CHICAGO, Illinois, December 10, 2008 (ENS) – President-elect Barack Obama signaled that he is ready to tackle the climate crisis immediately upon taking office, following a meeting Tuesday with former Vice President Al Gore and Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

“All three of us are in agreement that the time for delay is over, the time for denial is over,” Obama said.

The three men met at the Transition’s Chicago headquarters to discuss energy and climate policy – and how addressing those issues can drive the nation’s economic recovery.

“This is a matter of urgency and national security,” Obama said. “It is not only a problem, it is also an opportunity.”

From left, Vice president-elect Joseph Biden,
President-elect Barack Obama, former Vice
President Al Gore at Transition headquarters.
December 9, 2008 (Photo courtesy Obama
Transition Team)

“We have the opportunity now to create jobs all across this country in all 50 states to repower America,” said Obama, “to redesign how we use energy and think about how we are increasing efficiency to make our economy stronger, make us more safe, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make us competitive for decades to come – even as we save the planet.”

Obama’s “repower America” comment Tuesday is an echo of Gore’s plan, made public in July, to Repower America with 100 percent clean electricity within 10 years.

The plan to Repower America outlines immediate investments in three areas: energy efficiency, renewable generation and transmission.
# Energy Efficiency: A national upgrade to eliminate waste, save money, and improve comfort. Make every bit of energy we produce work harder for us.

# Renewable Generation: Accelerate the ramp-up of clean, renewable electricity sources through policies that support increased private and public investment in technologies that work, like wind, solar, and geothermal.

# Unified National Smart Grid: Modernize transmission infrastructure so that clean electricity generated anywhere in America can power homes and businesses across the nation. National electricity ‘interstates’ that move power quickly and cheaply to where it needs to be; local smart grids that buy and sell power from households and support clean plug-in cars.

The president-elect and the former vice president appear to be in accord on the urgent need to address global warming after eight years of denial, delay and neglect during the Bush administration. Obama is taking advice from Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for his work to publicize the dangers of global warming through his Oscar-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In November, the We Can Solve It campaign mounted by Gore’s nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection launched an advertising and grassroots effort to support the president-elect as he enacts policies to revitalize the American economy and help solve the climate crisis.

Obama is not waiting until he takes office to go green. His will be the first eco-friendly inaugural celebration in American history.

Event Emissary, a DC-based event planning company, announced today that it will host the Green Ball to kick off the Obama Inaugural on January 17, 2009 at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium. www.greeninauguralball.com

Co-founder Jenna Mack explains, ” With millions of visitors headed to Washington for President-elect Obama’s swearing in ceremony and accompanying celebrations, the impact on our environment will be substantial. Our goal is to create an unforgettable evening while treading lightly on the Earth.”

Every facet of The Green Ball is designed to reduce the impact on the environment. Catering will be 100 percent organic and include both vegetarian and vegan options. The bars will feature local and organic beverages. Food waste and floral arrangements will be composted and bottles will be recycled.

Decorative lighting will focus on the use of LED Color Blasts that utilize a fraction of the power compared to more traditional lighting sources. Entertainment audio-visual production will be tailored to minimize environmental impact, using only the most efficient lighting and equipment.

“That which cannot be reduced will be offset,” says Mack. “Energy usage will be measured closely and offset through the purchase of wind power credits. Transportation for deliveries to the event, as well as vendor and staff transportation will be offset through the purchase of carbon credits.”

Event Emissary Co-founder Stephanie Campbell said, “While one green event is a step in the right direction, our goal is to bring attention to this issue while the Presidential Inaugural Committee and many other groups are still early in their planning. We hope to set an example to other organizations and encourage them to green their events, as well.”

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UPPSALA, Sweden, November 30, 2008 (ENS) – Faith leaders concluded their two-day Interfaith Summit on Climate Change in Uppsala on Saturday by signing a manifesto demanding quick and extensive reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in the wealthy parts of the world.

Christian, Buddhist, Daoist, Sikh, Muslim, Jewish and Native American leaders signed the declaration that states, “We all share the responsibility of being conscious caretakers of our home, planet Earth. We have reflected on the concerns of scientists and political leaders regarding the alarming climate crisis. We share their concerns.”

“The situation is critical,” the manifesto states. “Glaciers and the permafrost are melting. Devastating drought and flooding strike people and ecosystems, especially in the South. Can planet Earth be healed? We are convinced that the answer is yes.”

Church of Sweden Archbishop Anders Wejryd
addresses the Interfaith Summit on Climate
Change. (Photo by Magnus Aronson
courtesy Interfaith Summit)

Hosted by the Church of Sweden, the interfaith leaders were welcomed with an opening address by Swedish Archbishop Anders Wejryd, who said, “We are not at this meeting to find special religious answers to the environmental crisis. We have to share the realities of technology, economy and politics with all people.

