Recent Dispatches From Van Jones

Apologies for such anemic posting this last week.  I was pretty nasty busy at work, with extra-curriculars, and then actually enjoying my weekend, and so didn’t do as much as I’d have liked.  But anyway.

Thought I’d draw your attention to a couple posts from Van Jones.  Those who know me, and those who’ve followed this blog for a while know that Van Jones is kinda a big deal in my book.  And while I feel like I’ve moved to a place where I’d disagree with some (maybe a lot) of his approach, I still love the guy more than apple pie and like to highlight what he’s up to these days.

The first, in typical Van Jones and EJ fashion, addresses the Gulf’s economic, environmental, social, and health needs and predicts that “The Gulf Will Be Beautiful Again“.  Van gets at all the stuff we really need to heal our communities, cultures, and land; with a comprehensive approach that focuses on a holistic vision of prosperity.  As much as I think he’s got some criticism that he’s hiding, I do always appreciate Van’s vision.

The second is more directed, and focuses on an issue I’ve been thinking about increasingly since a conversation I had about the Lake Erie wind turbine project: certainty.  We really need to protect the existing state-based RES and climate policies we already have, not only to serve as a basis for federal action going forward, but to ensure decent investment in the clean energy economies of states like California and Ohio.  It’s pretty sad that this is what we have to be dealing with at this point, but there you go.

Anyway, I promise I’ll try and deliver some better stuff this week, last one was just a beast.  I’m hoping my new chart and planning will make this easier, but we’ll see how well I adhere to it.

Peace,
Joel

Meeting With Marcy

What’s good yall? I’ve really got to study for bio among other things, but I thought it would be valuable to share some of the most substantive citizen engagement I’ve taken part in so far: meeting with Representative Marcy Kaptur this Friday to talk (ostensibly) about global warming.

She was a bit late, so the 15 of us who came had to wait around for about 20 minutes. Some people had been brought by friends, others had heard that she would be here from the announcement made at TGIF, and I imagine some had just seen the posters or the email and came along to see what it was about. To keep ourselves occupied we talked a bit about the questions we would ask and I explained the basics of the ACES bill. I was surprised to see how many people hadn’t heard of the bill, though maybe I shouldn’t have been. I figured that if 110 or so students could make it to a weekend in Power Shift than a healthy number would be interested in the specific legislation that will determine our climate future, but it’s important to remember the wide range of reasons that people have for engaging in activism. They’re often different than my own, but it’s important to respect and acknowledge those different motivations while making sure that diverse groups can work together to achieve mutually valued goals.

Marcy Kaptur On Campus, Friday 4/17

What’s good yall? Just a quick bulletin. This has been, in my estimation, poorly advertised, but here’s the description I received in email about the event:

“Q&A WITH REPRESENTATIVE MARCY KAPTUR
Friday, April 17th, 5:00 PM in Wilder 101

Representative Kaptur will be talking about what she’s been doing to combat climate change, and students and community members will be given the opportunity to ask her questions or tell her why fighting global warming is important to them. This is an amazing opportunity to influence global warming legislation, since legislators are much more likely to act on issues when they know that their constituents are behind them. Coal companies in Ohio have already contacted Representative Kaptur, urging her to continue to rely on coal as Ohio’s main fuel source, so unless we show her that there are people in her district who want her to sponsor legislation to put more of an emphasis on alternative fuels, green jobs, and energy efficiency, she is far less likely to do anything. Please come and show Representative Kaptur that you would support her efforts to combat global warming in Congress! Also, as an added incentive, there will be FREE FOOD “

OPIRG will be there, but if you want to come as an independent and ask your own questions I thoroughly encourage it. It’s going to be hard with both that and Phyllis Young’s talk on the Oahe Dam and Oil Pipeline, but I think Kaptur on campus might be too good an opportunity to miss. Hope to see you there!

Peace yall,

-Joel

Waxman-Markey Bill (American Clean Energy And Security Act) Unveiled

What’s good yall? The big climate story today is that Chairmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and Ed Markey (D-MA) of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee released their draft of the long-awaited carbon cap bill, titled the American Clean Energy and Security Act (see full text and summary). The four sections of the bill cover: 1) a renewable energy portfolio, requiring that every region in the country get a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and promoting electric vehicles and a smart grid transmission system, 2) energy efficiency increases in business, appliances, transportation, and industry, 3) a limit on ‘emissions of heat trapping pollutants’ (essentially a greenhouse gas cap), which would mandate a reduction of emissions to 20% of 2005 levels by 2020 (better than Obama’s proposed reduction, 14%), and 4) a transition initiative that would ‘protect US consumers and industries’ and ‘promote green jobs’.

