The Progressive Platform we are building will be a sort of blueprint that we believe all progressives, especially candidates, should follow. It will be our beliefs as progressives, where we stand on various issues, and in many cases, what we believe needs to be done on those issues.
In the first post, the idea of creating a Progressive Platform was introduced. I had posted links to various political platforms, so everyone could get an idea of what we are trying to accomplish. Then you were asked to vote on what planks we should include in our platform.
This week we will briefly discuss planks for our platform.
In this week’s episode, Nourishing the Planet research intern, Elena Davert, introduces a counter-intuitive method of cleaning water. In 2004 Peter Njodzeka founded the Life and Water Development Group Cameroon (LWDGC) with a rather simple goal. ” I wanted to see the people in my area have clean water,” he said. “And we kept expanding. That’s how it started.” Now, LWDGC, with support from Engineers without Borders (EWB) and Thirst Relief International, is teaching households how to use dirt and bacteria to clean their water, greatly improving the quality of drinking water and all but eliminating diseases caused by contaminated water.
It is about a week before early voting begins for a bunch of us around the country, and that means this may be one of the last times I have to convince you that, frustrated progressive or not, you better get your butt to a ballot box or a mail-in envelope this November, because it really does matter.
Now I could give you a bunch of “what ifs” to make my point, or I could remind you how we spent all summer watching oil gush into the Gulf, and how that came to be…but, instead, it’s “Even More Current Event Day”, and we’re going to visit Hungary for a extremely real-world reminder of what can go wrong when the environmental cops are considered just too much of a burden by the environmental robbers-and if today’s story doesn’t scare you to death, I don’t know what will.
It ain’t Texas, but we will surely visit a Red River Valley…and you surely won’t like what you’re gonna see.
On July 14th, Green Change announced the campaign for a Green New Deal, a 10-point program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.
Since then over 100 candidates for elected office at all levels have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.
The Green New Deal Coalition will cut military spending, create millions of green jobs, and revive the economy by protecting the planet we depend on.
Green Change is inviting all candidates, individuals and organizations that support a prosperous, sustainable future for America to endorse the Green New Deal.
Read the call for a Green New Deal and sign on today.
To date, 11 candidates for governor, 11 candidates for US Senate, and 33 candidates for US House of Representatives have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.
All agree on the need to cut military spending, fund green public works, ban corporate personhood, pass single-payer health care, restore progressive taxation, ban usury, enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax, legalize marijuana, institute tuition-free public higher education, change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental and safety standards, and pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.
These candidates represent a clean break with the failed policies of the past that have led America down the road to economic and ecological disaster.
The Green New Deal promises a brighter tomorrow for America – one that combines the New Deal’s promise of freedom from economic hardship with decisive action to protect our planet.
You can help build the movement for real change by endorsing the Green New Deal today and asking candidates for elected office to join you.
This is the second in a continuing series by the NRDC Action Fund on the environmental stances of candidates in key races around the country. Today, we examine Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional district — Bucks County, Montgomery County, and northeast Philadelphia. Currently, the 8th CD is represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by Patrick J. Murphy (D). Murphy is being challenged by Republican Mike Fitzpatrick.
Where does Rep. Murphy stand on clean energy and environmental issues? In 2009, Murphy received a 93% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Murphy also voted for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), about which he correctly says, it “will create millions of new American jobs, limit the pollution that causes climate change, and reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil by investing in American-made clean energy.” In addition, Murphy co-sponsored H.R. 890, the American Renewable Energy Act, as well as H.R. 2222, the Green Communities Act and H.R. 1778, the Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP) Program, among other excellent environmental legislation. Finally, Rep. Murphy touts the fact that “Bucks County is home to the fourth largest solar field in the United States – the largest east of the Mississippi River” and that “Nearly 1,000 people have been put to work building components for wind turbines and solar panels at the old U.S. Steel site in Fairless Hills in Bucks County.”
