350 Updates

Welcome the new East Asia coordinating team!

Will Bates
Posted by Will Bates - 01/04/13, 1:48pm

It gives me great joy to kick off 2013 announcing some new members of our 350 international coordinating team. Stationed in Indonesia, Vietnam, China and Philippines, this all-star team of young organizers -- Rully, Hong, Jah Ying and Zeph -- will be taking on the challenge of coordinating a huge, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural region: East Asia. The team itself represents a diverse set of backgrounds, ranging from businesses and NGOs to academia and government. Stay tuned to see what new projects this exciting team will be launching in countries across East Asia! And here's a bit more of an introduction from each one...

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Left to Right: Jah Ying, Hong, Zeph, and Rully.

Zeph
In 2009, I worked with friends and initiated a candlelight protest that gathered 30 people in the community to join in the demand for a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty during the Conference of Party in Copenhagen. A week after, Typhoon Ketsana hit the Philippines, causing more than 450 deaths and over a billion USD in damages. The glaring reality of climate change sparked a fresh climate movement in 2010, and we held creative actions with bikers, mountaineers, runners and artists to create new climate solutions visible in our community. I then continued my work, engaging in the following campaigns - the youth-led Green Economy Summit in our Province, Moving Planet in 2011 - calling for bike lanes and promenades to be installed, a series of climate forums on the threat of coal, alternative solutions, reforestation initiatives with local partners, and Connect the Dots, which still continues in the Philippines.
 
I am eager to rejoin forces with 350.org as a member of the East Asia coordinating team, and look forward to working with the new challenges and opportunities we will face in the future!
 
Hong
For the last one and a half years, I’ve worked with 350.org in the role of national coordinator for Vietnam. Since then, I’ve connected a network of 7,000 environmental volunteers in 20 provinces in Vietnam, and engaged dozens of environmentally responsible business corporations as well as many local celebrities in climate change campaigns and projects. 350 Vietnam has become the largest grassroots climate change movement in the country, involving and benefiting thousands of people in both urban and rural areas. Our youth-led projects and campaigns focus mainly on reducing carbon emission through inspiring the people and corporates to take small and practical actions in daily life, as well as introducing greener alternatives, and providing support to climate change affected communities. 350 Vietnam's biggest projects and campaigns include the Moving Planet, The Sun in a Bottle, Climate Camp, Connect the Dots, Green Habitation, Vote for Nature, Strawless, Light Source of Future, White Roof - Green Wall.
 
Now I am continuing as a member of the new East Asia coordinating team, and coordinating with Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar to lead climate change projects. I am excited about this challenging yet incredible opportunity, and look forward to working with the amazing regional and global networks of 350.org.
 
Rully
I first started working with 350.org in the 10:10:10 project, gathering more than 100 people to urge nations to come together and focus on climate change in Bandung, Indonesia. In 2011, I continued to raise climate change awareness locally, completing an 11 day long bicycle trip from Bali to Bandung, eventually reaching out to more than 10,000 people on Moving Planet action day.
 
Now as we continue the fight on fossil fuel subsidies, coal, emissions and climate and energy related issues, I will be working with 350.org in organizing and overseeing local activities in Indonesia. I am excited and hope to be working with all of you in our fight on climate change!
 
Jah Ying
I first joined 350.org in 2010 as a national coordinator in China. I worked with local partners to launch some of the largest climate change campaigns in China’s history, engaging over 10,000 young people to build creative local solutions to tackle the climate crisis! Some of our most memorable campaigns include a national day of action on 10/10/10, where 300 local solutions were launched, and the Great Power Race clean energy challenge that brought together thousands of students from China, India and the US in friendly competition.
 
After a one year hiatus, I am rejoining the 350.org team as the Northeast Asia Coordinator, and will be overseeing activities in China (mainland and Taiwan), Japan and Korea. I look forward to launching new initiatives in 2013 and empowering more young people to build creative solutions to tackle climate change in their home countries!
 
A big thanks to Chun See and the whole crew for helping compile this intro post.
 
 
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Vermonter of the Year: Guess Who?

May Boeve
Posted by May Boeve - 01/02/13, 6:35am

We were very pleased to see that the Burlington Free Press named Bill McKibben "2012 Vermonter of the Year." Vermont is a state chock-full of heroes and heroines, so we're especially happy to see Bill recognized in this way, by neighbors, so to speak.

Some of the accomplishments they list are well known to many of you: three days in jail protesting Keystone XL, the 21-city Do the Math tour, founding 350.org. Some others may be less familiar: Bill has written more than a dozen books.

As a variety of Vermont based colleges and universities, including my alma mater Middlebury College (where Bill is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar), consider divestment, this couldn't come at a better time. As the Free Press article mentions, Bill's, and 350's, message is certainly breaking through!

 
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RE-volv launches Crowdfunding Campaign for Community Solar

Daniel Kessler
Posted by Daniel Kessler - 12/26/12, 8:43am

Guest post from Andreas Karelas of Re-volv.

