Building a green economy isn't going to be easy, but if government and businesses work together, America can and will be a world leader in clean energy.
On Monday, October 5th, 2009, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order on Federal Sustainability – and in doing so, committed the Federal government to lead by example, practice what we preach and help build a clean energy economy through how we operate.
To harness the collective wisdom of the more than 1.8 million civilian employees and our men and women in uniform, we’re launching the GreenGov Challenge, an online participatory way for Federal employees to suggest clean energy ideas and vote on others.
Some of the top ideas will be presented to the Steering Committee on Federal Sustainability – a group comprised of a senior official from each agency who is responsible for delivering among other things, each agency’s sustainability plan.
Though anyone can see your ideas, only Federal employees can participate – so this is your chance to positively impact how your agency will meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.
Be part of the GreenGov Challenge and help green our government!
The GreenGov challenge runs from Oct. 19th — 31st
I have watched the President Obama on David Letterman’s show along with my wife and I am really impress with the President’s understanding of our nation’s problems and how to resolve them. I have confident in President Obama and his entire government that our nation will be prospering soon.
There is small segment of people whom have not realized the full potential of President Obama’s health care reform. We must educate our fellow Americans whom may not understand the health care reform and the positive effect; it will have on our society as a whole. For some people, it is not easy to accept change, but when the change is good for the entire nation and for the good of our people, it must not wait, but must be embraced with both hands. It is time to support our President, congress, and our government, to provide equal opportunity for all of our people in the health care system.
I still remember that day when I left the US Army in 1988 and moved to private sector. I was starting my real estate career in Chicago and had no medical insurance at the time. Most of insurance company’s premiums were out of my reach, unless I was part of a company that offered group health insurance. I did not understand then and I do not understand now, why there is double standard in the health insurance industry. It seems to me then, some of the insurance companies were above people and the Government.
Unfortunately, my two years old son, Ahmed, was diagnosed for nephritic syndrome and was admitted in children hospital. We prayed every day for his health. We were lucky, because of greatest doctors at children’s hospital; Ahmed was well taken care and fully recovered from the illness after one year.
We were stuck with a large medical bill and children hospital agreed for an installment payment on monthly basis. We could have avoided the financial hardship if we had the affordable medical insurance at the time. Now, not only millions people are without health insurance but people with health insurance are being dropped from their plans and others are being denied coverage because of their poor medical history. Present health insurance system has been broken for a long time and need to be fixed now and without any delay. I have read the President Obama’s health care reform plan and support it all the way.
I appeal to our small segment of fellow Americans whom oppose the health care reform, please do not create any more roadblocks to our life time opportunity to reform the health care system. It will make our nation stronger and prosper in the long run. God bless our nation and help us to overcome our differences.
The weapon design and arms control communities agree that it is not the capability to design a nuclear device that determines the pace of a country’s acquisition of a first weapon, but, rather, the availability of nuclear weapons materials that can be turned to weapons purposes. For a nation-state, the material for weapons can come from uranium enrichment plants (highly enriched uranium), or reactors and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (plutonium), or both.
Regardless of its isotopic composition, the minimum amount of plutonium required to make a pure fission nuclear explosive, with a yield equivalent to one to 25 kilotons of chemical high explosives, is quite small, on the order of 1 to 3 kilograms (kg), with the exact amount depending on the level of design expertise and the desired nuclear explosive yield. The minimum amount of highly enriched uranium required is a few times larger—5 to 10kg.
While far from ideal for military applications, the isotopic composition of the plutonium typically produced in civil power reactors does not pose a serious obstacle to fabricating efficient and powerful weapons, as well as crude terrorist devices.
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is inextricably linked to nuclear power by a shared need for enriched uranium, and through the generation of plutonium as a by-product of spent nuclear fuel. The two industries have been linked since the very beginning and a nuclear weapons free world requires a non-nuclear energy policy. http://www.cnduk.org/index.php/information/info-sheets/briefings.html#nuclearpower
HOPE AND HYPE VS. REALITY IN NUCLEAR REACTOR COST
THE ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR REACTORS:http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf
www.whitehouse.gov
Barack Obama, US president, insisted on Thursday there was still time for the world to agree binding commitments to cut greenhouse emissions, in spite of stalemate at the G8 summit in L’Aquila.
