Tell CEOs: Quit the Chamber, join the planet.

Tell CEOs: Quit the Chamber, join the planet.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is feeling the heat

"We don't have regrets about our position, and we don't intend to change it." That's what the Chamber of Commerce said last week as pressure mounted from member groups to step back from its extremist stand against global warming legislation that would regulate CO2.

Pacific Gas & Electric and two other energy companies have already quit the Chamber over its extreme views on the environment. When some of the biggest energy companies in the world are calling you "dirty," it's time to clean up your act.

But the Chamber of Commerce isn't listening. Even after Apple quit, Chamber CEO Tom Donohue refused to acknowledge that his organization is far out of the mainstream. Instead, he blamed the resignations on an "orchestrated pressure campaign" by environmentalists.

How radical is the Chamber on climate? It's gone so far as to question the science behind global warming and threatened to sue the EPA if it follows through on regulating greenhouse gases.

We can't let this stand. Help us keep the up the momentum and join us in asking every CEO serving on the Chamber of Commerce board to quit the Chamber and renounce its radical stance.

QUIT THE CHAMBER

JOIN THE PLANET

We'll deliver a petition including your signature to every board member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has taken a radical stance against climate change legislation and is promoting dangerous junk science to block needed reforms. I urge you and your company to denounce the Chamber's extremist position on global warming and revoke your membership effective immediately."

Complete the following to sign the petition. You'll receive periodic updates on offers and activism opportunities.

Tell my Facebook friends about this petition!

Help us put the heat on the members of the board to quit the Chamber of Commerce and join the planet.

AT&T
James W. Cicconi
Senior Executive Vice President, External and Legislative Affairs

State Farm Insurance Companies
James E. Rutrough
Vice Chairman and Chief Administrative Officer

United Parcel Service
Marcel Dubois
Vice President, Corporate Public Affairs

The Charles Schwab Corporation
Carrie Dwyer
Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary

Edward Jones
John W. Bachmann
Senior Partner

FedEx Express
Michael L. Ducker
President, International

Pfizer Inc.
Richard H. Bagger
Senior Vice President

Xerox Corporation
Patricia Elizondo
Senior Vice President, Eastern Operations

ConocoPhillips
Red Cavaney
Senior Vice President, Government Affairs

Massey Energy Company
Don L. Blankenship
Chairman, CEO and President

Spencer Stuart
Kevin M. Connelly
Chairman

American Water Works Company, Inc.
Donald L. Correll
President and CEO

Landstar System, Inc
Jeffrey C. Crowe
Chairman

Lockheed Martin Corporation
Brian D. Dailey
Senior Vice President, Washington Operations (Retired)

Deloitte LLP
Brian L. Derksen
Deputy CEO

U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Edward B. Dinan
Director

Kimberly-Clark Corporation
Timothy C. Everett
Vice President and Secretary

DonahueFavret Contractors Holding Company
Maura W. Donahue
President

U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Thomas J. Donohue
President and Chief Executive Officer

Ryder System, Inc.
Robert D. Fatovic
Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary

Cargill, Inc.
Richard Frasch
Senior Vice President

Leading Authorities, Inc.
Mark D. French
President

U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Ted R. French
Director

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
Craig L. Fuller
President and CEO

Emerson
Walter J. Galvin
Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

My Chef Catering
William Garlough
President and Founder

AEGON N.V.
Donald J. Shepard
Chairman, Retired

VAST Solutions, LLC
Roland H. Vaughan
Founding Partner

Walker Information
Steven F. Walker
Chairman of the Board, President & Chief Executive Officer

Allied Capital Corporation
William L. Walton
CEO/Chairman of the Board/President/Director

Telcom Ventures, L.L.C.
Dr. Rajendra Singh
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

The Coaching Group, LLC
Joshua I. Smith
Chairman and Managing Partner

Deere & Company
Charles R. Stamp, Jr.
Vice President, Public Affairs Worldwide

The Robertson Foundation
Greg Lebedev
Senior Advisor

Nortex Holdings, Inc.
Larry A. Liebenow
President and CEO

CAIVIS Acquisition Corp.
David A. Steinberg
President & CEO

CVK Personnel Management & Training Specialists
C. Virginia Kirkpatrick
President/Owner

Sunrise Senior Living, Inc.
Paul J. Klaassen
Founder, Chairman of the Board

The Dow Chemical Company
David E. Kepler
Executive Vice President, Business Services Group
Chief Sustainability Officer
Chief Information Officer

