Clean Energy Rally at Port Everglades
Posted on 25. Aug, 2010 by Howard Salus in Education, Environment, Everglades, Green Events
Contact: Andrea Cuccaro, 1Sky Florida Organizer, 786-925-1151
1Sky and Allies in the South Florida Clean Energy Network Rally for Clean Energy at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
On Saturday, August 21st at noon, at Welcome Park near the entrance of Port Everglades about 40 concerned citizens united for a rally to document the 4-month anniversary of the BP Oil Spill Disaster, to speak up in favor of mandatory oil rig safety and better regulatory practices and to demand clean energy instead of expanding offshore oil drilling.
“1Sky and the South Florida Clean Energy Network are urging U.S. Senators Bill Nelson and George LeMieux to support a cap on carbon with tax breaks for renewable energy that will transition us away from fossil fuels to a green economy,” said 1Sky Florida Organizer Andrea Cuccaro. “We also want them to follow the House and support oil rig safety and an increase in the cap on funds for oil spill clean ups and an end to the revolving door between folks who work for oil companies and the Department of Interior,” she said.
Over a year ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to place a cap on carbon that ratchets down each year which we need to address climate change in time, while also providing incentives for clean energy with 2 million jobs and plentiful tax breaks. Environmentalists call such legislation “jump-starting the green economy” because while penalizing carbon and promoting more green power, it takes one giant leap from one to the other. At the end of July of this year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill for better safety regulations, increasing the cap on funds for oil spill cleanup, and to end the revolving door for employees moving between Big Oil and its regulator, the Department of Interior. All that’s left to move these efforts into law is for the U.S. Senate to pass a similar plan. 1Sky has several thousand supporting members in Florida who have petitioned for clean energy solutions from Congress for over a year.
Even as the Gulf disaster grows, British Petroleum and other oil companies continue to push for new offshore drilling anywhere oil might be found regardless of the risks they pose. Scientists have discovered a 22 mile oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico, discrediting previous reports that state that 75% of the oil is gone. Once again, the reality of the spill’s impact and magnitude has been far more sobering than the rosy picture painted by BP and the government. Together we have an opportunity to change America and the world. It is time for our leaders to take bold, courageous steps and open the door to clean energy and renewables and free our country from its addiction to oil.
“I actually saw President Obama speak in Miami Beach last week,” Cuccaro said. “He promoted green jobs, tax breaks for small businesses, and in general a carbon cap and clean energy tax breaks mean helping small local businesses get access to the energy market.” Cuccaro recounted, “The president also mentioned the $20 billion in recovery funds for fisherman and businesses affected by the spill and how U.S. Representative Joe Barton responded. Yelled Obama, ‘He apologized to BP! It’s like, Are you serious?’”
1Sky and allied clean energy advocates aim is to raise awareness of the methods for institutionalizing clean energy sources, and recognize that there are many non-allies in Congress, which is why it’s important to push hard and raise more awareness from folks in the community to pick up the phone and call their senators. Speak out for a cap on carbon, a transition to a clean energy economy, and urge leaders to work for mandatory safety valves, better regulatory practices, and abandon expanded offshore oil drilling and adopt policies that encourage clean and renewable energy sources.
“At a time when our country is finally assessing the true cost of dependence on fossil fuels – no need to recap the horrors we’re all seeing daily,” said Matthew Schwartz, Political Chair of the Broward Sierra Club “this is the time to move things in a very different direction. We must say NO to offshore drilling and YES to clean energy. Now!”
Representatives from local chapters of 1Sky, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Sea Shepherd, and the newly formed South Florida Clean Energy Coalition provided critical information to the public and media regarding who in congress is leading the way and how to promote passage of the current proposal in the house and the Senate, and were interviewed by ABC News. As many oil and gas trucks passed by toward the port, even the drivers honked and gave peace signs in support of an end to drilling and a transition to clean energy.
Photo Credit: Tom Olsen
Join the 1Sky Florida group on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=149011449694
1Sky is a collaborative national campaign for strong federal action to tackle global climate change and invest in building the clean energy economy of the future. As one of the largest national campaigns in the country, 1Sky combines the force of 620 allied organizations, 201,959 committed climate advocates, 4,238 volunteer Climate Precinct Captains covering more than 394 congressional districts in 50 states, and a team of 24 including 9 organizers in 50 states working to mobilize constituent support.
