Atmospheric carbon dioxide currently stands at about 387 parts per million. Scientists, including the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Jim Hansen, formerly of NASA, have called on world leaders to reduce that level to 350 parts per million. Doing so will require the United States to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent or more below 1990 levels by 2020.
Studies have concluded that 35 percent of species could be committed to extinction by 2050 if current emissions trajectories continue. But many of these extinctions can be prevented if greenhouse gas emissions are cut.
In celebration of the International Day of Climate Action on October 24, we need you to help us take action to save these species and the thousands of others at risk from runaway climate change. With President Barack Obama preparing for international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December, the time to act is now.
Please sign our petition urging President Obama to follow the science and support a 350 ppm goal for any legislation or negotiated international agreement.
In May, the last known U.S. jaguar -- Macho B -- was unnecessarily, tragically killed by government agencies. This heartbreaking loss to the species, and to us, demands swift action to preserve habitat for Macho B’s majestic relatives.
If jaguars are to rebound, as wolves and grizzlies have, they need a federal recovery plan, reintroduction from Mexico into the United States, and protection for their essential living space.
The Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit to stop the killing of jaguars has entered a critical phase. Earlier this year, the Center won a court case requiring the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a recovery plan and designate critical habitat for jaguars. But instead of complying with the law, the agency is delaying by appealing the ruling.
Jaguars don't have time to wait. Sign the petition urging the Service to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to save and recover the American jaguar.
The Clean Air Act is under attack from powerful Big Oil and Big Coal interests.
Last week the EPA sent a draft greenhouse gas rule to the White House, that if approved, will use the Clean Air Act to crack down on greenhouse gas pollution from coal-fired power plants, oil refineries, and other major industrial polluters.
This is a watershed moment in the battle to stop runaway global warming while we still can -- and we need your help.
The oil and coal industries are paying lobbyists to wait in line at hearings and are waging a massive campaign to weaken new global warming laws. They've spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying in Washington. They know that the White House has backed down on other environmental initiatives and they’re betting Obama will back down on this one too.
We must stand strong on this issue and show the Obama administration that we support its efforts to regulate carbon in the atmosphere. The Clean Air Act has successfully stopped air pollution for thirty year saving thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
Contact Obama today and urge him to show bold leadership in the climate crisis and move quickly to reduce greenhouse gases and protect our health and welfare using the Clean Air Act.
Senator Dianne Feinstein has boldly supported creating a new national monument in the California desert that would connect Joshua Tree National Park with the Mojave National Preserve, protecting some of the most pristine, ecologically important, and beautiful desert in the world.
Much of the proposed monument consists of lands donated to the federal government by The Wildlands Conservancy with the understanding that the lands would be permanently protected. The new monument would uphold the government's original promise to protect these lands and affirm the principle that lands donated for conservation must truly be conserved.
Unfortunately, the Interior Department is currently considering allowing industrial-scale energy development on many of these lands. Some energy companies and their investors are opposing the proposed monument, arguing that it will interfere with meeting our renewable-energy goals. While a rapid transition to renewable energy is essential to address global warming, we must not destroy pristine public lands and endangered species habitat in the rush. Hundreds of thousands of acres of already-degraded lands are available outside the proposed monument that are far better suited for energy development.
In a positive move in the much-contested debate about solar energy projects in the proposed monument, BrightSource Energy, Inc. -- one of the companies involved -- just canceled its plans to develop a 5,000 acre solar thermal facility in a remote wildland area of the Mojave Desert. The Center for Biological Diversity applauds this wise decision and calls on other companies contemplating similar projects in the proposed monument to cancel them immediately. Passage of Senator Feinstein's proposed monument bill will ensure that threats to our lands from the remaining projects are kept at bay. Please take a moment now to let Senator Feinstein know that you strongly support her proposed monument.
Some members of Congress are attempting to gut the Clean Air Act by removing the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases -- particularly from huge sources such as coal-fired power plants. This moves us in precisely the wrong direction on global warming.
The Clean Air Act is directly responsible for saving lives, improving health, and decreasing hospitalizations and lost school and work days. According to the EPA, in 2010, the Clean Air Act will save 23,000 lives and prevent 1.7 million asthma attacks, 4.1 million lost work days, and more than 68,000 hospitalizations and emergency room visits. Yet the Clean Air is under attack.
In its first two decades alone, the Act provided benefits 42 times greater than the estimated costs of regulation, including decreased healthcare costs and reduced lost work time worth $22.2 trillion.
