All of us concerned with global warming, human rights, and the impacts of oil on health and the economy should be watching the progress of Hurricane Gustav very closely.

Currently the predictions for the storm are truly alarming.

Although it’s 5 days away from landfall - and a lot can change in 5 days - the current track has the hurricane passing directly over New Orleans at hurricane strength.

3 years ago this very week most, if not all of us, stood by watching helplessly as a racist, man-made climate tragedy of epic proportions unfolded in the gulf.

Although the last thing I want to do is invite alarm, we need to be prepared: we can not be silent if the worst happens again.

I urge all of you too watch this situation closely. The group I work with, Rising Tide, will be taking more over the next 48 hours should the situation continue to look as grim as it does about appropriate, *immediate* responses of solidarity and action.

I urge all of you to join us or to do the same in your communities.

For those of you in the gulf, my thoughts are with you constantly. Please stay safe and strong.

Please post your ideas for action or thoughts on this below.

Pro-Jobs, Pro-Economy, Pro-Clean Water, Pro-Mountain and Pro Wind activists Rory McIlmoil and Lorelei Scarbro of the Coal River Wind Project were on “Decision Makers” with Bray Cary –one of West Virginia’s most watched TV shows, where they, shall we say, eviscerated him during a wind or coal debate this past Saturday morning. (Sorry I can’t figure out how to make them show up here–let me know if you can!)

Part I
Part II
Part III

I highly recommend watching these videos, especially if you want to learn about facts and figures pertaining to wind and MTR and see exchanges such as this:

Bray Cary: “My understanding is that if you cut the top off of Coal River Mountain, that the wind will swoop down through there, come up on the uplift of the next mountain and create twice the force”
Rory McIlmoil: “Thats a lie, first of all, and I would like to see that source.”
Bray: “You’re lookin’ at the source.”
Rory: “So you basically just made that up.”
Bray: “And one other thing, these windmills.  One of the main concerns I have is are the birds, I mean you guys are just killing the environment.”
Lorelei: “Oh can I go there.” (Lorelei proceeds to explain that mountaintop removal kills or destroys habitat for every animal on the mountain, and the more than 500,000 acres of MTR  in Appalachia has likely killed more birds than any windfarm, and adds that house cats and windows kill multitudes more birds than wind…so wind is really the lesser evil…and Bray Cary hollers out, ‘Bird-killer!’”

PS> Our Governor’s office recently admitted that they have the power to stop the mountaintop removal and put in the wind farm — BUT THEY ARE AFRAID OF GETTING SUED BY MASSEY (nasty coal company). It makes me sick that corporations have this much control over our government.  Let the governor know where the real power lies and sign the petition at www.coalriverwind.org!

That’s right, the EJCC is back at it with Redefining Progress causing a stir all over the place. Whether it’s their report that they just released called “A Climate of Change,” or the new urban radio talk program they’ve got going on. Of course EJCC has a very warm place in my heart with all they do and are up against, and I am so pleased that things seem to be rolling on forward for them.

The first step of disaster prevention efforts is often on the individual or family level, even though a disaster may affect the whole community, region, or state. People are encouraged to set aside emergency supplies to last for three days without electricity or water, including extra equipment such as first aid kits, flashlights, and blankets. For people living in poverty, these basic necessities are often difficult, if not impossible, to keep in reserve, especially if there is hunger in the family. When a disaster is imminent, these same families are sometimes encouraged, but often mandated to evacuate. Yet without a car or adequate transit or evacuation systems, how are they to do so? If they are homeowners, and are uninsured, there may be an incentive to stay and protect their homes.

Kari Fulton, EJCC's Campus Coordinator, at the DNC

The excerpt above is from “A Climate of Change” the report written by Nia Robinson, Director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (EJCC), and J. Andrew Hoerner, the Director of the Sustainable Economics Program at Redefining Progress and it shows the most recent data on how African Americans in particular have been and continue to be disproportionately impacted by the effects of global warming and the pollution that causes it. Just flipping through the report is an incredible experience; it delves into such needed information regarding the energy markets and unemployment, the effects that oil-related wars have on the African American Community, and how disasters, health, and the climate are all inter-related and have an enormous impact. It not only gives us a sense of where we are at and where we have been, but it shines light on how to pro-actively make a difference. And! if in case you’ve been wondering what a just climate policy looks like and how to make sure that any candidate you support or any policy that’s on its way through has all the right elements, check out the guide, “A Climate of Change” has right there for you.

I encourage everyone to download the report and keep it by their bed-side table or their desk so as to always remain conscious of who is most at stake, and how we want to change this world so that all people and all peoples can live in peace with the world and themselves.

Also, keep on the look-out for the new urban radio program EJCC is airing weekly at noon on WCLK 91.9, “The Jazz of the City,” and live online at WCLK.com. This show will feature informative discussions of problems and solutions for healthy, sustainable lifestyles.

On August 28th, 1963 Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and said “I have a dream today.”

On August 28th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was a day away from making landfall, where it would rip apart homes and lives and show the world which communities are hit first and worst by climate change.

Today, working people all over the United States are joining the struggle for racial justice and eco-equity. From DC to Chicago, Albuquerque to Richmond, people are building an inclusive green economy.

This Thursday, August 28th (10am Pacific time) join us for a national conference call on the significance of and context for Green Jobs Now, A National Day of Action to Build the New Economy (9.27.08).

Reserve your spot right now.