DECLARATION OF FOSSIL FUEL INDEPENDENCE
Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by Howard Salus in Climate, Environment
By Barry Silver
Barry Silver is founder and co-chair of the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition, Rabbi of Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor, environmental attorney, and former State Representative of Florida.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one species to dissolve the bonds that have connected it with fossil fuels and to assume among all living beings on Earth a more responsible and harmonious station, a decent respect for the beauty and majesty of all life forms requires that we declare the reasons which impel this separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all species are fashioned exquisitely, that they have evolved through natural selection with awe inspiring adaptations which render them spectacularly well suited for survival, and integral to the survival of all life on Earth, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are the right to live in a clean and unpolluted environment. That to secure this right, responsible governments derive their just power from concern for the planet, that whenever any government becomes destructive of this goal, whether through deliberate acts, recklessness, indifference or greed, it is the right and the responsibility of homo sapiens to abolish the political careers of such individuals and replace them with wise leaders who will institute new policies that will protect us from ourselves. Prudence will dictate that policies long established will not easily be changed due to the corrupting influence of money, power and greed upon elected officials, but when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to subject us to domination by profit driven and environmentally oblivious corporations and to subject us to intolerable risks of devastating ecological harm, then it is the right, it is the sacred duty of all people to throw out such individuals and to replace them with wise and thoughtful leaders. Such has been the patient suffering of all life on Earth, and such is now the necessity which constrains us to vote for new leaders and institute new policies to protect our future. The history of government is a history of consistent injuries and usurpations of nature, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny of fossil fuel interests and environmentally destructive corporations over our economy, our political institutions and our ecosystems. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
1. We have allowed our scientific and technical achievements to far outstrip our wisdom in knowing how to responsibly use these technologies.
2. Humans have become the most dangerous species ever to inhabit planet Earth, and now pose an unprecedented risk to all other living beings on the planet.
3. We have treated mother Earth as our private sewer and garbage dump, contaminating the air, polluting the land, and poisoning the seas with our wastes and fossil fuels.
4. We have treated all other species as commodities to be consumed, used and exploited without regard for their feelings and dignity as unique and precious life forms.
5. Our addiction to fossil fuels has caused significant and unnatural climate change and poses an immediate and devastating threat to all future life on this planet.
6. Due to our carelessness, we have left a despoiled planet to our descendents.
We therefore solemnly declare our commitment to seek to be free and independent of fossil fuels by the year 2020, and to respect our home planet. In support of this Declaration, and with a firm reliance upon our species’ survival instinct, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortune and our sacred honor.
(Editor’s Note: Your comments below would be appreciated)
As Oil Gushes in the Gulf, Frustrations Rise in Florida
Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Howard Salus in Eco Tourism, Environment, Everglades
By LLOYD DUNKELBERGER H-T Capital Bureau
Published: Wednesday, May 26, 2010
TALLAHASSEE – With the Gulf oil spill some 55 miles from Pensacola, state officials on Tuesday vented their frustration over BP’s failure to staunch the flow and ease its impact on Florida’s vital summer tourist trade.
Gov. Charlie Crist
“We’re doing everything humanly possible to make sure that people throughout the country understand our beaches are clean, that the water is clean, that the charter boats are open for business.”
Gov. Charlie Crist
Gov. Charlie Crist said he does not want to see the video images of oil-soaked birds and wildlife in the Louisiana marshes replicated on the beaches of the Sunshine State.
“That would be a nightmare,” Crist said.
Oil spill may put Florida wildlife at risk
Posted on 29. Apr, 2010 by Howard Salus in Environment, Everglades, Florida News
By Thomas Stewart
In addition to being right before the peak of Florida’s tourism season, Leslie Straub, founder and director of Gainesville-based Florida Wildlife Care, said it’s breeding season for many of the state’s beach-nesting birds such as the tern and the black-necked stilt. An oil slick washing up on shore could kill off scores of unhatched or baby birds, some from species already threatened or endangered, she said.
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