EDF Video: 40 years of talk and still no action
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"EDF Video: 40 years of talk and still no action"
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Send Obama an email on the climate and clean energy bill
A Plea from Fellow Americans to President Obama: We Need You to Lead America to a Clean Climate & Energy Future
Good video from the Environmental Defense Fund below — and you can send Obama an email yourself (click here):
The time to act was decades ago, but now is a lot better than later.
FRONT
Still no action, or 20 years too late? Move to alternative fuels looks like a head fake, locked into greater and more heat waves in the next 30 years. The results of which put us at risk of depleting aquifers and pushing food and energy prices beyond the reach of most.
Maybe its time to post more about what we need to do to prepare for inaction?
The President would sign energy legislation in an eye-blink. Congress has to pass it. Call your Senators.
BTW, good to see EDF and ClimateProgress following up on Jon Stewart’s excellent research.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future
After watching Jon Stewart’s Daily Show clip on our oil dependence again, one point stands out very clearly from the gallows humor, and it ain’t news.
This will be hard, folks. This will be very, very hard.
According to our local newspaper, republican congressmen who were to vote on the bill had large investments in fossil fuels… so, naturally it wasn’t passed. “When all the trees are gone and all the waters are polluted, then will they realize that you can’t eat money.”
Sent! Writers are encouraged to personalize their message, here was mine:
Dear President Obama,
You no doubt receive many messages about climate change, and the need to reduce CO2. Let me add my voice to those authors.
There is another even more urgent reason to make a world-wide switch to clean energy – primarily solar and wind power.
The reason is that the “other” greenhouse gases – nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxides from gas and coal, and acetaldehyde from biofuels – while more potent but less prevalent and long lived than CO2 – are being largely ignored in this debate. In fact the effects of the ozone they produce is almost a taboo topic among environmentalists, climatologists, and denialists alike.
It is widely acknowledged and well-researched that ozone, while invisible, is highly toxic to vegetation (and humans as well, but that is another matter).
How toxic is it? A report just released states that ozone is already reducing yields of soybeans by 15% (linked below). Imagine what the cumulative damage over decades of 15% stunted growth would do to trees genetically evolved to live for centuries, and perhaps you can understand what few people wish to admit:
Trees of all species are dying out around the globe at a rapidly accelerating rate.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. A world without trees poses an existential threat, because it will cause the terrestrial ecosystem based on forests to collapse. The economic impact from losing shade trees and timber and paper, never mind the cost of fighting wildfires, are incalculable. And of course, aside from losing nuts, fruits, maple syrup, wildlife habitat and shade, the great forests will turn from carbon sinks into carbon emitters, thus vastly increasing global warming.
We ignore the danger of ozone to annual crops at our peril. In a world with a growing population, we cannot afford shrinking stocks of food. There is plenty of published research on the symptoms of ozone damage, even linked to at the EPA. But there is an unconscionable, even deliberate, effort to ignore the consequences in the real world.
PLEASE direct some of your staff to make a comprehensive review of the imminent danger posed to all forms of life from ozone and report back to you. The American people should be informed so they can make a rational decision as to whether they would rather continue wasting profligate amounts of fuel, or have trees and food.
Sincerely,
Gail Zawacki
Oldwick, NJ
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-08/soybean-yields-to-drop-on-climate-ozone-u-s-researcher-says.html
Signed and personalized.
Whoever takes us into the 21st Century Energy Economy will lead the world.
Those who depend upon fossil fuels will not.
Now or never?
Simple.