Did I mention you can get a Climate March bus ticket roundtrip for as little as $15 and the deadline is Wednesday? CLICK HERE FOR THE TICKET PAGE  (If it says the tickets are sold out, please join the waiting list. More buses are being arranged)

The People’s Climate March is expected to draw more than 200,000 people, all to make the statement that global action must be undertaken to drastically reduce carbon emissions. The film builds excitement for the march by interlacing behind the scenes clips of the amazing organizing work being done to make it all run smoothly with interviews of renowned climate activists. The organizers’ perspective on the march is reinforced by periodically counting down the days until September 21st, beginning 100 days out and ending with 14 to go.

One of the renowned activists who makes an appearance in “Disruption” is our own Senator Whitehouse. The Senator held his annual Energy and Environmental Leaders day, and we were able to pull him aside for a moment to get an exclusive video interview. Among other things we asked him why it’s important to go down to New York City. This is what he had to say:

Even if you know you can’t make it to the People’s Climate March and disregard the Senator’s invitation, I recommend watching the movie to get a sense of the scale of the movement we need to create in the coming decades in order to save civilization as we have known it. It requires unprecedented action, and it’s made more difficult by human psychology, which isn’t biologically designed to grapple with problems that emerge and must be resolved over generations. This challenge is acknowledged in “Disruption.” The theory in the film and behind the march itself is to get enough people onto the streets to reach a cultural tipping point, to find a place in our collective consciousness where we can plan for the long term and act accordingly.

We are closer to this tipping point than we realize, and each new pair of boots on the ground brings us a step closer. In New York and beyond, if we want to disrupt business as usual, we must be the disruption.

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The Guardian summarized it well, saying

“The report from the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change concluded that climate change was already having effects in real time – melting sea ice and thawing permafrost in the Arctic, killing off coral reefs in the oceans, and leading to heat waves, heavy rains and mega-disasters.

And the worst was yet to come. Climate change posed a threat to global food stocks, and to human security, the blockbuster report said.

‘Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,’ said Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC.

Monday’s report was the most sobering so far from the UN climate panel and, scientists said, the most definitive. The report – a three year joint effort by more than 300 scientists – grew to 2,600 pages and 32 volumes.”

The bottom line is that nowhere near enough action has been taken to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, and the urgency to do something increases with each passing day. Rhode Island can be considered among those that have failed to act, but that could change this year.

While Massachusetts and Connecticut passed comprehensive climate change legislation over 5 years ago, Representative Art Handy’s Climate Solutions Acts have consistently fallen flat at the State House. This year Handy, who chairs the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee, has taken a new approach.

His Resilient Rhode Island Act of 2014 keeps the same ambitious goals for mitigating RI carbon emissions and adds new provisions for climate adaptation, helping the State’s cities and towns coordinate in preparing for rising sea levels, increasing flooding, and more extreme weather events. By adding the adaptation piece, Handy hopes to build a stronger coalition of support behind the effort, as storms like Sandy and the floods of 2010 have convinced businesses, officials and residents alike that we need to be more prepared.

Considerable momentum has already been generated for getting this bill passed. The Coastal Resources Management Council has been conducting outreach around its Beach Special Area Management Plan (SAMP), Governor Chafee recently created the Executive Climate Change Council, the fantastic Waves of Change website was released, and Senator Whitehouse’s continued campaigning at the federal level is being heard here. The Resilient RI Act even has its own information filled website. Additionally, Brown University is devoting resources to the effort, and it is Sierra Club RI’s number one priority.

In fact, I started a petition in support of the bill yesterday that already has close to 150 signatures on it, and I invite you to be a part of creating even more momentum on Smith Hill. CLICK AND SIGN

Time is of the essence. The Resilient Rhode Island Act is going to be heard this Thursday in Handy’s committee. If you can, I urge you to come out and voice your support. The IPCC report and our own senses demand this urgency.

If we had had the wisdom to pass such legislation twenty years ago when the science supporting it was already demanding such action, we would not have suffered so badly from Sandy’s glancing blow, and we would have created the framework for building a clean energy economy that would have meant thousands of good paying jobs. Better late than never, right? Just ask Sheldon:

Even without any support through state incentives, solar systems will pay for themselves in a little over a decade, after which they generate energy cost savings for decades. For most people though, that 10 year pay back period is just a little too long, and the upfront capital just a little too large to justify the investment. As a result, Rhode Island’s residential renewable energy industry has been anemic in the years since 2010 when the State’s renewable energy tax credit program was phased out.

Rhode Island solar installers have been forced to look for work in Connecticut and Massachusetts where strong renewable incentive programs have stayed in place. For the sake of the environment and our struggling economy, it’s time to rectify this situation. The good news is that there are already a couple of new programs in place that should help, and there a couple of renewable energy legislative initiatives that could become law this session.