A Call to Dream: The Context for Green Jobs Now
Thurs. August 28, 2008
10:00am Pacific / 1:00pm Eastern

The national conference call for Green Jobs Now, will feature:
* The Honorable D’Army Bailey, Founder of the
Civil Rights Museum
* Van Jones, Green For All President and Founder
* Gillian Caldwell, 1Sky Campaign Director

RSVP now to get the call-in information. Spread the word! All are welcome.

Cross-posted from the Breakthrough Blog.

It’s not just about framing—“new energy jobs” are the best and only shot at bringing down the political impasse between America and the energy policy it needs.

The effort to pass a sensible climate and energy policy is not working. I don’t just mean we’re not getting the right content in legislation—whether it’s trading or taxing or new investment. I want to face facts: right now there isn’t serious political support, or even interest, for an “energy bill” with climate change solutions at its heart. Not from most Democrats in Congress, and not from the vast majority of Americans, whose support is desperately needed by us climate and clean energy advocates.

This can be our crucial moment—a point of deep popular unrest over energy hikes and economic decline. In the self-righteous furor of “drill here, now” and in the sparring over loafers and houses, we see a political establishment desperate to connect with a distrustful electorate. At this sudden crossroads, both we and the defenders of the fossil economy have an incredible opportunity to define the way ahead. So now, we can’t spend one more day still trying to convince 41% of America to come to our 10% side. We have to go to them, and meet them where they’re at.

I think we have one shot; our legislative solution cannot be a “clean energy bill” or a “climate change bill” which require good economic times to stay afloat. It must be a “new jobs bill”, which—to work at all—requires sweeping change of the energy foundations of our economy.

And what do most Americans say they want, now? Cheap energy and a healthy economy have been the top political demands of the year.

This is a godsend! Isn’t it amazing good fortune that with a new energy jobs bill, we can give most people exactly the kind of answer they’re asking for? Populism—a strategy that embraces the terms and opinions of the majority—can provide the solutions to this economic, energy, and climate dilemma.

Our Flag

Right now, no major politician has a plan to solve problems at the heart of the US economic crisis—the collapse and exile of manufacturing, the dissolution of its steady union careers, and our treacherous dependence on unstable supplies of foreign oil.

But we have that plan; a new energy economy. With 10 million new energy jobs.

This plan means real dignifying livelihoods, accessible to the most disadvantaged communities. It means a nation that knows what to expect from its future, free of the knee-weak uncertainty of foreign fossil dependence. It means streets from the small towns to the inner cities coming to life again, with the boisterous hum of new industry and a blooming middle class. It means a stronger America, once again rising in the world.

10 million new energy jobs. Savor that. It has to be our rallying flag, because it will be most vigorously waved by the people we have always had the worst time “convincing”. These are the laid-off steelworkers and the three-job moms, the folks who never had direct reason to connect with the climate’s plight. Though billions for research and deployment are surely the only way to deliver the new energy economy and the climate solutions we need, we must be careful to remember that government research investment is not a flag–only the ground on which a flag stands. New energy jobs is a flag, and if we want a good energy policy, this flag has to be ours.

A Deeper Commitment

This plan is more than just framing: it demands that we become jobs advocates first and climate activists second. Across the environmental movement, consensus is building behind the framing of a “new energy economy”, with websites of the Sierra Club, NRDC and the DNC all extolling the jobs virtues of such a plan.

But these frames still lack potency—they feel like footnotes to campaigns trying to convince the electorate against drilling, or for cap-and-trade. In our campaigns, we must stop trying to convince others, and start telling them that they’re already right, and that we’re fighting together for the only plan that will work. We must lay claim to a simple, hard rhetoric that forces conservatives into a defensive role, as deniers of the potential of American hands and American wind. And we will have to painfully let go of any parts of our plan that don’t resonate deeply, quickly, with the very people who need this plan most.

The elegance of this plan, though, is that we can’t compromise in the wrong way; this plan binds pocketbook and climate as inseparable. Because the only thing that will make these jobs possible is a transformational energy policy. This means serious RDD&D, along with massive support for engineering education and job training programs. These latter programs are succeeding in the Bronx and Chicago and Oakland, and not just as skill factories—but as community-run schools that become the base for powerful local political organizing, environmental education, and social justice work.

Once this new energy bill is passed, the jobs will be here, and span an astounding number of sectors: careers in manufacturing the windmills and windows, in rebuilding and maintaining our energy infrastructure, in localizing food and goods production, in remaking our transportation and shipping networks, and in making our workplaces and cities and homes drastically more efficient. And these will be career-path jobs, true livelihoods which pay well and cannot be outsourced.

The Blue-Dog Open Door

This dream can happen right now, because it’s most of the country’s dream already. A plan for 10 million new energy jobs will become the call of the Walmart workers of Virginia and New Mexico, of the industrial ghost towns of Ohio and Michigan, of union truck drivers on strike. And these voices will carry in the crucial votes of their moderate “Blue Dog” Democrat representatives, and shape the policy of a certain half-Kenyan presidential candidate who needs these swing states to win.

These moderate Democrats are populists, and know they only succeed by meeting people where they’re at. They will see that a new energy jobs plan is an incredible way to build and unify the party. There’s no other way to achieve our goals than to have moderate Democrats—maybe half of the party—vote in “the new energy jobs plan” as the best way to serve their constituents’ economic demands. So, here’s looking at you, B.O., Harry Reid, and Rahm Emanuel—a new energy economy we need, want, and can do.

Best of all, there’s nobody to convince. We’re already on their side.