“We have gathered to deliberate on what we do with these facts as people of different religious traditions,” said the archbishop. “As people of faith we are carriers of hope – or at least we should be. It is obvious that the world needs change before it is too late and we have a role to play in enabling a changed world-view and changed perspectives for people of the world and for ourselves.”

The faith leaders held their summit and issued their manifesto on the eve of the United Nations’ annual climate conference, held this year in Poznan, Poland from December 1 through 12. The Poznan meeting, which is expected to draw around 8,000 participants, is focused on advancing international cooperation on a future climate change agreement to govern the emission of climate-warming greenhouse gases after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

The future agreement is set to be finalized at the 2009 UN climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark next December in time for countries to sign and ratify the document before 2012.

“As people from world religions, we urge governments and international organizations to prepare and agree upon a comprehensive climate strategy for the Copenhagen Agreement,” the Uppsala Manifesto states. “This strategy must be ambitious enough to keep climate change below 2° Celsius (about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit), and to distribute the burden in an equitable way in accordance with the principles of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities.”

Limiting warming to 2° Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures is essential to averting the worst effects of climate change, scientists say. Yet many environmentalists believe allowing the temperature to rise even that much would be disastrous. The global conservation organization WWF warns that a 2° Celsius temperature rise would bring droughts that will leave many people without safe, clean water, and destroy crops, causing widespread famine. Melting ice caps and glaciers would raise sea levels, leaving some Pacific island nations uninhabitable.

But the Uppsala Manifesto is entitled “Hope for the Future,” and European Vice President Margot Wallstrom also took a hopeful view of the situation in her address to the Interfaith Summit on Friday.

“Combating climate change certainly makes sense. It makes sense because it is not only a challenge, but an opportunity. An opportunity to change the world and steer it towards sustainable development and prosperity for all,” said Wallstrom.

By the year 2020, the European Union as a whole should cut its emissions by at least 20 percent compared to 1990 levels – and we will increase that figure to 30 percent if other developed countries make a similar commitment under a new international agreement, Wallstrom reminded the interfaith participants. The EU agreed to these targets in 2007 along with increased renewable energy sources and energy efficiency.

Interfaith leaders bless the Uppsala Manifesto
(Photo by Magnus Aronson courtesy
Church of Sweden)

“We are on track to get an agreement on the package in the coming weeks. If we can achieve this, we will be in a much stronger position to press for an ambitious agreement in Copenhagen next year,” Wallstrom said.

But back in 2007, “no one foresaw the economic crisis that was about to engulf the world,” the vice president said. “Faced with the present financial turmoil and economic recession, some EU governments – especially in Eastern Europe – have become unwilling to accept targets which they perceive as imposing further economic constraints on their industries. They question whether we can afford to take these drastic steps.”

“My answer – to quote Barack Obama – is ‘Yes we can!’ In fact, we can’t afford not to!” Wallstrom said.

She cited the 2006 report by UK economist Sir Nicholas Stern on the economics of climate change, which estimates that allowing climate change to continue unchecked would shrink the world’s economic output by at least five percent and possibly as much as 20 percent per year if the most dramatic predictions come to pass.

“This dreadful prospect is exactly what a struggling global economy does NOT need,” Wallstrom said. “By contrast, swift action to tackle climate change and to move to a low-carbon economy would cost only one percent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product.”

Hope for a climate agreement was strengthened when in Bali last December, the United States at last came on board. “This was a major breakthrough after years of resistance from the Bush administration,” Wallstrom said, adding that President-elect Barack Obama “clearly has ambitions to combat climate change.”

The Uppsala Manifesto calls for political leaders to reach an agreement during the preparations of the new global Climate Protocol 2009 on a strategy that is “sufficiently responsible and ambitious for the Earth to be saved for future generations.”

But there are dissenting voices. Rajan Zed, a Hindu chaplain in northwestern Nevada and adjoining California, who delivered the historic first Hindu opening prayer in United States Senate in Washington, said today that the “grandiose” Interfaith Climate Manifesto signed at Uppsala lacks moral strength because of Hindus and other religions were not represented.

Other world religions, like Bahaism, Jainism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, and the Greek Orthodox Church also were not represented.

Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, said that it was commendable to see diverse religious leaders, religions and denominations coming together to bless environmental causes in Uppsala, but the organizers should have given adequate and fair representation to all major world religions.

Zed said he admires the Church of Sweden and Archbishop Wejryd for taking the leadership role in organizing this “much-needed” summit and thus “making religions climate friendly.”

