Sens Kerry and Lugar push for climate change action

[TayTay]

Kerry, Lugar: U.S. has opportunity to lead on climate, forest conservation

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0209-avoided_deforestation.html">mongabay.com
February 10, 2009

Bipartisan support for including forest protection as a solution to climate change

The United States can reassert itself as a global leader on the environment by supporting an initiative to fight climate change by protecting forests, said leaders from a broad range of political, environmental, development and business communities at a meeting on Capitol Hill Monday. Joined by senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar, the "Avoided Deforestation Partners" coalition called for Congress to include "strong tropical forest protection measures in U.S. climate change legislation" ahead of this December's climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

"Deforestation is a critical national security challenge because of its connections with threats from climate change and food security," said Lugar (R-Indiana), the senior-most Republican in the United States Senate. "I hope the United States will show leadership in elevating these issues during the upcoming international climate negotiations."

"Tropical deforestation must be a part of the debate on both climate change and national security," added Kerry (D-Massachusetts), who currently serves as the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. "Around the globe, millions of people have seen their land and livelihoods degraded by deforestation, increasing instability in already troubled regions. At the same time, deforestation continues to release billions of tons of carbon dioxide, accelerating the worldwide climate changes already occurring. America must set the tone for the rest of the world by including smart, effective forest protections in our own climate legislation this year and working to include international forestry provisions in the next international climate change agreement."

[karynnj]

1. This sounds like a good meeting - it also shows the attacks on Lugar were really unfair

From Huffington Post to Rachel Maddow to DU, Lugar was attacked for declining Obama's invitation to go to Indidana, where Obama was pushing a bill that Lugar is against. I didn't think it wrong even when I didn't know he was already committed - would we have criticized Boxer had she not accepted a (non-existent) offer for a (non-existent) trip to San Diego to sell the idea of the IWR?

It does bother me that the left media did not check with Lugar's office. This is as bad as when Democrats are assigned the worst motives, with no investigation, by the right wing. We will need Republicans - and having Lugar on global warming is a big deal, even if he is not good on economic issues.

I posted your article on DU-P, because of their anti-Lugar thread yesterday - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8185096&mesg_id=8185096

[karynnj]

2. Here are some other articles

On the threads bashing Lugar, there were two other good articles on this.


http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/2/9/151356/2038

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/02/why-lugar-declined-that-air-force-one-trip.php

Both mention the Nobel Laureate mentioned. In 2006, she gave a fantastic talk at Holy Cross, that some random Holy Cross student sent a link with audios of the speech to my husband and I because it was really good. (Wangori Maathai was also briefly mentioned by Travis Smiley and Teresa (around 15:14) - http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/video/237.html )

http://www.holycross.edu/publicaffairs/features/2006-2007/maathai_audio

Though the motivation is 100% different, I thought of Maathai and their planting trees to environmentally reclaim their country when the MA woman living in Afghanistan spoke at the SFRC hearing of subsidizing farmers, paying them to plant almond apricot and other trees and nuture them through the four years when they were not productive to reclaim Afghanistan from the poppy growers. In both cases, doing the same thing and healing the world.