[GPCA Updates] GP RELEASE: Greens to Obama & Congress on Earth Day: Get serious about global warming, clean energy

[Green Party of California Updates]

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Friday, April 22, 2011


On Earth Day, the Green Party urges the US to get serious about global
warming, clean energy, and transition to a carbon-free, nuclear-free economy

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on ecological
sustainability, global warming, and population
http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-ecological.php


WASHINGTON, DC -- On Earth Day 2011, Green Party leaders called on the White
House and Congress to provide strong leadership on fighting global climate
change and converting the US to safe and clean energy.

"It's time to replace the ideology of unlimited growth with a set of
principles based on sustainable use of land and resources.  We need to keep
alive the ecosystems that support life on our planet.  We need to make access
to fresh water a human right instead of a privatized commodity.  We need
energy policies that address our dangerously high rates of consumption and the
threat of a climate catastrophe before the end of the 21st century.  And we
need democratic reforms that limit the power of major corporations, which have
too often fought measures to protect the earth's delicate ecological balance
and provide for human needs," said David McCorquodale, treasurer of the Green
Party of Delaware.  (See Mr. McCorquodale's guest column "Renewables, not
nuclear power, are the way forward," Delaware Online, April 11, 2011,
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110411/OPINION07/104110316/Renewables-not-nuclear-power-way-forward)

Green Party Agenda on Energy

• Creation of millions of new jobs in conservation, safe and clean energy
cultivation, and retrofitting buildings: President Obama has not followed
through on his promise of new jobs in these fields.

• Incentives, legislation, and reforms to provide renewable energy
technologies (solar, wind, geo-thermal, marine, and other clean renewable
sources) and encourage their use, combined with enactment of a progressive
carbon tax and rebate in the form of a graduated refundable tax credit, with
the goal of a carbon-free economy.

• Replacement of car traffic with energy-efficient mass transportation.

• Absolute limits on greenhouse gas emissions, under a strong international
climate treaty under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change.  President Obama and Congress must do far better than the US offer,
during the Copenhagen talks, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4% below
1990 levels.  Greens favor a minimum 40% reduction by 2020 and 95% reduction
by 2050, over 1990 levels.

• No more false solutions: Carbon emissions trading schemes ("cap and trade"),
which allow polluting companies to trade licenses to pollute, are full of
loopholes and ineffective at curbing global climate change.

• No more subsidies and tax breaks for fossil-fuel industries; no more
off-shore drilling contracts: The problem isn't just dependence on foreign
oil, it's the addiction to fossil fuels regardless of their source, say
Greens, who point to last year's BP-Deepwater Horizon disaster as a warning of
the risks of oil consumption.

• No nuclear power: The tsunami that devastated parts of Japan in March
exposed the dangers of nuclear energy, which no private company will invest in
without billions in publicly funded subsidies and loan guarantees.  President
Obama's plans to build new nuclear plants on the taxpayers' dime are a
concession to powerful corporate lobbies that want to reap high profits while
forcing the public to assume the high cost and extreme liabilities of nuclear
energy.  Existing nuclear plants must be phased out and the 20-year license
extension granted for aging reactors must be rescinded, say Greens.  More:
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=401

• An end to mountaintop removal mining: The detonation of mountaintops has
wreaked untold destruction on the natural environment and posed a massive
threat to public health, through contamination of water and other resources in
several states.  Greens have called West Virginia "ground zero" for global
warming in the US.

• An end to hydrofracking. Water supplies and landscapes are endangered when
millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals are forced through
shale formations to release natural gas.  More:
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog/?p=2440

• No biofuels subsidies that promote the burning of crops and forests and
support the expansion of genetically engineered plants and trees to feed
large-scale biomass burners.  The corn-to-ethanol scam already consumes 2/5 of
US corn production and has aggravated the global food crisis.  More:
http://www.pfpi.net


MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
• Green candidate database and campaign information:
http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Ballot Access Page http://www.gp.org/ballotstatus
• Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
• Video Page http://www.gp.org/video/index.php

2010 Platform of the Green Party of the United States, section on Ecological
Sustainability: http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/ecology.php

Green Party Eco-Action Committee http://www.gp.org/committees/ecoaction/index.php

"Greens call for a new kind of national defense: defense against catastrophic
climate change"
Green Party press release, August 6, 2010
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=336

Earth Day Release from the Green Party of New York, April 22, 2011
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-state.php?ID=416

'GreenStream Wednesday': News and discussion on the Green Party's Livestream
channel
http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of the
United States (Fall 2010 issue now online)
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog


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