The Uppsala Manifesto will create a new framework for discussion about climate change after the Kyoto agreement expires in 2012 said one of the signers, Professor Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, director of the Jewish Studies program at Arizona State University.

“Today it is widely acknowledged that world religions have an important role to play in revisioning a sustainable future, because religions are the repositories of values and norms that guide human actions toward the natural world,” said Tirosh-Samuelson. “Through cosmological narratives, symbols, rituals, ethical directives, and institutional structures, religions shape how we act toward the environment.”

“Hence,” she said, “all attempts to transform our environmental attitudes so as to generate a sustainable world must include understanding of world religions and cooperation with religious people.”

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NEW YORK, New York, September 27, 2008 (ENS) – “I believe we’ve reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction [applause] of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” Al Gore declared at the opening session of the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting this week at the Sheraton New York.

Coal-fired power plants emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide that is joining other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, blanketing the planet and raising the global temperature. Carbon capture and sequestration are methods of keeping the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere, but the technology is in its infancy, and the only U.S. demonstration project, FutureGen, was halted by the federal government earlier this year.

The former U.S. Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who woke the world up to the dangers of global warming with his film “An Inconvenient Truth,” stepped up his warnings about the dire state of the global climate because he believes humans are losing the fight against global warming.

Former Vice President Al Gore at the Clinton
Global Initiative (Photo by David Lam)

He drew a parallel between the economic crisis that the Bush administration and Congress are now trying to resolve, and the climate crisis – but he says the climate crisis will be much more disastrous if it is not prevented – and time is growing short.

“Now, in the midst of this frenetic effort to find a bailout, many are saying we should have prevented this. We should have realized that the short-term greed was overcoming a clear vision of what the risk was,” said Gore.

“Well, now is the time to prevent a much worse catastrophe because the world has several trillion dollars in sub-prime carbon assets, based on the assumption that it is perfectly alright to put 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours. Since we met here last year, the world has lost ground to the climate crisis. This is a rout,” he warned. “We are losing badly.”

“The strength of the storms, the depth of the drought, the movement of tropical diseases into areas that never experienced them before, this is the result of a dysfunctional, insane global system pattern that we have to change,” Gore said.

For the first time in all of human history, we as a species, have to make a decision,” he said, asking rhetorically, “What should we do?”

“We should stop burning coal [applause] without sequestering the CO2,” said Gore, blaming the coal and oil companies for the climate crisis.

“The coal and oil companies have spent, in the United States alone, a half a billion dollars in the first eight months of this year promoting a lie that there is such a thing as clean coal,” he said.

Coal-fired Tanners Creek power plant
in Indiana (Photo by AEP)

“Clean coal is like healthy cigarettes [laughter]. It does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant was cancelled. How many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero.”

“What we should do is make a one-off investment to switch our energy infrastructure from one that depends on fuel that is dirty, dangerous, destroying the habitability of this planet and rising in price to a new global energy infrastructure that is based on fuel that is free forever: the sun [applause] and the wind and geothermal.”

“There is a myth that the technology is not available. It is available,” Gore said.

Gore said within 10 years the United States should have a good start on what he calls the Electronet, a unified, national “smart” power transmission grid “with long-distance, low-loss transmission capacity to take the energy from the places where the sun falls and the wind blows to the places where the people live.”

“And we need it globally,” he said, “in Europe, in Africa, Northern Africa particularly.”

Gore’s solution for the climate and energy crisis may help resolve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan as well.

“Let’s start with Darfur,” he proposed. “Darfur has more sunlight falling on it reliably than almost any other place. There’s a belt across that part of Africa into the Middle East. We ought to build solar, electric plants there and connect them with a super grid that goes across the straits of Gibraltar and up through the Balkans and across the Mediterranean and replaces coal and oil.”

But instead of working to bring about solutions like that, Gore denounced the “utter insanity” of the course that the U.S. Congress is taking.

Former President Bill Clinton addresses the 2008
Clinton Global Initiative (Photo by David Lam)

“Today,” he said, “the U.S. Congress is dealing with energy as well. They are, without debate and without a single hearing, preparing to lift the moratorium on the development of oil shale, which would vastly multiply the amount of CO2 from every gallon of gasoline. This is utter insanity and it demonstrates that the wealth and power and influence of the entrenched carbon lobby to twist policy and to put out illusory impressions about this that is overwhelming free debate.”

An extension of the ban on oil shale production on federal lands in the West failed to pass the Senate on Friday. Unless Congress extends the moratorium, it expires at the end of September with the end of the current fiscal year.

The oil shale of the Green River geological formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming contains 800 billion to 1.8 trillion barrels of the equivalent of oil – roughly three times the size of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves.

