Here’s the Media Release for the project I have been working on for the past few weeks, ObamasClimateLegacy.com. Add your name! Share widely!
Open Letters to President Obama Champion Zero Emissions Goal at Paris Talks. Add Your Name.
President’s Climate Legacy Hinges on Launching Emergency World War II-Scale Climate Mobilization
CONTACT:
Tom Weis, Climate Crisis Solutions
tom@climatecrisissolutions.com
September 2, 2015 (New York City, NY) – As President Obama witnessed the dramatic effects of climate chaos in Alaska today, a distinguished group of scientists and environmental, faith, civic and cultural leaders challenged him to champion a courageous U.S. goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 at the upcoming climate talks in Paris.
The challenge, issued in the form of an open letter, describes the current U.S. target of 26-28% emissions reductions by 2025 as a “weak” goal “that cannot be described as honest, courageous, or responsible in the face of a crisis that threatens the continued existence of humanity.” The letter also calls on the Obama administration to abandon its “all-of-the-above” energy policy.
Notable signers include authors Lester Brown and Terry Tempest Williams; environmentalists David Suzuki, Winona LaDuke, Tim DeChristopher and Yeb Saño; actors Mark Ruffalo and Ed Begley, Jr.; filmmaker Josh Fox; musician Moby; and scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coordinating lead author for the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report.
The open letter references a 2011 letter sent to President Obama – and signed by some of the same leaders – that called for an 80% reduction in emissions by 2020: “Because that urgent call was not heeded, we have lost precious time in the race to save civilization and must now set our sights even higher.”
Urging an “all-hands-on-deck societal mobilization at wartime speed,” the letter states, “It is with a deepening sense of dread over the fate of humanity that we call on you today to use the powers of your presidency to champion a U.S. goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.”
The letter reflects the views of growing numbers of scientists and climate leaders who are advocating dramatic, near-term carbon cuts over the carbon gradualism that has dominated the policy discourse to date. They say the world community has squandered the time available for a leisurely transition, and that an emergency mobilization is now needed to stave off climate catastrophe.
In his groundbreaking 2015 report, Recount, signer David Spratt stated policymakers must recognize that “climate change is already dangerous, and we have no carbon budget left to divide up. Big tipping-point events irreversible on human time scales and large-scale positive feedbacks are already occurring at less than 1°C of warming.”
Signer Yeb Saño, former climate change commissioner of the Philippines, said, “Climate change presents a clear and present danger for us and is already profoundly affecting many vulnerable communities around the world. The only path to climate justice is for the US to embrace the zero emissions paradigm.”
“The Obama administration calls climate change a global threat on the scale of World War II, so why are they not responding with a World War II-scale emergency mobilization?” asked signer Margaret Klein Salamon, founder of The Climate Mobilization. “It is time to treat climate change like the existential threat it is and mobilize off of fossil fuels.
“Seventy years later, it is hard to comprehend the astonishing achievement of America’s World War II mobilization, the sheer level of commitment, innovation and productivity that transformed society and led to the longest period of sustained economic growth in world history,” said signer Marshall Herskovitz, former president of the Producers Guild of America. “In the face of a crisis that now threatens our very existence, we can and must do it again.”
“If we don’t get to zero emissions within 10 years, we are looking at massive destruction and millions of lives lost,” said signer Laura Dawn, former MoveOn.org creative & cultural director. “Finally leaders are telling the truth about the severity of this crisis and the need for a heroic response.”
“After seven years of half-measures and half-truths, the Paris climate talks will finally determine whether Obama’s legacy will be that of a climate champion who rose to the challenge of the climate crisis or a failure who was too scared to offer more than rhetoric and insufficient reforms,” said fossil fuel abolition activist Tim DeChristopher with the Climate Disobedience Center.
The initiator of the letter, Tom Weis, president of Climate Crisis Solutions, concluded, “Photo ops in Alaska will not salvage President Obama’s climate legacy. Climate leaders fight for all that we love, not for all-of-the-above.”
To see the full text of the letter, and for more information, visit ObamasClimateLegacy.com.
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When there’s a gap between perception and reality it cannot be filled with more reality.
It’s way, way past time. We need to give up any delusions that Obama is going to help with any project remotely close to what we need to avoid catastrophe. He’s a creature of the corporate oligopoly and has shown for 10 years+ that he will never do anything to threaten the profits or position of the corporations that own the US government. His strategy of hope of change has kept a large part of the climate movement (and potential movement that never started moving) paralyzed for the entire time he’s been running and in office. The Keystone pipeline has been a giant finger trap; everything he’s proposed has been far too little far too late and is scheduled to kick in just about the time society will be collapsing at a rate too fast to save. Petitions and polite letters and asking to Obama or Congress are as useful as petitions to the Somali government for gun control. Mass demonstrations, blockades, shutting down the fossil fuel industry may get them to pay attention to demands but nothing else has or will.
Notable signers include authors Lester Brown and Terry Tempest Williams; environmentalists David Suzuki, Winona LaDuke, Tim DeChristopher and Yeb Saño; actors Mark Ruffalo and Ed Begley, Jr.; filmmaker Josh Fox; musician Moby; and scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a coordinating lead author for the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report.
Only one of whom is currently a scientist and one was one long ago. Both are now more activist than scientist. (Hoegh-Guldberg has been shouting the end of the Great Barrier reef for ever and its persisted in remaining pretty much exactly how it has been, apart from river flow pollution.)
I like Mark Ruffalo’s acting, but his politics are of no interest to anyone who would like to think for themselves.
What appeals like this do is say “Come with us, we’re popular and will give you votes”. It says nothing at all about the value of the exercise in question. It’s an appeal to action based on the political consequences, because the scientific evidence is hard to prove.
Big tipping-point events irreversible on human time scales and large-scale positive feedbacks are already occurring at less than 1°C of warming.
Whereas this is merely Bullshit. Even the IPCC doesn’t say this — and that’s because it isn’t true, In fact their recent assessment on extreme weather is quite clear that the evidence for any change is small, and for severe change is non-existent.
Statements like this are pure activism, masquerading as science. Stop doing it, it makes it clear that you are working on the basis of what you want to be, not what there is strong evidence for.