Stopping Proposition 23: Five things you can do to fight global warming and advance clean energy

People are always asking me what they can do right now on behalf of the climate and clean energy.

Perhaps the top near-term priority is to defeat the fossil fuel-funded Prop 23 effort to repeal California’s clean energy climate laws this November.

Here are five things you can do to win this fight:

Visit the “No on 23” website, learn the facts & sign up: www.StopDirtyEnergyProp.com.
Educate yourself on how California’s climate & energy laws have created companies & jobs: www.CABrightSpot.com.
Tell your friends by email, on Facebook, at work, & everywhere else.
Participate in the debate. Write letters to the editor and post comments on blogs & websites.
Contribute (click here). The other side’s leader, right-wing California Assemblyman Dan Logue, has publicly said he expects the oil companies to spend $50 million.

Here are some talking points:

Pollution: Prop 23 will overturn California’s air pollution standards and damage public health.
Deception: Prop 23’s funders are out-of-state oil companies who don’t want competition from made-in clean energy California jobs. They aren’t concerned about California’s economy or the prices working families pay for their energy.
Jobs: California’s clean tech economy has been the one growth area during the recession. There are already 500,000 clean jobs, including 161,000 in manufacturing and construction. There are 12,000 clean tech companies doing business here while over $9 billion in private investment has been made since 2005.
For these three reasons, Prop 23 will cost all Californians, more money as we clean up increased pollution, pay higher oil and gas, prices, and lose economic development. The pro-pollution side has opened up a two-front war on climate and energy. Having won the fight in Congress for now, they are gunning for the nation’s leading climate & energy state. Further, the pro-pollution side has made Prop 23 far bigger than one state and — with threats to policies from the renewable electricity standard to the cap on carbon pollution to home energy efficiency standards — far larger than one policy.

Read Rebecca Lefton’s posts on Prop 23’s economic impact, national repercussions, and funding from Texas oil companies.