But the adverse land and ecological impacts of oil shale production are well known from production in Alberta, Canada.

Production of oil from shale will result in airborne pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions so worrisome that the U.S. Council of Mayors earlier this year passed a resolution against the purchase of petroleum products produced from shale.

Because the entire Green River formation lies in the Colorado River drainage basin, water quality is an important issue, and 2005 study by the RAND corporation warns that “not enough is known about how to prevent water contamination from surface and in-situ operations.”

The power demand associated with shale, whether from coal or natural gas-fired power plants, also represents an enormous demand for water. One estimate from a Los Alamos National Lab scientists warns that each barrel of oil from shale could require one to three barrels of water to produce.

As for clean coal, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry association, points out that coal provides half of America’s electricity generation.

“Over the last 30 years,” the coalition says, “America’s coal-based electricity providers have invested over $50 billion in technologies to reduce emissions – while at the same time providing affordable, reliable electricity to meet growing energy needs.”

“As a result of that commitment, today’s coal-based generating fleet is 70 percent cleaner on the basis of regulated emissions per unit of energy produced,” the coalition says, calling it “a great start.”

But the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is not a regulated emission, and the Bush administration has resisted all attempts by the states, business and environmental groups to regulate CO2.

In Gore’s view, he explained to the high-powered audience at the Clinton Global Initiative, renewable and carbon-free sources of energy, conservation and efficiency are the only way the world can extricate itself from the climate crisis.

“The single most important thing we could do is to put a price on the CO2 in our economy today,” said Gore. “As you know, I’ve long argued to reduce the payroll tax on working people and make it up with a tax on CO2. Tax what we burn, not what we earn.”

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Robert Redford has been an advocate for environmental sustainability for a long time. He has dedicated his life to promoting responsible solutions to the climate crisis. Recently, Robert Redford has chosen to focus on the topic of energy; you will find some of the possible reasons for his choice in the paragraph below.

A major portion of the forces disrupting a healthy climate comes from the production and use of 20th century energy sources. These are things like coal power, nuclear power, hydroelectric power, natural gas and fossil fuel use in automobiles. Robert Redford believes that we already have alternatives to these polluting technologies. We believe he is completely correct in his assessment; wind, solar, and waste energy are all viable sources of energy in a world that has already harnessed them to power a portion of the world economy.

Mr. Redford delivers his
speech

His speech bears direct consequences to the political theater in this election year. He cautions people against taking energy solution advice from Washington, noting that the government has been managing the energy policies for the last 20 years. He points out that these energy policies shaped and delivered the current energy crisis that is quickly draining the money out of American wallets. If Robert Redford is correct, voting for the Republicans (and some Democrats) is basically akin to the old adage of asking the fox to guard the hen house. According to Mr. Redford, “all we lack is honest, bold leadership.” Perhaps it is time for Mr. Redford to consider running for office himself. He certainly has the name recognition to be seriously considered.

One thing that is not specifically brought up in the speech, but which deserves attention, is a definition of which leaders Mr. Redford is saying that we need. We cannot just vote for a President who says he wants to solve the energy crisis, we also have to vote for the respective state representatives who make the commitment to energy independence. After all, nothing will happen if the President keeps on getting flawed legislation on his desk, even if some of it relates to the energy crisis. We need to fill up the Congress and the Senate with people who make energy independence their primary focus.

Read a complete transcript of Robert Redford’s Speech [www.nrdc.org]

WASHINGTON, DC, July 18, 2008 (ENS) – Ladies and gentlemen: There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger.

In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside.

This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more – if more should be required – the future of human civilization is at stake.

I don’t remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major changes quickly.

Al Gore addresses
the audience at
D.A.R. Constitution
Hall. July 17, 2008
(Photo by Matthew
Bradley)

The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse – much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland’s largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City.

Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.

Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an “energy tsunami” that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.

And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn’t it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods.

Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today.

Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed for them, and that’s been worrying me.

I’m convinced that one reason we’ve seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately – without taking the others into account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective – they almost always make the other crises even worse.

Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges – the economic, environmental and national security crises.

We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet.

Every bit of that’s got to change.

But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.

The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of “solutions summits” with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.

What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don’t cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home?

We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses. And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.

The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.

But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our nation’s problems, we need a new start.

That’s why I’m proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own destiny. It’s not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans – in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.

A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here’s what’s changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power – coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal – have radically changed the economics of energy.

When I first went to Congress 32 years ago, I listened to experts testify that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then renewable sources of energy would become competitive. Well, today, the price of oil is over $135 per barrel. And sure enough, billions of dollars of new investment are flowing into the development of concentrated solar thermal, photovoltaics, windmills, geothermal plants, and a variety of ingenious new ways to improve our efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy.

