On Sunday, the National Wildlife Federation and our supporters took part in the largest climate rally in history. And that’s exactly what it felt like: being a part of history. Over 35,000 people came out in the blistering cold to show their unwavering devotion and commitment to our planet and its wildlife. Thousands of us stood in solidarity to push the most powerful man on earth to stand on the right side of history.

If President Obama is serious about tackling climate change, he needs to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. Scientists have overwhelmed us with evidence that climate change is happening now and that we need to take serious steps to mitigate its effects. Wildlife all across the country are already feeling the impacts of climate change, and the upstream emissions alone from filling the Keystone XL pipeline would be equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 6.3 coal-fired power plants or more than 4.6 million passenger vehicles. This project is moving America in the wrong direction. We have a moral obligation to protect our children’s future from climate change.  So, what do people do when they want change but their elected officials don’t, won’t or can’t: we move, we march, we build, we take action.

On February 17th, we took to the streets. In a historic moment for the climate movement we stood up and said “yes we can” solve the climate crisis. However, the fight is not over, and the President still needs to be pushed.  In order to move towards a clean energy future we need to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. Make your voice heard by telling the President that it is his turn to take action.

Share on Facebook to add your support for wildlife threatened by climate change and dirty energy.

Here are some more photos from the rally — if you attended, please add yours to the pool:

Click here to view the embedded video.

NWF’s Jeremy Symons helps students at the University of Mary Washington connect the dots between Sandy, Dirty Energy and their Future.

“Climate change is putting hurricanes on steroids,” he explained.  “Climate change doesn’t create storms, but it makes them stronger and bigger and we have a responsibility to do something about it.  Carbon pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes is throwing our climate out of balance, and the severe storms, droughts, wildfires, and floods we are experiencing are the new normal as a result.”

Symons showed the students maps of the unusually warm Atlantic ocean temperatures that preceded Sandy, noting that hurricanes gather energy from warm waters, as happened with Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  He also noted that warmer air is holding more water, and that sea levels at Battery Park in New York have risen by almost a foot in the past century, amplifying the storm surge that swamped the city and the coastline.

Symons explained why National Wildlife Federation is concerned about climate’s impacts on the survival of species, which is jeopardized by our growing dependence on fossil fuels even though cleaner energy alternatives are already available and within reach. He also explained how NWF is working with its 4 million members and supporters to foster a shift towards clean, renewable energy, coupled with cleaner transportation and energy efficiency.

Putting a price on carbon pollution, he explained, is one of the most important measures we can take to create the market incentives that would make clean energy profitable and more rapidly replace fossil fuels. In response to a question from a student, he also noted that there is much in Virginia we can do to boost incentives for energy efficiency, and that Dominion Power needs to do more to open opportunities for Mary Washington and other institutions to use cleaner, safer forms of renewable energy.

One of the benefits of student and higher education engagement around energy choices and policy, Symons explained, is strengthening America’s economy with more good jobs for graduates, illustrating relative job creation through the clean energy versus the fossil fuels economies.

Dr. Melanie Szulczewski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at University of Mary Washington, helped to organize this event.

Many of the students in the classes who attended the lecture are studying environmental regulation and earth sciences and when asked, “How many of you are looking forward to a career in the clean energy economy?” nearly all of the approximately 50 students present raised their hands.Helping to organize and host NWF and Mr. Symons were Dr. Melanie Szulczewski, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Graham Givens, one of the leaders of the Student Ecology club on campus.

About Climate Change, Weather and Wildlife, See other NWF Posts:

• Jeremy Symons:  What Is Causing Our Climate to Unravel?
• Amanda Staudt:  How is Climate Change Fueling Sandy?
• Kevin Coyle:  Hurricane Sandy’s Impact on Fish and Wildlife
• Jennifer Janssen:  How Arctic Sea Ice Loss Can Set the Stage for Superstorms
• Joe Mendelson:  Sandy’s Mandate:  When Political Reality Meets Climate Reality

About How Students in Higher Education Are Leading for Clean Energy, See NWF Resources:

• Campus Ecology Dirty Energy Politics Resources
• Student Tar Sands Action
• Campus Ecology Resources:  Campus Sustainability Case Studies, and past Campus Ecology reports
• Campuses Divest from Fossil Fuels

Like Campus Ecology on Facebook and follow @CampusEcology and @YouthforClimate on Twitter.

