Connecticut Green Living

In a lengthy conference call from Washington, DC with Natural Resources Defense Council today, headed by their president, Rhea Suh, representatives of the New York-based agency stressed the need to hold President Elect Trump and Congress accountable for choices they will make on the environment. The consensus was that the outlook is not good, but that doesn't necessarily come as a surprise - nor as an excuse to throw in the towel. One individual who won't give up on greening America is Interim Director of Ocean Conservancy's Gulf Restoration Program in Daphne, AL, Kara Lankford. She spoke with this reporter later this afternoon about her interests, which are not only focused on the Gulf, but more broadly on environmental issues such as acidification, that mirror the NRDC's. Lankford said, firstly, that it didn't come as a surprise to her that people of this region would have kept their states red in the last election. Changing overnight to a clean energy econom...

Environment New York, part of the national federation Environment America, said in a press release today, Nov. 9, that they have joined other environmental groups in reacting to the 2016 election outcomes. Heather Leibowitz, Director of Environment New York, issued the following statement in response to the 2016 election results: “This isn’t the outcome we had hoped for. At a time when sea levels are rising, temperature records are being smashed and extreme weather events threaten Americans across the country, we need to rapidly shift to 100 percent renewable energy and away from dirty fossil fuels. At a time when children are being poisoned by lead in their drinking water, and sewage and manure pollute our rivers, we need to strengthen our clean water protections and invest in clean water infrastructure. So we were dismayed to hear President-elect Trump deny climate science, vow to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency during...

For those of us who realize climate change is the top issue facing the world, this election did not go in our favor. Donald Trump has scoffed about climate change and dismissed Obama's activism on the matter, whether it's the Paris Agreement, negotiated by nearly 200 countries and enacted just this Nov. 4, or favoring fossil fuel sources like coal instead of alternative energy. Now that the dye has been cast, green-minded Americans have no choice but to press the president-elect on moving toward a clean energy future. The Paris Agreement, which spun out of last year's Conference of the Parties, has been enacted - but countries are still able to pull out, should they wish to. Right now, COP22 is happening in Marrakesh, where world leaders and activists from around the world have convened. Last year, Trump dismissed the event, and in May the BBC reported that Trump would cancel the Paris climate accord. The world is getting warmer, as Democrats' chances of making chan...

In its first-ever endorsement, the eight-year-old U.S. Green Chamber of Commerce promotes Hillary Clinton. According to the Chamber's president Michelle Thatcher, the choice was clear even if it wasn't always easy. After all, representing businesses means representing people of various political orientations. "First and foremost, it was a hard decision because we are such a varied membership, so the biggest implication of course we want to make is to have an effect. The numbers are still so close – this is why we put this out there. We put the country even ahead of our own non-profits," says Thatcher. She says that while endorsing Clinton "wasn't on the forefront" of the Chamber's planning, it made sense from a sustainable business perspective, as well as buinesses and practices they promote. "To do otherwise would be extremely risky," she says. The Chamber's endorsement follows the lead of hundreds of nationally prominent organizat...

This has been an astounding election season. At once nauseating as shocking, despicable as hilarious. Yes, if you don't have a sense of humor, your nerves and stomach won't survive this final stretch. But through it all, whatever your feelings about Hillary Clinton in particular, you must vote for her. To vote for a candidate who denies the existence of climate change is a vote for ruining the planet. Think of it: every day, Americans board planes, confident that the laws of science have allowed that plane to take off and get them safely to their destinations. And adventurous souls, from the SpaceX astronauts to National Geographic explorers to simply weekend backpackers, rely on physics, astronomy, geology and other disciplines to inform their every move. When a high school friend was killed during a rock climb of Half Dome in the '70s, it was a scientific principle that killed him, not the will of God or magic. When there is a tragic train accident, science is behind the...