Jo

Obama

Like many of you, I stayed up last night until 6am to watch something really special.

For the last two weeks, I’ve been saying (half-jokingly), that if McCain/Palin won, I would give up all my activism and just go live in a big house and go make lots of money. But with the election of this transformational figure, I have hope again.

Obama gets it – he knows how massive the problems we have are. Not just climate change, but an international community divided, a twentieth century economy in turmoil not to mention America’s sick healthcare system.

The President Elect has a plan. He wants a Green Jobs Revolution. He wants to modernise America’s energy supplies by massively developing renewables. He wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.

This guy means business, let’s hope that in those important first 100 days of his Presidency, he gets America on the right track.

Al Gore Speaks Direct To Students

On Wednesday, Oct. 29, Al Gore called upon youth around the United States to help repower America this November. It’s great stuff!

I’m thinking maybe we could do the same next year… who shall we ask?

Water, Water Everywhere

Another Bond theme today, (in Quantum of Solace, the evil Mr Greene is blocking scarce water resources), as Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, warns that water mismanagement will leave entire regions “economic deserts,” unfit for agriculture or human settlement.

“Unchecked climate change will mean that some parts of the world will simply not have enough water to sustain settlements, both small and large, because agriculture becomes untenable and industries relying on water can no longer compete or function effectively. This will trigger structural changes in economies right through to the displacement of people as environmental refugees.”

Thankfully, we have 82 year old women like this, who won’t let that happen!

No New Coal

Coal seems to be on my mind as I posted the following on It’s Getting Hot In Here earlier in the week. As I mentioned before, it’s the global youth climate movement blog with thousands of readers everyday!

Find it on the website here, or continue reading!

Hundreds of young people are leading a new wave of climate change campaigning against the proposal to build eight new dirty coal fired power stations in the UK.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, our government and the energy giant E.On, are hoping to build power stations which would emit more carbon per annum than countries the size of Cameroon.

The Stop Climate Chaos Coalition brings together the largest environmental, development and even faith organisations, representing over four million people, to unite their opposition to one of the most baffling government policies in recent years.

We all know coal is the dirtiest form of power generation, and with our own Chancellor saying CCS technology may never become available, the claim that this will be ‘clean coal’ is simply not true.

If we as a nation truly want to lead the world in combating climate change, as our ground-breaking legislation proposes, we cannot afford to carry on with this out-dated form of energy production.

These new coal fired power plants are dangerous, extremely expensive and totally unnecessary.

Join us in telling E.On and the government that we need No New Coal.

The Stop Climate Chaos Coalition Board with Kingsnorth in the distance.

Coal Finger!

I’ve just returned from seeing Quantum of Solace (the new Bond, for those without a working knowledge of popular culture), and was thrilled to see this little video on my return.

The evil Coal Finger is planning to destroy the world, and our trusted 007 is not going to let that happen! It’s actually frightening how true to the originals this plot is…

What Is A Green-Collar Job?

I’ll let Troy answer that one;

Coal Through The Ages

Probably about time to start doing something different then.

ExxonMobil

It would be too easy to attack ExxonMobil for their effect on climate change and lack of investment in renewable energy, so I’ll just post the amount of money they listed as profit for the last quarter.

$14 830 000 000 000.

Beating their last record profit in the second quarter of 2008, which was $11 680 000 000 000.

Just imagine what that kind of cash would do if it was invested into a mass public transit system, new renewable energy, world-wide efficiency programs, funding to those already suffering from climate change. It would also happen to create millions of new green jobs and reduce carbon emissions to the extent we can only dream of.

Isn’t that something shareholders would be proud to be responsible for?