Today, the Sierra Club is launching a new campaign that lays out a clear roadmap for
President Obama to take action on climate disruption and clean energy. As the
President's second term opens, millions of Americans are looking for real
leadership on the climate crisis. The East Coast continues to clean up after
Hurricane Sandy, last year was the hottest on record, much of the country is
still mired in record drought - and the effects on American families and their
pocketbooks are very real.
When my daughter
gets a little older and asks me what my generation did to help stop climate
disruption, I want to be able to not only tell her about my work, but also
about the leadership President Obama showed in his second term to protect this
planet for her and future generations. That's why we created this campaign - to
call on the President to provide real leadership on climate disruption, and to
make the right call on the many climate and clean energy decisions before him
in his second term.
The Obama Climate and Clean Energy Legacy brings
together the Sierra Club's 2.1 million members and supporters to push the Obama
administration to tackle the most serious environmental crisis of our age. It
outlines a host of actions the Obama administration can take - from issuing
strong standards for coal pollution, to protecting public health and the planet
from fracking contamination, to rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline,
to doubling down on clean energy - that all add up to a strong climate and
clean energy legacy for the President.
You can become a
leader in this push, too. Today we're launching the Sierra Club's 100 Days of
Action on Climate and Clean Energy, which will run through Earth Day on April
22. People across the nation will be holding events and taking action, and I
encourage you to join us. Attend a town hall meeting or rally in your community,
or submit your own event, and share your story about the effects of climate disruption.
One of the best
ways to tackle this is to hold coal polluters accountable for their pollution,
rather than allowing them to dump it into our communities. After all, burning
coal for energy is not only a major source of climate-warming pollution, but it
is also poisoning our air and water and making Americans sick.
President Obama
and the Environmental Protection Agency must adopt and enforce coal pollution
protections for carbon -- including from existing power plants -- soot, smog, sulfur,
water toxics, and coal ash, and set water pollution standards that will end
mountaintop removal mining.
And as we
transition away from coal, we must make the U.S. a leader in clean energy. Clean
energy like solar, wind, geothermal and efficiency can create millions of good
new jobs, reenergize the economy, and rebuild our infrastructure
- and during their second term, the Obama Administration can help ensure that
the U.S. is a leader in the clean energy economy of the twenty-first century.
We live in an
amazing country full of leaders and activists in local communities who are
already pushing for clean energy. Now
it's time our national leaders - especially President Obama - take bold action
as well. The science is clear, and the damage to our planet and our economy is
real. We can tackle climate disruption, and put the nation on a path to meet
the emissions reductions that science demands, but only if America acts now.
Take a moment to
check out the campaign, and join us.