We at the National Wildlife Federation congratulate President-elect Obama on his victory and stand ready to assist him in every way possible at this critical moment in American history. In addition to two wars, an extraordinarily deep recession and staggering debt, the new administration faces a climate crisis that threatens to push the planet out of the so-called Holocene climate period and into temperature ranges that human civilizations and much of nature have never experienced.

After decades of procrastination, the climate crisis has reached the final moment of truth—we either act now or fail. At most, we have two years to sign into law a bold federal Climate Security Act, and a third year to gather 67 Senate votes to secure an international treaty to prevent a global-warming catastrophe.

As renowned climate scientist James Hansen recently told federal lawmakers on the 20-year anniversary of his first congressional testimony on climate change, this is our "last chance" to change course. The world around us has been in a period of profound ecological change, like an invisible cancer that has spread so far that the external signs of organ damage are now unmistakable. The Arctic is melting at a pace 50 years ahead of what scientists anticipated only a short while ago. Now radiating out over 900 miles, Arctic warming is defrosting tundra and overheating and killing boreal forests, releasing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Unbridled carbon emissions are currently increasing at a speed that outpaces even the worst-case climate forecasts of the Fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007.

With a president-elect who understands the enormous threat global warming poses and a new Congress coming in, we now have an unprecedented opportunity to put America on the path to a clean-energy future. The myth of "cheap fossil fuels forever" has finally burst and Americans have witnessed the enormous damage our dependency has done to our economy. Americans are once again looking to our government to solve key societal problems at a scale that could not have been imagined even a year ago. Public support for clean energy is at record high levels.

The American public is way ahead of the politicians. Last summer, former Vice President Al Gore issued a challenge to the American people to "Repower America" within ten years. More than two million people have already taken this challenge. In a recent poll conducted by National Wildlife Federation’s Action Fund, 81 percent of America’s sportsmen stated that the nation needs to set a bold new vision to have 100 percent clean energy sources for electricity in 10 years. And yet, the minimum that the science says we must do is well beyond what many politicians believe is politically feasible at this time.

When America had an energy crisis in the 1970s, U.S. lawmakers responded with the nation’s first fuel-efficiency standards and other sweeping changes. In contrast, last year, Congress responded to public outrage on energy by lifting bans on offshore oil drilling and authorizing the development of carbon polluting oil shale for transportation fuels—measures that will add two- or three-cars’ worth of carbon to the sky for every auto on the road that will be powered by carbon-belching oil shales. This is a shameful response to an urgent crisis that runs so much deeper than "drill, baby, drill."

Recent history suggests that, instead of responding with big changes, Congress may instead dress up small changes in big rhetoric—unless you and I hold each lawmaker accountable for responsible action. The United States still has the greatest intellectual and industrial resources in the world and we can—and must—solve the global warming crisis. As we approach the next climate treaty negotiations next year in Copenhagen, the eyes of the world will be upon us to show that we can still lead.

National Wildlife Federation is a part of the Repower America movement, and we are proposing our own set of grassroots actions to be carried out in concert with a number of other groups and institutions. We have nicknamed our efforts the "Clean in 10" climate campaign. Our goal: to inspire Americans to rapidly transform to a clean-energy economy that will be fully underway within the next decade.

With new leadership in the White House, we can spur a global revolution in zero-carbon energy that pulls us back from the brink of climate catastrophe and provides new economic opportunities in every town of America, and every nation of the world. Now that is something worth fighting for, and our children will be glad we did.

Larry Schweiger

  Today National Wildlife Federation joined environmental and conservation organizations in releasing a green stimulus proposal that would repower America and create as many as 3.6 million jobs, reduce pollution, protect public health and safety, and restore the environment. The groups delivered their proposal for funding energy efficiency, renewable energy, public transportation, water infrastructure, national parks and public lands, education, agriculture and other environmental programs on Capitol Hill.

The fates of our economy and environment hinge on how quickly we move to repower America with clean energy solutions. Clean energy investments create jobs, rebuild and refuel our economy, and reduce the pollution that is accelerating global warming. The investments in clean energy that forestall a climate meltdown will aid our recovery from the global financial meltdown.

After years of gridlock in Washington, President-Elect Obama has offered America and the world a new beginning that promises to repower America with clean energy and to protect our planet in peril. The green stimulus proposal presented today provides specific opportunities to turn that vision into reality.

Larry Schweiger

A recent study discovered that a potent greenhouse gas generated from the manufacture of flat panel TV displays and electronic microcircuits is more prevalent than recently thought.

