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

Naomi Klein, Author & Activist: Polluting Industries, Climate Disruption and Justice

Speech by Naomi Klein

delivered on the day of the historic announcement that New York City is divesting from fossil fuels and suing five oil majors who knowingly deepened the climate crisis.

For a very long time, our movements have been insisting that principles of justice need to be at the center of the response to the climate crisis – a crisis that plays out in the most perversely unjust ways right now.

Justice means that people who did the least to create this crisis but are bearing the heaviest risks and most toxic burdens need to be first to benefit from green economic development and job creation.

Justice also means that workers in polluting industries are not sacrificed or left behind. And justice means something else too, something most politicians are loath to talk about because the wealth and power of fossil fuel companies is so vast.

It means that the corporate interests that did the most to get us into this mess – with their pollution and with their campaigns of wilful misinformation – are going to have to pay their true share of the tremendous costs of climate disruption, and of delayed transition. Because right now we have it upside down and backwards.

As it stands, the costs of sea level rise and ferocious and unprecedented weather events are offloaded on to the public, with taxpayers stiffed with the ballooning bills. And as governments absorb these costs, there is less money for schools, for affordable transit and housing, for health care. And, in yet another bitter irony, this hurts the people who are already impacted by climate change the most.

This city saw all this in dramatic fashion during Sandy, when it was the people in public housing who were left for weeks in the cold and dark.

Meanwhile, the extravagant profits from destabilizing our planet’s life support system, earned from ignoring and suppressing the scientific consensus – well, those are systematically privatized.

Earlier this decade, ExxonMobil alone made $45 billion in profits in a single year– more than any company in history. Enough to pay Rex Tillerson, then its CEO $100,000 a day.

In short, the status quo means the poor are paying again and again for the polluters to get even richer. It’s a world upside down. But that starts to change today.

By suing these five oil majors who knowingly deepened the climate crisis, and simultaneously beginning the process of divesting $5-billion from fossil fuel companies, New York City is taking a game changing first step in turning the world right side up. And not to overstate the case, but I actually think this could change the world.

There have been lawsuits before that have tried to sue the fossil fuel giants for climate damages. The tiny Arctic community of Kivalina, population 383, which attempted to recover the costs of having to relocate. Some citizens of the low-lying Pacific Island of Vanuatu– population 300,000 – that began a similar suit. A lone Peruvian farmer, suing a German coal giant for the risks to his home. A small group of Gulf Coast Mississippi homeowners, with the help of a scrappy lawyer, who tried to sue the fossil fuel companies after Hurricane Katrina.

These have been valiant attempts, but in every case, the industry has relied on the relative weakness and poverty of its accusers, sometime managing to quash suits before they were filed.

And that is why today’s news is so historic. Because bullying isn’t going to work here the way it has in the past. This lawsuit is coming from the largest city in the most powerful country on the planet, a city which also happens to be the financial capital of world.

And now that New York City has thrown down in such a big way – on divestment, on polluter pays — it’s going to embolden all kinds of other actors to step up as well. Other cities around the world. Universities. Foundations. Other states. Even entire nation states.

As of today, everyone needs to up their ambition. Be bolder. Move faster. It’s what our planet requires. And it’s what justice demands. No politician on the planet is doing enough. But there can be no doubt that the bar for what it takes to call yourself a climate leader has just been dramatically raised.

The full text is at GoFossilFree.org

Inspired by NY City's Lawsuit against Fossil Fuel Companies over Climate Change, USA's 2nd Biggest City Considers Similar Move

Los Angeles could become the next city to sue fossil fuel companies over climate change

Natasha Geiling - Jan 17, 2018 - ThinkProgress

When New York City announced last week that it would be suing five of the world’s most powerful fossil fuel companies for their role in creating — and perpetuating — global warming, environmental activist Bill McKibben lauded the move as “a major tipping point” in the movement to companies accountable for climate change.

Now, the second largest city in the United States appears to be following New York’s lead, exploring the potential for filing a similar lawsuit against fossil fuel companies. On January 13 — just three days after New York publicly announced its lawsuit — two Los Angeles city councilmembers introduced a motion asking the City Attorney to look into legal options against fossil fuel companies, as well as prepare an official legal statement in support of New York City’s case.

