Free Film Screening: National Geographic Film on Climate Change

National Geographic Climate Change Film: 

'Paris to Pittsburgh'

Set against the national debate over the United States’ energy future — and the explosive decision to exit the Paris Climate Agreement — 'Paris to Pittsburgh' captures what's at stake for communities around the country and the inspiring ways Americans are responding.

Free Public Film Screening:

Monday, April 8, 7:00pm, Daemen College, Schenck Hall (Rm. 107), Amherst [Map]

From coastal cities to America’s heartland, ‘Paris to Pittsburgh’ celebrates how Americans are demanding and developing real solutions in the face of climate change. 

And as the weather grows more deadly and destructive, they aren’t waiting on Washington to act.

“There are now more jobs in renewable energy in the state of Pennsylvania than coal, natural gas, and oil combined.” — Bill Peduto, Mayor of Pittsburgh

View the film trailer: click here.

CLIMATE CHANGE - Who will Protect the People of the U.S.?

Ocasio-Cortez and progressive Dems' Green New Deal gains traction as Trump shrugs off dire warnings from climate scientists
While President Trump attributes his climate change skepticism to his “very high levels of intelligence,” a growing legion of lawmakers and young activists are taking heed of dire warnings being issued by experts and scientists about the catastrophic consequences of inaction.
 
Progressives, led by New York City’s own Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are joining forces behind an ambitious plan to wean the U.S. off fossil fuels, boost renewable energy jobs and build a “smart” power grid.
 
The major push to make climate change a priority when Congress convenes in January got off to a high-profile start weeks ago when Ocasio-Cortez applauded young activists from the environmental advocacy group Sunrise Movement protesting at soon-to-be-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office on Capitol Hill.  

A damning federal government report about the economic and societal impacts of climate change released last week, which Trump openly dismissed, has only emboldened believers steeling for a showdown with mainline Democrats and added weight to their calls for a so-called “Green New Deal.”
NY Daily News - 12.02.2018: To read more, click here



VIDEO:  Solving Our Climate Crisis - A National Town Hall
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, environmental author & 350.org founder Bill McKibben, CNN commentator Van Jones, Union of Concerned Scientists Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel and climate activists
Now This - 12.03.2018: To view the video, click here

VICTORY IN LANDMARK CLIMATE CASE

FEDERAL COURT AFFIRMS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF CHILDREN

DENIES MOTIONS OF GOVERNMENT AND FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY IN 

YOUTH’S LANDMARK CLIMATE CHANGE CASE

EUGENE, Oregon - On April 8, 2016, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin of the federal District Court in Eugene, OR, decided in favor of 21 young Plaintiffs, and Dr. James Hansen on behalf of future generations, in their landmark constitutional climate change case brought against the federal government and the fossil fuel industry.

The Court’s ruling is a major victory for the 21 youth Plaintiffs, ages 8-19, from across the U.S. in what Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein call the “most important lawsuit on the planet right now.” These plaintiffs sued the federal government for violating their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property, and their right to essential public trust resources, by permitting, encouraging, and otherwise enabling continued exploitation, production, and combustion of fossil fuels.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Philip Gregory with Cotchett, Pitre, & McCarthy of Burlingame, CA, said: “This decision is one of the most significant in our nation’s history. The Court upheld our claims that the federal government intensified the danger to our plaintiffs’ lives, liberty and property.

Judge Coffin decided our Complaint will move forward and put climate science squarely in front of the federal courts. The next step is for the Court to order our government to cease jeopardizing the climate system for present and future generations. The Court gave America’s youth a fair opportunity to be heard.”

As part of Friday’s historic decision, Judge Coffin characterized the case as an “unprecedented lawsuit” addressing “government action and inaction” resulting “in carbon pollution of the atmosphere, climate destabilization, and ocean acidification.”

In deciding the case will proceed, Judge Coffin wrote: “The debate about climate change and its impact has been before various political bodies for some time now. Plaintiffs give this debate justiciability by asserting harms that befall or will befall them personally and to a greater extent than older segments of society.”

“It may be that eventually the alleged harms, assuming the correctness of plaintiffs' analysis of the impacts of global climate change, will befall all of us. But the intractability of the debates before Congress and state legislatures and the alleged valuing of short term economic interest despite the cost to human life, necessitates a need for the courts to evaluate the constitutional parameters of the action or inaction taken by the government. This is especially true when such harms have an alleged disparate impact on a discrete class of society.”

