Youths file federal climate change lawsuit

Federal Courthouse Eugene, Oregon

A group of 21 youths — several of them from Eugene — today filed a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming that it is violating their constitutional rights by promoting the development and use of fossil fuels.

The plaintiffs are seeking a court order requiring President Obama to immediately implement a national plan to decrease atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to a safe level.

The suit was filed with support of two Eugene groups, Our Children’s Trust and Wild Earth Advocates. A case summary issued by Our Children’s Trust states that the lawsuit “will put indisputable science about climate change squarely in front of the federal judiciary.”

Read more at The Register Guard

Bernie Sanders wants to break our dependence on fossil fuel

"One of my top priorities as US president will be to work with India, other countries, in breaking our dependence on fossil fuel," Bernie Sanders said. 

"I think the evidence is also out there that not only is climate change already causing devastating problems to this planet in terms of drought and flooding and extreme weather disturbances, if we do not transform our energy system, the situation will only become much worse, and obviously, it will impact human health," Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate said. 

"So one of my top priorities as president of the United States will be to have this country lead the world, work with China or India or Russia, other countries, in breaking our dependence on fossil fuel and moving to energy efficiency and wind, solar, geothermal and other," Sanders said during a conference call. 

Read more at:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/48444017.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst .. 

The costs of climate change.

Plant Scherer, a coal-burning generator in Juliette, Ga., is ranked as the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the nation. (AP)

Writing in Sunday’s AJC, Dan Chapman and Greg Bluestein take a look at the climate-induced changes already underway along the Georgia coast and at the continuing sense of denial by the state’s political leadership:

“Brian Robinson, a spokesman for Gov. Nathan Deal, wouldn’t answer questions about the governor’s views on climate change. U.S. Sen. David Perdue, a Republican who lives on Sea Island, a barrier island threatened by rising seas, said “the scientific community is not in total agreement about whether mankind has been a contributing factor.”

As they report, a tidal gauge off Fort Pulaski near Tybee Island documents a sea-level rise of 11 inches over the past 80 years, with the pace accelerating since the 1990s. Should that trend continue, as scientists warn it will without effective action, most of the state’s barrier islands will disappear in the next century, as will much of the sea marsh that makes our coastal region so beautiful and so ecologically diverse and productive.

It’s true that, as Perdue puts it, “the scientific community is not in total agreement” about mankind’s role in those changes. However, “total agreement” strikes me as a peculiar standard for taking action. In most other policy areas, the overwhelming consensus of the acknowledged experts, augmented by the fact that since the 1980s that expert opinion has been validated by visible changes in the field, would be enough to push policymakers to take action, particularly when the potential consequences of doing nothing are so profound.

That’s certainly been the approach taken by the Obama administration. Under its new climate-change plan released earlier this month, Georgia will be required to take action by reducing carbon emissions from power plants by 25 percent over the next 15 years.

Read more at Jay Bookman's Blog

Renewable Energy. Hillary Clinton and the 'New' New Deal.

Hillary Clinton

While I doubt that I will vote for her, Clinton does bring a very important issue to the table.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton rolled out anambitious climate and energy proposal Sunday evening. She said, if elected president on day one she’d set two national goals—every American home will be powered by renewable energy by 2027 and more than half a billion solar panels will be installed across the country before the end of her first term.

“It’s hard to believe there are people running for president who still refuse to accept the settled science of climate change—who would rather remind us that they’re not scientists than listen to those that are,” Clinton said in a three-minute video posted to her website previewing the plan. She lists quotes from top GOP presidential candidates who refuse to listen to the 97 percent of climate scientists who say climate change is real and attributed to human activity.

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Original article at EcoWatch.

Germany is Number One in Renewable Energy

Germany’s transition from coal- and oil-fired power to carbon-free electricity hit a new milestone on July 25 when solar, wind, and other sources of renewable energy met 78 percent of the day’s energy demand.

