From the New Year’s message of Mike Tidwell, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Greetings for the New Year 2013:
In the New Year please consider supporting a group Bill McKibben calls “the best regional global warming organization in the world!” That’s high praise from America’s best-known writer and organizer on climate change. How did CCAN earn this praise in 2012? By fighting coal companies, promoting wind power, standing up to “fracked” natural gas, and creating thousands of “solar” roofs all across Maryland, Virginia, and D.C.
CCAN achieved a lot in 2012. From a week-long picket in Richmond to circling the statehouse in Annapolis, we turned hundreds of people out for bold, creative actions that demonstrated the incredible, growing power of our region-wide movement for clean energy. We also played a key role in preventing construction of the main leg of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline by pressuring President Obama and marching on the White House in November.
But there’s so much more to do. When I founded CCAN ten years ago, scientists believed humankind had 100 years to get off of fossil fuels and save the climate. Now, just a decade later, many leading scientists admit they were wrong. We’re crossing disastrous climate thresholds now: Vanishing Arctic ice. Runaway wildfires. Bigger storms like Sandy.
We’re excited about the coming year. We have a three-point plan for major climate victories in 2013 across Maryland, Virginia and DC and it begins with…
Wind power. In 2013, with your help, the Maryland General Assembly will finally pass a bill incentivizing offshore wind power. This will spark other states to follow, including Virginia, where historic offshore wind leases will be granted very soon. This will also include standing up to Dominion Power’s dirty energy agenda at every step.
Then, there’s fracking. No group is fighting harder than CCAN to prevent the well-known ills of hydraulic fracking for natural gas in our region. We are leading the fight for a moratorium in Maryland and to resist Dominion Power’s effort to export gas from Virginia.
Finally, there’s divestment. As part of a national campaign launched by Bill McKibben and 350.org, CCAN is working with a dozen student groups across the region to push their universities to divest from fossil fuels now. Remember this tactic during the 1980s South Africa apartheid protests? Local students are successfully applying it to climate change — with help from people like you.
Humankind faces no greater crisis than global climate change. Please give now to a group with a proven record of success in bringing new wind and solar power to our region and in stopping offshore oil drilling and the construction of new coal plants.
I know you’ll help. Many thanks.
Sincerely, Mike Tidwell, Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
P.S. We urge you to reserve the Presidents Day weekend, February 16-17, for the biggest climate demonstration yet in the U.S. The Sierra Club, 350.org, CCAN and other groups will be bringing tens of thousands of people to DC. We will call for bold and immediate climate leadership, beginning with a shut-down of the climate-killing Keystone XL pipeline once and for all. You can sign up and find out more at http://act.350.org/signup/presidentsday.
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Since 2001 the atmospheric carbon dioxide level has increased by 23.88 ppmv while the average global temperature trend has been flat. When can we expect the average global temperature trend to again be significantly positive?
2012 HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD IN U.S.: The average temperature in 2012 was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, one degree above the previous record and 3.2 degrees higher than the 20th-century average, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. They described the data as part of a longer-term trend of hotter, drier and potentially more extreme weather.