[By Brendan Smith and Jim Young, National Education Director at the Blue Green Alliance]

Climate change is not a far off threat — the impacts are already being felt in California and they’re going to get steadily worse in the coming decades.

For more than a generation, scientists have predicted that climate change caused by human activity will result in more frequent and intense heat waves, escalating severity of weather events, accelerated sea level rise, and a growing public health crisis. For California, these are no longer just predictions - the harmful effects of climate change are all around. Here are just a few of the climate impacts we are already seeing in California:

Frequent and Intensifying Heat Waves: 164 Californians died during the July 2006 heat wave, along with more than 25,000 cattle and 700,000 farmed fowl. This is a harbinger of what’s to come over the next 20-60 years. Heat waves in just Los Angeles alone have more than tripled over the past 100 years. Since 1980, nighttime temperatures have increased about three times as much as daytime temperatures, resulting in lower wheat, maize and barley yields. Researchers anticipate that extreme heat waves will be commonplace by 2039.

Escalating Water Crisis: Climate change has started to drastically alter California’s snowpack, sea level, and river flows — all essential to our state’s fresh water supplies. Droughts are now commonplace and scientists predict a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest. Over the next 40 years, we’re likely to see a loss of at least 25 percent of the Sierra snowpack (up to 90 percent by century’s end), which provides as much as 65 percent of California’s fresh water. (more…)

Why Climate Change Matters for California Workers

[A Discussion Paper by the Labor Network for Sustainability; PDF version with footnotes is available here]

California is at the forefront of driving the expansion of the clean energy economy. California’s groundbreaking climate law, the Global Warming Solutions Act  — AB 32 — is the most comprehensive climate legislation enacted anywhere in the US.  But this law is at risk from political interests, backed by oil company resources, which are trying to overturn it.

AB 32 opponents are using a job-loss argument, creating a false divide between job creation and climate protection. They’ve done this is spite of the fact that green jobs have grown by 5% during a recessionary period where net jobs in our state fell. California already has 500,000 green jobs. We’ve got 12,000 clean energy businesses and we hold 40% of the US patents in solar, wind and advanced battery technology. Sixty percent of all clean energy venture capital is invested here (the runner-up state, Massachusetts, has 10%), with a large spike coming in the years after the passage of AB 32.

Climate change is a global problem. The AB 32 opponents who are working to stop the implementation of California’s climate law argue that our state shouldn’t try to address this problem on its own.  However, California is the world’s eighth largest economy, and what we do here carries global significance, both politically and economically.  We passed AB 32 in 2006.  Four years later, at the national level, it is proving difficult or impossible to pass comprehensive climate policy.  If California fails to build on our leadership in this arena, we will be playing into the hands of those, such as the US Chamber of Commerce, who are spending millions of dollars to thwart national action on climate change. (more…)

[By Brendan Smith and Jeremy Brecher]

The climate denial lobby behind Proposition 23 in California argues they’re fighting to protect jobs by overturning what they like to call California’s “Job Killing Global Warming Law.” But don’t be fooled: if passed, Proposition 23 will remove all hope of protecting California’s economy — and its workers — from the worst effects of climate change.

Proposition 23 seeks to suspend AB32 — the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, aimed at reducing California’s carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 — from going into effect until state unemployment falls to 5.5 percent or lower for at least four consecutive quarters.

Framing Prop 23 as the “California Jobs Initiative” is a clever bait-and-switch by out of state oil tycoons like David Koch to halt any and all efforts at the state level to address the climate crisis and save California’s already slumping economy.

Voters in California — and every other state — need to realize that failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions risks destroying millions of jobs and grinding California’s economy to a halt. The effects of climate change need to be thought of as a “negative stimulus” to the economy, leading to reduced profitability, decreased investment, job loss, and falling wages.

A case in point is the effects of rising seas on California’s ocean economy. In 2005 researchers at the National Ocean Economics Program at California State University, surveyed the impact of key ocean industries — including construction, tourism and recreation, and transportation — on California’s overall economy. (more…)

On 10/10/10 thousands of organizations around the world will be holding a GLOBAL WORK PARTY for the “BIGGEST DAY OF PRACTICAL ACTION TO CUT CARBON THAT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN.”

The climate protection movement 350.org is especially encouraging unions and their members to participate in this “Day to Celebrate Climate Solutions.”

Many unions are already involved in “practical action to cut carbon.” Here are some things workers and unions are doing in the US and around the world to help protect the earth’s climate:

•    SEIU local BJ32 in New York established a program called A Thousand Green Supers to train building managers to operate their buildings to protect the environment and minimizes carbon emissions.

•    The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers passed a resolution calling for governments to meet scientifically-established targets for greenhouse gas emissions and established a green website to let government workers around the country know how they can play a state-of-the-art role in protecting the climate.

•    The United Auto Workers, after decades of opposing strong auto mileage standards, worked with auto manufacturers and the Federal government to support strong new standards to reduce auto emissions.

•    Unions in New York are working with the Apollo Alliance to support the Governor’s program for major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by all institutions in the state. (more…)