US Airways
C.A. Howlett
Senior Vice President, Public Affairs

Eastman Kodak Company
Gerard K. Meuchner
Director, Communications and Public Affairs and Vice President

Alcoa, Inc.
Klaus Kleinfeld
President and Chief Executive Officer

Buffalo Supply, Inc.
Harold L. Jackson
President and CEO

HARM GROUP LLC
Peter B. Lilly
President

Quam-Nichols Company, Inc.
William G. Little
President & CEO

FACES Day Spa
Patricia Owen
Owner

PERMAC Industries
Darlene M. Miller
President and CEO

Hawk Corporation
Ronald E. Weinberg
Chairman & CEO

Southern Company
Christopher C. Womack
Executive Vice President, President-External Affairs

Vulcan Materials Company
Donald M. James
Chairman and CEO

A.O. Smith Corporation
Paul W. Jones
Chairman and CEO

Alpha Technologies, Inc.
Fred Kaiser
Chairman and CEO

Fluor Corporation
John L. Hopkins
Group Executive

Constangy, Brooks & Smith, LLC
W. Melvin Haas, III
Managing Partner

Paper and Chemical Supply Company
CEO/President
David Muhlendorf

Officer of Cousins Properties, Incorporated AGL Resources Inc.
Thomas D. Bell, Jr.
Chairman and Chief Executive

Arnel & Affiliates
George L. Argyros
Chairman & CEO

J.R.'s Stockyards Inn
James M. Wordsworth
President

Entergy Services, Inc.
Gary J. Taylor
Group President, Utility Operations

Oldcastle, Inc.
Mark S. Towe
Chief Executive Officer

Siemens Corporation
George Nolen
President and CEO

PEPCO Holdings Inc.
Joseph M. Rigby
Chairman of the Board, President and CEO

Making headway! The Chamber in the news:

Energy Secretary: "I think it's wonderful" companies are leaving the Chamber
Reuters, 10/8/09

Chamber fires back at climate critics
Politico, 10/8/09

Markey to Chamber: Follow Those Companies That Want Action, Not Talk
globalwarming.gov, 10/8/09

PG&E leaves
New York Times, 9/22/09

Chamber and "Scopes Monkey Trial"
The Wonk Room, 8/25/09

Anheuser-Busch Companies
David Peacock
President

Fox Entertainment Group
Lynn L. Franzoi
Senior Vice President, Benefits

Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
Jan L. Jones
President of Government Relations and Communications

IBM Corporation
Mark Loughridge
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Accenture
Lisa M. Mascolo
U.S. Country Managing Director

3M
Robert D. MacDonald
Senior Vice President, Marketing and Sales

Amway
Steve Van Andel
Chairman

Wegmans Food Markets, Inc.
Paul S. Speranza, Jr., Esq.
Vice Chairman, General Counsel and Secretary

New York Life Insurance Company
Ted Mathas
Chairman, President & CEO

American Medical Association
Michael D. Maves, MD, MBA
Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer

CVS Caremark Corporation
Douglas A. Sgarro
Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer

Stanwich Group LLC
Harry W. Clark
Senior Counselor, Brunswick Group
Managing Partner

Kirby Financial, LLC
Dan Kirby
President

The Carlyle Group
Randal K. Quarles
Managing Director

Rolls-Royce North America, Inc.
James M. Guyette
President and Chief Executive Officer

AGCO Corporation
Martin H. Richenhagen
Chairman, President & CEO

Caterpillar Inc.
Stuart L. Levenick
Group President

Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Thomas A. Gottschalk
Of Counsel

Tandy Leather Factory, Inc.
Shannon L. Greene
Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer

High Companies
S. Dale High
Chairman

Norfolk Southern Corporation
James A. Hixon
Executive Vice President
Law and Corporate Relations

CUNA Mutual Group
Jeffrey D. Holley
Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

KCI Technologies, Inc.
Terry F. Neimeyer
CEO and Chairman of the Board

International Bancshares Corporation
Dennis E. Nixon
President & CEO

Hutchison Advisors
Thomas Hutchison III
CEO

Ingram Industries Inc.
Orrin H. Ingram
President and Chief Executive Officer

National Black Chamber of Commerce
Harry C. Alford
President & CEO

National Association of Chain Drug Stores
Steven C. Anderson, IOM, CAE
President & CEO

