How to Reverse Global Warming

Today, the Presidential Climate Action Project announces its recommendations to the next administration for a 100-day action plan to reverse global warming. This project, headquartered at the University of Colorado, is composed of 50 to 60 of the nation's leading environmentalists, climate scientists, and policy experts and we have worked for the past year to produce well over 100 key recommendations, including new laws, regulations, and executive orders, that will place the United States at the forefront of world action to save our planetary climate and environment.

We are calling on all candidates of both parties to pledge themselves to the kinds of actions we propose: upstream cap-and-auction; a zero carbon footprint for the U.S. government; elimination of carbon subsidies; dramatic steps in conservation and efficiency; and a host of other specific proposals. Our plan is based upon action in the first hundred days of 2009 because of the urgency of the threat, a threat to our national and international security. If we pass the tipping point at or about 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide emissions, which could come as early as 2012, many experts believe no amount of remediation will turn the tide back toward sanity and safety.

Climate change relates to oil, oil relates to petroleum imports, imports relate to military action, and military action encourages terrorism. Our climate is now a national security concern. We are trading young American lives for Persian Gulf oil so that we can drive energy-inefficient vehicles. This is our national policy and it happens to be massively immoral.

We are urging all Americans, regardless of party or ideology, to visit our website and join in our effort to encourage all presidential candidates to make an urgent, bold, and comprehensive commitment to reverse climate change.