Councilmember Mike Bonin (D), who introduced the motion along with Councilmember Paul Koretz (D), told ThinkProgress that the inspiration for the motion came directly from the example set by New York.

“When I saw the news about what de Blasio was doing, it made me say, ‘Why the hell aren’t we doing this here?’” Bonin said. “We like to think that the winds blow from the West to the East, but occasionally, the winds come back.”

Bonin, who represents the western part of Los Angeles, including many of the city’s coastal neighborhoods, called the potential lawsuit part of a “multi-pronged” approach to tackling the issue of climate change through city government. In 2016, the city council unanimously supported a motion to transition to 100 percent renewable energy, and that the local transportation agency has taken steps to transition its municipal fleet of buses from diesel engines to electric. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) has pledged to push forward with local climate action in the face of the Trump administration’s federal agenda, which has prioritized fossil fuel extraction over renewable energy.

"We are facing a federal government that is engaged in — if I was going to be charitable, a dereliction of duty, but I think it’s actually a deliberate sabotage our our planet," Bonin said. “It’s incumbent upon the cities to lead.”

If Los Angeles does decide to file a lawsuit against fossil fuel companies, it would join a group of seven other cities and counties — which, save for New York, are all located in California — seeking to hold companies similarly accountable. Six of those cases claim damages associated with climate-fueled sea level rise, and ask that fossil fuel companies pay into a fund to help offset the cost of updating infrastructure to withstand rising waters. Only Santa Cruz — which filed its lawsuit in late December — is attempting to tie the action of fossil fuel companies to not just sea level rise, but changes in the hydrologic cycle resulting from an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases — things like drought and wildfire. While it’s unclear what route Los Angeles would take if it chooses to pursue a lawsuit, Southern California recently witnessed the largest wildfire in modern recorded history this December, fueled by a combination of above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation that scientists say is consistent with climate change. To make matters worse, in the wake of December’s Thomas Fire, parts of Southern California experienced heavy rain that caused the scorched soil to turn into devastating mudslides, killing 20 people.

“It’s personal for me,” Bonin said about climate change. “We’ve been living through a couple months of real hell with wildfires and mudslides, and it really underscores the importance of not just getting off of fossil fuels but taking whatever steps we can to get there.”

New York must Lead the Fight against Climate Change - Take Action!

Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he plans to appoint Scott Pruitt as Administrator for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In response, NY Renews, a statewide coalition of 100 environmental, community, and labor groups, released the following statement: 

“The nomination of Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator is an unmitigated disaster, yet more proof that the Trump administration intends to willfully ignore science and push our planet toward the brink of catastrophe, all at the bidding of the sole constituency they truly represent: the corporate elite.

As a former fossil fuel industry lobbyist, Scott Pruitt’s only expertise lies in lining the pockets of his friends in Big Oil, at the expense of the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, especially poor people and people of color already feeling the impacts of climate change.

In the face of the Trump administration’s rapacious greed, New York must lead the country in the fight against climate change. NY Renews is calling on Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to reject this nominee, and for Governor Cuomo to lead boldly in this moment of crisis. The Governor can stand up to Trump by proposing the nation’s most ambitious climate policy—the Climate and Community Protection Act—as a key component of his budget.

By mandating that New York de-carbonize its economy (the world’s 12th largest) by 2050, while protecting disadvantaged communities on the front lines and creating thousands of good green jobs, New York can break through the Trump administration’s corrupt lies and send a signal to the rest of the world: that we are strong, united, and more determined than ever to rise to the challenge of climate change.

Let Trump and his cronies shirk the responsibilities of history. New York needs to lead the way, now more than ever.”

TAKE ACTION: Tell Gov. Cuomo to be a Climate Leader! 
Join our fight by signing our petition - Click here
Local members of NY Renews include the Climate Justice Coalition of WNY, Interfaith Climate Justice Community, Open Buffalo, Partnership for the Public Good, PUSH Buffalo, Sierra Club, WNYCOSH, Massachusetts Avenue Project and Grassroots Gardens WNY.

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EPA chief Scott Pruitt. Adam Zyglis / The Buffalo News

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.

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