2020 Action

Report on World Climate Change & What You Can Do to Help Stabilize Our Climate

December 2023 - In the 2015 Paris Accords the countries of the world committed to cut Greenhouse Gases (GHG) sufficiently to keep the global rise in temperature below 1.5 Celsius or 2.7 Fahrenheit. New research projects that we'll blow right past these levels by 2028.

In the meantime, the U.S., Russia, and Saudi Arabia are each planning to increase their drilling for fossil fuels. Not surprising, in the face of still rising consumer demand for oil and natural gas to power our cars and heat our homes and businesses.

This needs to change. The most effective action each of us can take—bigger than all other actions combined for most households—is to get heat pumps to heat and cool our homes, and to sign up for 100% fossil-free electricity to power them. This is absolutely the most effective thing we each need to do NOW.  It’s time to ask several installers for free bids on how your home would be best heated and cooled by heat pumps. It’s a little more complex than just buying another furnace. When your furnace fails, usually in winter, you want a quick fix, so it helps to have heat pump plans in place. You don't want to panic and buy another fossil fuel burning furnace which will need replacement before 2050 because by then the U. S. plans to be fossil-free. Also, sign up for 100% fossil-free energy now.

ACTION:

Call several local heat pump installers to get design plans and cost bids for a heat pump for your home. There will be a lot of factors to consider. Also, call your electricity provider and ask how you can get 100% fossil-free energy. Please tell your family, friends, and neighbors about this.

CONTACT: Your local heat pump providers & installers, and your electricity provider.

Please write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue.
It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.

U.S. Nuclear Policy in the Current Middle East

November 2023 - Ever since the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), nonproliferation has been the central pillar of U.S. nuclear policy. So it is extremely disturbing that the Biden administration is now negotiating a dangerous three-way deal with Israel and Saudi Arabia. The deal would: 

a) establish diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia,
b) take some unspecified action toward a 2-state solution for the Palestinians, and
c) give the Saudis a U.S.-run uranium enrichment operation.

This third item is extremely dangerous. Knowing the record of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudis could take over the enrichment operation and then be able to manufacture weapons-grade uranium. Saudi Arabia has already bought Chinese-made nuclear-capable missiles.

ACTION: Contact President Biden

Urge him not to set up a uranium-enrichment facility in Saudi Arabia. It's too risky and Saudi Arabia is an ideal location for solar energy.

In addition, tell the President that the US should send Israel only defensive military equipment. Also, ask him to immediately urge Israel to lift the deadly embargo on food, water, and fuel to the 2 million innocent civilians in Gaza, to forestall an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.

CONTACT: President Biden

• Web: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/  (leave a message)
• Tel: 1-202-456-1111 (leave a message)
• Mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC 20500

Please write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue.
It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.

Stop Congress from Rolling Back Health & Environmental Protections

October - Big corporate polluters and their friends are pushing an extreme agenda as the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate consider the 2024 federal spending plan. Some Representatives are proposing extreme spending cuts to programs that keep pollution in check. The House Republican majority has drafted budget bills that cut non-defense discretionary spending and that include hundreds of “poison pill” riders. Bedrock laws and agencies like the Clean Water Act and Environmental Protection Agency must be protected. Yet, some members of Congress have shown they care more about their corporate polluter friends than our water or air.

In the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Congress delivered a historic $20 billion investment in farm related climate-focused conservation funding, enabling farmers to adopt practices that build soil health, sequester carbon, and reduce global warming emissions. But now some in Congress want to eliminate or repurpose these funds. We need to protect the $20 billion investment in climate-focused conservation funding passed last year by making this funding part of the 2023 farm bill.

ACTION: Tell your Representative and Senators: 1. say “NO” to spending cuts to non-defense discretionary programs that keep pollution in check; 2. reject all ‘poison pill riders’ in the 2024 budget; and 3. make last year’s $20 billion climate funding part of the upcoming Farm Bill. 

CONTACT: Your Representatives & Senators in Congress

• Web: Find their names and links to their websites at senate.gov, www.house.gov; send an email or leave a message via ‘Contact’ on his/her website
• Tel: 202 224-3121 (Capitol switchboard-ask for his/her office & leave a message)
• Mail: Senator or Representative (first & last name) S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510
  or U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515

Please write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue.
It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.

Say ‘NO’ to Taxpayers Holding the Bag for Nuclear Disasters

September - The Price-Anderson Act was enacted in 1957. It kickstarted the nuclear power industry and has limited the liability that nuclear power companies would pay in a disaster to about $13 billion. The Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters are costing in the hundreds of billions of US dollars. Nineteen of the 93 nuclear reactors in the US are just like the ones that exploded at Fukushima.

Current Senate Bill S.1111 extends Price-Anderson for 20 more years, until 2045! It has been incorporated into the Senate version of the proposed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Nuclear weapons contractors would be exempt from liability even if they are found negligent! Nuclear power producers’ liability would be limited even though accidents could cost hundreds of billions. US taxpayers will be on the hook for most of the costs. We need to make the nuclear power and weapons industries pay for their own insurance and catastrophes!

