Climate and Renewable Energy (continued)
Published on June, 23 2012The earth as we know it today is changing under our eyes as ecosystems, bio-diversity and habitat range of many species is altered. No carbon-based energy is “clean” and oil and gas drilling wastes and contaminates vast quantities of fresh water, and pollutes air and land. The claim that oil and gas drilling or tar sands mining that harms vast tracks of land ensure energy independence is false – much of this product is bound for export. Conversion of agricultural land and forests for bio-fuels is also problematic and has negative impacts. A systematic, rapid transition to renewable energy sources must occur now before warming increases exponentially.
a. Need to cover here: cap and trade and carbon tax as problematic and creating market incentives rather than transition to renewables.
b. need to write up the innovative financing mechanism called Feed-in Tariff now renamed to CLEAN and the Oregonians for Renewable Energy Policy and Decentralizing the Grid
Take Action
Take a Stand: No Fracking (need handout)
Advocate for Feed-In Tarifs (need to explain)
Pass a Precautionary Principle Ordinance
Materials:
No Fracking brochure
Films
Articles
William Nordhaus, "Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong," The New York Review of Books, March 22, 2012, p. 32ff.
Naomi Klein: "If You Take Climate Change Seriously, You Have to Throw Out the Free-Market Playbook"
Bill McKibben, "Why Not Frack?” The New York Review of Books, March 8, 2012, p. 13,
Books
Anna Lappé, Diet for a Small Planet:The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It (2010)
James Gustave Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability
James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment
Bill McKibben, Deep Economy:The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
Bill McKibben, The Global Warming Reader
Bill McKibben, Earth: Making A Life On A Tough New Planet
Organizations
Indigenous Environmental Network
