Event:Party with Sierra Club Candidates! Sept. 20

From Sierra Club WA Chapter:

This November is the Sierra Club’s best opportunity yet to bring you true environmental leadership.  With two former leaders of the Cascade Chapter in the running for major City offices, and the threat of climate change on our doorstep, there has never been a better time to get involved with the Sierra Club to help us elect a slate of real environmental champions!

Please join us as for an election season kick-off party and fundraiser where you can meet our endorsed candidates and learn more about how the Sierra Club will get them elected. Confirmed guests include:

• Dow Constantine – Executive, King County
• Michael McGinn – Mayor, City of Seattle
• Mike O’Brien – City Council #8, Seattle
• Richard Conlin – City Council #2, Seattle
• Nick Licata – City Council #6, Seattle
• Rob Holland – Port Commission #3, King County

We suggest a donation of $25 at the door, but please, don’t let money keep you from coming.

6-9 p.m. Sunday, September 20th, Spitfire in Belltown, 2219 4th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98121

You can read all about our endorsed candidates here, or, come to our election season kick-off and speak to them face to face!

Can’t make the party, but still interested in learning more about how you can help us elect a slate of real environmental champions?  Just send us an email and we’ll fill you in on all of the fun things we have planned for the next two months.

Thanks a lot and I hope to see you at the party,

Craig M. Benjamin
Conservation Program Coordinator
Cascade Chapter, Sierra Club

Event: Resilient Habitats, July 27

From Sierra Club

Have you ever wondered what will happen to the Northwest’s wildlife in a time of significant climate change?

You are invited to a special multimedia presentation…

Resilient Habitats:
Protecting Wildlife and Wild Places in a Changing Climate

WHO: Sierra Club’s Associate Executive Director, Bruce Hamilton

WHAT: A multimedia presentation focused on how the Sierra Club is working both nationally and locally to protect and connect wildlife habitats in the face of climate change. Special attention will be paid to how the concept of building resiliency into existing wildlife habitats can be applied in Washington State and the greater Pacific Northwest. There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.

WHEN: Monday, July 27th at 7:00 pm

WHERE: REI Flagship Store, 222 Yale Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109 (Click here for directions and map.)

QUESTIONS/ TO GET INVOLVED: Contact me, Ben, at Ben.Greuel@Sierraclub.org or 206.378.0114 x319.

Click here to RSVP today!

Sincerely,

Ben Greuel
Sierra Club, WA

Conservative Jokers Attack ACES

[REPOST from Sierra Club RAW photo credit]

Issue #288
July 10, 2009
Conservative Jokers Attack ACES
Josh Dorner

In the two weeks after the historic House vote on a comprehensive clean energy and climate plan, conservatives and the far-right tea bag set have nearly self-immolated over what they see as the latest socialist plot to destroy America, one wind turbine and energy efficient hot tub at a time. Yes, they really are afraid of JACUZZIs becoming more energy efficient!

Here are some of the lowlights.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of the party in the House, tried to put up a TV ad attacking Rep. Tom Perriello of Virginia for his vote in support of clean energy. Only problem was that it used the widely discredited $3,100 “national energy tax” number and the TV station refused to air it. Oops.

A teabagger activist from Louisiana started the www.capandt8tors.com website to attack the 8 House Republicans who had the temerity to stand up take the vote that was in the best interests of our economy and our environment.

Seizing on a provision regarding home energy audits brought up by Minority Leader John Boehner during his unsuccessful Fili-Boehner, Fox News and other far-right “news” sites took the hustings to cry socialism and even likened home energy auditors to the Gestapo.

(The National Association of Realtors debunks this particular myth here.)

By far the most serious response from conservatives is due to come on Monday, when a group of senators will unveil a plan that calls for the construction of 100 new nuclear plants. Not only is this a retread from the McCain campaign, but it would cost up to $4 TRILLION! The plan does not of course explain how any of this would be paid for or actually do anything to reduce emissions. Seems slightly odd coming from a group whose constant refrain has to do with criticizing excessive government spending.

Follow Josh Dorner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/joshydo

Today Marks Our 100th Coal Plant Unplugged!

http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/100plants/

Sign our Petition: Help Save the Florida Panther from Extinction

From Sierra Club:

Now is the time to help protect one of our most iconic wildlife species – the Florida panther – from dying out. Fewer than 100 panthers remain in Florida today, and already five panthers have been killed on south Florida highways this year, with an additional 24 panthers killed by vehicles in the preceding two years.

That’s why I am asking you to please, sign our petition to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and help us make sure the rare and extraordinarily beautiful Florida Panther is saved from extinction.

