GP RELEASE Green Party to Obama: The problem isn't just foreign oil, it's all fossil fuels‏

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES

http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614,
mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org


Green Party to Obama: Whether foreign or domestic, it's time for
America to cut oil and gas from our energy diet

• Green Party Speakers Bureau: Green leaders available to speak on
energy, climate change, and related topics:
http://www.gp.org/speakers/subjects.php


WASHINGTON, DC -- President Obama's energy policy shows a dangerous
disconnect from the real nature of the current energy crisis, said
Green Party candidates and leaders, who promoted the "Green New Deal"
as a way to alleviate impending climate change and create millions of
new jobs (http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/08/11/62-green-candidates-endorse-green-new-deal).

• Jill Stein, candidate for the Green Party's 2012 presidential
nomination (http://www.jillstein.org): "With his State of the Union
speech, President Obama has adopted the 'Drill, Baby, Drill' platform
of the Republican Party. He has embraced the energy industry position
that our public lands and our environment should be sacrificed for the
goal of increasing domestic production. This spin ignores the fact
that our most pressing problem isn't foreign oil -- it's what fossil
fuels, both foreign and domestic, are doing to our planet. The
President's 'all of the above' approach is an alarming denial of the
climate emergency we face and the urgent need to substantially reduce
the amount of carbon we exhaust into the atmosphere. Our nation and
human society around the world are already at serious risk for
devastating climate disruption. Obama's proposals make this risk even
worse. With the President's support of the oil company agenda, the
Green Party now emerges as the one clear political voice for a
sustainable energy policy that our planet and economy so badly need."

• Audrey Clement, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States:
"The White House's plan to expand natural gas extraction on US public
lands, which President Obama talked about during this State of the
Union, is a menace to public health and the environment. Hydrofracking
contaminates groundwater, releases gases from combustion into the air
with worse greenhouse gas emissions than coal or oil, and creates
severe toxic waste disposal problems. According to seismologists, it's
likely to have caused small earthquakes in Ohio near sites where shale
gas drilling has taken place. The Obama Administration has shown
extremely poor judgement in its support for hydrofracking, 'clean
coal', and offshore drilling in US coastal waters that would place
major cities at risk for disasters similar to the BP oil spill in
2010, and its toleration of mountaintop removal mining in West
Virginia and other states. We're pleased that President Obama
postponed approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, which NASA scientist
James Hansen warned would be 'game over for the planet'. But we remain
concerned that the project will get approved in 2013 by the next Obama
Administration or by a new Republican president."

(See also "Shale Gas A Bridge To More Global Warming" by Stephen
Leahy, Inter Press Service, Jan. 24, 2012,
http://www.globalissues.org/news/2012/01/24/12513 and "Methane and the
greenhouse-gas footprint of natural
gas from shale formations" by Robert W. Howarth, Renee Santoro, and
Anthony Ingraffea, Climatic Change,
http://www.sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/news/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf)

• Kent Mesplay, candidate for the Green Party's 2012 presidential
nomination (http://www.mesplay.org): "America can take one of two
roads in the coming years. The first road involves denial of climate
change or refusal to take it seriously, inadequate measures like
emissions trading schemes that allow corporate polluters to keep
polluting, and no real effort to reduce fossil fuel consumption. This
road will lead to further melting of the polar icecaps and permafrost,
release of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, growing climate
instability, flooding and droughts, 'peak oil', dwindling access to
food and fresh water, and the inevitable wars to gain control of
resources. The second road means treating climate change in the same
way that the US and its allies treated the Axis powers early in World
War II -- as an emergency requiring international unity against a
threat to civilization. We still have the chance to curb the advance
of global warming through democratically enacted means and to use it
as an opportunity to put millions of people back to work, jumpstart
the damaged economy, and create cooperation and good will among
nations. Democratic and Republican leaders are stuck on the first
road. The Green Party and its candidates and elected officials insist
on the second road -- which is why the Green Party is the imperative
of the 21st century."

• Howie Hawkins, co-chair of the Green Party of New York State: "The
Green Party remains the only party with a set of constructive
solutions for the energy crises that we face. Many of these ideas are
spelled out in the Green New Deal, which Green candidates have adopted
as their agenda. Green solutions include the creation of millions of
new jobs in energy conservation projects such as retrofitting homes
and other buildings for energy efficiency, innovative technologies for
safe and clean energy that don't rely on nuclear or petroleum-based
sources, planning and new construction for cities and towns that will
free them from reliance on car traffic, and expanding public
transportation. Unfortunately, Democrats lack the political will and
Republicans are hostile to the idea that government can initiate
public works projects to employ millions of Americans. President
Roosevelt proved that such projects can be very successful. Greens are
ready to prove it again, when we take public office." (Mr. Hawkins
introduced the Green New Deal during his campaign for Governor of New
York in 2010.)


MORE INFORMATION

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July 12-15, 2012 in Baltimore, Md.
http://www.gpconvention2012.com

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