There have of course been responses all over the blogosphere and mainstream media. First, here’s the Times’ article on the bill. The Times’ climate coverage has not been my favorite, but as one of the more respected voices in mainstream media I feel it’s good to keep up to date with their narrative. The article details how the bill contains a number of major concessions to the coal industry, reflecting the extreme influence the coal industry has across the board with both Democrats and Republicans. The bill grants free pollution allowances to the steel, paper, glass, and cement industries, implements sanctions against countries not working to cap carbon (so as to eliminate comparative advantage for heavy emitters,) and provides $10 billion in financing for the development of CCS or clean as bullshit coal. The bill has been praised by the US Climate Action Partnership (a coalition of businesses that have been arguing for particularly lenient climate policy,) but General Motors, Alcoa, and DuPont have stated that they will push for their own pollution allowances. I am unsurprised by this corporate whining, but am hopeful that President Obama will stick by his earlier statements on allowances (that if no one is paying, no one stops polluting.)

1Sky issued a press release calling the bill a step in the right direction but not yet strong enough with regard to offset allowances, the domestic cap, and the coal industry. This makes sense given that they have been calling for a far stronger cap, 40% by 2020. I hope for myself that 1Sky strengthens its rhetoric and makes a strong push to keep the pressure on policy-makers to make the GHG cap truly science-based (meaning that the cap follows the prescriptions of the most up to date climate science, which suggests that 40% reductions of 1990 emissions levels by 2020 for developed countries will be necessary if we are to have any hope of returning to CO2 atmospheric concentrations of 350 ppm, the generally accepted safety threshold. We are already at 387 ppm.) If you’d like to urge President Obama to strengthen his goals for emissions reductions, check out 1Sky’s site here. It bears noting that while this figure, 350 ppm means the difference between flooding and massive flooding, between high commodities prices and really high commodities prices for us, it means the difference between having a country and having an ex-country for small island nations (threatened with the sea overtaking their land) and the other most vulnerable, least developed nations (threatened with desertification overtaking their land,) who have overwhelmingly been the lowest emitters historically. Check out It’s Getting Hot In Here’s coverage of their recent appeals in Bonn here. Also check out 350.org, a group devoted to spreading the word about the 350 ppm figure and the need for science-based policy. I wish they’d get back to me about my internship application, but that’s beside the point.

The consensus across the board (unless you consider the above mentioned existence-threatened nations) seems to be that the bill is a good start, but needs more work. Over at Climate Progress, Joe Romm gives the bill a B+. He thinks that it sets a clear message that business as usual (climate devastation) is not on the agenda, but is also too weak when it comes to offsets (which are frequently cheap but ineffective means of reducing emissions- see Climate Progress, there are too many articles on this to link effectively). With regards to the coal provisions he suggests that it is a moot point in part because of the EPA’s CO2 endangerment finding, which should put up serious obstacles to any dirty coal (which probably means any existing coal) in the near term. In addition, a recent report from the Energy Information Administration (a government agency) indicated that new coal plants will not even be needed to meet imminent energy consumption. Sweet!

[Update 4/1/09: There's some more responses out from 350.org and SolveClimate.com, both of whom are somewhat less happy with the plan. At 350 they mention the Sustainability Institute's estimate that the plan will only be sufficient to get us to 870 ppm by 2100, which a stable climate does not make. I'm not sure how they reach that estimate, but it's disconcerting to think that this is the level our legislation is at (and could still be watered down when it's brought to the House and Senate.) SolveClimate provides an array of short clips of groups' responses and raises the dilemma that I find myself faced with:

"Environmental groups are caught between two desires on this bill. While they want stronger legislation than the draft they saw today, they know that greenhouse gas emissions need to start falling immediately to avoid the most serious climate changes, and they know Congress needs to give President Obama strong evidence of the U.S.'s intentions to take with him to Copenhagen."

Word. The plan seems insufficient, but do we want to delay it in the interest of pushing a tougher cap that may be more difficult to pass?]