And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.

You know, the same thing happened with computer chips – also made out of silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down by 50 percent every 18 months – year after year, and that’s what’s happened for 40 years in a row.

To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution. I’ve seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this challenge.

To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand for oil and coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.

When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home.

Of course there are those who will tell us this can’t be done. Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo – the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to pay. But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise.

As one OPEC oil minister observed, “The Stone Age didn’t end because of a shortage of stones.”

To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world’s scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don’t act in 10 years. The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution comes down.

To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the status quo. Then bear witness to the people’s appetite for change.

I for one do not believe our country can withstand 10 more years of the status quo. Our families cannot stand 10 more years of gas price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more years of job losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil.

And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have large oil supplies.

What could we do instead for the next 10 years? What should we do during the next 10 years? Some of our greatest accomplishments as a nation have resulted from commitments to reach a goal that fell well beyond the next election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security, the interstate highway system. But a political promise to do something 40 years from now is universally ignored because everyone knows that it’s meaningless. Ten years is about the maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady aim and hit our target.

When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.

To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity. Our national electric grid is critical infrastructure, as vital to the health and security of our economy as our highways and telecommunication networks. Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be upgraded anyway.

We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid.

At the same time, of course, we need to greatly improve our commitment to efficiency and conservation. That’s the best investment we can make.

America’s transition to renewable energy sources must also include adequate provisions to assist those Americans who would unfairly face hardship. For example, we must recognize those who have toiled in dangerous conditions to bring us our present energy supply. We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them.

Of course, we could and should speed up this transition by insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the costs of the environmental damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is the single most important policy change we can make.

In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of extreme poverty and disease as part of the world’s agenda for solving the climate crisis.

Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.

It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.

Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address? When people rightly complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more money to the oil companies and pretend that they’re going to bring gasoline prices down. It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone knows it. If we keep going back to the same policies that have never ever worked in the past and have served only to produce the highest gasoline prices in history alongside the greatest oil company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if we get the same result over and over again.

But the Congress may be poised to move in that direction anyway because some of them are being stampeded by lobbyists for special interests that know how to make the system work for them instead of the American people.

If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.

However, there actually is one extremely effective way to bring the costs of driving a car way down within a few short years. The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline.

Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we’ve simply lost our appetite for bold policy solutions. And folks who claim to know how our system works these days have told us we might as well forget about our political system doing anything bold, especially if it is contrary to the wishes of special interests. And I’ve got to admit, that sure seems to be the way things have been going. But I’ve begun to hear different voices in this country from people who are not only tired of baby steps and special interest politics, but are hungry for a new, different and bold approach.

We are on the eve of a presidential election. We are in the midst of an international climate treaty process that will conclude its work before the end of the first year of the new president’s term. It is a great error to say that the United States must wait for others to join us in this matter. In fact, we must move first, because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because moving first is in our own national interest.

So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge – for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It’s time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now.

This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our collective fate. I’m asking you – each of you – to join me and build this future. Please join the WE campaign at wecansolveit.org.We need you. And we need you now. We’re committed to changing not just light bulbs, but laws. And laws will only change with leadership.

On July 16, 1969, the United States of America was finally ready to meet President Kennedy’s challenge of landing Americans on the moon. I will never forget standing beside my father a few miles from the launch site, waiting for the giant Saturn 5 rocket to lift Apollo 11 into the sky. I was a young man, 21 years old, who had graduated from college a month before and was enlisting in the United States Army three weeks later.

I will never forget the inspiration of those minutes. The power and the vibration of the giant rocket’s engines shook my entire body. As I watched the rocket rise, slowly at first and then with great speed, the sound was deafening. We craned our necks to follow its path until we were looking straight up into the air. And then four days later, I watched along with hundreds of millions of others around the world as Neil Armstrong took one small step to the surface of the moon and changed the history of the human race.

We must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change history. Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind.

{Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. served as vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore served first in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and later in the U.S. Senate (1985–93) representing Tennessee before becoming vice president.

In 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

He is the author of the 2006 text, “An Inconvenient Truth,” a slide show on global warming and starred in the Academy Award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” released in conjunction with the book. He helped to organize the July 7, 2007 set of Live Earth benefit concerts to combat global warming.

Gore is currently the cofounder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, cofounder and chairman of the Emmy award winning American television channel Current TV, a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc., and a Senior Advisor to Google. He is also a partner in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, heading that firm’s climate change solutions group.}

{Editor’s Note: This speech by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore was given Thursday, July 17, 2008 at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitutional Hall in Washington, DC.}

By Al Gore

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WASHINGTON, DC, July 18, 2008 (ENS) – “Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years,” said former Vice President and Nobel Peace Laureate Al Gore Thursday.

