Draft Gore 2008 PAC

The lobbying disclosure form for former Speaker of the House, Minority Leader, and candidate for President, Dick Gephardt, lists Peabody Coal has his client and the specific current and anticipated lobbying issues are: "avoidance of carbon caps, funding for production of clean coal technologies".

There is no such thing as "clean coal". The former Speaker also serves as economic advisor to the Clinton for President campaign.

via Melissa McEwan at Shakesville

Note: Tom Sansonetti and Bill Myers also lobby for Peabody Coal. For more see our work on corruption in the DOI and DOJ at Wampum.

Al will speak at the National Museum of the American Indians "Live Earth" concert on Saturday, directly after the welcoming speech by Tim Johnson (Mohawk), the acting director of the museum.

We spent our "spring break" helping Stacy Leeds and Raymond Vann, the reform candidates, in the (always) problematic elections of the Cherokee Nation, so we're not exactly happy that Al is on the same bill as the last remaining of an original six Jack Abramoff client/contributor tribal executives who still control Indian Gaming operations and rubber stamp legislatures, and who's single-handedly brought the Congressional Black Caucus to the point of bringing a bill "To sever United States' government relations with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma until such time as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma restores full tribal citizenship to the Cherokee Freedmen ..." to the floor of the House.

Because DG08 is an non-connected campaign PAC under FEC rules, we don't communicate with the other Draft Gore PACs, nor with Al. We just hope he doesn't do a photo-op with Chad Smith and burn bridges with Indian voters who don't confuse Treaty Rights with Jack Abramoff or racism, and Black voters who know Jim Crow when they see him.

For more see our work at Wampum.

The New York Times is running Al Gore's Moving Beyond Kyoto in today's (Sunday, July 1st) edition.

Click on the thumbnail for the sequence from April 10th to June 26nd -- the end of "the rainy season" in the Plains states and west. Note also the conditions in the South East. The latest mail from Al Gore's website follows.

Dear Eric,

On 7.7.07 more than two billion people will come together during Live Earth. That number is unfathomable - more than one-fourth of the world's population will participate in a single event and demand a solution to the climate crisis. This unique moment presents us with a unique choice.

Do we use this unprecedented opportunity to organize a global movement that will last beyond 7.7.07? Or do we let the moment pass?

I know my answer - and I think I know yours. That's why I am issuing this challenge: Let's use this moment to pledge our support to solving the climate crisis. Just as important -- let's ask everyone we know to join us as part of this movement.

Sign the 7.7.07 Live Earth Pledge:

http://liveearthpledge.org/algore.php

The 7.7.07 Live Earth Pledge:

I PLEDGE:

1. To demand that my country join an international treaty within the next 2 years that cuts global warming pollution by 90% in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy earth;
2. To take personal action to help solve the climate crisis by reducing my own CO2 pollution as much as I can and offsetting the rest to become "carbon neutral;"
3. To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2;
4. To work for a dramatic increase in the energy efficiency of my home, workplace, school, place of worship, and means of transportation;
5. To fight for laws and policies that expand the use of renewable energy sources and reduce dependence on oil and coal;
6. To plant new trees and to join with others in preserving and protecting forests; and,
7. To buy from businesses and support leaders who share my commitment to solving the climate crisis and building a sustainable, just, and prosperous world for the 21st century.

Sign the Live Earth Pledge by visiting:

http://liveearthpledge.org/algore.php

Together we were able to make March<92>s Congressional hearings a huge moment by collecting more than 500,000 messages and demonstrating the significant public support for solving the climate crisis to our elected leaders and the media. Our next opportunity to demonstrate this growing movement will come on 7.7.07.

Live Earth will not just be a 24-hour concert <96> but the launch of a massive campaign to demonstrate that the political will exists to solve the climate crisis.

Sign the Live Earth Pledge by visiting:

http://liveearthpledge.org/algore.php

As our movement grows larger we will shake loose the paralysis currently gripping our political system. Working together, we can get it done.

Thank you,

Al Gore

P.S. You can still sign up to host a Live Earth House Party by visiting:

http://joinliveearth.org/gore

The Broad piece that ran in the NYTimes is reviewed by Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt.

From Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2007 State of the State Speech, Verbatim. The full text is here

Now, in addition to addressing our infrastructure, last year the Legislature joined with me in passing the historic global warming measure that caps greenhouse gas emissions.

We hear so much about climate change. One area where we definitely need the climate to change is the national government's attitude about global warming. It would not act, so California did. California has taken the leadership in moving the entire country beyond debate and denial, to action. As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation.

So I ask you to appropriate the funds to implement this global warming legislation, so that we can become part of the world market that is already trading credits for the reduction of greenhouse gases.

I also ask you to work with me on another environmental first. I have proposed that California be the first in the world to develop a low-carbon fuel standard that leads us away from fossil fuel. And let us use the freedom and flexibility of the market to accomplish it. Let us blaze the way, for the U.S., and for China and for the rest of the world. Our cars have been running on dirty fuel for too long. Our country has been dependent on foreign oil for too long.

So I ask you to set in motion the means to free ourselves from oil and to free ourselves from OPEC.

I ask you to encourage the free market to overthrow the old order.

California has the muscles to bring about such change. I say, use it.

---

We can add the Repbulican Governor of California to the still all-too-short list of elected officials engaged in policy that is responsive to climate science. California is a large enough market that it can determine CAFE standards on its own.

One of the two most popular potential candidate for the 2007 presidential election in France is Nicolas Hulot, who isn't "in politics". He has a long-running program on the environment on TF1. The equivalent of Marlin Perkins of the award winning Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, or Steve Irwin of Animal Planet's The Crocodile Hunter, on the network with the largest market share in the country.

He published a book-length work, Pour un pacte écologique, which as a political program calls for the creation of a cabinet level office responsible for sustainable (durable) development, and for a tax on carbon in fossil fuels, primarily petroleum, to reduce the emission of green house gases.

Just about every announced candidate has done the pro forma and "signed" the ecological pact, but none have actually taken the steps necessary, as candidates messaging in the half-year prior to the general election, to run on the substance of the pact.

There's a campaign committee that meets every week to coordinate, to "faire comme si" [trans: "do as if"]. It is about the same size as our own political action committee, and we also "do as if". Nicolas Hulot is waiting until January 15th before committing to running, or not running.

The latest Ipsos polling data has the undeclared candidate getting double-digits in the first-round ballot.