In contrast, Mike Fitzpatrick says he “oppose[s] legislation currently being considered by [C]ongress that would implement a carbon 'cap and trade' system.” Fitzpatrick also says he supports “a balanced national energy policy that includes safe, nuclear power, clean coal, responsible offshore drilling and economical, renewable energy.” When he served in Congress, Fitzpatrick received a 61% League of Conservation Voters rating in 2005 and a 73% League of Conservation Voters rating in 2006. Fitzpatrick also was a co-cosponsor with Rep. Henry Waxman on the Safe Climate Act of 2006 – which would have cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 – but now says he is against “Cap and Trade.”
We believe that it is important for the public in general, and the voters of specific Congressional districts, be aware of this information as they weigh their choices for November.
Take action today for a cleaner, stronger, and more sustainable future. Join NRDC Action Fund on Facebook and Twitter and stay up-to-date on the latest environmental issues and actions you can take to help protect our planet.
This is the first in what will be a continuing series by the NRDC Action Fund on the environmental stances of candidates in key races around the country. Today, we examine Virginia’s 5th Congressional district, a district – stretching south from Charlottesville to the North Carolina border. Currently, the 5th CD is represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by Tom Perriello (D).
Where does Rep. Perriello stand on clean energy and environmental issues? In 2009, Perriello received a 71% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Perriello also voted for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) and has “touted development of a clean energy economy as a way of creating jobs; improving energy efficiency; increasing this country’s energy supplies and sources and reducing reliance on foreign energy, which also would benefit this country’s national security; and other benefits.” With regard to his ACES vote, Perriello says that he “believes there are ‘huge upsides’ in manufacturing and agriculture in a clean energy economy.” As the Union of Concerned Scientists points out, Perriello is exactly right about the agricultural sector, as “Wind, solar, and biomass energy can be harvested forever, providing farmers with a long-term source of income.” And, as California’s experience has shown, Perriello is right about the manufacturing sector as well.
Perriello does, however, favor some things that many environmentalists disagree with. For instance, Perriello says he supports an “’everything and the kitchen sink’ national energy strategy that includes an expansion of oil drilling.” On the other hand, it should be noted that Perriello’s support for oil drilling comes in the context of his overall support for “using market-based solutions to create a carbon-limited economy.”
The Republican candidate, Virginia State Sen. Robert Hurt, has views on energy and the environment contrast sharply with Perriello’s. In this video, for instance, Hurt incorrectly claims that cap and trade legislation would “absolutely raise the cost of energy in this country and it will hurt individuals and it will hurt businesses.” In fact, as studies like this one show, “the Waxman-Markey climate bill makes economic sense, offering benefits worth at least twice as much as it costs, if not more.” And, as this study concludes, the climate legislation already passed by the U.S. House of Representatives “would produce an average net energy spending reduction of $354 per household and an increase of nearly 425,000 jobs” by 2030. Finally, a recent study by the U.S. Energy Information Administration finds that the comprehensive climate and clean energy “American Power Act” being considered in the U.S. Senate would produce increases in income “almost 60 times greater than the estimated $185 annual investment** cost, exceeding $11,000 per year on average” while reducing U.S. oil imports “1.9 to 2.4 million barrels per day by 2035.”
For whatever reason, Robert Hurt has ignored or discounted these studies, not to mention the overwhelming scientific evidence regarding the urgent need to act on climate change. Thus, instead of advocating for a transformation from the dirty fuels of the past, to a prosperous economy based on energy efficiency and clean energy that will never run out, Hurt’s solution is essentially the same-old, same-old: “opening up drilling in off the coast of Virginia, something I have supported year after year.” Hurt adds, “We have to include drilling all over this country in order to meet the demands for our society, the demands for our businesses.”
In reality, of course, the United States contains only 3% of the world’s oil reserves and is considered by geologists to be a “mature oil province.” In common language, the meaning is simple: our oil production has long since “peaked,” which means we can’t “drill our way out of it.” Fortunately, we can open up tremendous opportunities for our nation through policies and investments that encourage energy efficiency – also known as “Invisible Energy” – and clean, renewable energy. For whatever reason, Robert Hurt disagrees and instead is pushing to move us backwards in this area.
