[GPCA Updates] GP RELEASE Green Party to Obama: The problem isn't just foreign oil, it's all fossil fuels

[Green Party of California Updates]

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES

http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, January 31, 2012



Green Party to Obama: Whether foreign or domestic, it's time for America to
cut oil and gas from our energy diet

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Green leaders available to speak on energy,
climate change, and related topics: http://www.gp.org/speakers/subjects.php


WASHINGTON, DC -- President Obama's energy policy shows a dangerous disconnect
from the real nature of the current energy crisis, said Green Party candidates
and leaders, who promoted the "Green New Deal" as a way to alleviate impending
climate change and create millions of new jobs
(http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/08/11/62-green-candidates-endorse-green-new-deal).

• Jill Stein, candidate for the Green Party's 2012 presidential nomination
(http://www.jillstein.org): "With his State of the Union speech, President
Obama has adopted the 'Drill, Baby, Drill' platform of the Republican Party.
He has embraced the energy industry position that our public lands and our
environment should be sacrificed for the goal of increasing domestic
production. This spin ignores the fact that our most pressing problem isn't
foreign oil -- it's what fossil fuels, both foreign and domestic, are doing to
our planet. The President's 'all of the above' approach is an alarming denial
of the climate emergency we face and the urgent need to substantially reduce
the amount of carbon we exhaust into the atmosphere. Our nation and human
society around the world are already at serious risk for devastating climate
disruption. Obama's proposals make this risk even worse. With the President's
support of the oil company agenda, the Green Party now
  emerges as the one clear political voice for a sustainable energy policy that
our planet and economy so badly need."

• Audrey Clement, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States: "The White
House's plan to expand natural gas extraction on US public lands, which
President Obama talked about during this State of the Union, is a menace to
public health and the environment. Hydrofracking contaminates groundwater,
releases gases from combustion into the air with worse greenhouse gas
emissions than coal or oil, and creates severe toxic waste disposal problems.
According to seismologists, it's likely to have caused small earthquakes in
Ohio near sites where shale gas drilling has taken place. The Obama
Administration has shown extremely poor judgement in its support for
hydrofracking, 'clean coal', and offshore drilling in US coastal waters that
would place major cities at risk for disasters similar to the BP oil spill in
2010, and its toleration of mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia and
other states. We're pleased that President Obama postponed approval of
  the Keystone XL pipeline, which NASA scientist James Hansen warned would be
'game over for the planet'. But we remain concerned that the project will get
approved in 2013 by the next Obama Administration or by a new Republican
president."

(See also "Shale Gas A Bridge To More Global Warming" by Stephen Leahy, Inter
Press Service, Jan. 24, 2012,
http://www.globalissues.org/news/2012/01/24/12513 and "Methane and the
greenhouse-gas footprint of natural
gas from shale formations" by Robert W. Howarth, Renee Santoro, and Anthony
Ingraffea, Climatic Change,
http://www.sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/news/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf)

• Kent Mesplay, candidate for the Green Party's 2012 presidential nomination
(http://www.mesplay.org): "America can take one of two roads in the coming
years. The first road involves denial of climate change or refusal to take it
seriously, inadequate measures like emissions trading schemes that allow
corporate polluters to keep polluting, and no real effort to reduce fossil
fuel consumption. This road will lead to further melting of the polar icecaps
and permafrost, release of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, growing
climate instability, flooding and droughts, 'peak oil', dwindling access to
food and fresh water, and the inevitable wars to gain control of resources.
The second road means treating climate change in the same way that the US and
its allies treated the Axis powers early in World War II -- as an emergency
requiring international unity against a threat to civilization. We still have
the chance to curb the advance of global warming
  through democratically enacted means and to use it as an opportunity to put
millions of people back to work, jumpstart the damaged economy, and create
cooperation and good will among nations. Democratic and Republican leaders are
stuck on the first road. The Green Party and its candidates and elected
officials insist on the second road -- which is why the Green Party is the
imperative of the 21st century."

• Howie Hawkins, co-chair of the Green Party of New York State: "The Green
Party remains the only party with a set of constructive solutions for the
energy crises that we face. Many of these ideas are spelled out in the Green
New Deal, which Green candidates have adopted as their agenda. Green solutions
include the creation of millions of new jobs in energy conservation projects
such as retrofitting homes and other buildings for energy efficiency,
innovative technologies for safe and clean energy that don't rely on nuclear
or petroleum-based sources, planning and new construction for cities and towns
that will free them from reliance on car traffic, and expanding public
transportation. Unfortunately, Democrats lack the political will and
Republicans are hostile to the idea that government can initiate public works
projects to employ millions of Americans. President Roosevelt proved that such
projects can be very successful. Greens are ready to prove it
  again, when we take public office." (Mr. Hawkins introduced the Green New
Deal during his campaign for Governor of New York in 2010.)


MORE INFORMATION

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2012 Green Party Presidential Nominating Convention
July 12-15, 2012 in Baltimore, Md.
http://www.gpconvention2012.com

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