Memphis Chemical & Janitorial Supply Company
Charles E. Barnes, Sr.
President

Awkard & Associates
Linda N. Awkard

UniGroup, Inc.
Richard H. McClure
President

Nana Development Corporation
James W. Mendenhall, P.E.
Vice President

Pool Corporation
Manuel Perez de la Mesa
President and CEO

48hourprint.com
Raymond E. Pinard
President and CEO

Duke Energy Corp.
James E. Rogers
President and CEO

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation
Matthew K. Rose
Chairman, President and CEO

Ruan Transportation Management Systems
John Ruan III
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

CNL Financial Group, Inc.
Tracy G. Schmidt
Chief Financial Officer

Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce
Winthrop M. Hallett, III IOM
President

Navistar, Inc.
James L. Hebe
Senior Vice President, North American Sales Operations

HPA Strategies
Kevin Herglotz
President

Ford Motor company,
AGCO Corporation
Gerald L. Shaheen
Director

Trailmobile Corporation
Edward Wanandi
Chairman

Human Genome Sciences, Inc.
H. Thomas Watkins
President and Chief Executive Officer

Con-way Inc.
David L. Miller
Vice-President Global Policy and Economic Sustainability

Peabody Energy
Fredrick D. Palmer
Senior Vice President - Government Relations

U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Brian O'Hara
Director

Mountain Plains Equity Group, Inc.
Donald J. Sterhan
President

RPM International, Inc.
Frank Sullivan
Chairman and CEO

Tramco, Inc.
Leon Trammell
Chief Executive Officer

Melaleuca, Inc.
Frank L. VanderSloot
President and Chief Executive Officer

COMSYS Information Technology Services, Inc.
Stephen R. Van Meter
Senior Director

MI Industries
Robert S. Milligan
Chairman

Mindover Corp.
Ronald T. Monford
Chairman and CEO

Authentix, Inc.
David F. Moxam
Chairman and CEO

PG&E, PNM Energy, Apple, and Exelon Energy have already quit the Chamber.

MoveOn.org

Harry Reid: Include the Public Option

Here's a brief letter you can send to your email circle. Please send it along right away, but please only contact people who know you personally. Spam hurts our campaign.

Click here to open a new e-mail and invite your friends, family and colleagues to get involved:
Invite friends and colleagues.

Or, you can cut and paste the text below into an email message:


Subject: Harry Reid Hi, After months of delay, the full Senate is about to debate and vote on landmark health care legislation. But first, Senator Harry Reid and Democratic leaders have a big decision to make: Will the Senate consider real health care reform with a public health insurance option, or a watered-down compromise full of giveaways to Big Insurance? I just signed a petition asking Sen. Reid to include a strong public health insurance option in the Senate's health care bill. Will you join me at the link below? http://pol.moveon.org/harryreid/?r_by=17539-9284747-m4cR3Fx&rc=paste Thanks!

The final step:

Donate: Can you make a financial contribution to support this campaign?
Volunteer: We need your help. If you have some time to give, press here.

Privacy policy

A surprise and a call to action

A surprise and a call to action

We were taken by surprise Friday morning when we learned that President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

We weren't at all surprised, however, when the president chose to turn his moment into a call to action, saying:

"We cannot accept the growing threat posed by climate change, which could forever damage the world that we pass on to our children -- sowing conflict and famine; destroying coastlines and emptying cities. And that's why all nations must now accept their share of responsibility for transforming the way that we use energy."

I hope you'll join me in heeding the president's call, and help us reach our goal of 10,000 e-mails to the Senate in favor of clean energy and stopping global warming. Click here to e-mail your senators.

Last week, more than 5,000 people told their senators that they want to see an America powered by the wind and the sun, with a smaller carbon footprint and less dependence on fossil fuels.

President Obama is ready to lead our country toward this new clean energy future, but he needs our help.

Right now, the U.S. Senate is considering legislation that will cut global warming pollution and drive the production of more renewable energy in America.

Big Oil, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other special interests are spending millions to stop us. That's why I'm hoping more forward-thinking Americans like you will stand up and reclaim control of our energy future. Join us in taking action here.

http://www.environmentamerica.org/action/energy/restore-american-leadership4?id4=ES

Together, we can help make our country more energy-independent, put millions of Americans back to work, and build a cleaner and safer future.

Thanks for making it all possible.