In general, Sen. Hurt’s environmental record is unimpressive, with a 20% Virginia League of Conservation Voters rating in 2009 and a 38% rating in 2010. During the 2010 Virginia General Assembly session, Hurt voted the “wrong” way – in the view of the LCV – on HB 787, which states that “it shall be the policy of the Commonwealth to support oil and natural gas exploration, development, and production 50 miles or more off Virginia’s coast.” Hurt also voted for HB 1300, which “[p]rohibits the Air Pollution Control Board from requiring that electric generating facilities located in a nonattainment area meet NOx and SO2 compliance obligations without the purchase of allowances from in-state or out-of-state facilities.” Obviously, Robert Hurt is no friend of clean energy or the environment.
That concludes our environmental profile of the Democratic and Republican candidates running in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District this year. We believe that it is important for the public in general, and the voters of specific Congressional districts, be aware of this information as they weigh their choices for November.
Take action today for a cleaner, stronger, and more sustainable future. Join NRDC Action Fund on Facebook and Twitter and stay up-to-date on the latest environmental issues and actions you can take to help protect our planet.
We oppose the shopping culture, and so we must deal with the unseeable part of the sale.
With Consumerism the system, there are always levels of secrecy behind the flash. When Steve Jobs gets up on the stage he is our modern magician, but he conceals a vast sweatshop empire that is kept out of sight – until last month when the 12th suicide this year at one Chinese facility finally stopped his iPad cold. He was forced to insist that the iPad is not made in sweatshops, and began to define the term absurdly, comparing his factories with California high schools. OUR FACTORIES ARE NOT SWEATSHOPS, he said, and as weird as his explanation was – his “sweatshop” seemed an objectively defined entity with a panel of experts to absolve him.
“Facts” are Consumerism’s best cover-up. A really misleading ad campaign always has, somewhere nearby, its logical apologist: the Expert. It’s the magician’s razzle-dazzle that hides the rabbit under the table. The facts as processed by corporations have night-vision for our intuition, our common sense, our love of chance and mystery – these old-fashioned practices that leave us purchasing products too slowly, maybe even thoughtfully, maybe not at all.
It is “facts” that tilt and spin and somersault all the way to climate change denial. We say No! But we are defenseless if scientific studies are our only defense. Lobbyists and experts working for CO-2 emitting energy, like Big Coal, insist that the facts are incomplete, more facts are needed. What? Something in our indigenous past stirs in us – can this be the time to sit on our hands? Isn’t the Earth speaking directly to us in a language more alive than “facts?”
America has enjoyed for so long what it saw as an obedient Earth. That is, the Earth was made unseeable behind a wall of facts which we manipulate like Steve Jobs’ suicide math. Our “western frontier,” our “American freedom” – are spaces curved by facts for our gullible consumption. Now we are watching the tsunamis and tornadoes and ash clouds and oil spills and rising seas – escaping through the wall of facts. The Earth is surfacing, the sky and soil touching again. The Earth is breaking through and taking a deep breath.
Some of us are waiting for a signal that there will be a post-consumption future. We would like to cooperate with this greater force, the life of the Earth. We are hearing such a signal from the Appalachian Mountains, the oldest mountains in this hemisphere, some 280 million years old. About 500 of these mountains have been blown up in the coal-mining process called Mountaintop Removal, or “MTR.”
The biggest financier of MTR is currently the Swiss bank UBS, which is a famous practitioner of secrecy and spinning facts. UBS is the perfect final magician of Consumerism, in a showdown with the oldest mountains. The bank plans to blow up the mountains invisibly. We won’t notice. The marketers will make MTR a war movie for American’s freedom from Arab oil, with experts firing “facts” at the activists. The Earth, however, has seen Mountaintop Removal. The Earth sees the whole thing.
It’s been a while since we had to have a real heart-to-heart, the Obama Administration and I, and last time it was because Rahm Emanuel had been a bit snippy toward those of us who are carrying the water for this Administration.
We need to have another one of those conversations today; this time the circumstances are a lot more positive-in fact, if the Administration follows my suggestions here, we have a real chance to put the Democrats on the road to victory, not just this November, but also in 2012.
What I’m proposing will create hundreds of thousands, if not millions of jobs, and it will stimulate millions more as we create a national source of discount electrical power that can be used by business and consumers alike.
