WASHINGTON, DC, November 3, 2008 (ENS) – In the countdown to election day, the national, non-partisan youth campaign Power Vote has been active across the country to make sure young people turn out in record numbers to vote for clean energy, climate protection and green job creation.

For the last few days, Power Voters have been organizing green concerts, festivals, and rallies, dorm storms, bike blitzes, phone banking, as well as traditional door knocking and canvassing to ensure that the youth vote is huge this year.

In St. Louis, Missouri, students held a “Metrolink Prom” on Saturday to help raise awareness about a local public transportation proposition.

On Friday in Virginia, students held a statewide “Hallow-Green” Day of Action to show youth voter support for clean energy. Hundreds of campuses also participated in Trick or Vote activities in “climate costumes.”

“Young people understand that their future is at stake in this election,” said Jessy Tolkan, director of Energy Action Coalition’s Power Vote campaign. “Our generation is not only committed to voting on November 4 but is also actively engaged in the democratic process.”

The non-partisan effort to get out the vote is spearheaded by the Energy Action Coalition and the “We” Campaign, a project of the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Working in more than 300 campuses and communities Power Voters have gotten at least 310,288 young people to commit to voting for clean energy and green jobs and have had a presence at every presidential and vice presidential debate, as well as at hundreds of campaign and candidate events around the country.

Jessy Tolkan, director of the Power Vote
campaign, with former Vice President
Al Gore at the webcast October 29,
2008 (Photo courtesy Power Vote)

On October 29, Power Vote organized a webcast with former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, creator of the Academy Award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” about the dangers of global warming.

More than 15,000 viewers on 154 campuses nationwide tuned in to hear Gore promote his “Repower America” plan, which sets the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years.

“To Repower America with 100 percent carbon-free electricity within 10 years,” Gore said on the webcast, “we’re going to need the enthusiasm and dedication of millions of motivated students and young adults. I applaud the Energy Action Coalition for their valuable work encouraging students to vote on Election Day.”

“We have had enough of dirty energy politics and are doing everything we can to make sure this election is the beginning of a clean energy future for America,” Tolkan said.

Today, there were youth vote rallies in Ohio and Virginia.

Massive synchronized dorm storms are planned throughout the night in nearly every state.

On election day students in New Hampshire and Florida will be marching to the polls together.

In other states, students are planning Critical Mass bike rides to the polls.

And in North Carolina, free biodiesel bus rides are being arranged to get voters to the polls. In anticipation of long lines, students in many states are doing street theater performances and are throwing Polling Parties to keep people entertained as they wait to vote.

Throughout the weekend, Power Voters talked to hundreds of thousands of their classmates and peers in-person, on the phone, and through Facebook to make sure they had all the information they needed to vote.

And Tuesday night, as the results roll in, Power Vote green election watching parties will be happening across the country.

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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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Al Gore’s commitment to the environment inspires hope. Here’s an individual who could have gone in any direction after being the Vice President and very nearly becoming the President in 2000. Given all that opportunity, Al Gore chose to focus on the environment because he rightly sees that it is not just panda bears and gorillas that need protection from extinction, it is humans that are facing extinction. Of course, extinction technically draws near when population levels of an organism drop to dangerously low levels, and is often combined with a limited amount of habitats where the organism lives.

Humans are endangered because we are held to a higher standard for extinction. As has been said many times before, intelligence and self awareness distinguish human beings from the majority of life forms on the planet. Our capacity for communication and learning means that we are capable of predicting our own extinction hundreds of years before it actually occurs. Humans also harbor the capability and the predilection to change the surface, air and water on the planet in truly global fashions.

Al Gore started the Alliance for Climate Protection in order to bring more people into the process of caring about the lives that we lead. In the same way as a boat’s wake can be dangerous to marine animals, so to does the wake of the human being affect organisms far and wide.

It is refreshing to visit a non-profit organization’s website that contains a very simple but thorough set of tools for making a difference on an important issue. When that issue also happens to be climate protection, well that makes this blog post writer extremely happy. Make sure you get engaged with saving the biosphere at Alliance For Climate Protection [www.wecansolveit.org].

