PRESS RELEASE: October 2, 2009

Climate SOS, a coalition of scientists and activists who support science- and environmental justice-based climate legislation, today characterized the draft Senate bill, called the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” which was introduced on Wednesday by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) as an “irresponsible non-solution.”

They maintain that any bill that embraces cap and trade, offsets, outrageously inadequate emission reduction targets, and counter-solutions such as biomass burning, nuclear power and more coal fired power plants (under the guise of partial carbon capture technology that is as yet unavailable) will fail to meet its stated goal of forestalling catastrophic climate change.

Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Citizens Climate Lobby, Center for Biological Diversity and others have also rejected the Senate bill for its lack of grounding in science and its failure to consider global environmental justice concerns.

Maggie Zhou, a Climate SOS organizer, and project coordinator with the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, said “Cap and trade is the worst choice for pricing carbon. It is proven ineffective even in its best incarnations, is influence-prone, creates a huge, risky, game-able carbon market that is extremely complex, subject to manipulations, whose likely bubble-bust will overshadow the mortgage or the dot com bubble.  While cap and trade is the scheme of choice for polluters and Wall Street executives, a revenue-neutral carbon tax-and-dividend program would be much more straightforward, equitable, less prone to fraud and gaming, and would compensate people, not corporations, for the costs of pricing carbon.” She added “The US forced cap and trade into the Kyoto protocol, which we didn’t even ratify.  It’s time to correct that mistake, and lead the world in implementing a much more sensible system that could simplify global efforts on fighting climate change, that has a real chance of success.”

“It is no consolation that the Senate sets superficially more ambitious goals for emission reductions than the House,” said BiofuelWatch co-director and Climate SOS spokesperson Rachel Smolker. “While the House bill required landfill gas to be captured, the Senate bill allows those projects to be used as offsets to allow additional emissions from smokestacks.  This slight of hand allows politicians to claim ‘stronger targets’ when in fact it’s all number-smithing.  Dire predictions from climate scientists make it clear that even if all the offset provisions are stripped away, the stated targets in both the Senate and the House bills (which are at most a few percentage point cuts below 1990 emissions by 2020) are still pathetically trivial, unable to even approach a greenhouse gas stabilization at 450 parts-per-million (ppm), while it is becoming clear that the safe level is no more than 350 ppm, way below what’s already in the air today (387 ppm).  In introducing an ineffective legislation, the senators send a poor message to Copenhagen and condemn us to climate chaos.”

The Senate bill is modeled upon the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), passed by the House of Representatives late June. In the past month, members of climate SOS, lead by Duff Badgley, founder of One Earth Climate Action Group, met with senate staffers in North Dakota, Indiana, Ohio, and Arkansas in an effort to rally opposition to the false climate bill on environmental grounds.  “Voting against such a poor bill would in fact be the environmentally responsible choice”, said Badgley.  Last week, the coalition also joined forces with activists from Rising Tide North America and many climate justice groups in actions from east to west coast, exposing the polluter-protection nature of the “landmark climate legislation”. Their voices were heard inside and outside the police blockade of the UN climate summit in NYC, at the Danish environment minister’s lecture that urged US to pass this false climate bill, and outside offices of big corporate green groups such as NRDC, Environmental Defense, and Nature Conservancy.

Contacts:

-Rachel Smolker, PhD. Co-Director: Biofuel Watch biofuelwatch.org 802.482.2848(o), 802.735.7794(m), rsmolker@riseup.net,

-Maggie Zhou, PhD.  Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities securegreenfuture.org 781.316.8283 maggie@securegreenfuture.org

-Duff Badgley, Founder, One Earth Climate Action Group, 206.283.0621 duff@climatesos.org

Groups endorsing Climate SOS include the Energy Justice Network, Indigenous Environmental Network, Institute for Social Ecology, Massachusetts Powershift, Mobilization for Climate Justice network, Progressive Democrats of America, Rising Tide North America, Ruckus Society and many others. http://www.climatesos.org/about-us/members/

Climate SOS platform: http://www.climatesos.org/our-platform/platform/

Environmental activists, some dressed as “Trillionaires for Bad Math” today delivered a “climate bill” to Copenhagen, ahead of schedule. The mock “bill” was delivered at a 3 pm lecture at Columbia University’s School of International Public Affairs hosted by Danish Climate and Energy minister Connie Hedegaard. Hedegaard is the chairperson of the UN climate summit to be held in Copenhagen this December, where many hope that a strong global climate agreement will be signed.

Representatives of groups including Climate SOS and Rising Tide North America presented a 14-foot banner representing the climate bill currently being debated in the US Congress, which many consider essential for strong US participation in Copenhagen. The banner depicts a two trillion dollar note, representing the size of the new market in carbon dioxide emissions allowances that would be established by the Waxman-Markey climate bill that passed the House of Representatives in late June.

The centerpiece of the banner is an image of a bewildered Al Gore, who introduced the concept of tradable emissions allowances into the UN process in Kyoto in 1997. Hundreds of environmental groups are critical of the current US climate bill. Many view the bill’s cap and trade provisions as a dangerous false solution, that is inherently unstable and ultimately incapable of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Leading Trillionaire, Cap’n Trade, dressed in pirate regalia, told the assembled crowd, “‘Tis a bloody shame for the climate that Congress has chosen me to clean up this mess for ‘em. But I don’t mind a bit,” he continued, “’cause rising seas and booty and plunder are just my thing and soon the land, air and water will be all mine.”

The “trillionaires for bad math” argue that the House bill “just doesn’t add up”, pointing out that it falls far short of scientifically valid targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; removes the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act; and incorporates massive corporate giveaways into its cap-and-trade program. Corporations would be able to defer needed emissions reductions for decades under the bill’s offset provisions. International groups widely condemn the lack of US leadership on climate issues and demand that wealthy countries pay their share of the accumulated “climate debt.”

“If these lily-livered politicians aren’t ready to do something about the climate, those scurvy activists on the streets of Copenhagen are going to make ‘em walk the plank,” said Cap’n Trade. “We’re all going to end up in Davy Jones’ Locker.”

As the Climate SOS crosscountry tour culminates, activists from Climate SOS, Rising Tide, and other groups of environmental activists in New York launched a series of direct action interventions to signal the widespread opposition to the Waxman-Markey climate bill and its inadequate targets and use of dubious financial mechanisms for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

For press materials, photos and video: contact mutualaid@earthlink.net More info at: climatesos.org, risingtidenorthamerica.org

Contacts (Mobile phones): Rachel Smolker, Ph.D.802-482 2848, Brian Tokar, 802-595-9677

Press Release: September 7 2009

MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE TO DEFEAT “FALSE” CLIMATE BILL

·    Climate SOS Tours to “Kill The Bill” and push tougher laws

·    Nonviolent civil disobedience, office occupations, and protests on both coasts

·    “Worse Than Nothing is Not Good Enough”

(Sep8, 2009) Climate SOS, a grassroots network of environmentalists, scientists, and social justice activists, is launching a nationwide car-free tour to defeat the climate bill now being considered in the Senate—and to demand that any new legislation be grounded in science instead of politics. (more…)

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 (more…)