Greenpeace

October 10th was amazing. Around the world, there were 7,347 events for the 10/10/10 Global Work Party to save the climate. Stories are starting to pour in from Work Parties all over the country, many organized by Greenpeace members just like you.

In Philadelphia, citizens rallied for clean energy at City Hall with city officials who were getting to work to make green jobs accessible to all.

At Michigan State, students rallied to close down the coal plant that powers their school and replace it with renewable energy.

The City of Los Angeles demonstrated what a carbon free future could look like by closing down seven and a half miles of road to cars and riding to City Hall to demand a coal and oil free Los Angeles.

But don’t just take my word for it, check out these amazing photos: 

 

So, thanks to everyone who came out on Sunday. Together we can give our leaders the courage to act. And you can help give them the power to act right now by submitting a comment to the EPA telling them to give the government the power to regulate toxic coal ash.

Finally, I want to extend a huge thank you to 350.org and the coalition that made the Global Work Party happen. If we work together we can get the dirty energy influence out of Washington and kick start the Energy Revolution. Stay tuned and stay involved!

Clean coal is a myth. It’s as simple as that. So when the Obama administration released a statement yesterday talking about how the Department of Energy and private investors are putting a total of almost $4 billion a year in carbon capture and storage technology, I thought it was a joke.

Nope. It wasn’t. Here’s what they actually said:

“Rapid development and deployment of clean coal technologies, particularly carbon capture and storage (CCS), will help position the United States as a leader in the global clean energy race.”

Apparently, the plan is for the United States to take the lead in the global clean energy race by investing billions in the dirtiest form of energy that exists. This doesn’t sound like a winning plan for the economy or the planet to me.

It also made me wonder: how much clean energy could you get right now by investing that same amount of money for the next five years in existing clean energy technology? I asked some of my colleagues who know these things and here’s what they had to say:

What a waste of money!

For  $20 billion (5 years X $ 4 billion) -- you can get:

15 GW of wind turbines (= 1.5 as much wind power as was newly installed in 2009), generating approximately: 32 TWh/per year of electricity (a bit less than 1% of the USA annual demand or 10% of the Australian demand) while saving approximately 19 million tons of CO2 per year (the equivalent of removing nearly 3.5 million cars from America’s roads).

Which would you rather have? But that’s not what this is about. This is really just another government investment in the fossil fuel industry at the expense of taxpayers and the climate. Our friends over at Oil Change International have helped paint the picture how policy like this becomes reality. Check it out.

I'm so inspired right now. Over the last few months, Greenpeace activists and supporters showed their love for whales by creating origami whales, participating in our photo contest, taking action online, collecting personalized whale cards and spreading the word about U.S. plans to support a deal to legitimize commercial whaling to their friends. It’s all added up to hundreds of thousands of unique messages to the President. Amazing.

And today we are delivering all of those messages to the White House along with the WhalesNeedUS coalition. You can help us make an even bigger splash with our delivery by making a call at the same time. The White House Comment Line is only open from 9 am to 5 pm EST. So if you can't call during that time...you can always send the President an email using our online tool.

Here’s how to make the call:

Together we can send a strong message to the Obama administration today that legitimizing commercial whaling is simply not acceptable. Thanks for all you do!

Laila in Boulder, CO created the photo above telling the President to keep his promise to save the whales. What image will YOU submit?

Each of us has a chance to show the President that we are serious about holding him to his promise to save the whales. What’s it going to look like?

On June 3rd, Greenpeace and a coalition of other groups will be making a special delivery to the White House -- dropping off postcards, petition signatures, origami whales and other items we’ve been collecting. Also included in that delivery will be the special images created by activists just like you showing the President that you are serious about holding him to his promise.

Download the toolkit and make sure your image is seen on June 3rd.

President Obama’s delegation to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is publicly backing a plan that would legitimize commercial whaling for the first time in over 20 years. In fact, Monica Medina -- the head of the US IWC delegation -- recently had this to say to Congress: “We believe that the proposal represents a meaningful step forward, and is a possible foundation towards achieving a functioning IWC..." This is serious and we don’t have much time to stop them.

That’s why we’re asking activists like you to submit creative photos that will show President Obama that Americans are serious about saving the whales. Every photo we receive in time will be delivered directly to the White House on June 3rd.

Download the toolkit and join our photos to save the whales campaign today.

The toolkit is full of examples and tips on how to take a great photo. The most important thing right now is to come up with an idea and start making it happen -- figuring out a location, setting a date/time, inviting your friends and getting everything around that you’ll need for the photo.

The deadline for photo submissions is May 26th but photos taken by activists just like you are already rolling in from all over the country. You can check them out on our flickr account.

While you and I were celebrating the Earth and vowing to help protect the environment, President Obama was reopening whaling by announcing his intention to support a deal at the International Whaling Commission that would legitimize commercial whaling for the first time in over two decades. I’m not sure exactly what the President has against our oceans and whales, but we need to let him know that this is a horrible idea.

So, On June 3rd, Greenpeace will be delivering tens of thousands of names and messages to high-ranking officials in the White House.

But to really make a splash with our delivery event we need thousands more Americans to take action. So we’re starting a massive “Wave for Whales” online. You can help us kick off the Wave for Whales by copying and pasting the following message(s) to your Facebook and/or Twitter account.

Facebook:

Save the Whales! „ø¤º°¨°º¤ø¸„ø¤º°¨°º¤ Join the Wave for Whales at http://ow.ly/1D7Ig ¸„ø¤º°¨°º¤ Copy and repost this message to keep the wave going!

Twitter:

Save the Whales! „ø¤º°¨°º¤ø¸„ø¤º°¨°º¤ Join the #WaveforWhales http://ow.ly/1D7AF ¸„ø¤º°¨°º¤ RT to keep the wave going!

We only have until the start of the IWC meetings in June to convince the President that legalizing commercial whaling for the first time in over 20 years is a horrible idea. You can help make that happen by sharing the Wave for Whales with your friends and followers today. There’s not much time.