Germany gets much of its renewable energy from wind farms, including this one in a farmers’ field. Photo credit: Shutterstock

That beat the old record of 74 percent, made in May 2014, according to Craig Morris, a journalist who has covered Germany’s energy scene for more than a decade.

Helping set the record was an unusual weather pattern that brought heavy winds where most of the nation’s wind turbines are located. As the turbines generated more power, utilities ramped down coal- and gas-fired power plants.

But Morris found the power mix a few days earlier even more encouraging. During the night of July 22, even with darkness reducing solar output to zero and no big winds in the forecast, renewables—wind, biomass, and hydropower—generated nearly 25 percent of Germany’s electricity.

Morris found the energy data for both dates using an online tool sponsored by the Germany-based Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.

Germany’s experience shows that solar and wind can keep the lights on in a highly industrialized nation, said Osha Gray Davidson, author of Clean Break, a book about Germany’s transition to carbon-free energy. “The key indicator is percentage of electricity produced by different sources—28 percent of Germany’s electricity comes from renewables annually, which is pretty amazing for large industrialized country,” Davidson said.

Germany is a model for the U.S., he said, “because manufacturing accounts for much more of the German economy than the American economy and they have 80 million people—much larger than a country like Denmark, which gets more of its power from renewables but has a much smaller industrial base and has a population of five and a half million people.”

The U.S. currently gets around 10 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

People Are Dying While Billionaires Frolic

Please help us heal the world and her children by donating at: HELP US SAVE THE WORLD

Donald Trump

All around our planet people are dying from maladies that could be avoided with the use of new technologies.  In countries like HAITI, ANGOLA, GUATEMALA, GUINEA-BISSAU, MALI, MARSHALL ISL., LAOS, BURUNDI, AFGHANISTAN, BURKINA, CHAD, BENIN and 

CAMEROON, over 25% of their populations die from malnutrition.

According to the Johannesburg Summit in 2002. “More than 5 million people die each year from diseases caused by unsafe drinking water, lack of sanitation, and insufficient water for hygiene. In fact, over 2 million deaths occur each year from water-related diarrhea alone. At any given time, almost half of the people in developing countries suffer from water-related diseases.”

The World Health Organization estimates that 4.6 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution.

All could be reduced or stopped by the development of clean, free energy technologies that are available right now with the only problems being lack of funding and government cooperation.

Meanwhile:

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner is giving $100M to SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)

Billionaires Richard Branson, Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are building their own spaceports and the State of Texas is offering $2.3 million in incentives to SpaceX from the Enterprise fund, the governor's office said. The state is offering $13 million from the Spaceport Trust Fund to the Cameron County Spaceport Development Corp.

The Koch brothers founded Americans for Prosperity (prosperity for the prosperous) A right wing tea party conservative organization. It's purpose is to buy up as many politicians as possible.

And last but not least Billionaire bad boy Donald Trump is running for president, and revealed that he has $9 billion at his disposal to fund his campaign.

Of course they can spend their money any way that wish, but it would be nice, don't you think, if they would do something that would help heal Mother earth.

Please join our Facebook group: Citizens of Earth for Immediate Change.

Thank you for reading this post.  I hope to see you again soon.

This guy wants to save the world. Will you help?

Governments and corporations have not lived up to their promises to make the environment safer and healthier.  It is time for us to do so.  The technology is available now to create safe, clean, free and replenishable  energy at a fraction of the cost of existing technologies.

Around the planet, children are dying from diseases caused by unsafe drinking water.  People are choking to death from lung diseases caused by the fouled air they are breathing.  These ills could be contained and reversed just by changing the way we produce our energy and fuel our transport.

This must be done now if future generations, your children and their children, are to survive and thrive.  We have the technology now.  All we need is funding to produce and test our prototypes to the satisfaction of the powers that be, and then build and market those systems.  We can do those things, but we need your help.  
Will you help by making a small donation and spreading the word to your social networks? Please help by clicking this link to donate.  Our GoFundMe page.

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