On February 7 thousands of Californians from across the state are gathering in Governor Jerry Brown’s longtime home of Oakland to say that "we need real climate leadership in the face of the drought," a coalition of groups, including Food and Water Watch, has announced. According to http://marchforclimateleadership.org:
"Across the state wells are drying up, more than a dozen cities are in real danger of running out of water, and there’s no question it’s being made worse by climate change,
"But instead of reigning in the oil and gas industry and putting an end to incredibly dangerous and water-intensive practices like fracking, Governor Brown has been letting companies continue with business as usual.
Join people from all corners of California this February in telling Governor Brown that if he won’t be a real climate leader, that if he won’t stand up to the fossil fuel industry, then we will. Because this is about our water, our health, and our California."
Here is the latest information for the march, expected to draw thousands:
WHAT: The March for Real Climate Leadership: Our Water, Our Health, Our California
WHEN: February 7, 2015
WHERE: Oakland, California – exact location TBA
Below is the group's "An Open Letter to the People of California":
In the story of California politics, Governor Jerry Brown benefits from the widely-held notion that he is a leader on climate issues. But over the last four years, Governor Brown has not delivered on his promise to put our water and health first in order to carry California into a new clean-energy economy. Instead, he’s chosen to expand extreme oil and gas extraction, which harms our communities and undermines his own greenhouse gas reduction goals for California.
Governor Brown continues to allow hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to extract oil in California even in the face of clear and abundant scientific evidence warning against this method’s dangers. There is little to no safety oversight around fracked wells, even those located just yards from elementary schools and next to farms that feed the nation and the world. If Governor Brown really cares about climate issues, how can he ignore the emissions from fracking, the billions of gallons of oil industry wastewater injected into aquifers, and the health problems associated with fracking in the Central Valley, Los Angeles and beyond?
The sunset of Governor Brown’s career coincides with two key crises: a historic drought that threatens California communities, and – tied to the drought – climate change, the biggest challenge of our time. Yet, Governor Brown continues to allow the oil and gas industry to waste 2 million gallons of fresh water a day on extreme oil extraction in California. He continues to support these toxic methods that sabotage the goals of Senate Bills 1204 and 1275, which he signed in September to address air pollution in at-risk communities by cutting emissions that threaten respiratory health.
That’s not climate leadership.
As he prepares for his final term as Governor of California, Jerry Brown must choose: Will he stand up and do right by our water, our health and our communities by ending extreme oil extraction; or will Brown claim his legacy as the Governor who chose not to protect Californians from oil and gas industry greed?
The people want Governor Brown to do the right thing and the momentum is clear. Last March, 4,000 people rallied in Sacramento urging Governor Brown to end fracking. Over the last year leaders across California have pushed back on fracking in their hometowns and people in directly affected communities are rising up every day to send a roaring message to Governor Jerry Brown: Californians don’t want fracking and climate leaders don’t frack. During this fall’s election, voters in two California counties – San Benito and Mendocino – passed local bans on fracking.
Join this fight. On Saturday February 7th, 2015, join thousands of Californians marching through the streets of Oakland California, Governor Brown’s home city. March to demand that Governor Brown use his last term in office to truly become the climate leader who helped protect California’s water, health and communities for generations to come. Go to marchforclimateleadership.org to register, to learn about bus transportation or about how your organization can become a partner. Together, we can make the February 7th March for Real Climate Leadership a game-changing moment for California and for Governor Jerry Brown’s legacy.
Signed,
The Many Organizational Partners Hosting the March for Real Climate Leadership
www.marchforclimateleadership.org
As I have exposed in article after article, Governor Jerry Brown, while claiming to be a "green energy" advocate and "climate change leader," has in fact continued and expanded the worst environmental policies of the Schwarzenegger administration.
These abysmal policies include the fast-tracking of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build the peripheral tunnels, the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history; presiding over record water exports and a record fish kill of Sacramento splittail, a native minnow in 2011; driving Delta smelt, longfin smelt, striped bass, threadfin shad and other fish species to record low levels; and imperiling salmon and steelhead populations in the Sacramento, Trinity and Klamath rivers by emptying reservoirs during a drought to divert northern California water to corporate agribusiness and Southern California water agencies.
If that wasn't bad enough, the Brown administration in December 2012 completed a series of fake "marine protected areas" on the California coast that were overseen by a big oil lobbyist, a corrupt scientist sentenced to federal prison on embezzlement charges and other corporate operatives. The alleged "marine protected areas," created under the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, fail to protect the ocean from fracking, oil drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture and all human impacts other than fishing and gathering.
Brown, while portraying himself as a "green" Governor, signed the green light for fracking bill, SB 4, in September 2013. The oil industry managed to eviscerate this already weak legislation by adding poison pill amendments at the last minute, prompting Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) and former Chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force to create questionable "marine protected areas" on the South Coast, to praise the bill for creating an "environmental platform" for the expansion of fracking and other extreme oil extraction techniques in California.
For more information on the true environmental record of Jerry Brown, go to: http://www.counterpunch.org/...