Climate Memo Mondays #24

24.  Climate Memo Mondays, 5-24-21

SETH BOREN­STEIN.  U.S. got 1 degree warmer, data says.  Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 05, 2021.  Read more...

 

TRANSITION TO CLIMATE JUSTICE

Are you an eco-purist? [To Greta Thunberg and all friends of GND]

RL, Climate Hawks Vote   5-15-21

8:01 AM (3 hours ago)

Dick,
This email is a little longer than usual because we want to share some strategy with you.

The American Jobs Plan (also known as the infrastructure bill) is the climate bill, as President Joe Biden envisions it. One of its centerpieces will be a clean energy standard requiring the United States to get to 100 percent clean-ish electricity by 2035. At Climate Hawks Vote, we fully support the clean part -- we just don’t like the “ish.”

It’s important to remember that the American Jobs Plan has not yet been written. There’s nothing to look up on a website. However, when it does become legislation, it may draw from a bill already floating around Congress called the Clean Future Act (H.R. 1512). That bill defines “clean energy” very loosely, and could include fracked natural gas, wood pellets and other biomass, carbon capture and storage, and more. 

We’re among 650 groups signing on to a letter to Congress asking leaders to instead push for a renewable energy standard that does not include false solutions. For that, we’ve been roundly criticized as “eco-purists” in Politico. 

Among the other so-called eco-purists: the Climate Justice Alliance, Green Latinos, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and the NAACP. Yes, Black and Brown groups whose frontline communities bear the burden of pollution are holding out for something better than fracked natural gas and CCS. Those false solutions would allow the fracking wells, refineries, coal power plants, and pipelines in their backyards to keep on polluting.

An administration that says it wants to center environmental justice needs to commit to energy without the injustice of pollution.

To be clear, this is a negotiation. We’re putting Biden’s team on notice that they need to do better by climate hawks, and not just appease Joe Manchin and Senate Republicans. Over the next few months, we intend to squawk up for a truly clean energy standard without false solutions.

We can’t do it without you. Can you please chip in to fuel this important work?

Your fellow climate hawk (fully vaxxed!),
RL Miller

References
Letter (PDF)
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/energy-justice/pdfs/2021-5-12_600-Group-Letter-for-RES.pdf.    “The fight to define what ‘clean’ energy means,” Earther 
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-fight-to-define-what-clean-energy-means-1846856766    “The green schism threatening Biden’s climate plan,” Politico
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/13/green-schism-biden-climate-plan-488037
 Climate Hawks Vote
PO Box 141 Agoura Hills, CA 91376-0141

DEMOCRATIC POLITICS, On having a PLAN, FROM PROPOSED VISION TO LEGISLATION
From PCAF (Progressive Caucus Action Fund) on Part II of GND—CONSTRUCTING CLIMATE JUSTICE
President Biden has unveiled his highly anticipated American Jobs and Families Plans. 
The plan will:
Provide everyone access to quality, affordable child care, and includes proposals for universal preschool and two years of tuition-free community college. 
Finally guarantee workers up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave — because no one should be forced to choose between a paycheck or their family’s well being. 
Extend the Child Tax Credit through at least 2025, helping more than 65 million children and keeping us on track to cut childhood poverty in half this year. 

This is a great start to addressing the challenges we face — but we’re urging policymakers to go even bolder to meet the magnitude of the moment.
Childcare and public college should be free for all. And the Child Tax Credit needs to be made permanent. 

Donate now to help us build a caregiving economy that works for everyone.

The coronavirus merely piled onto the nation’s existing crises of inequality and economic injustice. 
Even before COVID hit, 14.4% of children in the U.S. were living below the official poverty line — and the numbers were far worse for children of color.
During the pandemic, 2 million women dropped out of the workforce, too often because they cannot get the care they need for their children. 

Bold investments in our caregiving economy will close racial wealth gaps, reduce poverty, and increase opportunity for all.  CLIMATE JUSTICE, THE SECOND HALF OF GND.