The situation for the panther is desperate. Although the Florida Panther has been listed as endangered since 1967, the amendment to the Endangered Species Act requiring each listed species have “designated critical habitat” did not go into effect until 10 years later. As a result, no critical habitat exists for the Florida panther – our country’s only big cat east of the Mississippi. 

Lights, Camera, Inaction!

REPOST from Sierra Club [photo credit]

Issue #284
May 1, 2009
Lights, Camera, Inaction!
Josh Dorner

It would truly take a production worthy of Broadway to convince the public that what we heard from House conservatives (and Newt Gingrich) last week was anything but a re-tread of the failed Dick Cheney/drill, baby, drill energy non-solutions they’ve been pushing for at least a decade now. So it’s not at all surprising that the House GOP’s “American Energy Solutions Group” would turn to theatrics in order to distract people from the complete and total suckitude of their proposals, which amount to little more than today’s Big Oil, Big Coal-driven dirty energy status quo.

The latest act in this long-running saga began last Friday when Representative Joe Barton (R-Big Oil), best known for his performance in last week’s House hearings during which he argued about the Continental Drift Theory with a Nobel Laureate and said Americans would only buy hybrids when forced to by the government, “backed by the army,” demanded another day of hearings to listen to those opposed to the clean energy jobs plan proposed by Representatives Waxman and Markey. This came despite the committee’s minority side being granted time for all the witnesses they requested –including the last minute addition of Newt King Coal — during the Energy & Commerce Committee’s marathon 4-day series of hearing last week. Waxman and Markey magnanimously agreed to schedule an additional hearing for minority witnesses for today, but then earlier this week Barton canceled it in a huff.

(Barton, a disgruntled Longhorn fan, was apparently not too busy to hold a hearing today on what he termed the “communist” Bowl Championship Series and his plans to smite it down with a playoff system. It’s probably fair to say that playoffs for college football likely represent the beginning and end of agreement between Barton and President Obama.)

Having foregone the opportunity for real, official Congressional hearing, Barton and some of his conservative colleagues–including the most famous of all of Minnesota’s loons, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Rep. John ‘clean energy legislation is worse than 9/11 and both wars’ Shimkus–instead announced they’d be holding what Politico dubbed a “mock climate hearing.” An apt descriptor on many levels, it would seem.

(This immediately reminded me of when Senator James Inhofe used to chair the Senate Environment Committee and he’d bring up the late science fiction writer Michael Crichton to testify about the science of global warming.)

This traveling circus (a Heartland tour is supposedly in the works) gets underway next Tuesday. In addition to the usual set of dirty energy defenders, do-nothing denialists, and Big Oil besties, the proceedings will include conservatives’ latest and greatest star: Dr. Gabriel Calzada Alvarez. Alvarez, who has ties to ExxonMobil and other groups at the center of the climate denial machine, is the author of a widely-discredited “study” that says green jobs actually just destroy other jobs and are generally a bad investment. Conservatives have been touting it left, right, and center (well, mostly right), despite even the Wall Street Journal noting that it was quite light on actual data. You know, that stuff that is the basis for most studies. Not that these folks ever let the facts get in the way.

Speaking of which, another group of Big Oil besties, the so-called American Energy Alliance, is out with radio ads targeting members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee. The ads, just one more element of a broad scare campaign being run by polluters in order to derail the clean energy plan, repeat the thoroughly discredited allegation that an MIT study concludes that the Waxman-Markey clean energy plan will somehow result in a national energy tax of $3,100 per household. The actual author of this study has loudly protested this gross mischaracterization of his work, including in a letter to GOP Leader John Boehner himself, and did so again this week in the context of these ads.

It only seems fitting that this circus will be held in the Capitol Visitors Center, which showcases just what the conservatives’ failed dirty energy policies should be: history.

Newt King Coal & Other Big Oil Buffoons

REPOST from Sierra Club [photo credit]

Issue #283
April 24, 2009
Newt King Coal & Other Big Oil Buffoons
Josh Dorner

This week, the defenders of dirty energy really, really outdid themselves in their efforts to try and derail the clean energy jobs plan currently starting to wend its way through the House of Representatives. The House Energy & Commerce Committee held a marathon series of hearings on the plan, with testimony from more than 60 people, including EPA Administrator Jackson, Energy Secretary Chu, business leaders, environmentalists, economists, and so many more. If the strategy was to give Big Oil’s besties enough rope to hang themselves, well, they more than obliged.

The hearing was capped off this morning with appearances by Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore and former Republican Virginia Senator John Warner, one of his party’s most respected voices on national security and the lead sponsor of last year’s Senate global warming bill. They offered rational, reasoned, and bipartisan support for the bill because of its positive impacts on our planet, on our national security, and, most importantly, our economy. The bill received another boost this morning when Rep. Dingell, former chairman of the committee and a longtime antagonist on climate issues, predicted it would pass.