RE-volv just a few days ago launched its first crowdfunding campaign for community-based solar energy on Indiegogo, accessible at www.solarseedfund.org. After being blogged about by our friends at Solar Mosaic, tweeted about by Bill McKibben, and featured in an article on Clean Technica our crowdfunding campaign has taken off. With just a week into the campaign, we’ve already raised more than half of our goal.

350.org’s Do the Math Tour asks people and institutions to divest from fossil fuels. As more people divest from fossil fuels if we can increasingly invest in renewable energy, we could create a very powerful dynamic and signal for change.

RE-volv is a nonprofit organization empowering people to invest collectively in renewable energy. RE-volv has started a revolving fund for community-based solar energy called the Solar Seed Fund. Here’s how it works: The Solar Seed Fund raises donations through crowdfunding to finance solar installations on community-serving organizations such as schools, universities, hospitals, and places of worship. RE-volv recoups the cost of the solar installation and earns a return on the investment through a 20-year solar lease agreement. The lease payments go back into the Solar Seed Fund allowing the fund to continuously grow and finance an expanding number of solar installations. The communities RE-volv serves save money on their electric bill and are able to showcase solar energy to their community members.

What’s exciting about this model is that each person’s donation isn’t just for one solar energy system. A donation in the Solar Seed Fund is like planting a seed for solar energy. Each solar energy system we install produces a dramatic return on its investment and is able to finance an additional three solar energy systems over the course of the lease. When RE-volv has many installations up and running, the revenues will produce more and more solar systems each year, which bring in more revenues creating a self-sustaining ever expanding renewable energy fund.

Solar is now cost effective. It pays for itself over time and can be a profitable investment. RE-volv’s unique revolving fund model, rather than generating returns for investors, reinvests the returns it earns in the revolving fund allowing it to grow exponentially.

This way, people who donate get a tax deduction, are making a meaningful impact in reducing carbon emissions, are spurring the renewable energy industry, and are educating countless communities about the benefits of solar. We can use this movement to demonstrate that people are willing to support renewable energy in the United States out of their own pockets as part of a collective effort with lots of people chipping in a little bit.

 
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Seattle Mayor Orders City to Divest from Fossil Fuels

Jamie Henn
Posted by Jamie Henn - 12/22/12, 10:51am

 

Wow! Talk about a great way to end the year. Check out this big news out of Seattle! 

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn sent a letter to the city’s two chief pension funds on friday, formally requesting that they “refrain from future investments in fossil fuel companies and begin the process of divesting our pension portfolio from those companies.”

“Climate change is one of the most important challenges we currently face as a city and as a society,” wrote Mayor McGinn in a letter to the Seattle City Employees’ Retirement System (SCERS) Board and the City of Seattle Voluntary Deferred Compensation Plan Committee. “I believe that Seattle ought to discourage these companies from extracting that fossil fuel, and divesting the pension fund from these companies is one way we can do that.”

Over 2,000 people joined 350.org in Seattle on November 7 to kick-off the “Do the Math” tour and nationwide divestment campaign

Along with encouraging the pension funds to divest, Mayor McGinn also committed to making sure that city funds stay out of the fossil fuel industry, writing, “The City’s cash pool is not currently invested in fossil fuel companies, and I already directed that we refrain from doing so in the future.”

Valued at $1.9 billion, SCERS is also the largest investment portfolio yet to consider fossil fuel divestment. While the full value of SCERS fossil fuel investments is still unknown, according to the city’s finance director, the system currently has $17.6 million invested in ExxonMobil and Chevron, which represents roughly 0.9% of the system’s assets.

 
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Thanks, CREDO!

Anonymous
Posted by Anonymous - 12/21/12, 10:01am

Great news! CREDO (formerly Working Assets) named 350.org one of their 2013 funding recipients. Thanks to all the CREDO members who nominated us!  

If you're a CREDO member, you generate donations to 350.org and 39 other worthy groups every time you use CREDO's mobile, long distance and credit card services. ($72 million donated to causes that members voted for since 1985!)
 
CREDO is not just a donor to 350.org, they are also an important ally. They have partnered with us on the Keystone XL pipepline fight, the campaign to put solar on the White House, and they most recently appeared on our Do the Math tour.  Thanks CREDO members!  Keep up the great work! 
 
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Big Banks Admit No Keystone XL, Limited Expansion of Tar Sands Development

Daniel Kessler
Posted by Daniel Kessler - 12/19/12, 11:15am

Want to know how the Keystone XL will drive up climate emissions? Just ask the banks that are needed to fund dirty tar sands pipeline projects and they'll tell you straight out: no KXL means no substantive development of the tar sands, one of the world's largest pools of carbon and a sure-fire way to cook the planet.

Both TD Economics and CIBC have recently said that without added capacity, "Canada's oil industry is facing a serious challenge to its long-term growth" and that “Canada needs pipe — and lots of it — to avoid the opportunity cost of stranding over a million barrels a day of potential crude oil growth.”

