STATE CAPITOL RALLY: Stand Together for Climate, Jobs, and Justice

Join us to Rally for 
100% Clean Renewable Energy in NY State!

The Climate Justice Coalition of WNY and the Sierra Club Niagara Group need YOU in Albany to tell our lawmakers that we demand a Clean Energy Economy with Good Jobs, Healthy Communities, a Livable Climate and Justice for ALL!

The shift to renewable energy will cut global warming pollution, create new jobs and must include policies that ensure equity and justice for our communities and workers.

Fortunately, the NYS Assembly recently introduced a new bill, The Climate and Community Protection Act (A10342), that addresses all of the above concerns. But the bill will not become law without Strong Public Support. That's why we need YOU at the State Capitol!

Rally with us on June 1st to make your voice heard and let New York State legislators know that We Stand United for a clean energy economy and renewable energy future for all!

Get your BUS Tickets here: Buffalo Bus To Albany

Renewables Are Doable!

For more information visit New Yorkers for Clean Power

VIDEO & SLIDESHOW: Albany Rally to Break Free from Fossil Fuels

By David Kowalski

Members of the Climate Justice Coalition of WNY, the Sierra Club Niagara Group as well as concerned citizens rode a bus from Buffalo to a Rally in Albany on May 14, 2016 calling on NY State to end our dependence on polluting fossil fuels and shift to clean, renewable energy.

This rally was part of Global Actions held on six continents and in several U.S. cities during that week. People around the world stood up to say to say Break Free from Fossil Fuel and Keep It in the GROUND!

We joined over 1000 concerned citizens in Albany to say NO to new fracked gas & oil pipelines and NO to explosive oil trains ('bomb trains'), whose risk of derailment is threatening the safety of our communities in Buffalo, Albany and elsewhere in the state.

We said YES to Clean, Renewable Energy necessary to end global warming pollution, curb climate change, create new jobs and ensure justice for communities at risk.

Here is a 1 minute MUSIC VIDEO made from photos that I shot at the rally:

 Music credit: "Who's Gonna Stand Up?" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse band

Below is a link to a SLIDESHOW that contains photos and a few video clips of the rally and the march to the railroad tracks at the Port of Albany.

To access the SLIDESHOW, Click Here

HINTS for navigating the SLIDESHOW after you open it:

- Hover the mouse pointer over a photo to see the Caption.

- Click on a photo to view it, and Click again to Enlarge it to full size.

Environmental activists from around the region march down Pearl Street to the Port of Albany on Saturday, May 14, 2016, in Albany, N.Y. The demonstration delayed oil train traffic at the Port of Albany to raise awareness for the region's opposition to all fossil fuels. The event was part of a weeklong global effort called Break Free From Fossil Fuels. (Photo: Cindy Schultz / Times Union) 

Press coverage: Albany protest: 5 arrested after oil train delayed
ALBANY — A daylong effort to block crude oil trains brought hundreds of people near the Port of Albany, where they sat on train tracks and listened to speeches, sang and discussed nationwide and local environmental issues.
The Albany event on Saturday, organized by the coalition Break Free From Fossil Fuels, was one of several around the country and world this month.

Read more in the online report at the Albany Times Union: Click Here

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For a livable climate and a just transition to renewable energy, 

 fossil fuels must be kept in the ground!

State of the Climate Rally at Cuomo's State of the State Address

A State of the Climate Rally and March will be held in Albany on January 13th preceding Governor Cuomo's State of the State address. 

Climate activists will rally and march at the State Capitol to Demand Action: Support 100% Renewable Energy, Climate Justice, Energy Democracy, and a Just Transition from dirty Fossil Fuels to Clean Energy. Stop Gas Infrastructure.

The rally will start at 10:30AM. At 11:20AM we'll march to the state concourse for the Governor’s State of the State Address and budget release.

All the state’s elected officials will have to pass us in state concourse on their way into the address, which starts at 12:30PM. We will carry signs, props and leaflets.

CONTACT: Sue Hughes Smith, Rochester People's Climate Coalition, suehughessmith@gmail.com

Speaker Themes: Say No! to Fossil Fuels, Pipelines; Stop Oil Bomb Trains; No to Coal and Nukes; Divest from Fossil Fuels.  Say Yes! to Wind, Solar, Geothermal; Conservation and Efficiency; Energy Democracy; A Green New Deal; A carbon Tax.

Sponsors: 100% Renewables Now NY, 350NYC, The Solutions Project, Peoples Climate Movement NY, PAUSE, Sane Energy Project, Bronx Climate Justice North, Green Education and Legal Fund, NYS Sustainable Business Council, Green Party, Rochester People’s Climate Coalition, Grassroots Environmental Education, Stop the NY Gas Fracked Pipeline, Food and Water Watch, United for Action, NYC Friends of Clearwater, Citizen Action of NY, Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition, WESPAC, We Are Seneca Lake, Fossil Free Tompkins (list in formation). Sponsors endorse the themes, not the position of the individual speakers.

