Issue #3: Climate Change: If there is any issue that should unite all of civil society, this is it.
Climate change threatens all life. We are already seeing evidence of
changing climate patterns, and the impact on the environment and
society. There are more weather extremes (e.g., droughts and deluges),
changing wildlife migration patterns (e.g., el nino and la nina), rising
sea levels (islands being inundated), expanding disease demographics
(e.g., malaria moving northward). We have a moral obligation to pass to
our children at least as healthy, and ideally even a healthier world,
but we are failing in this duty.
The hottest decades in recorded
history have largely occurred in the last 10 years. Last year was tied
for the second hottest year on record, and 2010 is on course to take
over as the second hottest year on record. Yet we continue to feed our
addiction to oil with the most carbon intensive and environmentally
risky oil on the planet. We’re tapping deep sea and tar sands deposits
that we never considered profitable or worth the risk before. The
Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill is result. In the tar sands of Alberta,
our largest future source of oil, massive toxic lakes next to major
rivers are held back by earthen dams that could collapse in an
earthquake or terrorist event. In West Virginia and Kentucky, huge
mountains are leveled and valleys filled to feed our need for coal.
Mountaintop removal and tar sands mining are the two most
environmentally destructive energy activities in North America. They
have to stop.
End our Addiction to Fossil Fuels: We need to
launch an effort equivalent to the Apollo Project that landed a man on
the moon, and the technological benefits from doing so could catapult
the US into the lead of the clean energy technology industry. We need to
commit to ending our dependence on oil in a generation. We need to set
even more aggressive fuel efficiency standards that we have done;
provide lucrative financial incentives to purchase hybrid and electric
cars; and end the tens of billions in oil subsidies. We need to end all
new coal-fired power plant development and retire old power plants that
have reached the end of their life cycle. We need to require carbon
capture and sequestration equipment on all existing coal-fired power
plants. And we need to end the practice of mountaintop removal now and
require coal companies to restore rivers and valleys they’ve destroyed.
What we propose:
End
our Addiction to Fossil Fuels
We need to launch an effort
equivalent to the Apollo Project that landed a man on the moon, and
the technological benefits from doing so could catapult the US into
the lead of the clean energy technology industry. We need to commit
to ending our dependence on oil in a generation. We
need to set even more aggressive fuel efficiency standards that we
have done; provide lucrative financial incentives to purchase hybrid
and electric cars; and end the tens of billions in oil subsidies. We
need to end all new coal-fired power plant development
and retire old power plants that have reached the end of their life
cycle. We need to require carbon capture and sequestration equipment
on all existing coal-fired power plants. And we need to end the
practice of mountaintop removal now and require coal companies to
restore rivers and valleys they’ve destroyed.