Remember that "Milkshake" scene in "There Will be Blood"--the one in which Daniel Day Lewis says "I drink your milkshake?" to a despondent Paul Dano? KXL would operate in a similar way. The KXL straw is so long and so big that it's needed to start to drain the tar sands. Without that long straw, the banks warn, the tar sands crude would stay in the ground. If you care about species extinction, sea level rise, and leaving behind a planet for our kids that's sort of the like the one we live on now, that's a good thing. 

The tar sands have about half--half!--the carbon that we can burn if we are going to avoid runaway climate change. The banks say there are four options to expand the market reach of Canadian crude: out through Canada's Western Coast, the U.S. Gulf Coast (KXL), Quebec, and Atlantic Canada. But the industry knows that it faces huge opposition if it wants to go west or east, so it's banking on the south.

That's why Keystone XL is so important to the industry, and that's why it needs to be stopped. The pundits and industry will tell you this oil is coming out one way or another. But the big banks don't agree. So let's listen to the banks, at least on this one, and leave it in the ground.

 

 
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I can't wait for Global Power Shift.

May Boeve
Posted by May Boeve - 12/18/12, 8:25pm

We just sent out this email to our friends around the world. Not on our email list yet? Sign up here to receive crucial updates from the climate movement. 

Dear friends,

I can’t wait for Global Powershift in Istanbul.

Apparently, neither can many of you. The response has been amazing so far, with thousands of applications from young leaders all over the globe. It’s a small taste of what this historic global gathering will be like.

To make sure everyone has enough time to apply, we've extended the application deadline until January 4. If you'd like to join us, please do apply as soon as you can.

In the meanwhile, watch this incredible video for a dose of inspiration. It's a preview of Global Power Shift, and you'll definitely want to watch it with the volume up high!

Please share this video far and wide -- together, we can make Global Power Shift as big and bold as possible.

Onwards,

May

P.S. -- In case you misplaced the application link, here it is again: apply.globalpowershift.org.

 
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5 major issues that the Keystone XL environmental review must include

Daniel Kessler
Posted by Daniel Kessler - 12/12/12, 12:16pm

It's deja vu all over again. The State Department is gearing up to release its analysis of the environmental impacts of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The first one, you might remember, didn't include a substantive evaluation of the huge climate impacts of the pipeline; and State contracted with Cardno Entrix, a company that had ties to TransCanada, the company seeking a permit for the 1,700-mile project.

This review is a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS ) instead of a new independent environmental look at the pipeline. Here are 5 major issues that State must include for the SEIS to have any credibility.

Keystone XL will lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions

The environmental review should find that building the Keystone XL pipeline will unlock additional tar sands development and increase greenhouse gas emissions. there are an estimated 230 gigatons of carbon stored in the tar sands, about half the carbon budget (500Gt) that scientists estimate we can use to stay under 2°C of warming. Only 10% of the tar sands is currently believed to be economically recoverable, but this could increase considerably with continued development of extraction technologies. according to a June 2012 report by the Congressional research Service, building Keystone XL would be the equivalent of adding at least 4 million new cars to the road. Keystone XL would expand dirty tar sands mining practices and lure the U.S. into a long-term commitment to an extra-dirty oil energy infrastructure. For example, building Keystone Xl would wipe out the benefits of new standards that cut greenhouse gas emis- sions from medium to heavy duty trucks announced by the Obama administration.

TransCanada's poor safety record 

TransCanada is currently under a sweeping investigation by Canadian regulators after they confirmed the account of a whistleblower documenting repeated violations of pipeline safety regulations by the company. This is the latest in a long series of accidents, shutdowns and pipeline safety infractions that have hounded TransCanada. Moreover, experiences from the Kalamazoo spill have shown that tar sands spills are significantly more damaging than conventional crude spills. The environmental review should consider TransCanada’s plans, policies, and practices and evaluate the impact of tar sands spills along sensitive rivers and aquifers along Keystone XL’s route.

Keystone XL will hurt — not help — U.S. energy security

Keystone XL is a tar sands pipeline through the United States, not to it. Industry has made it clear that Keystone XL is part of a plan to find markets for tar sands outside of the United States — while America’s communities, land and water bear the risk. The environmental review should evaluate the tar sands pipeline in context of industry’s plan to divert tar sands from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast where it can be refined and exported.

Keystone XL will have a negative effect on refinery communities

Low-income communities will bear a disproportionate share of the contamination of air and water created by spills along the route of Keystone XL and refinery emissions from processing dirty tar sands. The review should evaluate which communities will be adversely impacted by Keystone XL.

The public needs a fair opportunity for their voices to be heard

Given the serious environmental impacts from the pipeline, the public should be given sufficient time to comment on the draft of the environmental review. An appropriate period would be 120 days, with the State Department holding public hearings along the pipeline route. Then, the State Department should produce a final environmental review that takes the public’s comments into consideration.

 

 

 
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