This week in Washington DC, President Obama delivered an inspiring speech outlining an ambitious plan to protect our planet and our families from a climate crisis that is already hitting home with droughts, wildfires, floods, hurricanes and other forms of extreme weather. The plan includes new energy efficiency standards for federal buildings and appliances, scales up clean energy development with an aggressive commitment to power 6 million homes by 2020, and cuts dangerous carbon pollution from power plants using the full authority of the Clean Air Act.
Carbon pollution, with it’s long-lasting disruptive impacts on Earth’s climate, must be dramatically reduced in the coming years if we hope to leave a cleaner, safer, more stable world to our children. The president’s plan aims to make the United States a global leader in the fight against climate change, and we hope such leadership also includes recognizing fracked gas as a health threat, halting destructive oil drilling in the Arctic, ending mountaintop removal, and abandoning outdated dirty fuels in favor of clean energy. But as these federal efforts take shape, the Commonwealth must continue with its own leadership on the climate & energy front.
The Sierra Club of Massachusetts seeks clear rules from Mass DEP to limit and regulate greenhouse gases so the state will meet its obligations under the Global Warming Solutions Act. We ask that natural gas utilities proactively repair their aging infrastructure which wastefully leaks between 8-10 billion cubic feet of methane (and close to $40 million of ratepayers’ money) into the atmosphere every year. We also seek a legislative solution from state senators and representatives to tax carbon pollution, and in turn, advance clean energy technologies and innovations which Massachusetts can then export to other states and countries. With Massachusetts leading the country on climate & energy, and with the US leading the world, we can overcome the immense challenge before us, and leave future generations with a stable, livable climate along with a thriving economy.
To learn more about climate & energy issues as well as the work being done
by the Sierra Club of Massachusetts, click here.