Monthly Archives: July 2011

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Higher standards, better cars. Take action! UCS


The Union of Concerned Scientists is proud to unveil the 2011 Hybrid Scorecard. More automakers are delivering real environmental benefits at good value, yet others continue to try and use the “hybrid halo” to peddle small benefits, bigger, dirtier engines, and lots of unnecessary bells and whistles. To find out how they stack up, check out the fully updated Hybrid Scorecard homepage.

Hybrid technology stands poised to play an important role in transforming vehicles in America. But only strong clean car standards will push the automakers to produce more of the hybrids that will rate high on our scorecard for environmental impact, efficiency, and value. The vehicles occupying the top of our scorecard prove such an expansion CAN be done. Strong clean car standards ensure that it WILL be done.

The Obama administration is deciding right now whether to set clean car standards as high as 60 miles per gallon (mpg) through 2025. That number matters—for our wallets and for our environment. And right now, we need big numbers of people telling the White House to deliver for U.S. consumers.

You and your fellow UCS supporters have taken public action, engaging the Department of Transportation on their blog and commenting on President Obama’s weekly address on YouTube—now it’s time to go right to the source.

We need you, and as many of your friends as you can muster, to send emails straight to President Obama telling him you want the kind of cars a 60 mpg standard can deliver.

Take Action Today!

Let’s make history together,
ScottNathanson_jpg
Scott Nathanson
National Field Organizer
UCS Clean Vehicles Program

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The State of Public Education …The Black Institute


As you know, education continues to be a vitally important issue in American society.At The Black Institute, we believe that every student can be a scholar and thus deserves the opportunity to receive an excellent education…period! The education debate is at the forefront of issues that the American people care about because it affects not only our lives but those of our children, our grandchildren and future generations. Not long ago, the NAACP signed on to a lawsuit against the NewYork Department of Education against the forced cohabitation traditional public schools and charter schools. Click here to read Bertha’s Lewis Op-Ed here  on this issue.

Let your voice be heard by leaving a comment on your thoughts.

In Solidarity,

The Black Institute Team

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Exxon warned years before Yellowston​e spill -Brant Olson


By now you have likely heard about last weekend’s horrifying oil spill in which Exxon’s pipeline ruptured and spilled 42,000 gallons of crude oil onto Yellowstone River’s overflowing banks.

What we’ve learned since the spill is that federal regulators warned Exxon about problems with its pipeline in 2009. Then Friday happened, spilling oil into one of the world’s most beautiful places.

Here is the full story. In July 2009, federal inspectors found evidence that an above-ground span of Exxon’s pipeline in Montana had become submerged under a creek and was piling up debris. Nearly 20 months later, in March of this year, Exxon reported that it was “evaluating control measures to keep future debris from accumulating over the pipeline.”

Last weekend, in the same region cited in the inspection, the same pipeline ruptured during record flooding of the Yellowstone River. Oil has already been found hundreds of miles away.

Exxon’s spill in Montana is just the latest in a string of accidents as long as the industry is old. And while Big Oil says that it is learning from its mistakes, even its newest pipelines can’t seem to contain the increasingly corrosive oil, much of which is mined from Canada’s tar sands.

We don’t need more pipelines. And we don’t need more dirty oil. Most analysts actually expect a steady decline in U.S. demand for oil. What we do need is a system of regulations and penalties that keep our communities safe from the pipelines already in the ground

Thanks for taking action to stop more oil spills!

For a clean energy future,

Brant Olson
Freedom From Oil Campaign Director

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Rebuild the Dream …


I trust my neighbors more than any Wall Street bank, hedge fund, or oil company. I think we all do.

But we keep letting the banks and multinational corporations, and their high-priced lobbyists, call the shots in our economy.

You know what? I think they’re doing a terrible job. Now it’s time for us, the American people, to come up with our own vision.

So today we’re launching a new effort. And we need your help.

Our goal is to help create a “Contract for the American Dream“—a people-powered plan for creating an economy that works for ALL of us.

When it is completed, this document will be very special. For one thing: thousands of us will have created it TOGETHER, as a community of friends and neighbors.

You are an important part of this community, and you have a key role to play in this effort:helping to choose the best ideas for fixing our economy.

It won’t take long, and you don’t need to be an expert. Just visit our new site and rate which ideas you think will make a real difference. We have some great ideas from progressive leaders. And you can add your own, too. No idea is too big or too small, too tame or too out there. We need your brain engaged on this.
To help get started, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich made a short video about how we can invest in creating more good jobs.
Check it out, then help rate some proposals!

We’re building this Contract with a deep belief that folks like us—all across America—have enough wisdom and common sense to come up with workable solutions to our nation’s problems. By putting our heads together, and combining our best thinking on a national basis, we believe we can craft a plan that unites our struggles for economic fairness and opportunity.

The key to this idea working is simple: we need as many people as possible to participate. We need you to submit ideas and to give feedback. The more people who join in to help craft the Contract, the better it’s going to be.

This week we’re going to focus on four areas. We are starting today with good jobs. Over the coming days, we’ll look for solutions to problems in other areas—from education, to labor rights, to taxes.

Then, on July 16 and 17, thousands of Americans are going to gather in living rooms, community centers, and church basements across the country. In just ten days, people will discuss and help sort the top ideas we have generated together. Between now and then, it’s up to all of us to feed the very best, most creative, most inspiring ideas into the conversations.

Can you help right now—by rating ideas and submitting your own?

http://www.moveon.org

Thanks for all you do.

–Van Jones

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24 Hours to Stop Shell’s Arctic Drilling Plans


The Department of the Interior will be deciding the fate of America’s Arctic Ocean this summer and we have just 24 hours to help them make the right choice.

Shell Oil has put together the most aggressive drilling plan yet in the Arctic Ocean — beginning as soon as next summer and calling for ten exploratory wells. But they can’t start drilling until the current public comment period ends and Secretary Salazar approves their plan.

That’s why Greenpeace is joining with a coalition of groups to collect comments to Interior Secretary Salazar before the deadline.

Shell’s plans have already been put on hold once thanks to the actions of people like you. Now we need to do it again. Don’t wait, every comment counts…

http://www.greenpeaceusa.org 

We will be overnight shipping all of your comments to the Department of the Interior office in Anchorage, Alaska.

America’s Arctic Ocean is one of our nation’s greatest natural treasures — a vast, pristine place at the top of the world that polar bears, whales, walrus, seals and Alaska Native communities all call home.

One single oil spill could completely destroy this fragile ecosystem forever.

Shell’s plans for cleaning up a spill in a region characterized by extreme cold, extended periods of darkness, hurricane-strength storms and pervasive fog include glorified mops and buckets. It’s laughable. The simple truth is that the technology doesn’t exist to “clean” up an oil spill in the Arctic.

We need to learn from BP’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year and not allow Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean.  As of now the only plan they have is to drill first and ask questions later.

We don’t have much time