Mr Obama takes centre stage in the Italian town on Thursday when he chairs a session on global warming, bringing together 17 rich and emerging economies, including China and Brazil.
US diplomats say there is no chance that the countries will agree to cut world emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 – from a still undecided baseline of 1990 or later. They are however likely to agree on an aspiration to stop temperatures rising more than 2 degrees centigrade compared with pre-industrial levels.
The early departure of Hu Jintao, China’s president of China, from the meeting made any change in position on cuts even less likely.
But Mr Obama believes an agreement on binding intermediate targets – for a deadline sometime before 2050 – can be reached before a UN climate change summit in Copenhagen in December.
Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman, said Mr Obama told President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil that ”there was still time in which they could close the gap on that disagreement in time for that important [meeting]”.
Mr Obama is seen as a pivotal figure in reaching any Copenhagen agreement, but months of tense negotiations lie ahead.
India, China and other big emerging economies want to be sure the west is serious about meeting medium term targets for cutting emissions before they commit themselves. They also want money to help them clean up their industries.
The credibility of the G8 on climate change was challenged by Russia, which had earlier signed up to a communique by the group committing wealthy nations to an even more ambitious 80 per cent cut in emissions by 2050 – again with a still undecided baseline. The Russian delegation however has questioned whether such a long-term target is meaningful.
Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, said progress on climate change at the G8 was so far ”not enough”. He added: ”This is politically and morally [an] imperative and historic responsibility ... for the future of humanity, even for the future of the planet Earth.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2ded2ba2-6c84-11de-a6e6-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
Obama's climate leadership faces test at G8 forum
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama, buoyed by a domestic victory on climate policy, faces his first foreign test on the issue next week at a forum that could boost the chances of reaching a U.N. global warming pact this year.
Obama, who has pledged U.S. leadership in the fight against climate change, chairs a meeting of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters at the G8 summit in Italy on July 9.
Known as the Major Economies Forum, the grouping includes 17 nations that account for roughly 75 percent of the world's emissions, making any agreement from its leaders a potential blueprint for U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December.
Meetings of the forum, which Obama relaunched earlier this year, have so far failed to achieve major breakthroughs.
Developing countries want their industrial counterparts to reduce emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, while rich nations want developing states to commit to boosting their economies in an environmentally friendly way.
Those debates and others will be featured at the Italy meeting, the first at a heads of state and government level, and all eyes will be on Obama, whose climate initiatives European leaders have lauded while privately pressing him for more.
Europeans "want to seize this moment to push as hard as they can on the Americans to get significant ... targeted commitments on carbon emissions reductions," said Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic & International Studies.
"They know that this is going to be a very careful walk along the road to Copenhagen in December and they're going to publicly praise and privately push hard."
A Democrat, Obama has reversed the environmental policies of Republican predecessor George W. Bush by pressing for U.S. greenhouse gas emission cuts and a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) output from major industries.
The House of Representatives helped turn that vision into a potential law last week by passing a bill that would require large companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels.
CHALLENGES, LEADERSHIP
But those figures are still below what many scientists say is necessary and -- potentially more dangerous for the Copenhagen process -- the measures face obstacles to their passage through the U.S. Senate.
Washington has resisted calls to endorse the aim of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius at the G8 summit, though a European official said Wednesday the United States was now on board for that goal.
"The politics of climate change are stuck, despite Obama coming in," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He said the United States was still on the defensive in comparison to the more progressive European Union.
Despite those challenges, White House officials said the president would carry momentum to the G8.
"Bolstered by the great progress in the House last week, the president will ... press for continued progress on energy and climate," Denis McDonough, the White House deputy national security adviser, told reporters.
Activists hope Obama's presence will pay dividends.
"This is really a chance for President Obama to bring what he's most known for here in the U.S. -- hope and change -- into the climate dialogue internationally," said Keya Chatterjee, director of international climate negotiations at environmental group WWF in Washington.
She said other industrialized nations had used the Bush administration's reluctance to sign up to major emissions curbs as an excuse to avoid making their own strong commitments.
"In the past year it's been very easy for Canada and Russia and Japan to hide behind the Bush administration, but they don't have that to hide behind anymore," she said.
