Last week, Vice President Al Gore presented the American people with a challenge: meet 100% of our electricity needs through renewable energy within 10 years. Al would be the first to acknowledge this is not a minor task. And yet it is an urgent one, a challenge that will require a transformation in how we invest our time and money, and how we view ourselves.
I wanted to respond to Al Gore’s call by asking two things of each of you:
1. Include your voice with the millions of others expressing support for this mission
2. Be part of collective solutions to make it a reality
Follow me below the fold to learn how.
Fully renewing our electricity production will not only be a major step towards addressing climate change, it is critical for an equally urgent crisis, though less understood: peak oil.
What is peak oil? Think of it as the ying to climate change’s yang. If the climate crisis calls on us to renounce fossil fuels for the sake of future generations, energy depletion means that we must do so for our short-term economic survival. We will use fewer fossil fuels one way or another; but if we fail to adapt intelligently to the post-carbon era, the next few decades will see ever higher energy costs and continued high carbon emissions–leaving us with a ruined environment and a shattered economy, unable to face a future without fossil fuels.
The solution to both climate change and fossil fuel depletion is to develop renewable sources of energy, use less energy, use energy differently–and to make this transition as rapidly as possible. And so the goal to “Repower America” must be front and center in our thoughts and actions.
The real question now is “how?”
The first step is to join the caucus of those who are supporting Gore’s call. You can do so by visiting wecansolveit.org.
The second is to get involved in collective solutions to make this vision a reality. Post Carbon Institute (for which I serve on the Board of Directors) has published a 10-point framework for achieving the goal of 100% renewable energy by 2018–one that recognizes the complex issues of energy depletion, the vulnerability of the supply chain and the limits of technology.
The ten points can be summarized by the following words:
1. Reduce
2. Share
3. Diversify
4. Distribute
5. Store
6. Reinvest
7. Relocalize
8. Reengineer
9. Reskill
10. Remobilize
I’ve been impressed by the passion, dedication, and ingenuity I’ve seen in those I’ve met at Netroots Nation and throughout the progressive blogosphere.
Just look at Energize America, drafted by members of the DailyKos community! And so I encourage you to check out the plan, share your thoughts, and get involved.
Debbie Cook
Board member, Post Carbon Institute
Board member, Association for the Study of Peak Oil
(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)
Weintraub thinks it is a dumb idea. And we know how Caliticians think about it.
So, Courage was up late last night putting together a petition to Arnold, calling on him to drop this unconscionable plan and to get back to work on the budget. We grabbed from the comments and blog posts here and used it for an email that went out to our full membership earlier today.
True Majority liked it so much that they sent it out to their members in California. Now, thousands of Californians have signed their name on the petition to Arnold. It truly has been an overwhelming response and growing by the second. If you haven’t already, please go sign. I personally will be delivering them to the governor’s office on Monday.
Our email is on the flip.
This is devastating.
Last night, news broke that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign an Executive Order on Monday slashing the wages of over 200,000 state employees to the bare minimum.
Not California’s minimum wage of $8 per hour. The federal minimum wage of $6.55. Six dollars and fifty-five cents an hour.
Imagine trying to pay your bills on $6.55 an hour. Now imagine what will happen to thousands of vital service workers forced to live on poverty-level wages. A nauseating irony: many state employees may need to seek aid from the very state services that employ them.
As Karyn, a state employee, said in the comments to the Sacramento Bee story that broke the story statewide last night:
“$6.55 an hour only amounts to $1,048 per month. After my rent, that would leave only $218 left. How many of you can live on that? Hardly, am I a rich state employee. As a clerical, I am usually broke by the 10th of the month, and the other 3 weeks of the month I am barely getting by.”
The Governor’s plan, rather than fixing California’s massive $15 billion budget deficit, will instead make our budget crisis worse while delivering a serious blow to our struggling economy. As the recession deepens, gas prices skyrocket, stores close, and home foreclosures surge, the governor’s wage cuts will force many working families over the financial edge.
To add insult to injury, the Governor is slashing workers’ wages instead of taking leadership to close the “Yacht Tax” loophole that Arianna Huffington and the Courage Campaign told you about a few months ago.
That’s right. While his rich friends get off tax-free on yacht and private jet purchases, Arnold is making devastating cuts that endanger the livelihoods of state workers and all of us who depend on them.
The Governor is claiming that he will pay state workers retroactively for wages lost during this budget crisis. But that won’t pay their rent or prevent their home from being foreclosed upon before a state budget is eventually passed.
Instead of closing the yacht tax and so many other loopholes that favor the rich, Arnold is borrowing on the backs of state workers. He is claiming there is not enough cash in the state coffers to pay them, an assertion strongly refuted by Controller John Chiang.
If you think these wage cuts are unconscionable, please forward this message to your friends in California. The more signatures we collect before Tuesday, the more pressure we can put on Arnold.
Thank you for stepping up to stop Arnold and the California Republican Yacht Party from sinking our state.
Rick Jacobs
Chair
P.S. Believe it or not, John McCain is charging $100,000 per person to enjoy a lavish dinner with his Yacht Party cronies in San Francisco on Monday. Meanwhile, Governor Schwarzenegger — who endorsed McCain and his regressive economic policies — is preparing to push thousands of state employees to the brink of financial disaster.