Margie Alt
Environment America Executive Director
http://www.environmentamerica.org

P.S. Thanks again for your support. Please feel free to share this e-mail with your family and friends.

Take Action

Online Action Center

More online actions New Energy Future Actions Tell the Senate to Keep it Green Tell Congress to Pass the Green Economic Recovery Plan We Can't Afford NOT To Invest In Clean Energy Global Warming Actions No time to waste: strong action now on global warming Tell Us Your Story Tell your senator to support science-based solutions to global warming Our Rivers, Lakes & Streams Actions Let’s Invest in Using Water Wisely Protect the Great Lakes from Sewage Pollution Call to Support Clean Water Parks, Open Spaces, Wild Places Actions This is a huge step in the right direction These trees have withstood the test of time. We can’t let Bush-era holdovers in the U.S. Forest Service take them down. Email Vilsack Healthy Oceans Actions Save Our Ocean Legacy Tell the Fisheries Service to stop overfishing Stop offshore drilling Clean Air Actions Tell the EPA to reduce smog pollution Tell Us Your Story Support the Clean Power Act More Actions Join Our E-mail Action Network Unsubscribe From Our Mailing List

Seek a Political Solution in Afghanistan/Pakistan

Seek a Political Solution in Afghanistan/Pakistan

Headquarters Home • Find Your Elected Officials • Issues • Election • Write The Media

Legislative Alerts and Updates • Current Legislation • Key Votes • Capitol Hill Basics

Action Alert Seek a Political Solution in Afghanistan/Pakistan Bring our troops home! President Barack Obama said to foreign leaders in his inaugural address, "your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy." How true. Why then are we escalating the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan? An action that will surely create more destruction and devastation, a course which may preclude us from building a political solution--the real path to peace. Similarities between Johnson's Vietnam and Obama's Afghanistan/Pakistan are already being drawn. Read more here. Tell President Obama, Vice President Biden, your Senators and member of Congress we need a political solution to secure Afghanistan/Pakistan--history teaches us that there is no military solution. We encourage you to alter the title and text of your message, below. Take Action

1 Compose Message

Video: Imagine — I Want My Doctor My Way

Home » California, Chapter News, Healthcare, Healthcare NOT Warfare

Video: Imagine — I Want My Doctor My Way

Submitted by Bryan Buchan

THIS IS GREAT!!! PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR LISTS!!! Michelle Morton did this EXCELLENT video done after attending one of our Universal Single Payer Healthcare forums that we hosted this summer. We’ve already done them in Topanga, Van Nuys, Venice/West LA, Santa Monica, Thousand Oaks, Westchester, and have another this Monday at the Stonewall Club in West Hollywood (flyer attached– in case you want to post it to the calendar).

Time for Civil Disobedience!

Home » Activism, Healthcare

Time for Civil Disobedience!

Submitted by Bryan Buchan on 10-1-2009 – 6:11 am

We need your support for a new campaign of non-violent, civil disobedience targeting the private health insurance industry.

This past spring, 13 brave individuals were arrested for disrupting Senate Finance hearings on health reform, chaired by Sen. Max Baucus. They were disgusted with witness panels, filled with private insurance execs and their cronies, that did NOT include even one single-payer expert.

Since Baucus only listened to the interests of millionaire CEOs and their lobbyists, it should be no surprise that a former CIGNA exec. called the Senate Finance Committee’s recently released bill, “a gift to the private health insurance industry that should be renamed the ‘Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.’”

We can’t stand for this disaster. The Mobilization for Health Care for All is launching a campaign of nonviolent sit-ins at insurance company offices so we can stand up to end a system that profits by denying people care and puts insurance company bureaucrats between doctors and patients. Time for Medicare for all, a single-payer, national healthcare system.

Healthcare-NOW! has decided to support this effort, and to encourage local coalitions in our network that are ready and willing to participate.

The PHIMG (Private Health Insurance Must Go) coalition in NYC will begin this campaign on September 29th. Other local groups are planning subsequent actions.

Actions may vary, but the central idea is to target major private insurance companies because they must not, and can not, be part of any solution to our healthcare crisis.

We need your help. Let us know if you’d like to participate in, or organize, a civil disobedience action near you. Go here to sign up to sit in and join the nonviolent resistance today!

Another way you can help make this campaign successful is with a donation. Just click here.

Thanks for all that you do,
Healthcare-NOW! National Staff

P.S. Call Congress for single-payer now! It’s easy and toll-free.