A draft copy of the statement to be released by the major emitters sets a goal for the world to reduce emissions 50 percent by 2050, but it does not include a base year.
The draft also gives a nod to the "broad scientific view that the increase in global average temperature above pre-industrial levels ought not to exceed 2 degrees C" without specifically endorsing that goal.
(Additional reporting Alister Doyle, editing by Vicki Allen)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8588026
President Barack Obama’s new fuel and emission standards for cars and trucks are good national policy and will help in the long run. $1300 cost under the program by 2016 is small price to pay when considering the benefits of reduction of 1.8 billion barrels of oil used and the equivalent of taking 177 million cars off the road.
Considering the inflation factor, cars will be lot more expensive in 2016, anyhow, so allowing an extra tax credit for all Hybrids will be a good idea. Tax credit to be effective, it must be equal to the or larger to the SUV’s Tax credit given in the past.
In the long run, hydrogen cars will be the best option.
Where were the tea parties when we attacked the wrong country?
When we wasted and killed thousands, of innocents? When we lost thousands more
of our finest and wounded ten of thousands? Where were the tea parties, when the
babies and their mothers heads rolled in Gaza? Where were the tea parties when
we discovered that Cheney was involved with Halliberton? When Billions disappered
right before 9/11? Where were the tea parties when Bush took away or rights and
plundred our constitution? Where were the tea parties when Billions went missing in
Iraq? Where did another $TRillion go as the crooks left office? Where are the tea
parties as they retired to the beaches of the world?
You people make me sick. Pee on your tea party.
Al Gore, the former US vice-president, delivers an upbeat assessment of the global response to climate change today, saying he believes a "political tipping point" has been reached which will enable leaders to avert environmental catastrophe. In his first newspaper interview since the US election, the Nobel peace prize winner tells the Guardian that Barack Obama's arrival in the White House, combined with a growing realisation of the problem among business leaders, means there is now enough political momentum to tackle the world's greatest environmental threat.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/14/al-gore-climate-change1
Here is some food for thought.
Let’s say we took 200 billion dollars and built 40 nuclear power plants. Say 20 by GE and 20 by Westinghouse. All steel and parts would be required to be manufactured in the United States of America. We would locate them on Government land like the INEL, NTS, ORNL, Hanford and other location that are part of the DOE complex. The power generate by these plants would be sold to the grid to recover the cost of building these plants. This would jump start an industry that we are the best in the world and we could then export the technology to reduce are trade deficit.
Please commit
If need to make smart decision with the money we spend on the recovery plan.
Cable news and right wing blogs are swarming with the revisionist history on the New Deal. Arm yourself against lies, spin and propaganda by reading info from a number of sources.
Here down a article about this topic. [Media Matters is a progressive media watchdog and fact checking organization which has received accolades from numerous sources (except the right wing media which often gets debunked by Media Matters).]
The link to digg it and for article: Conservatives Cherry-Pick 1930s Unemployment Figures
Summary: Columnists Mona Charen and George Will continued a trend among conservative media of responding to comparisons between the current economic situation and that of the 1930s and between Barack Obama and FDR by attacking the New Deal. In separate columns, both Charen and Will cherry-picked unemployment figures to assert that the New Deal did not reduce unemployment. But historians and progressive economists have noted that unemployment fell every year of the New Deal except during the 1937-38 recession; further, Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman has said it was a reversal of New Deal policies, not a continuance of them, that contributed to rising unemployment in 1937 and 1938.
Yes we can! Best wishes, Steffen
http://changeforbetterworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-way-to-say-goodbye-to-neocons-bush.html
Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.
Wednesday, 28th January 2009
Washington, D.C.
My opening statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today:
We are here today to talk about how we as Americans and how the United States of America as part of the global community should address the dangerous and growing threat of the climate crisis.
We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home - Earth - is in grave danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.
Moreover, we must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises. Our economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. And our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan.
As we search for solutions to all three of these challenges, it is becoming clearer that they are linked by a common thread - our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels. As long as we continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars for foreign oil - year after year - to the most dangerous and unstable regions of the world, our national security will continue to be at risk.