The Act already provides many of the necessary tools to reduce greenhouse pollutants. Under the Act, new coal-fired power plants must be built, if at all, with meaningful greenhouse emissions-reduction requirements.
Rather than preventing the EPA from fulfilling its duties under the Clean Air Act, we should be moving swiftly to use the Act to curb global warming -- before it's too late.
If you have a U.S. address, please take one minute today to send a letter to your senators letting them know we need to curb global warming, we need the Clean Air Act to do so, and we need to oppose all moves to gut the Act.
With your help, we are working to ensure that the Senate sets science based emissions reduction targets and retains the safety net of the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse emissions.
We must reduce the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million (ppm) or below. Leading climate scientists call for reductions of approximately 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Yet the Senate climate bill aims to deliver only a 20-percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2020.
Consequences of a mere 2-degree Celsius temperature increase include the displacement of millions of coastal residents due to sea-level rise, irreversible loss of entire ecosystems, loss of agricultural yields, increased water stress for billions of people, and the triggering of multiple climate "tipping points" such as complete loss of summer Arctic sea ice and the irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
350 ppm is an ambitious goal, but failure to reach it will mean catastrophe. Please take one minute today to ask the senate to work to strengthen the bill's emissions reduction targets and to oppose all future efforts to roll back the Clean Air Act.
Please help the Center for Biological Diversity preserve the pristine beauty and rich biodiversity of Thatch Cay, one of the last undeveloped swaths of land in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
This 230-acre, uninhabited island is found in a tranquil body of water a half-mile off the northeast coast of St. Thomas. The cay's unspoiled beauty and ruggedly vegetated appearance make it a Virgin Islands gem. And there's more than just scenic beauty here: From leatherback sea turtles and brown pelicans to elkhorn and staghorn corals, Thatch Cay and its waters are home to critically endangered and threatened species.
Those species are at risk now as developers plan to build a luxury resort complex on the island for the exclusive use of an elite few. Both the community and local natural-resource managers recognize this development is not in the public's interest and have come out in force against it.
We need your help to preserve Thatch Cay, one of the few remaining areas of pristine and ecologically important flora and fauna in the island Caribbean.
Please, take a few minutes today to send a message opposing the development. Tell the Army Corps of Engineers that Thatch Cay is not a viable location for a high-end resort and should not be developed.
Last week the Environmental Protection Agency announced its intention to cancel a permit for the largest mountaintop-removal coal mine in Appalachia. The Spruce Mine would have buried more than seven miles of streams and annihilated 2,300 acres of hardwood forest. At the same time, however, the agency stated that it did not expect to veto other permits. And the very day before halting the Spruce Mine, the agency reached an agreement with a coal company to allow the expansion of another one of the largest mines in Appalachia.
The Environmental Protection Agency is under tremendous political pressure from politicians in the deep pockets of Big Coal who are already demanding the Spruce Mine be allowed to move forward. Earlier this year, the agency caved to these same politicians and revoked an announcement that all pending mountaintop removal permits would be put on hold just 24 hours after the hold was issued.
Please take a minute now to let the Environmental Protection Agency know it's on the right track to protect our lands and water. Send a message thanking Administrator Lisa Jackson for halting the Spruce Mine permit, and ask her to revoke all mountaintop-removal permits.
In response to a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the federal government has proposed to designate more than 200,000 square miles as critical habitat for threatened polar bears. While today's proposed critical habitat designation for the polar bear is very good news, we cannot count on the Department of the Interior to do the right thing for the bears. When the species was finally listed as threatened in 2008, the Department of the Interior issued a special rule exempting greenhouse gas emissions from certain provisions of the Endangered Species Act. In May 2009, Obama's new Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar reaffirmed this Bush-era exemption for the fossil-fuels industry. A Center court challenge to the polar bear extinction rule is ongoing.
Secretary Salazar also seems unwilling to say no to the oil industry. Earlier this week he approved oil-company plans for exploratory drilling in the polar bear's habitat in the Beaufort Sea, and he is considering a similar drilling proposal in the Chukchi Sea.
Please take a moment now to write Secretary Ken Salazar and let him know that polar bear critical habitat must be truly protected -- not sacrificed to oil companies.
Ask any visitor to California's North Coast who has driven the Redwood Highway north from San Francisco, and they'll be able to tell you exactly where they passed through the fabled “Redwood Curtain.” At Richardson Grove State Park, just north of the Humboldt County line, Highway 101 narrows to a two-lane road winding through a dim, lush grove of ancient redwoods. These huge trees provide crucial habitat for endangered birds like the marbled murrelet; threatened salmon and steelhead still return each year to spawn in the creeks running through the park.
