Well, the state of our weather? Cold and snow-covered. The state of our climate? Still warming and waiting for Senate action on comprehensive legislation.

Just not today, since the Federal Government is taking a snow day.

Links:

• Politico – “The shift in emphasis to job creation…could make an energy and climate bill more appealing.”
• We should help coal workers prepare for clean energy jobs.
• Operation Free was in Las Vegas on Sunday, saying what the Pentagon said last weekend: global warming is a national security threat.
• Who will win the race for clean energy jobs? We know who isn’t right now: the U.S.
• A UK newspaper shows ExxonMobil and its astroturf front groups.

The last few months have been a roller coaster ride for the youth climate movement, with both tremendous victories and serious disappointments. However, one constant has been the unwavering passion and dedication of youth climate activists laying the ground work for our clean energy future.

It’s been exciting and inspiring to see the thousands of letters and phone calls generated as part of the Organize to be Heard Challenge, and it’s a sure sign that this is a fight we will win.

As a reminder, this is the last week of the Organize to be Heard Challenge. Make sure you report all actions before the deadline to earn points for the challenge.

http://consequence09.org/challenge/reporting/

Submissions close this Friday, February 12th at 11:59pm EST!

Winners will be announced on Monday, and details for the DC fly-in (and lunch with Senator Kerry!) will be coming soon.

Keep up the great work!

P.S. If you have any questions about the Challenge or problems with reporting, let us know. Send us an email at contact@consequence09.org to get in touch.

Senator Scott Brown

At 5 pm E.T. yesterday, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown was sworn in, taking the seat filled by a Kennedy for more than half a century.

The self-prescribed “41st vote against health care” may also have a choice to make on comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation. Which begs the question, just where does the Republican Senator stand.

Almost immediately following Brown’s election, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made it clear that he still planned to push a clean energy and climate bill to the floor, more recently saying it will happen this spring.

Just a year ago, Brown actually voted for a regional cap-and-trade program, as a state legislator. It wasn’t until he became a candidate that his stance changed.

Back in October, he released this video, stating his opposition to cap-and-trade.

Then guess what happened: the money started rolling in, specifically, as the story says, from tea part front group Freedomworks.

It is just the kind of thing these industry front groups have been doing ever since this debate started, spending hundreds of millions to block clean energy energy climate legislation that would cut off their huge revenue streams.

The question promises to persist until cap-and-trade reaches the floor in the Senate. At that point the new question will be: “which Scott Brown will show up to vote?”

If it is the Scott Brown that pays attention to polls and political leaning, one would think that he would cast a yes vote, since 56 percent of his state says they would love at him more favorably if he votes for a cap-and-trade bill, according to a poll released yesterday.

Maybe things are better than they originally seemed.

In Washington they are calling the coming storm “snowpocalypse”. We’ll know later today if it is really at the epic, 16-24 inches, proportions that are being predicted. One thing we’ll also know: this does nothing to refute global warming.

Even the meteorologists can’t change that.

To the links:

• First, check out this futuristic, solar-powered phone. It sticks to a window via suction, and charges itself using the solar panel on the back.
• Perfect for today, don’t confuse climate and weather. Today, we’re having weather.
• The Wall Street Journal on the study released yesterday, saying that a renewable energy standard would create jobs.
• The nation’s first power plant to be built under GHG emissions restrictions has cleared some final hurdles.

By Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. and Rev. Jesse Jackson

Cross-posted from Hip Hop Caucus. Find out more about the Clean Energy Now! Bus Tour.

Our country, and the world, faces the duel crisis of a failed American economy and climate change that threatens life on this planet as we know it.

Poor people and people of color are feeling the adverse impacts of climate change first and worst, from rising energy prices, to increases in heat-related illnesses. Ultimately, however, the destruction resulting from our planet’s rising temperature will not be discerning of national borders, a family’s yearly income, or the hue of one’s skin.

