Suggested Actions

• First of all, here is a very fast and simple one. Go to this link about why subsidizing agrofuels is insane, read the letter and send it to President Obama. It is a great letter. [5/1/09: Sorry, that link has now expired, but signing up for action alerts from Climate Ark will ensure you get to see all the upcoming opportunities to voice your opinion.]


• At Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE), they have just gotten a network of Outreach Volunteers up and running. You can go to their website and sign up (the webpage includes a list of tools to help volunteers).

The basic idea for an Outreach Volunteer is to help CASSE spread the word about uneconomic growth and the steady state economy. The easiest way to do this is to collect signatures on their position on economic growth, which can be signed online here:
http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEPositionOnEG.html

CASSE will be having a conference call on May 6th at noon Eastern, 9 AM Pacific. If you sign up as a volunteer, you'll get more information about that as the date approaches.


• GlobalWarmingSolution.org is the only group I’ve found with a comprehensive, detailed action plan that could work here in the USA and be a model for other countries as well. The plan, wisely named Rosie Revisited, is not as radical as my list of solutions, but is still something I endorse because it is smart and will get the job done. They have a DVD about Rosie Revisited, which is to be released nationally very soon. Once I have seen the video, if I feel it is worthy of spreading around (and I suspect I will), I intend to organize as many showings of it as I can, making each one a fundraiser for GlobalWarmingSolution.org. If you’d like to read Rosie Revisited, it is available in PDF from their website. It is about 50 pages in length.


• With the recent EPA ruling that greenhouse gas emissions are a health threat (finally!), it seems that the Climate Law Institute of the Center for Biological Diversity is well-positioned to make some real strides in using existing laws to curb emissions, They’ve already been successful in forcing ships to comply to emissions rules. The Center for Biological Diversity is one of my favorite groups, as they have a good track record of protecting threatened animals and natural communities, and their alerts make regular letter-writing actions easy.


• Aside from the four mentioned above, I’ve chosen a few other organizations with which to collaborate. I’ve asked to be a local contact for Rising Tide North America (and will talk to the nearest contact soon), which has a link on their page that makes it easy to sign on to the Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading, which is another easy action to take. I have recently learned of Carbon Fees.org, whose site makes it easy to send a letter to your representative encouraging a carbon fee instead of cap and trade.

And I have only heard back from one of the forest protection groups I’ve contacted (FERN), so I will share that and the other forest info (when I get it) in another post.


Any of the actions I’ve mentioned above that I have done or plan to do can be done by anyone, so don’t hesitate, jump on board and help out. And please share what you’ve done if you are inclined. Thanks!

Better Educated, Revisions Underway

Now that I'm refocusing on this blog and other global warming work, I can report on some of my recent findings. If you've been a loyal reader and read the post about my proposed solutions and their accompanying individual posts, you may want to re-read some of those if this quick summary isn't clear. I am no longer endorsing the REDD program as it is currently used, but could if it were changed to ensure the decisions are made by the forest inhabitants. Here is another, more brief, article explaining some dangers of REDD.

As for biochar, the same caution applies. Done correctly, using only waste products from the local region, it has potential to play a small role. So we ought to employ it. Every little bit helps. But the big boys want to grow mega-plantations of fast-growing, maybe even genetically modified, trees. We need more trees, yes, but we need diverse forests that reach maturity, not ones intended to be clear-cut.

And when it comes to 4th generation nuclear, ugh. If people aren't willing to change, or rather, if there never is enough daring leadership to encourage them to change, so that the only choice is between wind turbines off every coast and along all windy ridges with road access or an occasional 4th gen nuke plant (like five in the whole country), well, I'd have to further educate myself, but for now I think the risk of a few nuke plants (again, ONLY if they were 4th gen) would get my vote. "Even in you own backyard?" I can hear you (and my own mind) asking. What horrible choices! That is why I'm for conservation and low-tech and shrinking economy and negative population growth first.

Which brings up a point. All this research and thinking has made it very clear to me what I believe we ought to be asking for. And just the other day, Dr. Glen Barry, of the Ecological Internet summed it up very well when responding to the announcement that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ruling that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases "may endanger public health or welfare," a finding that opens the door to future regulation of such emissions under the Clean Air Act:

"We are thrilled to see President Obama dismiss President Bush's years of criminal climate science obstruction, and to rejoin the world of civilized nations making public policy based upon ecological science, and needs of Earth and her humanity. We encourage the President to follow through with rigorous efforts to immediately begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including phasing out the use of coal and tar sands, ending old forest logging, committing further to energy efficiency and renewables, and resisting the siren song of industrial agrofuels."

I'm convinced that we need daily large numbers of people telling their elected officials that unless they endorse the rapid phasing-out of coal mining and tar sand extraction and logging of mature forests, we will work very hard to organize for a candidate who will.

I highly recommend reading "Hoodwinked in the Hothouse," PDF here, which summarizes many of the false "solutions" and why they are so dangerous. We must tell Obama over and over and over that cap and trade is unacceptable, that we'd rather reduce per captia consumption to European levels (about 50% of ours), that subsidizing agrofuels is a horrible use of taxpayer money, and that we want a return to vibrant local economies.

I have contacted 7 or 8 of my top groups and asked about volunteer opportunities. When I have responses, I will post them.

I am also working on drafts of a couple different letters, which I will also share when I have them complete.

So I hope to be posting again in a week or less.

Another example of changes happening MUCH faster than predicted

I found this on Climate Ark tonight.

More depressing news, I know. But on the upside, the EPA says it has the power to stop mountain-top removal coal mining! Now let's see if they really do. A letter to their head encouraging such action isn't a bad idea. If I find one, or get one together soon, I'll share it.

I haven't posted anything yet about my actions/my work on climate change. I have to admit I have been swallowed up by a paid job and by the beauty of Spring and all the gardening it beckons. Most of my climate change time of late has been just reading to stay somewhat up to date with events. And I'm still researching groups, but barely squeezing in time for reading up on them. I do intend to make this a priority after April 20, so expect to see a post about volunteer possibilities near the end of the month.

Thanks for checking in...

Greenpeace on board with ending deforestation

The title says it all. See the last paragraph of this article.

If Greenpeace is publicly pushing for a ban on chopping down mature forests, I'm publicly on board with supporting Greenpeace.