No easy answers, but I hope this serves as a valuable summary for some of the issues surrounding the proposed bill at this stage. If you are interested in working on campus to agitate for climate legislation, there’s an OPIRG meeting I’ll be going to on Thursday, April 2nd, at 7:00, Wilder 327. Hope to see you there.

Peace out yall, have a good one.

-Joel

Reflections On Women In The New Economy

What up yall? I’ve been thinking about the issue of women work trends since I saw a post over at Women’s Glib a while back about how feminists were reacting to the stimulus package, and what they thought it offered to support industries with greater representation of women (social work, education, health.) My concern was not so much with the sectors the stimulus emphasized, I believe that fomenting green manufacturing, construction, transportation, and agriculture is going to be fundamental to getting ourselves out of this economic mess we’re in and moving us towards an era of sustainable prosperity and equity. But where do women fit in this agenda? Green-collar jobs, the premier jobs of the new economy, are in construction and manufacturing (and I pray also urban agriculture,) sectors with little female representation. I’m going to assume that construction and manufacturing will remain important and vibrant for years to come, in which case my concern is how do we promote gender equity in those fields? How do we make sure that women share in the vision of the new economy, how do we de-stratify the sectors with the greatest potential for growth?

I thought about it even more when the news got out that the White House vegetable garden is Michelle Obama’s initiative. I love Michelle Obama, I love organic vegetable gardens, and I love children’s health and nutrition, but I was intrigued by the historic association between first ladies and health (specifically children’s health) advocacy. I wouldn’t call it anything as strong as a major concern, but what does it mean for powerful, fiercely intelligent women (in Michelle Obama’s case, a lawyer) to be relegated to work with overtones of domesticity? On the other hand, maybe I ought to rethink my own gendered assumptions about what it means to work with children and health. Maybe it is my own male bias and set of assumptions that I imply above that children and health issues might be ‘beneath’ a fiercely intelligent woman. In this case, how will we encourage (assuming we want to) the disassociation of particular fields with the different genders? And if such associations remain tenacious, what opportunities are available to women in the revolutionary restructuring of the educational and health care systems, as called for in Barack Obama’s agenda? Energy, education, and health are the major focuses of Obama’s agenda. Is it okay for energy to be a primarily masculine field, with education and (to a lesser degree) health to be primarily feminine?

Finally, here are a few articles on the immediate effects of the recession on women’s economic lives. The first is on the likely increase of domestic disputes as a result of male unemployment. It suggests that recessions, with major job loss for male-bodied individuals, breeds resentment as males fail to fulfill their ‘breadwinner’ roles, compounding the other stresses of over-worked women struggling to fulfill their roles as double-time workers and mothers. The second is on women losing their jobs and moving into the sex entertainment industry. And here’s one on the unfortunate likelihood that pregnant women and new mothers may be more likely to face unemployment, despite the illegality of discriminating against mothers. Overall, it looks as though the recession and the vast restructuring of the economy (I hope) will have major effects on perceptions of domesticity and women’s work roles. I hope some of you are as interested in this as I am.

Peace yall, off to dinner.

-Joel

ps. [Update: If this interests you, there's going to be a talk by Terri Burgess Sandu, Executive Director of Hard Hatted Women and Oberlin alum, on Wednesday, April 1st at 4:30 at the Bonner Center (south of Fairchild). Hard Hatted Women's mission is to encourage workplace gender diversity in trade and technical careers. They are also offering a summer internship which you can find over at ObieOpps. I'm definitely going to try and make it if I can, but I might still be at work by then.]

Green Recovery Grassroots Action And Diversity Strategy Audio

What’s good yall? I saw these two audio opportunities, thought they were thematically linked, and would rather post them now than in a couple days, considering I’ll be on the road tomorrow back to Oberlin.

The first is a recording of the most recent Green For All conference call, which was held on Wednesday the 25th. It’s again on how to take action and influence the use of green recovery dollars, and features Melinda Wheatley and Chester Steinhauser of American YouthWorks in Austin, Emmanuel Hales (featured in an earlier post) of Green America Corporation in Virginia, and Shahn Hayes of the League of Young Voters in Milwaukee. I’m trying to get in touch with Shahn at the Making Milwaukee Green Coalition to see if there are internship opportunities, so it definitely behooves me to check this out when I get the chance, and I hope you do too. I’ll post highlights when I’ve heard it myself.

