FUSE: Faiths United for Sustainable Energy

Crossposted at Green for All BlogIt's amazing what a little money can do. As soon as the Obama Billions from the stimulus package started to trickle down, community groups around the nation began to mobilize with a new found zeal. All of a sudden, programs parched by decades of under-funding are springing to life – the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), which has had an average yearly budget of roughly $200 million just received a whopping $5 billion. That money, however, isn’t flowing as freely as it needs to. In this case, state and local agencies which renovate the homes of families with low incomes to be more energy efficient and thus more affordable to live in, are simply overwhelmed.In Miami, Florida – my hometown – the local agency providing weatherization assistance employs two full-time employees and weatherized fewer than 100 homes last year. Now, they have the funds to retrofit 3,000-4,000 homes. This is going to require a new kind of organizing. State and local agencies are not used to having this much money and they’re not used to thinking outside the box in order to spend it. With the carrot of stimulus dollars dangling, the caveat is the money must be spent within two years – a requirement that, at current capacity, no agency in the country will be able to meet. We need to seize this moment and this opportunity – we’re no longer the powerless, moneyless minority and we need to be prepared and ready for our own success. The stimulus money sent a clear message – this is an administration that will serve the people and society first, but it's up to us on the ground to make sure that investment is spent in an equitable and just manner. Those of us working on behalf of the public’s highest interest, on behalf of those who have been left out, and on the side of equity and justice, must be at the table to define and create our collective future. Community groups should engage the local agencies that are tasked to spend stimulus dollars and create new collaborations and partnerships that will maximize our communities’ abilities to benefit from this new green wave. We need to bring together existing groups and programs doing job training, involve local contractors and other employers, and engage government officials to create robust and successful green jobs programs that will lay the foundation for future investments in the green economy.This is starting to take root here in Florida. I’m a proud member of a new coalition in Tampa called Green Jobs for the People – a collaborative of the local Community Development Corporation, the local agency in charge of the weatherization program, and other grassroots community groups. We are calling to incorporate green collar jobs training and pathways out of poverty programs into the city of Tampa’s plans to use stimulus dollars, and to plan for the long term development of an inclusive and equitable green economy. You can learn a little more about our work by reading this article and listening to this interview done by a local radio news program. (Click here to download the mp3 file of the interview) Green For All is right when they say that now is the time to move from hope to change, from inspiration to implementation. Let’s bring home a green recovery for all. This is just the beginning.

From the Interfaith Power and Light Blog***************************************************There's plenty of news out there about growing divisions among evangelicals over the science and the action required to address global warming. Although this video is a bit light on information, the young Christians here actually give a good sense of the debate and reveal some emerging generational, authority, and messaging issues.Here's head of governmental affairs head for the National Association of Evangelicals Richard Cizik bringing his faith down to earth. Note: Interfaith Power and Light on that Sen. Boxer poster.Interfaith Power and Light is beginning to work more closely with committed evangelicals who care deeply for creation and understand the science. Have you had any conversations with global warming skeptics? What have you said that's helped create common moral ground or explain the science? Share your experience and ideas below for all our IPL folks.

From the Think Progress Blog***********************************************************************The traditional media rarely discusses extreme weather events in the context of global warming. However, as the Wonk Room Global Boiling series has documented, scientists have been warning us for years that climate change will increase catastrophic weather events like the California wildfires, the East Coast heatwave, and the Midwest floods that have been taking lives and causing billions in damage in recent days.Today, the federal government has released a report that assembles this knowledge in stark and unequivocal terms. “Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate,” by the multi-agency U.S. Climate Change Science Program with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the lead, warns that changes in extreme weather are “among the most serious challenges to society” in dealing with global warming. After reporting that heat waves, severe rainfall, and intense hurricanes have been on the rise — all linked to manmade global warming — the authors deliver this warning about the future:In the future, with continued global warming, heat waves and heavy downpours are very likely to further increase in frequency and intensity. Substantial areas of North America are likely to have more frequent droughts of greater severity. Hurricane wind speeds, rainfall intensity, and storm surge levels are likely to increase. The strongest cold season storms are likely to become more frequent, with stronger winds and more extreme wave heights. Unfortunately, some of the cautions in this long-delayed report have come too late for the victims of the Midwest Flood: Some short-term actions taken to lessen the risk from extreme events can lead to increases in vulnerability to even larger extremes. For example, moderate flood control measures on a river can stimulate development in a now “safe” floodplain, only to see those new structures damaged when a very large flood occurs. Climate change is threatening our health, our lives, our economy, and our security already. Now the only question is when our media will take notice, and when our leaders will respond. Our future depends on it.From the accompanying brochure comes this chart summarizing the findings:(Click here to continue reading this article at Think Progress / The Wonk Room)

