ELEMENTAL -- 1

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Join Caring People Trying to Save the Planet > Elemental, a deeply spiritual documentary directed by Gayatri Roshan and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, opens this weekend in New York and L.A., followed by openings in other areas and availability on iTunes. It presents profiles of three dedicated environmental activists on three continents. Through their personal stories, it reveals the immense challenges faced by those who want to change attitudes and spur citizens to band together in a communal effort before it is too late. We encourage you to support this film and support these people! | See our review of Elemental. | Find a screening in your area. | Visit the official site and see how you can get involved.

SHUTTING DOWN COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS

+ SHUT DOWN THE COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS + I usually like what Chris Hedges has to say and the follwing is no exception.

There are some 614 coal-fired power plants in the United States, and it is up to us to shut them down. No one in the White House will do it. No one in Congress will do it. And no one at the coming U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen will do it. We will build local movements to carry out acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to halt the burning of coal, or the polar ice caps will continue to dissolve, the Greenland ice sheet will disappear, the glaciers in the Alps, the Himalayas and Tibet will melt, and widespread droughts, rising sea levels and temperatures, acute food shortages, disease and gigantic mass migrations will envelop the globe. We are killing the ecosystem on which human life depends. One of the major polluters is coal, which supplies about half of the country’s electricity. NASA’s James Hansen has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level—below 350 parts per million CO2—lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity. We are currently at 390 parts per million carbon dioxide.

A Colleague led me to this statement. You can find it at http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/refuse_allegiance_to_coal_20091123/

GREENING THE MOHAWK VALLEY ONE CHURCH AT A TIME

+ MAKING OUR GREEN ECONOMY COME ALIVE AND THRIVE is the slogan of Green Local 175 which is led by Richard Morris. He is now spearheading an effort to get churches in the Mohawk Valley invoved. I attended a meeting last night as a Presbyterian representative. We also had a Lutheran, a Catholic and 3 Unitarians. We hope to recruit more people and build momentum for a greener Mohawk Valley and planet.

WEATHER REPORTS ARE MISSING THE STORY

TruthDig offers "Weather Reports Are Missing the Story" by Amy Goodman. Excerpt: " ... if the disasters that follow one another, from hurricanes to tornadoes to flooding, are consistent with global warming, why aren’t the networks, the weather reporters, making the link? Dr. Heidi Cullen, a climate expert on The Weather Channel, created a stir in late 2006 when she wrote in her Weather Channel blog: 'If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS [American Meteorological Society] shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval. If a meteorologist has an AMS Seal of Approval, which is used to confer legitimacy to TV meteorologists, then meteorologists have a responsibility to truly educate themselves on the science of global warming.'"

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THE ALLIANCE FOR CLIMATE PROTECTION LAUNCHES NEW ADS

+ Have you noticed the new ads put out by The Alliance for Climate Protection? I saw them and was amazed and delighted. Why? Far Left Preacher Al Sharpton & Far Right Preacher Pat Roberston find common ground and support this alliance. Why? Democratic Party Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich find common ground and support this alliance. Al Gore and his colleagues say: WE CAN SOLVE IT.