The second is an informational call-in featuring Racialicious’ Carmen Van Kerckhove, which will take place at 5:00 PM on April 8th. Van Kerckhove will be discussing strategies to implementing ‘diversity initiatives’ in our organizations, communities, and companies. No matter our realm of activism (well, unless we’re in an organization that’s already diversity-explicit) I think most contemporary causes and communities will find the cultivation of a more open, inclusive, diverse base essential. I know that for myself that was one of the key things that has stuck out about the climate movement versus traditional ‘environmentalism,’ and enticed my own involvement. This one hour call-in promises to provide strategies and basic ideas for those of us who want to be social justice/equity change agents in our places of work and activism.

Hope those are as interesting to you as they are to me. Peace yall, and see you back in Oberlin!

-Joel

ps. If you’d like to read a book that suggests similar strategies for working as a sustainability change agent in organizations, I highly recommend the new book Getting Green Done, by Auden Schendler. It’s most obviously relevant to those working on greening business (which will be essential to creating a sustainable future), but definitely has a great narrative and a lot of valuable insights to activists all over the spectrum on the hard work of producing sustainability.

Taxes

What’s up yall?

Not to be TMI, but I just got done filing my taxes, and I realized that it was the first time I’ve done so that I didn’t get that Thoreauvian, “dear God how can I possibly support this state” malaise. I know things aren’t perfect. Yes, some of my tax dollars are going into new leathery sofas for some AIG executives’ home. Yes, some of them are going to the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, which will unfortunately continue for a while yet until Obama manages the withdrawal. Yes, some of them are going to a still unsound set of farm subsidies. But with the change in administration, here’s some other things they are going towards, some things that I am supporting as a tax-payer:

- The Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP,) which will create jobs, cut carbon emissions, and save low-income families some money on their heating bills.
- Increased research and development in renewable energy, which puts a down payment on a future economy that won’t pollute our air, water, and earth, won’t cook the planet’s communities of people and species, and will create jobs throughout our communities of color, tribal communities, low-income urban and rural communities.
- Increased access to affordable health care and a hopefully refurbished educational system, providing our most vulnerable fellow citizens with the security and opportunities they need to prosper.

For those reasons and so many more I can honestly say that at this moment I am proud and honored* to pay my taxes, to support the work our government and our generation is setting out to do. In that vein, I’d like to encourage folks to read the budget (or at least some of it) and call your rep to tell them how you feel about the thing. If we’re paying for this thing (or a good portion of it, hopefully heavy carbon emitters will be footing the bill for a big chunk) we ought to try and have some say in it.

Peace yall, and have a good rest of break.

-Joel

*Above mentioned pride and honor is of course also complemented by privilege, a function of which taxes is not a crushing inhibition and burden on my own pursuit of welfare.

Assorted Climate Leaders And Legislation

What’s good yall? Sorry I haven’t been updating quite on the regular lately. With the show, then the midterms, and now the job search (aka spring break yeah!) I haven’t been quite as up on the posting lately. I’m hoping to get that up to speed better when we get back to school.

But anyway, to start off, here’s a video from Green For All:

I was at one of the workshops with this guy and heard from him first hand about his awesome individual exertion of citizen power, taking responsibility for the process of implementing stimulus dollars back home. Definitely a valuable example of what one person can do to shift the landscape.

In addition, I’ve been trying to get in touch with people at OPIRG to find out what’s going on this April with the plans to do a Power Shift follow-up meeting with Marcy Kaptur, urging her to support upcoming climate legislation. Of course, I’ll keep you updated as I find out more. If you’d like to see a pretty decent summary of the policy outlook situation, check out this article over at Grist, and this post on the 1Sky blog.

Over at It’s Getting Hot In Here (which impressively has among the more up to date coverage of the EPA-CWPA mountaintop removal stories coming out over the last few days, many thanks to danawv), they’ve got a copy of the press release and actual bill that is essentially the Senate version of the CWPA. Very exciting news on that front.

After doing some job and internship search stuff I’m hoping to do some serious green jobs reading in preparation for the work that the Student Labor Action Coalition (SLAC) is working on this semester. If I’ve got even more time I’m gonna try and do some budget reading so I can write with some real understanding for what’s going on in the thing before I advocate too strongly that you call your congressperson and urge them to support it (though I’ll admit I expect that’ll be the outcome.)

