40 years of talk and still no action. We can't wait. Please send President Obama an email on the climate and clean energy bill.
American presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush have talked about our need to reform our energy policies and end our addiction to fossil fuels.
The last 7 presidents couldn't make it happen.
President Obama can, but only if he adds his direct and immediate leadership to the Senate's efforts to pass a strong climate and energy bill.
Want to personalize your message? Plenty of info just from recent news on the flip.
We can have climate reform that is economically and environmentally beneficial -- CBO: American Power Act will cut deficit by $19 billion By 2020.
If enacted, the APA, the comprehensive clean energy and climate bill co-sponsored by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), would:
Increase revenues by about $751 billion over the 2011-2020 period and direct spending by $732 billion over that 10-year period. In total, CBO and JCT estimate that enacting the legislation would reduce future deficits by about $19 billion over the 2011-2020 period.
Or, we can keep the failed status quo of more clean coal myths duping public and polluting environment. Promises of cheap, clean coal becomes costly nightmare as dozens of communities "[s]old on a promise of cheap, clean electricity, ... instead are facing more expensive utility bills after bankrolling a new coal-fired power plant that will be one of the nation's largest sources of climate-change pollution."
Though the company and its partners promote the plant as a national model for environmentally friendly "clean coal" technology, Prairie State will be the largest source of carbon dioxide built in the United States in a quarter-century.
Each year, it will churn more than 13 million tons of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, an amount equivalent to adding 2 million cars to the nation's highways. Most U.S. power plants emitting that much climate-change pollution date to the 1960s and '70s.
Might want to also ask Obama, what's up with scientists saying officials still interfere with their work and limit their ability to speak out: President Obama will need us and scientists to get his back on the climate bill.
While Obama attacked the Bush administration for allowing political concerns to trump science on issues of climate change and public health, and ordered the development of rules to "guarantee scientific integrity" throughout his administration, no rules have been issued.
The complaints include:
In Florida, water-quality experts reported government interference with efforts to assess damage to the Everglades stemming from development projects.
In the Pacific Northwest, federal scientists said they were pressured to minimize the effects they had documented of dams on struggling salmon populations.
In several Western states, biologists reported being pushed to ignore the effects of overgrazing on federal land.
In Alaska, some oil and gas exploration decisions given preliminary approval under Bush moved forward under Obama, critics said, despite previously presented evidence of environmental harm.
The most immediate case of politics allegedly trumping science, some government and outside environmental experts said, was the decision to fight the gulf oil spill with huge quantities of potentially toxic chemical dispersants despite advice to examine the dangers more thoroughly.
These rules need to be issued...now.
Just from the past few days, news reports abound on signs of climate change impacts now.
World on Track for Warmest Year on Record in 2010, NOAA Scientist Says. While scientists can't say that the current heat waves are due to global warming, scientists can say that "warming temperatures do increase the probability of a heat wave." NASA confirms: First half of 2010 breaks the thermometer: "It’s all the more powerful evidence of human-caused warming 'because it occurs when the recent minimum of solar irradiance is having its maximum cooling effect,' as a recent NASA paper notes."
Climate Change Means More Heatwaves, Premature Deaths, Scientists Warn. Government and university scientists from across nation warned that climate change is a serious health hazard: "climate models show that global warming will increase air pollution and trigger more heat waves, floods and droughts, all of which will threaten human health." Climate change will increase the number and intensity of heat waves, which often "kill the most vulnerable members of our society." A Stanford University study concluded that as global warming continues, the next 30 years may see increase in heat waves that are now occurring in Eastern U.S.
We don't have to wait 30 years. "Long notorious for its bone-chilling frigidity, Lake Superior is far warmer than normal for this time of year, and could be headed for record-setting high temperatures later this summer" due to less ice last winter and a "spring that arrived earlier and with higher temperatures."
Hawaii is already seeing effects of global warming, experts say with rising temperatures in the mountains and declining rainfall.
Feeling the heat: Unlocking the Arctic's frozen secrets: "Forecasts suggest that this year will see the amount of sea ice in the Arctic retreat to one of the lowest extents since satellite records began. So what will be the impact of an Arctic devoid of sea-ice during the summer in the future?"
"The sea ice acts as a giant gas pump," Professor Glud explained. "It pumps carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the deep ocean - and it's on a large scale."
He said his research was initially treated with scepticism but is now widely accepted. "It's a new insight we're gaining into this and the implications have astonished and surprised us."
The implication being that as the ice cover recedes, this pump will shut down and with it an important mechanism for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
For Hudson Bay Polar Bears, The End is Already in Sight.
The basic facts are as follows: The region's polar bears have been forced to spend an extra week per decade onshore; the bears have been losing, on average, more than 20 pounds per decade; the body mass of the bears has been steadily declining; females have lost 10 percent of their body length; and the population has dropped from 1,200 to 900 in three decades, with much of the decline coming in the last 10 years.
Looking at projected sea ice declines, Derocher and his colleagues estimated in a recent paper in Biological Conservation that western Hudson Bay's polar bear population could well die out in 25 to 30 years. Indeed, in an interview with Yale Environment 360 senior editor Fen Montaigne, Derocher said that the population — one of 19 in the Arctic — could be gone within a decade. All it would take is several straight years of low sea ice conditions — such as the current year — which could force the bears onshore for more than five months a year, leading to a sharp decline in the bears' physical condition and the inability of females to gestate cubs. "One of the things we found was that the changes in this population could happen very dramatically," says Derocher. "And a lot of the change could come within a single year if you just ended up with an earlier melt of sea ice."
Tonight's Climate Change News Roundup also includes some BP News.
BP NEWS