provide a route from Alberta to the Gulf Coast.

Read more at the New York Times 

Transporting Fossil Fuels: Rail vs. Pipeline is the Wrong Question

Debating the best way to do something we shouldn’t be doing in the first place is a sure way to end up in the wrong place. That’s what’s happening with the “rail versus pipeline” discussion. Some say recent rail accidents mean we should build more pipelines to transport fossil fuels. Others argue that leaks, high construction costs, opposition and red tape surrounding pipelines are arguments in favor of using trains.

But the recent spate of rail accidents and pipeline leaks and spills doesn’t provide arguments for one or the other; instead, it indicates that rapidly increasing oil and gas development and shipping ever greater amounts, by any method, will mean more accidents, spills, environmental damage—even death. The answer is to step back from this reckless plunder and consider ways to reduce our fossil fuel use.

If we were to slow down oil sands development, encourage conservation and invest in clean energy technology, we could save money, ecosystems and lives—and we’d still have valuable fossil fuel resources long into the future, perhaps until we’ve figured out ways to use them that aren’t so wasteful. We wouldn’t need to build more pipelines just to sell oil and gas as quickly as possible, mostly to foreign markets. We wouldn’t have to send so many unsafe rail tankers through wilderness areas and places people live.

Read more at EcoWatch

RALLY: Protect our Water, Air, Land and People

President Obama will visit Buffalo on Thursday, August 22 to speak at UB Alumni Arena. People opposed to unsafe fracking want the topic of shale gas drilling to be on the President's agenda and will hold a rally there.

Check the WNY Drilling Defense FB for updates, contacts & map HERE.
See also an informative PDF from the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter HERE.

Sponsors include WNY Drilling Defense and Sierra Club Niagara Group 
and Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter

WNY Drilling Defense wants to send the President a clear message that fracking is unsafe and that we don't want fracking in New York – or anywhere else. 

Rita Yelda will have protest signs available if you need them.

Sierra Club Niagara Group wants to tell the President that they want Renewable Energy - Not Fracking - and No Keystone Pipeline!

Bob Ciesielski will also have protest signs available. Also, printable signs can be found HERE

Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter says that the rally is a critical opportunity to tell the President that he needs to end his misguided support of dangerous, polluting fracking. Urge the President to Embrace Renewable Energy and say NO to Fracking!

Climate Rally in DC - Reserve Bus Seat - See UPDATE

What: Forward on Climate Rally.
When: February 17, 2013 -- 12 Noon.
Where: Washington Monument on the National Mall, Washington DC.
Who: 350.org, The Sierra Club, Hip Hop Caucus and tens of thousands of Americans.

Click here to join the action.

Sierra Club Niagara Group chartered a Bus

Leave Buffalo Saturday, February 16 at 11:15 PM. Return late Sunday or early Monday.

Cost $70/per person, full fare
$25 "Scholarship" seats are available to students, unemployed and low-income folks

Seating and scholarships are on a first paid/first served basis, 
so send in your check today! 
Make check out to “Sierra Club Niagara Group” and send to Sierra Club, 601 W Ferry Street, Buffalo, NY 14222
If you can’t go but can  afford to help, PLEASE send a donation today !

UPDATE 2/9/2013: Sierra Club is sending a SECOND BUS
Seats will be reserved on a first paid basis.
Checks payable to "Sierra Club Niagara Group" can be mailed or dropped off at the address above.
Alternatively, you can pay by credit card by going to VPSpay.com
Enter this Merchant Phone number 716-849-0140 and the Amount paid ($70 full, $25 scholarship).
Enter "Sierra Club Bus" in the Invoice box. A small service charge will be added.
An email will be sent automatically to the law office of Diane Ciurczak confirming your payment and your name will be entered on the bus list.

Donations are also accepted and should be entered as "Scholarship Donation".

For more information: dianeciurczak@yahoo.com or call 716-849-0140

BUS Departure: 11:15 p.m. Saturday, February 16, from the Park & Ride Lot on the University of Buffalo South Campus (Main St. near Kenmore Ave.)

BUS Return: late Sunday or early Monday. 

Contact Bill Nowak at 716-316-7674 or bill.nowakcwa@gmail.com for more information.

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.

_____________________________________________________________

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

JOIN THE LARGEST CLIMATE RALLY EVER!!

Sunday, February 17, 2013
in 
Washington D.C.

Rally on the National Mall and March to the White House

Sierra Club Niagara Group has chartered a Bus

leaving Buffalo the evening of February 16 and returning directly after the rally

Cost $70/per person.  Scholarships available.*

Email Linda or Sara at (rmc.law2511@yahoo.com) to reserve a space

Payment due by February 11, 2013 to hold your seat with checks payable to “Sierra Club Niagara Group” and mail to:

          More information:  sierraclubangela@gmail.com

For more information see http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=forwardonclimate or

http://niagarasierraclub.wordpress.com

*Fundraiser on Friday, February 8, 2013.  Music by Five to One at Sportsmen’s Tavern, 326 Amherst Street (12 doors west of Grant)  5:30pm–8:30pm   $5 cover ($2 to scholarship) and 50/50 split.

EVENT Sponsored by Sierra Club National and 350.org FORWARD ON CLIMATE RALLY! What: The largest climate rally in history. Where: The National Mall in Washington, D.C., including a march to the White House When: February 17, 2013, Noon - 4:00 p.m. (please arrive by 11:30 a.m.) Crippling drought. Devastating wildfires. Superstorm Sandy. Climate has come home -- and the American people get it. Information:  http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=forwardonclimate

We're building  A GLOBAL MOVEMENT TO SOLVE THE CLIMATE CRISIS  

President Obama, Roses and The Kitchen Sink

By Jessica Glendinning, Virginia Organizer at 350.org

This article is cross-posted from the 350.org website
  

"I believe in an America where future generations will have clean air to breathe and fresh water to drink, powered by clean renewable energy (and good old fashioned American ingenuity). Don’t let me down."

This past summer, I was arrested in front of the White House on the first day of the Tar Sands Action, which resulted in my spending three days in a District holding cell. I have been back to DC a few times since then, including a trip this past November to give the President’s house a great big hug.

Jessica and Jason

Last week, I was back in Washington and at the White House again - but this time as an invited guest along with 350.org's Jason Kowalski [Policy Director in Washington DC; full disclosure: David Kowalski's son].

I met up with Jason a few minutes before our scheduled arrival time, and we walked up to the gates. Two ID checks, one security checkpoint and just a few minutes later, we were on White House grounds. Walking up to the Rose Garden, we were greeted by military officers in their ceremonial uniforms and a four-piece jazz combo.

Having always been on the other side of the fence, it was slightly surreal to have the experience of being inside the gates, schmoozing with members of the other environmental groups and the rest of the invited guests. We rubbed elbows with the heads of organizations, networked as much as we could, and were then led as a group to a portion of the Rose Garden right outside the Oval Office.