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NEW ENERGY POLICY NEEDED

When President Obama was elected in 2008, there was a tremendous amount of US momentum for action on energy and climate change. By 2009, there was legislation moving through Congress to do such things as put a price on carbon pollution, to begin moving the United States off of fossil fuels, and to move into a clean-energy economy.

There was then, and still is now, a nearly universal consensus within the trusted scientific community that manmade climate change is real, caused mostly by our burning of fossil fuels, rapid, important, and demanding our urgent attention. (Burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, adds billions of tons of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) to the atmosphere annually, trapping heat like a blanket, creating an enhanced global greenhouse effect.)

For years, and especially recently, powerful fossil fuel-related interests have been using their wealth to try to convince the public that worrisome climate change is either not real, is not caused by humans, or is not important enough to require action. These fossil fuel interests include oil companies, coal companies, transportation companies, certain wealthy individuals, and others whose own, selfish financial interests benefit from our remaining addicted to fossil fuels.

With fossil fuel interests spending millions to fight it, climate legislation in Congress is, for now, effectively dead. Without political or citizen support, President Obama remains relatively silent on the issue, despite the fact that his scientific advisors are concerned.

Meanwhile, the problem hasn’t gone away. Earth’s ice caps are still melting, we are increasingly seeing the warmest global temperatures on record, and we are still spewing CO2 into the atmosphere in ever increasing amounts. We may be reaching irreversible climate tipping points, making it impossible for mankind to preserve a livable climate.

Now is the time for all Americans who care about our future to take action. We want President Obama to address this issue by delivering a “State of the Climate” speech on prime time television. We want him to inform misinformed Americans of the urgency and the importance of our aggressively implementing appropriate US energy and climate policies now, before our inaction leads to unstoppable, fatal, “runaway” global warming!

We are thus taking action. Please see our “Get Involved” page to see what you can do.