Press release via email.

Takoma Park, MD – 1Sky’s reaction to the announcement that President Obama will travel to Copenhagen for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change:

1Sky is very pleased to learn that President Obama will be attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark and sees the trip as yet another indication that he is the most engaged president ever on this issue. His attendance will show to the rest of the world that the United States is serious about fighting climate change and will provide a real boost to a process that is so critical to our planet and people. President Obama can use his international prestige to move other nations toward signing a legally binding treaty with strong short term cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

The 1Sky network has been focused on pushing to ensure that the Administration prioritizes the Copenhagen process. Our activists have held more than 200 gatherings nationwide in the month of November asking Obama to push for a legally binding treaty in Copenhagen, and circulated a petition that generated more than 25,000 signatures urging the President to attend the conference. We will continue our nationwide push for the Administration and the Senate to pass the strongest bill possible and will attend proceedings in Copenhagen so that we can engage organizer reactions to positive or negative developments.

It is already clear today that without pressure the administration may well gravitate to the lowest common denominator. A 17 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, as the Administration indicated that they would seek in Copenhagen, is simply not enough. The planet has little time to waste right now. Without an implementation of strong short term targets and a legally binding international treaty to guarantee that those cuts happen, it will become increasingly difficult to guarantee that even strong measures we take against global warming will have any effect. The 1Sky network will continue to push for real proposals in Copenhagen and from the U.S. Senate that will achieve the kind of cuts in emissions in the near-term future that our planet so desperately needs.

1Sky just released this analysis of the Boxer-Kerry Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

1sky-kerry-boxer-bill-analysis-10-8-09 –

Statement from 1Sky:

1Sky Campaign Director Gillian Caldwell issued the following statement in reaction to the introduction of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

“With the introduction of the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act by Senators Kerry and Boxer the race is on in the U.S. Senate to get us on the road to a clean energy economy and tackle global warming.  We applaud the two senators’ leadership, and recognize that this bill reflects some important improvements over the legislation that recently passed the House of Representatives, particularly with respect to ensuring we have the ability to clean up old and dirty coal plants, and put an end to the expansion of dirty coal technologies. The Kerry-Boxer bill also responds to widespread calls to strengthen the 2020 target for reducing global warming pollution in the face of escalating evidence that the planet is warming even more quickly than scientists predicted.

However, we can and we must do more.  This is just the beginning of what will be a heated debate: Will our elected leaders stand with the people and the planet, or will they prioritize profit for the dinosaur industries of the past? Polls have found citizens overwhelmingly support climate action and an urgently-needed shift towards a clean energy economy.  And so 1Sky’s nationwide campaign is in full gear, calling for bold action now in the face of well-funded opposition by dirty coal and big oil who prioritize their own profits over our economic recovery, our health, our national security, our planet, and our people.  We have not a moment to lose and it is going to take millions of Davids, and even more leadership from President Obama, to overcome the Goliath that is the industries of yesterday that repeatedly stand in the way of our progress.“

1Sky is a collaborative national campaign for strong federal action to tackle global climate change and invest in building the clean energy economy of the future.  As one of the largest national campaigns in the country, 1Sky combines the force of 450 allied organizations, and 168,000 committed climate advocates, 2,500 volunteer Climate Precinct Captains covering more than 380 congressional districts in 50 states, and a team of 51 including 40 organizers in 29 states working to mobilize constituent support.

From 1Sky.

In Forceful Open Letter, Twenty U.S. Climate Scientists and Experts Call for Urgent Climate Action and Sustained
Presidential Leadership

Twenty leading U.S. climate scientists and experts today released the attached Open Letter to the President and Members of Congress. The letter, among the strongest public statements on climate change from U.S. scientists to date, addresses the Waxman-Markey bill now pending in the House of Representatives, and calls upon President Obama for an expanded leadership role.

Questions may be referred to:
G. M. Woodwell; gmwoodwell@whrc.org; 508 540 9900 x104
Stephen Schneider: shs@stanford.edu; 650 725 0078
Richard Somerville; rsomerville@ucsd.edu
Ralph Keeling, rkeeling@ucsd.edu
Peter Gleick, pgleick@pipeline.com; 510 251 1600

—————————–

An Open Letter to the President and Members of Congress
Strong Leadership Needed Now on Climate

Strong leadership by the United States will be required to move the nations of the world away from what scientists increasingly recognize as a rapidly developing global climatic catastrophe. That leadership requires the insight, energy and relentless attention of the President and no less vigorous interest from both houses of the U. S. Congress.