(Cross posted from Daily Kos and various other places. This diary talks about issues important to all, including Californians. If you want to protect the coast from off-shore drilling, the change in Teamster policy is a good thing. As the Blue/Green coalition grows, it’s good for all of us, no matter where we live. It’s the future. I also included the updates from Daily Kos in this diary)
This is big.
Great news for all of us who seek a Blue/Green Alliance! The Teamsters today left the ANWR coalition, a group in favor of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Jim Hoffa has just announced that the Teamsters are pulling out of the coalition supporting drilling in ANWR and are shifting their support to efforts to build coalitions with green groups to create a sustainable energy economy around sources like solar, wind and geothermal.
“We are not going to drill our way out of the energy problems we are facing-not here and not in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” Hoffa told labor and environmental activists at an Oakland, Calif., summit on good jobs and clean air. “We must find a long-term approach that breaks our dependence on foreign oil by investing in the development of alternate energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power.”
Jim Hoffa announced the union’s withdrawal from the ANWR coalition, citing the need to build a green economy that fosters the development of alternative energy sources and creates good union jobs-instead of lining the pockets of big oil tycoons.
“Our economy is in shambles. Gas is climbing to $5 a gallon. The dollar has collapsed. Inflation is on the rise. Americans are seeing their paychecks shrink. Their family health care is being slashed,” Hoffa said. “Finding a long-term solution has a tremendous upside. It will be environmentally friendly and will serve as a much-needed boost to our sagging economy.”
Hoffa also thanked labor’s partners in the environmental movement, who are currently working to reduce emissions from port trucks. He urged the strengthening of the alliance, known as the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports, to achieve a common goal: Good jobs and clean air.
“If we are to prosper as a nation, our future lies in a green economy,” he said. “But it’s up to us to help define the rules of that new green economy. A green economy means we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And it means creating good union jobs in America’s growing industries.”
This is the core of the Blue/Greeen alliance that will rebuild and remake a just America:
“A green economy means we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And it means creating good union jobs in America’s growing industries.”
Both.
The Sierra Club praised the Teamsters for this move.
“The Sierra Club and the environmental movement applaud your announcement and look forward to building a powerful movement together-a movement that helps workers, protects the environment, prevents global warming and rebuilds our economy with good, green jobs,” said Greg Haegele, The Sierra Club’s Director of Conservation. “We are proud to stand here today, as allies and friends of the Teamsters.”
Hoffa and the Teamsters are joining with Al Gore and Barack Obama in working to build a Green economy and all realize that we cannot drill our way out of this mess. We need alternative energy.
Barack Obama last week:
“For decades, Al Gore has challenged the skeptics in Washington on climate change and awakened the conscience of a nation to the urgency of this threat. I strongly agree with Vice President Gore that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, but must fast-track investments in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power and advanced biofuels, and those are the investments I will make as President. It’s a strategy that will create millions of new jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced, and one that will leave our children a world that is cleaner and safer.”
We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.
But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.
In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of “solutions summits” with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.
What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don’t cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home?
“We are not going to drill our way out of the energy problems we are facing-not here and not in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We must find a long-term approach that breaks our dependence on foreign oil by investing in the development of alternate energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power.”
Working together with labor, environmentalists and Democratic candidates, we can change America, solve our energy crisis, rebuild a greeen economy with good union jobs, and address global warming.
Jim Hoffa at Yearly Kos in 2007.
We need to work with the Teamsters and other unions to rebuild a Green America. Thank you Mr. Hoffa and all Teamsters! Solidarity!
Update. From Change to Win in the comments. Grist has a good write up on this:
For years, the Teamsters have supported opening the Arctic Refuge and other protected areas to oil drilling; they ran ads bashing John Kerry on it in 2004. So it is a Very Big Deal that the Teamsters have just come out and rejected drilling as a solution to the energy crisis.
At an event in Oakland, Calif., Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said that drilling won’t do anything to help; he announced that the Teamsters are withdrawing from the coalition pushing for Arctic drilling; and he stressed that pushing for “alternate energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power” will revitalize the economy and create jobs.
It looks like reality is finally starting to bite in American politics.
UPDATE I: Kate called up Teamsters spokeswoman Leigh Strope for more on the move.
“Americans are suffering in this difficult economy,” said Strope. “[President Hoffa] really realized, like a lot of people have, that there needs to be a long-term energy solution. Like he said, we can’t drill our way out of this problem … We need a comprehensive energy policy to deal with this crisis.”
“It’s important to our members,” Strope continued. “There’s an opportunity to really explore the whole issue of green jobs, and that would obviously benefit Teamsters and all Americans.”
Update II: The Republicans are doubling down on drilling. This shows how important the Teamster decision to support alternatives is. Hoffa, Gore, and Obama all said it: “we can’t drill our way out of this.”
Senate GOP hands Dems oil ultimatum
By Manu Raju
Posted: 07/23/08 07:43 PM [ET]
Senate Republicans have threatened to block nearly all other bills pending before the August recess if Democrats refuse to vote with them on expanding offshore drilling.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said bills that do not pertain to energy can wait until after the August recess, with gas prices now surpassing $4 per gallon. McConnell and top Republicans indicated Wednesday they would oppose any procedural votes to take up other legislation, which require 60 votes to succeed.
We think there is nothing more important that we can do right now than to deal with the Number One issue of the country,” McConnell said. “This is the biggest issue since terrorism right after 9/11. People are pounding on their desks, saying, Why don’t these people get together and do something about this problem?”
