Alternative Energy Update: Tens of thousands of people joined 2000 marches and rallies in over 175 countries to call for a move beyond fossil fuels

"Dr. James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the speakers at the Moving Planet rally in NYC, has spent his career studying the climatic changes under way on our planet. One of his key points, which unfortunately has not yet entered the popular consciousness, is that we simply cannot afford to extract and burn all the fossil fuels in the earth. Many people worry about when we will run out of oil or coal. But the real worry is what will happen to our climate if emissions from all that oil and coal are released into the atmosphere. Instead of worrying about when we'll run out, we should be talking about how to keep as many fossil fuels in the ground as possible.

Many people profit from selling oil, removing mountaintops to get at coal seams, and extracting crude bitumen from tar sands. Some ignore or belittle scientific research that doesn't conform to business as usual, and use the political system to ensure that no substantive action is taken to alter this unsustainable path. But eventually the obvious will no longer be deniable, even to those who profit from the status quo: we have to move beyond fossil fuels."

Charles Scott: Moving Planet: I believe that when there is more money to be made in alternative energy than fossil fuels, the arguments we hear today against taking action to address climate change will disappear. That's why it is so important for the U.S. to eliminate the massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, which stifle innovation and provide an unfair advantage over alternative energy solutions like wind and solar.
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