OntheWilderSide

Green Party promotes Green New Deal: real action to curb global warming and end oil addiction, create new jobs in energy conservation, alternate energy development, and public transportation

Green Party leaders strongly criticized President Obama’s recent decisions on the controversial tar sands pipeline and EPA smog regulations, calling his support for the Keystone XL Pipeline and withdrawal of smog standards reckless and dangerous to public health and the environment.

More respiratory disease, more dependence on fossil fuels, more greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere — these will be the results of President Obama’s latest capitulations to the oil industry and Republicans.  The President is trying to appease anti-regulation ideologues and climate-change deniers in the GOP and corporate lobbies that place profits ahead of public safety.

The Green Party  noted that President Obama alone, without approval from Congress, has the power to approve or reject the tar sands pipeline from Alberta, Canada.  Party leaders expressed admiration and gratitude to the protestors arrested during the White House demonstrations against approval of the tar sands pipeline (http://www.tarsandsaction.org).

“The courageous actions at the White House represent the voice of conscience confronting the dark forces of environmental destruction,” said Jill Stein,  co-chair of the Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts (http://www.massgreens.org).  “I am so proud to see that America has so many people willing to put themselves on the front line of the battle to save our future.  This action is a defining moment.  It is the point at which the environmental community stops accepting inaction and excuses, and starts insisting that our government do the right thing.  That courage to speak up clearly and not be silenced is critical for starting to save our imperiled planet.“ 

NASA’s Dr. James Hansen, one of the nation’s top climate scientists, said that development of tar sands in Alberta, Canada, would be “game over” for efforts to curb climate change (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/29/idUS257590805720110829).  Mining oil from tar sands creates three times more carbon emissions than conventional oil extraction, and the oil will be transported by the hazardous 1,700-mile long Keystone XL Pipeline to refineries in Texas.  Despite such warnings, the State Department gave the project a green light in its environmental impact statement, dismissing the threat of sharp increases in carbon emissions.

Greens said that President Obama’s concern for the revenues of oil companies and the financial burden created by anti-smog regulations reflected an administration that measures the health of the US economy by corporate profits rather than by how many new jobs are created, how many Americans move out of unemployment and poverty, and how the US is meeting the challenges of global warming.

“Green candidates have called for a ‘Green New Deal’ with a plan to create millions of new jobs in conservation and conversion to safe, clean energy, the promotion of technologies to reduce air pollution — such as anti-smog devices — and expansion of public transportation to reduce car traffic.  Such measures will help the US recover from the 2008 economic meltdown.  Unfortunately, President Obama has retreated from his 2008 nomination speech promise that during his presidency the ‘rise of the oceans will begin to slow, and the planet begin to heal.’  He has capitulated to the corporate myth that environmental standards are job killers. In fact, they are job creators because they spur innovation and investment in cleaner technologies,” said Howie Hawkins, co-chair of the Green Party of New York State (http://www.web.gpnys.com) and candidate for Common Councilor of Syracuse.

“Obama is ignoring the tar sands pipeline protesters and the whole movement to stop global warming.  Street protests alone without a political alternative to vote for will just leave the protesters taken for granted by Obama and the Democrats again.  We can multiply the power of the protests by mounting an electoral insurgency behind the political party that is dedicated to preserving the planet — the Green Party,” Mr. Hawkins added.  (More on the Green New Deal: http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/08/11/62-green-candidates-endorse-green-new-deal)

Greens cited numerous other Obama Administration environmental retreats and capitulations: an industry-coddling response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico; paralysis in global climate protection negotiations and promotion of emissions-trading schemes that will grant polluting industries licenses to continue polluting; refusal to ban mountaintop removal mining; endorsement of ‘clean coal’; approval of new nuclear power plants (despite the Fukushima disaster in March 2011) paid for by taxpayers for the benefit of energy companies that don’t want to assume the high cost and high liability; plans to expand off-shore drilling with new operations in Atlantic coastal waters.

MORE INFORMATION

“The Tar Sands Action (smile)”  By Ted Glick, September 5, 2011 http://www.tedglick.com/columns/102.html

Related articles

• Nader: Tar Sands Arrests on Obama’s Doorstep (www.onthewilderside.com)
• Activist Bill McKibben on Why Tar Sands Pipeline Is Game Over for the Climate (www.onthewilderside.com)
• Green Party of Suffolk Adopts US Conference of Mayors’ “Bring the War Dollars Home” Resolution (www.onthewilderside.com)

Filed under: 3rd party, Action Alert!, activism, Ecology, energy, Environment, Global Warming, grassroots democracy, US Politics Tagged: | Alberta, Barack Obama, climate change, Environment, Keystone Pipeline, Oil sands, united states, White House