We have entered a new era where climate disruption is reality and the scientific predictions have struck home.  We shouldn’t be surprised any longer as the improbable becomes the norm. As NWF Senior Scientist Dr. Amanda Staudt explains, “Global warming is putting hurricanes on steroids and we’re beginning to see the effects.”  The near-record warmth of the Atlantic waters that spawned the storm is the new normal, thanks to the warming caused by one trillion tons of carbon pollution that has been dumped in our atmosphere from burning oil, coal and gas.  More water in the atmosphere is the new normal, because warm air holds more water.  Higher sea levels from warmer waters and melting ice shelves are the new normal, amplifying the impacts of storm surges.

NASA GOES image of Sandy’s approach to the Eastern U.S. seaboard.

“What do you want to do if we think the future has sea level rising four inches, six inches? Where are the impacted areas, and what do you want to do to adapt to that? And as human beings as a — as a — as a species, that’s why we’re all still here. We have spent our entire existence adapting, OK? So we will adapt to this. Changes to weather patterns that move crop production areas around — we’ll adapt to that. It’s an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions. And so I don’t — the fear factor that people want to throw out there to say we just have to stop this, I do not accept.”

At the same event, Tillerson criticized the American public as being too ignorant to embrace ExxonMobil’s vision of a fossil-fuel dependent future:

“Ours is an industry that is built on technology, it’s built on science, it’s built on engineering, and because we have a society that by and large is illiterate in these areas, science, math and engineering, what we do is a mystery to them and they find it scary. And because of that, it creates easy opportunities for opponents of development, activist organizations, to manufacture fear.”

Tillerson’s attack on the public as the problem, rather than offering responsible solutions to reduce pollution, was both insulting and frightening.  When do we stop letting oil companies write America’s energy plan because they think the drought that devastated farmers this summer and the storms ravaging our coasts are simply an engineering challenge?  What do you suppose Mr. Tillerson is doing today? I imagine it is just another day at work in Texas (earning $100,000 per day).

Where is the accountability for the decades of junk science Exxon funded to create confusion about the impact of burning fossil fuels on our climate, just as tobacco companies for so long funded efforts to deny the link between cigarettes and cancer?  Instead, Exxon and other oil companies are even now pursuing plans to make our fuel supply even dirtier and more dangerous than conventional oil, especially in Canada, where tar sands oil production creates three times as much carbon pollution as conventional oil extraction.

We can no longer afford to let Tillerson and his pals write the rules that put the rest of us in harm’s way. Right now, ExxonMobil and other companies don’t pay a penny for the carbon pollution that is pumped into the atmosphere from their products.  The rest of us, however, are paying an increasing cost.  Farmers are losing their crops.  Food prices have shot up.  Families are devastated by storms.  Governments spend billions of taxpayer money in emergency relief.  Insurance customers face higher premiums, if they can get insurance at all.  Until we have a fair system where companies pay a reasonable price for carbon pollution, cleaner energy alternatives will be bullied out of the way by big oil, and the bill we all pay from climate impacts will go up and up.

Tillerson is right about one thing: we need to better prepare for climate change.  The forecasters and emergency responders have done exceptional work to prepare for and respond to Sandy.  But long-term preparation should start with restoring natural systems such as wetlands that are the best coastal defense against storms.  We should have started 20 years ago, when Exxon was instead investing in its deception machine.  But we can make progress if communities and government agencies come together around common sense preparedness.  Where Tillerson is fundamentally wrong, however, is that adaptation alone can protect us.  Bailing only works if you aren’t making the hole in the bottom of the boat bigger. ExxonMobil’s energy vision would superheat the planet and sink the ship.  Instead, we should be working now to accelerate deployment of alternatives to oil and coal to safeguard our children’s future.

