Send a Message to Claire. Please Sign This Today--Thanks!

Our efforts to reach out to Senator Claire McCaskill urging her to become an advocate for serious and effective responses to the climate crisis (see previous posts below) has a new tool, an on-line petition.

We encourage you to CLICK HERE to access the petition and add your name. Please take action now, if you would.

We also urge you to share this with your friends via Facebook, Twitter, other social media, via e-mail (including listservs you might be on), etc.  

Please urge all Missourians you know to add their names and join us in delivering a strong message to Claire McCaskill: The time for dodging the climate issue is past. We face a crisis and this must be addressed now. We need real leadership.

If you haven't as yet, please CLICK HERE now.

Where's Claire? Delivering a Message on Climate Security to Sen. Claire McCaskill.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can VIEW THE VIDEO of this event with a CLICK HERE.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thursday, May 23, a group of 17 Peaceworks activists gathered at the Columbia office of Missouri's Senator Claire McCaskill. We were there to ask the question, "Where's Claire on Climate?"

Recognizing the existential threat posed by climate change, we'd on several previous occasions gone to the Senator's Columbia office to ask her staff what she proposed to do to address the climate crisis.


After several months of no response at all, we received the message “At this time, Sen. McCaskill does not have a specific agenda involving Climate Change, and she won’t have one. . . ."

We found this unacceptable and began to reach out to our fellow citizens. 

Cindy Hall of Claire's staff takes notes.

On May 23 we rallied outside her office. Several speakers--Peaceworks Director Mark Haim, Peaceworks board member Mariana Morales, and Peaceworks Sustainability Education Coordinator Laura Wacker--each spoke briefly to the assembled crowd and to Sen.McCaskill's staff.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can VIEW THE VIDEO of this event with a CLICK HERE.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We also delivered cards signed by 314 Missourians and petitions with an additional 169 signatures calling for action on climate.

We also called upon Sen. McCaskill to hold an in-person, face-to-face meeting with Peaceworks members to discuss the climate crisis and steps that can be taken to address this.

If you'd like to share in our call for the Senator to become a leader in addressing climate and for her to meet with Peaceworks, you can share your thoughts with her by CLICKING HERE. 

Or, if you'd prefer to phone, you can call her office in DC can dial (202) 224-6154. Folks here in mid-Missouri who wish to make a local call can dial (573) 442-7130. Elsewhere in the state, check at CLICK HERE. 

We would really appreciate you joining in this effort by contacting her today.

Send Climate Action Messages to Sen. McCaskill & President Obama

As we've recently shared, (see our post of 4/5/13 HERE) we are very disappointed by the lack of support for any specific actions to address the climate crisis on the part of Sen. McCaskill. This, combined with her consistent support for the very technologies that are fueling climate change, means she's paying lip service to climate concerns, but supporting continued expansion of fossil fuel extraction and use, and thus is supporting action that will worsen, not alleviate, our problems.

Claire McCaskill is not alone in doing this. While President Obama

has supported some green energy initiatives and a few modest steps regarding carbon emission, notably improved CAFE standards for autos, his so-called "All of the Above" energy strategy is really a non-strategy. His support for fracking for gas and oil, tar sands oil, more coal and off-shore drilling is a recipe for climate disaster. And his support for new nuclear plants, a dangerous, expensive diversion that fails the tests of effectively addressing the climate crisis in a timely, affordable manner.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!  We are working to get a message to Sen. McCaskill and also to the President expressing our concerns. We've printed cards addressed to these two officials and plan to hand deliver a large quantity to the Senator's office in the near future, and to mail a large packet to the President.

We are asking you to either stop by the Peace Nook to fill out cards to each, or to download the PDF of the cards, print copies, sign them and bring them or mail them to us, so we can include these with our delivery.

You can find the cards by clicking HERE. When you get to that page, just click the download arrow under the word "File" in the upper left of your screen. The cards are four-to-a-sheet so you can cut them up and ask friends, family etc. to join in signing.

You can bring them by the Peace Nook or mail the cards to us at: Peaceworks, 804-C E. Broadway, Columbia, MO 65201. Please do so ASAP. Many thanks.

Sen. McCaskill: We Need You to Take Action on the Climate Crisis.

Climate change is real. We have all seen its impact already. It constitutes a major threat to our security. The draft National Climate Assessment (NCA), a joint project of 240 scientists representing 13 Federal agencies, was released in January. It begins with the following:

“Climate change is already affecting the American people. Certain types of weather events have become more frequent and/or intense including heat waves heavy downpours and in some regions floods and droughts. Sea level is rising, oceans are becoming more acidic and glaciers and arctic sea ice are melting. These changes are part of the pattern of global climate change, which is primarily driven by human activity.”

Peaceworks members have repeatedly visited Sen. Claire McCaskill’s office to speak with her staff

and share our concerns about the climate crisis. We’ve explained that addressing the climate is necessary for Real Security. We brought copies of the NCA and asked, repeatedly, what the Senator is proposing to do to address this existential concern.

On our most recent visit, March 14, 2013, we were once again told by the staff member meeting with us that she did not know Sen. McCaskill’s position on climate change, but she did know that Claire supported the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline.

We asked for an answer to our question from the Senator’s DC office and, on March 20, we received a brief e-mail from her staff member Cindy Hall that stated:  
“At this time, Sen. McCaskill does not have a specific agenda involving Climate Change, and she won’t have one beyond what Allison spoke with you about last week.” (That is, that she supports K-XL.)

We found this to be a rather shocking admission. For a United States Senator to not take a position or support any particular actions to address what is arguably the gravest threat to our future is, we believe, unacceptable.

We are asking you to join us in urging Claire McCaskill to embrace an agenda that will promote the rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This entails moving away, as rapidly as possible, from fossil fuels and taking steps to dramatically increase both energy efficiency and the use of clean, sustainable renewable energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal energy. It also requires that we not make misplaced investments in dirty energy infrastructure, including pipelines, refineries, off-shore drilling, fracking wells, gas terminals, etc.

Please CLICK HERE  to send a message to Sen. McCaskill today.