Dr. James Hansen, guardian in the case for all future generations, and world renown climate scientist said, “Science clearly establishes that our planet’s increasing energy imbalance – caused in substantial part by our government’s support for the exploitation and combustion of fossil fuel – imposes increasingly severe risks on our common future. Now, from Eugene Oregon, comes a prescient and insightful ruling from a federal district court.  Judge Coffin in effect declares that the voice of children and future generations, supported by the relevant science, must be heard.  We will now proceed to prove our claims.  It is perhaps not too late for serious action to preserve a viable climate system that will be required by our posterity.”

Read the full press release here.

Read the Court's order here.

Website

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

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.

U.S.-China Climate Accord -- Roundup of News and Opinions

US and China reach historic climate change deal, vow to cut emissions
By Matt Hoye and Holly Yan, CNN
updated 11:59 AM EST, Wed November 12, 2014

Beijing (CNN) -- In a historic climate change deal, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced both countries will curb their greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades.

Under the agreement, the United States would cut its 2005 level of carbon emissions by 26-28% before the year 2025. China would peak its carbon emissions by 2030 and will also aim to get 20% of its energy from zero-carbon emission sources by the same year.

"As the world's two largest economies, energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gases, we have a special responsibility to lead the global effort against climate change," Obama said Wednesday in a joint news conference with Xi.

The announcement marks the first time China has agreed to peak its carbon emissions, according to the White House. Xi is calling for "an energy revolution" that would include broad economic reforms addressing air pollution.

Game changer for global talks?

Obama, who was in Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, said he hopes the deal will spur other nations to tackle climate change.

"We hope to encourage all major economies to be ambitious -- all countries, developing and developed -- to work across some of the old divides, so we can conclude a strong global climate agreement next year," Obama said.

Xi said both sides were committed to working toward the goals before the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris next year.

Read more at CNN.com

What Climate Scientists Have To Say About Obama’s Deal With China  
by Emily Atkin, Posted on November 12, 2014 at 3:25 pm

It didn’t take long after the U.S. and China announced a historic agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions on Wednesday for the reactions to start pouring in. Democrats and climate hawks praised the deal as an important step forward in the battle against sea level rise, habitat degradation, and extreme weather. Republican leaders deemed it an economic disaster, a continuation of the so-called “war on coal.”

Policymakers aside, however, it is also important to note the reactions of the people who actually measure climate change and predict how it will impact humans in the future. What do they think about the deal? Is it enough to make a real difference in the fight against catastrophic global warming?

For the climate scientists ThinkProgress asked on Wednesday, the answer was a resounding yes, with a side of caution. Scientists confirmed that the announcement, which has China agreeing to cap its emissions by 2030 and the U.S. committing to a 26 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2025, represented a huge first step toward building the kind of political cooperation needed to effectively combat a global problem.

“My take is that this is an historic agreement for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we now have a good faith effort on the part of the planet’s two leading carbon emitters to work together to lower planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.

One of the main Republican-driven arguments against policies that fight climate change has been the mere fact that global warming is global — it can’t be solved by one country alone. The argument has manifested itself many times in our political discourse: Why should the U.S. implement climate policies if China isn’t doing it too? Why should the U.S. do anything if it’s not actually going to make a difference?

The argument is “very weak substantively” — China is still developing, while the U.S. is already developed — but it has been effective politically in preventing climate action in the United States, according to Paul Higgins, a climatologist and Director of the American Meteorological Society’s Policy Program. Now that Obama has sealed cooperation with China, Higgins said, that argument is essentially moot.

Read more at ThinkProgress.org


U.S.-China pact is an accord the planet needed
By Eugene Robinson, Opinion writer, November 13, 2014

The minute we glimpse a flicker of hope in the fight against climate change, Republicans in Congress announce their intention to snuff it out. Fortunately for the planet, it seems they can’t.

This week’s stunning announcement of a long-range agreement between the Obama administration and the Chinese government over carbon emissions is the best environmental news in years. Not to sound grandiose, it means the world still has a chance to save itself from unmitigated disaster.

The significance of the accord, which was doggedly pursued by Secretary of State John Kerry, is not just that the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases have agreed to take action. China’s ambitious target of generating 20 percent of its energy from sources other than fossil fuels by 2030 promises massive investment and innovation — a huge boost for clean-energy technologies, with impact worldwide.

Pay no attention to the “Yes, but” chorus. It is true that China could have committed to an earlier date for carbon emissions to level off and should have set interim targets. It is true that meeting the new U.S. goals will be no trivial undertaking. It is also true that the multiplying smokestacks of India, the third-largest emitter, will continue to spew heat-trapping carbon at an unfettered pace — for now.