Donate now to help protect wildlife

Right now, Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org is matching donations made to NWF through CrowdRise.com in support of NWF’s efforts protect wildlife and continue our work to highlight the impacts of climate change. Give today at CrowdRise.com/NationalWildlifeFederation to have your gift for wildlife go twice as far.

This is par for the course. So far this election season, fossil fuel groups have spent more than $153 million — to  get pro-fossil fuel policies in place. In 2011, 90 percent of campaign contributions went to the GOP, and 10 percent to Democrats. The biggest spenders were Shell ($25.7 million), Exxon ($25.4 million), and ConocoPhillips ($22.9 million). The five companies’ oil PACs have donated over $2.16 million this election cycle. Koch Industries also spends big money to pressure Congress, with $16.2 million on lobbying and more than $1.3 million from its PAC (the top oil and gas spender).

*** You can help fight the influence of polluters in our political system.  Click here to find out how. ***

The undue influence was the subject of a recent NWF Campus Ecology report that concludes polluters are determined to get their anti-conservation agenda passed into law, and roll back critical regulatory protections.

Not only is this money fueling political campaigns, it is behind many of the shadowy attack ads and television spots that rail against environmental protections, undermine clean energy and promote more coal, gas and oil, ads sponsored by entities with innocuous-sounding names like Patriotic Americans for Clean Energy.

image courtesy ph2dot1.com

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s trade group (no, not an “institute”), is the biggest dirty energy spender at $37 million so far with its “I’m an energy voter” ads, complaining about efforts this year (that NWF supports) to repeal wastefuloil industry subsidies.

The True Cost of Dirty Energy

The oil, gas and coal industries are among the most profitable of all businesses. They are peddling fuels that spew carbon pollution that has created a virtual blanket around the planet causing global warming and leading to more severe weather more often, protracted heat waves and drought, more intense hurricanes and floods, sea level rise, crop failures, water shortages and massive wildfires.

Big Influence

The student-aimed NWF guide unmasks the multiple ways that oil, gas and coal companies worm their way into molding public decision-making to pad their pockets. It pinpoints how dirty energy – coal, gas and oil — companies bankroll the campaigns of incumbent Congressional leaders and other candidates by financing political action committees (PACs), super PACs, so-called nonprofit “social welfare groups” and other entities, some without public disclosure. Since 1999, the oil, gas, and coal companies have greased the campaigns of members of Congress to the tune of almost $1 billion dollars.

NWF also fingers 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organizations that may be more powerful than super PACs because they can accept unlimited amounts of money and hide their donors. These groups can escape the disclosure requirements that apply to candidates, parties and PACs. These shadow groups have outspent super PACs by a three-to-one margin.

This onslaught of dirty energy money has results. NWF points to 109 votes in the House of Representatives since the start of 2011 for policies that enrich the oil and gas industry, including 45 votes to weaken environmental, public health, and safety requirements applicable to oil companies; 38 votes to block or slow deployment of clean energy alternatives and 12 votes to short-circuit environmental review of the dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Reality Check

Money can’t buy you happiness, the old saying goes, but in this year, Big Oil, Big Gas and Big Coal are buying their happiness, at the expense of the people, by outspending, outgunning the rest of us. It’s high stakes for them, but ultimately the stakes are even higher for us, the people who will be stuck breathing dirty air and drinking dirty water if they continue to call the shots.

*** You can help fight the influence of polluters in our political system.  Click here to find out how. ***

1. If not the West, coal companies will go elsewhere

While the coal export market is definitely complex and difficult to understand, there is one part that is relatively straightforward: if the supply of coal export pathways in the West is too costly, coal companies will take their demand for these pathways elsewhere. Coal companies are already exploring their options in Mexico and the U.S. Gulf Coast:

“The West Coast is geographically better located than the Gulf coast for exports to Asia, but it has encountered stiff opposition by the environmental groups for port expansions. As a result, coal companies are forced to use the Gulf coast for export activities.” [Kinder Morgan Energy Partners] has been proactive in developing coal handling facilities and terminals in the Gulf coast. – Forbes  Magazine, Trefis Team

No matter where the coal companies try to take their exports, the harmful impacts will follow. This leads me to #2.

