Doing the Math: Carbon Zero
We're doing the math, but what's the right answer? According to Alex Steffen, it's zero. Zero emissions, that is.
Sooner or later (hopefully sooner) we're going to need to stop adding more CO2 to the atmosphere. In his new book, *Carbon Zero: Imagining cities that can save the planet*, Steffen argues that cities can and should take the lead in getting us there.
Steffen explores how through taking bold action now, cities can cut their emissions down to net-zero. By shifting away from energy-intensive centralized and car-dependent systems to people-focused communities and energy-frugal innovations cities can cut deeply the amount of energy they need to provide a high quality of life, and then meet the remaining demand with clean sources like wind and solar. Zero won't be easy. But zero is achievable. Steffen's book is a short, compelling tour of the urban future that invites us to imagine winning the climate fight.
Steffen's also a big supporter of 350. So he's inviting 350 supporters to read his book, for free. Just sign up at https://eepurl.com/snCQv to receive a PDF of Carbon Zero you can read and share.
Want to read it online? Grist is featuring the book for a week, sharing a chapter a day: https://grist.org/cities/how-
Divest!
The email below just went out to our supporters in the USA. Not on our list yet? Sign up here!
Greetings from the Do The Math tour bus!
We’re bouncing up the road to Madison, WI right now after another sold-out show in Chicago last night.
As you might already know, one of the goals of this tour is to launch a new fossil fuel divestment campaign at colleges and universities across the country -- it's a critical way to fight back against corporate polluters.
Here’s how you can help:
If you’re a current student, please click here to join or start a campaign on your campus on our brand new website: gofossilfree.org
If you’re an alumnus/alumna, please click here to tell us where you went to school and join the national campaign. We’ll be in touch soon about how you can connect with and support students at your alma mater.
And if you're not a student or an alum, don't worry -- there will be lots for everyone to do in the weeks ahead.
Why divestment? Well, we know that fossil fuel companies are principally concerned about two things: their bottom line and their public image. A nationwide movement forcing our schools to divest from fossil fuels will deal a serious blow to both.
Over 100 campuses have already joined the divestment campaign, and it’s generating real excitement everywhere we go. From big schools like the University of Wisconsin to small colleges like Middlebury, the campaign is picking up speed (at Harvard, a student resolution supporting divestment just passed with 72% of the vote!).
Now, it’s absolutely crucial that we keep the momentum going -- click here to get involved: www.gofossilfree.org
Many, many thanks,
Bill
P.S. You can also follow along with the divestment work on our brand-new Fossil Free Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Houston Residents Worry about Burden of Keystone XL Pipeline on Local Neighborhood
The post below is from our friend Cherri Foytlin over at the Bridge the Gulf Project.
“We are part of America. We are a major city in America, but we do not need to be the sacrifice zone for the nation,” states Houston resident Juan Parras (pictured).
Parras joins a growing contingent of Houston residents concerned about the overburdening of minority and low-income communities in the area with the ill effects of energy production.
“There has been a lot of studies conducted, and one of them in particular is a study conducted on leukemia cases within a 2 mile radius of the Houston ship channel. The chances of contracting leukemia here are 56 percent, and of course, this is related to the petrochemical industry. We also have a lot of asthma, tumors - all of the things people do not want in their communities can be found here.” he explains.
As a founder of the group Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (TEJAS), Parras is no stranger in working to protect Houston neighborhoods from the hazards of air and water pollution. "[TEJAS] started doing environmental justice work here in Houston in the year 2004. There is a lot to be done here, because we have the highest concentration of refineries and petrochemical plants in the nation,” he says.
VIDEO: Community advocate Juan Parras of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services describes the area of Manchester - an environmental justice community in Houston, Texas. Like so many communities across the nation, Manchester disproportionately bears the burden of health problems due to industrial pollution in the area. According to Parras, the Valero plant in Manchester will most likely be a final destination for tar sands oil traveling through the Keystone XL Pipeline. Watch more: Houston Residents Worry About Tar Sands Oil Pollution
Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign Spreads to Over 100 Campuses!
Here's an update about our growing Fossil Free campaign. Click here to visit the campaign website and learn more about how you can join the effort.