Other bad parts of S.1111 would allow foreign entities to own US nuclear power reactors and encourage the spread of nuclear materials and technology to other countries accelerating nuclear proliferation. Every reactor makes enough plutonium yearly for multiple nuclear weapons.

ACTION:  Tell your Senators and Representatives NOT TO extend the Price-Anderson Act and to REMOVE S.1111 from the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA S.2226). This will help to prevent the international spread of nuclear power and weapons and keep foreign powers from owning nuclear reactors in the US. It will also keep US citizens from paying most of the costs of future nuclear accidents.

CONTACT: Your Representatives & Senators in Congress

• Web: Find their names and links to their websites at senate.gov, www.house.gov; send an email or leave a message via ‘Contact’ on his/her website
• Tel: 202 224-3121 (Capitol switchboard-ask for his/her office & leave a message)
• Mail: Senator or Representative (first & last name) S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510
  or U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515

Please write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue.
It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.

Thanks to the Nuclear Research Information Service (NIRS) for their assistance with this card.

Natural Gas Is Worse for the Climate Than We Thought

August - Natural gas has long been promoted as a "bridge fuel", to use while renewables are not yet widely in place. The reason is that it burns more cleanly than oil and coal. But a new study published on July 19, 2023, in Environmental Research Letters, states that this "bridge" status is not warranted. The problem is that there are now significantly larger estimates of the climate damages caused by the leakage of natural gas, at the wellheads, all along the distribution pipes, and in our homes. 

We all need to switch from fossil fuels, including natural gas, to fossil-free electricity as quickly as possible to heat our homes and buildings. At the local level, the "low-hanging-fruit" is to change city regulations to prohibit gas lines from being installed in new construction. Instead, electric heat pumps fed by clean electricity should be installed.

ACTION:

Urge your mayor or town manager to move to change your city regulations to prohibit laying gas lines into new residential and commercial construction. Mention that the purchase and installation of electric heat pumps cost no more than gas furnaces and are cheaper to operate. Making these changes is an important part of our plan to stabilize the climate. 

CONTACT:

Your mayor or city/town manager by phone or letter or leave a message on his/her website.

Please write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue.
It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.

Support US Arms Control Outreach to China and Iran

July 2023 - The news from Washington about arms control isn't always bad. Recently, Secretary of State Blinken and President Biden have renewed efforts to bring China into arms control discussions. Proposals include advance notification of missile tests, improved crisis communication channels, and committing not to hand over launch authority to an A.I. system but to have a human make the ultimate decision about launching nuclear weapons. Although these proposals are modest, they are absolutely in the right direction and might lead to more substantive agreements in the future. 

The U.S. is also pursuing behind-the-scenes talks with Iran to create a “political cease-fire”. In such an agreement Iran would agree to limit uranium enrichment to 60% purity, halt lethal attacks on American contractors by proxies in the region, and expand cooperation with international nuclear inspectors. In exchange, Iran would receive assurances that the US would not tighten economic sanctions, seize foreign oil-tankers, or seek new punitive resolutions at the UN. These agreements are also modest but might create time and space for future discussions of a renewed nuclear deal. 

ACTION:

The Biden administration may be concerned about the political risks of pursuing these efforts during a presidential campaign. They need to hear from the American people that there is support for such actions. Contact the President and Secretary Blinken to indicate that you support their outreach to China and Iran concerning arms control.

CONTACT:

Secretary of State Blinken:
Web:  https://register.state.gov/contactus/contactusform
Tel: 202 512-1800 (from 8 am to 4:30 pm EST)

President Biden: Web: 
https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/  (leave a message)
Tel: 1-202-456-1111 (leave a message)
Mail:  The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC 20500

Please write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue. It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.

EPA Rebuilds Regulations to Clean Up Pollutants from Power Plants

June 2023 - The Environmental Protection Agency has opened a public comment period on its draft proposal to reduce emissions of CO2 and other pollutants from US power plants. The proposal concerns existing coal-fired power plants and new plants powered by natural gas. Over the years, the EPA has issued regulations for fossil-fueled power plants, both existing and new, for both CO2, and effluents toxic to human health. Some of these regulations were canceled by the Trump administration but are now in the process of being reestablished, updated, and improved.

The current proposal combines both regulations and more flexible guidelines for states, cities, and local communities to decide on their best way of meeting the regulations. This flexibility allows for local input from minority and poorer communities, which is where power plants tend to be situated. This means the regulations on how to achieve the standards would be set locally and may include Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) directly from smokestacks, not after the CO2 is in the atmosphere. If a power plant is close to shut down, it may avoid action altogether.

The EPA has estimated the benefits of rebuilding CO2 regulations to include: 

• $85 billion in climate and health benefits over the next two decades
• 1,300 avoided deaths per year
• 66,000 avoided lost workdays per year.

ACTION:

By July 24^th, contact the EPA in support of this proposal by submitting your comment at:

https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0072-0001

Please send this email on to family and friends and/or write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue. It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.

How Well Has Delaying Nuclear Diplomacy Served Us?