Speaking to an audience at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall in Washington, Gore said, “This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans – in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.”

Gore says America is at a turning point and immediate action is required to utilize the abundant supplies of wind, solar and geothermal energy that exist right now in the United States.

“There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger,” Gore said.

“In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside,” he said.

“This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more – if more should be required – the future of human civilization is at stake.”

Al Gore emphasizes the urgency of
immediate action to reverse climate
change. July 17, 2008 (Photo by
Matthew Bradley)

The speech was given to draw public attention to Gore’s latest project, the We Can Solve It Campaign, a project of the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Gore, with the ultimate aim of halting global warming.

Gore said transformation must happen within 10 years because the climate crisis is worsening more quickly than predicted.

“Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland,” Gore told the audience at Constitution Hall.

“According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland’s largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City.”

Gore cited two studies from military intelligence experts warning about “the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.”

“Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an “energy tsunami” that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.”

Gore says the answer is to stop relying on carbon-based fuels.

“In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis,” he told the audience, “I have held a series of ’solutions summits’ with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices.”

“They are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf,” he said.

Gore says American can use fuels that are not expensive, do not cause pollution and are abundantly available within the United States.

“We have such fuels,” he said. “Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.”

“And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of U.S. electricity demand,” said Gore.

“Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.”

One by one, Gore set up the possible criticisms his plan might face and knocked them down.

“To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution. I’ve seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this challenge,” he said.

“To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand for oil and coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.”

Gore says his plan will not only free the country from the shakles of foreign oil but also build back the faltering economy.

“When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home,” he said.

“Of course there are those who will tell us this can’t be done,” said Gore. “Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo – the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to pay. But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise.”

“To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world’s scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don’t act in 10 years,” said Gore.

“The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution comes down,” he said.

“To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the status quo. Then bear witness to the people’s appetite for change,” Gore said.

“I for one do not believe our country can withstand 10 more years of the status quo. Our families cannot stand 10 more years of gas price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more years of job losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil.”

“And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have large oil supplies.”

Gore said the 10 year target he proposes is the right amount of time to allow for focused action without losing sight of the goal.

“Some of our greatest accomplishments as a nation have resulted from commitments to reach a goal that fell well beyond the next election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security, the interstate highway system. But a political promise to do something 40 years from now is universally ignored because everyone knows that it’s meaningless,” Gore said. “Ten years is about the maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady aim and hit our target.”

Gore served as vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He served first in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and later in the U.S. Senate (1985–93) representing Tennessee before becoming vice president.

In 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

He is the author of the 2006 text, “An Inconvenient Truth,” a slide show on global warming and starred in the Academy Award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” released in conjunction with the book. He helped to organize the July 7, 2007 set of Live Earth benefit concerts to combat global warming.

Gore is currently the cofounder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, cofounder and chairman of the Emmy award winning American television channel Current TV, a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc., and a Senior Advisor to Google. He is also a partner in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, heading that firm’s climate change solutions group.

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It is good to know what your government is doing in regards to the state of the environment. The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started a program called Energy Star in 1992. Energy Star is a voluntary organization that entreats companies who make electrical devices to include a special label on their products. In order for a product to qualify for an Energy Star label, it must meet strict energy efficiency standards set by the Energy Star program.

The idea here is to point consumer attention towards products that promote responsible consumption of natural resources. This seems to be one of the more realistic approaches to solving the climate crisis, since we all know somebody is always going to want a microwave or an air conditioner, no matter how bad the environmental problems might get. Conservation is a great way to get your cake and eat it too. Read more below to find out about the new pledge you can make at the Energy Star Website.

Join Countless Other People Taking The Pledge [www.energystar.gov]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching a national campaign to help Americans join in the fight against climate change. The campaign, “Change the World, Start with Energy Star” helps people make important energy-efficient changes at home and at work that can add up to significant reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.

“Environmental responsibility is everyone’s responsibility and this Earth Day, we are encouraging people to take common sense steps to reduce their climate footprints,” said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. “Through our new ‘Change the World: Start with ENERGY STAR’ campaign, we are helping people save green by going green.”

The campaign builds on the success of the Energy Star Change a Light campaign by providing a set of steps people can take to save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition to replacing at least one light in the home with an Energy Star one, the new Energy Star pledge encourages consumers to:

- Make home heating and cooling systems work more efficiently
- Make sure homes are well sealed and insulated
- Enable the power management features on home computers and monitors
- Choose an Energy Star qualified refrigerator, dishwasher and/or clothes washer when replacing or purchasing new appliances

Taking energy efficient steps at home and at work can make an important difference in addressing climate change. Buildings contribute about 40% of the nation’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, as most of the energy used in buildings comes from the burning of fossil fuels. These emissions can be reduced substantially through energy efficiency and the steps of the Energy Star pledge. If every American household took part in this new Energy Star pledge, we would save more than $18 billion in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 18 million cars..