Wow! We launched this new fossil fuel divestment campaign this November 7 and in less than a month campaigns have sprung up on over 100 colleges and universities across the country. From big schools like the University of Michigan to small liberal arts colleges like Amherst, the idea of divestment is spreading like wildfire.
It’s hard to keep up with everything that’s going on across the country, but here are a few updates from the growing movement. Earlier this month, Unity College in Maine became the first in the nation to meet our demands and fully divest from fossil fuels (Hampshire College in Massachusetts has also passed a sustainable investment policy that effectively divests them from fossil fuels). At Harvard, a student resolution supporting divestment just passed with 72% of the vote and students are now pushing to meet with President Faust about divestment. Just north, UNH students will be delivering 1,000 signatures to their president today to call for a meeting on divestment (they’re already getting AP coverage for the action). Down the coast, at Brown, students are also rallying to today to push their administration to divest from coal.
Students share information about the divestment campaign at a Do The Math tour stop.
Over in the midwest, students are calling on the Badgers to divest and just published an editorial in the University of Wisconsin’s campus newspaper (more editorials are popping up across the country, like this one from Cornell). At University of Colorado in Boulder, students are preparing for a big Do The Math tour stop next week. And out in California, the five Claremont colleges have banded together to push for divestment across the system. Not to be outdone, the University of California schools are also hard at work, joining with our partners at the California Student Sustainability Coalition to push for divestment.
Telling the Visual Stories of Climate Impacts
All too often, the climate crisis is described in the abstract, through charts and graphs and reports. These analytical tools can be useful for communicating the basic science, but they often fail to make the scale and stakes really hit home.
At 350.org, we believe in the power of visuals and storytelling to show the global warming for what it is: a dangerous crisis that is affecting millions of people every day. Today, we're spotlighting two amazing projects that drive this point home.
The first is called RISE, and it's using audio-visual "web stories" to document how climate change is affecting coastal communities -- here's a potent video about a family, their farm, and a legacy worth preserving:
The second project is called "Sandy Storyline", and it's a new collaboration of MIT Center for Civic Media, in partnership with Interoccupy.net, Occupied Stories, and a growing number of media makers, storytellers and people like you. It's a powerful document of the storm's aftermath, and of the resilience of the communities left in its wake.
Head on over to SandyStoryline.com to add your story and help drive the climate crisis home.
Finally, if you have stories of your own local climate impacts, the Connect the Dots Tumblr is a great way to share them -- check it out and submit your photos and stories here.
An open letter to governments and their negotiators
As the UN climate negotiations kick off in Doha, Qatar, people all over the world are watching as floods wash away their lives, fires consume their houses and droughts decimate food crops. Just this morning, UNEP released a report warning that melting permafrost could release massive amounts of methane--a powerful greenhouse gas--into the atmosphere, bringing the planet ever closer to runaway climate change. Here's a letter from three powerful advocates for a safe climate to the leaders and negotiators in Doha:
A UN climate meeting in an oil state — hope on the horizon
It's opening day of this year's UN Climate Talks in Doha, Qatar. Technically known as the 18th Conference of Parties (COP18) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the meetings are the annual acroynm heavy negotiations dedicated to saving our planet.
Sadly, it seems that our politicians still aren't up to the task. Expectations for concrete progress in Doha are low and the irony of hosting the climate talks in an oil state like Qatar isn't lost on anyone (the deputy prime minister speaking at a recent "Oil and Money" Conference to celebrate fossil fuels didn't help the perception). At 350.org, we're most excited about the work that is happening outside of the negotiating halls.
Young people are at the forefront of that work, particularly the 12-weeks-old Arab Youth Climate Movement. Youth here in Doha just wrapped an inspiring 8th Conference of Youth, a chance for young leaders from around the world to meet, discuss plans, and strategize together. This morning, young people welcomed delegations to COP18 with a reminder to connect the dots between the extreme weather and climate impacts with the larger climate crisis.
You can support the Arab Youth Climate Network by signing their petition calling for action from Qatar and all Arab countries here:
https://350.org/arableadership
It's inspiring stuff to see youth from around the world standing shoulder to shoulder to call for climate action, but if we're going to have any chance of overcoming the power of the fossil fuel industry and force our governments to act, we're going to need to scale up our movement dramatically.