These caveats are overshadowed by the fact that the U.S.-China agreement has the impact of a defibrillator upon U.N.-sponsored international negotiations for a global climate treaty, which have been sputtering for years and were on the verge of flat-lining. The deal makes irrelevant the argument that the whole endeavor is pointless unless the world’s two biggest emitters — together responsible for about 40 percent of the carbon being pumped into the atmosphere — are willing to commit themselves.

That argument has also been used domestically by foes of President Obama’s science-based climate policy. But if you expected Tuesday’s earthshaking announcement to change the hyper-partisan U.S. debate, well, you don’t know much about today’s Republican Party.

Read more at WashingtonPost.com


Racing to the Top with China
By Michael Brune, Exec. Director, Sierra Club
November 12, 2014

What a difference a week makes. This morning we awoke to the news that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have negotiated a historic joint announcement on climate change and clean energy cooperation. Coming from the world's two largest economies and two biggest carbon emitters, the new targets set by President Obama and President Xi Jinping have put the international community on notice: It's time to put up or shut up.

Three major, overarching goals were announced: 

•     The U.S. will cut its net greenhouse gas emissions to between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

•     China will attempt to peak its CO2 emissions by 2030 (and possibly sooner).

•     Also by 2030, China will increase the share of non-fossil fuel energy it uses to around 20 percent.

China's pledge to cap its emissions is momentous -- and should compel India and other developing nations to set their own ambitious targets. But the game changer in this announcement -- and an under-reported one at that -- is China's goal of producing 20 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by the end of the next decade. To accomplish that, China will need to install 800 to 1,000 gigawatts of energy with zero emissions by 2030 -- an amount almost equal to current total U.S. electricity generating capacity.

Such rapid clean-energy growth will accelerate a positive feedback loop. As China drives toward its goal, clean energy prices will continue to drop. Solar and wind are cheaper than fossil fuels in many places already; as prices plummet even further, the transition from dirty fuels will pick up speed, helping China, the U.S., and other countries meet and exceed their climate targets and save money in the process.

Read more at the Sierra Club Newsletter

Adam Zyglis, The Buffalo News

Weak climate change deal with China is at least a start toward averting disaster
EDITORIAL - The Buffalo News
on November 15, 2014 - 12:01 AM

The United States and China struck what may be a significant agreement this week on reducing emissions that are heating the Earth to dangerous levels.

Or they may have painted a pretty face on what is an otherwise very ugly canvas, hoping no one will notice.

The truth is today uncertain, but this much is fact: The two adversaries, which together produce about 45 percent of the world’s emissions of greenhouse gases, made a start on what is undoubtedly the single biggest environmental challenge of the 21st century. In that, alone, this counts as a significant step.

That is true even if the agreement has more loopholes than all of Albany’s ethics laws put together. It’s true because it counts as a start and it should lead to more significant action down the road. It may lead to nothing, it is true, but without a start – and one that includes the two most conspicuous polluters – nothing is all that is guaranteed.

Read more at BuffaloNews.com

Press Conference: STRENGTHEN CUOMO'S DRAFT ENERGY PLAN

Tuesday, Feb. 25th at 9 a.m.

Outside of SUNY Buffalo, Center for Tomorrow, North Campus,

Flint & Service Center Roads, Amherst, NY

TELL CUOMO

New York Energy Plan Misses Mark on Climate Protection

On Tuesday, Feb. 25, NYS is hold hearings on the state’s draft Energy Plan starting at 10:00.  At 9:00, there will be a press conference sponsored by the Sierra Club Niagara Group, NYPIRG at Buffalo State, Western NY Drilling Defense, Food & Water Watch, and New Yorkers Against Fracking.  The plan is intended to be a guide for energy decisions in the state.  Unfortunately, it falls short, failing to adequately address the dangers of climate disruption fueled by the state’s reliance on outdated and dirty fossil fuels.

Lynda Schneekloth, Chair of the Sierra Club Niagara Group, issued the following statement:

Now more than ever we need Governor Cuomo to be a climate leader, but he missed a great opportunity with this plan. New York’s Energy Plan has the potential to be a road map for a stronger economy, cleaner air and a safer future, but we won’t get there with more of the same dirty fuels like coal, gas and nuclear. Doubling down on wind power in upstate and getting steel in the water off our shores will reduce our climate risk, clean up the air and lower energy costs for families and businesses.

Specifically, we believe the plan should be strengthened in the following ways:

·         Ramp up investments in clean, renewable wind power both in upstate and off our shores.

·         Strengthen and extend our renewable energy incentive program and energy efficiency goals for at least 10 years.