As long as we continue to allow our economy to remain shackled to the OPEC rollercoaster of rising and falling oil prices, our jobs and our way of life will remain at risk.
Moreover, as the demand for oil worldwide grows rapidly over the longer term, even as the rate of new discoveries is falling, it is increasingly obvious that the roller coaster is headed for a crash. And we're in the front car.
Most importantly, as long as we continue to depend on dirty fossil fuels like coal and oil to meet our energy needs, and dump 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, we move closer and closer to several dangerous tipping points which scientists have repeatedly warned - again just yesterday - will threaten to make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable destruction of the conditions that make human civilization possible on this planet.
We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.
For years our efforts to address the growing climate crisis have been undermined by the idea that we must choose between our planet and our way of life; between our moral duty and our economic well being. These are false choices. In fact, the solutions to the climate crisis are the very same solutions that will address our economic and national security crises as well.
In order to repower our economy, restore American economic and moral leadership in the world and regain control of our destiny, we must take bold action now.
The first step is already before us. I urge this Congress to quickly pass the entirety of President Obama's Recovery package. The plan's unprecedented and critical investments in four key areas - energy efficiency, renewables, a unified national energy grid and the move to clean cars - represent an important down payment and are long overdue. These crucial investments will create millions of new jobs and hasten our economic recovery - while strengthening our national security and beginning to solve the climate crisis.
Quickly building our capacity to generate clean electricity will lay the groundwork for the next major step needed: placing a price on carbon. If Congress acts right away to pass President Obama's Recovery package and then takes decisive action this year to institute a cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions - as many of our states and many other countries have already done - the United States will regain its credibility and enter the Copenhagen treaty talks with a renewed authority to lead the world in shaping a fair and effective treaty. And this treaty must be negotiated this year.Not next year. This year.
A fair, effective and balanced treaty will put in place the global architecture that will place the world - at long last and in the nick of time - on a path toward solving the climate crisis and securing the future of human civilization.
I am hopeful that this can be achieved. Let me outline for you the basis for the hope and optimism that I feel.
The Obama administration has already signaled a strong willingness to regain U.S.leadership on the global stage in the treaty talks, reversing years of inaction. This is critical to success in Copenhagen and is clearly a top priority of the administration.
Developing countries that were once reluctant to join in the first phases of a global response to the climate crisis have themselves now become leaders in demanding action and in taking bold steps on their own initiatives. Brazil has proposed an impressive new plan to halt the destructive deforestation in that nation. Indonesia has emerged as a new constructive force in the talks. And China's leaders have gained a strong understanding of the need for action and have already begun important new initiatives.
Heads of state from around the world have begun to personally engage on this issue and forward-thinking corporate leaders have made this a top priority.
More and more Americans are paying attention to the new evidence and fresh warnings from scientists. There is a much broader consensus on the need for action than there was when President George H.W. Bush negotiated - and the Senate ratified - the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 and much stronger support for action than when we completed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.
The elements that I believe are key to a successful agreement in Copenhagen include:
- Strong targets and timetables from industrialized countries and differentiated butbinding commitments from developing countries that put the entire world under a system with one commitment: to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and otherglobal warming pollutants that cause the climate crisis;
- The inclusion of deforestation, which alone accounts for twenty percent of the emissions that cause global warming;
- The addition of sinks including those from soils, principally from farmlands and grazing lands with appropriate methodologies and accounting. Farmers and ranchers in the U.S. and around the world need to know that they can be part of the solution;
- The assurance that developing countries will have access to mechanisms and resources that will help them adapt to the worst impacts of the climate crisis and technologies to solve the problem; and,
- A strong compliance and verification regime.
The road to Copenhagen is not easy, but we have traversed this ground before. We have negotiated the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to protect the ozone layer, and strengthened it to the point where we have banned most of the major substances that create the ozone hole over Antarctica. And we did it with bipartisan support. President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill joined hands to lead the way.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/were-arrived-at-a-moment_b_161627.html
Monday, 26th January 2009
President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.
The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.
Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/us/politics/26calif.html?hp
You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!