This iconic gateway to the redwoods is now gravely threatened by an ill-advised and unnecessary highway project. Caltrans and the Federal Highway Administration are on the brink of approving a proposal to widen and realign the portion of Highway 101 passing through Richardson Grove. Construction of the new road would cut through the vital root systems of the ancient redwoods, threatening the integrity of the grove and further jeopardizing the imperiled species that rely on old-growth redwood forests for their survival.
The point of the project is to make it possible for larger trucks to access this portion of Highway 101. Powerful business interests itching to bring big-box stores and runaway urban development to Humboldt County desperately want those larger trucks on the highway. This just adds insult to injury: The project will not only blow an even bigger hole through Richardson Grove, but could also spur new development that will forever alter the character of the North Coast.
Behind the future Redwood Curtain, travelers might find just one more big subdivision and one more big-box strip mall.
Please take a moment to tell Caltrans and the highway administration not to approve the Richardson Grove Improvement Project. Thus far, these agencies have ignored the project's threats to endangered wildlife and ancient redwoods, failed to look at other alternatives, and downplayed the growth-inducing effects of opening Highway 101 to oversized-truck traffic. This cathedral grove is far too important to both vanishing forest species and human visitors to be sacrificed for the short-term gains of a few powerful commercial interests in Humboldt County.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is beginning an environmental review on its project to rebuild Calaveras Dam in upper Alameda Creek by 2015, part of a $4-billion program of retrofits to San Francisco's aging water system. More than 70 Bay Area conservation and fishing groups have called on San Francisco to improve its stewardship of Alameda Creek and restore stream flows sufficient to sustain steelhead trout below its dams in the watershed.
The Center will be working closely with the Alameda Creek Alliance to scrutinize the environmental review and ensure Endangered Species Act protections for steelhead are implemented as part of the project. We support rebuilding the dam as quickly as possible, but San Francisco's water system can and should be operated in a sustainable way that provides favorable steelhead habitat below the dam. State laws and the Endangered Species Act require suitable water flows for steelhead trout.
Although the utilities commission is evaluating potential steelhead impacts during the environmental review for the project, and has agreed to minimal flow releases for fish, the project proposes dam operations and flow schedules for Calaveras Dam inconsistent with restoring a sustainable run of steelhead below the dam.
Help restore native fish runs and more natural stream flow and habitat in Alameda Creek by sending a letter today. (Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to submit your letter.)
Help save the only intact mountain left in Coal River Valley, West Virginia. Two weeks ago, coal-industry giant Massey Energy began blasting away at Coal River Mountain -- shattering the hopes of citizens who had been fighting for years to save it, and making it the tallest peak ever blasted apart for mountaintop-removal coal mining. This radical form of mining -- in which the tops of mountains are blown off to expose coal seams and then all the wastes are dumped directly into streams -- annihilates forests, completely buries streams, and kills all wildlife in its path.
To make matters even worse, the blasting is only 200 yards from a coal slurry dam -- the only thing preventing 8 billion gallons of toxic sludge from flooding the community below. Studies predict that if the dam is breached, residents will have only minutes to evacuate before a 50-foot wall of potentially lethal mining waste washes over their community.
Every other peak in this devastated watershed has been blown apart by the coal industry. Coal River Valley can't afford to lose its last remaining peak.
Please use the form below to email the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency today. Ask them to intervene and save Coal River Mountain.
Big Cypress National Preserve was created in 1974 to stave off a proposed airport in the heart of the western Everglades. Now Miami-Dade County, whose land surrounds the preserve, finds itself with a cash shortfall and a proposal has been made to squeeze the money it lacks for airport expansion out of the very nature preserve that was set aside to prevent new airport construction -- Big Cypress.
Under the proposal, Miami-Dade County would lease out the land for oil drilling -- a cynical, grasping move that would undermine decades of preservation and be certain to hurt Florida panthers. Already one of the most endangered species on the planet, panthers depend on Big Cypress for living space.
For now, the proposal has been shelved at the last minute by Miami Mayor Carlos Alvarez due to public outcry. But though it won’t be discussed at the very next county commission meeting, this destructive plan could still be brought to life again. And we need to make sure that doesn’t happen.
