February - April 2000

Everyone Talkes About the Weather. It's Time we Did Something About It!

Can Clean, Green Energy Help Avert Global Climate Change?

For those who live in cold climates, global warming sounds like the ultimate home improvement. Boston, welcome to Bermuda! But climate change is serious business. The world's leading climate scientists estimate that a predicted rise in global temperatures of just 1 to 3.5 degrees over the next century could produce a host of unwelcome effects, including:

• flooding of coastal regions from sea level rise droughts and expanding deserts due to disrupted water cycles
  
  
• more extreme weather of all kinds; hurricanes, tornadoes, snowstorms
  
  
• epidemics of tropical diseases from insects that thrive in warmer climates
  
  
• reduced crop yields in global breadbaskets like the mid-west

But aren't these effects still far in the future? Not so, say climate scientists. The nineties were the hottest decade of the millennium. The planet is heating faster than at any time in the past 10,000 years. The five costliest years for hurricanes and storms occurred in the 1990s.

Industrial and auto pollution play a key role in warming the atmosphere. In 1997, 160 countries met in Kyoto, where 38 industrialized nations agreed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. pledged a reduction to 7% below 1990 levels by the year 2012. But since that time the U.S. has made little progress towards this goal. President Clinton's new budget includes $1.4 billion for scientific research and $2.7 billion to combat global warming, 43% more than 1999. But Congress may well slash that figure. And despite our advanced technology, we remain the world's biggest polluter.

What can be done to slow global warming and forestall its most destructive impacts? Many energy experts urge a two-pronged strategy:

• save energy, save money - adopt higher fuel efficiency standards, energy-saving industrial processes, reduce consumption, drive less, breathe more
  
  
• use more renewable sources of energy - solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, et al

There are ways, say many experts, but there is not yet the political will to make the change. What will it cost? How soon can renewables be brought on-line? Will the market support the shift or must it first be subsidized? How can we cut our personal energy use?

Between mid-February and late April 2000, MMP mounted a major public education effort to raise public awareness about the nature of global climate change and practical energy alternatives that would dramatically reduce the carbon dioxide buildup that is a chief source of the worldwide warming trend. The campaign was pegged in part to the April 22 Earth Day 2000, which shared our concern with climate change and renewable energy. Altogether we scheduled and completed some 253 interviews, of which 47 were nationally, globally, or regionally syndicated. More than two-thirds were broadcast on commercial radio, where such issues are seldom given an informed airing. Some 49 nationally known authorities on climate change and energy issues representing dozens of organizations participated in the campaign along with dozens of local experts. Collectively they addressed a full spectrum of issues ranging from impacts of the climate on the environment, the economy and human health to alternative transportation systems and the costs and benefits of a renewable energy economy.

Guest Speakers by Topic:

Michael Oppenheimer, Chief Scientist, Environmental Defense

Rafe Pomerance, Chairman, Americans for Equitable Climate Solutions

Rhys Roth, Co-Director, Climate Solutions

Stephen Schneider, Professor Biological Sciences, Stanford University

George Woodwell, Founder and President, Director, Woods Hole Research Center

Eileen Claussen, President, Pew Center on Climate Change

Ross Gelbspan, Author, The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-up, The Prescription, Reporter and Editor (retired), Philadelphia Bulletin; Washington Post; The Boston Globe

Kevin Gurney, Research Scientist - Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

Nancy Kete, Director - Energy and Pollution Program, World Resources Institute

Raymond Kopp, Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future

Daniel Lashof, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council

Alden Meyer, Director of Government Relations, Union of Concerned Scientists

Jennifer Morgan, Director, Climate Change Campaign, World Wildlife Fund

Carl Pope, Executive Director, Sierra Club

Howard Geller, Director, Southwest Energy Efficiency Project

Denis Hayes, International Chair, Earth Day Network, President and CEO, The Bullitt Foundation

Stephen DeCanio, Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara

Christopher Flavin, President, Worldwatch Institute

Chris Lotspeich, Principal, Second Hill Group

Amory Lovins, Co-CEO (Research), Rocky Mountain Institute

Hunter Lovins, Founder and President, Natural Capitalsim, Inc.

