Worldwide Anti-Whaling Day

In Defense of Animals
Please join anti-whaling advocates across the globe on November 5 for
Worldwide Anti-Whaling Day!

Worldwide Anti-Whaling Day

www.wwa wd.org


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http://www.seashepherd.org/dolphins/report-from-taiji-november-3.html

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:D

We stopped Texas oil
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Becky Bond and Michael Kieschnick, CREDO Action to me
show details Nov 2 (3 days ago)


Thank you!

Dear Friend,

We did it. YOU did it. California did it!

We've just learned that California voters resoundingly defeated the Texas oil companies' Proposition 23. Proposition 26 hasn't been called yet but it's not looking good.

Our victory over Prop 23 demonstrates a broad, consensus to protect California's first-in-the-nation, landmark global warming law — and you helped make it happen. This is a watershed moment in our fight against climate change, and a big blow to the powerful interests who stand against change.

Our sincerest thanks to so many of you who joined the grassroots effort to Stop Texas Oil, and took action to pressure the oil companies, spread the word to your friends, volunteered, donated, protested at Valero stations and most important, contacted voters. Throughout the campaign, volunteers made more than 800,000 calls, and this effort was crucial to alerting Californians to Prop 23 and turning out voters to defeat it.

Texas oil companies brought this fight to California. They thought they could throw around some of their dirty money and take away one of California's most progressive laws. But they underestimated us. We fought back. We attacked them and their dirty money directly. And we sent them packing back to Texas.

We started this fight back in May with a boycott of Valero, Prop 23's biggest funder. We knew then that this was a fight we needed to win. But it was such an insulting, personal affront, we wanted to do more than defeat them. We wanted to crush this proposition and send a strong message to these Texas oil companies.

That's exactly what we did tonight, and we couldn't have done it without you.

Thanks so much,

Becky Bond and Michael Kieschnick
CREDO Action

Paid for by Credo Victory Fund Against Prop 23 and Texas Oil Companies. Major funding by Working Assets Funding Service, Inc. 101 Market Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94105.


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New York Times
The Opinion Pages

o

There are several ways to look at Tuesday’s overwhelming endorsement by California’s voters of the state’s global warming law: as a vote for clean energy over dirty, as a rebuke to carpetbaggers, as proof that good things can happen when a political leader — in this case, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — leads.

State voters rejected a proposition by a vote of roughly 60 percent to 40 percent — backed mainly by two out-of-state oil companies, Valero and Tesoro. It would have effectively killed the law known as AB 32. The law is aimed at reducing California’s emissions of greenhouse gases by 80 percent at midcentury by requiring cleaner cars, more energy efficient buildings and renewable fuels.

The oil companies and a few allies ran a scare campaign that warned Californians that AB 32 would drive up energy prices and cost jobs — “a loss of two blue-collar jobs for every one green job created,” it claimed.

What the companies had not reckoned on was a fierce pushback from Governor Schwarzenegger, or the deep pockets of the state’s wealthy venture capitalists and hedge fund managers, who believe there is a lot of money to be made — and jobs to be had — in a clean energy economy. The facts, so far, support them. Over the last five years, new green jobs have grown in California 10 times faster than the state average; the clean technology sector has attracted nearly $9 billion in venture capital and created dozens of new businesses.

The pro-AB 32 forces were so persuaded that the law was good for California’s economy that they outspent the oil companies — $31.2 million compared with $10.6 million. That war chest paid for mass mailings, nearly three million telephone calls to voters and TV commercials that extolled the promise of green jobs and urged voters to reject the oil companies’ “job-killing dirty energy proposition.” About 3,000 volunteers took the case door to door.

California has been far ahead of the rest of the country on environmental issues. And it long ago cast its economic future with high-tech industries. But politicians in Washington — who have made no progress on climate change and clean energy — should take a lesson from the pro-AB 32 campaign.

Supporting clean energy is not only essential for the environment and good for the economy. When voters have the facts, it can also be a political winner.
A version of this editorial appeared in print on November 4, 2010, on page A28 of the New York edition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/opinion/04thu3.html?_r=3&ref=opinion