From the Think Progress Blog************************************Last week, conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh assailed the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s “Global Boiling” Progress Report, which explained that the extreme weather events causing death and destruction across the United States “are consistent with the changes scientists predicted would come with global warming.” He called it a “piece of propaganda” by “wackos” but refused to read any of it — “You can imagine what it says.” He continued: You know, it is a crying shame to have to sit out here and just do nothing but refute a bunch of lies that are repeatedly told by leftist activist groups and then amplified and promulgated by willing accomplices in the Drive-By Media.The “leftist activist groups” Rush is attacking now includes not only us but also the Bush administration, whose multiagency Climate Change Science Program has released two reports this week on the damage climate change is doing to the United States. The first, released Thursday, said: Many extremes and their associated impacts are now changing. For example, in recent decades most of North America has been experiencing more unusually hot days and nights, fewer unusually cold days and nights, and fewer frost days. Heavy downpours have become more frequent and intense. Droughts are becoming more severe in some regions, though there are no clear trends for North America as a whole. The power and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes have increased substantially in recent decades, though North American mainland land-falling hurricanes do not appear to have increased over the past century. Outside the tropics, storm tracks are shifting northward and the strongest storms are becoming even stronger. Friday’s report on the effect of global warming on our continent’s ecosystems finds that “Climate change has very likely increased the size and number of forest fires, insect outbreaks, and tree mortality in the interior West, the Southwest, and Alaska, and will continue to do so.”Its warning for the future? The resilience of many ecosystems is likely to be exceeded this century by an unprecedented combination of climate change, associated disturbances (e.g., flooding, drought, wildfire, insects, ocean acidification), and other global change drivers (e.g., land-use change, pollution).To conclude: the U.S. Climate Change Science Program — comprised of the Agency for International Development, Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, Department of State, Department of Transportation, US Geological Survey, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics & Space Administration, National Science Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution — has found that global warming has likely or very likely worsened: Intense rainfall Heat waves Winter storms Hurricanes Wildfires Insect outbreaks Coral bleaching The future, in addition to the above, will see worse: Droughts Ocean acidification Storm surges Wildlife disruption Extreme coastal erosionIt’s important to note that none of these are new findings — these are simply summaries of thousands of works of scientific research from the past decades. And even with the release of these long-delayed reports, the Bush administration continues to violate its lawful mandate to take action on global warming, as the president’s Nixonian assertion of executive privilege on Friday makes clear. So, despite Rush’s attacks, these “wackos” at the Center for American Progress Action Fund will continue to report the truth and hold his friends accountable.

Originally posted at Climate Progress*************************April 2008 saw another sharp drop in vehicle miles traveled (aka VMT) according to the Federal Highway Administration’s monthly report on “Traffic Volume Trends.” This follows “the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history” in March (see here). I was compelled to blog on this because of the incredibly astute media coverage by AFP, “worldwide news agency,” which wins the “Duh!” award for the month: Observers surmise a possible link between the declining number of miles driven and rising US gasoline prices. Wouldn’t want the ever-cautious media to leap to any conclusions. [Note to AFP: Observers surmise a possible link between the declining number of readers for big media and the rising blandness of your/their coverage.] As it becomes increasingly clear that high gasoline prices are not a fluke, Americans are adjusting their driving habits. The longer prices stay high — or go even higher — the more people will start to make permanent adjustments in their driving — and then, ultimately, in where they live and so on. Here are the details from the April report: In April 2008, Americans drove 245.9 billion milles, compared to 250.3 billion in April 2007. Indeed, the April 2008 figure is lower than the April 2004 figure. To see just how remarkable that is, look at the annual vehicle-distance traveled data (in billions of miles) since 1983 (this is a moving 12-month total):

Satellite images show Lake Chad one-tenth the size it was in 1972, not even 40 years ago. Lake Chad used to be the world’s sixth-largest lake, but its resources have been diverted for human use or affected by rainfall such that its been almost entirely depleted in a very short amount of time.In the IPCC’s 2007 report on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in Africa, there is no specific mention of Lake Chad. But staring at these satellite images one can’t help but wonder how global warming, which is expected to cause drastic changes to the hydrological cycle (drought, rainfall, water levels, etc.), especially in Africa, will accelerate or contribute to the already scarce resources that this map demonstrates is quite the stark reality.Click here for article source at the Climate Progress Blog

The British and the Chinese understand global warming has driven their record flooding. The United States? Not so much.Although you wouldn’t know it from most U.S. media coverage (here or here or here), the record “once-in-a-hundred-year flooding” the Midwest now seems to be getting every decade or so is precisely what scientists have been expecting from the warming. A 2004 analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center found an increase during the 20th century of “precipitation, temperature, streamflow, heavy and very heavy precipitation and high streamflow in the East.” They found a 14 percent increase in “heavy rain events” of greater than 2 inches in one day, and a 20 percent increase in “very heavy rain events”-best described as deluges-greater than 4 inches in one day. These extreme downpours are precisely what is predicted by global warming scientists and models.Click here to continue reading article at the Climate Progress Blog