2. We know the legacy and reality of coal mining—it’s bad for people, wildlife and the environment

Tens of thousands flocked to the U.S. coal industry in the 19^th and 20^th century and thousands remain in the industry today. Nearly two hundred years of intense coal mining has left a legacy most are familiar with:

• Significant health risks including cancer and respiratory disease
• The growing idea that the health risks of coal mining outweigh the economic benefits
• Fish and wildlife habitat destroyed by mountain-top removal and strip mining
• Birds, fish, animals, and humans poisoned by long-term exposure to mercury contamination

Since we are now aware of the many risks of coal mining and burning, I’d like to fight it wherever it tries to go and leave a new coal legacy to my future children. This leads me to #3.

The Legacy of Coal Mining: strip mining operations at the Navajo mine (left and right) destroy habitat and impact our communities (middle). Credits: Terry Eiler (middle right), Lyntha Scott Eiler (remaining)

3. Stopping the export of U.S. coal is the latest fight in a wider effort to reduce fossil fuel consumption and increase the use of alternative and renewable energies.

Efforts to reduce fossil fuel consumption include driving less, conserving energy, and reducing consumption of goods and services. Efforts to reduce fossil fuel consumption also include campaigns to stop tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline, natural gas fracking, and oil shale. A wealth of alternative and renewable energies that safeguard people and wildlife are available. Stopping the export of U.S. coal is simply the latest in a long list of ways we can work to reduce fossil fuel consumption and increase the use of alternative and renewable energies, which leads to #4.

Wind energy is just one of many alternative and renewable energies available to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Credit: Imagefusionstudio

4. It’s our responsibility as a nation to address the fossil fuel emissions that have gotten us into the climate change mess in the first place.

The U.S.’s significant historic and current emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, largely from fossil fuels, have gotten us into the climate change mess we are in. As a long-time global economic leader and industrial innovator, the United States is both well-equipped and ethically responsible for showing leadership and innovation to reduce fossil fuel consumption and tackle climate change. And this brings me to #5.

5. We should not risk our health and the wild places we cherish to support exports that will only return mercury and greenhouse gas emissions to our communities.

We don’t need the contaminated food, water, and air that more coal exports will bring. Instead, we should fight the coal export battle, as well as other dirty energy battles. At the same time, we should export the alternative and renewable energies that will help put the globe on a healthy track to a sustainable tomorrow.

For all these reasons, it’s time to stand up and fight!

Keep track of our efforts to stop coal export in its tracks: like us on our regional and Power Past Coal Coalition Facebook pages, and follow us on Twitter.

The guide is designed to take students behind the curtains of American politics and policy development to shed light on the handful of fossil fuel-based companies that are pouring money into Congress and the media in an attempt to undermine America’s ability to confront the climate change crisis.

The report describes how the energy industry bankrolls the campaigns of incumbent Congressional representatives holding key energy and environment committee assignments. The guide also covers how political action committees (PACs), super PACs, so-called nonprofit “social welfare groups” and other entities contribute to campaigns and run independent expenditure ads, some without public disclosure of donors. 

This guide also puts out a call to action for students to push back against the huge influence of big oil, gas and coal money and demanding a clean and just energy future by staying informed, learning about the positions their elected officials take and their votes on key environmental and energy legislation and asking that they stop taking handouts from the dirty energy industry.

Report highlights include:

• A closer look at how the fossil fuel industry influences U.S. energy policy
• Top Congressional funders from the oil and gas industry
• What students can do to take action

The report is being released in conjunction with Energy Action Coalition’s Power Vote National Day of Action on which students and youth activists across the country will join together in calling for the end of dirty money political contributions by big polluters. More than 50 events, including rallies and voter registration drives, have been registered on the Power Vote website, and thousands have signed the Power Vote pledge promising to vote for a clean energy future in this election.

“Young voters are mobilizing in record numbers with the Power Vote campaign to use their people power to confront Big Polluters’ dirty money and demand the clean energy and climate solutions that our generation needs,” said Maura Cowley, Executive Director of Energy Action Coalition, the youth coalition running Power Vote.