Individuals can take the pledge online at www.energystar.gov

NUSA DUA, Bali, Indonesia, December 12, 2007 (ENS) – The world is counting on a breakthrough at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has told delegates at the summit, calling the fight against global warming “the moral challenge of our generation.”

In a speech delivered today at the opening of the conference’s high-level segment, he said, “What the world expects from Bali, from all of you, is an agreement to launch negotiations towards a comprehensive climate change agreement.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Indonesian Prime Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Bali

Ban underscored the importance of creating a road map to tackle climate change and a timeline to produce a new agreement by 2009 so that it can enter into force after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

“Let us turn the climate crisis into a climate compact,” he said, telling the delegates that they have been given a “clear charge” by the world to produce a breakthrough.

“Not only are the eyes of the world upon us – more important, succeeding generations depend on us. We cannot rob our children of their future,” he said.

Climate change affects those least equipped to cope and those least responsible the hardest, the Secretary-General reminded delegates.

“We have an ethical obligation to right this injustice,” he said. “We have a duty to protect the most vulnerable.”

The secretary-general urged developed countries to continue taking the lead in slashing emissions, while developing nations need incentives to curb their own release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

“Together, we can spur a new era of green economics, an era of truly sustainable development based on clean technology and a low-emission technology,” he declared.

According to scientists, creative solutions can result in both lowered emissions and economic growth, Ban said, as the “costs of inaction – in ecological, human and financial terms – far exceed the costs of action now.”

Acknowledging that concluding a new climate change regime will not be easy, the secretary-general pledged UN support through the negotiating period and assistance in implementing agreements reached.
Indonesian President Susilo Yudhoyono addresses delegates at the Bali climate conference.

“Every UN agency, fund and program is committed,” he told the gathering of more than 130 government ministers and six heads of state. “We are determined to be a part of the answer to climate change.”

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called on developed nations to cut their carbon emissions and to help developing countries in addressing climate change.

“In global cooperation, any nation must be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Developed nations which are historically responsible for global warming must do more,” he told the delegates.

“Developing countries which enjoy high economic growth must avoid industrialized countries` previous mistakes by adopting long-term low-carbon development plans,” he said.

He said developing countries would also benefit from the extended carbon market.

Presentations from heads of UN bodies and specialized agencies and statements from 48 ministers and heads of delegation followed. Contact groups and informal consultations continued throughout the day on the Bali roadmap, and mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol, including compliance with emissions limits.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, left, hands Australia’s Kyoto Protocol ratification document to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today in Bali.

The newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd handed his country’s Kyoto Protocol instrument of ratification to the secretary-general today, reversing Australia’s long-held alliance with the United States under the previous government. Australia will now be bound by greenhouse gas emissions limits of eight percent below 1990 levels by the end of 2012.

Tuesday, delegates celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol, which was agreed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. It took effect in February 2005, and on January 1, 2008, the first commitment period begins.

The protocol, requires 36 industrialized countries and the European Union to reduce a basket of six greenhouse gases an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels during the first commitment period, which ends December 31, 2012.

The purpose of the Bali conference is to agree on what delegates are calling a “roadmap” towards a successor agreement that will pick up when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Joining global efforts to become climate neutral, the United Nations announced today that it will offset the carbon emissions resulting from its members’ travel to and from climate change conference – estimated at around 3,370 tons of carbon dioxide.

The greenhouse gas emissions arising from the travel of staff from nearly two dozen UN agencies, funds and programs, as well as the secretary-general and his team, are estimated to be worth about $100,000 at current carbon prices.

The UN bodies will invest in credits accumulating in the Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund, which aims to finance concrete adaptation projects and programs in developing countries.

“Offsetting emissions by supporting the soon-to-be operation adaptation fund sends a clear signal that climate proofing vulnerable economies has – like the UN’s action climate change generally – risen to the top of the organization’s agenda in 2007,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme.

The negotiations at the Bali conference represent a turning point in the fight against global warming, the secretary-general said Tuesday.

“Today, we are at a crossroads, one path leading towards a comprehensive new climate agreement, and the other towards oblivion,” he said. “The choice is clear.”

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Al Gore is going to address world leadership at the climate conference in Bali. After just winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Gore can advise this conference with an indisputably important message about climate change [www.sundancechannel.com]. He is going to bring a petition with him when he visits the conference. The aim of the petition is to convince the assembled world leaders to sign a climate treaty [www.sundancechannel.com] by the year 2010.

