December 29, 2009

1 Comment

Make a Year-End Gift to PowerUP Your Voice for a Clean Energy Decade

by Tzeporah Berman

Dear friends,

We made huge strides forward this year. I know it may seem hard to remember 2009 that way because it ended with the dismal performance of our federal leaders at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. But, frankly speaking, not many Canadians were expecting a breakthrough and let’s not allow it to overshadow all the progress with cities and provinces during the year. I am optimistic about the opportunities we have in the coming New Year to create a strong, clean economy. This is because over the past year I have heard your voices, in the thousands, and I know Canadians want clean energy and deep cuts in carbon pollution.

In 2009, PowerUP has been a leading voice for all Canadians calling for a clean energy future and together we will continue on in 2010.

• Call for Clean Energy – I’ve been incredibly encouraged by the strong response to our call to invest in a new economy based on efficiency, renewable energy sources and a new clean energy workforce. PowerUP Canada isn’t targeting a specific project or a single industry. It’s not just about saying OK, we’ll try some green energy. It’s about moving our policies and laws so that they support the creation of a green economy. It’s about creating new innovative industries that are not dependent on fossil fuels.

• Leading the Charge – PowerUP is leading the charge of a new movement to address climate change, focusing on solutions that are realistic and within reach. Green jobs, green buildings, green vehicles. We believe that to combat global warming we must change more than our light bulbs, we must change laws. We can power up a clean economy and the next generation of jobs, but to do this we need your support.

2010 and Beyond – Please make a Tax-Deductible Year-end Gift to PowerUP Canada today

• In 2010 we will continue to push governments across Canada to step-up to the plate to show leadership by cutting carbon emissions and stimulating our economy. We will continue to push for energy efficient housing and vehicles, and create new jobs for a green workforce.

• We have been working hard to build a community of informed Canadians who will make sure our politicians know that we want them to support strong laws to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
• Through our online campaigns over just the past months, thousands of Canadians like you have become involved to say you want Canada to enact tough laws on greenhouse gases. Thanks to you, we have growing strength in numbers. Our blog has become a leading voice on global warming, solutions and climate politics for Canadians.

With a great number of Canadians like you on our team who care greatly about what happens to our planet and future generations, we know we can make things happen.

Please help us make our voice even stronger by making a tax-deductible year-end gift today to PowerUP Canada. Together we can push for a clean energy future.

Happy New Year everyone (and see below for a bit of holiday cheer…),

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One Response so far...

1. chuck says:

   December 30, 2009 at 11:24 pm

   Shame on the worlds leaders for returning from the failed climate change talks in Copenhagen, where no binding legal agreements were signed, and a “we will try to do better” approach is all that our dying planet can take away from 12 days of meetings, preceded by 2 years of bureaucratic and ministerial preparation. And doubly shame on Canada’s Prime Minister for being only a late entry participant, who communicated in advance that he will put the financial interests of our polluting entities ahead of our planets ailing health.

   Continued spin and deceit by the “drill baby drill” pro pollution lobby twirled violently through Copenhagen like a tornado, with even our prime minister getting in the act when he commented that “Canada was a cold country north of the United States”. A calculated anti global warming statement similarly used previously by the fossil fuel industry campaigns which have capitalize on cold weather events as argument that the planet is not warming.

   While world leaders boarded their modified-yet Co 2 emitting-limousines and SUV’s to shuttled with security parades back and forth to their luxury hotels or private jets, mother nature was engaged in her own ominous display of fury, as if sounding one last warning of what’s to come. During Cop15, weather crippled many parts of the world with deadly storms that shattered temperature and snow fall records, stopped Eurostar’s Chunnel trains between France and England, dead in their tracks, crippled Washington DC with record snow fall, and forced the governor of Virginia to declare a state of emergency. Back home, in Edmonton Alberta (ironically, a key staging area for equipment destined to the Alberta tar sands) the temperature plummeted to become the coldest place on earth (-58c) while shattering the previous Edmonton record set just one year earlier by a whopping minus 10 degrees. What is so alarming by all this is the fact that it all happened in Autumn.

   As Prime Minister Harper dined with the Queen of Denmark, he had his environment minister speak from the leaders podium to address the world leaders on climate change. To make such a long journey to Denmark on a large Jet and then yield his obligation as a leader is further insult to our Nation. This was his obligation as Canada’s leader regardless of the message he wished to deliver. Our once proud nation was further humiliated on day one of the conference, when we were again awarded the fossil award, this time for our uncompromising position heading into the talks.

   A recently revealed email from the Conservative member of Parliament for Okanagan Shuswap, Colin Mayes, sums up the Conservative governments position on global warming quite well. It quotes him saying “Climate warming is happening. Just what the cause is, has yet to be substantiated”. Quite an alarming statement coming from a member of our government, when the rest of the world is in disagreement with this “special interest serving” view. It is very clear that oil producing companies have a powerful influence on this planet, and the Conservative government of Canada is certainly no exception, given that our prime minister hails from the constituency of Calgary Southwest, and there are literally hundreds of oil and gas producers and developers addressed there.

   Cop15 may very well have been the last opportunity for legislative action to slow climate change and stem the acceleration of it’s cataclysmic effects. The fossil fuel lobby has been effective in derailing the talks and have put a strangle hold on our Planet…..a strangle hold so severe that it may soon extinguish us all.

   Chuck Puchmayr

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