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White House and Climate Change
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Demand a more climate resilient electricity system
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This “war on science” has thousands of casualties. Here’s what you need to know. |
Steve Clemmer: Share this:
The most comprehensive look yet at climate change
Hi, everyone
We released the third National Climate Assessment report, by far the most comprehensive look ever at climate change impacts in the United States.
Based on four years of work by hundreds of experts from government, academia, corporations, and public-interest organizations, the Assessment confirms abundant data and examples that climate change isn’t some distant threat — it’s affecting us now.
Not only are the planet and the nation warming on average, but a number of types of extreme weather events linked to climate change have become more frequent or intense in many regions, including heat waves, droughts, heavy downpours, floods, and some kinds of destructive storms.
Those steps include, importantly, the three sets of actions making up the Climate Action Plan that President Obama announced last June: cutting carbon pollution in America; increasing preparedness for and resilience to the changes in climate that already are ongoing; and leading the international response to the climate change challenge.
We’ve made great progress in the year since his announcement — but there’s much more work to be done.
Thank you,
John
Dr. John P. Holdren
Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
The White House
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Demand a more climate resilient electricity system
Don’t jail climate activists just for speaking out!
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If they succeed, they’ll try the same thing here.Tell the Australian government: Defend our shared climate! Don’t censor climate activists!
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Fossil fuel divestment campaigns are working. They’re working so well that Big Coal is scared and striking back, frantically trying to censor climate activists like you and ban these campaigns.
Our friends at 350 Australia tell us that the Minerals Council of Australia is trying to outlaw coal boycotts in their country, effectively criminalizing speaking out for the climate. [1] Australia is the world’s leading coal exporter. If Big Coal succeeds in silencing their opposition there, they will try elsewhere — including here in the United States.
Australian colleagues have told us that their government is sensitive to American opinion. That means your voice matters on this — together, we can help stop Big Coal from censoring its opponents!
This really is as absurd as it sounds — Big Coal is trying to make it illegal for you to ask others not to invest in coal. Think about that: Ask a retirement fund or university not to include coal stocks in their investment portfolio, go to jail.
The Australian coal companies claim that only a “small number of noisy extremists” support divestment, but the true extremism comes in harming our climate and silencing the opposition. One Minerals Council executive even wrote an op-ed called “Economic vandals must be jailed.” [2] I would love to get him face-to-face and ask if he really wants to jail Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, who just wrote an op-ed of his own called “We need an apartheid-style boycott to save the planet.” [3]
This is a desperate move on the part of greedy Big Coal, and it’s all because divestment is working. We are not small in number — thanks to the leadership of Archbishop Tutu, 350.org, and the Sierra Student Coalition, more than 20 U.S. cities, 26 churches, and nine colleges have all declared they will not invest in fossil fuels! [4] This type of campaign helped end apartheid in South Africa, and now it’s going to help bring down the corporate polluters.
Neil deGrasse Tyson said something great on the updated “Cosmos” TV show: “The words of the powerful may prevail on other spheres of human experience, but in science, the only thing that counts is the evidence and the logic of the argument itself.” [5]
Tyson’s right. And while Big Coal may be powerful, climate science is on our side. That’s why the fossil fuel industry is terrified of you — but a terrified animal fights the hardest, so we have to remember that we have the upper hand and keep fighting back. Our grassroots voices will always overpower their deep pockets, but only if we don’t stay silent.
In it together,
Nathan Empsall
SierraRise Senior Campaigner
P.S. Five messages are even more powerful than one — after you take action, be sure to forward this alert to your friends, family, and colleagues!
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