Why so soon? Our time is running out. The climate crisis is a grim reality. In this case we are dealing with a grim reality that can mostly be avoided if we act quickly. A healthier planet can only come to be if the citizens of this planet decide to get involved in shaping their own future.

Al Gore wants to make it easier for each world citizen to contribute towards a balanced climate, and signing a petition is all you need to do in order to help out. If we can create millions of signatures on this petition, it would go a long way to forcing all the world leaders to stop ignoring the climate problems.

Please consider taking a minute of your time and Stand With Al Gore At The Climate Conference [www.climateprotect.org].

There has been a lot of grumbling about the US governments seemingly sluggish response to the world wide climate crisis occurring in today’s world. While it is important to demand leadership and excellence on environmental issues, it is also important to applaud and support the government when it partakes in initiatives that could actually produce really positive results. The EPA is really beginning to start some great programs on their website. One of these programs is a new function of the EPA website called the Energy Star Home Advisor.

Photo from EPA.gov

The “Energy Star Home Advisor,” allows Americans to type in information about their geographic locations and the types of energy solutions they have in their home. The Advisor then searches its database of tips that specifically relate to the information entered by the citizen. This feature provides tips, links to specific products that save money and finishes with a chart of percentages that list energy savings. This chart includes “Your potential total energy savings”, “Your potential electricity savings”, “Your potential fuel savings”, and “Your carbon emission reduction potential”.

If every American supported this new feature on the EPA website, it might prompt the EPA to continue to upgrade this cool little program. Praise can sometimes keep the conveyor belt of goodness rolling. Make sure to check out the Energy Star Home Advisor [www.energystar.gov].

Thanks for spending time on the Green Blog and please consider commenting on these posts with any additional information or questions that could help create positive environmental movement around the issues covered by this post.

When the grassroots organization, Lights Out San Francisco recently joined Eco-mmunity, we decided to join them and help take action for energy conservation. Eco-mmunity is intended to help people make connections. Like-minded companies and individuals need to become aware of each other and work together to solve the climate crisis.

Lights Out San Francisco is a citywide energy conservation event taking place on October 20, 2007. On this night, the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles will be invited to turn off all their non-essential lighting for one hour. In addition, free compact fluorescent light bulbs will be distributed throughout the city. You may ask: what good does one hour and one light bulb do? What do we hope to accomplish?
Lights Out estimates that turning lights out in San Francisco for even one hour could save as much as 15 percent of the energy consumed on an average Saturday night. The ongoing benefits of then installing CFLs in many houses and businesses will also be also significant.

Lights Out San Francisco was inspired by a similar event recently held in Sydney, Australia, called Earth Hour where, 2.2 million people participated. According to the post event calculations, one hour of lights out meant that 24.86 tons of carbon dioxide were not released into the air – the equivalent of taking 48,613 cars off the road for one hour.

Of course, we hope for the same or better here.

Thus far, LOSF has received a tremendous amount of support. Their growing list of supporters includes Esurance, Gap Inc., Integrated Archive Systems, PG&E, Safeway, Tides Center, and Yahoo!.

Eco-mmunity is proud to join that list. Since the Eco-mmunity Map exists to document and spread awareness to and about specific individuals who make green changes in the world, we are working with Lights Out to encourage all participants in the Lights Out San Francisco and Los Angeles events to create a map marker indicating their participation in the Lights Out event. Simply snap a picture showing your: candlelit restaurant, your home by moonlight or your lights out party and upload it to the map. The photos will appear in individual map markers that will be added to a new “Lights out” group on the map. You’ll be able to view all these markers in a unique “Map Slideshow” soon after the event.

[b]We are also asking all of our Eco-mmunity members across the globe to consider turning their lights off as well in solidarity and adding their photos to the map as well.[b]

“We’re very excited about the synergy between Sundance Channel’s Eco-mmunity and lights out San Franscisco. Now, people can mark the map to show that they’re turning out their lights or hosting a lights-out soiree. They can also upload photos of the night sky as the lights go out. Creating a place online where people have the opportunity experience and share this important energy conservation event. Our plan is to take what we learn here in San Francisco and apply it to citites throughout the US and the world. We believe the eco-mmunity, especially the map, will help us connect with more people.” – Nate Tyler, founder of “Lights Out San Francisco”.

Besides turning out the lights, feel free to include info about all your green efforts in life. Whether it be your awesome recycling system, your great energy saving appliances or the fabulous parties you can have when the lights are off, we want everyone in the world to see your marker. Get started on the Eco-mmunity Map now.

For more info on Lights Out and to sign up, go to LightsOut.org [www.lightsoutsf.org]