Buffalo Rally for Climate Justice -- Photos and Videos

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, Future Generations and our Environment demands that we act in earnest NOW.

WE RALLIED for Climate Justice at Niagara Square in Buffalo on Sept. 24, 2015 in solidarity with Pope Francis, a champion for the environment and social justice, who addressed the U.S. Congress on that same day.


Some highlights of the Rally shown in a 1 minute Video Slide Show with music:

Photos & Video: D.Kowalski   

Photo Album of the Rally with video clips:

To open the Photo Album, Click on the image below:

Photos: D.Kowalski, Nate Schneekloth; others cited

HINTS for navigating the Photo Album after you open it:
- Hover the mouse pointer over a photo to see the Caption.
- Click on a photo to Enlarge it to full size.



List of Moderators, Speakers and Performers (Click image to enlarge):
- Speakers included Faith leaders, environmentalists, students, teachers, indigenous people, performers, union leaders and local politicians.

Moderators included Lynda Schneekloth, Sierra Club Niagara Group; Advocacy Chair, WNY Environmental Alliance; and,
Roger Cook, Convener, WNY Interfaith Climate Justice Community

Opening Remarks by Lynda Schneekloth, Click Here

Closing Remarks by Lynda Schneekloth are shown below (Click image to enlarge):

CLIMATE ACTION: A 'Hail Mary Pass' to Protect People and the Planet

'Rise Up for Climate Justice' Rally in Niagara Square
Rally will follow the Pope’s speech to Congress Thursday, September 24 on the road to the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Paris, December 2015

by Larry Beahan

A hundred and fifty nations are meeting at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015. Let us pray that they will come to a workable and binding agreement that will put us on a path to zero greenhouse gasses before New York and New Orleans are totally inundated and California is scorched beyond habitability.

Agreed, church and state should be well insulated from one another, usually.  But with our planet on a deadly track for carbon-fueled climate disaster and with our politicians fumbling the ball, a prayer or two, maybe even a Hail Mary Pass is in order.

On TV the other night eleven presidential candidates vied for that quarterback-slot.  These eleven apostles of doom, one after another, washed their hands of the climate warming crisis. Meanwhile the religious leaders of the world have all dropped their prayer books and demanded that we quit strangling this God-given planet with fossil fuel fumes.

In August, Muslim leaders from twenty countries called on the 1.6 billion Muslims to phase out greenhouse gas by midcentury.

But Florida Senator Marco Rubio says, “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it.” His teammate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said “We shouldn’t be destroying our economy in order to chase some wild, left-wing idea that somehow, us, by ourselves, are going to fix the climate.”

Yet the leaders of the Anglican and Eastern Orthodox churches urge in a letter to the NY Times, that the nations of the world craft a clear and convincing course of decarbonization at the Paris Conference.

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency issued its CO2-reducing Clean Power Plan that delivers the death blow to coal as a source of electric power, yet the President has authorized drilling for oil near the dwindling Arctic ice cap.

In May, three hundred and forty Jewish rabbis released a Rabbinic letter on Climate Crisis calling for, “spiritual leadership of the Jewish people in this deep crisis in the history of the human species.”

And Donald Trump says, “I consider climate change to be not one of our big problems. I consider it to be not a big problem at all. I think it’s weather.”
The Dalai Lama disagrees. He calls on governments around the world to stop deforestation and stop burning fossil fuels. He says, “It is not sufficient to just express views, we must set a timetable for change in the next two to four years.”

Jeb Bush brushes off climate change, “I don’t think it’s the highest priority. I don’t think we should ignore it, either.

Good Pope Francis is coming to the US on September 24^th to deliver what is expected to be a “Dutch Uncle” lecture to the US Congress. He will likely remind us that the United States has pumped carbon into the skies for generations, to profit this country but at great cost to poorer nations.  He needs to say that if climate change is to be curbed the United States will have to lead with a war-time, Manhattan Project-style total mobilization away from coal and gas and on to solar, wind and geothermal energy.

So here goes a Hail Mary that Pope Francis will succeed in persuading our politicians to go to the Paris UN Climate Change Conference in December and come away with binding agreements to cut greenhouse gasses by at least 40% in 2025 and 85% in 2050.

The environmental, social justice and religious communities of Western NY are united in the “Rise up for Climate Justice” campaign.  Join them at 5pm in Niagara Square on September 24 to demonstrate Buffalo’s support of Pope Francis on his Hail Mary mission to Washington.

This article was originally published in The Public. 

For more information on the Rise Up for Climate Justice Rally, click here.

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
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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
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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.

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