And so, just who did the beleaguered and increasingly erratic minority on the committee choose to follow these two elder statesmen? A washed-up buffoon, would-be presidential candidate, and one of the most divisive political figures in America: Newt Gingrich. The defenders of dirty energy are so intellectually bankrupt that they sound just like a broken record of lies, mistruths, and distortions. 

Seattle Event: Sierra Club’s Coal Free Northwest Forum

REPOST from Sierra Club

Sierra Club’s Coal Free Northwest Forum

Monday, April 27^th

Doors open at 6:45 pm.

This is the FIRST forum in the 2009 series… don’t miss it!

RSVP to JP Kemmick at JP.Kemmick@SierraClub.org

Beyond Coal: How to Create a Coal Free Northwest

Coal fired power plants are one of the leading causes of global warming pollution.  Leading climate scientists stress the importance of moving off of coal power if we are going to avert global climate change.  The Sierra Club has been leading a nationwide charge to move off dirty coal power and towards a clean energy economy.  Come find out what role coal plays in Washington’s electricity mix and environment and how we can achieve a coal free northwest.

Monday, April 27, 7-8:30 pm. REI- Seattle (click here for a map)

Panelists include:

Dan Ritzman: Western Director, Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign

Nancy Hirsh: Policy Director, NW Energy Coalition

Evan Kanter: National President, Physicians for Social Responsibility

There will be time for questions in this 1 ½ hour forum.  Please join this lively discussion!

The room will open at 6:45pm.  Put this first forum of this series on your calendar today!

Stop the Coal Industry’s Sweetheart Deal: Write Gov. Gregoire Today!

REPOST from Sierra Club

Coal is so last century. Coal mining destroys mountains and prairies. Coal creates more global warming pollution than any other energy source. Coal spews toxins into our air, water, and communities. In Washington State, we still use dirty coal.

Washington State can move beyond coal with your help.

Send a message to Governor Gregoire asking her to stand up for public health, clean renewable energy, good green jobs, and a green economy in the Northwest.

The TransAlta Power Plant in Centralia is one of Washington State’s dirtiest polluters; it spews out 1.4 million tons of toxic waste a year and is the state’s largest single point emitter of global warming pollution.  It’s old, it’s dirty, and it’s standing in the way of our clean energy future.

TransAlta has lobbied the Washington State Department of Ecology for weak emission standards for the toxic pollutants nitrogen oxide and mercury. At TransAlta’s insistence, these bargains were conducted behind closed doors and could go into effect without public comment.

Don’t let polluting corporations get a sweetheart deal. Click here to send a message to the Governor asking her not to sign this bad agreement and ask her instead to come up with a plan to move beyond dirty coal.

http://action.sierraclub.org/KickCoalOutofWA

Washington has been a leader in building a clean energy and a sustainable future, but we can’t keep that reputation and keep burning coal. Help us to promote cleaner, healthier energy options like wind and solar power and energy efficiency.

Sincerely,

Ethan Bergerson
Beyond Coal Campaign, Sierra Club

P.S. We need a grassroots movement to give coal the boot. Please contact me if you want to get involved. I can be reached at Ethan.Bergerson@SierraClub.org or 206-378-0114 x 315. For more information on this specific bad coal deal, read this recent Seattle Times article.

Sign our Petition: Help save Grand Canyon

REPOST from Sierra Club

You would think it’s a no-brainer. Do not expose the Grand Canyon or the Colorado River to radiation contamination.

Yet today, there are more than 1,000 uranium mining claims within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park.

Please sign our petition and help ensure these disastrous plans are never put into action.

Mining for uranium this close to the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon could devastate tourism, which produces over half a billion dollars for the economy and could allow toxins into the most critical source of drinking water in the West, leading to water contamination for nearly 30 million people.

Not to mention the devastating impact this would have on the eco-system of one of our most iconic national parks.

The Sierra Club has joined forces with our coalition partners to fight in our nation’s courts to protect the Grand Canyon. And a bill has been introduced in Congress that will force the Interior Department to withdraw mining leases around the Park – but we need your help to ensure that it passes.

That’s why I am asking you to please, take action today and help us work with Congress to put a stop to these proposals.

You can join the fight to keep the Grand Canyon – and the waters of the Colorado River – safe for future generations. But we have to act quickly. Please sign our petition today.

Sincerely,
Greg Haegele
Director of Conservation

P.S. Help us put the pressure on Congress to protect the Grand Canyon from the dangers of uranium mining – sign our petition today.