Winning on KXL: Yesterday in DC, and Looking Forward
Yesterday, we brought the Keystone XL fight back to Washington.
After the Do the Math event wrapped up in Warner Theater, three thousand people gathered in Freedom Plaza, hoisted a giant inflatable pipeline over their heads, and marched around the White House. They chanted "Hey Obama, we don't want no climate drama," and "Michelle Obama, tell your man, stop that dirty pipeline plan!" (that one got a lot of love).
If President Obama is serious about tackling climate change in his second term, we're calling on him to reject Keystone XL once and for all.
Yesterday's march and rally felt amazing. It was good to get back in the streets, and to once again make it clear: this pipeline is NOT a done deal, and Americans don't want it. We want clean, renewable energy, a stable climate, and a real future.
Yesterday's crowd was awesome: we were joined by people of all ages from across the country. A busload of college students came all the way from Michigan on short notice. This guy rode all the way from New York in 36 hours. Speakers included Bill McKibben, Sierra Club President Allison Chin, Indigenous Environmental Network organizer Marty Cobenais, Gulf Coast activist Cherri Foytlin, and others. Everybody was fired up for this fight, including thousands of people who couldn't be there in person but joined us via livestream.
And people are taking notice. On Friday, Big Oil's senators sent a letter to Obama urging approval of the pipeline and citing "concerns" about demonstrators.
But we know yesterday's action won't be enough to win this fight. So we used this action to announce another one: next President's Day, February 17, 2013, we'll be back.
This time, let's make it 20,000. Will you join us next Februrary and help give Big Oil something to really be concerned about?
72% of Harvard Students Vote to Divest from Fossil Fuels
We wanted to share some exciting news out of Harvard!
Harvard Students Vote to Support Fossil Fuel Divestment
First School in Nation to Pass Student Fossil Fuel Divestment Referendum
Cambridge, MA—Last Friday night, the Harvard College Undergraduate Council announced that the student body had voted 72% in favor of Harvard University divesting its $30.7 billion endowment from fossil fuels.
Members of the Harvard chapter of Students for a Just and Stable Future have been campaigning since September to divest Harvard’s endowment from the top 200 publicly-traded fossil fuel corporations that own the majority of the world’s oil, coal, and gas reserves.
Chloe Maxmin, a co-coordinator for Divest Harvard, said that the election results show unprecedented student voice around divestment: “In 1990, 52% of voting students supported complete divestment from apartheid South Africa. Today 72% of voting students are raising their voices for fossil divestment, telling Harvard to stop investing in companies that are threatening our future.”
Divest Harvard was the first student group in six years to successfully qualify a referendum question for Harvard student government elections, gaining hundreds of signatures beyond the 670 (10% of the undergraduate student body) necessary for qualification. The passage of the referendum makes fossil fuel divestment the official position of the Harvard College Undergraduate Council.
Today in Washington
Friends:
It’s been an amazing couple of weeks. I’ve been on the road with the Do the Math tour since November 7th, and I can’t remember the last time I was so tired—or so inspired by this movement.
One of the things I’m saying a lot on this tour: we can’t win the larger fight one pipeline at a time. One of the other things I find myself saying a lot: join us in Washington to pick up the fight against Keystone XL. Because this battle over this pipeline—although alone not sufficient to counter the power of the fossil fuel industry—is necessary.
So today I’m in Washington DC to fight this thing. After this afternoon’s Do the Math tour stop, we’re going to get on our feet, take to the streets, and raise our voices against KXL.
Please stand with us today, wherever you are: 350.org/pledge
Why this pipeline? Because the tar sands are unethical. Because this pipeline is the fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet. Because it endangers countless communities, from Canada to the Gulf Coast. And because this is a fight we can win.
Keystone XL is not a done deal. President Obama alone has the power to approve or deny the project’s permit, and a majority of Americans now think he should prioritize clean energy and climate action. This is the purest, starkest test of whether or not the President is serious about tackling climate change in his second term. This is our moment to ask that he stop this pipeline with his pen.
Our movement is powerful and growing. Together, we can stop Keystone XL. Will you join us?
Onward as ever,
Bill
P.S. Here’s a photo of the crowd in Philly last night. Isn’t that a beautiful thing?
