After Downing St: Climate SOS Sets Out to Defeat U.S. “False” Climate Bill, Claiming “Worse Than Nothing Is Not Good Enough”

Sep 4th, 2009 in In the News, Press Releases

Press Release

posted on AfterDowningStreet.org –  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/45728

A grassroots network of environmentalists, scientists, human rights and social justice activists and faith-based organizations concerned about climate change launched a nationwide campaign today to either dramatically improve or defeat climate change legislation being considered in Congress. They say that the Senate bill, expected in September, will very likely take its cue from the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA) passed by the House in June, and be even further watered down. While others are calling for passage of the bill, saying it will be “the best we can get under the political climate”, the network, calling themselves Climate SOS, states that, like Dr. James Hansen, they believe such a bill will be “worse for the environment than doing nothing”. They want lawmakers to start over and get serious about crafting a real and effective climate bill based on the mandates of science, not special interests.

“ACESA was designed to enrich Wall Street, the fossil fuel, utilities and big agribusiness industries at the expense of the climate and our collective peace and survival”, said the network’s spokesperson Dr. Rachel Smolker, Co-director of BioFuel Watch. “The bill’s cap-and-trade mechanism for regulating emissions has been repeatedly proven ineffective, risky and prone to speculation and manipulations, and will lock us into a framework that prevents any effective climate legislation from being adopted. This is one of many provisions in ACESA that make it worse than nothing. It’s virtually impossible the Senate will be able to improve on ACESA enough to get us where we must go in order to avoid catastrophic warming.”

“ACESA does not even aim to provide a 50/50 chance of averting the worst of climate catastrophe, based on the figures of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”, said Dr. Maggie Zhou of Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities. “Politicians either do not understand or are not telling the American people about the true magnitude of climate change consequences. The costs of insufficient action will be so much greater than the costs of taking bold action now, and will include lost lives, extinctions and the threatened survival of civilization itself. If politicians and their constituents understood this, there would be far less compromising on the basis of ‘political and economic feasibility’.”

“The American people are being scammed,” added Robert Jereski, co-founder of New York Climate Action Group. “This bill was crafted by a team that included Shell, Duke Energy, BP, DuPont and other major polluters/climate offenders of the so-called US Climate Action Partnership, that stand to profit greatly from a self-dealing, self-serving bill.”

“It is time that people who care about the environment, social justice and national/global security come together and take a stand.” Smolker said. “We are fast losing polar ice cover, while methane is spewing out. If we miss the short window when we can still avert the worst, we are condemning our children to a very dicey future indeed. The bill must be very dramatically improved or it should be filibustered before it gets to a floor vote.”

Climate SOS is launching a national tour during September, seeking to empower people to meet with their representatives, take action, and demand real climate legislation. “Senators need to know that they have our support in opposing this bill in the likely event that it fails to take adequate measures to protect the climate”. The tour will target states where US Senators are “on the fence,” such as North Dakota, Indiana, Arizona, Louisiana, Nevada, Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The Climate SOS tour will also touch down in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, California, Oregon, and Washington.

Current Network Members:

Beehive Design Collective
Biofuelwatch
Carbon Tax Center
Climate Crisis Coalition
Coalition For A Safe Environment
Eco-Justice Collaborative
Ecolaw Massachusetts
Energy Justice Network
Green Delaware
Global Justice Ecology Project
Indigenous Environmental Network
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Institute for Social Ecology
Jamaica Plain Green House
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization
Massachussetts Coalition for Healthy Communities/SecureGreenFuture
Massachusetts Forest Watch
New York Climate Action Group
One Earth Climate Action Group
Progressive Democrats of America
Rising Tide North America
Ruckus Society
UIC Ecocampus

Contacts:

• Rachel Smolker, Co-Director: Biofuel Watch biofuelwatch.org 802.482.2848(o), 802.735.7794(m), rsmolker@riseup.net,
• Maggie Zhou, Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities securegreenfuture.org 781.316.8283 maggie@securegreenfuture.org
• Robert Jereski, Co-founder, New York Climate Action Group nycag.org 212.973.1782 mutualaid@earthlink.net

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