Anyway, peace out yall, I’m hoping to start a series of posts that highlight some of the awesome groups I’ve been coming across in my job search.

-Joel

Budget and Budget Analysis

What up yall? While it would be infinitely more productive for me to be practicing Hardy-Weinberg problems, I’ve been working on internship and job applications and looking for sources of info on this fabled budget I’ve been talking about two weeks too late. If you’ve been as clueless as I have, here’s some stuff to get you acquainted:

1) First of all, here’s the thing itself. I’m gonna try and tackle as much of this (at least the more interesting parts) as possible over break. If you don’t want to download the whole thing, check out the White House Office of Management and Budget, which provides downloads of the various subsections of this mini-behemoth, which is still smaller than the stimulus package.

2) Here’s a super-short assessment of it over at Talking Points Memo, which provides a section on where much of the money for this thing is being raised. While a lot of economists I read (and whom I, not knowing enough about economics, trust) think that Obama is underestimating the duration of the economic downturn (and hence overestimating his money for this agenda,) I’m not going to pretend I don’t cackle quietly to myself just a little at the prospect of revoking oil and gas company tax-break subsidies and also instituting taxes on Superfund-site-creating companies.

3) Here’s another slightly more detailed overview at Business Week. Similar ground, but covers more of the opposition to the budget from Republicans and business interests. I’m curious about their concerns over small-business owners, but I don’t have the time right now to investigate the issue. Mmm, spring break studying…

4) Finally, here’s the good old Wikipedia entry on the budget, which provides a good overview of some of the raw numbers.

I found another thing over at Treehugger but it was specifically geared towards transportation. Exciting, but I was hoping for something a little more comprehensive. But whatevs.

Peace yall, and now I swear I’m going to study.

-Joel

Super Action Wednesday!: CWPA, Youth Service, and the Obamagenda

What’s good yall? As always, I want to encourage you to make your voice heard on mountaintop removal, the practice of destroying mountains to get at coal (hurting our communities, health, climate, and ecosystems in the process) by writing and calling your congressperson, urging them to get on board HR 1310, the Clean Water Protection Act (CWPA) as a co-sponsor. The CWPA will designate toxic mining waste ineligible to count as legitimate fill for streams, lakes, and rivers, thereby strengthening our water quality and tackling some of the health problems that most beset Appalachians and other coal regions.

But if you’ve already made good on that civic action and want more to do, I encourage you to pick up the phone or write your representative again and urge them to support the Generation Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act, which will provide young Americans with 175,000 new service opportunities (including those with the Clean Energy Corps, Education Corps, Healthy Futures Corps, and Veteran Service Corps) by 2014. For more detailed information on the GIVE Act, check out this file.

Given the focus of Citizen Obie and my particular orientation towards the issues that face us these days, I think this is one of the more proactive steps that can be taken right now, and one of the most constructive with regards to considerations of our long-term prosperity. It’s important that we invest in the citizens of tomorrow, give them the opportunities to serve and contribute in meaningful ways to the revolutionary changes we need to make in energy, health, and education (each with a corresponding corps.) Not only does this program promise to put many more youths to work making our communities fulfill their potential in the short term, but it will also provide them with the experiences to go out into the field as productive, competent citizens and leaders in the long term. An excellent investment, in my book.

Finally, Organizing for Obama is encouraging supporters to call and write their congresspeople, urging them to support Obama’s ‘blueprint for change and economic recovery’ (budget.) Midterms has kept me from doing the research I’d need to feel comfortable talking in depth about this program, but I will say that the sources I keep tabs with in the climate and social justice movement are overall pretty satisfied with it. Its emphasis on energy, health, and education is vitally needed after eight years’ (and, no offense to Mr. Clinton) and more of stagnation on the above issues. Over spring break I’m going to try and get better acquainted with the blueprint and figure out how I want to approach my representatives, and I encourage you all to do the same. No matter how you feel, it’s important to realize that this budget sets the agenda of our country in as concrete terms as possible for the next few years, and I think it’s incredibly important for us to take ownership and responsibility for it.

Peace yall, I gotta get to work. I hope you have a more lovely Wednesday afternoon than I do.

-Joel