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Confronting Climate Change

A warming world stresses wildlife and their habitat. We’ve recently witnessed severe forest fires, floods, droughts, habitat shifts, heat waves, sea level rise and ocean acidification. Our elected officials must come together and support a positive, proactive climate agenda that protects your family and wildlife. This includes:

• Reducing carbon pollution that contributes to climate change by supporting new EPA rules to limit carbon pollution from power plants, and assigning a price to carbon emissions, the most efficient and effective market-based policy to curb pollution.
• Limiting methane pollution from oil and gas operations.
• Promoting expansion of responsibly sited renewable energy—including offshore wind and rooftop solar.
• Reforming federal fossil-fuel leasing to account for greenhouse gases and the wildlife-related impacts of extraction.

Funding Wildlife Recovery

State wildlife agencies have identified some 12,000 species that are in need of conservation efforts. Unfortunately, most funds available to states for wildlife recovery (fees related to hunting and fishing) fall short of protecting these species. Newly proposed bipartisan legislation — the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act — would dedicate $1.3 billion from federal oil and gas revenues to state wildlife agencies to address this funding gap. If passed by Congress, the new funds could help prevent thousands of species from being listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act — a huge payoff.

Safeguarding Public Lands

Americans share ownership of approximately 600 million acres of land and water, but your public lands are under constant attack by private interests. In just the last three years, members of Congress filed at least 44 bills or amendments to undercut protections for our parks and public lands. Our leaders will need to fight these privatization schemes and improve public land management by:

• Making sure the U.S. Forest Service is fully funded for habitat restoration. Right now the agency must spend more than a third of its annual budget fighting wildfires, leaving little for this critical work.
• Designating new conservation areas to protect lands vulnerable to development.
• Balancing oil and gas leasing, mining and other extractive industries against the need to safeguard wildlife and local economies. This will involve finalizing reforms of the federal coal-leasing program to fully account for the costs to wildlife, as well as considering whether to phase out federal subsidies for oil drilling, mining and other extractive activities on public lands.

Ensuring Clean Water

Fish, wildlife and our families have a critical need for clean, abundant water. Yet, wetlands throughout our nation are vanishing: lead recently contaminated the water supply in Flint, Michigan, algal blooms forced Toledo, Ohio, to temporarily shut down its water supply, and algal slime now plagues parts of coastal Florida. It’s clear that investing in our nation’s water resources is vital. Yet a new Clean Water Rule that would protect 20 million acres of wetlands and 2 million stream miles is in legal limbo at the Supreme Court, and awaits implementation by the next President.

Conserving Native Grasslands

Scientists warn that grassland birds and other species in the northern Great Plains are reaching a tipping point as thousands of acres of native prairie — one of the fastest declining ecosystems in North America — continue to be converted to cropland. This is due in part to the Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires growing corn for ethanol. The next Administration will need to decide how much corn should be mandated. Congress also will need to reauthorize the Farm Bill, an opportunity to eliminate incentives that encourage plowing up native grasslands and strengthen incentives farmers have for saving grasslands on their property.

Take the pledge here to vote for candidates this Election Day who stand with wildlife!

Just like the 2009 star-studded Green Inaugural Ball, this year’s event will bring together top leaders in the environment, energy, and green-technology communities to honor President Barack Obama. With such a broad and diverse audience, we knew our Green Ball lineup had to have a little bit of everything.

This year’s talent will be led by Onree Gill, Musical Director for Grammy Award-winning recording artist Alicia Keys; famed Latin percussionist Sheila E.; and singer-songwriter Mayer Hawthorne. Additional music talent will be announced in the upcoming days.

Onree Gill

Leading off the show will be Onree Gill, who has taken the music industry by surprise with his multi-talented abilities. His talent has led him to work with top artists such as Beyonce Knowles, Jay-Z, Alicia Keyes, John Mayer, Jennifer Hudson, Justin Timberlake, and more.

Sheila E.

Aside from being one of the most talented percussionists in the world, Sheila E. is known for her collaborations with Prince and Ringo Star. We’re excited to have her on board and to see her in action at the Green Ball. Here’s a video of when she performed on Dancing with the Stars:

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Mayer Hawthorne

Mayer Hawthorne, whose music has been used in the hit show Ugly Betty and Kanye West’s short film “We Were Once a Fairy Tale,” will bring his vintage sound to the Green Ball. Listen to one of our all-time Hawthorne favorites here:

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We hope to see you there! Don’t have your tickets yet? Act now, before the event is sold out.

Already set to attend the Green Ball? Don’t forget to tweet using the #GreenBall2013 hash tag.

Shelley Cohen is Chair of the Greening Committee for the 2013 Green Inaugural Ball. Ms. Cohen is an urban eco-mom with eighteen years of experience in environment and energy-related fields. She currently serves as a Senior Project Developer for Ameresco where she specializes in developing renewable energy and energy conservation projects, and is responsible for developing over 15MWs of renewable energy. Prior employment included jobs with EPA, the White House, and the office of Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT). Ms. Cohen’s green home includes eco-friendly materials, 12kw of solar PV, a cool roof, rain barrel, organic garden, and has been featured in local and national media. Ms. Cohen serves on the board of the National Wildlife Federation, and in 2012 was trained as a Climate Leader through the Climate Reality Project.