The Waxman-Markey bill now being considered by the Congress offers a powerful advance and must be enacted this year. But at its best it will be only a first step in the direction that scientists now recognize as necessary to protect local and regional climates. Our purpose is to call attention to the large difference between what U.S. politics now seems capable of enacting and what scientists understand is necessary to prevent climatic disruption and protect the human future. We urge President Obama to exercise maximum personal leadership beginning now to ensure that the strongest possible legislation emerges from the Congress.

New information arrives daily to confirm what many specialists have known for three decades: human-caused climatic disruption is serious, moving rapidly, and gaining momentum with every delay in correcting the trend. In 1992 more than 180 nations including the United States met in Rio de Janeiro, signed, and later ratified, the Framework Convention on Climate Change and in so doing agreed to “stabilize” the heat-trapping gases of the atmosphere at levels that will protect human interests and nature. We, the nations globally, have not been true to our word, and climate is moving out from under civilization rapidly. Major droughts on every continent are but one current symptom of the scale of the global environmental corruption now entrained.

In many political circles around the world, the view has taken hold that nations should endeavor both to limit the buildup of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas and a by-product of burning coal, oil and natural gas, to 450 parts per million and to limit the rise of global temperatures to less than 2°Celsius. We and many others are of the view that these objectives are inadequate to sustain the integrity of global climate and to hold the risk of ruinous climatic change to an acceptably low level. United States policy must provide a fully satisfactory U.S. contribution to global greenhouse gas reductions that move beyond these inadequate international limits.

It is essential that the Waxman-Markey bill, strengthened wherever possible and certainly not weakened, advance into law rapidly. It is also essential that it become the basis for a serious, continuing, and urgent effort on the part of the President to lead the American public into recognition of the scale of the climatic disruption so that the U.S. will embrace still stronger policies to do what we know from scientific investigation is necessary to prevent disastrous climatic alteration.

As we write, we see the unfolding Presidential effort to lead the nation in the area of universal health insurance. We urge the President to initiate an effort at least comparable in the area of climatic change. We recognize the difference in popularity of these two causes, but it is the essence of Presidential leadership to show the way even where adequate public awareness of the risks ahead may be lacking. Speaking in Germany recently, President Obama referred to climatic change as “a potentially cataclysmic disaster.” We agree and believe that message must be communicated and elaborated to the American people in time to assure strong, effective Congressional action in both houses of Congress this year.

The time for national action on climatic change is now. There has already been too much delay. The stakes are far too high to compromise the integrity of, and our responsibility for, prompt national action.

Signed
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From the Union of Concerned Scientists:

1SKY — ALASKA WILDERNESS LEAGUE — ALLIANCE FOR CLIMATE PROTECTION — AMERICAN RIVERS — CLEAN WATER ACTION — DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE — EARTHJUSTICE — ENVIRONMENT AMERICA — ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND — NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION — NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL — OCEANA — SIERRA CLUB — UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS — THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY — WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

WASHINGTON (June 16, 2009) – A new national scientific assessment of climate change in the United States from 13 federal agencies underscores the need for a comprehensive climate and energy policy that rapidly reduces heat-trapping emissions and addresses the consequences of climate change already being seen across the nation, according to a coalition of science, wildlife, conservation and environmental groups. The groups released the following statement:

“Scientists are telling us that our climate future is in our hands. We’re seeing the effects of climate change now and we have the power to prevent it from getting much worse. We owe it to ourselves, our children and our grandchildren to address global warming and dramatically lower heat-trapping emissions as quickly as possible.

“It’s time for America to lead the world in clean technology and get off dirty fossil fuels that hurt our health and our economy. Building a clean energy economy will curb America’s oil dependence, create good jobs here at home and prevent the worst consequences of climate change. This report underscores the urgent need to act. Congress must pass strong, effective climate and energy legislation this year and the United States must sign on to an effective international climate agreement at this year’s United Nations climate conference.”

More information on the report is available here.

Click here to listen (MP3).

Via Energy Boom.