First, what we have:

• Commerce RI (formerly the EDC) has grants available through its Renewable Energy Development Fund (REF). Installers apply for these grants, and they are handed out in three rounds. The first deadline is on April 7th, so if you’re interested in a solar array, find an installer today and let them know. (These are also available for commercial scale projects, so don’t be afraid to think big. Last year, the REF was underutilized)
• PACE: Last year the General Assembly enacted the Property Assessed Clean Energy financing program which makes it easier for individuals to finance renewable projects by amortizing and attaching them to a property’s tax assessment for up to 20 years. More info here. Basically, you get to pay for your system in installments rather than all at once. The only problem is that each municipality has to adopt the PACE program individually through resolution. It’s not too early to start asking your council members whether your town is on board.

Second, the potential:

• Rep. Deb Ruggiero and Sen. Josh Miller have both once again submitted bills to restore the Renewable Energy Tax Credit. This legislation would pay for 25% (up to $3500) of a given residential renewable system in tax credits. Past experience shows that the economic activity generated by this incentive generates more revenue for the State than it gives up through the credits, so everybody wins; solar installers, homeowners, the public at large, and the environment. Help get this legislation passed by sending a letter to your legislators today.
• Representative Ruggiero will also be introducing legislation that would expand and make permanent the State’s immensely successful Distributed Generation pilot program. This program has been used mainly for commercial scale projects like the one in East Providence, but if it’s expanded the opportunity to use it for residential scale projects will arise. You can help support this legislation, too.

All together these programs would make Rhode Island a national leader in supporting renewable energy. They would be a boon to our still struggling building trades, a major benefit to the homeowners smart enough to invest in solar, and a way to reduce our carbon emissions and reliance on dirty foreign fossil fuels. What are we waiting for?!

The ongoing rash of fossil fuel industry related disasters would be comical if it weren’t deadly serious. Trains loaded with gas and oil derailing and exploding, chemicals for treating coal spilling into West Virginia’s water supply, coal ash from Duke Energy leaking into a North Carolina river, fracking earth quakes and water pollution; the list is getting depressingly long. Given the ugly backdrop, you’d think fossil fuel companies would be having a tough time getting any new projects approved.

But we don’t live in a rational world, we live in a business-dominated world where the people (and by people I mean corporations) with the most money get what they want. So it was disappointing but unsurprising when the State Department released an industry influenced Environmental Impact Assessment of the northern half of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline that said the project wouldn’t make things worse for the climate. The argument goes that the tar sands will be extracted and burned anyway. Similarly, it’s unsurprising that an expansion of the Algonquin Pipeline that brings natural gas from the fracking wells of Pennsylvania up to the Northeast (and through RI) is expected to be approved without a second thought. This is what Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy looks like in practice, expediting the construction of fossil fuel industry infrastructure whenever possible. Locally, rather than debate the wisdom of the Algonquin pipeline, we drag our feet waiting for someone else to take the lead on offshore wind.

Chomsky is right that if the United States doesn’t take the lead on efforts to address climate change, then it’s a lost cause. With Washington, D.C. as dysfunctional as it is, the question is whether we can do something about it closer to home. The answer is yes.

For starters, we can turn the narrative on the two issues I’ve mentioned so far. Let’s make a stink about natural gas expansion in New England. Here’s a petition to oppose the Algonquin expansion. We can do better. The wind that blows off our coast is some of the strongest and most consistent in the world, and it’s right next to the massive East Coast energy market. We should be embracing offshore wind and making the case that Rhode Island is the logical hub for this incipient industry. The Block Island Wind Farm is just the beginning of what’s possible.

Additionally, the State can show leadership on climate by joining the City of Providence in committing to divest its holdings in fossil fuel companies. Here’s the petition for State divestment. There are going to be other important initiatives before the General Assembly this session. Representative Art Handy (Chair of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee) is going to be introducing a climate bill that would allow us to catch up to Connecticut and Massachusetts in terms of our carbon emissions goals, and it will go a step farther by creating policies to help our communities with climate adaptation. It’s also shaping up to be the year that RIPTA gets financial help, and this will help us address our transportation sector emissions. There will again be a bill to reinstate the renewable energy tax credit for residential renewable projects, which you can support here. Most significantly in the near term though is a bill that would make permanent and expand the State’s Distributed Generation pilot program, which has been very successful in promoting some of the larger scale commercial renewable projects that have been installed locally. These are all steps in the right direction, and I’m optimistic in each case.

Let’s hope the rest of the United States will be like us, and we can step back from the cliff.

