Monday, 22 Jan 2007
It's happening. The 20-year Washington logjam over global warming is starting to break -- which means that our Step It Up 2007 plans are suddenly more important than ever.
The last few days have seen all kinds of improbable things: a coalition of businesses starting to talk seriously about carbon caps (though tepid and small ones), reports that President Bush will give his first real lip service to global warming (followed, unfortunately, by reports to the contrary), and, maybe most importantly in the long run, the news that House Democrats plan to set up a special committee to consider climate change -- a not very subtle message that Michigan Rep. John Dingell (D) will not be allowed to forever block progress.
None of this would have been imaginable six months ago. And none of it means that there's going to be great progress -- only that there's an opening. Sometime, somehow, in the next couple of years, there's going to be a deal made. If there's a lot of public outcry, there's some chance that deal will actually sting the fossil-fuel industry and in the process do some serious good for the future of the climate.
Which is why, in our little world, the best news is that Step It Up 2007 is going through the roof. As of today, just two weeks after we launched our website, we've scheduled more than 250 rallies -- a number we thought, optimistically, we might hit in a month or two. It's very clear now that this is going to be by far the biggest demonstration against global warming the U.S. has ever seen, and perhaps the world as well. Rallies are being set up all over -- 45 states so far -- and some of them are incredibly creative. (Read the account on our blog of the climbers planning to hang a banner off the Shawangunk Cliffs in the Hudson River Valley.)
But the nicest part for me is watching so many parts of this movement come together under the same roof. Cal DeWitt, a true pioneer of the religious environmental movement, not only sent in a blog post last week, he sent out a letter to 60 evangelical colleges and universities asking that they join in. Meanwhile, MUSE, an organization of musicians hard at work on climate change, is pledging a new song every day on our website through April 14. And all this without any conventional press -- we're still a little under the radar, which is where we'd like to stay 'til Feb. 1 or so.
If all goes as planned, the April 14 rallies will hearten the politicians who want progress on climate, and send a little chill through those who are thinking of some tepid backroom compromise. We've got to help them understand just how important this moment is, and what a shame it would be to let it pass.
MTV-approved advice on reaching those who aren’t paying attention
Climate and dirty-energy groups were busy over summer vacation
Comments
View as Flat
poprocks Posted 5:10 am
09 Jan 2007
Permalink
Peggy Farabaugh Posted 11:59 am
09 Jan 2007
Thanks for all your wonderful work up at Middlebury! We'll check tomorrow at my sons school and see if we can get a group of students and parents together down here in Vernon Vermont to join you on April 14.
We appreciate all the good work you do. We also love and have worked with Jim Andrews at Middlebury to try and help save the reptiles and amphibians of Vermont.
Best of luck with the project,
Peggy Farabaugh
Vermont Woods Studios
Fine Furniture from Sustainable Sources
Permalink
Delay And Deny Posted 2:46 am
11 Jan 2007
I've started a movement to promote and enjoy climate change. Balmy weather, lower energy costs and more arable land being available are just some of the key advantages.
Land in Alberta: For years, the entrenched Liberals have bought up the warm coasts and jacked up prices to keep themselves rich. Now the huge central areas of North America will open up and make land cheaper and cheaper. Buying a house will no longer be something done in a life time, or even a decade, but in a single transaction ($20,000 for a 4 bedroom in Saskatchewan? Here you go, put it on my Visa!
Warm Weather: All the money I save in electricity will go to letting me drink more lattes and have more time off to enjoy the Internet as Me: The Time Man of the Year.
Paint It Black: I see the girls go by in their summer clothes. Yeah, and now it will be all year round! No more long months looking at big puffy winter suits...now micro-skirts will be de rigeur fasion. Hoo-rah!
Permalink
Billhook Posted 5:32 pm
08 Feb 2007
I'd make a few points that I hope may be helpful.
1st, many Americans don't seem to realize that they cannot commandeer developing nations' co-operation in the supremely urgent task of halting greenhouse gas emissions -
A global framework for the allocation of national emission-rights for this century is requisite to any serious change on the issue.
Without that framework, which must be equitable to be negotiable, and must be scientifically stringent to be effective, we will remain in the present "After you, Claude" catch-22, where no nation will risk its economy by making serious cuts in its emissions.
The title of that framework (which was first presented to the UN back in 1990) is Contraction & Convergence",
and, put succinctly it is about
Contraction - of global GHG emissions to respect Earth's capacity,
and
Convergence - of all nations' emissions-rights to global per capita parity.
This framework is open to negotiation as to the dates by which a given global cut is made and by which per capita parity is achieved.
Further information is at the website of Global Commons Institute - http://www.gci.org.uk
So I really hope that the masses of people you motivate to come out and demonstrate will do more than call just for the US gubmint to "do something useful".
Best of luck,
Billhook
Permalink
MikeF Posted 4:25 am
15 Feb 2007
Is this a step forward or too little too late?
Permalink