By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Today, environmentalists, climate change activists and Americans who want legislation to control carbon pollution were cheered to see climate action take another step forward.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Clean Energy Jobs for American Power Act, meaning the full Senate will now get to debate the bill which aims to put America on a clean energy path.

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By Harriet Blake

Fact: America has an abundance of food.
Question: So why does anyone go hungry in this country?

A potato gleaning in Virginia (Photo: Society of St. Andrew)

Armed with this simple thought, the Society of St. Andrew (SOSA) took up the cause of feeding the hungry in 1979 with the idea of gleaning fields for salvageable produce.

“We do this in two says,” says Carol Breitinger, communications director. “We use volunteers in the field for hands-on gleaning, or we send out trucks to pick up surplus crops that farmers can’t use and would just end up in the landfill.”

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By Sommer Saadi and Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

If anyone doubted that there’s a global grassroots movement to fight climate change, they may reconsider after viewing the photos that streamed in this weekend from the International Day of Climate Action.

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Green Right Now Reports

One could count a thousand ways humans have soiled the planet, from shearing off mountaintops to mine coal to dredging the bottom of the ocean with heavy, coral-destroying equipment.

Congress zeroed in on one needless waste stream, this past week introducing legislation in both houses to stop cruise ships from releasing untreated sewage into the ocean.

The Senate’s Clean Cruise Ship Act, proposed by Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) would extend the Clean Water Act to regulate the millions of gallons of waste water from cruise ships. The net effect would be a ban on the release of raw, untreated sewage.

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This video is the one of the first depicting actions around the world as the International Day of Climate Action gets underway. From the shores of New Zealand, residents of Pacific Islands that stand to be destroyed by the rising seas of climate change, have constructed a clothesline with each garment representing a threatened island.

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Greenland Ice Flow (Photo: NASA)

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

By now you’ve heard the dire predictions for how sea level rise would affect Miami. Basically this city, already imperiled by worsening hurricanes is in the bulls-eye for rising oceans too.

But did you realize that a one meter sea level increase — now believed by many scientists to be a likely outcome of global warming by 2100 — would put Philadelphia underwater?

Yes, the city of Brotherly Love would be among the large family of coastal cities potentially devastated by coastline changes. And not in the too-distance future either.

According to glacier and ice shelf expert Dr. Gordon Hamilton, Philadelphia could experience troubles decades before that 2100 benchmark if storm surges pushed rising oceans inland.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Friday will be a milestone day for the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement with the planned announcement that the group has reached 1,000 signatures. Mayors representing 85 million Americans will have signed the pledge to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. cities in line with Kyoto Protocol standards.

U.S. Conference of Mayors President Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will make announcement during the Conference’s Leadership Meeting from Oct. 1 to Oct. 3 at the Westin Seattle Hotel, where 60-plus U.S. mayors will discuss the continuing recession and “green” economic recovery with White House and Obama Cabinet Officials.

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From Green Right Now Reports

To mark the premiere of Ken Burns’ new PBS documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation will hold a nationwide day of service and celebration in the parks on Saturday, Sept. 26th, National Public Lands Day. Entrance fees will be waived for the day as America’s national parks will host volunteer activities, and a special sneak preview screenings of the Burns Film.

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

“Amazon deforestation dropped 46 percent for the period August 2008 – July 2009 when compared to the same period a year before,” according to a report published in Em Questao, the digital newsletter of the Secretariat of Communications of the Presidency of Brazil. The data was collected by Deforestation Detection in Real Time (DETER) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The results marked the lowest accumulated index since the survey began in May 2004.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Not convinced that climate change matters? The Union of Concerned Scientists has concluded that if Americans adopt that stance, they’ll be gambling not just with their lungs, but with their pocketbooks.

The UCS surveyed 60 studies to better examine the anticipated financial toll of global warming if we fail to “dramatically curb emissions.” The nonprofit released the findings today in a report called “Climate Change in the United States: The Prohibitive Costs of Inaction”.

It found that rising sea levels, intense hurricanes, flooding, impaired public health and strained energy and water resources would all add up to one monumental price tag.

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(Editor’s note: For the latest development, see environmental activist Bill McKibben’s blog about climate economist Nicholas Stern adopting 350 ppm as the best target level for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.)

By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

What is so significant about the number 350? It is the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

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By Harriet Blake
Green Right Now

The Cash for Clunkers program, which ended this week, may have been more environmentally friendly than originally thought. The concern among environmentalists was that by tossing away old cars and buying news ones, the program encouraged a throw-away society mentality — something Americans are often accused of.

The Sierra Club, says spokesman Jesse Prentice-Dunn, initially had concerns that the bill was weak.

“Now, looking at the final stats,” he says, “consumers did buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. One thing that was very encouraging, was that more than 84 percent traded in trucks and other gas guzzlers; and 59 percent purchased cars.”

They may not have purchased hybrids, says Prentice-Dunn — the Prius was No. 7 on the list of cars purchased. However, the fact that they bought more fuel-efficient cars was important. The Sierra Club, he says, was encouraged by consumers’ choices.

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