Note:  the rally on Thursday is called off. President Biden is tending to his son Beau, and will not make it to RI. Send your thoughts his way.

In the middle of August it can be hard to recall February, but it wasn’t all that long ago that busloads of Rhode Islanders headed down to be part of the historic “Forward On Climate” rally that drew between 35-50,000 people to Washington, DC to demand President Obama stop Transcanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline. Since that joyous frigid day, environmental activists have relentlessly dogged the steps of the President and Vice President wherever they have traveled, conducting rallies to drive home the point, Say No To The Pipeline!

For its part, the Administration continues to play the decision on the project close to its vest. President Obama said in his June Climate speech that he would only approve Keystone “if this project doesn’t significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Obama clearly wants to leave a strong environmental legacy and his credibility hinges on this decision. Meanwhile, Biden told a Sierra Club volunteer that he agreed with those who oppose the pipeline. These are encouraging signs, especially because a very strong case will be made that the Keystone XL would lead to massive increases in carbon pollution.

On the other hand, Obama already approved the southern leg of the pipeline. More importantly, there is a lot of money on the other side of  the issue, including that of the profiteering Koch brothers whose Texas refineries would be processing the toxic tar sands oil coming out of Canada to sell on the global oil market.

It is unclear which side is winning. Millions of people have spoken out against the pipeline, but they might all be drowned out by the billions of the fossil fuel industry. President Obama has postponed the decision on the pipeline multiple times, and it looks like it may well get pushed into 2014. Our best hope is in keeping the pressure on. While unfortunately we will not be able to give Vice President Biden the #noKXL message in person as we had planned for, you can still take action here: http://www.sierraclub.org/dirtyfuels/tar-sands/virtual-chain/.

The FY13 deficit for the transit agency stands at $2.2 million, and the FY14 deficit, which the budget proposal has done next to nothing to address, is projected to be over $10 million.

$10 million is about 20% of RIPTA’s operating budget, and that is where RIPTA will have to look to balance its books sometime before its cash flow runs out near the end of the year. It would be a miracle if the necessary cuts comprise less than 10% of current service [For instance, a four million dollar deficit a few years ago translated into 10% proposed service reductions.] It’s more likely that RIPTA will soon be holding public hearings with discussions of 20% cuts.

Never mind for the moment the impact to our environment or to the people who rely on transit as a lifeline, imagine the impact to the economy if 1 in 5 buses disappears from Rhode Island’s roads. How many people who can’t drive or can’t afford a car won’t be able to get to work? How many won’t be able to make it out to the store to engage in commerce? Thousands.

I can already picture the hearings, filled to over capacity with angry and terrified riders testifying about the hardship that the cuts will mean. There will no doubt be protests in the street over it (though not quite like Brazil), and legislators will predictably make statements to the press about how important transit service is and how the cuts could not have been foreseen.

Despite such feigned ignorance, RIPTA’s plight is well known in the Statehouse. Speaker Fox has maintained that finding sustainable funding for the buses is one of his top three priorities this session. Dozens of members of the House have even signed a letter calling on the Speaker to live up to this stated priority.  There has been sustained advocacy on the issue for as far back as legislators memories can stretch, advocacy from the environmental, social service, public health, senior, disabled, youth, labor, and business communities. What will it take?

I suspect in the end that it may require the people in the street in the lead up to next year’s elections to finally see a solution. In the meantime, the public will suffer and whatever economic development policies that lawmakers manage to get through will be entirely undermined.

At Thursday’s Providence City Council meeting, a fossil fuel divestment resolution introduced by Majority Leader Seth Yurdin and backed by Council President Michael Solomon with enough other members to ensure passage will be taken up for consideration.

If the resolution passes (as seems likely), Providence will be the 16th municipality in the country to commit to divesting. Providence has a special place among the 16, because  it will become the only Capital City and the biggest city on the East Coast to make this bold statement against what has truly become a rogue industry.

The fossil fuel divestment initiative, branded simply Fossil Free, is the brainchild of 350.org founder Bill McKibben who came to Brown University in November as part of his nationwide barnstorming “Do The Math” tour. The tour sparked a movement on college campuses across the country now at 300 schools and counting, including strong campaigns at Brown, RISD, and the RI State Schools. The movement has clearly now spread beyond campuses to other large institutions. The growth of the Fossil Free movement has been astoundingly quick, faster than the Anti-South African Apartheid disinvestment movement of the late 1970s and 1980s upon which it is patterned.

I like to imagine the CEOs of the fossil fuel industry are beginning to squirm a little in their seats. While their share prices have not yet taken a hit, the combined investment funds of schools, churches, and municipalities makes up a very big number, more than a trillion dollars. If it’s all disinvested from fossil fuel stocks, the impact will be material financially. The bigger impact however is the public relations dilemma that the industry faces, which is potentially a much bigger financial liability.

