Jobs and Energy Forum in Upstate NY - Tomorrow!

Tomorrow's the day. The Center for Working Families is hosting a Jobs and Energy Forum for elected officials in Upstate New York. The forum will bring together local and county elected officials and legislative staff with a panel of policy experts to talk about local legislation ranging from green building codes to renewable power standards to energy efficient purchasing standards.

Here's a list of elected officials coming to the event:

• Adam McFadden, Albany City Council
• Ray Joyce, Albany County Legislature
• David Dempsey, Auburn (City)
• George Farenthold, Aurora Town Board
• Dominic Frongillo, Caroline
• Daniel Schuster, Cayuga
• Jessica Zambrano, Cicero Town Board
• Richard Keller-Coffey, Dutchess
• William Pauly, Erie
• Russ Carey, Fenner
• Elizabeth Moran, Madison
• John Heindorf, North Syracuse
• Mark Atkinson, North Syracuse (Village)
• Rose Ann Convertino, Oneida
• William Morehouse, Oneida
• Frank Puma, Oneida
• Tom Buckel, Onondaga
• Luz Encarnacion, Onondaga
• Dale Sweetland, Onondaga
• Sam Laguzza, Onondaga County Legislature
• Fred Beardsley, Oswego
• Leonard Ponzi, Oswego
• Philip Durkin, Otsego
• Tom Wood, Plattsburgh
• Angela Petty, Rome
• Mike Giarusso, Salina Town Board
• Thomas David, Seneca Falls (Town)
• Jim Williams, Skaneateles
• Bill Simmons, Syracuse Common Council
• Mike McMahon, Syracuse Common Council
• Tom Seals, Syracuse Common Council
• Kathy Luz Herrera, Tompkins
• Pamela Mackesey, Tompkins
• Duane Tyke Randall, Tompkins
• Clem Campana, Troy City Council
• Frank Dart, Ulster
• Daniel DiBella, Utica
• Joel Tyner, Duchess

Speakers include:

• Mike Allen, UAW
  
• Steve Bellone, Town of Babylon Supervisor
• Lisa Donner, Center for Working Families Co-Director
• Rhea Jezer, LCV and Cazenovia College
• Josh Mason, Working Families Party
• Bob Muldroon, Sierra Club
• Gay Nicholson, NYSERDA
  
• Rick Opedesiano, UAW and Central New York WFP Chapter Chair
  
• Satya Rhodes-Conway, Apollo Strategy Center, Madison WI Alderperson
• Deirdre Schifeling, Center for Working Families Co-Director
• Bill Simmons, Syracuse Common Council, Public Works Committee Chair

and a keynote address from Rick Fedrizzi, President of the National Green Building Council.

Bloomberg Proposes Congestion Pricing

Mayor Bloomberg was the story this Earth Day as he made official his congestion pricing proposal.

The basics of congestion pricing are to charge an $8 toll for driving in the most congested part of Manhattan during the day. The money raised would be used to expand mass transit so it runs more frequently and to more places. You can read more details in the Daily Politics and the Politicker.

Reaction has been come quickly. What do you think?



Update: Read Bloomberg's speech or watch it on video.

Weather Bad Enough For You?

Global warming is the great challenge of the 21st Century, a crisis at the global, national, state and local levels. Human activity is transforming the climate of the whole planet in ways that endanger economic growth, political stability and human civilization itself.

Just look at our recent weather. Winter seemed like summer. Now our spring is more like winter. And we just got hit with record rain. If we don't get serious about global warming, things will get worse.

But it's not all threat. There's also opportunity.

The WFP is starting local. Local governments actually have an important role to play in dealing with global warming. Local building codes determine the energy efficiency of office buildings and homes. Local governments are major energy consumers. And local governments control many of the daily activities that determine the amount of energy and waste generated by our communities.

Working Families Party members are lobbying local and county elected officials to pass legislation that will reduce carbon emissions and also stimulate the local economy to create good jobs in new "green" industries here in New York. We're pushing policies like green building codes, renewable power standards and energy efficient purchasing standards.

Sign a petition telling your local legislators that good jobs and clean energy is a winning combination.

Global Warming Threatens New York

This weekend's record-setting storm throws into stark relief the need to take action on global warming. Otherwise, we're in for worse. The New York Observer has a must-read article on the topic.

The article includes quotes from Princeton Geosciences Professor Michael Oppenheimer:

"This is exactly the type of event that we'd expect to see more of in the future - this kind of gully-washing, incredibly intense downpour."

"The storm was kind of a preview of things to come."

From Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research Climatologist Radley Horton:

"We think climate change is going to threaten New Yorkers' health and wealth through a cocktail of higher temperatures, higher seas and possibly changes in precipitation patterns. Those are the three main variables."