Nitrogen trifluoride emissions are increasing an average of 11% per year.

While currently only accounting for .15% of the total warming effect caused by human carbon emissions, nitrogen trifluoride is 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide and survives about five times longer in the atmosphere.

This is something to consider when purchasing electronics.

Larry Schweiger

In Washington, you can bet that bad ideas from powerful special interests take a long time to kill. Nevertheless, you also should know that what Margaret Mead once suggested is still true: A handful of determined volunteers can change things.

At the request of members of Congress from Mississippi, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was authorized in 1941 to design a project known as the "Yazoo Pumps" in the lower Mississippi Delta. As initially proposed, the project would have catastrophic environmental impacts by dewatering more than 314 square miles of wetland and bottomland forest habitats in one of Mississippi’s most sparsely populated regions, between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The Yazoo pumps also would have destroyed one of the last strongholds for the declining Louisiana black bear, a subspecies made famous by Teddy Roosevelt, as well as critical habitat for threatened mussels, migratory birds and other wildlife.

Authorized as part of the most destructive flood-control program in U.S. history, the Yazoo pumps’ primary purpose was to dry out privately held lands for agriculture. Linked to upstream dikes, a 14,000 cubic-feet-per-second pumping station would pull rainwater out of the South Delta during high-water events on the Mississippi River.

At the time this project was first proposed, the National Wildlife Federation was a struggling start-up group with scarcely $6,000 in reserve. Yet we soon joined our affiliate, the Mississippi Wildlife Federation, in opposition to this ill-conceived project.

During the mid 1980s, calling the project a "senseless gouging of the taxpayers’ pocketbook," Gerald Barber, a Mississippi resident and one-time chair of NWF’s board of directors, sought NWF help to defeat the Army Corps plan, once and for all. In response to his request, the Federation organized the Corps Reform Network along with other national, regional and local organizations to help local volunteers who had been speaking out in opposition of this and other misguided projects.

The Yazoo plan would cost American taxpayers more than $220 million to build, plus a conservative annual operational price tag of more than $2 million that would be needed just to buy electricity to run world’s largest pumps, lifting 10,000 cubic feet of water per second.

Because the delta provides natural flood storage, it protects downstream communities such as New Orleans. By dumping this massive volume of water into the Yazoo River near its confluence with the Mississippi, the extra surge would amplify flood flows at the wrong time. It also would exacerbate Mississippi’s downstream flood hazards in places that have marginal dikes. All of this stupidity was planned primarily for the private financial benefit a few dozen influential landowners.

Two years ago, I sought an appointment with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Steve Johnson. Along with a delegation of Mississippi farmers, landowners and conservationists, we urged him to examine the full scope of the damage that would be caused by this project. We also asked him to use the explicit authority he was granted under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act to stop the plan.

After a thorough study of the matter, on August 31, 2008, Johnson made a final and courageous determination to veto the Yazoo Pumps project. This historic decision, which was vigorously opposed by influential Republican lawmakers from Mississippi, was only the 12th veto in the EPA’s history. It ended a nearly-70-year battle to protect the wetlands of the Mississippi Delta.

There have been many volunteers involved in this seemingly endless struggle, including a number of people who have since passed away. I wish I could list them all here. Special note is given to Liz and Gerald Barber because they kept this opposition alive for more than 30 years. Cathy Shropshire, Mississippi Wildlife Federation’s executive director worked with Malia Hale, David Conrad and other NWF staff water-policy experts to coordinate outreach to our members and other local stakeholders, who wrote emails, letters and placed phone calls. I want also to acknowledge American Rivers and many other collaborating organizations for their important part in this successful campaign.

I want to give a special thanks to my friend, Ted Roosevelt IV. Ted is a great conservationist, following in his ancestor’s extraordinary example. He played an important role in pointing out the historical and ecological significance of the threatened lands, and he reminded us all of the famous bears that they support.

Environmental victories during the Bush administration have been rare and need to be celebrated when they occur. Thanks to all who helped save what is left of the delta’s once vast wetland system. Working together, we can and must stand up for wildlife.

Larry Schweiger

Nearly 30 environmental, science and conservation groups presented their top policy recommendations to President-elect Obama’s transition team yesterday.

Representing millions of Americans, the groups provided a document laying out recommendations on key federal agencies and issues, including land, air, water, oceans, and public health.

The document demonstrates agreement with Obama’s call to increase investment in clean, renewable energy as his top priorities. Such investments would re-power America and help stabilize the economy over the long-term.

The full recommendations are available at http://ga3.org/soe/transition.html

Larry Schweiger