Environmentalists are overcoming the billion dollar advertising budget of the fossil fuel giants. Using grassroots power, Fossil Free has finally been able to paint the most profitable industry in the history of the planet as the dangerous villain it has become. That’s why the symbolism of the Providence vote on Thursday will be more important than the tens of thousands of dollars that the City will eventually divest from fossil fuel companies.

Cities around the country will follow the leadership of Providence, the schools of the City too. In the process, more people will be educated about the danger posed by the fossil fuel industry, and perhaps even the political will to deal with the problem in Washington will at last be found. The City Council should be applauded for being on the right side of history. Consider coming down to City Hall on Thursday to do it in person.

. . . corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.

           ~Supreme Court Justice Stevens, January 2010

Everyone makes mistakes, even Supreme Court Justices. Sometimes five of them make the same mistake at once and produce a horrible decision that threatens to unravel the democratic fabric of our civil society. Such was the Court’s decision in Citizens United vs. FEC. Our President, Senator Whitehouse, the City of Providence among other RI municipalities, and this very legislative body have all recognized this and pushed for the reversal of the decision. H6051 and the “We The People” constitutional referendum it enables gives the Rhode Island people that same opportunity with a direct vote.

There are two ways a Supreme Court decision can be reversed. The simplest and most common is for the Court itself to review and overturn its decision when it takes up a related case. The other is to amend the US Constitution, either through Congressional action or an Article V convention called for by at least ⅔ of the States. In the history of our great country, there has never been an Article V convention. For all intents and purposes, we must hope that the corporate sponsored hyper-partisan politicians in Washington take action to amend the Constitution and put an end to the money in politics that put them there, or that the Court will take up a case and do what’s right.

Given the dangerous implications of unlimited corporate spending in elections, any action that can be taken to facilitate the reversal of Citizens United should be taken immediately. The “We The People” amendment to the Rhode Island Constitution, if approved, would do this in a few ways. If the amendment gets challenged and heard by the Supreme Court, it would give the Court the chance to overturn Citizens United. However, if the Court affirms its previous decisions and overrules a popular democratic vote, then a fire will be ignited under the Congressional amendment process and probably the Article V process as well, making those avenues more likely to move forward. Finally, the RI “We The People” amendment might not be challenged, and Rhode Island could serve as a model whereby other states could reclaim their right to regulate special interest spending in elections.

In addition to these critically important policy implications, H6051 will give Rhode Island voters a cathartic opportunity. For long years, we have watched our democracy slip away from us, powerless to do anything about the growing influence on money in politics. Faith in government is plumbing the depths. The people know what is right on this issue. They know that a corporation is not a person and that its spending in elections is not free speech. We, The People, deserve to be heard. This is our democracy.

For these good reasons, I urge you to pass H6051 and put the question to the people. Give us the chance to send a message to the Supreme Court and all our leaders in Washington, D.C. These are extraordinary times when corporate power threatens to overwhelm the power of the public, and these times demand extraordinary action. This bill is that action.

Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Abel Collins

However if you’re like me, you don’t want to hold your breath waiting for things to happen in Washington, D.C. That’s why I got together with some friends and started a Rhode Island affiliate of the Move To Amend coalition. That’s also why we drafted legislation that would allow Rhode Island to be the first state to amend its constitution to abolish corporate personhood. If passed, the bill would put the question on next year’s ballot for the voters to decide. We can be proud that we are the first state in the nation to be considering this move.

The good news is that we have started a petition to support amending the RI Constitution, and in the less than three days it has been up, it already has more than 300 signatures. You can sign it here: http://movetoamend.nationbuilder.com/amend_ri

The less good but still exciting news is that the bill is being heard this Thursday, May 9th in the House Judiciary committee, so there is only a short time to get people on this petition and to the Statehouse for the hearing. I’d be grateful if you can share the petition through social media and email with all your friends. Please also consider coming to the hearing. I’ve made a Facebook event page that allows you to RSVP and spread the word to your friends.

This hearing on Thursday and the subsequent fate of this legislation could prove to be historic steps in the fight to reclaim our democracy from the grip of corporate power. If the bill passes and Rhode Islanders determine that a corporation is not a person as polling suggests they would, there are a lot of potential outcomes and all good for the broader goal of amending the U.S. Constitution.

The Coastal Resource Management Council is officially kicking off its eagerly anticipated Beach Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) at 6pm tonight in the Corliss Auditorium at URI’s Bay Campus

Here’s a little teaser video from a press conference hosted by CRMC at the Ocean Technology Center yesterday featuring Executive Director Grover Fugate.

The event this evening is open to the public. I hope to see you there!