May 2023 - In 1949, in its first action, the United Nations voted in favor of the elimination of nuclear weapons. Being the only nuclear state, the US refused. Then the Soviets managed to get nuclear weapons, and soon after, also the UK, France, and China, to a total of over 60,000 warheads. The threat of the proliferation of these weapons around the world produced the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1970, essentially a grand bargain: those 5 nuclear states committed to negotiate to eliminate their nuclear weapons, while non-nuclear states committed to forgo nuclear weapons. 

The intervening 53 years have yet to see the first negotiation meeting. Now Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea also have them, Iran and Saudi Arabia are making moves in that direction, and the threat of terrorists and criminal gangs getting them is even more terrifying. Clearly, delaying negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons has not made such negotiations easier. On the contrary, it has made them harder at every step along the way. We need to negotiate nuclear weapons elimination while we still can. The alternative looks bleak indeed. Fortunately, there is a House bill, H. Res. 77, that urges preparatory steps for such negotiations to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

ACTION:

Urge your Representative in Washington to co-sponsor this very critical bill, H. Res.77, to address this terrifying threat. If your Representative is opposed to the bill, ask what his or her plan is to protect and save you, your family, and the world. A superpower nuclear exchange would kill the "lucky" ones immediately, and the rest by starvation due to nuclear winter.

CONTACT: Your Representatives

• Web: Find his/her name and link to their website at house.gov; send an email or leave a message via ‘Contact’ on their website
• Tel: 202 224-3121 (Capitol switchboard-ask for his/her office & leave a message)
• Mail: Representative (first & last name) S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515

Please send this email on to family and friends and/or write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue. It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.

Fix the Grid and its Governance

April - There have been positive developments in America’s efforts to meet national climate goals. Technological innovations have radically reduced the cost of producing renewable energy and we are turning from fossil fuels to renewables. The Inflation Reduction Act will funnel over $400 billion into subsidies to Americans to buy electric cars and electric heat pumps. However, a major bottleneck is slowing down the flow of fossil-free electricity into our outdated grid that has insufficient capacity. This bottleneck is throttling efforts to change the way we generate and distribute electricity and slowing our transition to renewables.

There is now a huge backlog of renewable energy projects seeking permits from grid operators to feed their energy into the grid, while fossil fuel applicants often enjoy faster turnarounds. For example, PJM, a Mid-Atlantic grid operator, now has 2,700 energy projects under study and has paused all new reviews. It can take as long as four years to get approvals for renewable energy projects, a debilitating wait for impatient investors and stakeholders. The key problem is physical and regulatory fragmentation. When it comes to governance, the US does not have a national grid, but a grid divided among Eastern, Western, and Texas Districts, with regulatory input from states and even some municipalities. To move forward significantly and rapidly with renewable energy across the country, we need a fully integrated national grid with national oversight.

ACTION:

Urge your senators to help fix the national electric grid and to pass legislation that will reorganize our grids’ connectivity, governance, and regulatory structure, and to provide the funds so the new grid structure will more quickly allow fossil-free electricity to supply our growing call for renewables.

CONTACT: Your Senators

• Web: Find their names and links to their websites at senate.gov, send an email or leave a message via ‘Contact’ on his/her website
• Tel: 202 224-3121 (Capitol switchboard-ask for his/her office & leave a message)
• Mail: Senator (first & last name) S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510

Please send this email on to family and friends and/or write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue. It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.

Biden's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Is Disappointing

March - The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is a legislatively-mandated review undertaken by each President that establishes U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, capabilities and force posture for the next five to ten years. In October 2022, President Biden made public the unclassified version of his NPR. Before becoming President, Joe Biden was a leader in nuclear arms control, but now some of his actions and policies are going in the opposite direction. Consider these quotes:

1. In 2020 Biden wrote: "... the sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be deterring and, if necessary, retaliating against a nuclear attack." By contrast, Biden's NPR states, “We conducted a thorough review . . . including both No First Use and Sole Purpose policies and concluded that they would lead to “unacceptable risk in light of ... non-nuclear capabilities.” His NPR states that the US could respond with nuclear weapons even to a non-nuclear attack.
2. Former President Trump had championed the W76-2 as a small, "more usable", nuclear warhead.  In contrast, Joe Biden declared that "I don't think there's any such thing as an ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon." Sadly, shortly after that remark, Biden’s NPR supported that very “more usable” W76-2 nuclear weapon. 

On the positive side, Biden's NPR states that the U.S. "will seek opportunities to pursue practical steps to advance the goals of... reduced reliance on nuclear weapons, and, ultimately, a world without nuclear weapons.” We need to encourage him to actually create these opportunities.

ACTION: Contact President Biden. Use the information above to express your surprise and dismay that his NPR is, in several important ways, contrary to his earlier statements. Also, urge him to host a 2023 conference of the nuclear states to prepare the ground for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. This may not be easy, but it will be harder still once Iran and Saudi Arabia join the nuclear club.

CONTACT: President Biden

• Web: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/  (leave a message)
• Tel: 1-202-456-1111 (leave a message)
• Mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC 20500

Please send this email on to family and friends and/or write a letter-to-the-editor on this important issue. It is a good way to educate others and build support for needed policies.