From the Jill Stein camp:
Continue reading The race for ballot access & matching funds heating upWe are on the ballot in: Arizona, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia
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Next major priorities include: New Mexico and Nevada
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We are currently petitioning in: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai’i, Iowa, Indiana, New Hampshire, Vermont, Virginia
The Citizens United decision worsened an already terrible situation of big-money influence in democracy. I support amending the US constitution to remedy the situation.
Such amendments require proactive purposeful resolve by individual state representatives, whose legislative bodies must ultimately ratify what Congress passes.
Please join me in preparing testimony in support of a piece of legislation currently on Beacon Hill for a public hearing later this month. Read on for details…
When elected to Beacon Hill I will lead in that resolve by example, advocacy, and action.
Continue reading Supporting ‘Citizens United’ ChallengeIn response to a question from a Lenox voter that was posted on the wall of my campaign’s Facebook page about my position on ‘industrial wind in the Berkshires,’ I submitted the following text.
Continue reading Wind EnergyI am a user and an advocate of the public transportation system in Berkshire County. I have posted on this subject in a prior blog, too.
The board of the Berkshire Regional Transit Authority consists of appointees from the towns and cities in the network. I represent the town of Lenox and have provided the following report to the Board of Selectmen and citizens. It will be incorporated into the Town of Lenox 2011 report, published prior to town meeting and town elections.
The number one request of both employers and users is that the system operate later into the evenings and on Sundays. The legislature currently does not provide the funding that would allow a public transportation service that would better serve the local economy. I will work hard to change budget priorities to that the funding is there.
Continue reading Public Transportation Advocacy in Berkshire CountyIf President Barack Obama gets his way with his new energy policy, he may go down in history as “the president who fueled the fire of climate disaster,” according to the still stunned Green Party presidential frontrunner, medical doctor Jill Stein. Stein’s remarks were a delayed reaction to the President’s State of the Union Address in which the President proposed opening 75% of public lands to oil exploration, massively expanding drilling for natural gas, removing “red tape” that stands in the way of construction projects, and delaying any comprehensive approach to global warming.
“With his State of the Union speech, President Obama adopted the apocalyptic ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ platform of the most rabid Republicans. He is parroting the fossil fuel lobbyists in saying that our public lands and our environment should be sacrificed for the goal of increasing domestic oil production.”
“The President’s spin ignores the fact that our most pressing problem isn’t foreign oil, it’s what fossil fuels, both foreign and domestic, are doing to our planet. The President’s ‘all of the above’ approach to polluting energy is an alarming denial of the climate emergency we face and the urgent need to substantially reduce the amount of carbon we exhaust into the atmosphere. Our nation and human society around the world are already experiencing serious climate disruption. The President has given up the fight against climate change just when we most need to expand our efforts.”
Continue reading The president who fueled the fire of climate disasterRead Part 1 Here
Download PDF for full version (with figures and references)
Cowards in Our Democracies: Part 2
28 January 2012
Scientists are finding it difficult to persuade the public of the urgency to reduce fossil fuel CO2 emissions. This is in part because people profiting from fossil fuel business-as-usual support disinformation about the science, so that they can expand extraction of fossil fuels despite the evidence that such expansion will push the climate system beyond tipping points, assuring further climate change with impacts that are practically out of humanity’s control.
Scientists attempt to communicate, but are flummoxed by the ability of the profiteers to manipulate democracies. The scientific method (objective analysis of all facts) is pitted against the talk-show method (selective citation of anecdotal bits supporting a predetermined position).
The tragedy is that a common sense pathway exists that would solve our energy needs, stimulate our economy and protect the future of young people. Yet people benefiting from business-as-usual are able to block adoption of policies in the public’s interest, via the corrosive influence of money in politics and aided by corporate-dominated media.
Should scientists connect the dots all the way to policy implications? Profiteers strongly oppose that, because scientists are trained to be objective, and profiteers want no interference with their functioning profit pathways. Let’s consider that issue after summarizing the situation.
Continue reading Cowards in Our Democracies, Part 2The Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy was in the news last week on three bills that I am following: the Expanded Bottle Bill, the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act, and the Muni Choice bill for municipal power choice.
Continue reading Spinning the Bottle Bill and Wind and MunisFrom Jim Hansen, Director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies:
Cowards in Our Democracies, Part 1, a discussion of why I submitted a Witness Statement to an Information Rights Tribunal in the UK, is available on my web site.
~Jim
Cowards in Our Democracies: Part 1
27 January 2012
The threat of human-made climate change and the urgency of reducing fossil fuel emissions have become increasingly clear to the scientific community during the past few years. Yet, at the same time, the public seems to have become less certain about the situation. Indeed, many people have begun to wonder whether the climate threat has been concocted or exaggerated.
Public doubt about the science is not an accident. People profiting from business-as-usual fossil fuel use are waging a campaign to discredit the science. Their campaign is effective because the profiteers have learned how to manipulate democracies for their advantage.
The scientific method requires objective analysis of all data, stating evidence pro and con, before reaching conclusions. This works well, indeed is necessary, for achieving success in science. But science is now pitted in public debate against the talk-show method, which consists of selective citation of anecdotal bits that support a predetermined position.
Continue reading Cowards in Our DemocraciesQ&A session following Stein’s “People’s State of the Union” address:
Continue reading Q&A with Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for President