So please, send a letter asking Miami's mayor to make sure this absurd and destructive idea to allow new oil operations in the Big Cypress National Preserve remains completely off the table.
The Tonto National Forest -- at 3 million acres, one of the country's largest national forests -- is seeking public input on its travel-management plan. The Tonto's delicate desert ecosystem sees more than 5 million visitors each year, making careful management decisions critical to the long-term health of the forest and the threatened and endangered species who make this desert their home.
One of the primary reasons the Tonto National Forest was created in 1905 was to protect the Salt and Verde River watersheds, which produce more than 350,000 acre-feet of water each year. Off-road vehicles have devastating long-term impacts on streams and rivers; damage from a single pass by an ATV can destroy bank structure and introduce invasive species, leaving scars on the landscape that can last for months or even years in our arid region.
The Center for Biological Diversity will be following the Forest Service's planning process carefully, pointing out every road that might cause problems for threatened and endangered species, but we need your voice to make as big a statement as possible.
Using the sample text below, speak out for the Tonto National Forest by sending a letter to the Forest Service. Please spread the word and join the fight to keep our forests quiet. To learn more, visit the Forest Service's Web site.
Thanks to public pressure, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a Sharp Park restoration-planning ordinance earlier this year directing the Park Department to develop a plan, schedule, and budget for restoring endangered species habitat at the park.
Nine prominent scientists -- biologists, herpetologists, ecologists, and hydrologists with collective expertise regarding wetlands habitats, the endangered species at the site, and amphibians and reptiles -- weighed in with a letter to the Park Department noting that many of the golf-course management activities are incompatible with restoring healthy populations of the garter snake and red-legged frog and that restoring wetlands and uplands habitats and connecting them with protected adjacent open space is the best option to ensure the long term survival of the species in the area.
Last week the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department issued a report that was supposed to explore alternatives for restoring endangered species habitat at Sharp Park. However, the Park Department’s report ignores science and promotes an all-golf alternative for Sharp Park -- even though the no-golf option was shown to be best for the environment, the city's budget, and outdoor recreation.Click here to read our press release about the report, which actually suggests picnicking, not the golf course, is the greatest threat to endangered species at the site.
Incredibly, a local congressional representative has also suggested using federal money to bail out the golf course. If federal monies are to be spent at Sharp Park, we deserve to gain an asset everyone can use, not just golfers: a park with recreational facilities everyone can enjoy and a preserve that supports San Francisco's namesake endangered species.
Use the form below and scroll to the bottom of the page to send a letter to decision-makers telling them it's time for them to be true environmental stewards by fully restoring Sharp Park. Then, please call Congresswoman Jackie Speier at (650) 342-0300 and State Assemblymember Jerry Hill at (650) 349-1900 and tell their offices you support full restoration and the no-golf alternative, and that the park should be added to the adjacent Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
In addition, please come to the Recreation and Parks Commission hearing this Thursday, November 19 at 2 p.m. at San Francisco City Hall Room 416 and speak in favor of full restoration.
What's the solution to world hunger, biodiversity loss, and shrinking resources? According to Obama's nominee for Chief Agriculture Negotiator at the U.S Trade Representative's Office, it's pesticides, genetically modified crops, and fossil-fuel intensive agriculture.
If Islam Siddiqui, Obama's nominee, is confirmed by the Senate, the self-proclaimed "voice of the industry" will be able to push America's industrial agriculture practices onto the rest of the world.
Siddiqui is a former pesticide lobbyist and is the vice-president of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America, formerly known as the National Agricultural Chemicals Association. This industry trade group represents Monsanto, DuPont, and other companies that "produce, sell and distribute virtually all the crop protection and biotechnology products used by American farmers" -- or in simpler words, they promote toxic pesticides.
Here's a sampling of what Siddiqui and CropLife America have been up to:
- weakening the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act;
- lobbying to allow pesticides to be tested on children;
- fighting to keep ozone-depleting chemicals and persistent pollutants like DDT in use;
- resisting the labeling of genetically-modified foods;
- targeting Michelle Obama for planting an organic White House garden; and
- promoting toxic-sludge grown, genetically modified, and irradiated food as "organic."
We can't allow Siddiqui to force Big Agriculture's pesticide-laden, fossil-fuel heavy industrial farming methods onto the rest of the world. Use the form below to send an email to your senators asking them to vote against the confirmation of Islam Siddiqui as Chief Agricultural Negotiator. Urgent action is needed -- the vote to confirm Siddiqui is likely to happen soon.
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