Here’s the best part: it’s no “pie in the sky” promotion I’m offering here; we’ve already done the same thing before, it’s been working out well for almost three quarters of a century…and even better than all that…my idea first pays for itself, and then…it actually makes the Federal Government a profit, forever after.
At present, oil saturates the Gulf Stream. An official six-month cessation of permits for new drilling did not actually affect the industry or government decisions. Despite Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead. To explain such an authorization and waiver, the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Services Division which regulates drilling, pointed to public statements by Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar. He did not intend to forbid all first cuts in the Earth’s crust. Absolutely not. The Federal Government approved wells off the coast of Louisiana in June. Regardless of the day, or realities that are anathema to our citizenry, little has truly changed. Today, just as in yesteryear, we, the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect Union, polish policies to appear as though our civilization would wish to protect and defend all beings, equally.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting four public information meetings on the proposed study of the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and its potential impacts on drinking water…The meetings will provide public information about the proposed study scope and design. EPA will solicit public comments on the draft study plan.
The public meetings will be held on:
* July 8 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. CDT at the Hilton Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas * July 13 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. MDT at the Marriot Tech Center’s Rocky Mountain Events Center in Denver, Colo. * July 22 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT at the Hilton Garden Inn in Canonsburg, Pa. * August 12 at the Anderson Performing Arts Center at Binghamton University in Binghamton, N.Y. for 3 sessions – 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT
Brighton, Colorado (FNS)-Attorneys from the Republican Study Group (RSG) descended upon the 17th Judicial District courtroom of Judge John T Bryan today to present an amicus brief and associated oral arguments in order to prevent a settlement in a lawsuit related to an automobile accident in this Colorado city.
The intervening attorneys claim the settlement reached between the two parties to the accident is a “shakedown” because the plaintiff had not yet exhausted all possible legal remedies when the agreement was finalized, and because the agreement was executed in the presence of the plaintiff’s brother, a well-known local attorney.
They hope Judge Bryan will decline to approve the settlement in today’s hearing, and that he will order the parties to move forward to trial.
“What we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on preexisting laws but on decisions by one man, a car czar”, said Crush Mimbaugh, attorney for the RSG, “and we are here today to protect all Americans from this legally sanctioned rape of an innocent driver.”
Honestly, I am absolutely sick of commercial air travel these days. Just dealing with security is bad enough, but then there’s the airlines, and…hey, all you really need to know here is that there has to be a pretty good reason for me to fly cross-country.
Well, I had one Saturday night, which is how I came to be in the Colonnade Room of the Fairmount Hotel, Washington DC with about 250 of my closest friends, in a classic shawl-collar tuxedo, attending one of the most exclusive “passing of the torch” ceremonies in recent Washington memory.
And when it was all over, Douglas Feith was a happy man.
BP is using a chemical dispersant, Corexit, supposedly to break up the oil so bacteria can eat it faster. This is not what is happening. It is causing the oil to sink out of sight to relieve pressure on the company, but may be causing far more damage than the spill otherwise would.
Environmental engineer Joe Taylor has a dire warning for BP: they have to stop using their chemical dispersant, Corexit, immediately. Or else, according to a report from WKRG in Mobile, everything is going to die!
He says the sulfur and sulfuric acid based dispersant makes the oil spewing into the gulf sink, where its impossible to clean up–and where it depletes oxygen levels under the water, killing plankton and everything above plankton in the food chain. “Corexit is toxic, petroleum is toxic, and its depleting the oxygen levels,” he says.
What’s worse says Taylor, is that if he knows this information, so does BP. “They have a lot of chemists who are a lot smarter than I am, and they know this,” he says.
BP’s use of a toxic dispersant to break up oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico will cause worse long-term damage to the ecosystem than had the company allowed the spill to reach coastal shorelines, contends a group of oystermen suing the petroleum corporation.
Netroots Nation will be in Las Vegas in just a few weeks; with that in mind we are going to play “piano bar” and fulfill a couple of requests, one today and one tomorrow, from folks who would like to bring a couple of things to your attention.
Today’s topic: climate change.
As you know, there is a lot of legislation floating around Capitol Hill that would begin to use some sort of market-based mechanism to reduce the amount of carbon we emit.
None of it will move unless it moves through the Senate, and today, that’s what we’ll be talking about.