More on the threat to New York from rising water levels:

As global warming heats the earth, the waters of the seas and oceans expand, elevating water levels across the planet. In New York, this means that by 2020 - just 13 years from now - rising sea levels will have raised the waters around the city by three to four inches; by 2050, the waters will have crept up a total of eight to 10 inches; by 2080, 14 to 19 inches.

Those numbers may be conservative, because they ignore the whole troubling and uncertain issue of the polar ice caps.
. . .
According to the latest models, New York neighborhoods that currently flood every 100 or so years - victims of what is known as the 100-year storm, in climatologist-speak - can expect to experience this kind of dousing as frequently as every four years by 2080, in a worst-case scenario.

And more on the threat to New York from higher temperatures:

Afterward, New York will get heat: the kind of intense, smoggy swelter that will sap energy, strain the power grid and wreak unimaginable havoc on certain types of female hair. It will also kill people.

Already, over the past century, climate change has pushed the city's average annual temperatures up nearly two degrees Fahrenheit, while a deceptively bland-sounding phenomenon known as the "urban heat-island effect" - a heat-trapping effect that turns cities like New York into giant hot-air bubbles - has boosted it another degree. Along the way, winters have become warmer and the number of 90-degree scorchers has doubled from roughly seven to 14 days a summer - a trend, scientists say, that does not bode well for the future.

But it's not all threat, there's also opportunity.

That's the message of our Jobs and Energy Forum, taking place upstate on April 28th. The Jobs and Energy Forum will bring local and county elected officials together with policy experts to talk about legislation that local governments can pass to provide jobs AND increase energy efficiency and reduce pollution.

More to come.

Jobs and Energy Forum in Upstate NY

It's time to start dealing with global warming. We know how to fight global warming in a way that benefits the environment, saves taxpayers money, and creates new "green" jobs.

While a lot of attention is focused on federal and state level policies on global warming, local governments also have an important role to play. Local building codes determine the energy efficiency of office buildings and homes. Local governments are major energy consumers. And local governments control many of the daily activities that determine the amount of energy and waste generated by our communities.

The Center for Working Families is hosting a Jobs and Energy Forum for elected officials in Upstate New York on April 28th. The forum will bring together local and county elected officials and legislative staff with a panel of policy experts to talk about local legislation ranging from green building codes to renewable power standards to energy efficient purchasing standards.

The forum will feature a panel of environmental experts from the New York State League of Conservation Voters, Apollo Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and more. Experts will provide technical assistance and guidance on legislation that city, town and county legislatures can pass to provide jobs AND increase energy efficiency and reduce pollution.

And local elected officials who have experience passing landmark environmental legislation on municipal and county levels will be on hand to share their experience and useful information.

Read about specific policies we're talking about.

If your elected official is concerned about global warming or you're an elected official who wants to stimulate the local economy, here's the event flyer (pdf) and invitation (pdf).

More to come as we get closer to Earth Day.

Global Warming Threatens National Security

This weekend brought another reminder of the threat posed by global warming. And no, I'm not talking about our latest bout of extreme weather (does anyone else feel like winter and spring have switched places on the calendar?).

Six retired admirals and five retired generals with the CNA Corporation, a national security think-tank, laid out the "serious threat to America's national security" from global warming (via CNN).

Global climate change presents a serious national security threat that could affect Americans at home, impact U.S. military operations and heighten global tensions, according to a study released today by a blue-ribbon panel of retired admirals and generals.

The report says that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water, increased hunger instability from worsening disease and rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. "The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism"
. . .
They warn of a future of rampant disease, water shortages and flooding that will make already dicey areas - such as the Middle East, Asia and Africa - even worse.

From former U.S. Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan:

"Climate change is a national security issue . . . We found that climate instability will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact American military operations around the world.

People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections . . . But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.

There is a relationship between carbon emissions and our national security . . . I think that the evidence is there that would suggest that we have to start paying attention.

Carbon emissions are clearly part of the problem"

From former commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. Anthony Zinni:

"It's not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism.
. . .
We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or, we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll."

The report also suggests solutions:

"the path to mitigating the worst security consequences of climate change involves reducing global greenhouse gas emissions."

There's plenty we can do in New York. It's time to act. More on what you can do later this week.

Global Warming and Monroe County

Remember the record warmth in December? Well now parts of upstate New York are getting hit with record snowfall - 12 feet and 2 inches so far, breaking the state record from Decmeber 2001 of 10 feet and 7 inches.

As global warming changes weather patterns and causes extreme weather - like hotter winters and heavier snowstorms - parts of New York are starting to take action.

Monroe County's the latest, with a plan to generate energy from the Mill Seat Landfill by converting methane gas that the landfill gives off into energy instead of releasing it into the air. Methane is an intense global warming gas, and the amount of methane gas from the landfill is equivalent to 54,000 cars. Converting that methane gas into energy will generate enough energy to power between 4,000 and 6,000 homes.

More on what needs to be done soon.

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