A picture from me to say goodbye from most bad president of US and all neocons.We can only hope many people will long enough remember. Bush had a lot bad gifts for the change! Let's take care the poor and normal people will not have to pay now too much after the rich made profit in good time!And what's with impeachment now?! What's with hidden knowledge of Sept. 11 2001?[ Maybe an explanation of picture: it's made like an "egg laying wool milk sow" a metaphorical-idiomatic term in Germany]
Yeah, and here you can see something new about neocons were bringing to us - for me to say: don't forgive Bush and neocons and there is still a lot to work of. We will and can do this too - Yes we can!I got now message too like "If anybody can clean up the mess bush left, it's President Obama." - Yes and Obama likes people helping still to do the work - help him! We were a big and strong movement and so people got knowledge back how strong people can be together! Whistleblower: Bush's NSA spied on EVERYONE (already 4255 Diggs) The NSA had access to ALL YOUR COMMUNICATIONS, regardless of who you were or whether or not you were communicating internationally.
Tonight as we usher in the beginning of a new year, we can all be thankful that in 19 days we will have a new President, Barack Obama. For me, this will be one of the very best new year's in my lifetime!
May we all be blessed with happiness, health, and prosperity in 2009. I know change is right around the corner. We have absolutely no place to go but upward. BArack will lead us on the climb back up!
Over the past few weeks, Vice President-Elect Biden and I have announced some of the leaders who will advise us as we seek to meet America’s twenty-first century challenges, from strengthening our security, to rebuilding our economy, to preserving our planet for our children and grandchildren. Today, I am pleased to announce members of my science and technology team whose work will be critical to these efforts.
Whether it’s the science to slow global warming; the technology to protect our troops and confront bioterror and weapons of mass destruction; the research to find life-saving cures; or the innovations to remake our industries and create twenty-first century jobs—today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It is time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology.
Right now, in labs, classrooms and companies across America, our leading minds are hard at work chasing the next big idea, on the cusp of breakthroughs that could revolutionize our lives. But history tells us that they cannot do it alone. From landing on the moon, to sequencing the human genome, to inventing the Internet, America has been the first to cross that new frontier because we had leaders who paved the way: leaders like President Kennedy, who inspired us to push the boundaries of the known world and achieve the impossible; leaders who not only invested in our scientists, but who respected the integrity of the scientific process.
Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.
Dr. John Holdren has agreed to serve as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. John is a professor and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, as well as President and Director of the Woods Hole Research Center. A physicist renowned for his work on climate and energy, he’s received numerous honors and awards for his contributions and has been one of the most passionate and persistent voices of our time about the growing threat of climate change. I look forward to his wise counsel in the years ahead.
John will also serve as a Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology—or PCAST—as will Dr. Harold Varmus and Dr. Eric Lander. Together, they will work to remake PCAST into a vigorous external advisory council that will shape my thinking on the scientific aspects of my policy priorities.
Dr. Varmus is no stranger to this work. He is not just a path-breaking scientist, having won a Nobel Prize for his research on the causes of cancer—he also served as Director of the National Institutes of Health during the Clinton Administration. I am grateful he has answered the call to serve once again.
Dr. Eric Lander is the Founding Director of the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard and was one of the driving forces behind mapping the human genome—one of the greatest scientific achievements in history. I know he will be a powerful voice in my Administration as we seek to find the causes and cures of our most devastating diseases.
Finally, Dr. Jane Lubchenco has accepted my nomination as the Administrator of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is devoted to conserving our marine and coastal resources and monitoring our weather. An internationally known environmental scientist and ecologist and former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Jane has advised the President and Congress on scientific matters, and I am confident she will provide passionate and dedicated leadership at NOAA.
Working with these leaders, we will seek to draw on the power of science to both meet our challenges across the globe and revitalize our economy here at home. And I’ll be speaking more after the New Year about how my Administration will engage leaders in the technology community and harness technology and innovation to create jobs, enhance America’s competitiveness and advance our national priorities.
I am confident that if we recommit ourselves to discovery; if we support science education to create the next generation of scientists and engineers right here in America; if we have the vision to believe and invest in things unseen, then we can lead the world into a new future of peace and prosperity.
Thank you.
Read more about the President-elect and the Vice President-elect.
Food and Water Watch is encouraging concerned citizens to contact President-elect and his transition team to develop solid policies and programs for food, water and fish.
This is the link to send a message: http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/t/5915/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=392
