You’ve got to feel for the dirty fuel lobbyist, adrift in a world where suddenly oil and coal energy has competition, where emerging clean tech companies are peddling cheap energy solutions like wind and solar power (cheap because they’re renewable and non-polluting) and environmentalists keep jabbering about how carbon in the atmosphere is ruining the planet. Sheesh!
Such a lobbyist needs respite from the tilting political landscape, someone with whom to cuddle up, share their story, bestow with lots of money — like a U.S. Senator or Representative!
Some of the nation’s best-known and critically acclaimed celebrities, Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, Jason Bateman, Felicity Huffman and Forest Whitaker, along with rising stars Chace Crawford, Emmy Rossum and Justin Long, are leading a campaign to help citizens sound the call for clean energy in Washington.
One thing we’ve learned in 2009 is that you can’t wait for big institutions to take the green lead. For every green entrepreneur, there’s a climate change heel-dragger. We’re thinking of Copenhagen, Congress and entrenched fossil fuel interests.
You can, however, do what you can.
And in that spirit, here are 11 ways to lower your carbon footprint this New Year. Adopting even one of them can help reduce the pollution that’s leading to dire consequences. And while some New Year’s resolutions are hard, and cost you money (gym fees aren’t going down you know), these resolutions are likely to save you money, reduce your exposure to toxins and help you lead a healthier life. We’ve included only those ideas that really make a big impact, and scuttled those that we consider to be “boutique green” — those non-starter nice ideas that matter, but just a little bit.
To help make this list something you can really use, we’ve included some nifty online tools that can help you find a greener track in 2010.
One degree Fahrenheit.On average, that’s how much the Earth’s temperature has increased over the past century, according to a report by the EPA. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted that during the 21st century the global temperature will increase by 2-6° C.
Get ready for a new ad campaign pushing for a carbon cap. This one, though, comes not from policy wonks in D.C., but is a direct appeal from the steel belt. And it will yank at your heart strings.
The United Steelworkers and the Blue Green Alliance, in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, have assembled four video spots featuring steel workers appealing for a carbon cap. Yes you heard that right.
Shifting the U.S. toward more renewable wind and solar power would not only generate thousands of jobs and lower consumers’ electric bills, it would create new income for rural residents and vastly reduce carbon emissions, according to a new analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The UCS released a study today showing that if utilities were required to obtain 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025 it would:
Create nearly 300,000 new domestic jobs
Save consumers some $65 billion in lower gas and electricity bills through 2025; up to $95 billion through 2030.
Despite the white snowfall in Washington, D.C. this past weekend, the Capitol was deluged with green demonstrators who didn’t let the snappy weather chill their enthusiasm for fighting global warming.
An estimated 12,000 clean energy youth activists met in D.C. for PowerShift ‘09, a four-day summit to raise environmental awareness and lobby Congress for the passage of climate control legislation. Participants, most between the ages of 18 and 26, traveled from all 50 states, every province in Canada and a dozen other counties to take part in the event.
Quashing any stereotypes that this millennial generation is unmotivated or unconcerned, the long weekend featured roomfuls of rapt young environmentalists at seminars and panel discussions concerning a range of green issues. (Check out their energy in this You Tube video. Global Power Shift.)
In a alert released this afternoon, entitled “Congress Gets It Right — Recovery Deal to Spur Clean Energy Economy”, the Natural Resources Defense Council praised the compromise stimulus package hammered out by Congress for the ways it steers the American economy in a greener direction.
“Congress really got it right with this economic recovery package that will deliver jobs and green infrastructure to America. The bill makes smart investments that will jumpstart the economy, help sustain future growth, and meet the challenges of the 21st century,”effused Wesley Warren, director of programs for the NRDC. “We need to put America on a path to a clean-energy economy, and Congress has taken a big step forward in heeding this call.
Remember when Congress passed legislation one year ago raising the bar on gas mileage? The law they passed required automakers to have a fleet average of 35 mpg by 2020.
Automakers, not just the U.S. Big Three, but Toyota as well, opposed it. They spent millions lobbying against the law, and to find out just how much they spent and whose wheels they tried to grease, see the Huffington Post story Big Three Promise Green Future But Spent Almost $50 Million Since 2007 Lobbying Against It
which dug out the actual dollar figures. (Just as good as the story are some of the bloggers responding, who have some interesting ideas for how to rescue the car industry.)
You’ve heard of No Child Left Behind. Now comes a new program with serious educational goals, but a different approach: No Child Left Inside proposes to re-invigorate environmental education by tapping into kids’ innate curiosity about nature. And communities across America are embracing the fresh, bottom-up concept by holding No Child Left Inside events.