Since its inception in 1989, NWF’s Campus Ecology program has earned respect as a national leader in the campus sustainability and climate action movement.

Check out more resources for students at CampusEcology.org.

Wealthy polluters are pouring unprecedented millions into advertisements in an effort to influence this election. Ordinary Americans who care about conservation and wildlife may not have the deep pockets of polluters, but they are speaking out.

Just this week, NWF’s Campus Ecology Program released a report: A Student’s Guide to How Corporate Oil, Gas and Coal Money Influences U.S. Energy Policy. Which is about—you guessed it—how polluters have bought their way to the front of the line on Capitol Hill. The effort is teamed up with Energy Action Coalition’s “Power Vote,” which aims to register youth and first time voters who want a say in our energy future.

Checking the Ads

Anyone who watches Mad Men knows advertisers are plugged into our psychology. How do we know what the truth is? Political transparency has become an issue on more and more radar screens, especially after Citizens United v. FEC. But how can you find out the truth during this election cycle? You’re in luck, there’s an app for that.

It’s called the SuperPACApp, and is available for iPhone users. It’s the Shazam for political advertisements. The phone listens to the ad and within seconds reports on:

1. What group funded the ad;
2. How much it costs and
3. Information on the accuracy of the ad.

This app makes the unprecedented spending on political advertisements more transparent—allowing the viewer to gain clarity on what they are actually watching and where it is coming from.

So the next time your eyes start glazing over after yet another attack ad, break out your iPhone. But be careful, you might find yourself looking forward to the next commercial break, just not for the reasons the oil industry wants you to.

Here are some other great resources that peel back the curtain on dirty money:

• Campus Ecology Report
• Sunlight Foundation
• Dirty Energy Money
• Center for Responsive Politics

All are victims of tar sands mining in the Boreal Forest of Alberta, Canada. And we are the largest importers.

Kids Want to Protect Wildlife

Last Saturday morning, my daughter noticed I was on my Blackberry communicating with someone from work. “What are you doing,” she asked me, in that familiar impatient tone. I turned to her, and without hesitation I said: “How do we get more people to care about the fact that wolves are being poisoned in Canada because of tar sands?”

She then turned to me, and immediately announced that she will donate $7.00 to our cause—seven weeks of allowance.

She was motivated because she, like most young children, have an uncluttered sense of what’s morally right and wrong. There’s nothing that clouds their judgment. What a contrast to what we are facing every day in Congress these days. Elected officials of both party persuasions are wringing their hands on what to do about the White House’s decision to halt the permitting of Keystone XL, which, if built, would’ve been the largest tar sands oil pipeline snaking through the nation’s Heartland. Allies of the oil industry are teaming the halls of Congress to find any lever to pull to reverse the decision.

My 9-year-old daughter doesn’t understand why people who are in government aren’t standing up for the wolves. I wonder why are they not standing up to Big Oil’s insatiable greed and indifference.

She also wonders, understandably, whether a $7.00 donation will make a difference, knowing that we are up against a multi-billion dollar oil industry.

Join & Make a Difference

Motivating others to join her, that’s the difference $7 can make. Imagine if just one percent of the children in the U.S. between the ages of 10-14 donated $7.00? One percent is about 200,000 children…you can do the math.

The point is that if we stand together, unpolluted by politics and oil profits, united about what’s morally right, we can shift the political debate. And our legacy will be that we stood up for those who don’t have a voice.

Please join Ava, and thousands of others, in NWF’s fight to stop tar sands and help protect wildlife. 
Spread the word. Your voice matters.

Learn more about tar sands>>
Learn more about the threat to wolves and caribou>>
Take Action to help wolves and other wildlife>>

“What I felt was very telling was that many of the young people who attended the event in Cleveland were not up to speed on the pipeline,” says Juliana Goodlaw-Morris, campus ecology manager at the National Wildlife Federation, “however, now more than ever they are ready to take action on their campuses and in their communities.”
For example, when student leaders from all across the U.S. who recently attended the annual conference of the American Association of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) in Pittsburgh, PA, discovered that President Obama would be speaking in the city, they mobilized buses to meet him.

