Open Letter to Kerry, Planet DIE-OUT in Boston
Protesters Demand Climate Justice, Reject False Climate Solutions
For immediate release

(Boston, Nov 30) Amid rain and cold wind, climate activists stood solemnly around a tree near Senator John Kerry’s Boston office, each holding a picture of a life on the planet that is endangered or dying-off from the impacts of climate change.  One by one they told the story of why they were here, protesting the government’s inaction on climate change, and the false and unjust “solutions” that dominate domestic and international climate policies.

Featuring Gopal Dayaneni and Davis Solnit interviewed by Sasha Lilley. Includes an analysis of how real solutions to climate change require economic and social change and references the latest issue of RP&E "Climate Change: Catalyst or Catastrophe?" which includes Dayaneni's analysis "Carbon Fundamentalism vs. Climate Justice."

When it comes to global warming, California has started keeping score.

The state Air Resources Board last week finished tallying and made public the list of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the state, and two East Bay refineries sit atop the list.

By Yvonne Liu

“Green jobs” has become the latest buzz-word, with stimulus monies pouring into green job creation programs around the country. There is a window of opportunity to ensure equity, transparency, and accountability in the green economy, as demonstrated by emerging success stories. Blacks and Latinos experience unemployment rates that are 70 and 50 percent higher, respectively, than the rate for whites. This is the green promise, that those communities most devastated by the recession -- women and people of color – can mobilize to ride the green wave.

Climate SOS, a coalition of scientists and activists who support science- and environmental justice-based climate legislation, today characterized the draft Senate bill, called the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” which was introduced on Wednesday by Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) as an “irresponsible non-solution.”

They maintain that any bill that embraces cap and trade, offsets, outrageously inadequate emission reduction targets, and counter-solutions such as biomass burning, nuclear power and more coal fired power plants (under the guise of partial carbon capture technology that is as yet unavailable) will fail to meet its stated goal of forestalling catastrophic climate change.

‘Consequence’ Youth Organizing Campaign to Push for  Urgent Congressional Action on Climate, Clean Energy Plan

 The Consequence campaign, a new national grassroots organizing effort, kicked off today with a nationwide online advertising campaign, print and radio advertisements in targeted states, and the launch of an innovative social networking site, www.consequence09.org, that will lie at the heart of the youth-focused campaign. Consequence will organize young people in states across America to demand urgent Congressional action on a comprehensive clean energy and climate plan that will unleash investment in clean energy sources like wind and solar, creates millions of clean energy jobs, reduces our dependence on oil and place firm limits on the carbon pollution that causes global warming.

Can white liberals keep their eye on the prize?
By LudovicSpeaks

I've been disappointed by white liberals and progressives' unwillingness and incompetence combating racism for 20 years. The inaction of large green groups on Van Jones resignation is yet another example.

The NAACP, Equal Justice Society and Color of Change explicitely supported Van Jones before his resignation. On the white side, Treehugger, Grist and a few other small white organizations did. But the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace, and NRDC, who together must represent more than $100 million of mostly liberal and progressive foundations, big donors, and individual contributors money, were MIA. These groups either took a dive because the attacks on Van were racist, or they incompetently let the right set the terms of debate before entering. Either way America deserves better greens.

White liberal leaders generally racismblind response to Van Jones’ political lynching bodes badly for next right wing wedge attack
By LudvocSpeaks

My previous piece "Can white liberals keep their eye on the prize when racism comes a knockin?" (Firedoglake, TheRoot, Alternet) pointed out that while significant people of color groups including the NAACP and the Equal Justice Society released statements supporting former WH Green Jobs advisor Van Jones before his resignation, no major white green groups--Sierra Club, National Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, or Greenpeace--did (environmental online magazines Grist and Treehugger, and Campaign for America's Future's blogger notwithstanding). This, despite their heavy beltway-focused staffing, alleged connections to the administration and congress, and political expertise.

The Obama administration’s special adviser for environmental jobs, Van Jones, has resigned citing what he described as a “vicious smear campaign” against him. For the past month, Fox News has run a series of reports on Jones’s alleged association with communists and his decision to sign a petition calling for a congressional probe of the 9/11 attacks. Jones is the founding president of Green for All and author of the book The Green Collar Economy. We speak with James Rucker, who co-founded the group Color of Change with Van Jones, and with Malkia Cyril, founder of the Center for Media Justice. We also talk to Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP.

Bill does nothing to address environmental issues, lets corporate polluters reap huge windfall profits, and paves the way for a new bubble through carbon trading derivatives speculation. Polluters love it.