·         Retire the state’s aging and uneconomical fossil fuel and nuclear plants, move away from further investments in gas infrastructure and protect our families and water from fracking.

·         Mandate enforceable interim targets to get on track to meet the state’s goal of reducing carbon pollution 80% by 2050.

·         Develop plans for a “Just Transition” for workers and communities that will be impacted by coal plant closures that are not re-powered with methane, but  proceed directly to renewables to boost regional economies.   

~ ~ ~

To view a flier from New Yorkers Against Fracking, click here.

Local Keystone XL activists 'Draw the Line' on pipeline proposal

By Jennifer Lysiak, Lancaster Editor | News
Wednesday September 25, 2013

LANCASTER- To bring awareness to local communities and send a message to U.S. President Barrack Obama, more than 200 groups in 49 states rallied together last Saturday against the Keystone XL pipeline, the expansion of the Canadian tar sands, and other dirty energy projects that are worsening the climate crisis.

“The National Day of Action” called “Draw the Line” rallies were led by 350.org, a grass roots movement that is helping lead the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline, pushing for fossil fuel divestment, and organizing global power shift.

Right here in Lancaster, a handful of concerned citizens, part of the organization 350.org, held signs protesting and demanding that President Obama deny the permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

“ 350.org is a global organization dedicated to combating the climate crisis,” said Lancaster resident, Alison Schweichler, LCSW. “So, it takes different forms in different areas. One center issue we have been working on is the Keystone XL pipeline and the decision for this pipeline is in President Obama’s hands. They took the initiative to plan this day of action against the pipeline.”

The number 350 stands for the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. What many believe is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Activist Dave Kowalski explained back in pre-industrial times the level was 280 parts per million and today it is 400.

“So, it keeps climbing and it just hasn’t stopped, because more and more fossil fuels are burning around the world,” said Kowalski. “The scientist that choose 350, James Hansen, picked that number from looking back in time and determining that it was the safest upper level of carbon dioxide during which civilization has evolved. Anything above that number we need to worry about it and start cutting back on fossil fuels burning.”

Unless there is a decrease, the risk of reaching tipping points and irreversible impacts such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and major methane releases from increased permafrost melt could happen.

Schweichler commented they made not live where the pipeline is happening, but there are dangers it brings to other areas.

“It might not be in our backyard, but this pipeline would bring very dirty tar sands oil from Canada which contributes to global warming and harms people all around the world,” remarked Schweichler.

More than 1,500 people have been arrested to stop Keystone XL and on Feb. 17 more than 40,000 people went to Washington to express to the president that Keystone XL is not in the national interest. Credo Mobile, Other 98 and Rainforest Action Network have collected pledges from more than 75,000 people who are willing to risk arrest to stop the pipeline. A diverse coalition of environmentalists, inner-city residents living near refineries, and rural landowners have come together to oppose the pipeline’s southern leg in Texas as well.

In June, pipeline opponents were heartened by Obama’s Georgetown climate comments about Keystone XL when he stated he would oppose the pipeline if it would “significantly” increase greenhouse gas emission.

According to Schweichler, independent analysts, environmentalists, and the tar sands industry all agree that Keystone XL will increase emissions and is the lynch pin to the industry’s stated goal of increasing production from today’s 2 million barrels per day (bpd) to 6 bpd million by 2030.

Over the project’s 50-year timeline, Keystone XL would add between 935 million and 1.2 billion metric tons of carbon pollution to our atmosphere at a time when the World Bank and International Energy Administration are warning that some 66 percent of known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground if we are to have even a small chance at stopping the climate crisis.

“We want to hold Obama to his word that he cares about climate change and he is going to do something about it,” said Kowalski. “So, this is a test.”

Schweichler said while the proposed pipeline has brought everyone together, it connects all of them to a whole host of other issues, including saying no to dangerous, dirty fossil fuels and yes to renewable energy.

The day also focused on reminding the community about the risks of fracking, a natural gas drilling technique that goes miles underground to break up shale rock using water, sand, and toxic chemicals.

What Global Warming Looked Like Before SANDY

We dump billions of tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere each year. Excess carbon dioxide traps excess heat in the atmosphere. Excess heat causes heat waves, droughts, higher ocean temperatures, and sea-level rise and leads to extreme storms.

This year's extreme weather follows last year's. The twelve months from July 2011 to June 2012 were the hottest on record for the United States. Texas saw its hottest and driest summer on record in 2011 by a wide margin, and research published recently shows that carbon pollution dramatically increased the probability of such extreme heat and drought. The data are in. This is what global warming looked like before SANDY. 

And then came Superstorm SANDY in late October 2012 ...

