Planetsave

At the 100th annual convention (or “Centennial Convention”) of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on July 14th, the powerful organization passed a resolution to support climate and energy legislation. Despite the great likelihood that African Americans will bear more, as a percentage of their household incomes, than caucasians for clean, green energy, the NAACP recognized the importance of this great matter and stood in support of green climate legislation.

In addition to the fact that African Americans are increasingly in support of climate protection and action for its broader importance, the organization said that climate change would have a more severe effect on African Americans and is, therefore, an especially important matter for their members. It is an important matter globally and a possibly even more important matter for African Americans.

Important issues the NAACP also address in the resolution are that the climate legislation needs to do its best to make sure that low- and moderate-income families bear as little as necessary and gain as much as possible from such legislation. This is an important aspect of sustainable legislation and is something other groups, such as Public Citizen, are justly pushing for.
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With the historic passage of climate legislation through the House of Representatives, many concerns have trickled forth. Does the climate legislation do enough? Will it even work? Does it have the right aim? With the issuance of similar concerns have come proposed solutions and substitutions. The republicans have proposed that 100 nuclear power plants be built by 2030 in place of the proposed cap-and-trade climate bill. I’ve recently written two articles on the Republican “solution” to both the climate and economic crises. And today I’m writing more.

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) announced his own personal blueprint for the nation’s recovery. He began by re-stating the Senate Republicans’ plan that would replace the cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House, which includes building 100 nuclear power plants within 20 years, the encouragement of electric cars for conservation, offshore exploration for natural gas and oil and doubling energy research and development to make renewable energy cost-competitive.

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With overwhelming support from the general American people and a President who says that we really need to do something about climate change, the House of Representatives passed a landmark bill on climate change on June 20th. A victory! Or maybe not. The bill is a major step forward in gesture in many ways.

However, the House dropped or changed many instrumental parts of what is needed to reduce or limit global warming. Read the rest of this entry »

More money was distributed today by the Department of Energy. 141 million dollars to be more precise. This time Hawaii, Maine, Nebraska, New Mexico, the Northern Mariana Islands and Texas will play beneficiaries of the Recovery Act.

As a part of the Department’s State Energy Program, which has been apportioned $3.1 billion, states and territories propose plans to prioritize energy savings, create or retain jobs, increase the use of renewable energy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And that’s where this $141 million will be going. Each state receives funding according to its needs (population based), with Texas receiving more than half of the allotted $141 million dollars. They will receive $87.5 million.

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The recent passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA) through the House of Representatives has sparked a number of debates. Opponents and proponents of the Waxman-Markley Bill have thrown words around, trying to gain support for their side.

House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio stated that, “By imposing a tax on every American who drives a car or flips on a light switch, this plan will drive up the prices for food, gasoline and electricity.” Meanwhile President Obama urged the passage of the bill in the Senate, saying that we can’t “believe the misinformation out there that suggests there is somehow a contradiction between investing in clean energy and economic growth.”

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“We all remember this time last year,” said Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., at a hearing on Capitol Hill on Monday. “We were in the midst of an energy crisis, paying $4 for a gallon of gasoline, and Americans were seeing their utility bills skyrocketing.” Since then, he went on to say, the energy problems haven’t disappeared and no changes in policy have been made. He warned that, though the prices have gone down, if we do not make any changes, we will fall into the same hole in which we found ourselves last summer.

His solution? Nuclear. Stating that “the cornerstone of any real solution to the American energy problem needs to involve offshore resources and nuclear power…which generates electricity without producing greenhouse gas emissions and has a minimal impact on the environment.”  The first step to escaping America’s current energy crisis according to Wicker is to build more nuclear power plants.

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Editor’s Note: This was a multi-party contribution involving Kim Komenich (photos) Kwan Booth (text) NewsDesk.org (editing) Spot.Us (financial support). This is part of a series that we’ll be posting over the next week.

Tuesday night saw the end of two years of negotiations between the Port of Oakland, environmentalists, truckers and West Oakland residents, with a vote to reduce toxic emissions from trucks serving the busy shipping center.

The Comprehensive Truck Management Plan aims to reduce the levels of diesel particulates in the air around the port, by banning diesel trucks built before 1994 — as well as newer trucks that lack air filters.

The plan also authorized a registration system for all trucks doing business with the port, and $3 million for independent truckers who need to upgrade their vehicles.

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The Obama administration’s Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, announced today that he won’t be changing George W. Bush’s rule that global factors, such as climate change, cannot be considered in analyzing the polar bear’s survival.

The rule, instituted in the last months of Bush’s presidency, prohibit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries services from considering whether practices outside the polar bear’s territory are affecting its chances for survival.

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Full page ads questioning President Obama’s stance on climate change were published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Times, and the Los Angeles Times last week, paid for by the Cato Institute.

Environmentalists, journalists, and scientists alike are calling foul and poking holes in the assertion that “there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.” Read the rest of this entry »

Many zoos are having a tough time surviving in this economy, but PETA has an idea that could help save them, and improve the lives of the animals inside.

The soon-to-be approved stimulus plan includes the (slightly altered) Coburn Amendment which essentially tries to guarantee that no one is allowed to have fun during the recession, at least not on the government’s check. While parks and museums have been spared from the chopping block, zoos have been denied any extra assistance in the economic downturn.

PETA has offered a solution to zoos facing budget woes: they’ll pay them $1,000 per animal if the zoo agrees to end its breeding programs and change their focus to being a sanctuary “for exotic animals rescued from circuses, abusive owners, and roadside attractions.”

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