Sierra Club Currents - Got Coal? Not If We Can Help It. Volume VI, #40 Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Quote of Note:
"There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we act now and we act internationally. But the task is urgent. Delaying action, even by a decade or two, will take us into dangerous territory. We must not let this window of opportunity (pass)."
-- Sir Nicholas Stern, head of the British Government Economic Service and author of a new report on the economic impacts of ignoring Global Warming
(1) Coal Rush: On a Roll with Stopping Coal (2) Sierra Club Victory: Big Win in Big Thicket! (3) Critters Need Your Help: New Fiore Cartoon (4) Take Action: Tell Congress to Fight Global Warming!
(1) Coal Rush: On a Roll with Stopping Coal!
Coal plants are the dirtiest source of energy we use today. In the past months, the Sierra Club has succeeded in stopping the construction of two 600 megawatt coal fired plants. The US Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Appeals Board and a federal judge in Southern Illinois both sided with the Club and ordered EnviroPower and Indeck Energy to halt construction of their respective plants, both located in Illinois. By stopping these two plants we have prevented the emissions of about 10,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 8,000 tons of soot, smog, and mercury annually. The Sierra Club is working to keep back the flood of coal-generated electricity and instead build a cleaner energy future.
Read more about Stopping the Coal Rush and find out where new and recent coal-fired power plants are located.
(2) Sierra Club Victory: Big Win in Big Thicket!
Oil and gas projects just outside of the boundaries of America's national parks pose serious threats to the wildlife, environmental quality, and scenic nature of these regions. Current National Park Service policies allow companies to extract oil and gas resources by drilling at an angle from a surface located outside the park. In the case of Big Thicket National Park, a biologically diverse region that brings together in one location the eastern hardwood forests, the Gulf coastal plains, and the Midwest prairies, close to twenty oil wells have been constructed just outside its borders.
In 2004, the Sierra Club took legal action to demand that the Interior Department examine the impacts such projects would have on the parks. Last week, a federal judge sided with the Sierra Club.
Learn more about the ruling and more activities of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program.
Photo: National Park Service
(3) Critters Need Your Help: New Fiore Cartoon
More people than ever before are considering environmental issues as they decide how to vote in next week's election. One voting bloc, however, has been relatively silent. That's about to change.
Thanks to cartoonist Mark Fiore, you can hear for yourself what the salmon, the caribou, the polar bear, and the grizzly think about going to the polls and learn how best to make your voice heard. Hint: It's never a good idea to eat a poll worker.
Check out the new Fiore cartoon, "Critter Coalition."
(4) Take Action: Tell Congress to fight Global Warming!
This week the British government released their report analyzing the economics of global warming. The conclusion of the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change is that the world has the resources, capability, and the methods to stop global warming. It states quite clearly, however, that we have a small window in which to act after which the sticker price of success becomes significantly higher while the likelihood of success gets smaller.
We have heard again and again from President Bush that we can't afford to take measures to combat global warming, but the Stern review clearly demonstrates that we can't afford not to.
Tell Congress to Act to Stop Global Warming!
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Scariest Halloween Ever! |
Congressman Richard Pombo, from California's 11th District, has spent 14 years on Capitol Hill working to allow mining in national parks like Yosemite, expose protected coastlines to oil and gas drilling, and rewrite the Endangered Species Act. This Halloween, download the Richard Pombo mask, and have the scariest costume on the block!
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