ENERGY & CLIMATE News

 ENERGY

• Innovative program can create jobs and clean energy By Larry Beahan, Sierra Club Niagara Group

• Sen. Sanders, Environmental Groups Call to End Fossil Fuel Subsidies - Common Dreams

• Coal-fired power proposal attacked By David Robinson, The Buffalo News

• Support the EPA's proposal to limit industrial carbon pollution from power plants - Natural Resources Defense Council

• Where's the Jobs? - How this state’s electricity pricing system is hamstringing investment and renewables and stifling job growth - By David Bradley

• Community Power vs. the Kochs By Aaron Bartley, PUSH Buffalo

CLIMATE 

• Gauging Public Opinion on Climate Change Policy - NPR Talk of the Nation 

• Great Lakes Ice Cover Down 71% Since 1973 By Jeff Masters

HOMEOWNERS: Cut Electricity Bills and Pollution by Leasing Solar Panels

Solar panel leasing is new alternative to purchasing that has recently become available to homeowners in New York State. Leasing will make the transition to clean, renewable electricity possible and affordable for many more homeowners. 

Favorable incentives offered by the federal and state governments now make leasing a home solar-electric system possible.
 
With leasing, there are no up-front purchase costs and no additional charges for installation, maintenance and insurance.

Savings over previous electric bills are guaranteed. At the same time, the solar homeowner will lower their carbon footprint and help stabilize the climate. It's a win-win for people and the planet.

It's also a win for our local economy since solar system installation creates new, local jobs -- green jobs. 

To get a Free Quote to see if leasing solar panels will work for you, Click Here, and get $500.00 back if you lease.

Originally posted on 4/21/2012

CLIMATE IMPACTS DAY - 5/5/12 - Take Action

Environmental author and activist, Bill McKibben, along with his 350.org campaign, 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.

The time has come to begin in earnest to move away from from burning coal, gas and oil.

 Watch this video and 'Connect The Dots' 

TAKE ACTION locally on May 5, 2012 at 1:00pm outside the Coal-fired, Huntley Power Plant in Tonawanda.

For a detailed description of the event, click here. 

Clean Energy Tops List of Environmental 'Super Bills' for 2012

Green Super Bills Designed to Invigorate NY’s Solar Industry and Create Jobs, Close Hazardous Waste Loophole for Fracking, Cut Climate Pollution

Albany - Nine New York environmental groups today released their annual slate of “Super Bills” for 2012. Green priorities for the State Legislature include measures designed to bolster economic development while addressing New York’s highest profile environmental challenges, including expanding the use of solar energy, cutting the pollution that is changing our climate and protecting the state’s waters and communities from gas drilling by means of “fracking” by closing a loophole that exempts the oil and gas industry from responsibly treating drilling waste. The groups also announced this year’s Earth Day Lobby Day will be held on April 25.

“New York’s leaders tell us they support cleaner and more sustainable energy. And elected officials say they will act responsibly before opening the floodgates to fracking in the Marcellus Shale,” said Dave Gahl, Deputy Director, Environmental Advocates of New York. “We’re calling on the Legislature to pass the 2012 Super Bills and send a message—New York is open for business—clean, safe business that creates new jobs, holds industry accountable and benefits our communities with clean air and safe water.”

“Citizens Campaign for the Environment urges the Legislature and Governor Cuomo to stand up for clean air, clean water, job creation and a strong economy by enacting the 2012 Super Bills,” said Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director.

The 2012 Green Super Bills are:

Solar Industry Development & Jobs Act (A.9149 - Englebright) would create thousands of new solar jobs and jumpstart investment in New York’s growing solar energy industry by requiring state utilities and energy service companies to supply an increasing percentage of their electricity from solar, ultimately resulting in 5000 MW on the grid by 2026—enough to power more than 500,000 homes and reduce as much carbon pollution as taking nearly three million cars off the road.

Global Warming Pollution Cap (A.5346 - Sweeney / S.2742-B - Avella*) would require that climate-altering pollution from all sources is cut by 80 percent by the year 2050. These are the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say will help us avert the worst impacts of climate change. *These bills will be amended to match.

Hazardous Waste Loophole (A.7013 - Sweeney / S.4616 - Avella) would end special exemptions that allow the gas industry to circumvent requirements for hazardous waste disposal. This bill would update state law so that all waste resulting from gas drilling that meets the definition of hazardous waste be treated as such and subject to all regulations related to its generation, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal. Thanks to the leadership of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Robert Sweeney, the Assembly acted to close the loophole by passing this Super Bill on February 13 by wide margins.