The Nation names PDA "Most Valuable Political Group" of 2008!

Earth to Obama

Bill McKibben
October 5, 2009

Join PDA's Stop Global Warming/Environmental Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.

Published by The New Republic.

It's been a long year--Barack Obama has faced, in rough order, John McCain, global financial collapse, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Blue Dogs, the Progressive Caucus, the Gang of Six, Glenn Beck, Representative Joe Wilson (R-Hissy), and the third of Republicans convinced he was born somewhere else. Of course, minus the birth certificates, roughly the same has been true for Hu Jintao and Nicolas Sarkozy, for Angela Merkel and Manmohan Singh. That's what politics is--a series of challenges, which are rarely won or lost completely. You get part of what you wanted (everyone with health insurance), and maybe you leave other stuff for another day (the public option). That's why we call politics the pursuit of the possible.

And it's why the next big issue on the agenda is totally, scarily different. Assuming that the health care fracas eventually ends, Washington will tackle the president's other great priority for his administration--energy and climate. The House has already approved the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, and a Senate version is expected at month's end. Even if Congress drags its feet, Obama will visit China in mid-November to likely conclude a bilateral pact that will set the stage for the huge Copenhagen climate conference in December. It promises to be one more big fight.

But, throughout the process, as industry and environmentalists, Chinese and Indians, Americans and Europeans push and prod each other, another more important negotiation will be going on behind the scenes. That negotiation features human beings--led more by Obama than anyone else on the planet--against physics and chemistry. It's not going to be enough to strike a deal with Beijing or Delhi, to meet in the middle on some mutually plausible scheme. A deal has to be struck with the climate itself, and the climate is unlikely to haggle.

In the summer of 2007, sea ice in the Arctic began to melt dramatically, many decades ahead of the schedule that scientists had previously predicted. Before the summer was out, there was about a quarter less ice at the pole than ever before in human history. That scared scientists, who began revising their calculations of how fast we would need to move to stay ahead of global warming. And this growing understanding has, in turn, changed the political demands on policymakers very dramatically. Obama, for instance, had initially campaigned on a pledge to reduce U.S. carbon emissions 80 percent by mid-century, and the Waxman-Markey legislation was designed to, more or less, meet that goal. All of a sudden, that target didn't seem like enough to meet the demands of the new science--researchers were now throwing around numbers like 40 percent cuts by 2020 in the developed world, which would require not a speedy conversion to renewable energy, but a forced march reminiscent of the rapid buildup at the start of World War II. On a global scale, the old goal--still embraced by the Obama administration--was to aim for a planet where atmospheric carbon dioxide topped out at 450 parts per million (ppm), and the temperature didn't rise more than two degrees Celsius. Under the old estimates, that would have been enough to stave off "catastrophic change." But what 2007 showed was that our current level of 390 ppm and a one-degree rise in temperature was enough to melt the Arctic. And it wasn't just the Arctic--scientists were reporting that high-altitude glaciers, flood and drought cycles, and even the chemistry of seawater were all showing the same kind of ahead-of-schedule change. In January of 2008, NASA's James Hansen--at the very least, the most prestigious climatologist employed by the U.S. government--released a paper setting a new target for staving off catastrophe: 350 ppm. It was embraced that year by Al Gore and, this August, by the chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri. That is, the two men who have been awarded Nobel prizes for their work on global warming say that we need to be aiming for far lower emission levels than what Washington currently intends.

So here's the politics. In Washington, and in Copenhagen, political realism dictates reaching some kind of deal. And the pressure from vested interests--mostly the fossil-fuel lobby--combined with the political fear of annoying voters with higher gas prices or lifestyle shifts means that the incentive for anyone who has to run for office anytime soon is to take the easiest possible deal. Look at Waxman-Markey, which has been revised to cut emissions just 17 percent by 2020--and even that comes loaded with loopholes written to win over particular congressmen with particular coal mines. And it barely passed--by seven votes. Scientific realism demands much more.

And scientific realism holds the trump card here. If you pass half a health care bill, you can always come back in a decade. People will suffer in the meantime, but it won't grow impossible to fix the problem: The Clinton debacle in the 1990s didn't mean that we couldn't try again this year. But, if we don't do what the science requires on climate change, the situation will get badly out of hand. In the last two years, methane levels in the atmosphere have begun to spike sharply, apparently because warming temperatures are now melting the permafrost that caps large deposits of the potent greenhouse gas. If we let the planet keep warming, we won't be able to shut that cycle off--we're clearly much closer to that kind of tipping point than we imagined just a few years ago. Half a job may not be better than no job at all.