You will find that the website is displayed in a very easy to follow format. If you find great resources on the website and begin to take action to mitigate climate change, we hope you will take that opportunity to login to Sundance Channel and make a “Green Action Taken” Marker on Eco-mmunity Map. Outlining your contribution for the world to appreciate could be the inspiration that gets another person to follow your example. You can also link to any map marker on Eco-mmunity Map by clicking the “grab link” button and pasting that info in your MySpace, Facebook or Miscellaneous Website.

SAN FRANCISCO, California, January 17, 2008 (ENS) – San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Tuesday released SForward, the roadmap to achieve his environmental goal of a 20 percent decrease in emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide below 1990 levels by 2010.

The plan also aims to achieve carbon neutrality for city government by 2020.

SForward incorporates the environmental goals, programs and strategies of all key city departments, including the Public Utilities Commission, Municipal Transportation Authority, Department of Public Works, and the Recreation and Parks Department.

“San Francisco’s environmental future is already unfolding,” said Mayor Newsom. “When fully realized, the San Francisco of the future will be a place where words like ‘green’ and ’sustainable’ are meaningless, because it will simply be understood that any action includes best practices for the environment.”

SForward identifies six policy areas that will be developed – renewable and efficient energy, clean transportation, green buildings, urban forest, zero waste, and environmental justice.

The plan also highlights programs that are working now – such as San Francisco’s successful recycling efforts and recent biodiesel conversion efforts of food waste, as well as new ideas such as solar incentives and a local carbon offset program.

The plan looks toward changing municipal policies, such as the General Plan, as well as individual departmental strategic plans and seeks ways that the city can incorporate climate action in all initiatives.

The city’s strategies to develop new local climate change policy to address climate change include:

* Creating a San Francisco Carbon Fund for local green activities designed to mitigate or offset greenhouse gas emissions.

* Developing framework for a carbon tax, which may serve as an alternative to payroll taxes for San Francisco businesses.

* Incorporating climate protection criteria into the City’s General Plan and into departmental plans, activities and performance measures.

* Working with Peak Oil Task Force to maximize synergies between climate action and the development of the City’s approach to Peak Oil.

The plan includes encouragement for the installation of more solar power. The city will provide subsidies and loans to homeowners and businesses that install solar panels.

By 2010, San Francisco would
cut greenhouse gases by 20
percent below 1990 levels
under the new SForward plan.
(Photo courtesy FreeFoto.com)

To get San Franciscans out of their cars, the mayor proposes building key transportation projects including the Transbay Terminal and the Central Subway. He plans to expanding “SF Go,” a transportation management system to improve public transit.

The mayor says he will ensure that the required planning on the San Francisco Bike Plan is completed and greatly expand the City’s bicycle network.

The SForward plan includes bicycle-sharing options in new bus shelter programs.

Car-sharing will be encouraged and the mayor plans to designate 500 parking spaces for car-share vehicles.

To coincide with the launch of SForward, Mayor Newsom submitted legislation that will prohibit use of the outdated, environmentally costly T-12 lightbulb, and encourage transition to the T-8 bulb.

The T-8 lighting tubes are up to 40 percent more energy efficient, and have improved color, less heat, and less noise than the older fluorescent lamps.

The value of replacing the T-12 tubes is calculated that if all the remaining older fluorescent lights in the city were replaced with this new T-8 lighting technology, it would save enough energy to power 7,200 local residences or eliminate 16,500 tons of carbon dioxide.

To assist with these new requirements, funding is available to help with the conversion to more energy efficient light bulbs.

The SF Energy Watch Program has nearly $4 million to offer to local businesses to help with energy efficiency conversions. It provides incentive programs, training, education, and technical assistance for small businesses and residential customers.

The SForward plan is based on the work of the San Francisco Commission on the Environment, an advisory body which sets policy for the Department of the Environment and advises the mayor and Board of Supervisors on environmental matters.

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WASHINGTON, DC, March 2, 2009 (ENS) – More than 80 labor, environmental, civic, and policy organizations have endorsed a proposal to secure America’s economic recovery and environmental health by applying energy-efficient measures to over 15 million existing buildings – from adding insulation to replacing inefficient boilers.