Richard Heede

Alexis Karolides, Senior Research Associate - Green Development Services, Rocky Mountain Institute

David Morris, Vice President, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

David Nemtzow, President, Alliance to Save Energy

Roland Hwang, Senior Policy Analyst, Natural Resources Defense Council

Ann Mesnikoff, Washington Representative - Global Warming and Energy Program, Sierra Club

Paul Epstein, Associate Director - Center for Health and the Global Environment, Medical School, Harvard University

Patty Glick, Coordinator, Climate Change and Wildlife Program, National Wildlife Federation

Martin Kushler, Co-Director, Utilities Program, American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy

Michael Marvin, President, Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Member, Department of Commerce’s Environmental Technologies Trade Advisory Committee, is on the steering committee of the Environmental Technologies

Michael Noble, Executive Director, Minnesotans for an Energy-Efficient Economy

David Katz, Director, Sales and Marketing, Applied Power Corporation, Co-founder, Alternative Energy Engineering

Peter Lehman, Director, Shatz Energy Research Center

Jim Ball, Executive Director, Evangelical Environmental Network

John Adams, Public Outreach

Eric Chivian, Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment

Kelly Christopher, Colorado Earth Day 2000

Dennis Creech, Executive Director, Southface Energy Institute

Kristin Dawkins, Director, Global Governance Program, Vice President International Programs, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Seth Dunn, Research Associate, Worldwatch Institute

Beth Fraser, Community Coordinator for the Community Watershed project, Georgia Legal Watch

Karl Gawell, Executive Director, Geothermal Energy Association

Bill Griffith, Co-Conservation Chair, Kansas Sierra Club, "Kansas is rich and could become the Saudi Arabia of Renewables" They have more wind water and biomass than any of the other plains states, he says, yet using none of it.

Gary Groesch, Alliance for Affordable Energy

William Gutowski, Co-Director - Project to Intercompare Regional Climate Change Simulations, Iowa State University, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science , Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences

Doug Haines, founder, Georgia Legal Watch

Drake Hamilton, Minnesotans for an Energy Efficient Economy

John Harte, Professor - Energy and Resources Group and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Mangaement, University of California, Berkeley, Senior Investigator, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

Carsten Henningsen, Chairman, Portfolio 21

Libby Hill, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

Mark Hopkins, Vice President, Alliance to Save Energy

Glenn Kelly, executive director, Global Climate Coalition

David Kraft, Director, Nuclear Energy Information Service, IL

Fred Krupp, Executive Director , Environmental Defense

Stephen MacAusland, Director

James MacKenzie, Senior Associate - Climate, Energy and Pollution Program, World Resources Institute, Professorial Lecturer, School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University

Peter Mandelstam, Director, Arcadia Windpower Ltd.

Jason Mark, Program Director - Transportation, Union of Concerned Scientists

Patrick Mazza, Researcher and Writer, Climate Solutions

Tim McKay, Director, Northcoast Environmental Center

Candace Morey, Union of Concerned Scientists

Gaylord Nelson, Counselor, The Wilderness Society

Alan Nogee, Director, Energy Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

Karl Rabago, Managing Director, Rocky Mountain Institute

Michelle Robinson, Senior Advocate for Trasportation and Energy, Union of Concerned Scientists

Mick Sagrillo, President, Midwest Renewable Energy Association

Ted Smith, Executive Director, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, Co-Founder and Coordinator, International Campaign for Responsible Technology (sponsors the Clean Computer Campaign)

Cindy Spring, Coordinator for Bay area, Earth Day Network

Elwynn Taylor, Professor, Iowa State University

Dave Tushouse, St. Joseph Recycling Center

Jen Uncapher

Kurt Waltzer, Ohio Environmental Council for Clean Air

Warren Washington, Head of Department - Climate Change Research Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Alan Weisman, Senior Editor and Associate Producer, Homelands Productions