In Ohio, students are organizing at least three trainings to learn how to confront dirty energy projects like the Keystone XL oil pipeline and to advocate for safe, clean energy.

On November 6 at 2 pm (ET) in Washington, DC, students, faculty and staff from dozens of colleges and universities in the Mid-Atlantic region will gather with thousands of other concerned citizens at LaFayette Square in front of the White House to express opposition to the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline and support for clean, safe energy. The President is expected to make a decision on the pipeline proposal in the coming weeks.

Many of the campus leaders are registering for the Nov 6 rally through National Wildlife Federation and will meet up with NWF staff there as well as the staff from Energy Action Coalition and many other sister organizations. Students and others are also submitting hand-written letters to the White House (President Obama is said to read as many as 500 per day), letters to the editor (see Alexandra Costaki’s post with examples), videograms, and online letters.

People around the globe value the Boreal forest in Alberta, Canada for a number of reasons. For one, the forest represents ¼ of the earth’s remaining intact forest, and it makes up 11% of the planet’s terrestrial carbon storehouses. It’s known for its wildlife habitat, which is home to moose, bear, and endangered species such as the woodland caribou and the whooping crane. However, to indigenous peoples of the region, the Boreal forest is important because it is home. It has been their home for generations, the ancestral site of their hunting, fishing and gathering.

The Boreal Forest in Alberta Canada (Photo Credit: Flickr/Gord McKenna)

Unfortunately, nearly every big oil company in the world has targeted the Boreal forest as a hot spot for oil, even if it is some of the dirtiest and most difficult oil to extract. The oil derived from the Boreal Forest comes from tar sands, a claylike, tar-infested mud that spans an area roughly the size of Florida.

Oil companies start by clear-cutting the forest before beginning extraction through open pit mining and leaching, which requires that high temperatures and chemical solvents be applied beneath the earth’s crust. Because tar sands oil is not liquid like conventional oil, it requires tremendous upgrading before use. In fact, the tarry substance has to be dug up, sucked up, squeezed, heated, steamed, and processed through many other resource-intensive methods even to be retrieved from below the earth’s surface. The tar sands are so unique in their makeup that it requires special refineries to turn it into an ‘useful’ oil.

“The Most Destructive Project on the Planet”

The tar sands have become the world’s largest industrial project, dubbed as the most destructive project on the planet by the Environmental Defense Fund. Local First Nations feel the impact first and foremost because it is their homeland that is being destroyed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch as Chief Francois Paulette of the Smith’s Landing Treat 8 First Nation in northern Alberta discusses the impacts of Tar Sands on Alberta natives and calls on lawmakers to put a stop on the pipeline and tar sands extraction.

The tailings (the leftover toxic waste) from the tar sands cover an area roughly 50 square miles and are growing by 80 Olympic Sized swimming pools every day. With every barrel of oil that is created from the tar sands, two barrels of toxic waste are also made. Over the course of a year, these tailings ponds leak over a billion gallons of toxic contaminated water into the environment.

It should come as no surprise that the local First Nations who survive on subsistence living are now experiencing overwhelming rates of rare cancers and various illnesses. This project has changed their entire way of life.

It is no wonder that they are standing up and taking action as part of the Dirty Oil Sands Action Network, an international network of citizen and indigenous groups that oppose the expansion of the Canadian tar sands and advocate for its cleanup. (Editor’s note: Honor the Earth and NWF are both active members of this important coalition. You can learn more about NWF’s campaign against tar sands here.)

The most destructive project on the planet is not cheap. Over $200 billion has been invested in the tar sands and American investors have forked over almost 60% of that. Instead of investing in solutions for a clean energy future, America is investing in one of the world’s dirties and most toxic fuel sources.

Unfortunately, it is the First Nations peoples who are being forced to pay the biggest price as their homelands are destroyed, contaminated and transformed into sacrifice zones for oil consumers in the US, Canada, and other oil-addicted countries across the world. The social ills, cultural consequences and environmental impacts are having an irreparable effect on the land and the indigenous way of life.

Don’t stand for it. Take action now.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this story next week.