The Clean Energy Corps would combine job creation, service, and training to combat global warming. “The beauty of the Clean Energy Corps is that it doesn’t just create jobs,” said Green For All founder Van Jones, “it also creates pathways out of poverty.”

The Clean Energy Corps is a proposal of the Clean Energy Corps Working Group, which includes representatives of the Apollo Alliance, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Center on Wisconsin Strategy, Corps Network, Energy Action Coalition, Green For All, Innovations in Civic Participation, and 1Sky.

“At a time of severe hardship in the construction sector, retrofitting residential buildings to cut energy use can save consumers money, expand economic growth, reduce pollution, and create jobs,” said Bracken Hendricks, senior fellow at Center for American Progress.

By retrofitting millions of structures, the Clean Energy Corps proposes to create at least 600,000 living-wage, career-track jobs in green industries, train people for them, and directly engage millions of Americans in diverse service-learning and volunteer work related to climate protection.

The organizers suggest that the new Corps be led by President Barack Obama and administered through a new Energy Security Council that they say would compare to the existing National Security Council in flexibility and executive coordination of relevant departments, programs, and cabinet secretaries.

The Energy Security Council would be subject to regular independent oversight, evaluation and reporting to Congress on the achievement of program aims, organizers say.

“The Clean Energy Corps will be the vehicle through which the growing consensus to combat global warming through the creation of long-term, family-supporting jobs becomes a reality,” said Theodore Green, advisor to the general president at Laborers’ International Union of North America.

“We look forward to working through CEC with the full range of stakeholders – governmental bodies at the national, state and local levels, community organizations, environmental groups and our signatory employers – to improve and protect the lives of working men and women,” he said.

A worker tests the air distribution system to ensure a home in Orlando, Florida meets efficiency standards. (Photo courtesy Florida Solar Energy Center and Integrated Building and Construction Solutions)

The Clean Energy Corps is intended as a collaborative and cost-effective national initiative entailing minimal new bureaucracy.

Retrofits would be financed out of a federal revolving loan fund, where the loan is paid back out of a portion of the savings on energy bills.

The CEC would be funded through established programs – Department of Energy, Department of Labor, and Corporation for National and Community Service – and also through new programs, organizers say.

The real work of the Clean Energy Corps would occur at the state and local levels and grant funds would be awarded directly to state task forces and local CEC partnerships.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is leading the way with its launch Thursday of a Kentucky Clean Energy Corps pilot program with $1 million of existing state and private funds.

Under the stewardship of Governor Steve Beshear, the program is working with 100 low income Kentucky households in Lexington and rural Bourbon and Clark Counties to make their homes more energy efficient, reduce utility bills and engage Kentuckians in service.

“We salute the work that groups like Center for American Progress and Green For All are doing to bring the Clean Energy Corps idea to the nation’s attention,” said Governor Beshear. “And we are proud that our state is taking national leadership and serving as a role model in the effort to turn our economy around through innovative programs that create good, new jobs while protecting the environment.”

The Kentucky households will receive an energy audit to determine leaks in the building envelope. Each household will receive a volunteer-led, energy efficiency rehabilitation, to potentially include insulation of ducts, attics, walls, and ceilings, weather-stripping, and replacement of leaky doors and windows. Roofs, siding and foundations could be repaired or replaced.

Inefficient furnaces, refrigerators, water heaters, and light bulbs may be replaced with efficient models and heat pumps, and unsafe electrical equipment will be upgraded.

Selected homes in the Kentucky pilot program will test renewables such as solar water heating. Utilities will provide smart energy meters for monitoring and documenting of real-time energy usage, to track savings and efficiencies, with third party verification of the savings generated.

Jonathan Miller, secretary of the Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet, says the program will go statewide with at least $77 million in federal economic stimulus money. Organizers predict it will create 3,300 jobs in the first year.

In addition to generating hundreds of thousands of jobs, organizers say the Clean Energy Corps would reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, buildings account for 40 percent of U.S. energy use and carbon emissions – more than transportation.

The Clean Energy Corps website, www.greenforall.org/clean-energy-corps, features the full Clean Energy Corps report, a petition in support of the proposal, Congressional updates, and a complete list of endorsers.

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