Moving Planet - A Day to Move Beyond Fossil Fuels

This Saturday, RE Sources is joining 350.org in the global movement Moving Planet - A Day to Move Beyond Fossil Fuels. Read the original invitation to join Moving Planet from the founder (and our friend) Bill McKibben. It reads, "The first few months of this year have been among the most exciting on record..."

Local events will compliment the global movement to find solutions to solve our climate crisis. Bike Bellingham! is organized to get people on their bicycles to converge downtown for a bike rodeo, informational booths and guest speakers- including Mayor Dan Pike and our Executive Director Bob Ferris. We are proud to participate in this community celebration.

Our community is fighting to move beyond fossil fuel use and exports as well as the companies that profit from it. Below, Bob weighs in on where we are in the process and where we are headed:

"I always read the newspaper to get a sense of the world. In the past month I have seen these stories.

• 43 million in America are considered impoverished
• 9 people were recently arrested at protests on Wall Street
• The apple harvest in Washington is late
• SAT scores in reading, science, and math are the lowest in generation

I would argue that the reason we are all here today is related to all these symptoms. Climate change or global warming is the physical manifestation of an economic system driven too hard and too long to enrich too few.

And I would also argue that the failure of an underfunded and unappreciated education system is purposely engineered to create a populace unable to think critically and do anything other than consume the next shiny bauble put in their path. Pretty depressing.

But there is hope on our doorstep. Last April it seemed likely that our neighborhoods were going to get visited every 45 minutes by trains spewing life threatening diesel particulates and our city’s precious reputation as being a leader in sustainability was going to be buried deep under 48 million metric tons of coal and a new reputation as the largest exporter of greenhouse gases in North America. This Cherry Point project was fast-tracked.

And now it is mired. There is no permit. The EIS process has not started. The project impact analyses have broadened in scope and geography as people all along the 624 mile delivery route wake up and start looking at the facts. The alarm clock in this equation was Bellingham and our leadership. We all spoke up and made a difference.

We have to continue the Cherry Point fight—SSA Marine, Goldman Sachs, Peabody Energy, and BNSF should not be able to shove this project down our throats. And then we need to get to work on fixing our political and economic systems so that both work for us not against us. We need to change our political system so that it meets the needs of real people not corporate donors and we need to change the economic system so that our money and economic vitality are not used to destroy our planet and our quality of life. The climate has changed for far too long for us. Now it is time for us to change for the climate."

We are looking forward to coming together as a community this Saturday to make our presence known and our voices heard. Please join us for Bike Bellingham!