350.org, September 28, 2012
BOSTON — Staffers at Gov. Mitt Romney’s Boston campaign headquarters today were met by concerned citizens displaying signs like “Denial is not an energy policy,” while the candidate received 52,864 signatures to a petition asking him what his positions are on climate change.
Scores of people joined in the petition delivery–including author and activist Bill McKibben, local faith leaders, and students – all concerned over recent statements by Romney that hinted that he thinks climate change is more of a joke than a serious issue.
“With a melting arctic and a parched Midwest, it’s high time to stop smirking about climate change, like Mitt Romney did at his convention, and start addressing how we will deal with this massive crisis,” said McKibben.
Two other events today highlighted growing concern over Romney’s lack of a strategy to deal with a warming planet. In North Carolina, dozens of fishermen, canoers, and recreational boaters formed a flotilla to oppose the candidate’s plans for offshore oil drilling there; and in Pueblo, CO, about a dozen people gathered outside the Vestas wind turbine factory to highlight the Romney’s lack of support for continuing the tax credit for wind power manufacturing.
In recent months, Gov. Romney has done much to fuel speculation that he does not take climate change seriously.
- He released a 21-page energy plan that contains no references to climate change while promising increased natural gas development, oil drilling, and rollback of environmental safeguards. (1)
- During his Republican National Convention speech he joked about climate change, and repeated the joke on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” (2)
- He calls cap and trade, a Republican creation, a “radical feel-good” policy that would have “devastating results for people across the planet.” (3)
- He has said that on Day 1 of his administration he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring 900,000 barrels of the world’s dirtiest oil, tar sands crude from Canada, down through the US for export. (4)
“Climate change is the most pressing spiritual and moral issue of our time. Unless we stop pouring greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere as if it were an open sewer, we will leave a ruined world to our children and condemn the poor to unimaginable hardship,” said the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas of Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst.
Photos of today’s events will be available in 1 hour at http://www.flickr.com/350org/
CONTACT: Daniel Kessler, 350 Action Fund 1-510-501-1779; daniel@350actionfund.org
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