It's an excruciating set of choices--one that has divided environmentalists on the Waxman-Markey legislation. The best case for swallowing hard and accepting an insufficient bill comes from Fred Krupp, longtime head of the Environmental Defense Fund. His argument: Our emissions reduction goals are critically important, but the most important thing is to get started now. If we set the ball in motion, industry will quickly find that it's cheaper than it thinks to move toward clean energy, and the ball will roll far faster than politicians expect. Case in point: the reductions of sulfur dioxide under the Clean Air Act, which turned out to be far cheaper than opponents had predicted--even Bush 43 kept right on pushing for deeper cuts, because there was no real reason not to. And, if we don't get started now, Krupp warns, "if our young people, who best understand the science and the urgency, refrain from calling for Congress to promptly take the first step," then no legislation will pass and "we may not have as good a chance until 2013." By which point a lot more ice will have turned to water and flowed under the bridge.

On the other hand, carbon isn't exactly like sulfur--one required a new filter on your smokestack, the other requires replacing the fossil fuels at the heart of our economy. (Not many folks are addicted to sulfur dioxide, but all of us at some level run on coal and gas and oil.) Of course, Krupp is right about one thing--given how hard it has been to build support even for this watered-down bill, starting again does risk losing everything. But the reason we're in the predicament is pretty simple: the environmental movement, with some noble exceptions, has concentrated too heavily on Beltway lobbying, not on the kind of movement-building that could create a constituency large and vocal enough to motivate members of Congress to support something better.

That's a mistake we don't dare repeat as we head for the Copenhagen conference in December, a negotiation whose complexity--and significance--will make even Waxman-Markey seem simple by comparison. For one thing, even if the half-a-loaf argument sways American environmentalists, Copenhagen will be hard going for those proposing baby steps. There's a solid block of countries that will be pushing for more. Eighty-nine governments have embraced the 350 ppm target, albeit the smallest and most vulnerable nations on earth. A number of them see it as matter of survival--I was in The Maldives recently when President Mohammed Nasheed declared that a pact like the one envisioned by the West was a "death warrant" for his nation, which lies just a meter or two above sea level. Not only are the poor nations of the world demanding compensation for the damage we've caused, and expensive technical assistance to help them build a renewable energy future ("Trillions of dollars might not be enough" for Africa alone, the acting director of the African Union's economy and agriculture department said in August), but they're also asking for truly steep cuts in Western emissions to head off warming so great that they won't be capable of adaptation at any price. Governments will try to finesse these huge gulfs. At the moment, for instance, some drafts of the Copenhagen treaty describe 350 ppm as "a shared vision" even if the actual steps required by the treaty would fall far short.

But, in the end, even a remotely plausible outcome is going to demand more leadership than we've seen so far. It has to come from two places. The first, as I have mentioned, is the citizenry. That's why many of us have volunteered over the last year to build a global movement--350.org--that calls for hewing much closer to the demands of both science and justice, and which may now have spread farther than any similar environmental movement in the past.

We also need leadership from the Obama administration. The president has recently concentrated on health care, but he's made it clear that the other priority for his administration will be energy and climate. It will take more than any one speech he could deliver--he'll need to campaign. Fire up Air Force One for a daylong whirl from Barrow in Alaska to McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic, with a stop in New Orleans on the way there and the Amazon on the way home. And, even if he does make this a priority, there's still the question of how hard he will push--whether he'll be talking old science (450 ppm) or the new, harder targets (350 ppm).

Alas, there will be no political imperative driving him to push for the toughest measures. He's already done more on global warming than the previous four presidents combined. He's not going to lose large numbers of votes for going easy on climate targets; if anything, the opposite will happen.

On the other hand, there are legacies, and then there are legacies. If, as many scientists believe, we're at the last possible moment to make a major turn, then Obama's decision may resonate in geological time. Eight months has been enough to teach us that Obama is a political realist, always unwilling to make the perfect the enemy of the good. What we'll find out soon is if he's a scientific realist, too, and therefore willing to make the necessary the enemy of the convenient.

Bill McKibben wrote the first book for a general audience on climate change, THE END OF NATURE, in 1989. A scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, he is co-founder of 350.org.