Amid $4-plus a gallon, rising food and energy prices and confronting what may be the costliest winter heating bills the country has ever seen, U.S. politicians are asked to “re-examine outdated and entrenched positions”.

According to an Associated Press article, a bipartisan group of 27 former political officials sent a letter to all 50 governors, all members of Congress, and presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama, calling them to address the country’s energy crisis that threatens the future security and prosperity of the United States.

Six former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger, along with former senators of both parties and half a dozen former senior White House advisers and Cabinet officers were among the writers of the letter.

The letter was the brainchild of the Institute for 21^st Century Energy, a group affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that has “embraced largely Republican, pro-business approaches to dealing with energy problems”, according to the AP article. President of the Institute, retired Marine General James Jones, said they wanted the letter to represent the broad, bipartisan support, and a sense of urgency for taking aggressive steps towards eliminating our country’s energy crisis.

Jones hopes that the letter will breakdown partisan roadblocks and streamline efforts to make strides in addressing energy consumption. Jones feels that “There’s an energy tsunami coming, and when you see it coming you better get on top of the wave, or you’re going to get crushed by it.”

The bipartisan letter states – “We demand more energy and complain about high prices, but we restrict energy exploration and production. We embrace the promise of energy efficiency, but we are slow to make adjustments in our energy-intensive lifestyles.”

Former White House Chief of Staff to President Clinton, Thomas “Mack” McLarty, stresses that the letter emphasizes that “the next president is going to have to put energy right at the top of his agenda”.

Plastic Ban Day. The catalyst prize for the anti-plastic bag movement going in right now in the US goes to the Ladakh Women’s Alliance in the Ladakh province of India. In the early 1990’s the Alliance led a successful campaign to ban plastic bags in their province. Now, the province celebrates the first day of May as “Plastic Ban Day”. Years later (2002), in one of the most popular cases of banning plastic bags, Ireland followed suit by taxing consumers 33 cents to use plastic bags at the store register.

Did it work?

According to the Irish government, the tax cut paper bag usage by 90% and raised millions of dollars in revenue.

Now I’m not a politician, but adding revenues to the budget while eliminating plastic bags sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Maybe to commemorate the luck of the Irish we could enact something similar on St. Patricks day?

Well, if you don’t like that idea we can celebrate with the city of San Francisco who banned all plastic bags March 27^th 2007. In 5 weeks or so it will have been one year since that ban took effect. Today, it seems more and more cities and stores are getting closer to getting rid of plastic bags everyday. By April of this year Whole Foods won’t be using them in any of its 270 stores and even China has said that they are getting rid of free plastic bags. And, unless you don’t get out much, you have seen those “recyclable” bags popping up all over the place. Even Bart Simpson and crew have joined the eco-friendly movement with bags of their own. Plastic bags may be the one thing going extinct that we can be happy about.

Want to get your town on board? The WorldWatch Institute has a helpful, 1 page PDF info sheet about plastic bags – Download it FREE here.

Friends of the Earth International recently posted on their website a free downloadable PDF report containing nine testimonies from community members around the globe who have dramatic first-hand experience of the devastating impacts of climate change. The report was released ahead of the UN Climate talks taking place as we speak in Bali. The nine testimonies chronicle specific environmental changes and how they are impacting the lives of the local area. According to CENSAT Director Tatiana Roa Avendano said: “We are on the brink of a global climatic catastrophe and poor, vulnerable communities - who are the least responsible for climate change - are already being hit by its impacts including displacement, disease, the destruction of livelihoods and ecosystems. Industrialised countries must accept responsibility for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions within the coming fifteen years.. The costs of climate adaptation in developing countries will amount to many billions of dollars per year.”

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