Climate Ride 2009

**The 2nd Annual Brita Climate Ride invites you to pedal your way to a new energy future!**

More than two hundred cyclists will join together from September 26 - 30, 2009 to embark on a journey from New York City to the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. We’ll be making a powerful statement about the need for renewable energy and climate change awareness throughout this beautiful 300-mile bicycle ride.

As a valued member of the green community, we invite you to participate in this historic event. Here are five good reasons why you’ll want to sign up:

• Be Part of a Grassroots Effort – You’ll meet everyone from knowledgeable renewable energy experts, scientists and climate activists, to recent college graduates and everyday folks committed to making a difference.

• Make an Important Statement – As you wind through the Delaware River Valley, Valley Forge, and Amish Country, your congressional representatives await your arrival at our nation’s Capitol. There, you’ll have the opportunity to voice your concerns and encourage action.

• It’s a Climate Conference on Wheels – Hear informative talks each evening after a day of enthusiastic cycling through beautiful countryside. Discuss climate science, green technology, and solutions to the climate crisis while re-energizing for the next day’s ride.

• The Time is Now – We’re at a climatic tipping point. With the upcoming COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, the 2009 Brita Climate Ride is more timely than ever.

• It’s Fun! – This unforgettable, fully-supported event allows you the chance to unite with fellow cyclists while having the time of your life. Experienced leaders mind all the logistics, so you can strike up new friendships, network, and engage in stimulating conversation.

Are you ready to ride? Take five minutes to explore the Climate Ride website . We've posted photos and videos from the 2008 Ride that will entice and excite you – we guarantee it! Mark your calendar and register here. For a limited time, early registrants will receive a discounted sign-up fee of $60 (regularly $100) through May 1st. We have a number of fundraising prizes and incentives this year including an all-expense paid trip to the COP15 Conference in Denmark!

The Brita Climate Ride supports essential climate projects at two beneficiary organizations. Focus the Nation and Clean Air – Cool Planet . When you become a 2009 Climate Rider your fundraising effort (minimum $2,400) helps support their projects. In order to accommodate more riders, we’ve doubled the number of available openings to 250. They will fill up fast, so register today, and we'll see you there!

A good outline for that letter you're going to send to Congress

via Streetsblog:

Here's a template op-ed on the Transportation for America coalition's concerns about the shaping of the stimulus bill. This is a VERY critical moment in the debate. We think Congress should:

Conduct the discussions about what gets funded in the open: All states should make public what they are proposing. They should get no blank checks, but should be accountable toward national priorities. Those national priorities should include longterm benefits to the economy, safety, reduced oil dependence and carbon emissions. We should fix what we have before we build new highways.


Obama, Congress Must Back Up Rhetoric on Recovery

Last week President-elect Barack Obama made a promise to the American people and issued a charge to his incoming Administration and the next Congress:

"We won't just throw money at the problem. We'll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve – by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world." Dec. 6 Radio Address

As to how to achieve this progress, the President-elect proposed to “create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s.”

While the new President is clearly eager to chart a bold and new course to rebuild our economy from day one — and the new Democratic-controlled Congress should be poised to follow his lead — rhetoric alone will not be enough.

Members of Congress are already hard at work writing the stimulus package, reviewing transportation projects and infrastructure requests from states. Disturbingly, though, this is being done behind closed doors, and only a handful of states have made their wish lists public. Those that have are less than encouraging, focusing overwhelmingly on repaving, or worse, expanding highways in an era when people are driving less and transit is seeing surging demand.

Missouri DOT’s wish list, one of the few made public, includes an eye-popping $800 million worth of projects, 95 percent highway projects. This has next to nothing for St. Louis or Kansas City, population centers that surely need more than just highways. Arizona DOT’s list isn’t much better, with less than ten percent of money going to public transportation.

Congress is proposing to distribute stimulus money for infrastructure projects without requiring the usual local match, meaning that federal taxpayers will pick up the full tab. Given that reality, Congress must require transportation agencies to select projects that meet national goals for the future, rather than merely build yesterday’s highway projects.

If American tax dollars are spent the right way, we should get a three-for-one-return on our investment: a revitalized economy well positioned for long-term prosperity; less dependence on oil; and a reduction in climate-damaging emissions.

This is possible if the economic stimulus package the President-elect is expected to sign on day one includes a $100 billion investment to:

· Repair and preserve highways, bridges and existing public transportation service, and support the green jobs associated with this work;

· Build modern rail and rapid bus lines and upgrade all forms of service in cities large and small;

· Develop high-speed and other forms of inter-city rail; and

· Make streets safe for walking and biking.

Such investment will not only move America closer to fulfilling Obama’s vision for a bold, green recovery that will create jobs, reduce our oil consumption, and help America compete and thrive. It also will provide a down payment on a 21st Century transportation mission to build the second half of America’s transportation network, completing the system that began with the national highway system.

While repairing existing roads and bridges is a necessary expenditure, given that the national highway system has been built, federal resources and attention must go toward supporting the cleanest forms of transportation — public transit, high speed rail, walking and biking. The Transportation for America Campaign has identified more than 65 such ready-to-go projects within the next year, requiring over $17B in funding to get going.

Given that the stimulus is meant to fund only ready-to-go projects, states, transit agencies and metropolitan areas should quickly turn around a specific list of which projects will be funded, in an accessible and transparent manner. Tracking systems should also be instituted to provide the public with indicators on the number of jobs created, cost-effectiveness, carbon emissions, fuel use and demand forecasting.

U.S. Senator Harry Reid said earlier this month that the stimulus can allow us to “abandon the baby steps and embrace some great leaps forward” on energy, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added that the recovery is “about innovation and about the future, about building the jobs of the 21st century.”

That change is possible, but only if we put action behind rhetoric. And if we fail, Americans will not see the change the next Congress and Administration were elected on; rather, they will see more of the same.



David Goldberg
Communications Director
Transportation for America
office/mobile (202) 412-7930
www.T4America.org

To find out who your elected officials are, visit Congress.org.

"Global warming real"

From a story in today's ABH:

Devastating forest fires. Atlanta as hot as Houston. Permanent drought.
Those are a few of the effects of global warming Georgians will feel if the United States doesn't act fast to slow down the carbon emissions that heat up the globe's climate, University of Georgia ecologist James Porter said Thursday.
"These things are coming. These things are coming fast," said Porter, one of the key speakers at the Athens session of Focus the Nation, a nationwide teach-in on global warming held at UGA and about 1,000 other U.S. colleges and schools Thursday. "This is physics. This is not politics."

and

Just practicing energy conservation would cut U.S. energy consumption by 25 percent, he said. Fuel-efficient cars, more public transportation, full recycling, family planning to curtail population growth and more energy-efficient food production also are important, he said.

I would add that development and zoning practices that encourage density are equally important. Walk-able, bike-able communities, dotted with parks, are not only more pleasant, but certainly more sane, considering the climactic prognosis. Plus, this type of dense development is far more amenable to effective public transit.