It is similar to what we are all experiencing in these difficult economic times. No matter the race of a worker, when the lights are turned off for the last time in the manufacturing plant, or in any business for that matter, suddenly we amazingly look alike.

We as a nation, must commit to an inclusive transition to a clean energy economy, by decreasing our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, investing in new clean-energy technologies, and putting the people who most need jobs back to work. Our leaders must take urgent action — this year — to put us on a path to a prosperous clean energy future.

This is not a new call to action. We have been hearing experts, business leaders, and politicians talk about addressing climate change for a while now. Last year the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Now the Senate is debating whether they too will pass a clean energy jobs bill.

At the start of Black History Month, ten years into the 21st century, it is time for the African American community to have their voices heard on this issue. For too long communities of color have not seen climate change as their problem but we must now be a part of the solution.

African American’s historical struggle for economic opportunity inherently ties into the necessary global effort to reduce CO2 emissions and stop climate change. This was a topic that we discussed at the recent 13th Annual Rainbow PUSH Wall Street Project Economic Summit in New York, and a topic that we will be mobilizing African American communities and young people around on the upcoming “Hip Hop Caucus Clean Energy Now! Tour”.

A clean-energy economy means new jobs, less pollution in our communities, and increased opportunities for our children. This month the Hip Hop Caucus Clean Energy Now! Tour will travel from New Orleans to Washington DC, through numerous states in a historic effort to ensure the voices of African Americans, and our young people, are heard on the issue of clean-energy jobs and protecting our planet.

Millions of our friends and neighbors are out of work. We can create 1.7 million new jobs and green our cities from the ground up if our leaders in Washington make a commitment to supporting clean-energy here in America.

Clean-energy investments create more than three times the number of jobs than the equivalent investment in the fossil fuel industry. These are green-collar jobs for roofers, electricians, and construction workers, jobs like retrofitting old buildings and constructing new buildings that are energy efficient.

There will also be opportunity for entrepreneurs of color to have ownership in the clean-energy economy. African Americans will be able to go from being energy consumers to also being energy producers.

A clean-energy future is an answer to African American’s calls for jobs, affordable costs of living, and safer, healthier neighborhoods. Big oil and their lobbyists have kept the United States dependent on dirty energy, and they have been allowed to disproportionately pollute the air that children breathe and the water they drink in low-income communities of color.

We know the devastating health effects of pollution. It is the asthma that disproportionally affects our children, it is the allergies that get worse every year, it is the heatstroke that kills too many of our seniors.

Furthermore, if we do not stop climate change, it will only become more expensive to heat and cool our homes, an already horrible burden on low-income families. Households that are at or below 150 percent of the poverty level, or sixty percent of their State’s median income, spend an average of twenty percent of their income on home energy bills. This is six times more than the national average.

There is nothing more dangerous and violent than nations becoming less productive, and more desperate, in the face of ecological disaster. Conversely, the greening of our cities can help us to take back our streets. Studies have shown that residents living in greener surroundings report less fear and less violence in their communities.

We can revive our economy, we can regain our communities, and we can restore our planet, by investing in clean-energy solutions. Fifty years from now, we want our grandchildren and their children to live in a prosperous healthy world because of the decisions that our leaders have the opportunity to make this year. We do not want our future generations to know that they are suffering and dying from drought, flooding, food insecurity, and hurricanes, and cannot afford energy for their homes, because of the lack of political will in Washington under our watch.

During Black History Month every year we celebrate the accomplishments of our African American heroines and heroes. This year, we will make history starting with a clean energy bus tour from New Orleans to Washington DC so that future generations can look to this moment and see that when all of God’s children come together, humanity is capable of saving the planet and providing access to health and wealth for everyone.

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr. is the President and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus. For more information on the Hip Hop Caucus and the upcoming Hip Hop Caucus Clean Energy Now! Tour, visit www.hiphopcaucus.org. Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. is the Founder and President of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition (RPC). For more information about the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, please visit www.rainbowpush.org or call (773) 373-3366.